Reconnecting on Allentown and the Lehigh Valley, Triathlons, Brand Authenticity, and More:

Kyle is an executive specializing in crafting outstanding experiences for global brands. A former magazine editor, he also spent a bunch of his career with a focus on the fashion, outdoor, and sports industries through the e-commerce and digital lens for brands such as Nike, Dr. Martens, KEEN, Lululemon, PowerBar, Ariat, Chrome Industries, Nuun, and others. Kyle’s unique blend of design, branding, and digital best practices lends itself to creating and leading some of the foremost brands.

Quote: “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” — Billy Graham

A bold, charismatic speaker, with a penchant for hitting brand’s sweet spots, he brings his experience to any size group or audience on the topics relating to online or digital business growth, e-commerce trends and tactics, A/B testing, branding, positioning, and design.

Kyle is currently focusing on digital trends online, the future state of retail in a post-pandemic world, the complexity of global brand expansion, and branding post-pandemic.

Today’s Guest & Resource Links:

• Web: thebrandleader.com
• Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleduford/
• Instagram: @thebrandleader, @yeahthatkyle

Watch us on YouTube:

• https://youtu.be/fxRHI5XpxfU

Timestamped Show Notes:

00:30 – Introduction

11:00 – I used to ride my mom’s Bianchi. For years, I would steal it, she would know it. It was a little bit bigger than me, so I kind of grew into it. We actually moved to Burnsville way up through 309. We’re just a little bit outside the Parkland School District, but I refuse to go to Northwestern High School is a different district. So I would ride my bike almost every day to train for wrestling from Burnsville down the back way through down to the old Parkland High School, which is Orefield, and it was just a fantastic ride.

21:30 – I wanted to write for Outside, Men’s Health, and Men’s Journal which are the ones we talked about. Yeah, they just wouldn’t have me. They’re like, hey, nice job, kid. Here’s a lollipop go read our magazine somewhere else. I was like, well I think I’m a good writer. I think I can handle this and they wouldn’t even give me the time of day. So I did my first Triathlon in the fall of 1999. I did the Catalina Island Triathlon off the coast of Los Angeles. I had lost 100 and change pounds to do my first race. I was miserablfe. I was unhappy. So I gained all this weight, a long story, but I ended up losing it all. Because I was training for triathlons. I didn’t know I was just running and my knees couldn’t sustain me because I was too heavy. So I started biking like I used to, and then, long story short, I’m cycling and swimming and running and someone said you should do a triathlon. I said, okay and I signed up for one in November of 1999.

30:00 – I think clydesdale calss was never closer, I think it was 200 lbs. But regardless, you’re talking about whether they were fantastic triathletes or not, they were still athletes, and they’re still out there doing it. I don’t care how big you are, or if you’re like, quote, in shape or out of shape. You have significantly different needs at that size. I mean, just the square inches of pound pressure you put on your feet as you run is just substantially different. So we would talk about things for them, we were the first. There was a woman out of California, her name is Rachel Sears, she was a semi pro athlete, she married a guy named Phil Cosanta. These are names I haven’t heard of in years, who was a coach out there. She convinced me that there was a mechanisation in any kind of training called periodization. That is how you peak when you peak, how you put baseballs and so forth, and how you get ready for a race. It’s this series of weeks to train for a race. So she wrote an article on what periodization was all about, how do women stay at their top performance if they’re on their period. We’re talking people were telling me don’t print that article and she was telling me you need to print this article. I’ll tell you I’ve never received before, since, and I worked for other magazines after this, so many positive reviews. Specifically from women stating that no one ever told them about this stuff. So I think we were really groundbreaking in many ways. I wish I would have known then that we were so so forthright and so innovative, because I think we could have capitalized on it could have been more successful.

38:50 – I’m completely online and virtual. So I do have a couple of virtual people that I outsource to stuff like that. I don’t have full blown like, teenagers who you’re talking about, but I agree with you 110% that you cannot find the same psychological connectivity virtually, that you do physically. Obviously, I want people to be healthy and safe and whatever your position is on COVID and all this transition, but it’s like in the end, especially an agency like you guys, I can’t be that dude, that’d be in the office.

46:00 – What’s interesting, too, is now everything is virtual. You can even do, you know this, but now you can have whiteboard sessions and collaborations. Just yesterday, somebody was like, we don’t know if we should do this or not, you know, full rebrand. I’m like, why don’t we just have a conversation? He’s like, well, I got people in Orlando, and I’m in Arizona, and now the people in Maine. So we don’t just get on a, we’ll have a whiteboard session online, we can draw on each of the screens. We can post things, they’re like, what, you can do that? I’m like, well, first of all, we have been for the last year, but secondly, the whiteboard thing is new to us. But it’s been really fun learning new things.

59:30 – Final Words Shown Below…

Our Final Words of the Show:

My wife, she’s very loyal and she is also about justice. She’s very straight with me and she very much sees my frailties and my weaknesses. But she also embraces me for them and loves my strengths. When I’m in a situation like that, when I’m nervous, when I don’t want to do something, and I’m like, gosh, I’m feeling vulnerable. She’s the first one to say, Yeah, but that’s when you need to go. That’s when you’ll learn the most and you’ll give the most. I wish I had that skill set. When I was younger, I wish I had that skill set working for other people. Because had I been a little bit more receptive, a little bit more patient, a little bit more humble, I could have been a lot more effective as a man than I was at that time.

Positive Actions:

My New Book is LIVE! Go get “So You Want To Be A Hotshot”!

https://amzn.to/3tnCIcT

Please don’t forget a positive book review after your purchase too. The Kindle and Paperback are up and the Audiobook book version for Audible is coming soon!

Help us reach more listeners with a 5-Star Review on iTunes and Submit a Review

Please consider supporting our 501c-3 non-profit and visit http://fuelfoundations.org

Join our private Facebook community The FUEL UP Mindset

Need brand growth?! Visit us at FuelUpMarketing.com

The post Leading Brands, Triathlons, Allentown, and Authenticity with Kyle Duford appeared first on LIVETHEFUEL.

Listen in to learn the Future of Functional Fitness and the new Collegiate Championship, USAFF event:

What is the USAFF:

USA Functional Fitness (USAFF) is the national governing body for competitive functional fitness in the United States of America.

USAFF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and grow the functional fitness as a competitive sport in the U.S. We are an official member of the International Functional Fitness Federation.

It is our responsibility to create rules, standards, and guidelines for governing competitive functional fitness in the U.S. Our mission is to create competitive opportunities for athletes of all ages and ability levels. We are focused on enhancing the competitive experience for the athletes, judges, coaches, and spectators. Through the Online Qualifier and the National Championships, we assemble the functional fitness national team that represents the United States in sanctioned international competitions.

Who is F13 Performance:

F13 Performance is an all-inclusive Functional Fitness Facility. It does not matter your current level of fitness or what your goals are we have programming, classes, coaches, and nutritionist that can help you become your best version of you. We have everything from Kids CrossFit to National Level Competitors and everything in between. We believe everyone starts somewhere, all that matters is you START, and everyday move one step closer to your goals. Adaptive athletes, stay at home moms, high school and collegiate athletes, couch potatoes and professional athletes all come through the doors of F13, now it’s YOUR turn!

We follow the methodology of constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity to give our members the best part of their day, every day.

Our programming follows the diversified modalities of Functional Fitness, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, accuracy, muscular resistance, cardiorespiratory resistance, agility, and balance. Our in house written strength and conditioning program is unrivaled in its diversity of drills, modalities, tools, and results.

Top 3 Hot Point Takeaways:

1. What is the USAFF
2. What truly is Functional Fitness
3. The New Collegiate Championship Event

Today’s Resource Links from the Podcast:

• first13athletics.com
• facebook.com/f13performance
• instagram.com/f13_performance

Collegiate Championship Event on Facebook:

facebook.com/events/2571971889747462

Collegiate Championship Event on Competition Corner:

https://competitioncorner.net/events/3482?fbclid=IwAR1I7QL-IfXhwwgKksiTo–yXvAPhhC4siIMBl1ZO2pNNc2fZ6VHcoqu4JY

Our Mentioned Influencers:

• usafunctionalfitness.org
• crossfit.com

Timestamped Show Notes:

00:30: Introduction

10:00: Coach Matt Beckwith, I come off a 20-year career coaching swimming at the collegiate and club level for United States Swimming. I got to work with a lot of really great kids, athletes, and other coaches. I still stay in the community a little bit but more on the strength and conditioning side.

20:00: Coach Rob Eschbach, If we don’t meet those athletes where they are, then it will be difficult for them. You can’t walk into a competitive performance environment with goals of carrying laundry up steps. Now those goals just don’t lie. So we’re trying to align the client’s goal with their programming.

30:00: I say to this day, I’ve never slept so well in my life as I when I slept in Arizona, and it was not a nice hotel. It was just your brain was shot, I was so fried. I think we were in mid-conversation during a basketball game, I woke up the next day, I have no idea what happened. I know I fell asleep and I woke up. I just passed out just because my brain was so fried and full of knowledge from the last three days of coursework.

40:00: I worked officiating and governing body type activities within the Mid-Atlantic Swimming and USA Swimming, as far as the structure of the organization goes. When I heard about the USAFF, USA Functional Fitness, it was something that I thought was cool. Their goals are in place to see Functional Fitness as an Olympic sport in 2028.

50:00: If we’re talking about functional fitness, we’re talking about programming and methodology that is more natural. This is important when looking at what’s next after your competitive career is over. We have talked about having a finite number of competitions left in my game. I know Matt the same thing. But this doesn’t mean you stop, functional fitness is functional. It is health and wellness. That’s the overarching goal of what we do. These kids want to know, they’re gonna bust their butts and compete at the national level or international level for however long the duration of their career is. But this should be something when they’re done competing that they can continue.

01:01:50: Final Words

Our Final Words of the Show:

Coach Matt Beckwith: I love working with people and seeing them grow. So that’s why I’m here.

Coach Rob Eschbach:

I’ve always liked helping people. Not everybody has someone to help them through life, has a mentor, leader, coach, or a trainer to help guide them. So someone needs it. I want to be here for them. It doesn’t matter where they are or where they need it.

Action Steps:

Support our 501c-3 non-profit and visit http://fuelfoundations.org

Help us reach more people with 5 Star Reviews, visit iTunes and Submit a Review

Join our private Facebook community The FUEL Tank, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheFUELTank/

Watch us on YouTube:

The post Future of Functional Fitness Collegiate Championship USAFF appeared first on LIVETHEFUEL.

Scheduling Virtually:

On this episode of LIVETHEFUEL, we bring you a great example of taking a side hustle full time. Discovering a scheduling pain point while working on a web design for clients, Gavin Zuchlinski created Acuity Scheduling a by-product of working on his side hustle.

On This Episode You Will Hear:

• [spp-timestamp time=”07:42″] Scheduling out your day to reduce the clutter in your lifestyle and to add structure to your life.
• [spp-timestamp time=”10:24″] Managing multiple calendars through Acuity. The goal for Acuity is for people who’s day revolves around scheduling appointments, can just sit back and allow Acuity take care of it so they can just focus on the clients.
• [spp-timestamp time=”13:38″] Calendars are important because it gives you a platform, a system and a tool to start given you some structure.
• [spp-timestamp time=”17:08″] Integrations and hooking up with Zero
• [spp-timestamp time=”20:26″] Removing complexity. Building the right team members at the right time. The best asset you have is time.
• [spp-timestamp time=”25:51″] Have patience and not trying to grow too quickly. Gavin grew Acuity from a part time hustle to what it is today.
• [spp-timestamp time=”27:30″] Saying Yes. When you are saying Yes to something you are saying No to something else.
• [spp-timestamp time=”30:29″] Acuity Scheduling Pricing Page.
• [spp-timestamp time=”32:01″] Do you need to recreate the wheel or just integrate with what already works
• [spp-timestamp time=”33:52″] The platforms we use can change like Facebook, Google, WordPress or even SEO, the one thing we can control is growing our email list and growing our captive audience. Have systems that talk together
• [spp-timestamp time=”35:44″] Leaving a Government job to grow Acuity full time and where the original idea came from.
• [spp-timestamp time=”38:48″] Your time is something that cannot be replaced
• [spp-timestamp time=”41:37″] Growing a lean virtual team to suit your lifestyle
• [spp-timestamp time=”44:35″] Employee happiness
• [spp-timestamp time=”48:22″] Final Words

[spp-tweet tweet=”The best asset you have is time @AcuitySchedulin on LIVETHEFUEL”]

Links and Resources

• AcuityScheduling.com
• https://acuityscheduling.com/livethefuel An extended 45-day trial (instead of 14 days).
• Profit First
• E-Myth Revisited
• Quickbooks
• Xero
• Freshbooks
• Medium.com
• Aweber.com
• Mailchimp.com

People Mentioned

• Michael O’Neal
• Mike Michalowicz
• Chris Mulvaney

Final Words

Acuity Scheduling main focus is to help you offer and manage appointments online so you can spend more time focusing on what you truly love in life and which you are best at and leave all the other rigmarole and drudgery of appointments to us at Acuity. Whatever time spend and whatever time you end up saving because of Acuity you can spend more time enjoying life.

Feel free to reach out to Gavin via support@acuityscheduling.com

https://acuityscheduling.com/livethefuel that will give people an extended 45-day trial (instead of 14 days).

Action Steps

• Please Submit an iTunes Show Rating & Review, we need more reviews to increase our ranking and appearance. We love 5 Stars!
• Join THE FUEL TANK our community on Facebook! – “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ~ Quote by Jim Rohn
• Be sure to check out our Resources and a reminder to “Keep Living The Fired Up Epic Life everyone!” #livethefuel

The post 041: Acuity Scheduling & Time Management appeared first on LIVETHEFUEL.

CoreFit teaches us patience:

I love to go out and meet with my co-host’s live and in person. Today I am at a local chiropractor office here in Allentown, Pennsylvania. We are meeting with a newly independent entrepreneur and chiropractor here in 2016. A husband of an old friend of mine as well, it’s a small world. Today lets welcome Dr. Mark Walter of CoreFit Chiropractic to the LIVETHEFUEL Show.

This episode with Dr. Mark is about reprogramming you. We all look for the quick and easy solutions. A pill won’t solve everything.

On This Episode You Will Hear:

• [spp-timestamp time=”1:48″] Where Mark is now and his background journey to getting there
• [spp-timestamp time=”5:24″] Hotshots and Smoke Jumper Firefighters
• [spp-timestamp time=”8:51″] Dislocating a rib – Transverse Process
• [spp-timestamp time=”12:40″] Including Chiropractic as a pain management method and moving away from the “Alternative” stigma the field had been labeled in
• [spp-timestamp time=”16:44 “] Addiction – “If you are a hammer, all you are going to see is nails”
• [spp-timestamp time=”18:26″] You are what you eat
• [spp-timestamp time=”20:47″] With standard MD education you would be lucky to receive two hours of education on nutrition. We have been marketed to, that you will find the answer to everything through a pill.
• [spp-timestamp time=”23:23″] DC – Doctor of Chiropractic, DO – Doctor of Osteopathic
• [spp-timestamp time=”26:26″] We all look for a quick easy solution. We have to look whats going on dietary, one of the biggest problems we have is to do with inflammation.
• [spp-timestamp time=”29:05″] Inflammation is like a fire going on inside of your body. How healthy are you to put that fire out?
• [spp-timestamp time=”30:10″] What an adjustment is vs a mobilization is
• [spp-timestamp time=”32:24″] The Balance Equation
• [spp-timestamp time=”34:06″] Saying “I want to Quit Something” or “Lose Something”, is setting you up for immediate failure. This creates a physiological reaction and a feeling of loss. Use words like, “Replace” and “Get rid of”.
• [spp-timestamp time=”38:51″] People just don’t realize how unbalanced they really are
• [spp-timestamp time=”41:23″] It’s a lifestyle and a journey not a destination
• [spp-timestamp time=”46:10″] Listen to you body, know what your strengths and weaknesses are and know when to cut back. A lot of people don’t do enough mobility work, stretching etc
• [spp-timestamp time=”48:05″] Neuromuscular control, swimming and gymnastics – Reprogramming your software
• [spp-timestamp time=”52:31″] Final Words

[spp-tweet tweet=”It’s a lifestyle and a journey, not a destination – Dr. Mark Walter on EP016 of LIVETHEFUEL – livethefuel.com/016″]

Links and Resources for CoreFit

• CoreFit Chiropractic website
• CoreFit Chiropractic on Facebook
• Transverse Process

Final Words

Patience

Paradigm patience. First off the paradigm needs to be shifted, then have patience with it. People want that instantaneous fix. Nothing is instantaneous.

Action Steps

• Thank you for listening, please take a few minutes to Submit an iTunes Show Rating & Review, we love 5 Stars!
• Join THE FUEL TANK community on Facebook! – “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” ~ Quote by Jim Rohn
• Follow us on all of social media @LIVETHEFUEL – “Keep Living The Fired Up Epic Life” everyone! #livethefuel

The post 016: CoreFit Chiropractic with Dr. Mark Walter appeared first on LIVETHEFUEL.