Bootcamp Ideas Annual Review 2014

In June 2013, while having a shower, I had a crazy idea which would manifest in this year being by far the most eventful year of my life.

However, until I actually sat down to write this post I found myself thinking, ‘I haven’t done a lot this year.’

That is why it’s so important to do these kinds of annual reviews.

As humans we vastly overestimate what we can do in a short period of time – like a day – and greatly underestimate what we can achieve over a long period of time – like 4 or 5 years.

I’m a big sucker to this. I’ll have one unproductive day and get down on myself that I’m such a slacker which usually leads to binge watching The Office.

Or I’ll try and write an entire book in a day and get upset with myself when I can’t but don’t realise that if I wrote a little bit everyday for a year I could get several books done!

So I’d like to share with you some of my successes and failures – actually lets call them lessons – that went on in my life this year. I’ll split them between personal and Bootcamp Ideas so you can just skip the personal stuff if you like.

Personal

Successes

(FYI, that crazy shower idea was to marry Zoe and move to the US for a few years. I did it.)

• Married the love of my life witnessed by 130 friends and family at our festival style wedding.
• Sold and gave away all but a suitcase and a couple of boxes worth of possessions and left for the US.
• Took the long way to the US via the UK and 3 months of travel.
• Settled in the beautiful and inspiring Portland, Oregon.
• Fulfilled a long time dream of attending the World Domination Summit.
• Visited 8 major cities.
• Met and enjoyed time with several people I have admired for some time like Steve Kamb, Amy Clover, Jonathan Fields, Corbett Barr and Chase Reeves.

Lessons

• I keep trying to create the perfect work day and inevitably end up failing because stuff comes up or I don’t get enough done in my work periods so that bleeds into work out or reading time. This usually results in a blow out day of unproductivity. Kind of like trying to stick to a ridiculous diet hey? Definitely a lesson there.
• I’ve wanted to take up singing lessons again for the past couple of months. I haven’t even researched local voice coaches yet.
• I’m beginning to miss coaching people. I’d like to start running some bootcamp or small group PT again. More about this below.

Bootcamp Ideas

Successes

• Left personal training and bootcamps (for now) to travel and run Bootcamp Ideas full time.
• Launched two new books:
  • The Little Bootcamp Book of Tyres and Ropes – the first (and only that I know of) book about using car and truck tyres and battling ropes at your bootcamp. I did two new things with this book, I wanted it to be a comprehensive guide on one topic, which it is AND I also wanted to be able to keep adding my ideas and readers ideas to it after it was publishing which I have done via a live webpage that is updated periodically.
  • Starting a Bootcamp Business – this was a passion piece for trainers to get started with their bootcamp. I actually wrote this in a week, once I started it just started flowing. This was a good piece for me to realise how much I have actually learnt about running a bootcamp from my own experiences and also from talking to all of you. I made it Pay What You Want because I didn’t want money getting in the way of you getting this information. I had really great feedback on this book. It’s been downloaded 439 times.
• I did a massive update to The Little Bootcamp Book of Workouts and tried two new things:
  • I implemented different package options, something I learnt about while running and selling bootcamp, which was really successful. I’d like to write about this and share it with you all.
  • A video introduction – which I realise needs work – but I was really happy with for my first attempt at using video. Fun fact: My phone was propped on top of a coffee machine and I am kneeling on one of the dining chairs to get the height and lighting just right.
• 2,500+ trainers joined the community and now receive weekly workout ideas. This brings us to a total of 8,700 trainers.
• Published 49 new workouts and drills including many shared by readers. Thank you to all who shared their work.
• Customised and launched a brand new website and logo. I got really fantastic feedback on this but I must admit I miss the simplicity of just a blog format.
• I ran three live workshops. One in Sydney in March with Garry Robinson, another in London with the help of local trainer Stephanie Henderson and a third in Melbourne in November. While these workshops always take a huge amount of work, I do really enjoying seeing them come to life and have plans to do a lot more next year.

Lessons

• All of the book launches this year were good, as well as continuing sales, however I haven’t had an amazing reception on one of my books yet which makes me feel like I still haven’t quite worked out how to help you the best. I’d like to keep working on this.
• As part of the Workouts launch I decided to create a huge exercise library on Bootcamp Ideas. This is taking way longer then I thought (but is still coming). I’m still glad I included it though because now I’m committed to finishing it.
• My friend Anne and I did a ton of work creating a membership program for helping with the business side of bootcamps. However over time it kept evolving into a bigger and bigger project and in the end I had to pull the plug on it so that I could complete other projects that I wanted to do like the Tour next year and updating Workouts.
• Anne and I looked at starting a second location for her bootcamp, I would run the sessions allowing me to keep my training skills sharp. However, travel plans got in the way and we had to postpone it twice. It’s still on the cards for Spring next year (which will be an excellent time to expand anyway). In the mean time I’m hoping to train some people I’ve met here in my garage in exchange for their services (design, coaching, etc).

What a huge year – I need a break

When I look back at what happened this year, I find it hard to believe that I fit it all into one year. It’s also made me realise that the reason I have been having a lot of off days lately is because I need to take a break.

A special few of you know this, but I want to share it with the rest of you. Zoe is actually back in Australia right now while we organise the next step of her Visa. Due to bad timing with flights we will be spending the holiday season and both of our birthdays apart.

So I’m taking the rest of the year off so I can focus on spending time with friends and step back to look at what 2015 might bring.

That means no more posts on the website but you may still see stuff from me on the Facebook page and get the occasional email. I’m sure the Facebook group will continue to kick butt too.

I already have big stuff planned for you next year (which I’ll tell you a little bit about in a moment).

What’s coming in 2015?

I don’t like to do a lot of yearly planning, life throws too many curve balls and most of it gets thrown out by new data that comes in.

Still, here are a couple of projects that I am already working on that you will see come to life in 2015.

The Trainers Tribe

For a while now I have been wanting to separate the business of bootcamps and the workouts of bootcamps into two separate websites.

I know that a very large number of Bootcamp Ideas readers just come here for the new ideas and are happy with how their bootcamps are running.

So I want to create a separate place for those who want to learn more about the business and mindset side of running your on business. Specifically for those running a bootcamp style business.

I’ve set up a little page with a bit more info on it, if you are interested check it out The Trainers Tribe.

Bootcamp Tour

If feels like every year I talk about going on tour and then it ends up being smaller than I imagined.

Well I’m going to keep announcing it because every year it gets a little bit bigger, I get better at organizing them and I get to a few more cities.

For 2015 Garry and I have put together a full day course that we want to bring to you face to face. We only do these in person because face to face training is so much more effective, enjoyable and needed in our online driven society.

Dates for Australia and New Zealand will be announced soon with US and other dates coming later next year and we lock down locations. New Zealand will be late Feb 2015 and Australia will be throughout March.

Personally I’m hoping to reach Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Portland, San Diego, somewhere in Texas, Atlanta (Georgia), Toronto and London so if you are from one of those cities, let me know in the comments below so we can start getting to know one another.

Conclusion

There is another project I’d like to start working on which I’m hoping The Trainers Tribe and the Tour will help me get a good foundation for. I’m not going to say anything else for now other then it will be an incredible resource for you if it comes out the way I want it to.

Now it’s your turn, take a couple of hours today and look back on what you have actually accomplished this year.

Did your bootcamp grow or shrink?

What new things did you try to expand your bootcamp? Did they work?

How did you show your clients how much you love them?

Check your personal life too. Maybe you didn’t have a lot of business successes because you were kicking ass so hard in your personal life.

Kyle Wood

Kyle Wood created Bootcamp Ideas in 2010 when he was hunting around on the internet for workout ideas. He ran a successful bootcamp in Victoria, Australia and spends his spare time managing this site, adventuring (or lazying) with his wife and find new ways to make bootcamps even better.