Name: Timothy Steele.
Job: Personal trainer and wellness coach.
Where you are from: Gloucester, NSW, Australia.
Where you work: LA X South Kensington.
Description of job: Weight loss, sports conditioning and testing.
How did you get into your line of work? I’ve always been a fit individual, growing up I played representative football, swam competitively and always eagerly awaited PE and sport at school. When I turned 16 I decided to turn that passion for physical exercise into teaching and started coaching kids to swim. I found this extremely rewarding, seeing the kids progress and grow made me want to help more people improve their lives. When I turned 18 I moved out of home and out of my town to look for bigger and better opportunities. I was offered another job teaching swimming again in a swim school but 100% bigger than the one I had previously worked for. The swim school was a part of a health centre, Balance Health club, which had amazing facilities including rehabilitation, gym and pool. After six months of working for the club, I was offered an opportunity to teach the squad kids but to do this I required my certificates in fitness, as 30 mins of their session took place in the gym. I was rather lucky as my fitness courses were paid for by the club and I received the training for free. I stayed at this job teaching for five years, teaching swimming to six month year old babies, squad kids, adults and doing fitness sessions with friends, fit testing sports high schools and working with the personal trainers to learn more about the job. I became more and more fascinated by the personal training industry and helping others to improve their health and well being.
How did you get started in London? I moved to London in February 2014 and quickly started looking for a job in the fitness industry. After being here two weeks and coming into the country with no accommodation, no job, no friends or family. I quickly set myself up in a job and a place to live here in London, working at LA X in South Kensington. I was rather lucky when I first started here at South Kensington, as my fitness manager, Scott Griffiths became my mentor, pushing me and wanting me to succeed! He approached myself and a couple of other new personal trainers with an opportunity to earn extra money and help our clients see better results, for as we know it’s 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. Out of the 5 personal trainers approached only I gave it a try. After a lot of pushing and prodding I finally gave in and decided to commit myself 100% in to the business. Now thanks to Fit camp, support from new friends in the business and existing clients, my business is starting to really take off!
What’s the most rewarding part of the job…? The most rewarding part of the job would have to be the impact that you can have on people’s life. The fact that you’ve just helped someone achieve something, that to them may have seemed impossible, is rather emotional and makes it worth facing all the negativity that can be thrown your way in the Personal Training industry.
And the most challenging…? The most challenging thing about the Herbalife business is the negativity you receive from other personal trainers/ people. Although they don’t know anything about the business or the products, they tend to shun the idea, protesting that it’s not real food and that it couldn’t be healthy. Another challenge is passing on the faith and belief in the products that you have to potential clients. People come to you saying they will do anything to change their lifestyle, but once you mention an alternative diet, “oh no that’s not for me”.
What advice would you give to new people starting in the business? Surround yourself with positive people and no matter what do not let any negativity or bad experiences bring you down! There are always sceptics but if you firmly believe in the product and the results, you can make it work. Passion counts for a lot too – if you love what you do, it helps enormously in terms of generating success.
