Christmas Abbott’s Badass Business Tips
Podcast links: iTunes, Stitcher
This week on Barbell Business, we catch up with our friend and favorite badass, Christmas Abbott.
We love Christmas, but not just because of her beauty and popularity. True, it’s not hard to get attention and gain fans when you can do this to a camera. But that isn’t enough to take you all the way from fitness geek to gym owner, presenter, Nascar pit-crew member, designer, and now, best-selling author.
You can be successful and live the Badass life too, but it can’t be gifted. I don’t care how sexy you look in tights 
To prosper and reach your full potential you must cultivate great habits, along with an ever-evolving mindset.
Here are 5 ideas to get you started.
1. Beginning doesn’t require perfection.
Crossfit has enabled thousands of people to create new businesses and open up their own gyms. No doubt, that’s been the real driving force in this fitness revolution.
I know, starting up a business of your very own is a scary proposition. No one is comfortable and confident the very first time they generate a business plan or revenue projections. But fortunately for us all, certainty and comfort are never requirements for success.
In Christmas’ case, she went to work building Crossfit Invoke from the ground up with little more than 10K in fitness boot camp profits, and admittedly, an imperfect business plan. But it was a starting point, right?
Don’t look for the best idea or perfect starting point, it doesn’t exist. Instead, just begin. Journey’s never start on their own.
2. Consult with opposites.
Are you great at coming up with creative new ideas? Maybe you’d prefer to focus on details and procedure, or perhaps dealing with people is more your strength?
It doesn’t really matter. You are good at something, and just that one thing is more than enough to make you successful in business. But the opposite is also true – You can’t be something you’re not, and you can’t do it all! The very best thing to do is to surround yourself with people who have opposite skill sets and points of view. It could be a business partner, advisor, coach, whatever.
The power of complimentary minds is incredible.
Just filmed our first episode with a female entrepreneur! The lovely @christmasabbott A photo posted by Barbell Business (@barbellbusiness) on
3. Let your community shape your business.
Growing your business is the biggest challenge, next to getting it started, right? Everyone wants to do bigger and better things, find more success, etc. But the whole challenge is finding the right thing to do.
Your community, your clients, the people who surround you – That’s the first place you should look for answers.
Christmas told a great story on the podcast about one of her clients that had developed a great understanding of Crossfit programming, but also happened to be a practicing Yogi. Quite naturally, they both agreed that offering Yoga classes that complimented the gyms primary programming was a great way to add value and develop the gym culture.
When in doubt, return you focus to the people around you. They are always the greatest resource.
4. Always work back to “Why?”
We mentioned that you don’t have to have all the answers up front. Plans and projections change, to say the very least. But there is one thing that has to be perfectly clear, to everyone – Why are you doing what you’re doing?
You need to be able to answer that question for yourself, but mostly for the people you work with. Why should they care about your ideas? How can you specifically help them lead a healthier, fitter, more fulfilled life?
You might be able to program Crossfit better than anyone on the world. But guess what? That has no value if you cannot help people realize the real world benefits of your ideas.
Do yourself a favor and read the book, “The Art of Explanation” by Lee LeFever. That will make you far more effective in coaching, business, and everything in between.
Also, don’t miss the The Badass Body Diet.
5. Loosen up your expectations.
You can’t grow into something new until you let go of what you were, the older plans you’ve made, and the expectations you’ve set up for yourself.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but sometimes things don’t work out as planned. Sometimes you’re sure of what you are and what you don’t want to do, until experience proves otherwise.
Christmas has an extraordinary resume, but no, it wasn’t all planned out carefully. In fact, when it came to Nascar she actually had her doubts at first. No, changing greasy car tires under extreme racing conditions didn’t seem like a great career move at the time. But she owned that challenge, and in the process earned a new wave of support and brand new opportunities. I guess there’s nothing more badass than that, right?
Christmas, it’s always a pleasure to have you around. We can’t wait to see what you take on next.
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Cheers,
4 Responses to “Christmas Abbott’s Badass Business Tips”
Great show! Love Christmas and her book was great. I am taking my level one next month and will be moving down the road as a trainer. I am very excited for this next chapter. I have been watching a lot of your previous podcasts and reading the info on Barbell Buisness! Any must reads you would recommend for a new trainer in crossfit ?
Christy
Hey great show, I wish I would be there..
Thank you for posting this post !
Cheers,