Self-discipline it is not 9 would work out in the weights room to find our muscles, he worked out simply to get his muscles‘ cut.’ It was through Flat Food Larry that I met the man my children now know as‘ Silly John’. John had a different claim to fame – to this day he remains the funniest guy I have ever met off a stand-up comedian’ s stage. A wonderful father( many years later) and a disaster as a business credit search salesman – he would have made more money as a stand-up comedian and we know how little they get paid.( John, commenting on a song playing in a restaurant:‘ That song saw me through a very difficult time in my life.’ George:‘ Oh, when was that?’ John:‘ Twelve through to 22.’) While Larry had his unnatural relationship with the gym, I think John and I had a simpler motivations – and they weren’ t money. An aerobics class of 40 women in contour hugging spandex leotards has a way of speaking to a 25-year-old single male. So we found ourselves in the middle of the weight-loss-health-kick movement. After a few months we noticed something interesting. People would come in and almost demand that we let them join our gym, come for a couple of visits and never come back again. With the benefit of the retrospectroscope, I now know that they had experienced what I call a‘ belated New Year’ s resolution’. For whatever reason( boyfriend left them for their younger sister; girlfriend left them for their best mate) they were‘ motivated’ and it was time to get fit and look great. A‘ belated New Year’ s resolution’ has, of course, the same chance of survival as the normal variety – somewhere around a one to five percent chance of seeing life into the following week. Talk is cheap and nowhere will you find it cheaper than on New Year’ s Day. On one level, this was great for business as it meant that we could take memberships totaling ten times our capacity and easily cater to the members who actually turned up. On the other hand, we knew the surrounding population was finite and that sooner or later we would run low of potential customers in our target 20-to 30-year-old market.