Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist

Debra Atkinson

Wow. Okay. So I’ll give you two whys. So, first of all, the why I even changed majors. I was destined to be a graphic designer in college and back then, so you can do the math 35 years ago, everybody in graphic design and art smoked, and drank, and stayed up all night. And I was just getting into running, and health, and fitness. And I was like, I don’t belong here. This is like the square peg over here. And so, I put one foot in physical education and never looked back. So, changed my major after that semester and had some great instructors. But the why then was, I want to give people this feeling, this empowerment that I had just to be better at everything. I had some great instructors and I thought I want to do that. I want to give them that. It wasn’t about, you know, of course we all get motivated by looking better, and our jeans looking better, and all of the compliments, but, but it was so much more. 

I was just thinking more clearly, being more optimistic and all of that, that happens when you’re taking good care of yourself. I wanted to help people understand how to do it without killing themselves, you know, and spending hours. Because even then people really didn’t have it. But you know, for 29 years I went through my life and I was raised by older parents. So, I kept getting, given older clients. It was just natural. Even in college, I was in the exercise clinic and I would always be given the older clients and I was comfortable with them, and they were with me, and I knew how to build rapport and get to know them. And I thought I really got it. And then I turned 49 and then I quit my job. And I said, I wanted to have a bigger reach. And as I do too often as a jump in with both feet and I don’t look back. And then the next day I panicked. So, I had had a really rough year and was spent building a business online. Things I knew nothing about I had to suddenly know something about, but I wouldn’t allow myself away from that computer to exercise in the way that I had for decades. I’d done years where, you know, it was hours a day of movement. 

Teaching, doing my own, and you know, if you’re a trainer or a fitness instructor, you know exactly what I’m talking about, right. We tend to overdo and I couldn’t, you know, 20 minutes a day was often what I would do because I was like, this has to work, you know, eight months from having no income, and I had a little in the bank and no debt, but I was going to start paying college tuition, you know, and I had no revenue coming in. I was like, what? I have no net, this has to work. So, about 14 months later, I’ve got it online, I’m editing videos and finally getting things out there to sell. And I realized those videos are me and I look better, and leaner, and stronger, than I ever had before. And so, I dug into why? 

Because that runs against everything that I’d been taught, right. More exercise, less food, you know. And that in fact has become the opposite of Flipping 50s mantra. It’s about less exercise, just making it matter more and more food of the right kind. And that’s where we turn things around. And when I realized, now I get it, you know, we are doing ourselves and, you know, the fitness industry is doing midlife women a disservice by suggesting to them, they do exercise based on research, mostly on men, young fit men. So, that’s my big why. And the big why underneath that is I think really when we nail it down, there’s no one, no one more influential on health changes in the world than a mid life woman. She impacts three generations, you know, her kids, her peers and spouse, and then her in-laws and outlaws, they’re all looking to her. So, if we can get her to take care of her, I mean, that’s game changing, not just for her, but for the world. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, absolutely. It’s an amazing demographic, if you will. And it’s pretty much where I started. And I was in my mid forties, twenty years ago when I started in this field. And almost every customer was a woman. Matter of fact, they’re all women, it was just women. And they were hormonal. Because you know, in that age group, they, they were being told they were peri-menopause, or premenopause, or just messed up. And here’s your, and here’s your antidepressants to make it all go away. And then we’re having some success. So, that’s when they started, they were bringing me their kids or their husbands and things, but it was all women. They have their own check books, you know, they can write the check, they care, they’re willing to learn and it’s just a fantastic market. And they like to look good, you know, and that’s always a good thing. So, now you were, when you were making all those videos and things, did I hear you say that you were, you didn’t have the time to spend in the gym doing the hours and that worked out better. You kind of discovered it by accident on your own. That’s a big thing. 

Debra Atkinson

I did. Yeah. Discovered it by accident and then realized, okay, I’ve got to, I need to know, is this a study of one? It just worked for me or is there more to this? So, digging through the research, what I realized is 39%, just 39% of all sports medicine and exercise research features women, you know? And so, that’s not so bad, but when you think about the fact that women go through potentially seven different hormonal phases in their life, not every woman goes through every one, by choice or just by circumstance, but every one of those seven phases really demands a different exercise prescription. And so 39 divided by seven, you do the math that’s less than 10%. So, you would probably never go to Las Vegas and gamble with odds that bad. Right. And yet when we’ve been exercising our entire lives, that’s kind of what we’ve been doing is gambling with really bad odds that this might work for me. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

That’s really funny you say that because I was just in Vegas and I think people go there, they go there and they gamble realizing they have no chance of winning and they do it anyway for some reason. 

Debra Atkinson

I gamble at Nordstrom shoe department, personally. Yeah. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. So, so tell us, you know, what some of your students, because you have your own robust direct to consumer program, you’ve helped a lot of women in this Flipping 50 thing. So, how do you go about or tell us what your most successful students are doing, who you’ve trained to kind of copy your thing? How does that look? For those that might want to take your training and become a Flipping 50 specialist. 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. So, you know, what we’re doing really is walking through, honestly, I would tell you this, that the best candidate for the Flipping 50 specialists is probably a woman between 40 and 60, because that’s who a woman between 40 and 60 wants most to work with. Because she’s had an experience maybe, and you know, no disrespect to any of you who are 20. And I truly believe if you want to accelerate your experience, we can’t do that biologically. But taking the training is what will really help you, because you need to be able to be in their head and you can’t be there if you haven’t lived there yet. 

So, you’ve got to really study it. But we walk them through here’s, here’s what it’s like. And you go through this, you go through this program, think about it applying to you, experience it, and then on the flip side, we give them here’s the coaching audio and the why we laid it out in this order. And the why we said these specific things at this specific time, based on her socialization when she was 20, and 30, and 40. And what she’s thinking now. So, that you can walk away with, here’s how I would teach this. Here’s the order that I want to do this in. Here’s the platform that makes the most sense. Maybe you like to speak it. You like to be on camera. Maybe you like to write it so you can come up with a delivery of it the way you want to, but you can understand the psychology as well as the physiology behind what it is she needs and how she needs to get it. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Okay. So, if someone’s a trainer, health coach, allied professional, and they’re working with women already between 40 to 60, like you just said, how is this going to, how do we get them to know they need us? What would you say to that? 

Debra Atkinson

How do we leverage it? Yeah. We really need to do, we need to do education. So, I would say everyone who’s trying to attract that market and support them with, here’s why it’s not working. We need to send them a message. First of all, that it’s not you, you’re not doing something wrong. It’s not a lack of willpower. The system has failed you. We’ve given you a lot of programs potentially that were based on research on someone else. And your hormones, metabolism, body composition, and even your socialization is very different than a man. So, you’re not a mini man. And you’re also not a 20 year old female anymore, right. 

That’s, it was by design. Yeah. So, we need to have those kinds of marketing words and you need to, we all need to have some kind of regular content creation coming out. I mean, that’s how you’re going to, first of all, open the door and give them something that they can understand why it wasn’t working. So, they begin to realize there is a solution and it’s not surgery and it’s not spending hours in the gym to exhaustion and driving themselves deeper into that hole. It’s actually much simpler than they might’ve thought in the first place. So, it’s believing there’s an answer. So, that as you’re the one telling them, it’s not you, there is a solution. They automatically begin to believe you are my solution. So, you’ve got to be that person providing content. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

And you find, well, let me ask you about the hormones. Because you mentioned the seven possible phases, you know, and obviously at this age group we’re talking past childbearing years. Right. So, how does the hormones play into it then? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah, so for most of the people, so we’re talking forties generally, although that can happen late thirties, perimenopause. So, it’s when those symptoms actually start and they don’t even realize that that’s about menopause yet. So, women who’s potentially in 40 with young children or maybe wants to get pregnant still that last time, whose started to gain weight, whose exercise program is no longer working. The word she will say is what I used to do doesn’t work anymore. Because she had to go to, right, for cutting the calories or for doing something and for exercising more. And now it’s not working or she’s exhausted. She’s working out feeling guilty if she can’t work out, but exhausted all the time. And it’s pointing to this is not healthier. 

This is worse. And yet at all costs women in 50 and over are, so I’m the tail end of baby boomers. I’m 56. And we’ve been conditioned that it, no matter how we feel, if we look good, we’ll feel better. And so, we keep chasing that, that mythological if I exercise hard enough, I will lose the fat and then I will feel good. Even if I’m miserable while I’m doing it, right. Then of course, we’re going to feel good right away. And it’s really crazy when you think about that, but that is truly what’s going on in a woman’s head. The thought that if she’s depriving herself and exercising so much, she’s constantly sore, maybe even injured that ultimately she’ll get to the destination she wants that’s in her head. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. I get that a lot of it’s in the head and yet I find women don’t like to be told that very much, you know. They go to a doctor and he runs a lab test. You know, the blood typical blood panel says everything’s normal, yet they feel like crap, like everything. And so, then well, here’s a pill to make you chill. And they don’t want that either. You know, they don’t want to be told it’s in their head. What would be, would you change the program if they, let’s say they do want to have that, you know, pop another one out, like get pregnant again and they’re 40. I don’t know if that’s too late or what, but would you treat them differently? 

Debra Atkinson

I don’t think you get to decide. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Say again? 

Debra Atkinson

I said, I don’t think you get to choose. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

No, I don’t get to choose. That’s probably a good thing. But would you treat them differently than if they’re 55 and like done, that’s not their thing. 

Debra Atkinson

Definitely. You know, it’s still for both is going to come back to what are your signs and your symptoms, and that whether they’ve had labs or not. So, a lot of women haven’t yet, they don’t even know that labs might suggest to them a change in their exercise, not just whether they want to do bio identical hormones and that’s going to give them a prescription. But they don’t always stop to realize it might be having to do with the way I’m exercising, including the type of exercise or the timing of day. Because that comes up into part, plays a big part with their sleeping, circadian rhythm and all of their hormones. 

How I’m eating, you know, or how I’m sleeping. Because very few women will prioritize sleep for themselves, as much as they want everybody else to be in bed on time. It’s, you know, she’s staying up late, she’s getting up early and then she’s not sleeping well if her hormones have begun to change. But the difference for most women in perimenopause is that they’re beginning potentially to experience hot flashes, night sweats. So, the sleep issue is starting to happen. But the very first thing that’ll get a woman usually to pay attention is she looks down and she’s like that wasn’t here yesterday. And you know, she’s got belly fat that wasn’t there. She’s starting to see cellulite that’s never been there. Those are the things that’ll get her attention first. And that nothing is working. Yup. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. And then maybe the pants are fitting. Like, gee my pants shrunk. 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Well, coming out of COVID-19 I think we’re all in trouble when Lulu Lemon’s will not be the rule of the day again. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

How has this been influenced by that, COVID-19? Have you noticed a big difference? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Well, yeah, two actually, two diverse things have come up. So, knock on wood, a lot of women in my community, because I grabbed them right away and I said, listen, we’re going to do live workouts together, whether it’s in your time zone and it works for you or not, but you’re going to know it’s here and we’re doing, I started out doing everyday a live workout. And then I thought, no, no, what did I just do? So, I backed off and was doing three a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday 9:00 AM. We do short interval training every week or every three times a week with them. So, I embraced them, telling them, listen, let’s boost your immune system. If we do that, the same thing is actually going to help balance your hormones. 

Because right now you need less, but you need more frequent exercise. Let’s shorten the duration, get good frequency. So, you can sleep at night. You can help reduce some of that mental chaos and stress. And many of them are actually in better shape than when COVID started. But on the flip side, the outside of things, I’m hearing a lot of things like people who are now working at home, they’re five steps from the bathroom. It’s not down the hall. They don’t get up and go talk to colleagues. They’re sitting, talking by phone or computer doing that. The pantry is within arms reach for a lot of people, I mean isn’t that bad news. And then they’re drinking wine, staying up late because they can, they don’t have a commute anymore. And it’s bad news. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Party time. 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Party time, but the party’s over. So, I’m actually starting to hear from some of those people who are very intelligent people and realize they just like fell into this coma and wanted it to be a dream that they’d wake up from and realize I’m going to have to do something here to regroup. Yeah. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. So, it’s actually in a way helped businesses in different ways. Beause my, I have a trainer she’s a Pilates instructor. I’ve been seeing for 10 years. I moved out in the country three years ago. So, she’s been coming out. I used to go three times a week to her studio. So, I bought a reformer, a really good one. It’s in my gym and now she comes out once a week and you know, her studio has closed, but she just started doin like the online classes and people like kept up their memberships at least for a while. And I think it’s dissipated a bit now, but she’s not. So, I think, you know, I need to say that one thing about health coaching is you can do it from home. You know, I’ve been teaching people to work from home for over 10 years. And I had a brick and mortar for 10 years and found that, you know, we could close it, just do distance coaching. And, and we’ve been, like I said, teaching it for over 10 years. So, I think the COVID thing has, we didn’t get that effect because we were already working from home and, you know, but you do have to be disciplined, like that fridge is right there. 

Debra Atkinson

It’s so true. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, I bet. 

Debra Atkinson

I honestly think for, for health coaching and, and for personal trainers who really, maybe hadn’t embraced the value of themselves beyond programming fitness exercises, but really tapping into their ability to coach the behavior change between, there’s an advantage here. I mean, you’re now coming into somebody’s home. Like literally you just like we’re doing right now, you know, we’re in their home. And that’s what it feels like to them. Whereas before if somebody had to come physically to you that’s different, they’re in control truly. I mean, do they come, or do they not come, or they cancel? And when it’s just virtual, they can be there at any point and your inside their house. I mean, so as I sit in my office, it feels like you’re across the desk from me. And I think that’s really, becomes a more intimate relationship with your clients. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

It’s wonderful. I love the technology. I’m not a real tech, high tech guy. I built a really, really big business with just a pager and a fax machine, you know, at one point, that’s all we had back then. So, this is like a dream come true, you know, being able to actually face to face and things. And I’ve had some injuries over the years, motorcycles, surfing, football, wrestling for sure. And now I’m, you know, in pain sometimes, you know, like that was very hard. I say, I have a well used body. And so, I’m looking for, but I need to get treatment and stuff. I’m looking at STEM cells and PRP, and I’ve had a bunch of it. And so, recently I just had a virtual visit with a new guy that I’m getting to know, and it’s really cool that we can just, you know, I didn’t have to drive 30 miles to his office. 

Now, I will have to for treatment, you know, to get any injections or whatever they’re going to do, but I just think it’s fantastic that everybody’s kind of getting on board with it. And I hate that expression, new normal, but it’s, it’s kind of cool. And it’s normal now to, just to Skype, or Zoom, or whatever it is. Beautiful thing. And you can, you can build your whole business around that. Now, what kind of, let’s say someone’s a Flipping 50 fitness specialists now, they’ve got a market that’s women 40 to 60. Do you have to have a lot of health coaching experience already, or could someone who just wants to become a health coach start off in an area like this? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Great question. And honestly, I think I got that question like five times in the last three days, because I think people are interested right now. And so, there isn’t, there’s not a prereq that you already have, like an NCAA accredited certification already. You know, I think that my personal recommendation would be that most likely, if you’re serious about that, you’ll get one. You’re going to want that physiology and kinesiology background as well to build on this. But I just spoke with a woman yesterday whose background is actually much more, like energy field based and more holistic in meditation, and teaching joy and happiness for this demographic of mid-life women. And she sees it as a way where there may be obstacles to the joy, and happiness, and the energy for these women doing only what she suggests if they’ve got hormone issues right now. So, she wants to know more about using that to incorporate into it because she’s got the tools to help them go forward. But if they’re accelerating to a roadblock, you know, she won’t be able to help. So, that’s how she sees it. So, I think anyone who, especially, if you have, I think it’s, if you get the idea, you get the feeling and you can see yourself doing it. I think you most likely have the skills, and the talents, and that intuitive piece that it takes to be a good coach. So, I would, I would say, no, you don’t need any prerequisite. We’re all going to start from where we are. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

And they’re going to do it on themselves first. Right. And they’re going to experience it. And they’re on their personal journey, which is, I think critical. I personally didn’t have a real tough health challenge when I started in the health field. I just really wanted to help people. And I had the, I wanted the intellectual challenge, you know, like the research and development. I wanted to be the last person someone needed to see to get healthy. You know, it really frustrated me that people had already been to five, or eight, or ten different practitioners, and they weren’t better yet. And I thought I was going to be the last, you know, figure it all out. Now we did a lot of work and we figured a lot of things out, but there’s so many pieces of the puzzle. There’s so many millions, I mean, millions of people, and they’re all different. So, what I loved seeing over the last 20 years, and especially in the last five or six maybe, is the amount of like, specialists like this. Like, you know, cause you’re niching down, your a health coach, but you’ve niched it down. And I just think it’s fantastic. Look at all the people you could help just in that niche. And you’re never, ever going to run out of customers.

Debra Atkinson

No. And so, yeah, as far as niching down yes. I mean, 46 million women in menopause right now, 6 million more every day, 6,000 more sorry, every day and menopause. So, like you said, yeah, not going to dry up. And those are the women who have all the qualities. Right. They are looking for an answer actively, they know they have a problem and they have money to spend and they’ve got urgency. Like most of them want it fixed yesterday, right. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah, yeah, now that’s exactly right. They can, and they’re just, I just find them more motivated than men, you know, to get healthy, and stay healthy, and be healthy, and looking good is maybe more important to them and things like that. I told my dad that when I first got in the business, I said, “Hey dad, did you know that women live longer?” And he goes, yeah. I heard something about that. And I go, well, you know why, it’s because they care more about their health. They actually do more. If they get an owie, they do something about it. And he says, no, my son, he goes, the reason men die sooner is because they want to. 

Anyway, that’s my dad’s sense of humor. So, anyways, so you got to have a sense of humor in this business. Right. So, tell me, one thing you mentioned earlier about, you know, we’ve been kind of misrepresented to if you think it’s just about pumping iron and the more the better, you’re wrong. But there’s also just the idea of conventional medicine, conventional hormone treatment. And I went through a whole, working with those women even 20 years ago, it was amazing what was being done to women. I thought it was a crime actually. But tell me about that. How does it differ from conventional, traditional, versus what they call functional medicine? Now let’s talk about that. 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Well, as far as, so what we’re going to do, in terms of fitness, looking at hormone balancing fitness versus conventional traditional fitness. And I would have to say that it’s basically old-school is based on a quota. Like, you know, everybody should have five or six days of cardiovascular fitness exercise a week. Everybody should have two or three times a week, they should be doing strength training for major muscle growth. You know, we should be doing flexibility or mobility most days of the week. Now that one doesn’t change. But you know, that is like norms coming back from a lab that, that’s an assessment of a whole lot of people that don’t feel very good. Right. So, if we just apply a blanket statement to both genders and all ages and say, here you go, this is what’s true for good health and fitness. You know, we don’t look at any one demographic very closely. And if you take women and tell them when they’re already exhausted, when estrogen tanks kind of menopause hit, you know, you’re in perimenopause, it’s starting to go down. 

As soon as you hit menopause that 12 months since your last period, boom, you’re going to try to do a traditional exercise program, or you’re going to follow that fat burning trend out there. You’re going to dig yourself into a hole of adrenal fatigue and we’re not looking at, you know, here’s what they’re doing. And here’s how they’re feeling as, as a disconnect. I mean, we’re looking at it like you must be cheating. Are you going through the drive through on the way home? We make it about, they must not be doing the exercise between, they’re not really working hard enough. We make it her fault because in some arenas we don’t want to be wrong. Right. So, I think, you know, talking collectively fitness professionals, we have to look really strongly at, okay, how are we like making logical sense of, you know, if we’re doing this and we’re exhausted, what if we just stopped doing that? What if we, one of the, one of the tenants of Flipping 50 is restore before more, right. So, we we’ve dug ourselves in an adrenal fatigue hole. 

You’re going to fill that back up with rest, and better nutrition, and a little bit of movement, but not overtaxing. And then, when we’re rested, we’ve got energy again, our thoughts are clear, digestion and elimination are better, we’ve got all signs that, okay, I’m functioning much better. Now we try to build up, and get stronger, and your body will be much more likely if you’re women 40 to 60 to So,we really got to just look at what are the signs it’s working or not working. And women often don’t connect the dots. So, you’ve got to do it for them. So, as a health coach or a trainer, that’s your job is to really help them see that, you know, no, waking up multiple times a night or having insomnia, that’s not normal. It’s common, it’s not normal, right. So, you don’t have to tolerate that. And likewise with, you’re constipated, that’s not normal either. That’s a sign something’s going on. Let’s look at that and fix it. Because you could be a whole lot more comfortable and a lot happier probably if we fixed that. So, I think it’s looking at, you know, what somebody is settling for and may not even be complaining about, that you’re going to dig with the right questions and get to the bottom of, alright let’s take a look at what you’re doing and what we’re getting for feedback in your body. And we’ll start from there. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

That’s a really astute observation. And another way to look at the same thing, and I tell all our health coaches, you know, if you’re not getting a lot of referrals, then you’re probably blaming it on the lack of success. The reason you’re not getting referrals, is you’re not having really great results with your clients, because if you’re having great results with all your clients, you’d be getting a lot of referrals. That’s the measurement, that’s the barometer. And so, if you find you’re not getting referrals, it could be the program that you’re running on those people, you know, it’s not always their fault. You got to really take a hard look and get extra training. You know, there’s, there’s training available. 

Like if you’re working with women between 40 and 60, why wouldn’t you take this course and add to your repertoire, to your skills, to your toolbox, to your bag of tricks, you know, and all the different things that we do? And the basic principles that come along with it, of course. So, that’s really good. So, I noticed something else about the books that you’ve written. Most of them are about, you know, a health guide of some sorts. But what about this one, the Health and Fitness Professionals Guide to Social Media Marketing. How, you know, because when you’re, if you come to be a professional health coach, a trainer, what have you, you’re going to have to know a few things about that. Do you provide that kind of support for your, for your trainees or where does that fit in? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah, absolutely. So, that’s my favorite part. If you want to know the truth, so way back when I taught. So, I used to go to all the associations and present for idea, and national strength and conditioning association for international council on active aging. But I would do the marketing and the sales presentations. So, there were three and five people in my room back in 2000, you know, and everybody else was next door doing Pound and, you know, throwing medicine balls on the wall and we could barely hear in here. Now it’s changed. I mean, everybody understands, they’ve got to be able to market, they’ve got to be able to ask for the sale, and they’ve got to do that with some strategy, and timing, and language. So, it’s right person, right message, right time. And so, you know, what I realized is I need to actually be doing this. 

I can’t just stop everything and do, teach marketing and sales. Because if I’m not doing it, I suddenly become, you know, I’m obsolete. If I’m not doing it, I can’t point to what works anymore. So, when I started growing Flipping 50, what happened is it just grew so much faster. Then the fitness professionals, marketing and sales, but that’s, my passion is to take smart, intelligent trainers with a good heart. They’ve got something great to give and give them the skills to keep doing it and get a thriving business they love, but also still have a life that they love. I mean, that’s the fun part. We want to keep the good ones in business, right. So, as a part of, we do an advanced Flipping 50 specialists, they go through the program, they get their certification and then I teach them how to leverage that with packaging, and pricing, and language. And what kind of a model that you want to deliver. If you’d rather teach an online course, you want to deliver it face to face literally. Or you want to have some kind of hybrid business, which I highly recommend all of us do. If you like to do face to face, I think we’ve all learned in our last few months that we need a hybrid business just in case. Right. No matter what. So, that’s a huge part of it. And that’s the most fun, that’s the putting the puzzle together because if you really want to do this, so you can help people, we want to get you in front of as many people who are you’re right, ideal customer, as possible. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. That’s beautiful because it is a profession. Well, I have one more question for you about that. What, like what separates a professional from a hobbyist? With me, it’s kind of like hobbies cost you money, professions make you money. That’s a big difference. But, so we are professionals. You want to promote professional health coaching. But before I ask you that, tell us a little bit about the goal of your certification, how long it takes? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Yeah. So, going through the literal, the modules, finishing the studying takes about eight or nine weeks, depending on how quickly you go through the extra study. And then you take the quiz at the end. So, you’ve got to get a passing score on that to be ready to grab your certificate. And as you’re doing that, so all the way through, we’re communicating in your private Facebook group with your questions. But I highly encourage anybody already working with clients to start applying it, not just to themselves, but also to the people you’re working with because you learn it, you take that in, but you turn it around and you say it to someone else in a way that they can understand. Now you own it. 

That knowledge has really locked in much more. So, you’re starting right away. So, you’re not waiting until you’re done necessarily. You’re working through it and asking questions along the way of me. And then we’re going to leverage literally, do we want to change some packaging now to really monetize and leverage the knowledge you’ve got with new packages? Maybe it’s an upsell to what you’re already offering. It’s a deeper dive. So, there’s VIP. So, we talk about literally while we’re going to do, and you have four months of that advanced support in a mastermind, so a smaller group, but all the while you’re actually already operating and in business, because the things you need to do never change. So, if you need to generate revenue today, you better be on the phone. Right. So, you’re going to make a call today. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. Plant seeds. So, final question, just give us some top tip about like, you know, again, we’re here together today to try to uplift health coaching as a profession. What else do you think we could be doing? What are some of the top standards or practices professionals can do? What separates a pro from a hobbyist? That kind of a thing, anything on that discussion area? 

Debra Atkinson

Yeah. Well, I think it’s always going to be about education, education, education, and communication. So, I think there’s a, you know, a lot of people will toss out, well, that’s not professional, that’s not professional. And I think we, we need the certifications. We need the education with the background, but what we really need is the ability to communicate what we know in a way that somebody else can understand, and we need to bring it to their level and be able to send a direct message. So, I think for almost any profession, but especially for someone who’s a personal trainer or a health coach, I would brush up on your communication skills as much as you do anything else. I mean, being comfortable even being a guest on someone’s podcast. I have a podcast I’d be happy to have anybody as a guest on give you experience because even that is something you can leverage, you know, it becomes then a third party where you’ve expressed your expert area. 

So, doing things like that and doing presentations, you know, I think professionals use the skills and the talents in a way that helps people no matter what the situation. So, I think in these past few months during COVID, we’ve seen people step up, leaders lead, and when you’ve reached out and you said, I have this skill, I can help people right now. People may not be able to buy right now. And they may be stuck or paralyzed and not know what’s coming, but I’m going to step in and help and offer my service in some way. And I think that’s what professionals do. And you know, I’m not a, you know, we can’t guarantee the money’s going to come, but I think that you have to be responsible and then you do need to give generously, share that knowledge. At some point, it is the right time to ask for what you’re worth, but you’re going to teach using your skills and you’re never going to hold back. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Those are good words of wisdom and experience coming through from Debra AtkinsonAtkinson, the fitness industry expert, who has created the Flipping 50 program, Flipping 50 fitness specialist training is available. And all you have to do is look in your show notes. It’s basically a nine week course, if you have any intention at all to work with, or if you already work with 40 to 60 or even older women, some of them are pretty good shape. I know some older women and they’re in great shape, and there’s lots of customers around. And I want to thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. And don’t forget folks to go out and get your VIP Pass. 

Debra Atkinson

Thank you. 

Reed Davis, HHP, FDN-P, CMTA, CNT

Yeah. Good job, Debra. 

Debra Atkinson 

Thank you.