A great article from Salesforce Vice President Frank Perkins in our San Francisco office.

“I have three kids — all boys. About five years ago I decided to place physical fitness at the top of my priority list. I want to do everything I could with my boys for as long as I could. As a dad, it seemed like one of the smartest things I could do.

Flying back from one of my East Coast sales calls, I read in a fitness magazine about “one of the top personal trainers in the country,” Billy Polson. He owned his own fitness performance facility in San Francisco called DIAKADI (which I later learned stands for “Do It All and Kick Ass Doin’ It”). I called him when I landed:  

‘Billy, I don’t need motivation, I just want to outsource the whole planning part. There’s so much conflicting info out there. I will tell you what I want: strength, flexibility, the deepest of sleep, and a program that’s doable given the other demands on my time. Then I’ll just do whatever you tell me to do to get there, cool?’ 

Billy was all in.

So I gave a chunk of my money — but more importantly, my trust — to Billy. (I’ve since learned that becoming experienced and comfortable with the cliff-jump moment of handing over your trust and your money to a professional is a skill that’s unavoidable for real success). Customers may experience this discomfort when working with a new sales rep.

Billy’s process involved an intake methodology that I can only describe as exhaustive — and inspiring. Of course he gathered my basic stats like age, height, weight, body fat percentage, and so on. But he also asked questions like: How well do you sleep? What do you usually eat? Which foods work for you and which don’t? When do you feel stress? On what days and at what times of those days do you feel stress? How do you relieve that stress? Tell me about the demands on your schedule right now. What do you do for fun?”

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