Janis Thornton with JT Fitness and Golf

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with JT Fitness and Golf. Janis Thornton. How are you?

Janis Thornton: I am doing great. Stone. Thank you so much for having me on.

Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the show. I got a ton of questions. Janice, we probably won’t get to them all, but I think maybe a good place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners kind of a broad perspective mission, purpose. What are you and your team really out there, out there trying to do for folks?

Janis Thornton: Well. So JT fitness and golf is all about helping people age backwards. I love working with golfers, especially since I am an avid golfer myself and being in my mid 50s, I want to be able to play golf well into my 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. So I want to help my fellow golfers be able to do the same thing. Because Stone, quite honestly, I’m going to admit it. I’m actually really greedy. I want to have friends to play golf with as I get older, and so if I can keep them healthy, that’s what I want to do.

Stone Payton: Well, based on that pursuit, I got to believe golf is a part of the answer. But I got to ask, what? What is the back story? How did you get into this line of work serving these kinds of people?

Janis Thornton: So I actually spent 25 years working in sick care, meaning I spent ten years working in cardiac rehab. I spent another 15 years working in the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore I saw a lot of illness. And quite honestly, I got tired of it. And I’ve always been, uh, working in with strength training, with being a personal trainer and just wanted to take my get out of sick care, start my own business. So that way I could really focus on working on the wellness side of things, because now I truly believe I do work in the wellness side of things instead of sick care.

Stone Payton: Well, what was that transition like? Was it were there some surprises, at least early on, making that transition from that world into this entrepreneurial world where you were doing completely your, your own thing?

Janis Thornton: Well, yeah, there definitely is challenges that go along with starting your own business. Uh, because when you go, at least I will speak for myself, starting working in working in corporate America and always kind of having someone guide you along because you always had a boss to becoming your own boss. I will say that was the hardest thing is just like learning how to truly build your own business has been challenging, fun, but challenging because there’s so much to learn about actually starting a business.

Speaker4: Absolutely. Well, now.

Stone Payton: That you’ve been at it a while, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work for you?

Janis Thornton: For me is when I can truly help someone make positive changes in their life. When they send me an email and they tell me how they’re able to do something that they weren’t able to do six months ago, or that they saw improvement in their golf swing or their hitting the ball farther down the fairway, or they can walk 18 holes now when they couldn’t. That makes my whole day knowing that I’ve just truly helped someone be better, healthy, healthier, wise and that they have a stronger mental attitude. Just it brings me great joy.

Stone Payton: So I, uh, I’d love to hear some more specifics about the work. And I will confess, I’m not a golfer, with the exception that I do play in a lot of these things where they where they have to let me hit the ball once on each nine for a fundraiser.

Janis Thornton: Yeah. Scramble.

Stone Payton: I love the environment. I love hanging out. I just never have invested the time and energy to get good at all at at golf. But I’m interested in in the, in the work and specifically like are there some unique challenges maybe to people in the golf world that are different above and beyond, or just different than maybe fitness challenges and other domains?

Janis Thornton: Well, golf is a one sided sport, so when you are playing golf, you can actually you really increase your risk for injury because you’re swinging right handed or you’re swinging left handed and you’ve got 100 swings, maybe on just one side. And over time, that puts a lot of pressure on your body and stress on your body. Uh, so when it comes to training for golf, you do have to make sure that you train both sides. And not that not everyone doesn’t need that. But we need to make sure that we reduce our risk for injury. And that’s where strength training really comes in. Um, to that golf or to that person. Now, I will say this, though, I feel like every individual should actually train like a golfer because in golf it’s a very rotational sport and we have to do rotational exercises. However, the general public, we sit a lot. We are riding in a car a lot during the day. We’re at the desk eight hours a day and we need to be training, like I said, training rotationally because think about it. Have you ever been working in your yard, or have you ever been just working in the house? All of a sudden you reach for something and your back tweaks? Oh yeah. You’re like, Holy crap, all I did was reach for something. Guess what? When you train rotationally and get rotational exercises into your workout routine, that’s going to reduce your risk of having that happen.

Stone Payton: Okay, it’s my show. So let’s talk about me for a minute.

Speaker4: Okay? Let’s talk about you for a minute.

Stone Payton: So I’ll be 61 next month. I haven’t played golf. I’m I think I’m reasonably fit. I walk around a lot in this little town that I, that I live in. I get some some exercise, hunting and fishing and that kind of thing. Uh, but if I were to come to you and you tell me if I just wouldn’t even be a viable candidate, but maybe I come to you and say, look, I want to continue to get fit. I want to find other ways to get and stay fit. Or maybe I just want to be better at these scramble tournaments or play a little customer golf. Can you kind of walk me through what our what our work together would look like, particularly in the early stages?

Janis Thornton: Yeah. So first of all, to get better at golf, you actually need to hire a PGA teaching instructor to help you hit the ball better. So I will preface that I do not give golf lessons. However, I’m sure you have a local PGA instructor that would happily help you with that. So yeah, I actually don’t. I do meet with people who are, uh, non-golfers as well. Um, and working with me is different than so when you work with me, it is all still on your time. So I have an app that you download onto your phone, and I push you workouts to that app so you’re able to do workouts at home or at a gym. Now the nice thing is, I have all how to videos that go with all of the exercises, so you’ll actually know what to do with each exercise. I find that a lot of people just want to be told what to do, and not necessarily that I want to meet you at 1:00 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Uh, because a lot of times people say, oh, work got in the way, or my kids, I had to run them to the doctor.

Janis Thornton: I need to cancel. Well, this way I take out that excuse of whatever your excuse is that you can’t meet me for the day, but I still provide you with the workouts, and you’re able to schedule it into your schedule that best fits you. Plus, like, for example. Right now, you and I are three hours different. Well, let’s say you wanted to work out at 6 a.m.. Well, I hate to tell you, I’m not getting up at 3 a.m.. Sorry to work out with you. However, you would still be able to work out at 6 a.m. because you’ve got the workout that you want to do. Now, bonus! I’m always available to you once you’re my client. I’m available, so if you have questions, you need modifications, then that happens. And of course we do a fitness assessment at the beginning. And if I feel like you need some actual one on one time with me, we’ll set up zoom calls there. I will set up for about 5 to 10 sessions, just to make sure you feel comfortable, to be able to move forward into my app.

Stone Payton: I really like that. It sounds like you get the best of both worlds, where I can, on my own time, when it’s convenient for me, begin to implement the discipline, and I’ve got the access to sounds like videos and information that will help me on my own, but I can tap in and have conversations with you directly, even though, to your point, you know, I’m I’m two time zones away.

Speaker4: Right.

Speaker5: Yeah, exactly.

Stone Payton: I, I gotta believe well, this is true in my business, in the media business at the Business RadioX network. And it was certainly true in the training and consulting arena back when I had something closer to a real job. But there I got to believe that there are probably some myths, some mistakes, some misconceptions that maybe even a pattern that you you see over and over again. Are there some common myths, mistakes, misconceptions in your arena?

Janis Thornton: Well, definitely. When it comes, I think there’s a myth of strength training for a lot of people, and especially women, that will feel like, oh, if I do strength training, I’m going to get big and bulky. However, what people forget is as we get older, some of the things that we lose so much of is muscle mass. We lose balance. We lose strength, mobility, flexibility. Well, we need all of those things in order to age gracefully and age backwards. And that’s what my programs create for you and give you, is that you will increase your muscle mass, which is a good thing because it increases your metabolism. Because as we get older, that slows down. You’re going to increase your flexibility and mobility because I provide class like follow along videos for that, um, for you to do. Also, I improve your balance. And if you ever notice older people when they walk, look at the people who actually shuffle. So that means that they are scared, number one, and they don’t have the balance that they need to actually take steps or the strength. But guess what? When you do strength training strength, that there’s so much power in strength training, it’s crazy. And I just can’t express it enough how important it is to get strength training into your workout sessions. And my business loves to help you be able to do that easily.

Speaker4: Well, I’m glad.

Stone Payton: You’ve brought that out because I feel like I’ve had, um, females in my life, friends, family that were a little bit shy about the idea or had the wrong idea about the the impact, and apparently the very positive impact, if done properly, of females engaging in strength training.

Janis Thornton: Yeah. You don’t have to lift super heavy weights. I’m saying you’re not going to just lift three and 5 pound dumbbells, because guess what? Your groceries weigh more than that. Or your grandchild that you want to pick up weighs more than that. Um, however, you don’t have to be lifting 50 and 80 pound dumbbells either to get a great workout. There’s so many different ways that you can increase your strength that it’s, you know, you have to get away from that bodybuilder mentality. And that’s what I do because like I said, I love to train for golf. I feel like you do train a little bit differently. And my workouts, I make it fun. Uh, quite honestly, because it’s not all just strength training. I improve your strength with using, um, a swing trainer. I help increase your thoracic rotation with a device called the True Turn Pro. And all of these devices truly help your spine, help your joints, help your mobility and flexibility. So it’s just a lot of fun.

Stone Payton: Now, did you know right out of the box, or was it even part of the initial business plan? If you don’t mind sharing to to lean on technology, to have the app to have the virtual access?

Janis Thornton: So I will say it was because one of my friends that I had met who was a personal trainer, she had an online business and at the time I was creating mine and I was thinking, oh, this online thing will be great because she goes, genus, your clients can be anywhere and then you’re able to actually work from anywhere. And at the time I was traveling a lot with my husband and I’m like, what business can I have that I can travel with my husband still and still serve clients and online I can I’m able, I can be anywhere, they can be anywhere, and I’m still able to serve them.

Speaker4: So when.

Stone Payton: You. Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations on that. It sounds to me like you’ve cracked the code for exactly, uh, what you, what you wanted to do and how you wanted to to serve. So have you had the answer to this is certainly got to be. Yes, but I’m going to ask anyway. Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors as you’ve gotten your business up and off the ground and running to kind of help you navigate new terrain?

Speaker4: Oh yeah.

Janis Thornton: I try to have a lot of different mentors in my life. Uh, just because and from different avenues, not just in the fitness world, but like, right now I’m part of a mastermind group and have some great mentors there, just helping me guide how to create, really create this business and make it successful. I’m fortunate enough that, you know, people that I play golf with, some of the women that I play golf with are retired from corporate America, or they still are. They’ve starting their own business. And like one of my friends, she’s really good at operations, so she helps me out a lot, or just getting ideas from all these other people. It’s always fun. I have a bouncing. I’ve, like my board of directors, are all my golfing friends because I’m like, okay, I need my board. Help me with what do you think about this or this idea? You know, what should I do? And so it’s nice to have a lot of mentors and people in my life that I can bounce ideas off of.

Speaker4: Well, there’s.

Stone Payton: A pro tip right there. Establish a board.

Speaker5: Exactly. And you don’t.

Janis Thornton: Even have to pay for them to if you get the right people, which is nice, just play golf with them.

Speaker4: So, uh, how.

Stone Payton: Does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practice like yours? Do you find that you are out there shaking the trees a little bit, or are you kind of getting to the point where it’s more inbound and sort of coming in over the over the transom or. Yeah, how do you like. The reason I’m asking is, I mean, this conversation you got me sold. Uh, you know, I don’t even play golf. Great. But how does the whole sales and marketing thing work in your world?

Janis Thornton: For me, it’s all about I do a lot of networking, so that way I can just meet people to share what I do with my business and then doing speaking engagements, doing this kind of thing, you know, getting on people’s podcasts, doing a lot of social media. Uh, I really do stick to LinkedIn, though, uh, for my social media. And then, you know, I try to write like a LinkedIn article or, for example, I have a e-book on my website that people can download. And then if you’re on my email list, you know, you can learn, get fitness tips, you know, 3 to 4 times a month. I promise I don’t inundate people with emails, uh, because I know some people do. Anyway, um, you know, I try just different ways to show my business and showcase my business.

Stone Payton: So what was that like, writing a writing a book? Did some parts of it come together a lot easier than others? I’m interested to hear about that experience.

Janis Thornton: So I’ve written a golf fitness course, um, for personal trainers. So I will say that was a task I did last year and it took me. I’m going to admit, it took me a good three months to really kind of plan out what I actually even wanted. And then I went into coming up with, okay, what do I want in it? What videos? And then it was just the process of shooting a videos that go into this course. And what content do I want to have in there? How do I want to make this course different than other golf fitness courses that are available to personal trainers to take? Uh, so it was it was fun, a lot of work. And now I’m going to take that course. And this year I’m actually going to be writing another. Well, I’ll be writing a book just on general golf fitness for the average person. So that way they can start incorporating more golf fitness into their lives.

Speaker4: Oh that’s fantastic. Yeah.

Janis Thornton: So I can’t.

Speaker4: Wait. Well, and I’m.

Stone Payton: Sure it’s a marvelous resource, the one you’ve already written and the one that you’re working toward for the reader. Did you also find that investing the time and energy to commit your ideas to paper did it? Um, I don’t know. Did it help you crystallize your own thinking and solidify, like, even equip you to be that much better in your counseling coaching support role? Did it make you that much better, a practitioner, having taken the time to kind of get it all down and lay it out like that.

Speaker5: I’m gonna say.

Janis Thornton: Absolutely. There was a course that I took and it was actually for a Pilates instructor course to become a mat instructor. And one of the lines that the lady that Tanya said in there was, if you want to become an expert, teach. And I thought I let that resonate for months in my head. And that was one of the things that really got me motivated to actually write the golf fitness course. I’m like, you know, I want to be better at what I do. So what did Tanya say? She said, teach, so why not create this course? And then I and then, you know, God works in mysterious ways, because then all of a sudden, last year, I had this physical therapist that I met on LinkedIn. He approached me and said, he goes, I’ve been following you on LinkedIn. You should write a golf fitness course. So I’m thinking, okay, this is just a little weird. However. And then in my mastermind group, they’re like really big on writing a book, writing something, publishing yourself. I’m like, okay, here we go. So to me it was like, this is meant to be. This was definitely meant to be.

Stone Payton: Now, you mentioned a little earlier in the conversation speaking, and that’s another area I’m kind of fascinated with. Was that daunting at first or were you a natural? Did you learn did you learn something about like mechanics of delivering a keynote or how did that all work for you?

Speaker5: Well, I will tell you.

Janis Thornton: If you knew me back in high school and college, I was incredibly shy. Quite honestly, I’m actually still kind of shy. If I’m in a room full of new people, I’m that person who likes to just sit back and observe and let everyone else do the talking. Uh, but once I get going, I’m good. Um, but I will say it still is daunting to me. I have to I’m an introvert. I have to gear up when I do a talk and get myself pumped up to really do it. However, I also know that I am the expert in the room and the information that I have is really good for people and they’ll be excited about it. So that’s what I focus more on to get me through, because I will give a secret away, because there might be someone else out there who’s like me, um, I get red and blotchy when I get really nervous. And so public speaking, I really have to gear myself up because I’m in front of a big group of people. It’s can be very daunting to me.

Stone Payton: So I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Interests, passions, pursuits outside the scope of this work that that you enjoy. You have a tendency to nerd out about that are kind of outside the scope of this fitness work. Like a lot of our listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel.

Speaker4: Mhm.

Janis Thornton: So I will say I definitely love to travel. And the deal is I’m married to a man who loves to play golf as well. He’s he’s more addicted to it than I am. So every vacation is around golf. I do play a lot of golf. Uh, because again I feel like I need to play golf. And so that way I can keep promoting what I do. Uh, but, you know. Sure. I love to go hiking. I love to, you know, be by the ocean, those kinds of things. Also, um, like I said, I do love to travel, so everything will be most of the time, though, centered around golf. That might sound boring, but I don’t want to injure myself trying downhill skiing or, you know, even hiking. I do love to hike. Um, however, I don’t do anything crazy just because I’d be really sad if I tripped and fell and broke a leg or hip or arm. That would be sad, because that means I won’t be able to play golf and I would be unhappy.

Speaker4: So what’s.

Stone Payton: Next? What’s on the horizon? You’ve mentioned pursuing this other book. Uh, any designs on continuing to scale the business or serve a different niche or anything like that? What’s what’s in the near future?

Janis Thornton: So I well, I’m really glad you asked that question because I’m about to launch five new courses, uh, which is very exciting. So they’re based around like if you have neck pain, there’s a course for that. If you have shoulder pain, I have a course for that. If there’s if you have back pain, there’s a course for that. If you’ve got hip or knee pain, I’ve got courses for that as well. And then I’ll even be coming out with a 28 day mobility challenge. And you do not have to be a golfer to take on any of those courses.

Speaker4: Well, I love.

Stone Payton: That you’re drilling down on these specific, uh, areas of challenge for people because it sounds like that you can really you can help specialize or even the, the individual, to some extent, with the right coaching and direction from you can can really personalize your fitness program and your specialized knowledge and expertise to address the exact challenges that they feel like they’re facing.

Speaker5: Mhm.

Janis Thornton: Absolutely. That’s what’s fun. So yeah I’m putting everything together right now. I have the neck course almost finished, almost ready to go. And then I’ll be working on the other four. And so hopefully in a few weeks they’ll all be finished.

Speaker4: Wow.

Stone Payton: You got a lot of irons in the fire Miss Janice.

Janis Thornton: I do, but it’s fun and it’s I love being able to be creative and just be able to help. I want to be able to help a lot of people and just be able to make them feel good. And again, as we get older, sometimes it just gets hard. However, when you do exercise on a regular basis and take care of your body, it’s amazing what it can do.

Speaker4: All right, before.

Stone Payton: We wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners, if we could, with 1 or 2 actionable pro tips. And look, gang, the number one pro tip is to to reach out and have a conversation or go tap into into Janice’s work. And that’s the number one pro tip. But sometime between now and then, if there’s something they can be doing, not doing, reading, thinking about, let’s leave them with a couple of pro tips as a result of just having kind of eavesdropped on this conversation.

Janis Thornton: So the first pro tip is to find movement that you enjoy. That’s you’re going to do on a regular basis, whether it’s with me or someone else or you love group classes, you love to hike outside. Whatever it is, find something that you would love to do each and every day. Because our body craves movement, the more you move, the better you’re going to feel. For those of you tip number two, for those of you who do have a desk job, please make sure that you get up from your desk every hour. Do walk around for even if it’s a couple of minutes, get some water. Make sure you’re filling your water glass each and every hour so you stay hydrated during the day. But get up. Do some stretches. You even do five squats at your desk something, but get movement throughout the day because they’re saying now sitting is the new smoking and it’s deadly to you. If you just sit all day because of it, then you’ve been you slept all night. You and might. If you lay on your side, you’re kind of in a fetal position. You sit in your car to go to work, then you sit at work. You sit in that. Car again to come home, and then you sit some more once you get home. So our bodies are made to move. So let’s get moving.

Speaker4: I am so.

Stone Payton: Glad that I asked and both tips are incredibly valuable for me. It makes me feel better, even more encouraged about, you know, like I, I really enjoy moving in the woods, so traipsing through the woods. While it’s something I thoroughly enjoy, it’s also getting me out there and moving. So. And that’s so yeah, that find something that a way to move that you enjoy. That’s a that’s a great tip. And you’re you’re so right I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. We I guess as a population we sit a lot more than our, our parents or our grandparents did.

Speaker5: Oh, absolutely.

Janis Thornton: And just to your point of view, hunting out in the woods. So here’s the other great thing that’s happening is you are out in Mother Nature. You are getting to just be because I have a feeling when you’re out there, you love being out there that it just brings calmness to you, that you’re like, this is the best. And that’s just something to, you know, appreciate when you’re driving down the road and you get to see a bunch of trees or the flowers or let’s say you’re hunting for that deer. You see it off in the distance. They’re cool. I mean, it’s great to be out in Mother Nature, so we all need to just slow down, stop and smell the roses and enjoy what’s around us.

Stone Payton: Amen. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap into your work and connect with you?

Janis Thornton: The easiest way is going to be to go to JT fitness and Golf.com. And on my website you can schedule a call with me. You can go ahead and just check out my website and we can connect that way.

Stone Payton: Janice, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective. Thank you for your enthusiasm. It just comes through over the airwaves. You are doing really important work and we sure appreciate you.

Janis Thornton: Well, Stone, thank you so much again for having me on. I greatly appreciate it.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Janice Thornton with JT Fitness and Golf and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.