If you are using any free email service; Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc… please go in and change the password NOW!
I've posted about all the SPAM emails, from hacked email accounts, I receive in past posts. I get so many because my email address is in the contact lists of thousands of Instructors receiving our email newsletter.
My request isn't about me… although I am getting tired of responding to dozens of these every week. I feel it's my responsibility to “Reply to All”, alerting the owner of the email address and everyone who was contacted with the hacked email.
This is about protecting you! If your email is hacked they know everything about you 🙁 Where you work, where you bank, what stores you have accounts, everything.
And about protecting your friends who, seeing what looks like an innocent email from you, click the link and install some malicious software on their computer.
That software could potentially lead to the theft of your friend's identity or worse, the stealing of their bank passwords which will allow a hacker to withdraw all their money.
It's also about protecting the future deliverability of emails sent by you. All the big email providers work to prevent SPAM. Having your email address identified as one connected with SPAM is a quick path to email purgatory (SPAM folder) and your important message never getting read.
OK John, but what should I change it to?
There has been lots discussions around what makes the perfect password. But I'm going to guess that the passwords of the nine hacked emails I saw today were simply one word… so even a small change will make a huge improvement in preventing it's discovery.
I realize that the frustration of remembering your passwords are in large part the reason why people use simple, easy to remember words.
A suggestion is to take your existing password (if it has 8 or more letters) and add one capital letter and two special characters.
So “password” would be greatly improved by changing it to “@Password!”
Another option would be to combine three easy to remember words, separated by special characters. The three girls in my life are Amy, Abby and Carly so a reasonably secure password could be Amy&Abby&Carly. You can use your first name, your dog's name and your city or any other three words and special character combination.
One more suggestion – You may have heard you should have a different password for every website – unrealistic. But I personally use a few different passwords, depending on the type of website where I have a user name.
One simple password for sites that don't matter (No email or financial data) Here's where you can use “password” 🙂
One password for important sites (No financial data)
A complex password for each website that has financial, medical or credit data. Create a prefix password and add the name of the institution at the end like; @Password!=visa or @Password!=bank or @Password!=401k
The objective is to prevent a hacker, who's gained access to your hotmail account from cleaning out your checking account because you used the same password in both places.
It's really a big deal so stop everything and change your email password NOW – before you get an email from me saying it's too late, followed by an overdraft (email) notice from your bank.
Amy makes her TV Debut this afternoon on ShopNBC! She starts her new role as the product spokesperson for Bay Area facial cosmetic surgeon, Stanley Jacobs M.D.
And get this… Dr. Jacobs offered her the position after first meeting Amy and taking her Indoor Cycling Class at CycleQuest Studio, which is just a few blocks away from the ShopNBC production studios 🙂
I'll let her tell the whole story, but what happened is this. Dr. Jacobs was here in Minneapolis to promote his Visco-Elastic Transforming Serum, appearing on a number of live segments shown on ShopNBC throughout the day. With a number of hours in between segments, he came to my Monday noon class at CycleQuest – except I wasn't there. Amy was subbing for me that day.
I can easily imagine what happened next…
Amy did, what Amy normally does, which leads to a whole lot of people leaving her class feeling celebrated and valued.
They may be miles away, and not even know that you are there. They may find their way to your class, or maybe they will not. Regardless, YOU will be there with your best performance when they do! They need YOU to show up! Why?
Because you are one who is celebrated. You are the one they have literally been dying to meet because you celebrate people (this includes YOU). And they know that if they can just get near you, they too will feel significant.
So you may be thinking, “Yeah, right…if I were a celebrity…it would be easy to have a packed class every week, but I am NOT!”
If you go back to the definition of celebrity, you will see that in fact, you can be. Celebrate you and you will be celebrated. Celebrate others and they will celebrate you!
So go out and teach some great classes this week… you never know who'll be there 🙂
And if you're one of the approximately 75 million cable and satellite households that have ShopNBC, Amy is scheduled to appear in the 5:00 and 6:00 hours – Central Time.
I wanted to give a shout out to the excellent people at SportSmith.com to thank them for their continued support of our communities here at indoorcycleinstructor.com and at pedal-on.com. The discounted Indoor Cycle parts they provide help take a bit of the sting out of maintaining the bikes in your studio. They've also done a phenomenal job selling my Red Pedal Tool to Studios around the world!
Newer ICI/PRO members and visitors who've recently discovered indoorcycleinstructor.com may not know our “Genesis Story”… the original idea, back in 2008, that lead to what has become the top Internet resource for Indoor Cycling Instructors and the most listened to Internet radio show for fitness professionals on the planet.
It all began with my frustration with Schwinn Triple Link pedals. Don't get me wrong, I still see them as an excellent choice for any cycling studio and the clubs where I teach have used them since the late 1990s. It's removing those @#$%^& shoe baskets that has me (and hundreds of other Instructors it turns out) cussing and swearing every time a member asks to have them removed so they can use their cycling shoes with LOOK cleats.
Being a sales guy, my next concern was; how would I get the word out (marketing) to Instructors and Club/Studio Owners?
Turned out that the answer was right in front of me 🙂 At the time I was traveling a territory as a sales rep and I was spending a lot of time in my car. Talk Radio can get old awfully quick. So to productively pass the time between sales calls I started to listen to Podcasts about sales, marketing and motivation.
Why couldn't I record and produce my own Podcast?
Other people are creating their own shows and iTunes does a great job making them available to anyone with and iPod… but what would the show be about?
I did some searching on iTunes and found a Podcast about creating your own Podcast. One of the episodes was about choosing your niche – what the show would be about. Their suggestion was to find something you are passionate about and a topic that you have some specific knowledge…
How about a show that featured the experts and personalities in Indoor Cycling? 200+ episodes later and I've enjoyed (nearly) every minute 🙂
There's nothing I enjoy more, than giving voice to up-and-coming stars in our industry.
I love giving others the chance to shine!
Since August of 2008, The Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast has introduced dozens of talented people to thousands of Instructors, club/studio owners/managers and industry leaders around the world.
Many of them have leveraged their exposure to grow/develop successful businesses or advance their personal fitness careers.
I felt it was time to find a few more 🙂
With the help and support of some wonderful sponsors, we've created a fun competition to find and (and then promote) some very special Instructors, The Ultimate Instructor Class Profile Contest!
Can you answer YES, to these questions?
Do you take pride in creating innovative class profiles?
Are your classes designed around a specific training purpose?
Do they include a well designed music playlist?
And then, do you deliver your profile like a polished actor or actress on stage?
If you can then we're looking for you!
The top five Instructors will share in over $4,000 in cash and prizes and the top three will be recorded and published for thousands of other Instructors to enjoy 🙂
Please check it out and consider entering your favorite profile between now and May 14th.
Let me know if you have any questions.
John
P.S. This contest isn't open to Master Instructors or other industry educators – only rank and file Indoor Cycling Instructors who go above and beyond the average and are either ICI/PRO members or active, registered members at Pedal-On.com
In my post yesterday about auditioning as a Life Time Fitness Instructor, if I only had three minutes to show my stuff… what music would I use? I suggested that you should use a track that you enjoy teaching to. Now I'm re-thinking it…
I actually auditioned at two Life Time clubs and both times I taught a whole class – and yes, both times I was hired 🙂 My audition wasn't part of an open Instructor call, rather both department heads had recruited me (they both initiated the auditions) to teach as a result of some Guerilla Marketing I had done, once I had decided I wanted to teach for Life Time.
I don't remember exactly what music I used, but I do remember that it was completely wrong for the second audition. It was a 9:30 AM class filled with middle aged women (what I affectionately refer to as a “House Wives Class”) and here I go cranking up Stranglehold by Ten Nugent. Stranglehold, all 8:33 of 74rpm of driving, climbing Nirvana, was not appreciated by this group who were used to their normal Instructor's dance/pop/club music. The old Bowie I'm prone to use probably didn't help either.
If I had it to do over again, and only had three minutes, what music would I use?
I'd use someone else's music. Here's why:
The objective of any audition or interview is to get the job. Period. It's your chance to give the interviewer (or the class) what they're looking for, it's not your time to give them what you want to give them. That comes after your have nailed the audition and secured a class on the schedule. Does that make sense [wlm_firstname]?
So the music I would use would be from a resource that has an understanding (or reputation) for good music to use in an Indoor Cycling class, designed to appeal to a broad audience and is typically the result of a collaboration between multiple Instructors. I few suggestions would be to find a track you like from one of the Spinning CDs, a track from one of hundreds of CDs from any of the fitness music sites or if you are an RPM Instructor you would of course use a track from their catalog.
My point here is that I don't feel many of us, especially new Instructors, can remove enough of our own personal bias in our choice of music. So for something as critical as your 3 minute audition, I'd suggest yielding to the expertise of other's.
If you are using Spotify Mad Dogg Athletics has a bunch of playlists you could choose from. I like this track Various Artists — African Move which has a lot of energy + an International / African sound which I feel would be enjoyed by many. I would cue it up at the :30 mark and run with it 🙂 I can't find a legal free remix but you can get it at Amazon.
For your free track might I suggest using a remix from another popular artist; Robert Miles, who ends up on many playlists. The track Children is very recognizable.
