Ep 247 – How to Spot a Scam Artist

In this episode of Muscles by Brussels Radio, Ben and Dani break down how to spot scam artists in the fitness and wellness space. They discuss common red flags like speaking in absolutes, fear-mongering about foods and training methods, overpromising results, expert creep, manipulative sales tactics, and parasocial marketing.

The conversation also explores the difference between ethical coaching and predatory practices, how to evaluate online content critically, and why nuance, transparency, and accountability matter when choosing who to trust with your health and fitness goals.

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TRANSCRIPT

[Dani]

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Dani.

[Ben]

I’m Ben.

[Dani]

And thank you guys so much for tuning in. I feel like I haven’t done very many of these lately. That’s what I said to Alice the other day, but I don’t remember the last one you and I did together.

Feels like it was forever ago.

[Ben]

Maybe it was the one that we did with my client, Ellie. I feel like that could have been the last one we did together, which was, which to be fair, it was a while ago, so I think it would be nice to do a little catch up. Obviously we talk off camera a lot, but I’d be curious to know.

I know that you’ve been doing like a little kind of cut before the cruise coming up. So how has that been going for you?

[Dani]

You should have seen me last night. I was lying on this couch, like, oh, do I want to keep doing this? I don’t know if I want to keep doing this.

So it was an eight week cut. So it’s not like it’s anything crazy, but it was 12 pounds, which is like pretty aggressive for somebody my size. I’m halfway there, like halfway right at the halfway point.

So very on track. But I am noticing that my performance in the gym, it’s different. It’s different than just like bodybuilding training where you can kind of like kind of mind muscle your way through some final reps.

It’s like this different kind of training. It’s like, no, when you’re done, you’re done. You just stand in the back, bent over, like praying to God for the next couple of minutes to end.

And then I had a day I feel like I’ve cracked a code like applesauce an hour before training, like kind of a lot of applesauce is like, boom. I’ve just hit PRS every time. But that does not work currently with my cut numbers.

So I’m trying to figure it out because I did register for the open. So it’s kind of like kind of my first competition. And that’s right at the end of the month, right before we go on the cruise.

And it’s a worldwide competition. It’s not like you’re going to a competition. And I’m just hoping to place like middle, middle of the pack.

I’ll be very happy with that. But I don’t know if I can do that if I lose another six pounds. So this is me going back and forth and back and forth.

And I also wasn’t like super, super married to the fact that I had to lose 12 pounds because I wanted to. It was just like, I should probably be a little bit leaner for this job that I’m hired to do on the cruise. So it’s hard to be super excited about it.

But I mean, all that said, so far, it’s been very successful, I guess.

[Ben]

It is tricky when you don’t have like something that is a super hard deadline. I mean, it is a hard deadline, but it’s not something where people would really notice if you were six pounds leaner or not. So it’s there’s a lot of self-negotiating that goes on.

I feel that. I think that when you’re kind of self-directed a lot with with your goals, it’s it’s pretty easy to be like, you know, I don’t know how important this is. But I was curious to ask you if there’s any crossroad events that you have improved as you’ve lost a little bit of weight because it’s more like bodyweight dependent?

[Dani]

Not specific. I don’t think that’s why. Certainly, I have improved on a lot of them, but I think it’s just because I’ve been like practicing the techniques like mad, basically, because I’m still new enough where I can make huge improvements on technique.

But it’s like it’s very, very workout dependent. And it really you know, when you’re cutting your kind of food timing, your meal timing matters more anyway. But this is like much more than I’m used to.

So I just have to be very careful about the way I eat. And this is beating up my body much more than bodybuilding certainly ever did. So I have to be very careful to make sure that I’m like recovering properly.

So and I’m really excited about it. And I’m having a lot of fun and really getting better. And I caught my quads like in a mirror the other day.

And I was like, whoa, like something’s happening there. Something is happening that is good. So that’s neat because I wasn’t really sure how that was going to go.

So we’ll see. How about you? How was your snowboarding experience?

[Ben]

Oh, my God. How was my snowboarding experience? It was fun.

It was fun. There was definitely a steep learning curve. So I spent probably less time than I should have, honestly, looking at YouTube videos before I went.

I’m like, oh, you know, how hard can it be to figure it out? I knew it was going to be hard to figure it out, actually, because I had tried to learn skiing like quick backstory. I grew up in New England.

I went to school in Vermont. So pretty much all my friends know ski board a lot. And I didn’t really do that.

My parents did ski, but they didn’t really take us when we were kids, which I understand why it’s probably a nightmare to teach a kid how to ski. Maybe it’s fun for some people, but we just never really did it. We just never really did it growing up.

So I did. I went like on a seventh grade ski trip because I wanted to go with all my friends. And I kind of went in like a beginner group and kind of learned how to do it.

And by the end, I could go on like blues. I maybe even did like one or two blacks. So I was like, you know what?

Snowboarding, I’ve heard, is more difficult than skiing to pick up. But I feel like I have some decent athletic abilities and I can probably get the basics down by the end of the first day, which I did pretty much with no instruction. Like I watched a couple of YouTube videos on how to kind of start and stop, how to move with one foot on your board, just if you’re getting to and from the ski lift and just basic stuff.

So it was a little difficult being with people who had snowboarded a couple of times before or were skiing. So I was with my girlfriend, her mom and then her sister in law. And so they were helping me a little bit along the way and giving me pointers.

But it was mostly trial and error and kind of figuring out, OK, you know, how do I sit on my heels and do a heel stop? How do I, you know, figure out how to go down the mountain, you know, facing forward? OK, now that I can do that, can I try doing a toe turn and a toe stop?

Which that took me actually the largest chunk of the day to figure out. It’s just like going because it’s so counterintuitive. Like you go, you start facing up the heel.

You have been on your heels and now you’re facing up. And now if you don’t do that, you fall on your butt and then you go back to facing the other way and you’re used to what you’re just doing. So it’s you really have to commit to your turns.

And I was having a really hard time with that. So I fell a ton. And we did like a couple of runs on the bunny hill, but I didn’t want to hold them up and they wanted to go, you know, do some other hills.

So I’m like, OK, I’ll do a green, you know, like green. That should be, you know, the easiest one. They’re like, oh, it’s like the bunny hill, but longer.

No, it was not the bunny hill, but longer. I can say that the greens out in Colorado are like the blues and blacks in New England because there are some steep portions there.

[Dani]

Yeah, I mean, you really went like expert mode on your first try. I mean, I guess some people would say like going to Colorado would be better for beginners because the quality of the snow is supposedly better, but probably a lot more intense in terms of the actual hills.

[Ben]

So, yeah, I think that by the end of the day, I had pretty much gotten down the turns and the stopping. Like I could there was a couple of times where I could like sequence together some turns back and forth. And I was like, I could I can do this.

I could have gone down the whole mountain like falling leaf, which is basically like facing forward, going back and forth. I could have done that all day. But I it wouldn’t have been satisfying to me.

Like I wanted to actually try to get down some of the mechanics. By the end of the day, I think I had fallen like a hundred times on my butt primarily, and I couldn’t I could barely walk. I’ll just say that like I wanted to keep wanted to keep going up to the mountain to like do more runs.

And I wanted to go back the next day when my body was wrecked. Like my butt, I could lying down in bed, my butt hurt. And I could barely like roll over.

And I was sore. I was sore very oddly. And my this is a weird muscle, but it’s one of my favorite muscles, the sartorius, and it connects and kind of the inside of your like the long skinny one, right?

Yeah. And then it kind of comes across your hip. And it’s it’s basically if you think about picking, like if you were to look at the bottom of your shoe to see if it had something on it, kind of out in front of you, you’re kind of externally rotating your hip and you’re bringing it up.

That’s basically what the action does. And that muscle was sore for like five days afterwards. And I think it was because all of the basically it’s called like, you know, skiing or gliding you do when you have one foot on the board and you’re dragging, you know, you’re pushing with your other foot.

You’re dragging your other foot.

[Dani]

Well, yeah, yeah. When you’re not actually going down, when you’re like skating around to get places, that’s the worst part, in my opinion, was getting around, getting on the ski lift with it on one foot. My whole leg is internally rotated, just holding on to like 15 pounds.

I was like, this can’t be good. Why can’t I just hold it? Like, why can’t I just take it off and hold it?

That pisses me off more than anything. But I’ve only been a couple of times and I am also not good. And it’s too expensive for me to invest in getting better, I think.

[Ben]

Yes, it is. It is. So it’s probably going to be a once or twice a year kind of thing.

But I’m hoping now that I have the basics next time I go, it’ll be easier to pick up. I’ll fall less. I can do more runs, start to get a little bit better at it.

That’s the hope. But I did have a good time. I did realize that with this and I also had an experience a couple of weeks ago with painting where I realized I really don’t like being bad at things and I get very frustrated very easily and I get very discouraged and down on myself.

So it just gave me some perspective and some context about maybe other things in my life that I tend to be better at and other people struggle with. And I’m like, OK, it’s not really that much different than these other areas. And like, you know, how would I kind of encourage myself in those scenarios?

But it’s hard to get out of your head when you’re like that and not feel kind of down about it.

[Dani]

Also, I have found over the years, like especially when it’s something physical, I feel like this might be hard for other people, but I’m an athlete. So I should be naturally better than average at this. And sometimes that’s true.

Cool, man. Sometimes it is not. And that it feels like almost like a little bit humiliating.

That’s kind of how I feel when I’m running. Like, I hate it so much and I’m so bad at it. And my brain just keeps going.

You should not suck at this as much as you do. You’re a fitness professional, for Christ’s sake. And then it makes the whole experience even worse.

And that’s kind of one of the things I’ve been enjoying about CrossFit is being incredibly mediocre and. And improving from there and being OK with that and not caring. You know, nobody expects me to be any good at anything there.

So I don’t know. I get what you’re saying, because I’m the same way. And I think most people are like that.

If they’re not naturally good at something like on the first or second try, they don’t want to do it. But that’s the only way you’re going to get good at anything. Right.

So it’s tough. It’s tough. But next time you go, we should go together like you and Dana and me and Giacomo, because you and I sound like we’re probably around the same level.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Dani]

And they probably are, too.

[Ben]

So I would agree. Yeah. I think about I think that would be fun.

[Dani]

Yeah. We can both we can both fall and look like little toddlers in the snow 100 yards behind.

[Ben]

There we go. Stay on the nice, comfortable bunny hills.

[Dani]

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So I love this topic we’re talking about today. You came up with this topic and it’s like how to spot a scam artist, assumedly like in the fitness slash wellness space. And it’s one of my favorite topics in the world because I could talk so much shit.

I’m not going to talk shit about anybody in particular, but I do. One of my goals, like as a business owner and a coach who works with many clients is, you know, when by the time our clients are sort of done and graduate and they don’t really need us anymore, one of the things I want is for them to be like as scam proof as possible. Like I want them to be able to spot the bullshit from a mile away so that they don’t get suckered into some other fad diet or something like that.

But I’d love to hear your take on it first.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think it’s important to differentiate what makes somebody unscrossed worthy versus make somebody someone that you can probably consume content from. And you should always think critically about any content that you consume. Just because you’ve enjoyed the content that somebody’s put out in the past or you find yourself agreeing with it, you know, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t fact check things, you know, from people that you like.

You absolutely should. But the the main thing that I was thinking about when I came up with this topic is, you know, we sell coaching. That’s kind of our main thing that we do.

But I think there are better and worse ways of going about it. And, you know, there are certain things that you can look for when you are on social media or you are looking to maybe invest in a coach or you’re just trying to consume content and things to watch out for. And that can be red flags, not always red flags, but you kind of have to look at all these different things that we’re going to talk about.

And the more boxes that somebody is ticking or checking, the more likely it is that you should probably be cautious with them. But the thing that’s difficult about this is oftentimes these people have very charismatic personalities and they have a very certain way of talking and it tends to rope people in. And people can get very big followings off of this and almost develop a kind of cult like following, which is why it can be so tricky if you become one of those people to kind of break out of that and see past it and realize, oh, wow, this person that I have been following maybe isn’t the best source of information.

And sometimes that can be taken to a level where now you actually have a monetary investment in something that person is selling. And that’s where it really starts to become damaging, in my opinion. So just trying to give people the tools to stop that from happening early on in the process rather than later.

[Dani]

What would you say are some like, because you’re right, a lot of this is like it’s not super, super clear all the time. And I think part of it is like somebody can be giving good information about one thing and then terrible information about something else. And it’s like, if you’re not the expert, how do you differentiate between what is good information and what’s not?

Here’s a great example. Actually, one of my clients is like super into Paul Carter. Are you familiar with Paul Carter?

What’s this?

[Ben]

I am.

[Dani]

Lift, lift, run, bang or whatever.

[Ben]

Yeah, lift, run, bang or something. Yeah, it should be lift, run, block everyone. That should be the name.

[Dani]

Yes, exactly. I’ve heard he like blocks people if they like a comment that is like not nice to him or something, just ridiculous. But, you know, Mike, this client, he’ll send me stuff like, hey, check out this post and tell me what you think about it.

And it’s so hard for me because sometimes I’m looking at it and I’m like, OK, like 80 percent of this is really good, like it’s really good information. But like the way the dogmatic way it’s being delivered or I don’t think the man has ever said probably or maybe in his entire life. It’s just like this is the way to do it.

It’s like that is a way to do it. And it’s an OK way to do it. But how is somebody else supposed to know that and sift through this good and bad information?

What are some sort of like immediate red flags for you that you feel like will just knock somebody like out immediately when you find a new person?

[Ben]

Well, I can think of three off the top of my head just from that example that you gave. So the first one is relying on mechanisms over outcomes. That’s something that Paul Carter does a lot.

He talks about, oh, there was this study that showed that, you know, in mice, there was this much more hypertrophy when they did this certain protocol. And, you know, now that means that this is how you should train instead of actually looking on, OK, resistance training studies performed on humans with a large enough sample size, ideally even looking at, you know, meta analyses. Of course, there’s nuance there because even meta analyses can be conducted in a certain way that is designed to to kind of skew the data or, you know, just based on the studies that are chosen with the criteria.

But especially if you are relying overly on physiology versus actual, you know, outcomes in human trials, then then that’s going to be a red flag for me. I’m having difficulty thinking of examples off the top of my head, but this happens with the nutrition a lot. And people will talk about like, OK, this food like raised this kind of factor or something like that independently.

But then you look at it over time, like, you know, this food spikes your insulin or something like that.

[Dani]

But it did something like crazy reaction numbers. But then you look at the study and it’s like in a Petri dish. And you’re like, OK, but how does that translate?

[Ben]

Oh, causing, you know, something increased your cancer risk by 10 percent or something like that, which sounds like a big number. But then it’s like relative risk versus absolute risk. And it’s, you know, it’s in mice in this, you know, they give the artificial sweeteners, they give them some like extremely high dose that would be impossible to actually achieve in humans virtually.

So it’s it’s stuff like that. So that’s first. The first is overly focusing on mechanisms versus outcomes.

The second, which you talked about, is speaking with speaking in absolutes. So not having, you know, not having any nuance saying this is how it always is or this is how it never is. There’s no kind of like this might be.

This is probably the thing that’s difficult is when you start to introduce that language, there’s a fear that your audience is going to view you as not knowing what you’re talking about. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like you’re not you’re not taking a hard stance.

So people like being told what to do. They don’t like having to think for themselves. They don’t like to think critically, which is something that you need to be able to do if you want to not fall into some of these traps.

So that would be a second one is speaking with absolute confidence as if you are, you know, an authority on everything. This ties into the third one is that you are not open to debate or changing your mind about things. The Paul Carter is actually interesting because he changes his mind all the time.

And every time he changes his mind.

[Dani]

That was his opinion the whole time.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[Dani]

He’ll say something that is completely against what he said two years ago, but he will not acknowledge whatsoever that it’s completely different than what he said. He’s like, yeah, duh, this is how it is, obviously. And it’s like, wait, what?

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. And it’s it’s actually a sign of integrity to admit that you were wrong about certain things or that you change. It’s OK to change your mind over time.

It’s OK to be wrong. That’s part of the scientific process is is learning and saying, you know what? This thing that we thought 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, we thought it for these reasons.

Maybe it was based on the available evidence at the time. It was our best guess. But now we can look back and say maybe we were overly confident or we were overly optimistic.

You know, it’s OK to to make mistakes. But I think that’s why it’s good in the first place to be cautious with the with the things that you say. And yet being open to debating people, being respectful in debates, not resorting to ad hominems or blocking people when the first sign of criticism comes up.

If you’re not open to having dialogues, then you’re not open to changing your mind and you’re not open to having a conversation. And so those are some immediate red flags that come to mind.

[Dani]

Yeah, I mean, I think of like Lane Norton, who a lot of people would also say is like a hothead in the community. You know, he gets in the word scuffles with people all the time. And a lot of people don’t like him.

I had a great experience working with him, but I could see why people feel the way that they do. And even he who is like very I’m a Ph.D. I studied this for many, many years, blah, blah, blah. I can think of multiple times that he’s come out and made like YouTube videos like, hey, this is some stuff I’ve changed my mind about over the years or I was wrong about, you know, BCAA consumption or whatever.

We’ve put actually one we we deleted one of our first podcasts that was about reverse dieting and then put out like a new podcast about like, hey, here’s our updated thoughts on reverse dieting, because that’s changed so much from when we started. Someone has to be willing to change their mind. And I get the like frustration from a consumer standpoint or someone who’s trying to learn about these things.

They do want to be told what to do, because you can find somebody in the fitness or wellness space that will say like anything. You can find something to validate whatever thing it is you’re looking for, regardless of what it is. So they just want somebody that they can trust to be like, do this and it will work.

And I understand the want of that, but that’s not really how it works, because everybody is just so different. And there’s a thousand ways to climb the mountain and they all get you to the top. It just depends on what’s the best way for you.

And unfortunately, the way we consume content these days in podcasts, YouTube videos, et cetera, you cannot speak to that one specific person. So I do I feel for people. I think it’s really difficult to sort of wade through.

And sometimes when I’m trying to learn something that’s in a field I am not an expert in, I feel that same way. Like, oh, shut up. Just tell me what to do, because I don’t understand all the nuances you’re trying to say.

So I just need a simple plan to follow. But no one wants to follow the simple plans that we know works. So I guess my next red flag would be if somebody is saying something that’s like too good to be true.

If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. So that’s a big red flag for me.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think if people are over promising or something sounds too good to be true. So, you know, follow this specific protocol and you’re going to be able to, you know, lose 20 pounds in a month or something like that. Or, you know, you just have to eat this food or you just have to do.

I think if anybody is saying, I was actually having a conversation with my girlfriend the other day about this, where it’s like if anybody in really any field is saying, like, just do this and you’ll get this like outcome that seems unbelievable or seems very desirable. It’s almost never as simple as just doing one thing. It’s doing a couple of things pretty well consistently.

That’s usually what mastery looks like in whatever scale you’re trying to get better at. And, you know, fat loss, muscle building is a skill, too, that you have to kind of work on with your processes. So if somebody is telling you that they have some sort of supplement, I mean, that’s a huge one.

Like the supplement industry is is massive. People have been doing it since, you know, the 40s and the 50s. Joe Weider, you know, bodybuilders being like, OK, you know, you just have to take this supplement and you’re going to look like me.

Like that’s a classic example of this going back, you know, 50, 60, 70 years. And it’s still it’s a little bit more subliminal these days where it’s not as overt as people saying, like people know, OK, you know, protein powder isn’t going to make me a Mr. Olympia. But it’s kind of this implicit thing where like your favorite bodybuilders holding their protein powder.

And this is what I use. So people will buy it because they like being like they’re their heroes and they’re their idols. So I’d say that’s another thing to just be cautious of.

Like when somebody is very charismatic and you feel this kind of emotional connection to them and you feel like, wow, they’re like me, they understand me, especially if they’re kind of selling something to just be cautious. You know, that’s that’s an example of a parasocial relationship where they don’t know anything about you, but you feel like you know them personally. And that creates a sort of emotional buy in that is very intentional.

It’s very intentional how people do this. And then off the back of that, they will sell you things. They will sell you.

You know, you’re like me. Hey, buy the supplement, buy my training program. You want to look like me by, you know, train the way that I do.

Then I think it’s just, you know, being able to recognize these things and it’s hard to recognize them.

[Dani]

Yeah. And I mean, as a business owner, like there’s a piece of that that I feel like everybody has to do, like even very integrous people with really good, solid, sound information. You have to kind of hope that the person on the other side likes you and can see a little bit of themselves in you in order for them to trust you.

Trying to figure out where that line is, where someone’s being genuine and not being genuine. That’s that’s super true. That’s really tricky.

I don’t have like a just figure this out, but I mean, always try to ask yourself like, what are they trying to sell you right now? And also, if what they’re trying to sell you changes a lot, that’s something to keep an eye on people that are like jump brands and are sponsored by different brands all the time. But every time it’s like, oh, this is the one I’ve been using forever.

I’ve been using this since even before they sponsored me. It’s like, but I remember you were promoting something else like a month ago. That sort of stuff is a really it’s really good to keep your eye on that, I think.

[Ben]

I think one way that you can kind of tell if somebody is maybe using that, you know, that connection with their audience in a somewhat nefarious way is if they are creating some sort of scarcity like they you need them, you need them in order to to be able to to make progress. So, you know, something that we do is we provide education on our channel. So what we’re doing is basically putting out information.

And when we put out a video, we put out a piece of content. We are demonstrating one that we’re providing value to you, that we, you know, go ahead, apply it, see if it works for you. We’re never like this is the only way to do it.

Going back to some of those earlier points. So if we put out a meal prep video, a recipe video, hey, here’s some way that you can prepare this thing that’s going to help you. Or here’s a way to think about tracking your macros.

Or here’s something to consider when you’re training. And then, you know, we’ll give people the information. But the thing is, the information is not the only thing that you need.

Sometimes people need a little bit more accountability, support. They need somebody to provide that structure for them. So that’s where coaching comes in.

But when we talk about coaching, we’re never like you need to get coaching from us or else you will never get the results that you want. No, you can learn everything, you know, on the Internet and do it yourself. And a lot of people can do that.

But the issue is less so knowing what to do. And it’s more so kind of the more complex, you know, psychological, emotional things that arise. And so, you know, that’s why we offer coaching is for the people who the information alone is not enough for them to go out and apply it on their own, which is a lot of people.

That’s why we offer that service. And that’s why a lot of people get value out of coaching. But we never say, you know, oh, you know, if you don’t get coaching, you’re going to fail.

[Dani]

Yes. Yeah. It’s a you know, it’s a lot of part of what coaching does is it helps remove a lot of trial and error as well, because, yes, all the information is on the Internet.

You can find it. And if you can apply it correctly, you will make great progress. But all of the information in the world is on the Internet.

The good, the bad, the ugly. And if you’re kind of doing one thing after the other, you’re going to have to find a lot of stuff that doesn’t work before you find the stuff that does work. And, you know, even though we all all the coaches here, we all coach clients one on one.

And there are like certain systems and pillars that we all sort of agree on foundational concepts, I guess, you know, every client kind of gets a different treatment. Like sometimes you have kind of types of clients that are in certain branches of directions, but they all have to get something a little bit different because they all need something a little bit different. And that’s really hard to convey in a reel or a YouTube or a podcast.

What all of those different nuances could be. And oh, how do you know which one of these things you actually are? So, yeah, another thing that I was thinking about, you said, like, oh, they’re trying to create like a scarcity.

Right. Another one is any time I feel like someone is trying to make you scared, any time someone’s trying to make you afraid of something, fear monger about a food or a supplement or a tactic, you know, going back to Paul Carter, if you do more than 10 reps like you’re a fool or I think it’s four to eight reps now, whatever. I was trying to explain, like, do you really want to do preacher curls in a four rep range?

Like, you don’t you really, really your elbows going to be snap city. It’s a terrible idea. I digress.

But the idea when I look at like some of his posts is like, if you’re not doing this, you’re leaving gains on the table. You’re not making the progress you could be making. And you should be afraid that you’re wasting your time, basically.

And we see this a ton in food sciences and people trying to be like, if you eat seed oils, you’re full of inflammation. And like I look at that and I’m like, how could anybody possibly believe that? Like, it’s working.

It’s becoming, you know, I just talk to random people out and about and it’s like they mentioned seed oils and I’m like, holy shit, like it’s actually sticking. People are actually becoming afraid of these things. And it’s tricky because there are some things I feel like we should be wary of that exist, but there are some content creators that that is their whole shtick.

It’s like, here’s why this thing you’re eating for breakfast every day is killing you. And it’s like, oh, that’s awful. Anyway, I love your take on that.

[Ben]

I think what it is, is it’s selling people a problem that doesn’t exist. And that’s like another huge red flag. Now, the difficult part is you don’t know if it’s a problem that exists or not when you’re not super educated in a certain field or you don’t know what to look for.

But if it’s something that you’ve like never heard of before and you’re like, really, like that seems that seems crazy that that could be the case. That’s an instinct that you probably want to listen to. If it’s something that seems very extreme, you should cut out all carbohydrates or, you know, this certain food group is, yeah, is killing you.

So any sort of like really thing that’s taken to a level that’s like, well, this everyone eats this, how could this be possible? Because it’s a it’s a simple solution and people like simple solutions. So they’re like, oh, I just have to follow this one rule.

I just don’t do this thing anymore. Again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, when people like to speak in absolutes and oversimplify things. And there’s definitely a fear of missing out, I think, especially with with fitness, like what you were saying.

If somebody is like really invested in putting on as much muscle as possible or getting the best results that they can, they they’re telling someone’s telling them that what they’re doing is wrong. Like you said, they get scared. They’re like, oh, no, like now I have to do this thing that they’re telling me to do.

But then that’s again, that’s kind of a little should be a little indicator to you. Like they’re telling me that what I’m doing is wrong and they have the solution to what I’ve been doing wrong. And they’re going to sell it to me.

Again, that’s kind of like a problem area.

[Dani]

Yeah. Another thing around that same like, oh, if you’re eating this, it’s killing you that you mentioned earlier. But I wanted to mention it because it does come up a lot.

If such and such raises your rate, your risk of cancer by 10 percent, let’s say that’s 10 percent of what your risk was to begin with. That does not mean you now have a 10 percent risk of cancer, because that sounds terrible. Let’s say you had like, I don’t know.

I don’t know what the average cancer risk is. Let’s say you had a 1 percent risk of cancer. That means you now have a one point one percent risk of cancer, which, you know, any increase in a risk is definitely something that you should take into consideration.

But when you see something that says it increases your rate of breast cancer by 50 percent and yours was 1 percent, now it’s one and a half percent. So just just something for people to think about, because it does come up a lot with some people that I talk to.

[Ben]

Yes, that’s that’s absolute relative risk. And people, I’m sure, can, you know, read more about that. But exactly like like you said, something that I did want to come back to is like marketing.

Obviously, as a company that sells products, you know, fitness coaching products, you have to do some marketing and you have to be able to get people to pay attention to what you’re doing. And this is something that I know we kind of go back and forth on a ton is like, how click baity do we try to be? Obviously, you don’t want to be so much so that people come to believe that, OK, whenever I click on something of their content, it says it’s this one thing and it’s always this bait and switch and it’s this other thing.

And it’s, you know, it’s it’s annoying and I don’t want to watch their videos anymore. But if you’re not interesting enough and it doesn’t grab people’s attention, you never get the eyes on your content. You never get people listening.

And so you never get them consuming the information that’s ultimately going to help them. So it’s like, oh, do I kind of use these unsavory methods to ultimately like do something that’s for the greater good? And then like, who am I to say that what I say is the greater good?

Because then everyone uses that to justify their thinking. Then that becomes a problem. I guess that’s kind of like the the route that Lane Norton has taken.

Like, I’m going to make this, you know, these drama kind of videos and posts. But it’s for the greater good of giving people, you know, information. But then he’s kind of almost in a way saying like, you know, I am the arbiter of truth and my information, therefore, is is, you know, the right one and it’s OK for me to use these methods.

But the reality is that everybody does it because it is a landscape that is marked by short form content because people’s attention spans are terrible these days. So you have to kind of draw them in somehow. So it’s there’s nuance in all these like things and all these techniques that people use.

Sometimes it’s used for, you know, bad purposes and sometimes it’s used for like, OK, you kind of just have to play the game to a certain extent. So that was another thing that I was thinking about when I was like conceptualizing this topic and like trying to give people tools to differentiate between what’s good and bad. Like clickbait is annoying, but it isn’t always like something that would be a red flag necessarily of somebody who’s giving bad information.

Like kind of people have to do it.

[Dani]

I think especially in short form content, and this is why I I don’t know about you, but I struggle with short form content so much because you can’t give the complete picture of anything really in short form content other than like stupid little tips. Hey, here’s a tip for weighing your peanut butter. You put it on the scale, you know that you can do.

But if it’s like, hey, here’s a mistake you might be making in your tracking, like that’s really hard to put into 60 seconds. So I get the draw of short form content. I know people are straight up addicted to it fully.

But I would say if you find somebody that you like to follow on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, go see if they have long form content, because that’s where you’re going to find how they actually feel about things. Do they have 30 second Instagram videos that are, you know, kind of clickbaity? But then you go to YouTube and it’s like much more nuanced and interesting and varied, probably a good sign.

If it’s just more of the same, probably not a good sign. So I don’t think anybody should be buying things off of someone’s 30 second reels. Personally, I know that’s not how the world works anymore, but especially when it comes to something as personal as coaching or programming or shit, even like a consult or something like I would say, you got to have more to go off of than even several like one minute videos.

[Ben]

I want to talk about coaching a little bit more. I think that if somebody is looking for a coach, one piece of advice that I would definitely give is talk to clients of that person who have worked with that person. Maybe not necessarily people that they post about as their star clients all the time, because those are going to be the people that obviously got the best results working with them.

But see if you can kind of, you know, find maybe on Reddit, like Reddit’s a really good place to kind of, you know, discover what people think about certain individuals if they’ve worked with them. Try again, try to find people that have worked with that person. I would say, you know, do your research, explore different options for different coaches and see what they offer.

But in terms of like marketing and selling, I would be cautious. And I know that you’ll probably have more insight to this than I would. But, you know, certain things that I’ve heard of before that I feel like can be kind of red flags.

If somebody is really trying to pressure you into like you need to like buy my program or sign up for coaching like ASAP. Sometimes there’s more gentle ways of doing this. Like, hey, I have three spots left in my coaching program.

Even if that’s not true, sometimes you will just make that up to, you know. Sometimes it actually is true. And they have limited spots.

Like you and Giacomo, you have pretty much full rosters and like maybe a spot will open up, but usually don’t advertise that because you’re not trying to necessarily take on more anyways. But, you know, sometimes it is true where people have limited spots and they fill up. But sometimes people will just say that in order to create.

Again, it’s about creating scarcity, creating this like need to do this immediately. You know, if you hop on a call with someone, they say you need to sign up by this time or else the prices are going to go up. Again, probably a little bit of a red flag there.

Again, there’s like fine lines with these things where it’s like sometimes you need to offer a promotion or a deal to somebody to kind of get them to buy in. Another thing that I’ve heard that can probably be a little bit of a red flag is if somebody is asking you what your budget is, like in order for how much you can afford for coaching, and then it seems like they’re kind of going to, you know, charge you what you can afford as opposed to just saying here are our prices and here’s the standard client price, because sometimes people are just trying to take you for as much as they can. I know that that happened to Sawyer, I believe, when he worked with the coach previously, and that person basically tried to just figure out how much Sawyer was willing to spend on coaching and then get the, you know, milk them for as much as they could.

[Dani]

So we kind of do the opposite, actually. So we have like, I don’t know, I guess what you would call some qualifying questions in our application just to get a sense so that we don’t put somebody in a position where we’re offering our one-on-one coaching to somebody that we are 100% sure is not in a position to be able to afford it, because that’s, you know, we’re not trying to make anybody feel bad, we’re not trying to shame anybody. Now, we don’t just assume somebody can’t afford it for any old reason, but sometimes they’ll literally say, like, I’m a student, I don’t have employment right now.

You know, maybe our membership is a better option for that person, but we’ll still talk to them and have the consult and everything like that. So, yeah, anybody saying, what’s your budget? That’s, I don’t like that at all.

Other, like, kind of sales tactics that I’ve heard, and, you know, it’s, I don’t think it’s a secret, but a lot of times when coaching companies do these consult calls, I mean, hopefully the consult call is a real consult call, and you’re walking away with some sort of real strategy of some kind, tips, tricks, whatever, that you can actually implement, hopefully. That’s one of the things we do with our calls, for sure. But there is also, like, and by the way, this is our one-on-one coaching, if we think you’d be a good fit, this is, you know, would you like to work with us?

And there’s, like, you know, a talk about that towards the end of the call. But I’ve seen some people offer strategy calls that, they are just sales calls, that’s all they are is a sales call. And I’ve been on the other side of those calls before with, and I, it’s awful.

You’re just like, shit, I thought I was coming here for a consult of some kind to get some sort of insight into what it is that I’m doing wrong. And now I’m being like hard pressured to drop $10,000 or whatever. And, you know, most people, especially if they’re in a relationship, to drop a large amount of money, most people are going to say, you know, I’m going to have to talk to my husband about this.

I’m going to have to talk to my wife about this. And I’ve heard of a lot of the sales people, I guess, really being like, oh, why do you think your wife wouldn’t want you to do this? Like, why wouldn’t your wife support you in this?

Hmm. Kind of planting these seeds of doubt, like their partner isn’t really supportive of their dreams and goals. And it’s just like, that is so effed up.

But it’s, uh, you know, we’ve, we’ve been taught that in say, in classes that we’ve taken before, and we’re just like, uh, no, I’m not doing that. What a horrible thing to do. So anytime you walk away from like a call, a strategy call, a sales call feeling like, I don’t know, kind of slimy or really pressured, like I would say that’s not good, you know, a little, a little pressure is one thing like, Hey, we’re really good at this.

We can really help you. But Hey, maybe your partner is not actually caring about you as much as you thought, like, whoa, what? Like, I’m sorry.

I’ve known you for 18 minutes. What’s happening? That’s a big red flag.

I think.

[Ben]

One more that just came to mind, uh, it was something that you kind of mentioned at the beginning, but it’s this idea of expert creep. So, you know, somebody is an expert in a certain field and then all of a sudden they start talking about something that’s kind of related. And like you said, a lot of people who are really good at taking people’s money, essentially, they will speak some grains of truth or there’ll be kernels and truth of what they’re talking about.

Uh, but then they’ll, they’ll kind of slowly go down this other path. And it’s very, um, insidious because you don’t even really notice it. But then now all of a sudden they’re talking about this other thing that’s kind of related and they seem like they’re an expert because they’re talking confidently, the example that comes to mind the most with this is, um, I feel medical doctors talking about nutrition, you know, they could be like a, a heart surgeon or something.

Um, and now, or, you know, uh, whatever it is, a foot doctor. And now they’re talking about like nutrition advice, like they’re, you know, an expert and they’ll just put MD in front of everything and people will take that authority and they’ll say, oh, you know, they must know what they’re talking about. They’re a medical doctor.

Um, but the reality is, is that most, uh, medical professionals, they specialize in something. Um, so you’re not gonna be able to be an expert at everything. So really just paying attention to what somebody’s credentials are, you know, what are they, um, specialized in?

Do they have the authority to be talking about these things? And, you know, if they’re saying stuff that seems kind of unbelievable, then again, that’s another sign that, you know what, they might be kind of stepping outside of their realm of expertise. And this can happen with fitness coaches.

Here we go. Here’s another topic. Uh, you know, people who are fitness coaches who start saying they’re, you know, hormone experts, they’re going to fix your gut issues.

They’re going to, you know, that sort of thing because they have some sort of special protocol. They’re basically, you know, they’re playing, uh, they’re playing, uh, uh, just, just, you know, saying that they have the solutions to these things because they, I don’t know, they heard it from somebody else or they, it worked for them or whatever. Again, like just be careful of what somebody is, is telling you to do, especially if you have medical conditions.

A fitness coach is probably not the person you should be working for unless they also have a credential in another field where they can give you that advice. So if you, yeah, if you have chronic conditions and, you know, a fitness coach is the one who’s telling you how to manage those chronic conditions, they might be able to supplement what, what you’re doing with other health professionals that you’re consulting with, but they shouldn’t be your only source of information and telling you exactly what you should be doing.

[Dani]

Yeah. I have a lot of clients that have chronic conditions and I literally start, I will, if I have something to say about it, I’m like, I am not a doctor, maybe ask your doctor this, but have you ever thought about blah, blah, blah. And the whole point is for them to talk to their doctor about it.

Cause like, I maybe have heard that this worked well for somebody else with a similar condition, but I’m not a doctor and I won’t be the one to suggest it. The person that comes to mind as you were talking about that was actually Andrew Huberman pops into my head because he is a neuroscientist, I believe, like he studies the brain and is very good at that. And if you listen to the old podcasts where he’s talking about that sort of stuff, gold, so good.

They’re so, so good. But then he got bigger and bigger. And it is so easy for this to happen.

Like I’ve had so many people be like, Danny, you should just be a life coach. And I’m just like, maybe I should be. And I’m like, no, what?

No, like I’m not an, look, I’m a mess. What are you talking about? But that happens like as somebody gains any sort of popularity or notoriety, people will gas them up that they’re, you know, they could talk about this thing or that thing, and then you got people like Andrew Huberman doing podcasts about everything really at this point.

And people are still thinking he’s an expert in those things. Now, sometimes he has experts on those things on his show, but because he himself is not an expert in that thing, he’s in the same situation we all are where it’s like, well, does this person know their shit or not? And occasionally someone will come out of the woodwork and be like, hi, I’m actually an expert in this.

And this Huberman guest was full of shit because blah, blah, blah, blah. But Huberman is there like, wow, thank you for sharing all of your expert. And it’s like, it’s really tricky, like it’s very tricky stuff.

And I think it takes a lot of restraint when people are telling you you should talk about fill in the blanks here, the hormones, menopause, you know, man, to not start positioning yourself as some sort of expert in those things, especially if you’ve worked with a lot of clients who have experienced those things, that still does not make you an expert in those things. It means you have some experience working with clients with those things, right? Like I went through the whole, can’t remember what it’s called.

It’s not strong girl. Wow.

[Ben]

Girls Gone Strong.

[Dani]

Thank you. The Girls Gone Strong menopause coaching. And I was like, I am gonna be amazing at this by the end of this.

And I did the whole thing. I aced everything in it. And at the end of it, I was like, I feel like I don’t really know more than I knew before I did this.

And part of it is because I don’t think there is more to know, unfortunately. Like, I just don’t think there are a lot of different strategies that we need to use on women who are in menopause or different nutritional strategies that we need to use on women that are in menopause or perimenopause beyond kind of what is already kind of common sense in those things. And they’re a great company, but to me, I was like, cool, I have this certificate that says I’m a menopause coaching expert, whatever, but it’s like, what really is that?

And I’ve heard of these hormone, similar certifications in hormone health, and I guarantee you it’s the same thing. But eat healthy, exercise, get sleep, get sunlight. That will improve your hormone profile.

Like, no shit. We knew that already. But cool, now I have a certificate.

But you can turn that around and be like, if you’re experiencing blah, blah, blah, that means that your estrogen dominate. And what you need to do is eat a carrot salad every day. Whoa.

Like, and that is all over the Internet. I don’t know if it’s the same for men, but man, it is rampant for women.

[Ben]

Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely things about, oh, you need to do like these certain things to increase your testosterone, and people will go down these crazy protocols and rabbit holes, like you need to go outside and, you know, sun your balls every single morning, stuff like that. Craziness, craziness that people are believing.

So I would just, yeah, caution people, like really pay attention to the credentials that somebody has. But even if they have credentials, like you have to maybe look for more opinions. Like, don’t just make one person your guru that you listen to on every single thing.

That’s kind of what I was trying to get to at the beginning of this podcast is just like, you know, diversify the opinions that you that you take in and that you consume. Try to, you know, make sense of a certain topic by listening to all these different opinions. See where they people tend to generally agree on these things and look for people who kind of speak with with nuance and don’t speak in absolutes.

That’s that’s most of what I had written down.

[Dani]

Only other thing that I can think of, and again, I don’t I think we can kind of get into tricky territory here because then it becomes a very natty or not kind of game. But there’s a lot of people out there telling you that their training program or their diet is what made them look the way that they do. And it is performance enhancing drugs of some sort or now also Ozempic and the GLP ones.

Like I’ve seen weight loss influencers sell programs to help people lose weight. And then it’s like come out somehow that they were on Ozempic and that’s how they actually lost the weight. But they don’t mention that.

And Paul Carter, again, like, cool, I’m glad you can lift in a four to eight rep range on everything. But us mere mortals who are not taking steroids like our little baby tendons and ligaments cannot handle that on all of the movements that we do. And it’s not even mentioned that, hey, maybe this is one of the reasons why I’m not injured doing it this way, you know, when, of course, that’s one of the reasons he’s not injured doing it that way.

But I don’t think that the average person is very good at telling if someone’s on performance enhancing drugs or not. I mean, steroids are probably the easiest thing to tell. And people are not even good at that.

So let alone different fat burners, peptides, GLP ones, et cetera. And it’s not anybody’s business that they have to share it with you, what they’re taking, unless they’re trying to sell you something like that’s kind of where I draw the line. People can do whatever they want with their own body.

That’s their business. But if they’re being disingenuous and trying to sell you something and not sharing a huge part of their equation that’s making them successful, that’s really messed up.

[Ben]

Yeah, I think if people, if their body is kind of their selling point for a lot of what they’re doing and they’re not providing education, it’s just like posts about how they look amazing and like they’re posting their workouts and then they’re trying to sell you programs or nutrition, but they’re not actually like they don’t go out of their way to explain what they’re doing or why they do certain things.

So then there’s this like implicit, again, understanding that, hey, you buy my training program, you buy my supplement, you buy my whatever it is you’re going to do to look the way that I do, because, hey, look at me. And that’s why a lot of these fitness content producers, these influencers, that’s why that they end up choosing these, you know, consuming these substances or taking these substances is because it’s a business at the end of the day. And people oftentimes just make that assumption, like the better you look, the more this person knows.

And you know what? There is somewhat of a correlation there, but it’s not it’s definitely not the whole picture. And especially if somebody is taking those things.

And again, it could be hard to spot if you really don’t know what to look for. Just just understand at the same time that most of the people who get very popular on social media, that’s for a reason. They either have very good genetics or they’re taking something.

Usually there’s a lot of work ethic involved, too. But, you know, there’s there’s a certain component of luck there where it’s like you will you will see the people who are the outliers. So do you really want to take advice from the outliers or do you want to take advice for somebody who’s a little bit more close to center of the curve?

And yeah, they’ve gotten impressive results, but it’s taken them a long time. You know, they’ve been very consistent over that time. They have clearly a lot of education invested into what they’re doing.

Those are signs that I would I would probably look for.

[Dani]

So I got one more because I mean, like I could literally talk about this.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go for it.

[Dani]

When I see coaches that are doing fat loss challenges, almost exclusively fat loss or weight loss challenges that have a big cash prize. To me, that is a red flag.

[Ben]

And Giacomo talked about and I talked about this on the podcast yesterday, so I’d love to hear your perspective on it.

[Dani]

Yeah, I mean, if it’s one thing, if it’s like, hey, if you win, you’re going to get your money back or something, you know, or what we did with our challenges was like if you win, you’re going to get 12 weeks of free one on one coaching. But ours wasn’t based on weight loss. It was who we thought made the biggest overall change in general over the course of the challenges.

But I’ve seen ones that are like, you know, whoever has the most impressive transformation photos at the end of sometimes as little as four weeks is going to win ten thousand dollars. And that is absolutely insane to me because you have just incited however many people are in your challenge, usually a lot when that’s the prize to do anything to make the most impressive before and after pictures. As a client, you’re like, oh, I’m really I’m working towards this ten thousand dollars as the coach that’s doing this.

You’re like, I have 400 people that are about to give me sick marketing pictures for the future, because, of course, when you sign up, you’re signing away your rights to those pictures. They can use them for anything. So then you have people who are like binging the night of that.

They have to take the beginning ones and wearing the least flattering clothing. And, you know, white is a ghost. And then at the end, you know, they’ve starved themselves and cardio themselves to these really big transformations.

They’re tan. They’re posing. They’re in the best fitting stuff that they could possibly wear.

And you did that work for somebody else. Like you literally just did someone else’s job for them. And it’s been four weeks.

You’re not keeping that transformation. You are going to gain it all back immediately. And then you just have this cycle of continuing to do it and try again.

To me, it’s really gross. One of the biggest red flags I’ve ever seen.

[Ben]

Made me think of something else, which is, again, transformations. Coaches who will talk about it did this. I did that.

I gave this person this protocol. I told them to follow my program. I gave them these macros and look at the results that they got.

So they could these coaches, you know, they make it believe they make it seem like they’re the ones who did everything and they have the secrets. It’s never like a we thing, like we work together. This client worked really hard.

They were committed to the process. They learned a lot through it. So just be careful of coaches who seem like they talk about themselves a lot.

They don’t talk about, you know, they don’t give the client credit. They don’t, you know, give credit where it’s due. That’s just something that came to mind for me.

Like if you see some coach who’s like, it’s all it’s all me, like just a lot of ego, just a lot of, you know, self-absorbed behaviors.

[Dani]

Yeah. And just transformation photos in general. So I love a good transformation photo.

Like they make me so happy when I see them, of course, especially when it’s like my client, because I know what went into that. I know how long it took. And like they are they don’t just look like a different person usually at the end of it.

Like they are a different person at the end of it. But an ethical company is not just going to be like, anytime you submit a photo that is now ours and we own it and we have the rights to it. We ask clients all the time, hey, do you mind if we use these photos?

Like, can we put these photos up on the website? And way more often than you would think, the answer is no, please don’t put that up on the website. So we don’t.

Right. So, you know, I think we have a pretty collectively we have a very extensive profile of portfolio of transformation photos. But there’s so many more that like you guys are never going to see because that was the right thing to do and not post pictures of people that they didn’t want on the Internet.

So I don’t know. Just another thing I’ve when I worked with people, I’ve had to do the like, you guys can use your photos for anything. And in hindsight, I don’t like that.

I remember one day waking up and one of my like progress pictures was on my coach’s Instagram. And I was like, hmm, that doesn’t feel good. That wasn’t even run by me or anything.

Right. Like, I don’t know. Got to have that communication, I think.

Yeah, I’m sure I could think of more, but we could we could do a part two of this sometime.

[Ben]

OK, that would be fun. Yeah, I like I like rambling and talking, talking crap about things that we’ve seen and things that piss us off because we care. We care about the people that we work with.

And that’s ultimately why we’re so passionate about this topic is we get a lot of people who have come from these other situations who end up coming to work with us. And they’re like, wow, this is a breath of fresh air. This is not what I experienced with the first coach or first couple coaches that I looked for, that I worked with.

And so we really try to be that, you know, hopefully final coach that somebody is going to need because we don’t try to, you know, trap people and say they’re going to need us for the rest of our lives. We try to educate them. And there are certain people who maybe do want to or need to work for a coach for extended periods of time because they have long term goals or whatever it is.

But we’re never saying that people have to keep working with us or trying to, you know, hold back secrets so they stay with us for longer. And, you know, if you are somebody who feels that you could use some guidance on your journey and you resonating with some of the messages that we have here, you can find out more about our coaching on our website. You can head over to VeganProteins.com.

If you’re interested in the one on one coaching, we do have an application there that you can fill out and learn a little bit more about our coaching. We also have every link in the description below that you could need for finding out more about that. Connect with us on social media.

You can find Danny at Vegan Proteins. You can find Giacomo at Muscles by Brussels. The other coaches, myself at Benny Mitchell, Sawyer at Soyboy Fitness Coaching and Alice at Vegan Proteins.

Alice, if you’re enjoying the show, please be free. Please be sure to give us a rating over on Spotify or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps the show a lot.

Of course, sharing with people that you feel might benefit from hearing these conversations or reposting to your stories and tagging us and we can reshare. So thank you again for listening to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. Ben, Danny, thanks so much for listening.

We’ll catch you in the next one. Bye bye.