179: Becoming a Changemaker with Precision Nutrition Founder, John Berardi

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is John Berardi. John is a Canadian-American entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Precision Nutrition, the world’s largest nutrition coaching, education, and software company.

He's also the founder of Change Maker Academy, devoted to helping would-be change makers turn their passion for health and fitness into a powerful purpose and a wildly successful career. And he’s the author of the best-selling book Change Maker.

Over the last 15 years he's advised companies like Apple, Equinox, Nike, and Titleist, among others, as well as the San Antonio Spurs, Carolina Panthers, US Open Champ Sloane Stephens, and 2-division UFC Champ Georges St. Pierre. He's also been named one of the 20 smartest coaches in the world and 100 most influential people in health and fitness.

Regardless if your passion is in health and fitness, there is a lot you can learn from John about entrepreneurship and life and I’m excited for him to share it with you in this episode.

www.JohnBerardi.com

Health and fitness was not the likely path for John. He was born premature, had asthma and allergies, and as he grew up was very much an introvert. It wasn’t until he got to High School that he began to study health and fitness to better himself. It then that his passion for it was born.

But, it wasn’t without major challenge. Because John was more introverted and lacked self-confidence, it manifested in abusing drugs and alcohol at young age to cover up his pain. He fell in with the wrong crowd and one night was out driving around drinking with friends and got into an accident and miraculously survived without a scratch. That was his wake-up call and when he made the decision to focus on his health. He started going to the gym, found a mentor, and didn’t look back. The mentor even gave him a job at the gym.

John went onto to become personal trainer paying his way through college, but he knew he needed to learn more. He need to learn the psychological side. Combining the two disciplines is what helped to birth Precision Nutrition. Precision came about right as things were transitioning off of dial up to high-speed internet and Precision was positioned well to grow. From the start they grew the company remotely. As John said, back then, they were “weird.” They were totally remote. They didn’t have an organized management structure. Instead, they used Holocracy.

In 2017, John and his co-founder, sold the majority of the ownership in the company and John has been focused on unique projects such as Changemaker and others.

In our lives, we have moments that help define us. There is more to the car accident story where your friends actually got the wrecked car back on the road, but you decided to walk home. They ultimately got arrested. What was it that told you to walk away in the moment?

• That would have been the 3rd time John would have been arrested with these same guys.
• John shares that while the accident was happening and the car was spiraling across the road, it was like a movie scene. Everything slowed down and he saw scenes from his life.
• The last scene was watching himself get lowered into the ground as his parents wept.
• They ultimately landed between 2 trees perfectly and didn’t hit them – all perfectly fine without a scratch.
• It was this moment that he chose to go a different direct and walk home while they drove the wrecked car away and go arrested.
• The change to be better was tough. John no longer had the friends he had. He stopped using drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. So, getting better and to his next level was lonely. But, that is why he started going to the gym.

At the 17 min mark, John and I have a great conversation on how what we go through shapes us, why you should not regret, and how you should learn lessons from the past while getting perspective on the ones you are making right now.

What do you feel is most important to consistently succeed at high levels?

• Reputation. You can talk about the value of it, but you will reach a point where you see its true impact in your life.
• John gives the example of selling Precision and essentially starting from zero, but in launching Changemaker, his reputation – a history of doing great work – served him well as people know and trust him and thus supported him.
• Reputation is built by having strong standards in life that we adhere to and live by.
• Often we think that we need to come up with our standards/principles alone. You don’t. In fact, John says, “Nothing worth doing can be done alone.”
• You are going to need other people as everything from inspiration to idea generation.

At the 29 min mark, John talks about how the book Principles by Ray Dailo was a direct result of his co-founder Phil. Ray had not planned a book on what then just a sort of pdf manifesto that he had put out. “The best ideas are not in your own head.

"The best ideas live in the interface between you and others. It is when you pile ideas on top of each other that the best things emerge.”

Tell us about Changemaker. What does it mean to be a changemaker?

• The book was really a culmination of everything John has learned and done to succeed that has made a real difference.
• What someone thinks doesn’t always have a bearing on what they did.
• Watching someone in action many times will give you much better lessons than hearing what they think.
• Use “squinted eyes” to seek the truth. See things fuzzy and look at the shapes before you seek the clear version. Many things are not just black and white – you need to see the grey.
• Changemakers align what they think and what they do, but also constantly are looking at things through squinted eyes.

What do you teach people about how to find their calling?

• Every career person should go through the purpose, unique abilities exercise.
• First, come up with your origin story – how did you become the superhero you are?
• Define what led you to where you are, so you know where you are…
• Ask questions of yourself and those around you to determine this.
• Your purpose and what you do every day can have a disconnect. You may have a deep purpose, but not like what you do. So you need to understand your unique abilities.
• Your unique abilities are the things you are world-class at – the things you are great at that you can really enjoy doing. What of these moves the needle on your purpose.
• When you know your purpose and align it with your unique abilities – then you can truly find what to do to serve your purpose that is based on you and who you really are.
• The last part are your values – your guardrails that keep you aligned.
• These are all things you don’t do on your own. You have to get the feedback from others to help shape these things. You have to get “for real.”

You should have your best self, coach you and build this into your routine. Set time aside where you are in a peaceful mind set, able to think clearly, and work on a problem or set of problems. Set aside time to let your best self show up to help you.

At the 48 min mark, we talk about the importance of structure in our lives, but how it needs to be a flexible structure.

• Rigidity is the enemy of consistency.
• The more rigid the rules are and how things have to be “just so.”
• The “just so” lifestyle can lead to problems too.
• There is a fun interplay between structure and flexibility that is needed to have the success that we want.

Are there any principles from the book or thoughts you want to leave us with?

• The idea of “What is business? What is entrepreneurship?”
• It comes down to 3 things.
• First, you have to know what people want and are willing to pay for (much easier said than done)
  • Precision used the “jobs to be done” framework from Clayton Christiansen at Harvard.
• Second, create that thing in the most remarkable way.
  • You cannot possibly know this all on your own – get feedback and ask people to think aloud. Get people’s emotional reactions, not their logical.
• Third, tell everyone about it.
  • It’s more than just marketing

 

Best Quote: "The best ideas are not in your own head. The best ideas live in the interface between you and others. It is when you pile ideas on top of each other that the best things emerge."

 

John's Misfit 3:

1. Practice compassionate, active listening in your life.
2. Hunt for feedback. The most successful people collect more feedback than anyone else. They have fine tuned the practice by accepting all transmissions they can to grow their success.
3. Don’t deify action. Don’t take action for action’s sake. Strategize for your action. We need a minute of thoughtfulness before taking action.