For the last 3 years at Advantage Strength, we have chosen a word of the year that had a significant impact on the way we coach and the way we positively affect the lives of others. In 2013, the word of the year was Mindset. In 2014, Movement took the top spot, and in 2015 Connection guided us the most. As a staff, we have focused on this year’s Word of the Year, and it has helped us improve our training environment, the way we coach our clients and athletes, and improved our understanding of what really makes people tick.

So, without any more suspense, our 2016 Word of the Year is… drumroll please… Experience!

This sounds like a fairly innocuous word, but after learning about the Experience Economy (in a book of the same name by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore), things really became clear for us. It’s not the prices, facility, equipment, or training that draws you in to Advantage. It’s how you feel when you are here. It’s your experience that you remember, and if that experience is a positive one then you will have strong positive feelings and confidence in what you do here.

We are currently in an Experience Economy. We no longer live in a Service Economy where goods and services drive the marketplace. To help you understand this concept a bit better, let’s look at Toys-R-Us vs the Build-a-Bear Workshop as an example. Let’s say you want to buy a teddy bear. You could go into either store and walk out with the item you want, but I’m willing to bet you will remember the experience at Build-a-Bear Workshop a lot more vividly, have stronger feelings and better memories associated with that trip, and be far more likely to recommend the experience to a friend. If you are unfamiliar with the Build-a-Bear Workshop, the entire store is set up as a stuffed animal assembly line. You start by picking your animals skin, then a specialist helps you shoot stuffing into the unfilled bear, customized to the exact level of “squishiness” you want. Then you can include a heart, wish, or recorded message inside the bear before sewing him up and heading to a wall of perfectly tailored costumes to dress him up. Every stop on this assembly line has a distinct theme, and the staff and environment are perfectly matched to the “old time-y toy factory” feel. It’s almost as if, when you enter the store, you are stepping into a play, and you are immersed in the experience.

Now, which story are you going to tell your friends. “I walked into the toy store and bought a bear,” or “I went to Build-a-Bear Workshop today and (insert all experiences mentioned above) …” At Advantage, we want to create an environment and an experience that you want to tell your friends about. The concept of experience helped us define some of the speedbumps we were encountering, and allowed us to smooth them over by asking the question “How can we make this experience better?” This year it lead us to make changes to the way we write programs, the order of exercises, the number of coaches on the floor, and even the physical layout of the facility. When you look through the Experience lens, it makes it easier to make changes that create a better training environment and overall positive feelings about Advantage.

With that in mind… We want to know more about YOUR Advantage Experience. How do you feel when you train at Advantage Strength? Safe? Challenged? Athletic? Healthy? Strong? Have you made any breakthroughs since starting at Advantage? Got rid of your back pain? Did your first chin up? Made Varsity for the first time? Whatever it is, please let us know by sharing it on Twitter or Facebook, tagging us in the post and using #myAdvantageExperience. We would love to hear about your experience. It’s the fuel that keeps us going!

We look forward to hearing about your #myAdvantageExperience. I hope you had an excellent year, and we look forward to helping you experience the best version of you in 2017!

Brian and the Advantage Strength Team.