Jen Dugard (00:01.584)
Welcome to the MomSafe Pro... let's try it. Welcome to the podcast Chantelle, how are going?
Chantal (00:09.624)
Thank you so much, Jen. I'm fantastic today. Thank you so much for having me.
Jen Dugard (00:14.0)
I've just realized I'm talking to a professional podcaster so I can't fuck it up.
Chantal (00:20.942)
You can do whatever you like. I don't know that I, that I get to have that classification anymore. It's been a few years, but thank you.
Jen Dugard (00:27.886)
Well, well I do because you sent me a brief of what we're to talk about so that is professional podcaster actions if there ever has been any so that was really nice thank you. Let's kick off with how I love to kick off the podcast which is you sharing a word that shares how you're showing up today if it's been an absolute shit show it doesn't have to be a positive word then we'll go into a win and something that you're working on.
Chantal (00:37.506)
Ha
Chantal (00:55.54)
My word is fulfilled.
Jen Dugard (00:58.418)
Specifically around something or life in general?
Chantal (01:00.718)
Feeling fulfilled.
Chantal (01:04.938)
Yeah, a couple of things. Would you like me to elaborate? So there's two reasons why I feel fulfilled today. Number one is I recently, just on the weekend actually, I went to a beautiful lunch with 26 amazing women. It was hosted by someone who I'm sure you know and many of your listeners will know, Stevens, who is an amazing keynote speaker. And she put together this amazing opportunity
Jen Dugard (01:07.726)
I would love to know, yeah.
Jen Dugard (01:27.836)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (01:34.452)
to bring together women from all walks of life and I had the most amazing conversations that I've had in a really long time and it was incredibly fulfilling because I got to meet very very accomplished successful women and learn about you know what they do and how they did it and it was very very...
fulfilling. So that's number one. And number two, the reason that I'm feeling fulfilled is because I just finished a, the third of my coaching sessions with one of my clients that is, that works with me specifically on presentation skills. So, you know, not feeling nervous when you're up on stage and honing your message and
Jen Dugard (02:02.053)
Very cool. Nice.
Chantal (02:24.545)
He is just such a joy to work with. And I just walked away from a session with him earlier today. And it makes me so happy when I get to work with someone who can feel confident in presenting their message to the world. So that's why.
Jen Dugard (02:42.779)
I didn't know you were doing coaching.
Chantal (02:45.929)
I am. I've got a program which is called confident speaker coaching. So it's just a three part program where it's essentially like your foundation to becoming more confident, whether you, so for PTs, if they're presenting on stage or if they're presenting just workshops to their clients, or maybe, you know, they just want to feel more confident when, you know, they get asked to stand up in front of a group full of people and talk about themselves. So it's very much an entry level.
Jen Dugard (03:03.515)
Yep.
Chantal (03:13.831)
speaker, speaker skills I would say. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (03:15.185)
And do you do it only one-on-one or do you do groups as well? I love it. I think we need to dig it dig more into that as we talk today, which would be awesome. So that was why you're feeling fulfilled and what are you waiting at?
Chantal (03:20.032)
one-on-one.
Chantal (03:26.669)
Absolutely.
Chantal (03:32.396)
Yes.
What am I winning at? I am, I'm going to go completely off topic here, not business, nothing to do with work. I am winning at using the ride on mower. How's that for something different? How's that for something different? So at 46 years old, I have learned for the first time to use a ride on mower and all of a sudden
Jen Dugard (03:41.743)
Yeah, I like it.
Jen Dugard (03:45.969)
I knew it was gonna be something to do with the house.
Jen Dugard (03:57.934)
Is it hard? Is it that hard?
Chantal (04:00.043)
No! It's actually... I have this theory that it's therapeutic.
Jen Dugard (04:04.441)
Is it just like a mini car? Like what's the difference? Like what are they?
Chantal (04:06.953)
It's kind of like... Yeah.
Jen Dugard (04:09.881)
What are the things you need to know about using a L'Oreal D'Homme or apart from you just get on and press go? Okay.
Chantal (04:13.173)
Well, there is a safety aspect. There's definitely a safety aspect because you are operating a heavy piece of machinery. So I'm very conscious of that. And the property that, as you know, we've recently bought 11 acres in, in the Queensland hinterland and the property that we've bought is quite hilly. So there's definitely the safety aspect, but the reason that I feel like I'm winning a little bit of this is one, because I've learned a new skill, which is, is exciting. And there is a bit to it. Like, you know, it's the operation and
Jen Dugard (04:20.145)
Yeah, okay.
Jen Dugard (04:30.512)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (04:39.642)
Yep.
Chantal (04:42.923)
the technique if you will. But I find it really therapeutic because you're out there for two hours at a time or three or whatever it is. You don't touch your phone. You don't have any other distractions. It's almost akin to trail running because you're constantly... This is going to sound ridiculous. You're looking at the ground. You're of anticipating what's coming up. You're having to be careful not to run over things or navigate.
Jen Dugard (05:01.296)
Hmm.
Chantal (05:11.851)
Yeah, I bet you haven't had that answer for that question before.
Jen Dugard (05:14.327)
No I haven't and do you I'm intrigued though because trail running there's a physical element whereas ride on mowing is sitting on your bum yeah yeah which I'm like yeah but it's one of the reasons we we don't have anywhere near the amount of land that you do and our land is kind of a bit
Chantal (05:20.115)
Mmm, tractoring you just...
Jen Dugard (05:30.662)
We've got enough grass for a ride on, the majority of the grass that for the ride on is not actually ours. It's council land that we need to maintain. So it's, it's this real. But one of the things I like about mowing is the fact that it's physical. So I don't know if I would like it as much if it was not physical. it's that it's like ironing. don't know you like ironing or not. I actually really enjoy ironing because I can see the end result and mowing is the same. I can see the backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, but I don't know if I would like it as much if I didn't have that.
Chantal (05:37.59)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (05:42.573)
Yeah.
Chantal (05:51.039)
Okay
Chantal (05:55.133)
Yes. Yes.
Jen Dugard (06:00.615)
getting a workout.
Chantal (06:01.931)
Yeah, I totally get you and that is normally me. I am normally the make anything into a workout and I feel satisfied about it. But for whatever reason, I can't explain it. It's a mowing magic for whatever reason. You're to have to come and have a try.
Jen Dugard (06:05.401)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (06:14.385)
I love it.
Do you listen to a podcast?
Chantal (06:21.249)
No, not currently. Although I have just invested in noise canceling headphones so that I can, but currently I am just enjoying the go out, get it done. See, definitely love seeing the before and after. So just the satisfaction of having that done. I don't know. I can't explain it. It's, it's magic.
Jen Dugard (06:33.457)
Hmm?
Yes.
Jen Dugard (06:39.973)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (06:44.793)
I love it, I love it, so we're winning at mowing and what are we working on?
Chantal (06:47.937)
We're winning at Mowing. Yeah. so that's exciting. working on,
Couple of bits and pieces. The big one for me is really increasing the number of events that I'm doing in 2026. So that's been a big goal and a continuing goal for me is just to gradually increase that number of events that I do every year. I'm also trying to increase the number of clients that I work with with the speaker coaching that I mentioned to you. And so just proactively putting some, putting some steps in place, I guess, to increase my reach.
Jen Dugard (07:00.176)
Hmm.
Jen Dugard (07:15.013)
Yep.
Chantal (07:23.829)
with both of those two things, which is, you know, a variety of marketing and increasing connections, having more conversations. And in the case of MCing, starting to work outside the industry and not be quite so exclusive in fitness.
Jen Dugard (07:24.207)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (07:40.849)
Nice. I feel like we're to dig into your speaking as we go.
And I'm sure that some people listening would go, I need to do that. Cause it's such a big thing, I think for trainers. And when we look at the longevity that we have in the fitness industry, I do think though, you know, you'll have the people that have personal trainers for years and years and years. And then you have others that they might want to continue training people, but they want to add on the next phase of their journey. And often that is speaking and that can be such a big roadblock for people. So I'd love to dig into some tips and things around how we can actually help.
Chantal (08:07.945)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (08:17.494)
Trainers to become more confident. However, let's start getting to know you so you didn't start in the fitness industry right give me a little bit of a rundown of where you started and how you got to where you are now where you've got this beautiful intersection of Speaking and MCing and hosting and public speaking within the fitness industry
Chantal (08:39.394)
Well, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to chat about it. Cause I don't generally, feel like 90 % of the time I'm doing the interviewing. So it's nice to talk about my background every so often. So the 60 seconds summary of my life prior to fitness is I started, I started off in the, in the media industry. And so that was a combination of sales marketing. I would,
Jen Dugard (08:53.07)
Doesn't have to be 60 seconds.
Jen Dugard (08:59.706)
Mm.
Chantal (09:05.61)
media buying which is you know back in the day was it was buying direct direct media which is a little bit different now it was back in the days of a lot of printed magazines and television ads and radio ads and that type of thing so i started in media and i was in media for 15 years so i had a quite a long career before i transitioned into fitness but
Jen Dugard (09:14.128)
Mm.
Chantal (09:26.762)
I guess like so many people in our industry, my passions sort of began as that person in the front row for the body pump class, the spin class. I just fell in love with attending classes and I had trainers, coaches that I aspired to be like.
I never ever intended to leave the media industry. actually had no interest. No, I purely would just enjoy fitness for the joy of it and for how it made me feel. And I decided to go and study body pump with the intention of just continuing my normal day job.
and then maybe teaching a few body pump classes here and there on the side. And as the story goes, I did my Cert III, did my Group X, fell in love with just learning about the body and about fitness and about nutrition and everything. I had the most amazing coaches at the Australian Institute of Fitness. So shout out to them many, many years ago. But they also inspired me to then go on and do Cert IV. And unbeknownst to me,
I loved that as well. So I ended up gradually sort of cutting down my five day a week corporate job and gradually starting to build up doing PT initially. But
pretty soon into that journey when I actually transitioned fully and I started doing personal training back in the day. It wasn't necessarily for me, I loved the group fitness but the PT just I did a little bit but it wasn't something that I ever went fully into but what I did do was I very early on started
Chantal (11:14.643)
working with personal trainers more on the business side of things and that's where I started to find that sweet spot. as you know, Active Management, JT from Active Management, we started working together really early on in my fitness career and yeah, working with personal trainers on the business side of their fitness. yeah, so it was media and then fitness and then a combination of the two.
Jen Dugard (11:38.48)
What didn't you like about PT? I'm intrigued.
Chantal (11:42.723)
I, you know, probably a better way for me to say it is not that I didn't like PT is that I, I really, really love the business side. And as in the, like, I love everything about running a business and sales and marketing and operations. And so I guess I wanted
to still be doing that side of it, which yes I absolutely could have been doing had I wanted to do the training side as well, but I think the passion for me was probably driving me more towards the business side. So it was the passion of fitness but also the, I guess, the background and the experience of business. And so for me the sweet spot was like the business side.
Jen Dugard (12:27.184)
Mmm.
Chantal (12:32.61)
but staying within the industry. So, yeah. So it's probably less about not liking PT. love, like I love everything about PT, but for me, I just, love the business side as well.
Jen Dugard (12:37.125)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (12:45.816)
Yeah, so what year was that Shintel?
Chantal (12:48.27)
Oh, I want to say that I did my... Yeah, I want to say that I did my Cert 3 and 4 in 2008. So 18 years ago. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (12:49.712)
It's okay, mine's back there too.
Jen Dugard (12:56.752)
So a couple of years after, yeah interesting, so I did mine in 2005-2006. Yeah and then by the time...
Chantal (13:07.66)
Yeah, because you start, I was listening.
Chantal (13:14.946)
I was listening to one of your shows earlier and I think you mentioned that you started your first PT business in 2008. Is that right? Cause I was like, same.
Jen Dugard (13:15.546)
Go.
Jen Dugard (13:25.488)
yeah no i started at fitness first in 2006 and then i started the Greek fitness business for mums in 2008 after marley was born yeah so we where about which one we use like st leonard's or
Chantal (13:28.931)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (13:32.558)
2008, that's what I heard. There you go. was fitness first as well. So fitness first was the foundation for the, no. So I was teaching at St. Leonard's. I was PTing at Carlingford. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (13:44.1)
Yeah, okay, yeah. Crazy. such similar times. And then you went into the business side of things. And when did the fitness business podcast happen?
Chantal (13:47.808)
Yeah, amazing. There you go. Yeah!
Chantal (13:58.575)
Good question. So the very, very, very early iterations of the show were started in 2012. So, and when I mean very, very early, we had started with like a monthly show, I think it was, and at the time, like podcasts.
Jen Dugard (14:05.668)
Yep.
Chantal (14:13.07)
wasn't it? People didn't even know what a podcast was. We were like putting out an audio show. Um, and um, so yeah, 2012, we had done some interviews with local coaches and speakers. And then it wasn't until, I want to say, I think it was 2015 that we turned it into a weekly show.
So there was quite, there's quite a lot of time. in, that time, JT and I had made just oodles of content as well. So there'd been a lot of audio interviews, but a lot of video, video content as well. I'd always surprise, actually, you know, what's funny is the other day, I don't know, I was looking up something about you the other day and I was like on YouTube.
Jen Dugard (14:57.967)
my god.
Chantal (14:59.65)
And I like, know that I've got a lot. You should probably share it with the listeners. I've got a lot of content on YouTube, right? Not all under my name, but like from, years of day. And I'm like, just have a look what Jen was up to and beautiful little Jen doing, doing your early videos. Like I loved them. They're so cute.
Jen Dugard (15:14.264)
Little baby Jan.
Jen Dugard (15:21.483)
sitting in the living room. I actually don't have a lot of content on YouTube. It's one of the things that I haven't done over the years is put it all on YouTube, but there are some very old original YouTube videos. Yes. Talking about abdominal separation and things like that.
Chantal (15:32.055)
Yeah, yes, they were great.
And I love that because I like, think yours were, you were doing everything. were like on the lounge room floor showing people, you know, how to brace their tummies and your toy, like all of your early education is on there. And I love that because when people sort of look and they're like, wow, like she knows a lot or, know, wow, you've gotten to a really great place in your career. Like, yeah, because for 18 years you've been honing your craft and taking your passion.
Jen Dugard (16:00.046)
Yeah.
Chantal (16:04.812)
and turning it into a business and continuously educating yourself and educating others. So I love that there's that little snippet of video evidence somewhere online.
Jen Dugard (16:14.031)
Absolutely. And I think that's one of the things I've got a question for you about podcasting, but I think that's one of the things that if anyone listening is taking anything away from what they listen to is to start to build out your content. And it doesn't matter if it's like one thing a month because then
Chantal (16:21.678)
Mmm.
Jen Dugard (16:35.779)
five years time or 10 years time that one thing a month is five times 12, whatever that is. And I don't think anyone can underestimate the power of starting now in terms of like compounding. It's the same as putting money in the bank, isn't it? It's compounding interest over time.
Chantal (16:52.75)
Absolutely. Absolutely. You did a recent episode where you were talking about becoming the go-to person. So, you know, it's a bit of the Daniel Priestley KPI sort of background to it. And in order to do that, you have got to start building the evidence. You've got to start building that collateral and that content. And I love what you're saying. Like, and the other thing is, Jen, it doesn't matter. Like if you...
I always say to people, if you don't feel comfortable on camera, maybe you feel comfortable doing a podcast. If you don't feel comfortable using your voice or doing a video, maybe you feel more comfortable writing. Whatever it is that feels good to you and that isn't going to be a roadblock to you creating content, then start doing it. Do you know what I mean? And we're so lucky these days with the technology that's around because we have the opportunity to repurpose things.
Jen Dugard (17:43.631)
Mm.
Chantal (17:50.135)
you know, so we can have a piece of content. Perhaps you love writing articles or perhaps you you're happy writing short blog posts, but now we've got the opportunity with tools like chat, GPT and Canva and stuff like that, where we can really easily turn those blog posts into visual images. So man, so no matter what it is, just start, start as you say, and build that library. And I think the other
thing which I'm sure you've talked about before is don't build the library and just put it on your socials or put it on YouTube. Keep it, make sure that you actually have a copy because in a terrible situation if your Instagram account goes down or your YouTube channel goes down, you need to make sure that you've got copies of that content. So I always encourage people make sure that you keep your own copy or create a website if you can, whatever it might be, but don't put
Jen Dugard (18:39.48)
Absolutely.
Chantal (18:48.558)
100 % of 100 % into your social media because we don't have control over that. So keep a copy.
Jen Dugard (18:54.349)
yeah absolutely you know i was thinking when you were talking about taking the words and turning them into images we could take the words now create an avatar and turn it into a spoken piece with all the ai content that's happening it doesn't even have to be your likeness you could have this little ai thing that is speaking your words how cool would that be like that's such a cool idea actually yeah
Chantal (19:00.782)
Mmm.
Chantal (19:05.942)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chantal (19:10.648)
caricature or something. Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah, like your your avatar or whatever it is because I get that not everyone yes, I do work with people to make them feel confident on stage, but not everyone wants to be.
Maybe you are happy to just work one-on-one with clients, maybe you're happy to sit in the background, but you want to get your message out there. There are so many ways that you can do that. you know, don't let it stop you if you don't feel comfortable, you don't want to do videos. If you are up for it, then it's awesome. You know, it's great to put a voice or a face to your brand, but don't let it stop you from creating content.
Jen Dugard (19:26.927)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (19:46.957)
Yep.
Jen Dugard (19:53.983)
love that I love that Chantelle in terms of podcasting first question what are some of the biggest things that you learned from podcasting for so long?
Chantal (20:02.466)
Probably the number one lesson that I learnt and something that has become so important to me is just the importance of constant learning, researching and reading. And by reading I actually mean whether that is a physical book or...
physical books or listening to audiobooks. So podcasting just taught me how important it is to understand the person that you're interviewing, the topic that you're interviewing and that research background and that thirst for knowledge I now carry across all of the work that I do. So I think prior to...
hosting a podcast, I probably never put that much emphasis on the other areas of my work that deserve.
that much attention, but I have learnt from podcasting that the more time that you put into researching your guest, the topic, the better you know it, then the better the conversations and the better the conversations, then the better I'm serving my listener or my audience.
Jen Dugard (21:20.3)
Yeah, and then I guess in that KPI, and when I say KPI, for those of you that don't understand the terminology, it's key person of influence. Chantelle talked about Daniel Priestley a little bit earlier on. If you've not heard of Dan, go and look up his work. It's incredible. But key person of influence, we refer to it in what we do as becoming locally famous rather than key person of influence. What do you think, what part does a podcast have to play in becoming that key person of influence?
Chantal (21:50.765)
Yeah, so first of all, I'm the biggest Daniel Priestley fan as as you know, in fact, I just saw he's just released another book. So I think I'm to put that on my Christmas list. Yeah, like this month, I think. So the role that having a podcast in particular has to play is the same role that if you had a book or if you've got a video series.
Jen Dugard (21:58.031)
I didn't see that nice.
Chantal (22:10.824)
or if you've got an ongoing newsletter or blog post. So it is establishing you as the expert in a specific area. And it's also one of the reasons that I would always speak to PTs about how important it is to be very specific with your niche, you know, which I'm sure you speak about very, very often. So yeah, so a podcast basically allows you to start to create this brand, become this go-to person, but it's...
it needs to be for a very specific area, I believe, and it allows you to start to create that foundation of content that we talked about. So in the case of podcasting, it's your audio content and video in this instance, but it is just layering on time and time again the years of experience. So it means when someone goes to Google,
you know, perhaps it is personal trainers who specifically work with mums over 40 as an example.
then you want your name to show up or you want to be the person that comes up as, this person's got, look at all the articles this person's written, they must know what they're talking about. Look at all the interviews this person's doing, they must really have a good handle on this. They're the person that I'm going to pick up the phone to, or that's the website that I'm going to visit. So it is evidence, it becomes evidence that supports what we do.
in the job, the career, whatever it is that we we pursue for ourselves.
Jen Dugard (23:57.271)
Hmm, I think the other side of it as well is
people are seeing a piece of advertising maybe maybe it's a Facebook ad maybe it's a flyer something in your community they want to they're not necessarily gonna buy straight away so they need to create that know like and trust and there is that statistic out there that people need to spend seven hours with people before they're willing to buy so you know a podcast or a book it's the reason I wrote a book way back when is it takes about seven hours to read a book same with the podcast there's there's way more
Chantal (24:16.514)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (24:30.986)
said there's about 70 hours of podcasting out there but you know when we when the world is a cluttered place even when we're talking in our own niche we need to create opportunities for people to get to know us before they will potentially buy from us which is incredibly important yeah
Chantal (24:40.034)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (24:47.724)
Yeah, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And then if it comes down to a choice and you've seen, you know, you've done the Google search or you've, or you've a Facebook ad has come up and you've got the choice of going to the personal trainer who's a generalist and you know, sure, probably has 10 years of experience versus someone whose website you go onto and you can straight away say, wow, they've got like 50 articles on, you know,
Jen Dugard (25:04.238)
Mm.
Chantal (25:17.186)
what it's like to go back to, you know, do safe exercise after you're an older mum or something like that. You know, you've got 50 articles on that and you've got 10 videos on that then, wow, all of a sudden that person's going to spend a whole lot longer on your website getting to know you and going, wow, this person obviously knows what they're talking about and building the relationship that you just mentioned. So it is setting you apart from everyone else out there.
Jen Dugard (25:46.797)
Absolutely, so if I'm taking things away from that, know your audience, define your niche, create content in whatever format aligns with you so that people can get to know, like and trust you and then they come by from you.
Chantal (25:56.398)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (26:00.834)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that I always talk about is...
don't get hung up on making your content perfect. Okay? Yes, it should be accurate and well researched, but don't sweat the small stuff over, you know, making something that is edited down to the... Just get it out there, get it done, get it up, get it out there and share it, you know, build, build, build, build, build. Because look, if I went back to some of my earlier videos, I'm sure there'd be stuff on there that I think,
Jen Dugard (26:09.933)
Hmph.
Chantal (26:35.468)
What was she thinking? What was, know, but, but it is all building, building, building over time. So, so get it done, get it out there. Don't procrastinate. Just go for it.
Jen Dugard (26:45.728)
Agreed, agreed. Just get it, get it out there. Chantelle, we talked about how you, you know, segue from, you said three, so four from the media industry into business, the business side of things into the podcast. So then how did you end up on the other side of the camera? Like presenting and also, you know, the MCing and things that you do these days.
Chantal (26:48.418)
Yep.
Chantal (27:09.516)
So when I, even back when I was in media, I had done a few events. I'd always put my hand up for events whenever the opportunity came up, but it was always little bits and pieces. So we might have like a corporate sports day or something. And I'd always put my hand up to say, hey, I'll present.
the winners or do you mind if I jump on and do it's always been a passion of mine presenting. there's been multiple occasions where I've just volunteered over the years to do that. I started doing some little workshops for my own personal training clients. So whilst I wasn't like fully
full time personal training, was still continue on training clients for a number of years. So I would quite often run just small workshops, whether it was in my lounge room or, you know, that type of thing. Being a group fitness instructor as well. I mean, I've taught group fitness for 15 years. I am
quite comfortable and I would always be super happy to jump up on stage. So, you know, there's that side of it as well. But more often than not, when an opportunity came up in the early days, I would always put my hand up for it. I always wanted to be, you know, considered for whether it be, you know, awards nights or just events of any type. So I guess the podcast, so Hosting the Fitness Business podcast opened up opportunities to start to speak at conferences.
And that was a really nice, wonderful opportunity to have. And the reason that that opened up is because I had interviewed so many industry leaders and authors that I was able to start to collate.
Chantal (28:46.196)
content from those conversations. So I had a presentation that was all about lessons in leadership, which was a collation of the lessons that I had learnt from the conversations that I'd had. So that gave me the opportunity to present at places like Philex or Ursa or Fidex, a number of different places. So it really started quite organically, I guess, as a result of just a long lifetime passion for
jumping up on stage and also just putting my hand up for things. guess, you know, I am a very, very big believer that you do need to volunteer when you can. And I still do now to this day. And I think you have to start somewhere. You've got to build your experience somewhere in the same way that when we start PT-ing, we generally will PT our friends and our family and that type of thing. So by the time that you start charging clients for something,
Jen Dugard (29:20.779)
Hmm.
Chantal (29:46.013)
can say yeah I've been PTing 10 people you know I've PT'd someone for a year so you're just building that experience in the background so I guess essentially I did that with presenting as well and then the first big what I would call the first big big event that I did was Exercise New Zealand Awards.
Jen Dugard (29:58.04)
Mm.
Chantal (30:07.246)
I think that was the first one. And that was an opportunity that I was really lucky because JT from Active Management who I was working with, he knew Exercise New Zealand team really well. Their regular MC couldn't do the gig. So he was like, well, Shantel will do it. And I went, will I?
Jen Dugard (30:26.765)
Yes I will!
Chantal (30:29.55)
like 400 people okay so um yeah so that was nerve-racking but that was that was back in i don't know 2016 or something like that so maybe 10 years ago and then yeah then consequently i've just just built up over time
Jen Dugard (30:39.787)
Wow. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (30:46.507)
Yeah, what would you say to somebody who like, how do they get and I heard you say go and do the free things but in terms if they want to speak at a conference, what are the things that they need to do in order to set themselves apart?
Chantal (30:53.526)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Dugard (30:59.733)
when they're applying to speak. So let's say they've identified a conference, not that there's that many conferences anymore. Hey, there's like, there is Exercise New Zealand, which I'd highly recommend people do look for the, you know, the applications that come out to speak at that such a really beautiful event and well put together. But let's assume that they found a conference that they want to speak at. How do they make themselves stand part?
Chantal (31:24.002)
Well, I think to take a step back from that, first of all, Jen, I think the thing is it's wonderful to have the aspiration to present, but first and foremost, you need to have a message. So you need to have, what is it that you are sharing? Whenever I think about presenting or whenever I speak to someone about presenting.
you always need to think about the audience before anything else. Like what is it that you're sharing? What type of value are you delivering to the audience? So it's great to want want to present but I would first ask anyone who has that aspiration, what's your message? What is it that you're trying to get across? Are you trying to educate on someone? Are you trying to inspire? Are you trying to motivate? So starting off with our message first is really really important and there's a lot of
work that has to be done before you even step on the stage. But to your question, if you have someone that perhaps already has their message, they're feeling quite confident about it, they have a flow for their presentation, then I would always say the very first point is doing little workshops. So just starting with little workshops before you actually get on a big stage, because the little workshops that you do for your clients, for your community, for your family, for anyone that is close
to you, that's your opportunity to hone your message. So that's like your little practice runs that you get in before you get on the big stage. And I think you always want to get to that stage if you do want to put your hand up for a major event. And to your point, there's not that many around these days. But once you're feeling confident, like you can deliver amazing education, inspiration, or motivation to your audience, then it's really about starting to create connections and
supporting those connections with what we talked about earlier which is your evidence, your evidence that whatever that subject is that you're talking about, whatever that message is that you're talking about, you have all of this experience that shows that you are the expert, that you're the go-to person on that topic. So what you don't want to do is put your hand up for an event and have a website that's full of information on one topic and be
Jen Dugard (33:22.189)
Mm.
Chantal (33:46.112)
about something completely different. So always make sure that you know if your passion is in a specific area and that's the pathway that you're following then you've got the content evidence, the experience to back it up whether you've been writing articles for Australasian leisure management, whether you have volunteered you know part of a board role, whatever that is you are building, building, building so that when that time comes and you put your hand up or you put in
Jen Dugard (33:48.513)
Yeah.
Chantal (34:16.065)
application, you have all of this supporting material to say to the event coordinator, yeah, I am the person, I'm the expert in this area, I know what I'm talking about, I can deliver amazing value to your audience, and I can do it really confidently. So the messaging, what it is that you're trying to do, educate, motivate, inspire, that's really important.
Jen Dugard (34:42.571)
Mmm.
Chantal (34:42.645)
because I can teach you how to stand on stage and feel confident. I can teach you how to project, how to pause, how to structure your presentation, but you've got to have that messaging. You've got to have that experience and then everything else can support it.
Jen Dugard (35:01.16)
Agreed. And it really is a timeline, isn't it, identifying your niche, identifying your key message to market or the mission you're on in the world. What are you doing to help people with your clients? And then that is all setting the stage for when you then literally step onto the stage and amplify that message even further. So again, even if you don't know where you're going to end up or even if you're not ready to start presenting yet.
creating this evidence, like you say, and building that experience is what's going to enable you to do it if you want to do it down the track. It's hard to go back and do it in retrospect.
Chantal (35:38.263)
Absolutely.
Yeah. And then you also need to think about what, what is driving me? What's my, what is my driver for standing on that stage? it, it because I want to share that message? Is it because I just want to set myself a personal goal? Maybe it is, but, but as I said earlier, for me, I always think about whether it's a
Jen Dugard (35:56.384)
Mm.
Chantal (36:03.914)
listening audience, a podcast audience, whether it is an audience in a live event, whether I'm standing behind a camera delivering to an audience that is watching on screen, the audience always comes first. What am I delivering to them? What is the value that I'm delivering to them? That is always my, for me, that is always my first thought and I would encourage people to think about the same. So if you aspire to stand on the stage at, you know, at a major event, no matter
what that is, what is it that you're delivering to the audience and how are you impacting the audience at that day? And I do that even if I'm MCing an event where I'm not specifically sharing education.
I'm sharing a message. So if I am seeing events, the goal that I've got there is to make sure that the audience have an amazing experience because all of the speakers are on time, they're introduced properly, they know what's coming up next. So it's all of those things that I'm thinking about in that context. But if I'm presenting on leadership or sales or marketing, then what is that message that we're giving to the audience?
Jen Dugard (37:12.46)
Yeah and I think the other layer to it as well is from a trainer perspective why do you want to get on that stage and what
Chantal (37:20.439)
Mmm.
Jen Dugard (37:22.698)
Why did you want to do it for you? So do you have a product or service that you can on sale to your audience? Because to be completely honest, if you don't have that, the questioning, why am I doing this? Like, is it an ego thing? Is it a, I mean, if it's a personal goal and you just want to get out there and do it, nothing against that. But I do think sometimes we can get wrapped up in this, you know, being on stage and speaking, it's, it looks glamorous. Therefore it is ego driven, but you've got no product or service to offer off the back of that. And unless you're going to earn money as a keynote speaker,
Chantal (37:46.958)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (37:52.575)
and you're gonna get paid thousands of dollars, why are you doing it? Like there's absolutely and what is the, number one, what is it taking away from by you doing that? And number two, if you do wanna do it, what can we build in terms of product architecture underneath you so that you get on the stage and then people buy something off you? Because we both know that often we don't get paid to do this stuff.
Chantal (37:56.834)
Yeah, what's the motivation? Yeah.
Chantal (38:11.074)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (38:18.102)
Yeah. So, so you do need to have you absolutely need to have that that other thing. But what I would say Jen to your listeners is there is so much merit and value in you doing community client based workshops. There is so much value because if I am a local personal trainer and I want to be the go to person in my community.
Jen Dugard (38:23.915)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (38:34.942)
Yeah, absolutely.
Chantal (38:45.314)
then what a great way to share your message. So it might be going to the local large company and offering to go and present to them about healthy lifestyle habits. Then your opportunity is to present yourself as that expert. And guess what? Maybe if you start to establish those relationships and show that you know what you're talking about, then when someone needs a personal trainer, guess who they're going to come to. So I think, so, so if we put the big events aside,
Jen Dugard (39:09.793)
They'll come.
Jen Dugard (39:15.041)
Yeah.
Chantal (39:15.18)
you know, based on what you just talked about, then doing workshops or presentations for your local community, for your clients, for friends and family is so valuable. It's a really, really good thing to have in your repertoire of things that you do and you can film it or you can film little snippets and you can share that on your social media for further reach. So I think I would really encourage people that do have that.
itch that they want to share their message, they want to share education. Think about starting with your community. It's a really good place to start and quite often you can go to like a local community hall or you know can quite often find places or the gym that you work out if you're based out of a gym and put on workshops, educational workshops and you'll be surprised people are really grateful for the information and yes working out your message is super important but it's a great way to start presenting.
Jen Dugard (39:46.816)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (40:08.563)
Yeah, absolutely. have try and encourage our mums, they've trained us to do regular speaking at mums groups and play groups and all of that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chantelle, you spent a bit of time on the board of OzActive. What was the driver in order to go out and do that for you? We did, we did. I'm so glad that you were there with me back on that in the first few years.
Chantal (40:17.526)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great way to do it.
Chantal (40:25.123)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (40:29.442)
Yeah, thank you. Well, we spent the first and the first. wow. Yeah. Talk about just jumping in the deep end. Look, initially, initially when I put my hand up for it, it was, it was a couple of things. First of all, I felt like I wanted to serve the industry that I had been a part of for a long time.
Jen Dugard (40:40.725)
Yeah.
Chantal (40:51.72)
I had been involved in like many, many areas of the industry from the personal training to the business coaching to presenting at events and that type of thing. So I felt like there was this desire to give back. So there was that. There was also the curiosity. There was curiosity around
gaining a better understanding of the role of our peak industry body. So gaining a better understanding of, know, when we pay our registration fees, what does that go towards? You know, what is it used for? What are all the ins and outs of at the time Fitness Australia? So there was that that curiosity piece as well. And then the other thing is, is one of the big drivers for me having been involved in the industry for a while is about showcasing the various career paths that can actually be
become available to our personal trainers. So I wanted to be more of a part of that and just see, you know, what are the things that we can put into place as an industry to say, hang on a second, this industry, it's not something that you do when you leave school and you're not sure what else you're going to do. It's not something that you do for a couple of years. This is an industry that you can create an amazing career in.
like a lifelong career and if that's what you want. So I wanted to be a part of that. So there was, guess, multiple drivers for me to put my hand up to sit on the board and you amazing woman are still on the board for your third term. Congratulations. I only stayed for three and a half years and not because I'm
Jen Dugard (42:11.381)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (42:21.099)
Still. Thank you.
Chantal (42:28.716)
Not for any particular reason, just in my life at the time I felt like it aligned with me really well in those three and a half years. And then I was going through some career change, not career changes, but you know, tweaks here and there. And so I decided not to put my hand up again, but I still, as you know, work really closely with OzActive and I still volunteer for a lot of work as well with OzActive because I feel like...
Jen Dugard (42:50.409)
Hmm.
Chantal (42:53.334)
it's very important to me to give back to our industry. So whilst I don't sit on the board in a volunteer role, still, wherever possible, try and give back to our industry through volunteer roles. So yeah, I hope that answers your question as to what my motivation was initially.
Jen Dugard (43:10.187)
Yeah it does and I'd love to ask you, I don't know if you saw my, you did see my 25 things that pissed me off, have pissed me off this year and one of them on there was when people still say what does Ozactive do because it's like where have you been, what have you been living under? But when someone asks you that question, if there's anyone listening now to say, saying well what do they do, what would you, what would your answer be?
Chantal (43:17.92)
I do. Pumpkins.
Chantal (43:29.379)
Mm-hmm.
Chantal (43:33.571)
So the first thing I would say is I think we, we, and I still say we as Ozactive have come leaps and bounds in the last sort of five to...
five years, let's call it. And so if someone would ask me that question, think top of the list for me would be representing our industry at a government level is a major, major role that that AUS Active play. And that means that it's AUS Active are putting us in conversations that truly we should have been in for a lot longer. But it's really only been the last couple of years where we've started to get our foot in the door in government conversations that mean that when the government making major
decisions about health and lifestyle factors and where budget goes to different organizations, we are starting to have a voice on that table. So, Ausactive, so a lot of the advocacy work that gets done from Ausactive is making sure that,
This is what we do as an industry. These are the people that we represent. We're actually have to be part of the preventative health conversation. So it is about making noise and making sure that we get heard. So for me, as a, as a group fitness instructor, a trainer or a business owner in the industry, yeah, I want to be a part of that because that bigger picture that I was active represent is affecting my business in the long run.
Jen Dugard (44:42.603)
Hmm.
Chantal (45:02.452)
And let's, let's be honest, like so many of us getting to fitness because we're passionate about it. We have obviously felt the benefits ourselves from being fit or we advocate the benefits for our clients. So why not? Why wouldn't we want to be part of that conversation? Why wouldn't we want to support an industry body that is that voice at parliament that is speaking on behalf of
our industry of our trainers of our organizations, our big companies. So I think so that's really important. I think that, you know, back in the day, it was funny because when we first went onto the board of Fitness Australia at the time, I think there definitely was some confusion, I guess, lack of clarity around why
you know, personal trainers should be part of it. But I do think that there is so much strength now. And I think that OzActive have done a really amazing job to build up.
the support that is given to trainers. you know, whether that support be through, like the governance work that we talked about, but also support through the education that is available through Ozactive, through the educational opportunities, through the content that is created. I mean, if you look now at the content that is shared through the Ozactive platforms, it's unbelievable.
So I think that's a really important factor. all of the support that you get as a trainer as well is really important. So I think there's multiple elements of it. I hope that answers the question.
Jen Dugard (46:40.52)
Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. There's this, I think that we still haven't nailed the necessarily the clear value proposition to trainers. So I think there is some merit when people still say, what do you do? But if you take the time to go and look at the website and dig a little bit deeper instead of just
asking the question and expecting it to be clearly communicated in an Instagram post, which would be lovely when we do get to that. But the amount of value there that we're, that Oz activists providing is way over and above what it's ever been before. And it's only going to continue to grow. Absolutely.
Chantal (47:13.868)
would it ever been before? Yeah. And the other thing is like when you look at things like awards, okay? So if you look at the industry awards, maybe you think, that's just, that's just fluffy. And it's just, you know, it's not, it is to have an awards program that is as comprehensive as what Ozactive has that celebrates the work that we do. That is huge.
Jen Dugard (47:20.202)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (47:28.554)
Mm.
Chantal (47:39.981)
because what it is saying to everyone out there, the consumers out there is here is an industry that takes tremendous pride and values the people that work in our industry to the degree that we have this amazing recognition opportunity where people have the chance to, you know, to, I don't want to say apply, but have the chance to nominate.
Jen Dugard (48:05.672)
Be recognized. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chantal (48:07.01)
Be recognized. mean, that is so valuable because it is just putting strength and continuing to build the importance of what we do as an industry. I am a firm believer that what we do, what all of the trainers do, what all of the gyms do, the work that you guys do changes lives. I 100 % believe that the work that you do changes people's lives. And so
things like the awards program for Ozactive recognizes the blood, sweat and tears that you all put into the work that you do. So, you know, I think I am so proud of our industry. I'm immensely proud of what we do. Yes, we've still got work to do, but my...
Jen Dugard (48:41.684)
Literally. Yeah.
Chantal (48:54.04)
goodness, have we come a long way? You know, and I really feel like with Ken Griffin, who has now joined as the new CEO, who has a background in preventative health and nursing, like here is this opportunity. Yeah, here's this opportunity for us to start to take another step forward in the right direction. So in my opinion, the future is very exciting. Yeah.
Jen Dugard (48:55.913)
Hmm.
Jen Dugard (49:07.496)
and marketing. Yep.
Jen Dugard (49:19.902)
very bright, very bright. Chantelle, I'd like to kind of circle back a little bit and talk about the speaking coaching that you're doing. I'd love for the listeners to be able to get, you know, your three top tips on how to show up confidently when they are thinking about getting on a stage and speaking. And maybe that is the first step to that is applying for an award because you're going to have to get up and go and shake someone's hand and that can be nerve wracking in itself. So look out for that. But what would your three top tips be on
Chantal (49:42.348)
Yeah, stand on stage.
Jen Dugard (49:49.201)
Speaking with confidence.
Chantal (49:51.011)
Yeah. Well, first of all, you literally just named the program because it's called speak with confidence. So I love that because that was not prepared. That was not prepared at all. Yeah. So, the number one thing that I would say is, preparation. So, so the first thing to speak with confidence is about being prepared.
Jen Dugard (49:54.859)
There we go. It was not.
Yeah.
Chantal (50:10.816)
And being prepared means anything from preparing your the topic that you're to speak on the message that you're going to speak on to write down to being prepared with how you're going to present yourself what you're going to wear how you're going to do your hair like all of those things go into building your confidence. So knowing what it is that you're going to say.
visualizing how you're going to look when you stand on stage to accept your award or when you stand on stage to deliver your message. So visualizing that, preparing the message, visualizing that, thinking about all of those little things. So that's, I'm going to say that let's wrap that up into number one. That's kind of a lot for number one, isn't it? But anyway, being prepared, being prepared is number one. Practice is number two. So
Jen Dugard (50:53.812)
Mm-hmm.
We'll keep going? Yeah.
Chantal (51:03.87)
it might sound daggy, but practice what you're going to do before you do it. So if you are someone that feels as though you crumble as soon as you step foot on a stage or behind a microphone, then practice it first. So if you are going up to receive an award and part of that is that you need to say a few words of any acceptance speech, then practice it at home.
Practice it in front of your dog. Practice it in different rooms of the house. Same with if you got a message that you're delivering, an education message or inspirational motivation. Deliver it first and foremost. And there's a lot of tips that surrounds that, but I'm going to keep it really simple. so, yeah. So preparing yourself, practicing for what you're going to do. what should I give you for a third? There's so many tips for a third tip.
I'm going to say this. I'm going to share with you one of my, well, you want to do confidence, don't you? Rather than presentation tips. Okay. So yeah, no. So the third thing I would say, so you're, you're, you have prepared yourself by, know, visualizing what you're going to do, how you're going to look, that type of thing. You've done your practice of your message. The next thing I would say is when you are
Jen Dugard (52:05.903)
you're the expert in this area.
Chantal (52:27.159)
preparing that message. And this is kind of a tip that I tend to leave later on, but I'll share it with you guys because you'll probably enjoy it. Something that you can do quite literally is practice with distraction. And the reason that I say that, so let me give you an example. If I am going on stage to...
Jen Dugard (52:41.481)
Hello?
Chantal (52:48.183)
accept an award for personal trainer of the year. And I know that I've got to say a few words, but I know that I'm nervous about saying it or that perhaps maybe I can say it when I'm here in my living room, but perhaps as soon as I get on stage, I start sweating. I get a little bit shaky. I literally get
sort of the jitters of the voice, my heart starts racing, then I want you to practice it with distractions at home. So what I mean by that is turn the television on and practice your acceptance speech. Turn the radio on, go outside where the dogs are barking and the birds are cheeping and maybe there's, you know, the kids are playing in the backyard and practice it out loud there as well.
So practice in environments that have natural distractions because the more that you can practice it and focus in on what you're trying to say, whether that's an acceptance speech or whether it's a message that you're trying to give across, it is going to make you that much more confident to deliver that message on the day when you get up on stage.
Jen Dugard (53:48.329)
Hmm.
Chantal (53:48.43)
So it sounds like a funny tip, but, there's a thousand other ones that I could give you, yeah, prepare yourself, practice, and then practice with distraction. And those little things will start to get you towards feeling more confident when you're up on stage. But I just want to reiterate on one of them, which I brushed over pretty quickly, which is always visualize.
the situation before you're going to be in it. So I will always mentally visualize what will it look like? What will the stage look like? Where am I standing? What does the room look like? What am I wearing? And I know you might think, well, why is that important? It is important for your confidence. It's important for your confidence that you feel not self-conscious.
Jen Dugard (54:16.871)
Hmm.
Chantal (54:40.851)
about what you're wearing. So think about that. It's important for your confidence that you just want to tick all those boxes, know, like simple things. What am I wearing? What shoes am I wearing? What, what, how am I doing my hairstyle? I don't want you to think about that while you're on stage. I want you to plan that in advance because all of those little things that we plan in plan in advance helps us towards feeling more confident when we're standing on stage on the day. Hope they help.
Jen Dugard (54:42.227)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (55:08.027)
I agree and it's why I always wear runners. Like I'm not someone that's gonna get on a stage in a pair of heels at all ever. Cause it's just another thing I don't need to think about.
Chantal (55:14.379)
So yeah, so if, that's what, yeah, exactly, exactly. So yeah, perfect example. Like you just want to have all of those, but there's lots of boxes, but you want to tick all those boxes so that when you're standing on stage, you're thinking about what, what we talked about earlier, you're thinking about the value that you're delivering to the audience. Cause that's what you're there for, you know, and even if you are up there delivering acceptance speech,
Jen Dugard (55:21.372)
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (55:35.881)
Mm.
Chantal (55:39.797)
You still want to feel confident. You want to feel good. You know, you probably want to share a message that is saying thanks, you know, how much it means to you to be standing up there. So, so if you can take care of all of that foundation, then it means that when you get out there, you're just purely focusing on the audience, the message and the delivery.
Jen Dugard (56:00.605)
Mm.
Jen Dugard (56:04.005)
agreed agreed chantelle if someone's going i want to start 2026 with more confidence in speaking how do they get in contact with you and what what does that look like
Chantal (56:15.159)
So they go to shantalbroderick.com.au, which is my website. And on there, they will see that there's a section called Speak with Confidence. It's really straightforward. It is just three one-on-one sessions that I do. So I only do it as three one-on-one sessions because what we're doing is we're just setting the foundations.
Jen Dugard (56:33.545)
Mm.
Chantal (56:33.909)
Okay, we're just setting the foundation so that you can feel confident to speak in front of your clients, maybe to start to present a workshop. So we talk about the confidence tips. So prepare being prepared. We talk about your key message. So what is it that you want to talk about? And then we go through a bit of a formula which helps you bring that start to bring that story together. So it's very straightforward. Shintarproject.com.au and on there you'll see that there's a
Jen Dugard (56:54.855)
Hmm
Chantal (57:03.944)
form for the program Speak with Confidence.
Jen Dugard (57:07.655)
I think all trainers should do that in 2026. would be good. Chantelle, if you think about the legacy that you would like to leave on the industry, what is that for you?
Chantal (57:11.095)
Thank you. Thank you, Jen.
Chantal (57:22.733)
The legacy that I would like to leave is I would like to make sure my goal is to make sure that there is a
library that showcases the amazing work that our industry does so that forever people can go back and see what we do, the impact that we have had and how our industry changes lives for the better. So that's almost a little preview into a project that I'm working on, but
That's my goal. My goal is to leave behind a permanent record of the work that our industry does to change people's lives. So it's a little bit of a teaser as well.
Jen Dugard (58:17.968)
I'm so intrigued by that. I'll ask you questions not live on it and we'll do a follow-up episode when there's more to tell. Amazing. Chantelle thank you so much for hanging out with me today I've learned some new things and I know that...
Chantal (58:20.363)
We can talk offline. I'll tell you more.
Yeah.
Jen Dugard (58:36.072)
listeners will take value. And what I love is that your, you know, your fitness industry career hasn't necessarily been linear. And it's also pulled in. was talking to some of our trainers about this the other day, I was saying, what is your superpower? Because there's something that you either do naturally, or you did in a past life that you could bring into what you do in the fitness industry. And it can be that like intersection of your superpower plus fitness and your niche. And I think you've done that so beautifully.
with your media work and then you you're still very active in the work that you do whether you're running sessions for people whether you're getting involved in million moves and then obviously you've got all your speaking you're presenting things that and we didn't even delve into all of the amazing volunteer work that you do outside of the industry as well but thank you for spending time with me and for offering your words of wisdom especially on speaking because speaking is that way that we send our messages out to the world so the more of us that are
able to do it even when our voice shakes I think is a really really important thing. Thank you.
Chantal (59:41.835)
Yeah. thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to spend this time with you. I just have the utmost respect for everything that you do. As a matter of fact, I caught up with one of your Mumsafe trainers, Emma recently, and she just, her words of admiration for you are just so special. And I think it is testament to what you have done.
Jen Dugard (59:56.22)
Yep.
Chantal (01:00:09.101)
for trainers out there. So I feel very blessed to have your friendship. I feel very blessed to be on your show. So thank you so much for having me. And I just think that you are the most wonderful asset for our industry. And anyone that is listening that is not already a Mumsafe trainer should absolutely be coming to you. And just, you know, I think you're amazing and what you've done to help support and educate our industry is second to none. So thank you. Right back.
Jen Dugard (01:00:24.272)
Hahaha
Jen Dugard (01:00:37.032)
Thank you likewise. Beautiful. Have a beautiful afternoon Chantelle. Everyone that's listening I will see you guys next time. Take care.
Chantal (01:00:39.789)
Hahaha
