IAM154- Author, Coach and Speaker Helps People Build a Healthy and Happier Life

Jerry Snider is the author of Confidence Through Health and owner of All In Health and Wellness. He holds a degree in Exercise Physiology from Texas A&M University and is a certified Life Breakthrough Coach. He is an active volunteer in the Central Texas community. He serves as the Cross Country and Track Coach at Eagle Christian Academy. He is a member of the City of Hewitt Parks and Beautification Board, serves in his church, and volunteers for several community events each year. In 2017, Jerry created the now annual event “Running for Readers: All In With Jerry” to raise money for the Hewitt Public Library by running all 250+ streets in Hewitt, TX.

• CEO Hack: Stopping every day and spend time in meditation
• CEO Nugget: Not everyone is a fit. You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Also, find that thing you're passionate about.
• CEO Defined: Freedom to do what I want to do and build it how I want to build it.

Website: http://www.allinhealthandwellness.com

Email: jerry@allinhealthandwellness.com

Book: http://www.confidencethroughhealth.com 

Full Interview:

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Transcription

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Gresham Harkless 0:12

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jerry Snider of All in Health and Wellness. Jerry, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Jerry Snider 0:22

Hey, thanks for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:23

No problem. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Jerry, so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing Jerry Snider is the author of confidence through health and owner of All in Health and Wellness. He has a degree in exercise physiology from Texas A&M University and is a Certified Life breakthrough coach. He is an active volunteer in the Central Texas community.

He serves as the Cross Country and Track Coach at Eagle Christian Academy. He is a member of the City of Hewitt Parks and Beautification Board, serves in his church, and volunteers for several community events each year. In 2017, Jerry created the now annual event “Running for Readers: All In With Jerry” to raise money for the Hewitt Public Library by running all 250+ streets in Hewitt, Texas Jerry, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Jerry Snider 1:16

Sure, I am. Let's go.

Gresham Harkless 1:17

Awesome. Let's do it. So I expected to do this interview while you were running or something. But I'm glad you decided to talk. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Jerry Snider 1:30

Well, my story goes way back actually, about 20 years ago when I was just graduated from college. And I was sitting in the back of a car with a good friend and his dad. And I had this idea for a business and presented it to him and both of them went that'll never work. And they said you have a business plan. I said no, I got a degree in exercise physiology. I don't know anything about business, I don't, Oh, it'll never work.

So I just put it out at the back. Until really about three, or four years ago. And after job hopping management positions every three or four years, and getting burned out and moving on to something else. I finally said, I want to go back to this and just see, now I've got some business experience. I know what the P&L is now, and I know how to do a budget. Let me just go and see if this will work. And, you know, I think any entrepreneur will tell, you go into it thinking oh, it's gonna get big straight off. And, it rarely does.

So it's been a journey, but I wouldn't change anything now for anything, there's no way I could go back to working for somebody else. It's, it's all about, doing it the way that want to do it. And so I've been going at it for over two years now. And it's not where I want it to be by any means, but it sure is getting there.

Gresham Harkless 2:55

Awesome, awesome. Well, that's great to hear. And I think for any like driven, piece driven person, even probably, if you had it where you envision having, you'll probably be like, I wish I would have raised the bar even higher. So I feel like anybody that has an entrepreneurial drive is kind of never that satisfaction. It's always like I want to keep pushing because you have this massive vision for what you want to do.

Jerry Snider 3:14

Yeah, exactly. And I work with a lady from the Small Business Development Center here locally. And I meet with her probably once a month. And interestingly enough, I first met her when I first like I was probably two weeks into filing my DBA. And I'm like, Hey, I know what I'm doing. And she was, Hey, let's meet. And she was like, Yeah, you're not ready. And I was like, what? So it took me about six months or so. And I reached back out to her. And she said, Yeah, okay, now you're ready, let's go.

So I meet with her about once a month, and she loves it. Because every time we meet, she's like, you have a brand new idea. You have something new you want to experiment with or test and so she loves me with me because I'm always pushing those new things. when I was at least working for somebody else, I never had that kind of inspiration.

Gresham Harkless 4:09

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And that's usually why a lot of people, take that path to create their own product because they have this idea. It isn't necessarily blessed by I guess, the managers or the bosses or whatever. So you decided to chart your own path. It was great to hear that you're doing that. So now I want to dig a little bit more about what you're doing about this awesome project that you have going on in your business. So can you tell us a little bit more about how you're serving the clients you work with?

Jerry Snider 4:33

Sure, I actually do several different ways. One way is strictly online. And so what and this was the idea I had 20 years ago when the internet was in its infancy was to provide training programs and nutrition programs so meal plans, things like that for people strictly online. I rarely physically talk to them.  Some of them I've never met.

So it's strictly people find me online and say, hey, I want to try your product I want to try you out. And so I send them stuff based on the program that they sign up for, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, or even a one-time deal, I've got a product that I'm rolling out that I've sold a couple of times to test it out. And it's basically just you buy a 90-day program, and you're on your own, and you go for it.

So that's one way another way is, which I think most health and wellness people, you know, fitness people start out with is, is your in-person training packages or in-person clients. What I do is a little differently, though, is that I focus because I was an athlete in college, I focus on those high school athletes, that really, like they either are, hey, I don't want to be the bench player, I want to be the starter or the starters that are like, I need that extra coaching to be able to get me that college scholarship or get me seen by the recruiters.

And, I do things a little differently because most coaches in high school are gonna, they are already in the weight room. , they're learning their fundamentals. But you'd be surprised how many kids come out of high school, and don't have just basic physical strength and agility. And so that's what I coach on is, I don't need a weight room, I don't you just give me a park, and you and a pair of tennis shoes, and you're gonna get a workout you've never heard of before.

And then, surprisingly enough, I wrote a book, which I'd never thought would ever happen, because in the past, well, before I started my business, and then the 18 years or so from college, before I started my business, I read I think four books. So books were not my thing.

But one of the things that I I wanted my secret sauce from secret recipes to being able to do my business is I looked at what are the things that those really huge, successful guys are doing the Branson's the gates, what are they doing? Everything I came out with was, they're reading books, and they're reading all the time. One guy, Garcia, I can't think of his first name. But I saw Charlie Garcia, I saw an interview with him. He used to be the head of the Air Force Academy. He's been in Congress. He reads three newspapers a day, and two books a week. I'm like, when do you have time for anything else? You really don't?

Yeah, but what I've done is it in the past two years now I've read over 36 books. I'm on my 37th right now. And it's made a huge difference in my ability to understand, one what I actually have to offer people and another the ability to keep going on those days, when it's just those down days when it's, you know, hey, nobody's gonna buy anything from me or, you know, it's, my clients don't like me, or, any of those negative thoughts you had and how to sell any thoughts that we all get? How to get past those by reading all these different books has been, it's been huge for me.

Gresham Harkless 8:08

Yeah, I can imagine. And I think, too, that a lot of times when you are, trying to reach a certain level or trying to be successful, like you mentioned, the gates and people like that. I love the fact that you kind of reverse engineering, which is always a popular term, where you say, Okay, this is what the successful people were doing. So I'm gonna figure out what formula they're doing. And I'm gonna implement that into my daily activity so that I can reach that level. So I think that's exactly probably how they did it. And it's great to hear that you're doing that as well.

Jerry Snider 8:36

Right. And the other piece that was difficult at first was breaking the nine to five. And I realized that it's okay, if I, said this at my, kids, Career Day, and they're, in elementary school still, but I went for Career Day last year. And one of the fourth graders says, hey, what do you do all day long? I said, Well, usually I go to the store at like, 10 o'clock, because nobody else is there. But when I'm working, I usually get up at five o'clock every morning. And so I'm getting work done by 5:30. And, I'm working and seeing clients at 630 at night, seven o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night.

And, I was writing a book at three o'clock in the morning, so there is no nine to five, which is great. Because there's so much more that you can get done. And somebody asked me a couple of months ago, like, do you think you're working 40 hours a week? Do you think you're working 60 hours? I said I have no idea. And I don't keep track of it. And I don't care. Yeah. Because I'm having fun.

Gresham Harkless 9:48

Yeah. And it seems like whenever you run a business, you're always on so even when you're off at the grocery store, you're probably thinking of, different ideas or different perspectives and things like that. So you're kind of always on but it helps if you're upset and question what it is that you do. And I know Richard Branson brings that up a lot when he says that pick something that you are passionate about and that you love to do because it's a lot of work to do it. So often, you have to be that insanely passionate, and, you know, driven towards something in order to kind of work that hard towards it.

Jerry Snider 10:17

No, that's very true. And yeah, I've never off one of the things that because I do run a lot, I mean, I'm running anywhere between 40 and 60 miles a week. And so I'm running a lot in, there's a lot of different little clips on my phone, where I'll have a thought, pull my phone out, do a little text, talk to text and jot down like, Hey, here's a new product idea. Here's a new thought idea. Here's something to put a video on online. here's how to handle a client's situation. Probably daily, when I'm running, come up with those things while I'm running. So yeah, you're never off. you're never stopping. But that's the passion side of it is I don't, I don't want to bake because it's just too much fun.

Gresham Harkless 11:02

Exactly. Well, awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or habit that you have, but it's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Jerry Snider 11:17

Well, I think one of the big things that I do is, is stopping every day in spending a few minutes in meditation. And sometimes I start off my day, if I wake up, and I'm not feeling it, and then I'm like, Okay, well, I gotta meditate for a few minutes. Sometimes I wake up, and it's just like, Let's hammer it out, like, go, go, go, I've got ideas already.

But at some point in the day, it's okay, the stress is getting there. Let's, let's stop, Let's meditate for a few minutes. And I think what's great about that is it's not necessarily it is the emotional response that you get from stopping everything, and just breathing slowly. But it's been able to clear my head and go back to alright, I started the day with three goals. Where am I at on them?

And are those still the three top goals I should have for today? You know, has something changed in the first couple hours of the day, where you know, that's not as important anymore, as is this issue over here? So, I think it's funny because I had the last job that I had I tried to do that, once a week, I would stop and just have a clear schedule in my head, just say, I'm in a management position, I just need to stop and think about the next week and think about the next month and think about the future and just spend 30 minutes thinking about that.

And my boss came to me one day, and I'll never forget, because she said, I heard this, that we should be stopping and thinking about the future. But I don't have time to do that. That's the problem with why you're stressed. You have to make the time to do it, to be able to think about those things. So that is why meditation is big for me.

Gresham Harkless 13:03

Yeah, that makes sense. And being able to check in and make sure like you said that kind of like a temperature check to see if you're too hot or too cold, whatever it is so that you can make sure that you can configure whatever you need to do. So that you can get to where you're you're wanting to be for a day, which ends up being a week, which ends up being a month which ends up being years. So definitely awesome that you do that.

And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine. What would you tell your younger business self?

Jerry Snider 13:32

Well, and it's something that, I know, it's actually a quote that I used to attribute to Abraham Lincoln. And then when I put it in my book editor was like, oh, no, somebody else said that. I can't remember who it was. Abraham Lincoln apparently stole it. But, you can please some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time, but you can't please everybody all the time in so, you know, not everybody's gonna get me. Not, not all my clients are gonna get me, not everybody that calls and asks for help is gonna get me and so, it first, when I started out, it was just simply signed the client up and let's go, I gotta get money come in. And now, you know, I have a different approach.

And, let's talk about this. Let me tell you exactly what's going to happen. And what I'm not going to have, you're not going to get this, this and this, but you will get this, this and this and make sure that that's what they want. And that's what they're looking for. Because if not, I know plenty of people that you know, the health world is buzzing with coaches and buzzing with trainers. And plenty of people both in the area and throughout the US where I could send somebody else if it's not a fit for me. And I think that's, that's the biggest thing that I would go back to and say, Hey, stop trying to just please everybody and stop trying to take everybody on as a client because not everybody's a fit.

Gresham Harkless 14:48

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's kind of like this. I know, I started to look at things in more of an abundant mindset where sometimes, especially early on, you're like, Okay, if I don't get this client, then, how am I gonna pay my bills? How am I gonna do x y and z, but you start to realize that like your tribe, your clients, whoever is going to be attracted to you is going to be for you, they're not going to be for anybody else. And like you say, oh, there's no reason why that person that necessarily wasn't a good fit, for no particular reason might be a fit or the perfect client for somebody else.

Jerry Snider 15:17

Right. Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 15:19

Awesome. awesome. awesome. And now, I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So what has a CEO meant to you?

Jerry Snider 15:31

Well, it's interesting, because when I first started out, you know, and it took me, it took me a while to get my wife convinced of this, but at first, it was like, Okay, well, this is my job. And then I went from being from that to be, like, Oh, I'm self-employed. And then to go, I know, I'm a business owner. I'm a CEO, I'm a high-level, executive, yeah, it's a small organization, small company. But still, that doesn't mean any different.

But what it means to me is the freedom to do what I want to do and build this the way that I want to build it, not being stuck behind. I'm, definitely a person that says, if you don't like my services, then you don't have to pay for them, you can go somewhere else. I'm not trying to fit everybody into my little box. And to me, it means the freedom to be able to do things and build things the way that I want to do them.

Gresham Harkless 16:35

That makes perfect sense. And I think that's a great definition. And often, sometimes, especially with entrepreneurial type, CEO, type business owner, people use the word cut from a different cough and have a different grain that we're kind of working on. So it makes perfect sense. And that resonates well. So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And, Jerry, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out, what I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and then also how they can get a hold of you and of course, get a copy of your book.

Jerry Snider 17:05

Well, I mean, I think the only thing I would say is that what's important in what a lot of the books that have read about being the CEO or being the self-development things and going out on your own finds that thing that you're passionate about, because there are going to be those down days, and it's going to be tough. And, it's hard to look at the bills coming in and go where my clients gonna come from to be able to pay for this, to be able to have that passion to go nope. But I'm helping these clients here that I'm already working with.

And so that's why it's, that's why it's what I'm doing. And to know that, as long as it's your passion, you're going to build it's going to build and it's going to happen, so just keep at it. But no, as far as getting in touch with me, you can reach me at my email address  jerry@allinhealthandwellness.com. And yes, after I created that I went, I should have made something shorter, but it's what it is. And are my websites allinhealthandwellness.com and the book Confidence through Health? And you can find a link through my website, but you can also look it up on Amazon. It's available on Amazon and Kindle.

Gresham Harkless 18:19

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, we'll make sure to have those links and information in the show notes. But Jerry, truly appreciate you for taking some time out and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Jerry Snider 18:27

Hey, thanks Gresh

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