No, not that idiotic reality show but a real simple life,balanced between work and rest, stress and reflection has been a goal of mine for many years. Having been a competitive athlete for most of my life my focus was on being able to train I needed as well as having enough real rest and downtime to actually recover and get better from my training, regardless of the sport I was doing.
My jobs, to be quite honest, were just that, jobs, and had to allow for the requirements of the training I was doing. I needed just enough money to pay my bills and I knew I wasn't going to get rich approaching things this way, but I didnt care. My main goal in life was to be the best athlete I could be and I would do what was necessary to achieve that goal.It is very expensive to be a competitive athlete in the missed opportunities at least.
I worked as a gymnastics coach and a cook for awhile before I started working in gyms and doing some personal training in 1979. The eighties were spent like that and even when Tracy and I got married in 1987 I wasn't committed to really making money. Training was still my main focus. Hell, Tracy had her own nail salon at the time and was making way more than me!
I co owned and worked at World Gym Campell for most of the nineties, while also continuing my personal training and thought I had the best job in the world; except for the fact I still wasnt making any money.
Only when the gym went under in 1998 did I wake up and smell the coffee; I had to actually WORK at making some money or my family was doomed to poverty. That's when I started training people full time and realized I still could eat my cake and have it too.
I realized if I could compress all my clients into a "morning" shift I could work hard, get it over with and have the rest of the day to myself while still making good $.
And so it is to this day; I work from 6 am- 12 noon, six clients in a row, then I come home to train and rehab. I am always done by 3 0r 3:30 and the rest of the day is devoted to the mundane aspects of managing finances and business but it is unscheduled and mine to play with.
I would prefer to train myself first thing in the morning but this is when my clients want to train and they come first now. I had to grow up sometime :))
Since I rarely go on 'real vacations' since if I don't work I dont get paid I try to have a daily 'mini' vacation every day, keeping mybattery charged and my interest in my clients and my business high.
People scoff at personal trainers but focusing entirely on another persons welfare and performance( who also happens to be your 'boss') for six straight hours is no joke. Not if you do a good job and really pay attention. What your clients want from you more than anything is your energy and boy do they get it. If you don't recharge yourself you will burn out. Trainers are always talking about what they are going to do next, after PT. I am a professional trainer, this is what I do now and what I will do for many years.I have to maintain my balance to make it the long haul and having this balance in my life is making that possible.
I love my unscheduled time and my trips around the globe via the internet. It's just easy fun and makes getting up at 4 am 5 days a week tolerable.
Weekends are great.
My jobs, to be quite honest, were just that, jobs, and had to allow for the requirements of the training I was doing. I needed just enough money to pay my bills and I knew I wasn't going to get rich approaching things this way, but I didnt care. My main goal in life was to be the best athlete I could be and I would do what was necessary to achieve that goal.It is very expensive to be a competitive athlete in the missed opportunities at least.
I worked as a gymnastics coach and a cook for awhile before I started working in gyms and doing some personal training in 1979. The eighties were spent like that and even when Tracy and I got married in 1987 I wasn't committed to really making money. Training was still my main focus. Hell, Tracy had her own nail salon at the time and was making way more than me!
I co owned and worked at World Gym Campell for most of the nineties, while also continuing my personal training and thought I had the best job in the world; except for the fact I still wasnt making any money.
Only when the gym went under in 1998 did I wake up and smell the coffee; I had to actually WORK at making some money or my family was doomed to poverty. That's when I started training people full time and realized I still could eat my cake and have it too.
I realized if I could compress all my clients into a "morning" shift I could work hard, get it over with and have the rest of the day to myself while still making good $.
And so it is to this day; I work from 6 am- 12 noon, six clients in a row, then I come home to train and rehab. I am always done by 3 0r 3:30 and the rest of the day is devoted to the mundane aspects of managing finances and business but it is unscheduled and mine to play with.
I would prefer to train myself first thing in the morning but this is when my clients want to train and they come first now. I had to grow up sometime :))
Since I rarely go on 'real vacations' since if I don't work I dont get paid I try to have a daily 'mini' vacation every day, keeping mybattery charged and my interest in my clients and my business high.
People scoff at personal trainers but focusing entirely on another persons welfare and performance( who also happens to be your 'boss') for six straight hours is no joke. Not if you do a good job and really pay attention. What your clients want from you more than anything is your energy and boy do they get it. If you don't recharge yourself you will burn out. Trainers are always talking about what they are going to do next, after PT. I am a professional trainer, this is what I do now and what I will do for many years.I have to maintain my balance to make it the long haul and having this balance in my life is making that possible.
I love my unscheduled time and my trips around the globe via the internet. It's just easy fun and makes getting up at 4 am 5 days a week tolerable.
Weekends are great.
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12 comments:
very cool that you get to work in the field you love.
I'm telling you though, I couldn't do it. Trainers have my repsect for sure.
total body tension is back up again.
here is the address
http://totalbodytension.wordpress.com/
I'm just about to make a transition now. Cultivating kettlebell demands here is just exciting. It is just unpredictable.
Hope I could set you up a real trip here some day.
Excellent message Mark... I love my job as well. It is a relief to know there is a balance that can be found, something I am still working toward.
takei,
I am starting to enjoy my actual trips around the country as well as my virtual ones. Would love to go back to Japan someday too.
fawn,
you will get there as long as you point your intention in that direction.this job is great but I see so much burnout from trainers working too much.
Rif,
Nice thoughts by someone who has been in the game a while. It was never my goal in life to be a trainer but here I am and I know I am in the right place.
Also, I have been having fun with Tracy's squat, clean, press combo. 2 minutes a little long for me right now for multiple sets with 24 kg. 60, 90 seconds work better. Also fun to replace press with snatch.
Rif's 4 Hour Work Week with Iron! At a bookstore near you.
not exactly tom but I am working on it,lol!
Great post Rif! I can relate to you in many ways. It is very difficult in the beginning of a personal training career to realize that you have to work on the business aspect of it as well if you want to put food on the table. Too many trainers treat training as a side hobby and something not really all that serious and that is why they fail.
Who would want to go to a Dentist that just sometimes did dentistry because he thought it was cool but had another REAL job to perform when he wasn't working on people's teeth.
When you treat Training as a profession you start to attract the right type of people who demand professionalism from you and who want results.
Like you Rif, I am a full time Professional Strength Coach and Therapist and with alot of focused work you can make a very nice living for you and you family, no joke. I have been training people as my profession for over 11 years and I can honestly say I am so excited I didn't give up and throw in the towel.
What other industry can you be very active all day, throw around fun objects, talk to and encourage fun people, and make well into the six digits?
Rock on Rif! You are a true professional and an inspiration to many trainers and trainers to be!!!!
great comment Franz and I knew you could relate. I believe that regardless of the profession, craft or sport FIRST one has to live and act like a professional, THEN one gets to BE a professional.
Even when I was training people part time I was totally serious and professional in my approach. I can't imagine doing it any other way.
and I'm sure your clients are glad you stuck with it and didnt throw in the towel as well!
How is Yoanna doing?
That was a great post Rif.
I soemtimes think that I have wasted a lot of time in my life obsessing about lifting. At university I missed out on some things because i was always focussed on training, thinkign that one day I'd get where I was hoping to be physically....but realistically I didn't have the genes for it. Or the knowledge really. If I went back 20 years with what I know now in terms of trainign and diet, I coudl have been a decent athlete.
But despite all that....I have enjoyed the hours I spent in the gym, the hours I spent reading about lifting or running or mountain climbing or whatever. They weren't wasted.
thanks Chris; but to me since the competition is really always with oneself and one's potential( not just for performance but also for balance)being a "decent athlete" or even a great athlete really isnt the key.
the key for me is to be better than I was, or as close to as good as I can be,always trying to improve just that little bit more.Or slow the decline just that little bitmore.
I like to create challenges and then achieve them; whether its a certain barbell lift or number of kb swings with one arm.You have to test yourself once in awhile to trully see where you are.
It really doesnt matter to me(especially anymore) what the challenge is as long as I am still pushing myself and getting better, in some measurable way.
Competitions with others are great ways to create motivation to push oneself towards ones stated goals but everyone who competes alot KNOWS there is always winning AND losing, never just winning.
SO its the training and the reflection thats the key to me,not just the numbers.
ALthough they are good too:))
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