Build-U: A Space for Fitness Professional Growth
What is Build-U and how will it help you improve your fitness business grow?
When I left the United States in 2006 heading for South Korea, I thought for certain that I wasn’t going to be a Personal Trainer anymore. There was a financial crisis, I was only 2 years out graduate school, and was running a small Personal Training business.
I was 29 years old, unmarried and had no kids and since I didn’t know how to pivot my business, I decided to see the world. I had no idea that this adventure would take me right back to where I am today.
This is how life works. So many people think it’s a straight path forward, but it’s not. Life is full of ups, downs, twists and turns… and lets not forget the hurdles. I was heading to South Korea to teach elementary school kids English and I had no idea that I was not going to be the teacher, but I would also become the student.
Over my six years abroad, I spent one year teaching elementary students in Korea and another year and a half teaching science to middle and high school students in Thailand. It was during this time that I realized I am an educator.
Sometimes we don’t see the pieces that are coming together to make us who we are. We also spend too much time in the forest, unable to take a birds eye view of the landscape. We get stuck in our ways and within the constraints of whatever box we are in.
I get the question all the time, “How do I get to your level?”
What I often say is that first of all there are no levels. We are the culmination of all the things that make us uniquely who we are. Those include:
Life Experiences
Books we’ve read
Shows we’ve watched
Music we’ve listened to
Places we’ve traveled
People we engage with
Education (school, religious, etc)
And I’m sure there’s many more things that make us the sum total of what we output to the world. Our personal brand is attached to all of these things and your authenticity or lack thereof is what resonates with people around you. Your ability to effectively bring together these various pieces of things that make up YOU and communicate that effectively to your audience is what makes you successful at what you do.
Build-U is my way of providing you with insights about where I’ve been, who I am and how I’ve done things.
This space is my way of bringing insight and helping you grow in your unique way by seeing my unique perspective.
I’m not here to tell you what you should do with your business.
I’m not here to tell you how you should coach or train others.
What I am giving through this space is new inputs.
Think of it like this…
IF you want to get stronger then you have to provide inputs. Ideally you want to provide a variety of different types of inputs to create a more robust level of strength.
Your strength training should include stretching your end range.
Your program should also challenge you and load you in a variety of different directions.
Build-U is like this.
Here, we explore the outer limits and expand the horizons of what it means to be a Fitness Professional and Business owner.
EVERYTHING is an opportunity to learn and everything is connected. We just have to find those connections. I don’t watch a single film, read a single book, listen to a single podcast or song without considering the words, because creators are artists with the extraordinary talent of being vessels for thought leadership.
To paraphrase one a colleague of mine once said… we are all vessels for ideas from some sort of idea cloud. Some of us choose to hold on and horde those ideas thinking they belong to us, and when we find ourselves full we’re unable to receive any more ideas.
But IF we understand that we are a tiny part of a big universe, full of connected energy, and we choose to share everything that comes to us, we create space for more ideas. We become a bridge that connects ideas, not a barrier that stops them.
I invite you to join this space and let’s Build-U