Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Holladay.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m from a small town in Texas called Fredericksburg. My mother influenced me by telling me if I didn’t go to college that I would work at the chicken farm for the rest of my life.
That scared me enough to enroll and start an education to become a nurse. I wanted to help people because I had gotten very sick in middle school and leukemia was a possibility of the reason I was sick for months. When you walk away from something like that even at a young age it changes you to become a better person. I stuck with nursing for a year and eventually, I started feeling like I could help people in a different way, like prevent them from even going to the hospital. So I change my major to Exercise Science.
I had no idea what that meant exactly other than I would still be taking anatomy and physiology classes which I loved. I didn’t even. Know that personal training existed. I knew athletes worked out in their gyms but coming from a small town in Texas only football players really got me in a gym setting. I started working out with my sister and noticed changes in my body, I felt better, I looked better and I could finally throw a three-pointer and make it. When I threw my first three-pointer and made the shot I was hooked on exercise, I was so proud of myself as small as that seems. I graduated and started working at the wellness center in my hometown. I taught classes, swim lessons, arthritis therapy, coached a swim team, I was into it all. I was always a yes when it came to trying to new things and still am. I was there for about 4 years
When my personal life went a direction I wasn’t expecting I decided to go visit a friend in Hawaii to get away. He suggested I apply for a job at a hospital for their wellness center in Kailua Hawaii. Before I knew it I was sitting in the director’s office in a t-shirt and flip-flops in a two-hour interview. He had actually hired someone for the position but because my friend worked for the same hospital I was a referral which helped me get this fluke interview. He decided to tell his new employee he just hired that he changed his mind and he found someone more qualified for the position. I moved two weeks later.
I lived in Kailua for about a year and met a man that was in the navy. He ended up getting stationed in Oceanside and gave me an ultimatum. I either move or we end the relationship. So I moved for love. This rarely goes well and after a few months, it was over. He had been seeing someone else. So I put all my energy into my work at La Costa Resort and Spa where I had landed this job only because the manager at the athletic club had lived in the town I was in Hawaii. There was no position for a trainer at that time, but I was adamant to meet the manager. She was kind enough to give me a job. 11 years I worked there and as time went my clients and members constantly told me I should branch off on my own.
No way I thought to myself, that really scares me. I had no support base out here in California, no family and no boyfriend or husband to financially give me the strength to do that. Then as luck would have it, I was forced out and had to branch off on my own.
The universe forced me to face a big fear of mine and I am so grateful for it! Within a year I had kept most of my clients and added what I had lost. I gained all my clients through referrals or by people watching me train. I had no website, no ads done, no out on the scene marketing, barely a Facebook business profile and no money. I truly believed I could make this happen as natural and authentic as possible. I’ve been on my own now for a little over a year now with a steady base of 40 clients and adding in online training.
Has it been a smooth road?
No, it hasn’t been a smooth road. Growing up in a small town that didn’t have very many options for girls to excel in athletics and being a very small girl which I was always told I couldn’t do this or that and I believed them at the time.
I could have done gymnastics but when the one gymnastics instructor in town quit we had to travel and when that fell apart we had to travel even further and that got to be too expensive. I never pushed myself because I was told I wasn’t fast enough and strong enough. I didn’t find out I was athletic until I was in college.
I moved to California at the worst economic time to become a trainer where it seemed like everyone was a trainer and everyone was fit. My boyfriend at the time was abusive so all I wanted to do was work so I gave away a lot of training sessions to people. When that relationship finally ended I was too embarrassed to go back home so I stayed in California.
I started training David Jenkins who owned Designer Whey proteins and he uses to give me protein powder and that’s what I would eat along with the free cafeteria food at La Costa. I lived in 9 different homes within 11 years because of financial reasons or because roommates turned out to be disastrous. Along the way I constantly tried new things for myself to improve my training, I did figure competitions, bikini competitions, half marathons, Crossfit competitions which I fractured my neck in.
I didn’t have the money to go to a doctor so one of my clients got me to a friend of hers to get a cat scan. And sure enough, I had a fractured neck. I took care of myself to heal and rehabbed myself because I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t use my arms for a few weeks training clients but everyone was so supportive and I had to work. After the fracture I reevaluated my life and decided to swim Alcatraz which was on my bucket list for years, I figured after the incident I was put on this earth for a reason so I should try everything I can.
After leaving La Costa one of my close clients I had had for 11 years that I was close with got diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was one of my best friends and I visited him every day and stayed with him and his kids as much as I could. We were all close and I love his kids now in college. He passed away in my hands guiding him to a better life just like I had done for so many years but now it was to leave this earth. Right after that, a client of mine was on the transplant list for a kidney. He has Down Syndrome and is Autistic. After a year of search and going through dialysis to keep him alive some stranger saw a new clip of James and decided to give his kidney.
Being with this family through all the struggles was very humbling. I was at the hospital when he received his Kidney and actually got a photo of the guy caring the box with his kidney in it. Its been a year now I truly can say I have been blessed with all the pain and struggle. Because of it I have become stronger and live each day like it’s my last. Within this year of being my own boss and enjoy downhill mountain biking, boogie boarding (which I’m proud to say I survived boarding in Waimea Bay during peak season) surfing and will learn how to kite surf all within a year!
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I’ve grown into a trainer who coaches clients in supporting them to be better versions of themselves. I am a versatile trainer who coaches a variety of people, from a former Olympic athlete, a competitive downhill athlete to a Down syndrome autistic client and of course kids. I can accommodate to almost anything and I think that’s what sets me apart from other trainers, I don’t make my clients focus on one style of training.
Together we create fun energized workouts and I say fun because I am proud to say that I make my clients laugh on a regular basis. I believe in having good emotions connected to our workouts. I create workouts with suspension training, balance, breath work, cardio, Crossfit, strength training, flexibility, swimming and water work. I’m creative and I care about my clients which they know I do and it makes for a great combination when your trainer authentically cares about you.
I am service worker and will accommodate my clients in any way I can whether they get injured or have a race to run or a function to look good at. I am most proud of my company by the variety I have of clients and the number of years they have been with me. Some have been with me for 12 years and that is something I take pride in.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
It is and it isn’t! It is because everyone here wants to have some sort of fitness regiment and people here make enough money to make it happen. It isn’t because there are so many people out here training and into doing specific workouts when its easier than what trainers are making it out to be.
I think new trainers could start here if they started in a corporate situation. Trying to pick a trainer through the web is difficult and confusing. People need to see how you train and how you interact with your clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: bodybybecca.fit
- Email: beccabear33@hotmail.com
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