Getting started...

I spend a good deal of my professional life helping start things. As a marketing consultant by day (that would be 7a - 4p) and fitness instructor by early day (5:30 - 7a) I help business owners jump start their sales, help fitness professionals start an entreprenuerial adventure and women start feeling good about themselves (via exercise).

Now I'm starting something -- a blog.

The word was a turnoff to me for a long time, but I'm getting used to it. I used to pride myself on being ahead of the curve with technology. I was the first manager in a conservative office to request a PC instead of a dictaphone, the first to use email, to learn to create a website, etc, etc. But this blog thing has been intimidating.

Communicating is appealing though, and I'm excited to share thoughts.

My thought of the day is aging. How boring. You see, I turned 40 this year. And lucky (and unlucky) for me, so did Sandra Bullock, Kristin Davis, and other skinny, fit, beautiful celebrities. Sarah Jessica Parker was on everywhere in the past few months sporting size 0 for the Gap. Wow. Oprah turned 50 and looks better than she did 20 years ago, Clint Eastwood won an Oscar in his 70's, and well, there is just no excuse to NOT be an overachiever at any age, much less ever slow down. Or run two miles instead of five. Funny thing is, it takes five miles now to accomplish the same weight that two miles used to.

This incredible "ordinariness" has been quite a learning experience for me (a humbling one, but valuable nonetheless). I have been teaching exercise classes since the 80's -- to records. Wearing leg warmers. Yeah.

Today I own a fitness education business -- www.FitCareers.com -- and I spend my days motivating tenured fitness pros to teach the wanna-be's to have empathy and commitment in their new jobs as personal trainers and group exercise instructors.
Boy, I wish I could make every 20-something personal trainer take their incredibly lean body and spend a day as 45-year old with a mortgage and job. Empathy lesson would be done. Many years ago I read about a cutting-edge residency program that required new docs to spend a week in the hospital as a patient. Great idea. Same thing I'm thinking for these super-fit trainers.

My fitness school is doing well. We are offering courses in 19 cities now. Speaking of which, one of them is calling. I will finish this! Check back, or share your thoughts.
Angela