Mentor or Martyr - Eric Chessen Future of Fitness

In this episode, I am interviewing Eric Chessen about fitness in the autism population. 
Eric is the founder of Autism Fitness, which is a fitness framework dedicated to providing fun and meaningful fitness outcomes to individuals across the spectrum. 
How has your life, and business changed over the last three months? (01:14)
Eric says he has lived in New York his whole life. He and his wife decided that it was time for a big change, so they relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. They relocated on the first of March, and three weeks later everything changed. They had three autism fitness certification level one courses coming up, which were two-day events. While hoping for the best, they soon realized that they weren’t going to be able to do the seminars.  Eric and his business manager put their heads together and agreed on two main concerns; one was purely from a business perspective, they knew that they had to keep their revenue stream going. Their second concern is that the valuable information they provide can’t be found anywhere else.  His goal is to provide the best possible fitness programming principles, concepts, and strategies to the autism community. They realized how important their information is to people and the community, so they completely restructure their level one certification.  They now offer a four-week online course on Zoom. They have certified professionals attending the Zoom calls. Doing the course online has been proven to be more advantageous because they have more time to spend on concepts and asking questions. They were forced into this situation, but it resulted in the production of something that is even better than the original version.  Do you agree that people will make the best out of our current situation and that it may even become a more permanent arrangement? (05:50)
Eric agrees that someone who has been successful in a space away from home, also knows what it takes to be successful, even without that space.  He looks at the psychology of choice; it has been proven that people are not only fatigued when having too many choices, but they are also never satisfied.  People get confused when they have too many choices. Ultimately they end up being unhappy with their choice because there were too many options.  When you start putting in constraints, it improves focus and eliminates “noise”. When there isn’t a lot of choices, you pick one and go with it.  For the entrepreneurial-minded, it means making things happen even when you don’t have a lot of options. You don’t have a perfect course of action, but it eliminates a lot of variables.  Describe the type of people that enroll in your program, what is the ideal? (08:34)
He says the high caliber of people that enroll in the program continues to astound him.  Autism fitness certification is not something you get into by accident. There’s almost a barrier to entry, and they see a cross-section of the fitness and the wellness community. The people that enroll consist of fitness trainers, PE coaches, physical and occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and parents.  Eric says the parents in the program are some of the most remarkable people because they do this to empower themselves, as well as to make it possible for other parents and families.  The trainers consist of those who are really interested in working with this niche population, but they need more guidance. There are also trainers who have been approached by parents or schools to develop fitness programs.  What will I gain by doing your certification? (15:51)
The fitness professionals that take the course are already familiar with the principles of movement, biomechanics, and exercise selection.  The difference between general programming, and programming with the autism population, is that there are adaptive and cognitive variables with the autism population. There are also physical challenges involved because most of the autistic