5 years ago today we opened our doors in Castle Hill. A bit over 3 years before that I left my 20 year-long finance career to become a Coach.
Training in a gym has played a part in my life since my 16th birthday. Early memories of my dad lifting weights in our lounge room, or in the garage, or heading off to the gym – asking him how he got his muscles, and then watching him answer my question with those actions. I’d sometimes join him in the home sessions in my younger days, and all I wanted for my 16th birthday was a gym membership.
As a skinny kid lacking confidence, building myself up in the gym had the same effect on my confidence. Fast forward into my early 20s and whilst the gym often took a back seat to my full time job and my part time studies, it was always there. One thing that has held true is that I’ve always felt better after a workout.
A few stress related illnesses caught up with me in my late 20s – to the point that I realised my commitment to my health had become very part time, and things needed to change. As I moved into my early 30s I made some better decisions around my career trajectory that was more conducive to establishing consistent healthy habits.
At this point, I was back to the gym 5 days each week, never missing an early morning session, up and at it before 5am every weekday. Not surprisingly, every aspect of my life improved, including career opportunities. The impact fitness had on me later in life was similar to what the much younger me had seen – the opportunity to better myself (be it with arms like my dad), get back on top of my health (in my late 20s), become a better human (into my 30s).
This passion continued to develop over the ensuing years, to the point where I followed one of the coaches I came to know at the gym I was training at as his first client on his first foray away from that gym. I was completely bought into the philosophies due to the impact it had on me, I loved being one of THE original clients as the gym grew and more people got involved, I made so many good friends in my time there, and often trained morning AND night just to be around the environment more.
With the growth of the gym, I was happy to lend my experience as a CFO to the financial/operations side, and over time took an increasing interest in the coaching side. The desire to learn was strong, applying the knowledge more and more to my own training and lifestyle. Next thing I know I’ve signed up to the on line course to become qualified and with a gentle nudge or two from the owner’s of the gym – I started coaching there part time on the weekends.
After nearly 3 years coaching and working my way up to full time hours, I really had some clear views in my mind about things I would do differently if I had my own gym. “I’m not the person that runs a business” I told myself – in my 20 odd year finance career, I was content as a Senior Manager in Audit, didn’t want to jump to Partner; similarly when I went to industry, I loved my roles as CFO, but had zero interest in being CEO.
At the start of this story, I mentioned confidence. That wasn’t something I was short on anymore, particularly after starting a new career from scratch in my mid 30s. I backed myself, and went after it, starting GSD Performance.
Get Shit Done – that’s the gym philosophy, pure and simple. Confidence comes from doing – progress on your health and fitness comes from doing, I see the opportunity we create for people at GSD is to make it easy to DO the thing, to get shit done. It doesn’t matter where you start, it matters that you start. It doesn’t matter that you screw things up, it matters that you don’t give up. The long game trumps the short cut, and the self belief is the biggest gift that doing the hard thing will give you to help you get the most out of this life.
Take it from the skinny young kid watching his dad train in the lounge room, you owe it to yourself to Get Shit Done for a stronger, fitter and more confident you.