Isabella Bisceglia

I would definitely say some of the adversity that I experienced. When I was in college, I myself went through two really serious knee injuries, and they took me out of play each time for an entire year. I tore my ACL and my meniscus, and my strong suit was that I have always been active, and that was what was key to me, and then all of a sudden, I didn't have that ability anymore, and it was really humbling, and once I was kind of stripped away of what was easy for me, I was forced to kind of dive into areas that weren't, and now I feel like whenever I am meeting new people, approaching new clients, anybody that's experienced adversity, I have the privilege to relate to them, and I think that that's been really valuable.

Best career advice I think I ever received was pick the thing that you love, and not the thing that makes you the most money. I knew that I loved fitness and I kept growing at a certain gym to the point where I was managing and stepping away from the fitness side of it also. I just want to say I fell into the trap of taking a salary position, and I sat in that job for a year trying to convince myself that I enjoyed it, and I just didn't, and the money only holds you over for so long, and I switched back to going all the way back down to the bottom of the totem pole, and back to just personal training, and building myself up from there, and doing what I love has now put me in a position where I'm making more than I was when I was trying to just accept the easy way out, so just following your gut will work out one way or another, because it'll either fuel you and keep your battery running, or you have no idea the potential that it could kind of turn into.

I would say slow down, spend as much time with yourself as you can, and take your time. As women, we are always in this position of feeling like we have to catch up to the people around us, to different figures in our family and our friend groups. I feel like comparison is an absolute thief of joy, and with so much social media, trying to be better and progress, and how can we change? How can I get to the next level? And I think how you achieve that is in your own time. I think everything happens when it's supposed to. And the better that you know yourself, the better and more confidently you can walk into every situation. You'll be prepared for everything as long as you are true to your gut.

I think a really big challenge, again, back to social media, I think a really big challenge is over-pollution of content. I think there's so much content on so many platforms, and it can be overwhelming, and I think it's really hard to sort through, and I think for people trying to figure out how to get started into the gym, or how to get involved in a new type of fitness, or to be better with their nutrition, there's just so much content out there that it's not personalized, so people burn out, and I think they don't make progress because they're given too many options and too many different ways to attack the same thing. The best opportunity that you have is your local resources. I think most cities and towns offer different free yoga classes on different campuses, most gyms will have a nutrition provider or somebody there that will at least give you a free consultation to just at least help you pinpoint what your goals are. And even if you just sit down and journal, and again, just spend time with yourself, and just build a mind-body connection and an idea of what it feels like to be in your body, it will so help you know what to lean into.

I think I catch myself all the time just telling people to just be kind to themselves. A lot of people will approach fitness or any sort of transition in their life with this kind of magnifying glass on themselves, and they're trying to pick themselves apart and point out and find all the things that they don't like about themselves. And I have to encourage everybody, my clients, my nutrition clients, to do it all out of kindness. Do it all for the sake of yourself. Do it for yourself because you deserve a better life, to move better, to feel better, not because you don't want to be a certain way. If you do it with kindness, when you do it with a kind and a soft heart, it'll be sustainable, and it's what your little choices throughout the month accumulate to, not each and every little day. Don't pick yourself apart.