Courtney Stanton

I would say a couple things. Number one is my passion. Number two, I think about 10 years from now - who do I want to be? Maybe 10 years from now, I have a daughter, and I want to be able to go outside and play with my daughter. I want to run around. I want to be able to do things that I think, just because you're getting older, doesn't mean we can't still jump and do these things we should be doing. I want to be able to do those things with my daughter and be as mobile as possible. I see a lot of parents who can't run, jump, and do things, and I get a kick out of it. My clients are hilarious - they're like, this is not fun, and I'm like, yes it is, come on, I'll do it with you. Once you find a fun way to do it, because everybody has their thing, you just get this adrenaline and you start feeling better. Even if you don't see any results, you just start feeling better, which really helps with the mental aspect too.

The best advice I got from my mentors was: your people are your people, and your people will find you. A lot of people say the fitness business is oversaturated, and that's not true because there's millions of people in the world. And we have an advantage now of training people digitally and online, so it's endless. Your people will find you, and the people that are meant to be aligned with you will align.

Learn. Be open to learning. I think it's great that we live in a different world with influencers, that's awesome. However, I really believe that the formal education behind it is super important, just because we're dealing with people's lives. Not to go on the negative side of things, but a lot of fitness influencers that people see, they're not certified trainers. For me, I take people's lives and their bodies seriously. I never want to give the wrong advice to someone, which is why I made sure to stay current on what's going on with my education and training. So find an accredited personal training or training program - I went through NASM, ACE is a good one, EASE is another one as well. Be open to learning, and I would also say, get a mentor in the industry. Also, trainers have to have personal training insurance - anything can happen. I train in clients' homes and I have a small studio in my home, and if someone gets hurt and you don't have insurance, we're dealing with heavy weights and people can fall. Covering yourself and your clients is really, really important. You can't just get up and be a trainer one day.

I think women's health needs to be more of a priority. A lot of women now are really taking control of their health and advocating for themselves. But I will say that there is a kind of forgotten about group of women. Perimenopause is a topic of discussion right now - what does it look like for a woman to transition into perimenopause and be active? And also, what about our women who have entered menopause? What does that look like for their fitness journey, their hormone balances? There's more opportunity to talk about those things and have more knowledge around education just around fitness, wellness, and health for that population - those perimenopausal women and women in menopause. How do you work out more efficiently? With menopause, your estrogen levels drop, and that means a lot of different things. I feel like there's more opportunity for personal trainers, but also with other healthcare practitioners to have more knowledge. I recently met someone that's a nurse practitioner who does hormone replacement therapy, so currently now I'm really trying to partner with individuals, and also education on GLP-1s as well too. That's a big topic - how do you utilize those things safely?

The values that are most important to me, I think, are really built around my fitness brand, but I think they're applicable to anything. Strength, confidence, and for my brand, it's Sustainable Fitness, but I believe in sustainable practices all around. I don't think - what's the term that they say? Work smarter, not harder. When I think of sustainability, I think about working smart. When it comes to fitness, in terms of working smart, you don't need an hour or two hours to feel your best in fitness. I think sustainable fitness for women is really important, especially women who are working with children. And then even as far as strength, I think not just physical strength, but mental strength, and having resilience is super important to me, which really helps with confidence just overall. And then there's authenticity too - there's only one Courtney, there's only one of each person. We're here for that reason, to be ourselves, to be authentic.