Allow me to introduce myself…

My name is Eric, and I’ve been a personal trainer for over 11 years now. 11+ years is a minute in many fields, but in fitness - where like 90% of careers don’t go two years - it’s really saying something.

Especially because at the most basic level, I don’t have a ton of the obvious advantages. I don’t have a killer physique, I’m not movie-star charismatic, I’m smart but not god-tier genius, and I started older than most people are when they quit. 

And yet I’ve stuck around a dozen years while younger, slicker, better-looking, more athletic trainers have fanned out, flamed out, burned out, crashed out, or just otherwise gotten out..

It’s become sort of an obsession of mine. What puts a trainer on-track to make a career out of training, or what makes them less likely to get the results they need to feel like their time isn’ better-spent somewhere else?

It’s dovetailed nicely into another obsession… how to become the best-possible personal trainer I can be.

I’m an obsessive type, if you can’t tell. It’s my gift, it’s my curse… 

As a kid, I was obsessed with martial arts. I watched movies, read books, trained and practiced every day, swapped VHS tapes with other karate-nerds (if you know, you know), and I read the magazines. That was actually where I started learning strength and conditioning techniques.

See, I wasn’t really born for martial arts, either. I was what they’d call a “chubby kid,” if they were polite. My legs were too short. I was slow. Slllooooooooow. 

But hard work beats talent when talent don’t work hard, and if there was a harder-worker adolescent in my area, he wasn’t working on martial arts. So, I did the magazine exercises.

I joke that a lot of people get into martial arts to improve their health and fitness, but I got into health and fitness to improve my martial arts. It’s okay if you don’t laugh, it’s not a great joke. I didn’t care about aesthetics, really. I cared about moving better, recovering faster, and getting injured less. 

In life, things don’t always go your way. For various reasons, making a career out of martial arts wasn’t in the stars. I went to school, joined the ministry, worked in politics, sold cars, did a little of this, a little of that. But the whole time, I stayed very interested in combat sports and combat arts, and I stayed fascinated by the role exercise could play in how I moved, felt, recovered… lived.

So when I got into the fitness business, I took to it pretty quickly because 1) I was used to playing from behind and making up ground with work ethic, and 2) It was fun! So I pored my time and energy into it, and am fortunate that I met the right people at the right times to enable me to make training a career. Or six. And counting.

Now, while I love being a trainer… it can be an embarrassing space to work in. We attract grifters, con-men, egomaniacs, divas, etc. Which is easy enough to ignore, except for this: they make it harder for good people who want to help people and make an honest living being decent human beings.

The cats and kittens that come in with a great look and a slick smile and a canned sales pitch all too often have a great six months swindling half their gym. Then they get into management, have a terrible six months telling their trainers “just do like I did, bro,” then crash out and go sell houses or tend bar or whatever. And look… I don’t care. But I do care that in those six months, they dishearten, take business from, and create stigma that has to be overcome by good trainers or potentially good trainers… the kind of trainers I want to help, the kind of trainer I’m fortunate to have become. People who love the art, craft, and science of training, not just the sales and marketing (or lack of regulation thereof).

I got to work with people who helped me find myself and be authentic in a profitable and beneficial way. Now, I want to be that for others.

Good trainers leave for 3 reasons. 1) they can’t develop their skills enough to become “good” at their job. 2) they can’t make enough money to justify the hours they’re dedicating to the job. Or 3) they don’t feel like they’re doing work that matters. It can be any combination of those 3, but I have yet to meet anyone who quits because of protein farts or wearing sweats to work. It’s almost always one or more of those three things.

I’m here to tell you, all that can be overcome. Even if you’re not the most ripped or charismatic. Especially if you’re not the most ripped or charismatic. Because the people who hire trainers don’t want to look at your abs or enjoy your smile. I mean you’ll get some of those but they’re not the ones you build a career on. The people you build a career  on care if you can understand and empathize with their problems, and if you can help them get what they want out of their bodies - and their lives. If you can do that, you can have the career you want in fitness.

You can make a bunch of money and have control of your own schedule. You can put your head o nthe pillow every night knowing you made the world a better, healthier, happier place. And you can do it in a way that feels authentic and personal and fun.

If memorizing scripts and pushing cookie-cutter programs or weird pills and potions feels sleazy and fake, that's because it probably is! I’ve been you. I can help you.

If you’re certain your head will explode if one more frat boy tells you “your body is your billboard,” I have been you, and I can help you.

If selling 90-day “booty transformation” contests to would-be influencers seems like two full-time jobs' worth of work for zero emotional satisfaction… I have been you. I can help you.

That’s what I obsess over. How can each person become the best-possible version of the fitness professional they can be? How can we develop skills and make money doing work we believe matters? 

If you want that… stick around! I’m working on severalformats to help put these ideas out into the world where they can help people. And if you want some personalized help from me… click the link wherever links usually are on whatever platform you’re seeing this on. If the link is active, I have slots available. I keep this limited so we can go deep, because I don’t want to put more useless tools in people’s pockets… I want to change their lives. My name is Eric Mayle… without further ado… let’s get started.