Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashton Williams.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My story starts back in middle school, I didn’t know it at the time but the tough times I went through back then would fuel me into the drive and passion I have to help others transform their body and improve their overall confidence. I was always one of the biggest kids growing up. Not only the tallest but I was what they would call husky. I took a lot of teasing from a lot of people that I thought were my friends. I took it pretty hard and would come home upset and wondering why I had to be bigger than everyone else, and why did these kids have to make fun of me because I was different than them. Luckily I had sports as an outlet playing every sport the school had to offer. Transitioning into high school I narrowed my focus on football and had the opportunity to play varsity football for Plano Senior High my junior and senior year. Through those two seasons I performed well enough to earn a college scholarship to play for Abilene Christian University. I thought I was prepared for this journey and quickly got a culture shock on those first two weeks of two a days. In the weight room I was so far behind everyone else around me and was lacking some major strength for my natural size. The kids around me were nearly doubling if not tripling weights that I was struggling with for 2-3 reps. See in high school we were in the weight room but we never had a structured strength program and even if we did none of us took it seriously. So I ended up down and out on myself because I was so far behind. My mentality was shook I loved playing football but was I really ready to work from the ground up to prove myself to these new players and coaches to try and earn a spot on the team. Sad to say at that age my mental state and mental will power was not strong enough to push me to put in the work that was needed. So I ended up leaving Abilene after my first semester and moving back home. I was in and out of community college, dropping classes and not going to class. I was depressed and down and out on myself. I had no drive, no motivation to do anything. I got into some bad personal decisions that made me wake up and grow up real quick. Plano wasn’t the right place for me anymore as I just kept finding myself getting into more and more trouble. I chose to move down to Corpus Christi with my grandparents for a new start and honestly to try and find myself and what I was going to do with my life. This is where I really got started on my fitness journey. I had a group of friends I met through work who had invited me to start working out with them. This was exactly what I needed! I was about 260 pounds and probably 20+% body fat. I hated the way I looked and wanted/needed to make a change to feel better about myself. We trained everyday no days off for almost 2 hours every workout. I owe a lot to those guys, they kept me motivated, working hard, and accountable. They never let me miss and if I was trying to wuss out they would call me out. In about 6 months I dropped 50+ pounds and put on a decent amount of lean muscle. But I wasn’t done transforming myself, I wanted to get bigger, stronger, and more aesthetic. My buddies had moved away off to new cities and better jobs, so I moved onto a new gym closer to my house. I trained by myself laser focused and driven to be better. There were days when the only thing I thought about the entire workout was how those kids back in middle school would tease me and make fun of me because of my weight. I would stare at myself in the mirror and say the things they used to say to me and fuel my fire. I wanted to prove to them I would look better than everyone else that ever talked down on me. Within about a year at this new gym I had packed on almost 10+ lbs. of solid muscle. I was now sitting at 225 and my body fat was at 11%. I felt amazing, I looked the best I had ever looked and was more confident in myself than I had ever been before. It’s crazy, I changed my body and it felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I didn’t stress about the troubles I went through in middle school, or in college anymore. I was more of an outgoing person, no longer shy and standoffish towards others. When people would approach me I would no longer bottle up and shut down, I stood and spoke with confidence. It changed my whole attitude and really changed my life. At this time the Fitness Manager at the gym approached me and said he had seen me working out and seen the changes I have made within myself, and asked if I had ever thought about being a personal trainer. The thought had never hit me. But I sat on it for a few days. I was jumping from serving job to serving job, living paycheck to paycheck. I didn’t have a college degree. I had no direction but I knew I was passionate about fitness. I had fallen in love with the process the body can go through to change itself. If I wasn’t at work I was in the gym so I put two and two together and figured why not get paid to be in the place that I love being at. I took him up on the offer and got certified as a Personal Trainer through NASM in early 2015. The rest was history! Long story short I know how superficial and aesthetic driven our society is. I know so many people in our society deal with what I dealt with in my life. Not feeling comfortable in their own skin, being picked on or looked at differently because of how their body looks. Low confidence levels and body shaming themselves. For people that have never had to deal with this, they would never understand how much of a mental tole this can be on yourself and how much it can really hold you back from things you want to do with your life. I have fallen in love with working with people and developing a relationship with all my clients. I want them to be better, I want them to have confidence in themselves and know they are capable of anything they put their mind to. I can honestly say I’ve never felt as good as I feel when a client looks me in the eyes and tells me thank you. I can see the gratitude in their eyes and feel the love in their hearts as they go through the process of changing their bodies. Their mentality changes, they get a stronger will, they push themselves harder and harder everyday they are with me. I am so lucky to be able to do this as a profession, I get to make a huge change in people lives and am so grateful for all of the struggles I went through in my life, because it pushed me into this direction of doing what I truly love doing!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing is ever a smooth road. Starting out as a Fitness Professional was challenging because it was something I had never done before. It was a new journey and I felt like a fish out of water. I passed the certification exam and was ready to start working, but didn’t know how hard it was to get consistent work. Yes I worked for a gym but just because you worked for the gym didn’t mean you had clients. I tried to learn from every trainer on staff and take in my manager’s guidance to perfect my craft and grow my business. The most difficult thing to learn about being a Personal Trainer is that it is a hustle. If you are not constantly hustling to get clients or to further your education as a trainer your business will fall off. You have to get people to trust you and invest in you to get them the results they expect. It’s not an easy process. You are guiding someone through a journey that is challenging, and there will be set backs in their journey, there will be difficulty in communication. Communication on exercises and how they are preformed, communication on what to eat and what not to eat, communication on how to spend their week, month, year. There are different phases of training and some are slow and seem boring, others are so difficult the client will feel like they want to give up. You have to motivate someone to not only work their ass of in the time they see you, which is maybe 2-3 times per week, maybe even 1, but also motivate them to stay on track and focused on the end result every single day. Fitness is a constant battle especially when one is trying to really make a change in their own body. Our society is not healthy for the most part. Fast food, cheap food, drinking, and laziness are all things we struggle with as a whole. This lifestyle is an easy one to get stuck in because it’s easy and we as humans enjoy things that are easy. So to challenge someone to change that and be smart about their decisions and not be lazy and let up on themselves is not an easy task. Being a Personal Trainer is much more than just guiding someone through a workout a few times a week. If you want to be a successful trainer, and I mean successful in getting your clients results and keeping them healthy and pain free, you have to be on them consistently. Reaching out daily, weekly, it’s basically a 24/7 job. It is a lot more work than it seems to the outside eye. People try and tell me all the time “your job must be so easy”, “I wish I could just work people out all day, and hangout in a gym” but there is so much more to it than that. Try balancing family life, your own workouts and meals, plus come up with workout/meal programs 3-4 months deep for 15+ clients. It’s a constant battle for me to balance everyday life, motivation through my own workouts, plus work. I can’t be down, I can’t be unmotivated. My clients will suffer if I am. They come to me for that motivation, that accountability, that push that they can’t get from themselves. So I cannot not let up, I cannot slack or I will fail them. Which I will not allow to happen because I pride myself in my work, and I get results, no I expect results. I refuse to lose, I refuse to fail. I expect and hold the same from my clients.
Please tell us about LifeTime Plano.
I am a Fitness Professional at LifeTime Athletic in Plano TX. I motivate and guide people to make the lifestyle changes that will get them healthier and the results they desire about their body. I specialize in Body Sculpting/Body Building, Fat Loss, Group Training, and Athletic Performance. I would say I am known for circuit training, Circuits are fast paced back to back exercises, designed to get the heart rate up and going, working the entire body and attacking body fat. Minimal breaks and efficiently getting the most out of an hour session by combining both resistance training and cardio in one. I would also say I am known for improving athletic performance in youth ages 10-18. I’ve been through my own personal journey of playing at the next level and my own struggles at that level. I know what it takes and that you need to start working at a young age if your goals are to become a next level athlete. I coach and guide kids to improve athletically but also teach them life lessons and how to become better mentally and physically. I like to think I am developing a young generation of Leaders both on and off the field.
Enough about me though let me speak on my place of work. I’ve had the opportunity to work for one of the best gyms in the country and I say that confidently and with pride. This gym is held to a higher standard and we as a team take pride in our facility and our family driven atmosphere. When you walk into LifeTime you will without a doubt in my mind have an unforgettable experience. I work with a team of 30+ trainers who are all some of the most educated minds in fitness I have ever been around. It is truly a team/family atmosphere between us. We all work together to better one another. This starts with our great management team and the expectations they have for us. They hold us accountable to perform at a high level and deliver a WOW experience. We are consistently ranked as a Top 10 training team in the entire company. I am beyond lucky and grateful to be in the position I am in and to work for the company I work for.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite childhood memory would have to be playing High School football. Something about those long hard practices in 100+ degree weather and full pads. Yes it was tough and yes we had difficult days and days that you wanted to quit. But the relationships I developed with my fellow teammates and coaches are ones I will never forget. It was my family outside of my family. I developed a love for all my comrades, and that connection still holds us close to this day. I learned so many life lessons through football it’s crazy to think about. It was my job before I even started working. Plus playing in front of a huge crowd of screaming fans under those bright lights on Friday nights. Nothing beats it was the time of our lives and I will never forget those years and am so thankful I got to experience it.
Contact Info:
- Address: 7100 Preston Rd
Plano Tx, 75024 - Phone: 214-334-3355
- Email: awilliams8@lt.life
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashtonn__ryann
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