How challenging yourself to learn something new can make you fitter for business

My partner Sarah and I recently completed something which we have never done before. We did a six-week challenge with KX Pilates. This involved three sessions of KX and two cardio sessions per week for six weeks. We think we are pretty fit and active people so we didn’t think it would be much of a challenge.

You may be wondering why I am talking about a fitness challenge in a business blog? I am a big believer of learning from any experience and I want to share with you a number of lessons I learnt from this experience. 

Time management

We managed to find a six-week period where we weren’t overseas, but during this time we had five domestic trips. We had to get quite creative with our diary management to fit in our three sessions per week. Some weeks we had two sessions within 12 hours, other times we had to go to a studio in another state (the benefit of a franchise), we organised social catch ups with friends over a session and also organised business meetings in our training gear at the next door cafe. In order to be successful, time management is critical and this helped to remind us of this.

Commitment

We could have easily decided half way through to miss a session one week or even quit. Barely anyone knew we were doing it and even if they did they probably couldn’t care. Trust me, there were times when we thought about it but we remembered why we took on the challenge and knew the only people we would be letting down would be ourselves.

In business we see so many people start things; it is very easy to start something as you receive a hit of instant gratification. One of the differences between a successful entrepreneur and a ‘wantrepreneur’ is that they persevere during the tough times and finish what they start.

Increasing willpower

In order to make a new habit you need loads of willpower. One of the great things about willpower is it is like a muscle – if you train it, you can grow it. Since we have finished the challenge we have noticed that we have more willpower than normal, which has been of huge benefit. We have achieved all of our goals this month, which included writing an entire book in two-and-a-half days after spending three nights in Vegas!

Customer centric

One of the biggest lessons we learnt was how enjoyable it is dealing with a customer-centric organisation. At the Surry Hills location that we did most of our sessions at, we trained under six different trainers. We were actually quite shocked that we enjoyed every single one of them.

They were all completely different types of people with different styles but what they all had in common was that they were all extremely competent. More importantly, they made us feel part of the KX family, completely comfortable, the class enjoyable and they all trained the shit out of us. It is clear that the franchise owner, Andi Fiorenza, is quite obsessive and runs a tight ship (I enjoyed those apples!) 

When we went interstate to the Port Melbourne and Richmond studios we had the exact same experience as well. It became very clear that they were all trained very well but, more importantly, they all bought into the big vision of the founder of KX, Aaron Smith.

I challenge you all to take on a challenge in the next couple of months as you may be surprised to see what you learn from it. We are always up for new challenges as well so any recommendations will be considered but not necessarily accepted!

Finn Kelly is the CEO and co-founder of award-winning Gen Y financial advisory firm,Wealth Enhancers, along with the parent company, premier private wealth management firm WE Private.