A Personal Trainer's Approach For Busy Women

What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. I'm super pumped that you're here. I'm really excited to bring today's episode to you. Today I have Jackie Lindell, who is with me on the show today, and we are specifically talking a lot about how Jujitsu changed her life, how what it was like to change careers, how to handle burnout with content, also how to really stay relatable, stay on the cutting edge of training, and really connect with your clients on a deeper level so that you can stay consistent, help them get results. And without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner, and this podcast where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

What's up, Jackie? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

How are you? I am excellent. How are you?

I am doing great. I'm super excited for today's episode. So thank you so much for joining me and I'd love for you to share a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Amazing. Well, thank you for having me. So my name is Jackie. I am a personal trainer and I work with busy women. I mean, who doesn't work with busy women? But I work with busy women who really want to build their healthiest bodies, feel great, confident, strong, badass ladies, and don't have a ton of time to spend in the gym. They don't want to be in the gym for two hours a day, six days a week. So helping them streamline their workouts and get them real results, but also not kill them with cardio or cutting carbs and all that other fitness industry bs.

Yeah. Okay. How'd you get there?

So I started with my own fitness journey, as I feel like a lot of us start there with our own fitness journey. So I was quite active when I was young, growing up on a farm and playing sports and all that kind of stuff. But then of course, going to college got a lot less active. And then starting in my former career as a veterinary technician being. It's a. It was kind of an active job, but I wasn't really doing any other activity outside of that. And I had started jiu jitsu when I was quite young, about 11 years old. And I continued that throughout most of my adult life. But we got into. My husband and I were more of a teaching role rather than an actual active participation. I found that I just. I fell out of shape. And I remember going to. I was thinking about this earlier. What really kind of ignited my spark in needing to change my own fitness was we went to this seminar where it was a wrestling seminar, and it was great. It was ran by these two girls who were just awesome. And they were strong and they were so informative, and I was so. Just in awe of how amazing they were. But I was gassed after the warmup. Embarrassingly gassed. And I was one of the youngest people at this seminar. And I was, like, huffing and puffing and having a hard time keeping up. It was so embarrassing. And it was after that, I remember saying to my husband, like, holy cow, I suck. Not a great mentality to have, but it was where I was at at the time. I was like, I am so out of shape. This is awful. And I was in, like my mid-20s and totally out of shape. So it wasn't too long after that the new year had kind of come about in 2015, and I realized, like, I needed to do something. And over the years, I had, yo yo. I would work out for three weeks, and then you'd never see my face in the gym for like a month and a half. And then I go, you know, for two or three workouts, really great. And then I wouldn't go back. So it was this yo yo cycle and this all or nothing mentality that I had. And I finally. Honestly, it was just. I had an epiphany one day when I was leaving the gym, and I was like, I feel so great. How do I keep feeling so great after my workouts? And then there was like a little voice in the back of my head that was like, well, maybe if you just, like stopped stopping and you just kept going, you might actually, like, reach your goal. And I was like, oh, I never thought about that before. I never thought about just, like, keeping going. So it was literally like that light bulb, like, switch in my mind where I just kept going. And soon after that, or not soon after that, but a little while after that, I wanted to learn more about fitness and training and things like that. And I would have friends and family ask me, like, oh, what do you do for your workouts. And I wasn't really comfortable talking about it because I felt like I didn't really have a ton of knowledge. So I thought, oh, maybe if I got my personal training certification, then I could, like, help these friends and families and stuff. So I did that on the side while I still worked my regular full time job. And then I realized that I really loved personal training and I loved helping people. And that was really like, the spark. Yeah. So in 2018, I quit my former career and left that behind, and I haven't looked back.

Oh, my gosh, I have so many questions. So first of all, though, do you miss the animals?

Yes, I do. There's certain aspects of my job that I do miss. And I still have friends that are still veterinary technicians that I went to school with and worked with. And there's a lot of things that I do miss about the career. There's a lot of things I don't miss about the career and that I'm glad that I made the choice. I did.

Okay, Amazing. Now, next, I actually am very interested in your Jiu Jitsu.

Okay.

So I want to talk a little bit about this because I just think it's really the reason why I'm drawn to it is that, you know, I'm a mom of two young girls. And so there is. There is a confidence aspect that from the people that I have just seen, like, I've seen Jiu Jitsu just come into my reticular activation system recently. People that I'm surrounded by are really active, and I just keep hearing over and over the confidence that it inspires stills in people. So I guess my question's two part and twofold. Which is the first is that what was it like to like, be 11 in that kind of environment, first of all. And then second of all, did you continue to do that throughout while you were slipping out of shape? So, like, in your mind, were you feeling like, I'm still practicing Jiu Jitsu, why am I out of shape?

Yeah. So when I first started, what actually really sparked me to start was my younger brother was in Jiu Jitsu before me, and he kept wanting. He, you know, he'd come home and he would have to practice what he learned, and he would just like kind of beat me up. And I was just like, I've had enough of this. Like, you're younger than me. I have enough of this. So I'm gonna join Jiu Jitsu so I can kick your ass. So that's essentially what kind of sparked it was my Younger brother. It was very much, it was very much the perfect sport for me in that, like was allowed to beat up. That was the only place that my mom would let my siblings or my. It was mostly my brothers that were in it. But there was the only place that my mom would like allow us to fight was Jiu Jitsu class. So she'd be like, you guys wait till Friday and take it out on each other at Jiu Jitsu class. So we totally would all the time. So it was a great bunny experience. But being a young girl in that environment. So Jiu jitsu now, I love how popular it has gotten over the years. And there's so many amazing women that have like just taken this sport by storm. And with like, along with that in the UFC and an MMA and all that, I mean, it's really just exploded over the past probably 10 years. And I love it. But when I first started when I was 11 years old, so, you know, 20 some years ago, it was not very popular for girls. So there was like a couple of girls in my class, but they didn't really stick around for very long because it's not very cool being a teenage girl in Jiu jitsu, or at least it wasn't at that time. It was not a cool hobby to have. So. So I stuck around in it because I loved it. And it gave me a confidence boost for sure. And not only that, just helped me with so many other aspects of my own life. Definitely confidence wise, like I mentioned, like growing being a teenage girl is hard enough. So having just like that confidence with Jiu jitsu and stuff like that really helped me. And it was just, it was my kind of a sport. Like I played basketball, but in all honesty, I sucked and I was not very good at it. And I liked being active. So this was my way of being active, kicking some ass and taking some names. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And then. I'm sorry I lost the other half of your question.

It's okay. I do this all the time and I have to stop. This is a good reminder to myself, one at a time, one time. Because every time I ask something, then somebody else says, you say something that I want to go, I want to go, yeah. So I always forget to circle back. So I'll have to just prioritize in my mind. But the second part of the question, which I thought was interesting, interesting was that you're in this sport that you love and then you found, you know, as you had gone through the years, that you know, in your mid-20s, you fell out of shape. And so I was curious if you were still practicing Jiu jitsu at that time and what that experience in transition was like.

Yeah, so there was definitely. We were like, my husband and I. That's kind of how we met was. Well, it's not kind of. It is how we met through Jiu jitsu. So we ranked up kind of around the same time together. So we were teaching a class, and it helped keep me, like, kind of active in that. Like, we would do warmups and things like that, but in a teaching role, I wasn't as active as I wanted to be, and we weren't practicing on our own very much. And that is where I fell out of shape. So I was a little bit active, but I wasn't, like, overly active and definitely did not have very much cardio endurance. So that's where, like, when we went to that seminar and I had that, like, holy crap, I'm out of shape. That was kind of, like, the lowest point where I was not. I was practice or I was teaching at that time, but I wasn't really practicing, and I wasn't exercising out of sight of that at all. And that's where, like, I got very out of shape. I see. I see.

Was there any part of you that felt like an imposter? Did you feel like, you know, as you're starting to, like, transition out? Because I. I'm. I'm saying this because I re. I remember that this came up for me when I first transitioned into being a fitness manager. I think people forget that. That it's also a job. And even as personal trainers, we get bogged down with so many other people's programs that it's really easy to put our own programs on the back burner, especially, you know, and especially for you, too. Like, I also think of, like, the women that you're working with. I'm guaranteeing that some of them are moms, and we are known for doing this, putting everybody else first and then you on the back burner, because it's just easier to break your word to yourself than it is to another human being.

100%.

Yeah. And so I remember this used to come up for me all the time when I was a fitness manager. And there was almost like, a sense of shame. Not around for me. I'll speak for me personally. Personally, it wasn't around, like, I had to look the part. And I'm putting that in quotes, because what does that even mean? But more of feeling like I was out of integrity and more like, do as I say, not as I do.

That part I didn't love for me, yeah, 100%. Like, it's. And definitely I've experienced it when I was instructing Jiu Jitsu as well as I have experienced it, as well as a personal trainer where it is that, like, little bit of imposter syndrome where you do have to catch yourself on your own bs, where it's like, oh, yeah, like, I'm letting my own fitness and stuff slack, but yet I'm preaching to my clients about, you need to prioritize yourself, you need to put yourself on your list and all these other things. But yet, like, I'm, like, 20th on my list.

Yes, we all do it. And this is true, I think. And I. I don't know, this is my opinion, but it feels like the human condition, because I notice this a lot. Right. You hear these things that people are like, oh, those who can't do, teach. Well, that's a not true. Teaching is a skill and actually really hard to do. But we tend to be. We tend to just surround ourselves with the thing that we're the hardest at the thing, or that was the hardest for us. The things that were most focused on, which is both. You're going to have ups and downs of like, I'm really amazing at this. And then, ooh, I'm slacking at this.

So I'm just noticing that a lot. Yes, very much so. I would agree with you 100% in.

Lots of different contexts.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, some I, like, I always laugh because if my PE teacher could see what I do for my PE teacher and my English teacher, if they knew what I did for a living, they would be like, no, not her.

It's funny how that works out, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely. Okay, so now you are. Have left the career, now you're building your personal training business, and you're working primarily with busy women, correct?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

So what are some of the things that you are. Are doing? Like, are. Are you specializing? Is it just general fitness? Are you dealing with, you know, mom stuff? What are. What are your. What's your focus in your everyday life?

Yeah, so the majority of my clients, they're about 50. 50. About half of them are moms and half of them aren't. But the common ground they all have is that they're busy AF and that they have careers and they have kids and, you know, all these things going on that they are putting themselves low on their priority list. And that they've been also struggling with an all or nothing mentality. So it's either I'm 100 on or I'm 100 off. Like how times do we hear that? I mean, they're on or off, there's no in between. And that's very much who I deal with, is helping people overcome that and realize that you don't have to be all or nothing. You don't need to be perfect. What you actually need to be is consistent rather than trying to be perfect for three weeks in a row. And then you can, you don't do anything for the next six weeks.

Okay, great. So your. Is your program a six month, a six week clip?

I do initial three or four months. Sorry, initial four months with my clients. And then after that it rolls into a month to month, depending on the client. So we start with an initial four month program to get them going, get them feeling good, get into a routine, and they're going to overcome and they're going to deal with that all or nothing mentality because throughout that four months, they're going to have weeks where they're going to be dynamite and then they're going to get sick, their kids are sick, or whatever it is. And then they feel like all is lost. And that's my job, is to pick them up from there and be like, no, no, no, no, no, we're still going with this. Because the more you just keep going and you stop quitting, you're going to actually get to where you want to go.

How long have you been building this, this career of yours?

I initially started personal training in 2016, late 2016, early 2017. And then I've been doing it full time since February 2018. So five years now I've been doing it full time. Amazing.

So now what are some of the things that you're doing to help you stay invigorated in the material and invigorated with each new person that comes your way. When it can feel so monotonous and.

Repetitive, a hundred percent, it is a challenge. And just like in any other career, there are periods where I, it's not so much that I'm burnt out with my clients, it's burnt out of like content, making content, social media, all that kind of stuff where I will burn out a little bit with that and then having to kind of relight that spark for me. I love working with my clients. They almost become like friends to me. So I love interacting with them. And one thing that does actually keep me going and keep me keeps me excited with working with them as we do like a once a month phone call. And that actually like sparks up my excitement for a person who's not super extroverted for some odd reason. I really enjoy that time with my clients where we get to just, you know, talk a little bit and troubleshoot where they're at. If they're struggling with something and celebrate their wins, that's the biggest thing for me is celebrating their wins with them. And that keeps me invigorated, I think, just as much as it does for them, because I love to hear about their wins, no matter how insignificant they think that they are. It's those little things that keep you going.

Love it. So what are some of the wins that you're. You've. You find yourself celebrating a lot?

Oh, man.

What?

I just had one yesterday that she told me. One of my clients has been really struggling with her self image. She had a baby last year and is, you know, trying to get back into shape and stuff. And she was really struggling with like the progress photos that in her mind they weren't changing. But in reality, I could actually see changes happening. But I know it was just, they weren't the changes that she wanted. So what we did is we.