August 1st 2019 marked the launch of The Path to Happiness season 2!!
Following on from the success seen by all 25 of participants in the first season (launched in February), the time has come to allow 25 new participants into this transformative program.
In a moment, I am going to give you a guided tour of the program but before I do that, I want to show you why this program is so different from your usual online programs.
Let me tell you a little story…..
Many years ago when I first qualified as a nutritionist, my girlfriend at the time decided she wanted to lose some weight and needed some help.
“Great!” I thought. Expecting to fully use here as a test subject for my own program that I had just created.
Yet I was left disappointed and shocked to find out she had instead paid Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) £200 for a 12 week program!!
For the purpose of keeping this blog flowing, I am going to skim over just how disappointed I was with her for that decision!
Anyway, once I had thought back to what my dad used to say to me ‘don’t teach your own family members how to drive. It causes problems!’
I kind of understood her reasoning of not wanting to work with me and accepted her decision.
What you have to remember here is that at this time, Joe Wicks was a bit of a Facebook star. He wasn’t the household name he is now. He hadn’t made any recipe books to sell on the high street, there had been no Celebrity Juice guest appearances and no 4 page pull outs in The Sun newspaper.
He was just a very good looking guy who made funky recipe videos on social media.
Oh, and he had a weight loss program that was selling very well for £200 a pop.
The format of the program was, as it always should be, very simple.
You were given a 4 week plan that included recipes, diet plans, calorie goals and at home HIIT workouts.
Only when you had worked through the first 4 weeks and submitted ‘before and after’ pictures back to your coach (I might add that your ‘coach’ is not Joe Wickes. It is a run of the mill PT who supplies you with the most basic info. You will never meet or correspond with Joe Wickes) do you get sent your second 4 week plan.
Which was much the same format except the HIIT workouts had been replaced with gym workouts and weight training plans.
So I asked my girlfriend if I could look at the program. I was being nosey and wanted to compare it to my offering. After all, I was fairly new to the online program world and wanted to see how successful people were doing it.
Now, just before I move on…..
I am in no way here to criticise the body coach.
I am not jealous of him, nor do I need or want his level of financial reward.
His program is working well for him and I wish him every success.
I am only using him as an example as I have seen his program first hand and he is a very good example of the modern online diet program and marketing strategy that I believe sucks us into this modern diet merry-go-round.
So, back to it….
We both have different business models and that is fine, but I want to clarify something for you about why I believe Joe’s type of program is not right for you.
As I said, I am not criticising the Body coach himself, more so the modern Facebook and Instagram beach body perfect programs.
Those programs that spend £1000’s on marketing and research to tap into your subconscious mind and trigger all your pain points and then once you buy in – you never hear from them again!
Coaches who use their body to sell you into believing that you too can cook your breakfast whilst looking all toned and tanned in your bikini (because after all, we all make breakfast in our bikini with the kids flying around under our feet, don’t we?!)
Anyway, let’s get back to the body coaches program (now you know I don’t hate him!)
Content of both our programs were very similar at this stage. We both focused on weight loss, we both talked about calories and we both recommended HIIT workouts as the best form of exercise for a weight loss plan.
The biggest differences were the cost and the layout.
Mr Wicks’ program was a straight 100 page document that contained all the info (and probably a bit more) that you needed for this type of calorie restrictive plan. It contained all the recipes and workouts you needed to see progress.
Yet it was just information.
I could have read all that on google.
The recipes did not even have accompanying pictures, just the ingredients and method (unlike his numerous glossy recipe books that he sells nowadays)
I felt very disappointed in his offering given the hype that it was receiving on social media.
Then I decided to look into the financial gain for Joe from the program.
If the numbers claimed on his website were true at the time, he had made £millions from this one program alone.
This meant 1000’s of people going through the program.
Yet I was surprised when I looked on social media that I would see only the same 10-12 ‘before and after’ testimonials.
Surely that can’t be right for so many participants?
This is what changed my programs moving forward
After 4 weeks, I got my answer and the answer that changed all of my upcoming programs and has led to the success of my own Path to Happiness program – Thanks Joe!! 😄
My girlfriend never got to week 5. She never submitted her before and after pictures to her ‘coach’ and therefore, that is where her program ended.
£200 for a 4 week program.
So why did this happen?
Largely, I believe, it was down to the lack of support.
There were other issues too such as the focus being purely on food and exercise.
The Path to Happiness focuses much more on the deeper reasons why you have always struggled to lose weight. It focuses on:
👉 Your mental strength
👉 Reducing your stress levels
👉 Hormone balance
👉 Your lifestyle
👉 Habits
👉 Your environment
👉 Your relationships
👉 Work/life balance
👉 Sleep and so much more!
Add to that, Joe’s recipes were not all that easy to make, some of the HIIT workouts required extra equipment and you had no support or motivation unless you could self-motivate daily.
I remember the first HIIT video I watched which was a battle rope workout. It started with Joe explaining that you could buy some ropes and set them up in your garden for around £100. So now we are at £300 for a 4 week program.
A program that hasn’t worked.
Why is the Path to Happiness different?
I decided that the main element of my programs moving forward would not be a fancy membership area, it wouldn’t be well produced recipe packs or watch along at home workout videos but instead it would be making myself available 7 days a week for my clients.
They wanted and needed support, motivation, questions answered and guidance and I wanted to give them that continued support.
My clients would not be numbers, they would become friends. Friends who I genuinely wanted to help and see succeed.
With some online programs, you are left to your own devices, setting your own schedule and very quickly you can lose direction, focus and motivation but with the Path to Happiness there is clear structure with tasks and content split into months, weeks and days.
So you know on Month 1, Week 2, Day 3, that you need to complete the ‘Setting Goals’ task sheet.
Not only does this give you structure as you work through the program but it also makes it so simple to catch up if you fall behind. It also keeps you accountable to yourself, me and your support group as everything is easily trackable.
It makes it so easy to receive daily support in your own mini community as well as the available daily support from me!
Cost….
It has never been about the money and The Path to Happiness proves this by charging less than half of what other online coach’s charge for similar programs and yet still provides more 1-1 support than any other program available.
“Good health should be available to us all, not just the wealthy”
And when you do join the Path to Happiness, you are placed in a small group of 5-6 like-minded people.
You have your own mini community that can help, guide and support you 24/7.
So, now after explaining what I believe a program needs, I want to show you around the Path to Happiness.
I want to show you that clever marketing, good looks and testimonials (of around 5% of your clients) does not guarantee you success.
It is support, motivation, guidance, love and continued development (over 5 months or more) that brings results.
Oops, did I say that?!
And you might recall earlier that I said I didn’t want my program to be about a fancy membership area, glossy recipe books and at home workout videos?
Well, you get all that too within the program but most importantly it comes along with MY support.
Not a coach you haven’t heard of, but me. Somebody who shows every aspect of his daily life on social media to show you how I truly live a healthy life – not a fabricated image that I am trying to portray to sell products.
You get full access to me throughout your journey to help, support, motivate, guide and inspire you to success.
Let’s have a little look inside the Path to Happiness and if you have any further questions, please just hit reply and ask away……
INSIDE THE PATH TO HAPPINESS
