Watch Here: https://youtu.be/M3rOD9_DDvA
Listen Here: https://theicoachproject.libsyn.com/2021/10
Coach Justin: “I have a very special guest, somebody who I’ve had the pleasure of working with one on one for years there and then also have the opportunity to be able to work with some of his employees that his company I’m kind of doing a little bit of a corporate challenge there. So without further ado Mr Chris O’Oneil, what’s going on my man, how are you? Hey how are you?”
Chris: “Good to be here. Thanks for inviting me.”
Coach Justin: “Absolutely, thank you for taking the time, I know you’re you’re super busy and you know you’ve been able to take the time I really appreciate that. So really what today is about is we’re kind of talking a little bit before this is I want to just go over really like we don’t have to go so much into our journey of working together but more so with that corp challenge that we did and and being able to have that opportunity to work with some of the employees there at your company. So can you kind of talk about just really kinda introduce yourself your company, like give people a little bit of of of reference as to you know what the company is and what you all do and then we can kind of dive into how that all came about and how it got started in terms of the coaching relationship.”
Chris: “Yeah, so I’m the Founder and CEO of RealManage, it’s a community association management business headquartered in north texas, but with operations now in 18 states around the country and we’ve been on a super fast growth path, a lot of growing a lot of my word of mouth referral and it’s it’s been a it’s been a heck of a ride, I have a tremendous team and we are constantly faced with the pressures of growth and and all that goes with it and so like I wanted to do something with you to to really kind of reward my team but really but also to help dial them in, you know, get them you know, even even more focused on, you know, just their entire well being, you know, our corporate theme, we tend to, we tend to have a business theme and then kind of a software theme each year so and 2020 our our theme was grace showing each other grace both at work and at home and all that and the the employees really, really took to it in 2021. Our theme was happiness drive Success, so it’s not the other way around, and so then if we could start with having my employees be happy in their entire lives, they will absolutely be successful at work. and you were, you were a huge help in in that and it was a phenomenal experience.”
Coach Justin: “That’s awesome. I mean, I, you know, as we were talking and it was the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to do something like this, right? And so I was able to to work with 40 of of your employees, they’re right and I just think it’s so cool. I mean, because if you think about it, it’s like, you know, obviously we know that our health and and the way we live our lifestyle in terms of focusing on sleep and nutrition and exercise and all these things and what it does for us, you know not just with work, but our relationships with our fam families and just the quality of our overall life there. Right? And so I think it’s, I think it’s a great opportunity for obviously any company to be able to present something like this for their employees, But have you, have you ever heard of anybody doing anything like this before? Just kind of come to mind to you I mean, I honestly don’t even remember how it all kind of kicked off for us there, but you know, you know how I kicked off was.
Chris: “You know, I had started doing crossfit probably when I was, I don’t know, 30, or 39. I’m 51 now. And probably maybe halfway along that journey, I had met you. And, I never really, I mean I’m not an endurance athlete and never really was, was competitive in the sport, but well, to the point where I had never done murph all the way through. and so I told you this is the year, you know, I turned 50 I’m gonna do murph. And, I told somebody else at work and they said, that sounds great, I’ll do it. And it was early in the year, Right? So we had from february 1st to the end of May to train and I made the decision, well, that that was the four months that you work with us. I made the decision to do murph a little bit even before that. And I told somebody, and they said that sounds awesome. I want to do that too And I told somebody else and they said, yeah, I’d like to do that too, and I thought, gosh, well, I’m getting this kind of response, I should open this up to all my folks. And and and that’s what I, that’s what I did and we had, I think 100 employees Commit to it and, 50 signed up for one on one training. You, you coached 40 of them and we had another, another phenomenal coach for, for the other 10.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, that’s right. That’s on. And then we had the opportunity to do, I mean, we, there were several people that got around kind of all over the nation there, which was really cool to, to do the work out and we were able to get together there and do the workout together as well So yeah, it was chris suckered me into doing murph again, guys. After four years. It was fun though. I will say that like, you know, it was, it was, it was way more fun preparing for it and, and doing it than than I had than I had feared.”
Chris: “And you know, recalled to this was, you know, doing doing murph in May of 21 training for it in the first half of this year, folks were coming off of a year of covid and, you know not even seeing each other. And some of them had some of my employees, I could tell were really struggling emotionally and mentally and physically with, with all that went with sheltering in place and kids home from school and all that and people losing spouses losing jobs. And so after a year of that., and we hadn’t even had that social connection, right. Our office has been closed for a year. This was a way to also bring us together to conquer a challenge as a team which was super uplifting and gave people the opportunity to support one another. I mean it far exceeded my expectations I knew it would go well and I knew folks would appreciate it. But you know, the email threads that I was copied on and the group training calls that we had and the feedback afterwards, folks were, you know, like I’m the ceo so employees will say, oh, can we increase benefits in this way or that way? Or can we do this for the employees of that for the employees? And, you know, of course we consider all those, we want to, we want to be a phenomenal employer and and we really want to take care of our employees doing something like this was so unique. Folks really got that I care about them as individuals. You know we talked about companies real managed and we talk about the real managed family, right? And taking care of one another and something like this spoke way way louder than a medical health care benefit plan or something like that. Right.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, wow. No, I mean I totally agree I think that’s, I mean obviously I got to see it hand in hand and I mean I’ve been able to see it now for the last 12 years of doing this and working one on one with people and and seeing the value in what it can do for their lives, but to be able to, you know work with 40 of those individuals and then also to see, you know, like you said whether it’s the email throughout or that that facebook group with having everybody kind of post their post call updates, but I mean there was some off, some things that happened obviously four months is a very short period of time in comparison to, you know, the habits that have been built over, you know, whatever 30 40 50 60 years here but just in that four months, four month period of time, there was so much awareness that was created through using some of these different tracking tools and doing the weekly coaching calls, I mean there was people that lost 20-30 pounds there was people that just ended up feeling a whole bunch are a whole lot better and having way more energy and productivity there was some that haven’t worked out in years and then all of a sudden they’re getting into a consistent workout routine So sleep habits, there’s all these different things that kind of carried over and I thought it was really cool to, you know, see see a ceo be able to, you know, obviously we got to work together one on one so I had a little bit of influence there, but to see to see a ceo you know, be able to like see the value in one on one coaching and, and make that in bed and their employees and in that company. I think it’s such a cool thing because as we talked about a little bit was like, we talked about just doing the group version right? And I was like, we can do this and I just, I don’t like the one on one is the game, like the one on one is really what makes actual change, right? And so I was grateful to be able to have that opportunity to do the one on one as as well as the group there.”
Chris: “So, and I told you this, you know during the, during the program and afterwards, but and I mean you really should be proud that, I mean you’ve got, you’ve got a gift for this. You you really are, you really are good. I mean you can coach folks that at any stage in their age, any stage in their their fitness journey, whether that fitness journey is even like, you know, as basic as sleep and water or as advanced as, you know, nutrition supplements and that sort of thing. And, so your, your ability to meet meet my people where they were individually was phenomenal. and folks really, it was, it was just it was uplifting. It was, it was great. That’s awesome man.”
Coach Justin: “Well, I really appreciate that. I think that’s such a, I mean something I try to remind myself and and other coaches and you know, it’s like we, I think that’s one of our biggest jobs as coaches just to meet people where they are in this journey, right? Because it is, you know, it’s information overload, there’s a million different people saying a million different things, They’ve tried everything under the sun and like for them, it’s like, it’s really, it really, truly is like how can I meet you in this journey and help you to become just a little bit better slowly but surely over time and and improve that quality of your life get you feeling better, get you looking better, get you performing better. So if You can get somebody, if you can get a 67 year old woman to sign up at the beginning to say, yeah, I want to do the murph challenge and I haven’t been exercising and I’m struggling with diabetes and all that. Like then, you know, that’s that’s pretty special, right? 100%. I think a lot of people want, I mean the cool thing about working with the company is that, you know, one of the, you know the things that we seek as human beings is is being a part of a community, being a part of a tribe, right And so I think any time that you can kind of corral everybody together and get get everybody in a more positive motivated mindset. I mean that carry over into everything else obviously translates well. So I love that, what’s, what’s been kind of, so I, I followed up with, you know, pretty much every single, I think it was maybe after, I don’t know, maybe a month or three months or something like that.
I kind of have followed up with with everybody and checked in with everybody and there’s a lot of people that are still doing really well, you know, I told them I was like the biggest thing that you lose after this accountability in terms of, you know, us having our weekly coaching calls and having access to me text message and all that, but you still have the habit tracker, you still have like that food drink picture log, you still have my fitness about, you can still use these tools to keep coaching yourself now that you know how right And so it’s been really cool to see the evolution now you know, it’s almost been double the timeline since we’ve worked together and seeing them continue to evolve Their, what’s, what was some of the immediate feedback that you had from just other other executives there as you are talking about it. And, and then just any employees that have been, you know, the threads that you have been reading through the facebook or the things that I had sent you there, What, what was just like the overall feed from everybody. and, and, and, and maybe even, you know, thoughts of like, hey, would this be something that, you know, we potentially would want to do, you know, more often, or is this something that people just got a lot of value out of one time and potentially they’re gonna try to do on their own or I don’t know where is the space that I would say.”
Chris: “So I do know, so I travel and sometimes we’ll, we’ll be to hope tell with folks that I know participated in the challenge and I can see it in their behavior that here now, many months later, they’re, they’re still doing it or you know, they’ll, you know, they’ll be them for breakfast and they’ll say, oh, I’m running a few minutes late because I’m finishing my workout and these were guys that, you know, folks that hadn’t even been working out before, right? And then, you know, in the evening there, you can tell how about you know, how they, the habits have have changed, right It’s, you know, drinking water with dinner and I got to go to bed right now, why do I have to go Because I have to wake up early, right, So there’s a lot of, a lot of good habits that form. I think another theme was Benny, my folks almost universally everybody felt like they had a good, you know, a pretty good understanding of nutrition of what they needed to eat and how they need to live their lives and time and time again, folks were saying, wow, I had no idea what I, what I didn’t know and a lot of, I’d say, I don’t know to put a number on it, Maybe 90% or 95% of the learnings that they got through the process were from you and the other, the other learnings were from our group calls and collaboration and what are you cooking and how are you doing this and what do you, what, what’s your life hack for, making sure you get enough water every day. How do you even keep track of it? Right, what kind of trackers are you using?, I’m not getting enough protein. Oh, here, like one of the guys are super passionate about and even got me started on throwing protein powder in my coffee in the morning, right? So there are so many learnings that we got from each other, clearly far, far more from you, but we have folks who are like competitive gymnast, like at a, like at a national level and we had somebody who was a phenomenal dancer back in her day and they were, they were still learning and you know, one of them even said to me chris like I forgot what my body was capable of back then, it’s been so long and it’s so nice to start feel and realize like it’s just a reminder of what I used to be able to do and now I’m kind of getting back to being able to do that again. So it was, it was awesome.”
Coach Justin: “That’s awesome man. Yeah, I mean, I think it’s just like, I don’t, you know, I always tell people, I’m like, you know, I, my whole life was an athlete, right? And after I finally stopped competing in crossfit, that was the first time in my life that I wasn’t competing in sports anymore, right? And it was also the first year that I started my business and so I was like, I’m gonna go all in on business and it turned out to be my worst year of health of my life, right? I worked at the very least my nutrition was the worst. I drank more alcohol, the sleep was prioritized less, like all of those things and in a year I was reminded that my health is my greatest asset, right? And if I don’t sit here and prioritize it, it doesn’t just stay there right? And, and I think that’s where a lot of people you know through this process, that’s kind of what they realize is like if I can start to look at these things, sleep, nutrition, exercise, hydration, stress management, like those five big rocks that I always kind of talk about, if we can start to build some awareness around these things, right? Start to get some strategies in to help us improve these things. Well then that carry over over, right translates into what I’m trying to do here for work. And then also every other area there with with with my life essentially just getting me more into a proactive place with my health rather than being in the reactive place where I have the doctors of this is that I get diagnosed with whatever, you know? And so I think just getting people more proactive with their health, I mean that was that was probably you know, at least in my eyes, like the number one goal here over this, this four months other than getting people ramped up and excited about doing where obviously right or doing their their version of right, But man I love it. So what what, you know, if if if there was another, if you were thinking about, you know, another friend that you knew or some some other ceo came to you and and kind of ask you about this like I don’t know what would that conversation look like What like what do you you know, if if you were to if somebody else was listening to this podcast right now and that they were thinking about doing something similar like this with their company, like, you know what what advice would you give to them or what recommendation would you kind of give to them on on on doing that?”
Chris: “Yeah. You know, the it’s gosh, it was so awesome to bring everybody together as a team and like, and to and to set, not just a, like, a, a simple challenge but like complete mirth right? In whatever form that was, it was just, There’s there’s there’s nothing to be, there’s there’s no comparison to anything I’ve done. I mean, I’ve been a business leader for for 30 years and started this company 17 years ago. And, you know, I struggled to think of anything to, to compare it to. I would say that, I guess if I spoke to another CEO and they were thinking about doing this, I would tell them that not, not to get too caught up in whatever the cost the monetary cost of the program is because the dividends that it pays are immeasurable. So, I mean, as CEO as we think of, you know, investment in return, right? And so it’s gonna cost x what’s my return gonna be? And the return here is, you know, some of it’s tough to quantify it is immeasurable, but it’s it’s huge. And it’s real. And the, the, the loyalty and sort of, the, the love that we feel for our employees and for what we’re doing is just so palpable. It’s there’s, I’ve never seen anything like it in any company I’ve worked for, it’s certainly in the company that the company that I’m running right now. So I would highly recommend it.”
Coach Justin: “I really appreciate that. And obviously I had a had a pleasure being able to, you know, to do that with your company and and and have that opportunity there and I, you know, I told you since here that I had an opportunity to like, do that again. And so now I’m I’m that’s kind of part of this podcast today, you know, I’m like sitting here thinking to myself like, why did I never really think about this before? And chris kind of sparked this, this idea here for me. And now I’m like, man, I think that this is like a phenomenal, you know, business model, you know, to be able to go and help other companies and and really be able to, you know, get that, that health pillar, if you will a big priority and and every company’s life, because I think if we can do that, we make our employees healthier for one 100% going to improve everything else in business that you’re looking to achieve there.”
Chris: “So yeah, you know, I started off thinking, okay, well sort of allocate, you know, an investment here, we’ll give it a try and I’ll pay for one on one coaching for 10 folks and then there was, okay, how do we choose who the 10 r is it the first ones to sign up or commit? And then that was gonna inevitably people are going to be left out, so we’re turning your names and then we’ll choose, well, sort of randomly choose from everybody who turned in and who said they wanted it. And, and then I, I like folks were so interested and it was already feeling so powerful. It just did not seem right to tell anybody sorry, you didn’t get one of the slots. And that’s why we ended up with 51 or 52 people doing it and started off saying we’ll do it for 10 and decided not to, not to turn anybody down who’s willing to step up and make the commitment and so, and I’m glad I’m so glad we did.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, that’s awesome man. Well, chris, I know you’re a busy, busy guy and you gotta help on another zoom call here soon So hey, I just want to thank you for, for taking the time again and I really appreciate, you know, obviously the opportunity to work with you over the years and the opportunity to work with your company and, you know, hopefully in the future we’ll be able to kind of do something again there. but yeah, everybody listening out here today, hopefully this was valuable for you Hopefully who knows if I ever get another ceo on the podcast listener, maybe that will spark something.”
Chris: “Absolutely. I mean, I had the, I had the idea you did you did all the work, but in the process. I think you made like you made me look good, you made my company look good. You sort of made my employees look good feel good and so you know, huge, huge debt of gratitude for you to you. So thank you. It’s a win win win for everybody. Right? That’s the best partnerships Right?”
Coach Justin: “Absolutely. Thank you man. I love it. Absolutely Thanks chris.