I started as a Personal Trainer at 18 at GSP one of Australia's busiest gym's in Sydney's CBD
I was doing floor hours and training clients from 5:30am - 6pm and keeping a fairly intense, fun social life.
I ended up coaching super successful guys who were running their own business or were workling at publicly listed companies.
I was really “ON” inside of those training sessions and super available to my clients and super focused on technique. I spoke to every person In that gym and It was one of the busiest gyms in the country.
I'd talk to people in the lift,
in the change rooms on the gym floor,
at reception.
I always had a full book of clients and I charged a premium price for personal training sessions but my business was simple.
I would train people, they would pay me and that was it.
I made really great money and my life was beautiful!
I learned a really important lesson working at GSP.
The senior trainers there were all really eager to learn and develop their skills. They were also really keen to pass on their knowledge. So when I entered the industry I got better doing by paying the top coaches in Sydney to mentor me.
I was also training super hard doing allot of “sweaty” stuff heaps of cardio and circuit style training
As I started to learn more about the art and science of coaching my training style also changed. Entering my first figure shows also woke me up to the importance of getting stronger and tracking macros.
After that, I ran my Sports Model Project in a gym and online and had 100 aspiring sports models training together 4-6 times per week in groups of 12 with 6 sessions a day running from 5:45 am- 6 pm at night.
We ran legitimate training programs not random cross fit style or F45 fluffy circuits. This was strength and conditioning based training to get women fucking strong, with elite body composition and dominating on stage.
(We had a girl in that program go from de-conditioned to WBFF Pro Diva in 12 months)
We also had girls regularly perform amazing feats of strength. I’ll never forget seeing Tash deadlift 110kg twenty-five times for four sets at the end of a 6-12-25 program. Tash was 65kg. I was in there all hours of the day and night coaching and encouraging.
I did full nutrition coaching including body fat scans each month I also taught the girls how to pose at a weekly in person posing sessions.
We delivered a crazy amount of stuff to allot of people each week. It was intense and I’m not sure that we charged enough for the amount we delivered. I tended to add extra benefits into the program for free which added to our workload but I just wanted to make the program amazing and for everyone to get an amazing result. It meant that me and my partners had to work really hard for no real financial gain, it was tough, a really good lesson in business and coaching.
I learned how to coach a whole heap of girls at once. As I trained a larger amount of people in a shorter amount of time I really refined my process and my thinking around coaching, nutrition and getting people results.
I was closely tracking nearly 150 people and seeing how all of these different bodies,
with different histories, training ages and stress levels responded to different methods.
I loved the community we had and truth be told I miss those girls and how hard they trained!
I now run a super successful online coaching program that gets world class results.
I charge more than I did as PT or for my in house program. I know that my training programs, nutrition concepts and work on mindset are industry best.
I still don’t think that is good enough and so I’m constantly exposing myself to industry leaders, upskilling myself and then changing my program.
To a certain extent I’m driven by anxiety: I never quite feel like what I’m doing is good enough and so I keep trying to make it better.
So I’m working to fix both my anxiety and to improve me program. I deliver more benefits at a higher standard to my online girls than I could to my personal training clients or to the girls I coached in the gym.
Less face to face time means that I have more time to develop content, review results and develop training programs. It means I can engage more In higher level thinking about what my program needs to deliver, how to deliver it and also what needs to change for each individual.
One of the funny things girls often say when I call them up is that they want to work with a coach who has less clients because they want to be the focus.
But almost the opposite is true.
Coaches without enough clients are working two other jobs for money and can’t focus their energies on their clients in the way I can. They don’t have staff to take work off their plate.
Working with so many people over the last 5 years lets me see the puzzle in a slightly different way.
Each time I solve it I learn another tiny tweak that may be the one that you need. Fewer clients mean fewer solutions to use on different problems.
Winning the WBFF Word Title in Toronto last year was transformational. Maybe I'll talk about my journey to being the champion another day but I love being an advocate for the WBFF.
I really believe in the federation and what it stands for.
I was a judge for the first time last month and I was taken aback at how thorough they are.
Often girls who are competitive figure athletes imagine they lose or win because “it’s about who you coach is” or “who has the biggest following”.
But on the day it’s 100% who dominates on stage, who poses best, who is fierce and really brings it. Initially, It was overwhelming trying work out the winner in a field of 40 amazing girls but over a few rounds it became more and more clear
I love how fast The WBFF is growing every year.
It's getting bigger all around the world. I have just been in LA for the Pro show there, Singapore for the Asia show and right now I’m about to leave England after being at the show here on the weekend.
The standard of the competition was amazing the shows were really big time and the crowds were awesome.
I also lecture and do seminars on the science behind training, nutrition and attaining and maintaining elite body composition.
I have a pretty big social media following and I work really hard at producing content that will help, teach and inspire my fans.
Sometimes I generate millions of views on my posts and I work with a few awesome sponsors like Muscle Nation and Jaybirds but I generate most of my income in my business.
I’m not reliant on anybody else but myself.
I have actually been my own boss and made my own income since I was 18 years old. I live an amazing life that I built and that's something that I’m really proud of.
Tomorrow I’m going to share with you some specific insights, the themes that I can see running through my success at all different scales in the fitness industry things that you can apply too.
Oh and if you're interested in joining The Sports Model Project you can jump the queue by clicking this link and telling me about yourself.
Most detailed answer wins.
Love and Light
Hattie xoxo
#1 Miss World WBFF Fitness Diva
https://ben499.typeform.com/to/P1Ftiu