Hey friends! We are soooooo excited to get this blog up and running. For our opening post, we’ll be interviewing Nate Sleger, the head coach at Begin Within, to get answers to the questions we know you already have about Begin Within.
How did Begin Within get started?
In addition to being a personal trainer and coach, I’m currently a manager for an amazing company that owns and operates several fitness training gyms in Wisconsin. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, early in 2020, we were forced to close our centers and cease our in-person fitness training programs. We quickly adjusted to take all of our sessions to virtual platforms and our clients didn’t miss a beat in getting their workouts in from home. When we were able to reopen our facilities after doing all of our sessions online for over 2 months, we found that many of our clients preferred to continue to train virtually, some due to understandable concerns over the pandemic and others just for the convenience of working out when and where it was best for them—they had gotten great results while we were closed! In order to continue to take care of our virtual clients and find others who would benefit, Begin Within has become the face of our online training. Really, we didn't want to confuse our current and future clients by promoting our online training from within our physical training clubs.
Where did the name Begin Within come from?
As a team, our coaches have always been incredibly focused on the habits that their clients need to develop outside of the gym in order to get the results they’re looking for. In fact, when a new client begins working with us, their first stop is to have a coaching conversation aimed at uncovering their true motivation and talking about what new habits need to be built, and which old habits need to be dropped. Internally, we’ve viewed ourselves as being in the behavior change business first and the fitness industry second. The name Begin Within Fitness for our online face is appropriate because it keeps the inside of fitness—things like intrinsic motivation, individual goal setting, habit change—in the forefront of our work and our clients’ minds. Other “inside” work that we support our clients with like proper nutrition, hydration, rest, stress-reduction, and connection with others, is also a huge focus for us—so much more than just exercise.
What makes Begin Within different from other online fitness trainers?
Others do a great job of training proper exercise, and of course, that’s important. Since we work with mostly individuals who are new to supervised fitness programs and those who have quit in the past, we also coach the “inside” of our clients, to help them to stay motivated for the long haul and to feel and see life-changing results. It’s a much more “wholistic” approach to fitness, for lack of a better word. Because we’re 100% online, the connection we have with clients will take place in many other ways in addition to virtual training sessions. We will have Facebook group habit change challenges and unique ways to continue to educate our clients, both those we train virtually and those that our team works with in-person within our gyms.
Who would be the ideal client for training with Begin Within coaches?
We are well prepared to help those who are first time exercisers or those who have tried in the past without much success… perhaps they’re feeling like “should be farther along than this by now,” or “I can’t believe I waited this long to do something about my fitness.” Our ideal clients are also busy professionals who wear a lot of hats in life—work, parenting, caring for extended family, volunteering—and have trouble making time to care for themselves. Of course, part of me would love to say, “We can help everyone,” but the truth is, if you’re doing great with your exercise and self-care routine and you’re 100% comfortable going to the gym, we just aren’t the place for you, and that’s OK.
What’s the most important thing you hope to accomplish with Begin Within?
Oh boy… that’s a huge question. Our biggest goal is really to make a difference in the lives of the clients we work with… and we want to do that by shining a spotlight on the most important things that will contribute to their success, least of which is probably exercise itself, and focus on having really deep connections and conversations with our individual clients and with the rest of the world through our social media message. We want to create valuable, actionable content and educational products that will bring people real results, whether they decide to do actual workout sessions with us or not. Our programs will touch on everything that will impact a person’s health and well-being, and consistently put the emphasis on the things that will truly make a difference. If you're just starting out with their fitness journey or you've tried everything else but haven’t been successful yet, we will get you where you want to go. No doubt about it.
What do you see for the future of Begin Within Fitness?
Like I was just mentioning, we know that health and wellness isn’t just an issue here in our geographic area. So in taking our coaching online, we hope to reach the people in the places that need it most. And we will do that by providing much more than workouts—we have plans to create a complete library of fitness courses and programs, all centered around the ideology that exercise is a minimal, though essential, part of the process. We want to train individuals and even other fitness trainers to approach health and wellness from within... and to be more successful as a result.
And there you have it! Thanks Nate!
We hope you enjoyed the Begin Within origin story! If you'd love to get started on changing habits right now, click the image below to take our 26 minute (random, we know) FREE Workshop. Start creating new habits on purpose today! You got this!
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