I used this photo the other day (it's me in my first PT job at the same gym that I took over as Elevate98 1.0) and it got me thinking that I hadn't really shared my full story with many of you who will read this.
I think, personally that finding out the stories of the people behind a business is fascinating and gives me a new perspective on it so over the next few weeks all the staff will share their stories.
Who knows you might find it boring and unsubscribe but here goes.
My background from virtually as young as I can remember was always in sport. I was very active as a child and loved football more than anything else.
I was somewhat of a 'late bloomer' as I was distinctly average until about 12/13 years old before a growth spurt and a new found work ethic brought me to slightly above average.
I was very lucky between the ages of 12-16 to train with clubs such as Manchester United, Liverpool, Ipswich, Sunderland and Celtic before signing for my boyhood club Hearts (that's me lost all the Hibs fans who subscribe).
From 14-17 I also made almost 30 appearances for Scotland youth teams.
I suppose the relevance of this to where I am today is all about environment. From a very young age I was immersed in high performance environments with top of the range nutrition, facilities and training (both Football and Physical training).
This has definitely shaped some aspects of Elevate98 today in terms of equipment and programme design.
At 16 I made my Hearts first team debut and went on to make 6 competitive appearances and many more in friendlies coming up against teams such as Preston, Inverness and Everton and being on the bench at grounds all around Scotland.
From the age of 13 up until 17 I was the proverbial 'Golden boy' and could do almost no wrong.
As you can imagine this all came crashing down when I was released by Hearts and then Hamilton in two consecutive seasons.
I was released purely on ability reasons (I was always known for having a great attitude and work rate) although injuries didn't help and in hindsight I can see now the clubs were probably right In that I didn't have the technical ability to make it. This shows just how average I was technically for watchers of Scottish football but hey ho!
While it's not what I would class as true hardship I do think these two years shaped me massively.
It further built the resilience and ability to deal with things that I felt was always inside and has proven to be a massive skill. On a slightly different side it also taught me to take life a lot less seriously.
From 16-18 I was what can only be described as highly strung. I did not touch a sip of alcohol, got down to 6% body fat and was in bed by 9:30pm every night in my quest to become a footballer.
While this helped (and I have maintained many of these qualities since) my life has got a lot better in the years since when I've had slightly more 'balance'.
After football I was very lost for a period.
I had no idea what I would do as a job and I also still had chances to go back to being a full time player.
It took my mum paying half my personal trainer course to convince me that it was a good 'next step'. In the weeks before I had applied for office jobs, the police and even considered moving abroad!
As a player I had always loved the gym and through multiple injuries had learnt a fair amount as well as the exposure to the environments I mentioned above so it seemed a logical place to find my feet before going into the real world, I was also still playing semi-pro football at this point.
I went through the whole gambit of doing employed work, self-employed work, online coaching, bootcamps, classes, spinning and much more in my initial 3 years in the industry and to be honest I just fell in love with helping 'everyday' people (who I am now one of haha).
What I mean by this is that when I first qualified I assumed I would be working with Footballers and elite athletes and not people like my dad and yet 6 years on here I am actively choosing to help everyday people and feeling incredibly fulfilled from it.
Over 3 years I built up to a fairly successful 1-1 business where I was doing 40+ PT sessions per week and slowly building a presence online.
Then Covid hit...
I can't quite believe it but my blog has turned into an autobiography and is going to need a part 2!
If you don't all unsubsrcibe from boredom part 2 is coming next week!
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