Is Your Personal Trainer Really That PERSONal? When Oprah asks my opinion on fitness, I will share m

This is the final chapter of this series. I hope that these three short articles will help both a personal trainer and its client to create a safe environment that will allow them to enjoy the process of achieving their goals and coming up with the new challenges.

One of the most fun parts of being a personal trainer is to be the person that people actually trust their most valuable asset with- their body. And at this point, it is not even a question that body is never separated from mind and spirit. I do not even think that we should use those words separately. When I get popular enough, and Oprah gives me an opportunity to express what I want people to know about thinking, moving, and feeling (TMF), I will simply say that they should not even separate those three verbs but simply let it all BE ONE VERB- TO BE.

Nothing new. Yep. That's how creative I am. I also would ask people to use any form of physical activity or art only for reCREATIONal purposes. Right now, the world needs healthy artists sharing healthy ideas with people, and being a personal trainer or coach is an art form as well because you are creating your client's experiences and relationships with his/her TMF.

What I enjoy the best about being a coach is an opportunity to challenge myself and my clients on the ideological level. One of my clients is a young and successful professional woman. She shared with me her life plan for the next forty years during our first meeting!!! It was so specific that I was quite impressed but also afraid. I was impressed by her ability to know exactly how she wanted her life to go, but I was scared by her unwillingness to accept the idea that in forty years retirement might not even be the priority for her. So when she asked me what we were going to work on next time we meet, I simply started saying we would see about it tomorrow. Oh how mad she was getting in the beginning. She could not stand an idea of not knowing what someone else had planned for her. I knew that I could lose a client. I knew that it was not a method that a conventional formula recommended, but at the same time I knew that it was something I had to incorporate into her TMF training. And guess what? It worked. She is now asking me to not tell her what we are going to do during our next training session. She simply comes ready to work hard and enjoys the experience. I call this TMF skill- openness.

Who knows, it might be useful in twenty years when her retirement plan is so good that it does not really affect how she feels about not knowing who she will spend it all with because that man she has been married to for fifteen years turns out to be gay. Life is not an event you can plan. It is a game you've got to play. Do not get me wrong, I met people who made their lives into a perfectly planned event. Unfortunately, we all know that no matter how well the event is planned, it will never be as fun and interesting as a game. Plus, one day you might wake up and realize that all these years you've been attending only one event. Sounds very exciting :)

Don't bore yourself and your clients to death with a plan. Let them enjoy playing a game and trust your gut when you create a strategy of the game to help them achieve their goals.

Thank you for taking your time to read this improvised post. I look forward to hearing back from you.

(The picture was taken on the set of the National Geographic Show about the history of different religions where I played a part of one of Jesus' disciples).