I’m here in good old Rochester, Minnesota.  I’m staying at the surprisingly excellent Double Tree hotel.  A four star hotel that has very good rooms, decent food, great service, and very important for me, a decent gym.  I’ve been going to the gym nearly every morning.  Due to the 9-hour-difference-induced jet lag, I’m usually up between 4 and 5 am, and shortly thereafter I go to the gym in the basement (where a couple of months ago I met Naked Man)
I’ve noticed a lady that goes to the gym as well.  She looks like she is in her twenties, and she’s quite overweight.  I’ve not spoken to her, and don’t really know anything about her.  But I think it’s fair to assume she want to lose some weight.  And I doubt very much that she will lose much of it.  Let me just quickly add that I am not in any way judging her, I’m just making some observations.

When she comes in I noticed she goes on the treadmill right away, and does about 20 minutes or so, and leaves.  What’s impressive is that she can run quite a bit of the distance.  So it’s obvious that her fitness is improving, and good for her.

The reason I say that she won’t lose weight is because she’s only doing cardio training.  If you don’t know what that means, cardio stands for “cardiovascular”, and cardiovascular, in layman’s terms means the heart and blood vessels.  It refers to activities like running, jogging, cycling, aerobics, dancing etc.  Activities that raise your heart beat and make you pant.  Does that make sense?

Anyway, from having seen her for a few days, it seems like all she does is the running.  Running is probably one of the best ways to increase your fitness, but not the best way to lose weight.

And of course when I say “lose weight” I mean “burn excess fat”.  The more relevant exercise for burning fat is resistance training.  This means exercises where you push, pull, or lift against something that offers your muscles resistance.  Examples of this are weight training, calisthenics (body weight exercises like push ups, pull ups and crunches), Yoga and Pilates.

The best way to burn excess fat (lose weight) is by having more muscle mass in your body.  Muscle requires a lot more energy (i.e. calories) to sustain itself than fat does.  When you do resistance training, you build more muscle, and in the long term, burn more fat.

The problem with cardio is that it only burns energy during the workout, and for a brief period afterwards.  After that, the effects are gone.  But with resistance training, the effect is more long term.  What often happens with overweight people that do lots of cardio, is that they often lose some weight, but their body shape does not change much.  If they were an apple shape before, then they become a smaller apple shape.  Whereas with resistance training, you actually change the shape of your body over the long term.  Get my point?

I’ve noticed that many women somehow think that cardio training is more for women, and that resistance training is more for men.  This is a very false assumption, and if you’re a cardio-lady reading this, please change your mindset about this.  You’ll notice great results.

Want REALLY good results from your exercise programme? Do both cardio and resistance training.  Want super, dooper, great results? Do resistance and cardio training, AND eat well.  That’s really the secret to a long, happy, healthy – and slim – life.  It’s really that simple.

So my friend, make sure to have a good mix of both types of exercises.

Talk to you soon.

PS If you’re based in Bahrain, check out The DreamBody Centre where we offer exactly what I’m talking about.   You might also consider joining our amazing DreamBody Competition, where I’m giving away my car!

Take care.

I also bought some Hayao Miyazaki Japanese animation DVD’s.  The lady at the counter is extremely friendly and upbeat.  When I hand her the DVD’s she says something like “Would you care for our protection plan for these DVD’s? For just $1.99 you get complete protection for your DVD’s in case the kids scratch them or they brake!”

I politely decline.  I then hand her the Leap Frog box and again she says “We also have the protection plan for this you know.  For just $1.99 you get complete coverage for 15 months!  If anything happens to the product they’ll send you a cheque and you can buy another one.”

I again politely declined and tell the lady that I’m from out of town – way out of town.  She proceeds to tell me that the protection plan works anywhere.  I thank her again and decline the offer.

Did you get that?  Did you see the magic?  Toys R Us just added almost two dollars of pure profit to items sold by offering this protection plan.  That’s what they call an up-sell – brilliant!

What struck me more than this idea was the lady’s enthusiasm in selling it.  I bet she was either on commission or had a target to hit of x amount of protection plan up-sells.

Let’s just do some very basic math.  Assume that just 20 items per day are up-sold (and let’s make life easy and round up the amount to $2.00)  That’s 20 x $2.00 = $40 a day, or $280 a week and $1,200 per month.  Well, that’s not a big a mount [italic], I can almost hear you say!

And you’d be right, it’s not a huge amount, but remember that’s “found money” – money that was not there before.  If we assume that 100 up-sells are done per day, that would bring up the monthly amount to $6,000, or $ 72,000 per year.  Now multiply that number by hundreds of stores in the US.  Are you beginning to see how powerful this is?

Of course they need to fulfill, and I’m quite sure the percentage of people claiming the cover is very small indeed.  Also, 15 months is not really enough time for the product to get damaged.  Speaking of the 15-month time period, I think it’s a bit of a rip-off.  It should be 3 years plus, or even some sort of life-time guarantee.

I can almost hear your brain saying “but I’m not in the toy business!” If you think like that my friend than you’ve missed the point.  My point is not for you to copy this exactly.  My point is for you to think outside the proverbial box.  Don’t think “this won’t work for me”, instead think “how can I make this work for me?”, or “how can I come up with something similar in my business?”  Consider that your homework.

For your FREE – yes FREE – e-marketing course, go to my Radical Marketing website.

Talk to you soon.

From left: Kristal Yap, Saba Saleem, Suhail Algosaibi, Dwi Sulastri, and Mark Salvador

Last week we celebrated a huge milestone at The DreamBody Centre; we finally finished our operations review! It started in July 2009 and only finished in February 2010! Can you believe it?

We had an operations review committee that met twice a week, for two to three hours each time.  I originally (rather foolishly and naively) thought that it would take only a couple of weeks! Well, it turns out there was so much to do, as a lot of our operations weren’t documented.  Our operations manual doubled in size, and certain sections we stayed weeks and weeks on.  It took us hours just to decide on the meet and greet process when a new prospect walks in.  That’s how much detail we went into.  It’s tedious but well worth the time and effort invested.

If you don’t know this about me already, I’m a big believer in having proper systems.  To see an in-depth blog post on the importance of systems, click here.  Also, make sure to see my video book review about McDonald’s.

I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks and heartfelt appreciation, for the extraordinary effort of the remarkable members of the DreamBody Centre Operations Review Committee:

Dwi Sulastri – DBC Seef Team Leader
Gero Presser – Former DBC GM
Kristel Yap – DBC Hamala Assistant Team Leader
Mark Salvador – New DBC GM
Saba Saleem – Falak (DBC and Zen-Do) Marketing and Operations Manager
(and me!)

I gave each of them a certificate of appreciation, which they very much deserved.  It was a long, and often stressful journey, but we got there in the end!

Thanks again guys and well done!

Anyway, talk soon…

I hope you like the interview:

I’ve been teasing and hinting about what the Grand Prize will be.   We had all kinds of guesses ranging from a trip to Europe to a makeover to a shopping spree, but very few people guessed the correct prize – a car! My car!!

Here are some photos of the Toyota Fortuner:

Make sure to join the group to find out on a daily basis what’s going on with the competition.  More details to be released soon!

Take care.

I cannot tell you how proud I am to announce the promotion of Zen-Do Bahrain Senior Instructor Vinod Joseph to Head Instructor.  Well done guy!

Sensei Vinod joined Zen-Do in 2005 as a general purpose cleaner/janitor/driver.  It turned out he didn’t have that much to do so he started training in the evening class.  He then started assisting in teaching some of the classes until he worked his way up the proverbial ladder to become our Head Instructor.

He’s been running the day-to-day operations of Zen-Do for quite some time now, and he is more than worthy of the new title.  It truly was remarkable to see his transformation over the years from an insecure kid off the streets of Bangalore to a matured, and very capable martial artist.

Vinod has always credited me for changing his life and turning him into what he is today.  And though I deserve some credit for that, my true talent (if I have any at all) is to be able to recognize rough unpolished diamonds and uncover their true potential.  Vinod’s mind was like an open box when he first came to work for me, and absorbed everything I taught him like a sponge.  Not only has he turned into a great martial arts instructor, but he’s also  turned into one hell of a kick boxer.  Check out the short clip below (man I’m a good teacher )

Welcome to the latest edition of my “monthly” book review.  This one might surprise you, I’m actually reviewing -- and recommending -- a book about McDonald’s!

But before you vilify me, please watch the video and see where I’m coming from. Regardless of what  you think about McDonalds, I think this book really is a must-read for entrepreneurs.

The book is called McDonald’s: Behind The Arches by John F Love.  It’s so rich with valuable information in such a wide range of topics.  If you are a business owner, senior manager or operations manager, then you should read this book.  It’ll be worth your time.

Hope you like it, and remember to give me your feedback!