From the Four Barrel Handbook – Happiness

This is post #3 of 5 in our series “From the Four Barrel Handbook.” These are passages we created for our employees and are pulled directly from our operations manual. We hope this gives an insider’s view into who we are and why we do what we do.

So read on and get to know a little more about what makes us tick. From members to employees, we’re building a tribe of happy, humble, and hardworking people that can help us change our community.

Intro to Core Values

At Four Barrel we believe in a value system that can apply to our training, our work, and our life. This system is made of our 5 Core Values, which are: 

  1. Hard Work
  2. Humility
  3. Happiness
  4. Consistency
  5. Community

These values crossover into how we coach, how we conduct business, how we treat each other, and how we function as a tribe of happy, humble, and hardworking people. 

We live by these core values in order to:

  • Challenge ourselves (and each other)
  • To learn lessons of ourselves (and by the examples of one another)
  • And to change, grow, and evolve for the better 

We believe that if we can improve our own physical, mental, and relational well-being, we can also improve the well-being of our friends, our families, and our community.

That’s why Four Barrel’s core values are more than just words on paper. They’re what we stand for, what we believe, and what we practice each and every day.

Core Value #3 Happiness:

In everything we do at Four Barrel, we aim to create happiness. Whether happiness in the moment (be the best hour of each member’s day), or deferred happiness (growth through challenge and achievement of goals), our mission revolves around creating a fun and welcoming environment that inspires and creates positive change. 

An environment and culture where:

  • Our members are excited to come through our doors 3, 4, even 5 times per week. 
  • Our employees come to work everyday on the balls of their feet. 
  • We can create a path to happiness through science, community, and personal growth. 

Below is the set of ideas that help guide us to our third core value:

Creating the Physiology for Happiness

At Four Barrel we coach our clients in three broad areas – Exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle. 

  • Exercise stimulates the release of feel good hormones like dopamine and serotonin, kickstarts the production of growth hormones like testosterone, and regulates stress hormones like cortisol. 
  • Nutrition provides the building blocks for these hormones, the energy we need for training and recovery, and influences our mood and energy levels.
  • While sleep and other lifestyle factors help regulate stress and recovery processes in the body. 

We believe strongly in developing services that are rooted in science, addressing the body as an entire system, and aim to create the the ideal physiological foundation for happiness. 

Our ‘Third’ Place
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “Third Place.” Third places are those community hubs between home (‘first’ place) and work (‘second’ place) where we exchange ideas, have a good time, and build relationships.1  We aim to be our members “third place.” Our spaces, classes, programs, and events should facilitate community, conversation, and the desire to hang-out and enjoy time with others pursuing a healthier life. 

“Be the Best Hour of Each Member’s Day”

Our members have one hour a day with us, and we want them to get the most enjoyment possible out of that hour. Whether pushing members to learn something new, or entertaining a class to the best of our ability, we should always aim to maximize the happiness of each individual client by working hard, giving them our full focus for those 60 minutes, and trying our best to be the best hour of their day.

Educate / Entertain / Inspire

When we teach, we aim to educate, entertain, and inspire. We create happiness by working to understand members’ individuals needs and inspiring them to reach their goals. We also create happiness by being entertainers. Members feed off our attitude and presence, so when we coach, we should be bigger and better versions of ourselves. 

A good coach knows how to entertain whether leading a class of 30 members or a personal training session with 1. Creating an entertaining experience does not come by way of simply showing up. Advanced thought is required. We should invest time and effort upfront, and plan for ways to entertain every time we coach. Entertaining sessions/classes creates the desire to return. >> The desire to return creates consistency. >> And consistency creates results.

Lead with Fun

We are a business, and we have to make a profit, but we hope to never get lost chasing dollars. If we become true craftsman / craftswomen, and continually focus on creating better services, the business will take care of itself. In any program we build, we should lead with fun. We must have the technical skill to keep clients safe and produce change, but fun creates consistency, and consistency over time is what creates real results. When building programming always put yourself in the client’s shoes and ask, “Would I want to do this workout?”