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Jordan Berry, Personal Trainer and Founder of Kaizen Fitness
Jordan is passionate about taking the holistic approach to personal training. Mental health and growth is a big part of Kaizen Fitness. He’ll have you doing more than working hard at the gym. You will end up discovering your why and what you want to be. Then together you will put in place the habits and goals to get you there.
What was your vision when you first started your venture?
The goal for Kaizen Fitness is to provide a high quality and enjoyable service. With the onset of becoming a personal trainer, my sole vision was helping as many people as possible. It’s now developed into a more holistic way of training. Not just helping with the physical, but mentally and emotional swell.
I've always been active. This sounds like a cliche person trainer story. I started going to the gym in high school. As soon as I worked out I could get an annual membership for $50, I was straight in there pumping weights. I probably weighed all of about 48 kg.
I've always really enjoyed helping people. During a careers expo I was taken with a personal training qualification. So I studied and qualified as a personal trainer alongside graduating from high school. Ever since I haven't looked back. I absolutely love it.
My desire to help people, my desire to be physically and mentally fit, just grew into my business, Kaizen Fitness.
How did you deal with early setbacks?
Going into the gym and starting my own business as an 18-year-old was very daunting. Especially in a new city.
Confidence was a big setback for me. Confidence in my ability as a personal trainer and then my ability to sell. Selling was particularly challenging. Offering services to people that I didn't know for a price. Realising that the service I offer has the potential to impact lives helped develop my confidence over time.
Luckily I have a really supportive family and group of friends. My good friend David, another personal trainer, helped me out a lot. He was always there for me to run my sales scripts past. Lots of simulation and positive reinforcement. Fine-tuning the way I approached the people at the gym.
The more confidence I displayed, the more I believed in the service I provided, the more people believed in me. Having good mentors and a good support structure was key. I could be the best personal trainer in the world, but if I can't sell, then, I’m not going to do very well.
Was there a time that you wanted to give up?
Obviously, in the first six months, it was definitely difficult. Overcoming my confidence barrier and fully immersing myself in the business. But at no point did I feel like giving up. Being a personal trainer was my passion and I love helping people.
It never crossed my mind.
Previous to being a personal trainer, I was a checkout chump at Pak’N’Save. I was working with great people, but it just didn’t fulfil me. So building my business was not something I wanted to give up on.
Were there any traps that you fell into?
I think a trap that a lot of people fall onto when newly qualified is being in the industry for the status. Being able to put PT at the end of their Instagram name. It should be more than that, starting with the people you're helping. It’s not about becoming a personal trainer to justify taking topless photos of yourself on Instagram. And on the flip side, these personal trainers could be misleading others by putting out bad quality advice.
If you went to high school with me, you'd know that I'm appalling at Maths. Ask any of my clients, they'll confirm that I struggle with my accounts sometimes. Now I have an accountant. I’m really thankful. I’m bad at the numbers, but it has to be done. Luckily I have good people to help me.
All my client payments are now run through a direct debit. I use a service called ezidebit. If you are a personal trainer, I recommend an automated payment system. It makes keeping track of many individual payments so much easier. Through ezidebit, your clients complete a form, all the payments are collected, and then one lump sum is deposited into your bank account. It’s much more systemised and takes the stress out of chasing up payments. Especially at tax time.
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What inspires and motivates you?
My clientele, 100%. I've worked with a lot of people from different backgrounds. From 17 years old through to 60, international athletes or people just wanting a six-pack. No matter where they come from, what their goals are, they always inspire me.
I have a client, Bob. He’s 58 years old and every session he just loves pushing himself. There are times when he blows me away with the amount of weight that he lifts.
My really good friend, John. He competed in the 2019 Commonwealth Judo Tournaments. He's 54 years old and still really investing in his physical self.
Another client, a lady in her 20’s or 30’s. She was just looking to lose a little bit of weight. She would head to the gym at 3 am most days and smash out 30 kilometres on the rower.
There's a lot of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It doesn't matter if they’re big, small, old or young. It just really motivates me to better myself.
I’ve had two pivotal mentors over the last six months, Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. I’ve looked up to them for self-development and offering my clients a better service. They have inspired a lot of paradigm shifts for me, both personally and professionally.
I discovered Tony Robbins’ Date with Destiny documentary on Netflix. I was mind blown by the time I finished watching it. The way that he connects with people and seeing the transformations at his live events. So this was at the forefront of my mind going to sleep. Then the next morning I was scrolling through Facebook and saw an ad for a seminar with Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins. They were just about to go live. I was really Tony Robbins’d up. So I spent the next two hours watching the seminar for a course called Knowledge Business Blueprint. On a hunch I bought the program for NZ$3200. Quite the financial investment. Not something I would normally do, but it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Can you describe a breakthrough that you're particularly proud of?
Through investing in the Knowledge Business Blueprint course, I discovered that my work as a personal trainer is more than just the physical. I should also be helping my clients develop their mental states and emotions.
I’m working more holistically with my longer-term clients. People who I have a good personal relationship with. I know them well enough to be able to see the signs when they’re not doing so well. Maybe they need a little more one on one time outside of the gym.
So, I’ll take them for coffee, talk about mental health and help them work out some personal goals. It comes down to working out the areas where people potentially need a bit more help. Mental health is something that’s still gaining relevance in New Zealand. We’re such a stoic society, people find it hard to talk about.
As a personal trainer, I’m often seen as a counsellor as well. My clients know that I don’t know their friends and family. So they often feel safe enough to open up about aspects of their life they wouldn’t normally share. I take this role very seriously. I’ve developed my skills over the last six months in order to help my clients work through those emotional blocks.
I’ll have my clients define their current state. Asking them to be really honest about their happiness, work, career, weight, whatever they want to change. This is straight out the book of Tony Robbins. Most times there’ll be a couple of things they want to change.
So, I’ll have them define their future self. How would they like to feel? Are they happy, are they confident? Then I have my client visualise their present and future selves. I then help them see that there’s absolutely no difference between these two people. The only thing that's different are their habits. Next, we break down their future self and choose supporting habits to be put in place. At this point, my clients normally list a whole load of possible habits to take them to the next level. Now they have a roadmap helping them become their future self.
What do you see as being your biggest lesson?
Whenever I start to feel lost, I always remind myself why I started.
Finding my ‘why’ is the foundation on which I build everything else. Why do I get out of bed in the morning? Why am I a personal trainer? Why do I want to help people? When I’m losing my direction, ‘I put why’ at the forefront of my mind. Just learn to question things and be honest with yourself.
I have two keywords, authenticity and passion.
I like to be authentic with people. During my Instagram stories, I show the real me. The stuff that I'm struggling with personally. I want the people to know that I'm not just a health and fitness expert on my pedestal.
I’m also passionate. People are paying for my service, I’m investing in people, I’m passionate about what I do.
Remember to follow through with your ‘why’.
“Whenever I start to feel lost, I always remind myself WHY I started.”
Has your vision always been clear and how has it evolved?
The only thing that’s changed is how I’m helping my clients. Personal training has almost become personal development. My vision is evolving and getting grander as I go on. Helping more and more people, employing more personal trainers, moving into my own space and eventually running seminars, masterminds and workshops.
With Kaizen Fitness we’re developing a community to be the one-stop-shop for personal training, physiotherapy, business and personal development.
What would you do differently if you had to start again from scratch?
I don't want to say that we would do anything different. I talked about the investment and the website to start with. I'm still glad we did that. It meant that the website was built, launched and tested. We learnt so much from that experience and quickly. I believe it had to happen as part of our journey and we don't have any regrets.
Connect with Jordan
If you have enjoyed this article and want to start a conversation with Jordan, you can reach out by:
Website: Kaizen Fitness
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jordan-berry-189828152/
Instagram: @kaizenfitnessnz
Please don’t forget to tell Jordan that I sent you.
Interview and photography by Wellington Headshot Photographer, Tim Morrison (all rights reserved)