Houston Equinox Trainer Tyrus - From tires to hanging out with Ray Lewis

Have you ever felt the call to change your life's direction so strongly that you just had to answer? Meet Big Mr. T, the tire industry pro who reinvented himself as a powerhouse personal trainer at Equinox in Houston. In our latest episode, this fitness maestro sits with us to recount the electrifying moments that sparked his passion for health and the grit it took to carve out a new career path. With his insights, you'll understand the weight of tough decisions, like choosing between online training and traditional gym settings. He shares the hurdles he overcame, the strategic partnerships that fueled his growth, and the importance of building personal rapport for long-term client loyalty. Get ready to be inspired by a story of transformation that proves it's never too late to follow your calling.

Strap on your workout shoes and prepare to sprint through the world of fitness with an expert's eye. Big Mr. T pulls back the curtain on how adaptability and the principles of progression and overload are the linchpins of a trainer's programming arsenal. We also tackle the common mishaps our clients encounter—from knee problems to rotator cuff injuries—and discuss innovative tools like the Prehab Guys app that keep workouts fresh and focused on prevention. As we chat, we uncover the dreams that drive trainers from the initial grind to the summit of financial autonomy, painting a clear path for those who want to shift from the relentless trade of time for money to a lifestyle where financial freedom is front and center. Join us for an episode brimming with the strategies and stories to power your fitness ambitions to the next level.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up.

Speaker 1: 0:28

Howdy everybody, and welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. Today we are lucky to have Big Mr T he's out of Houston, personal trainer at Equinox, coming up on almost two years and this is going to be one of your best months ever. You're going to be hitting that 100 session mark, so we're going to talk about your success, your struggles and you have a really cool story going from working in the tire industry and now you're helping people and you've seen a lot of cool stuff. And, more importantly, you're teaching our Equinox Lifetime Big Box call that we have every week on Tuesdays and we're going to discuss some of the questions that you see a lot with students and newer trainers so we can help them. So thanks for taking the time. My man Appreciate it. So let's just dissect it. Let's start right from there. What your story? From your tire spotting to getting into Equinox. How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 1:23

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:23

So basically I was in the entire industry selling and everything else for over 13 years. I got to a point in, I got to a point into the career that I felt I didn't want to go anymore into the career. So I always had the passion to want to be a trainer, or even not even just be a trainer, but find a way to help people. And I and after I lost the weight and did what I did to myself, I figured, by being able to learn what I learned, I can help people in the way of personal training. Um, it took a minute for me to pull and go full all in, because when I first started off, I was on the defensive do I want to be an online trainer? Do I want to be? Do I want to work for a gym? Do I want to do my own kind of thing and really just procrastinating instead of just taking a leap and keep going? So I stumbled across. After I did my internship I mean, I did my certification through ISSA I still kind of felt lost. I didn't know what to do, didn't know how to really program, didn't know how to build a business or even get referrals and build clients. So I just started looking, reading, looking up stuff, and I got on Amazon and typed in the search bar how to build a personal train of books. And that's when I came across Chris's book. Once I came across the book, I read the whole book front to back, and I was like man, it's like what is like? Because it tells you, but it's also leading you on to, this book is going to help you out. But I do have something else that's going to take your career a little bit further. So I started like, all right, let me look up his YouTube videos. So I'm watching the YouTube videos, youtube videos and it's just something about you're like man, he knows what he's talking about and I think he can help. So that's when I joined the internship. And once I joined the online internship, that's when, like a whole, like another excitement got into me, like, yes, I'm really learning now.

Speaker 2: 3:21

After I did the level one certification, it took me about three. I started at the beginning of the year of 2022. And whenever the Austin seminar was, it's when I it took me to take my level one test. And then, once I took the test at the last seminar, it was was was the experience, being able to just name everything off and being able to do it in front of a live crowd. It was a rush, but at the same time I was ready. So we go from there and then I still bumble back and forth. I thought I completed my level one. What do I want to do? What do I want to do?

Speaker 2: 4:01

And everything that I read was always recommending, when you're going into the personal training field, at least go work with the gym or some kind of gym setting, at least one year to a year and a half. And and I always knew that, but I didn't know like I was I always had things like man, what if I'm not making the same amount of money? What if this is you know? What if all this don't go? And I always had those fear thoughts that kept me from holding back. And then it was just one day. I'm like I'm just going to. I kept texting Chris every day hey, what about this, what about this? He'll be like such and such, but at the end of the day I know, hey, just take the leap. That's what he's telling me to take the leap. So I just, eventually I took the leap. Um, I started putting in applications lifetime, um, equinox, like crunch, like any 24 hour fitness, um and Equinox their symptom, um. So I started in Equinox and the day after labor day, um, I started in Equinox the day after labor day.

Speaker 2: 5:01

And I went part-time with my um, with with my um, my career at the tire place. I went part-time instead of staying full-time. That way I could start focusing on business at Equinox, and that's basically how I got into it with Equinox.

Speaker 1: 5:17

So let's take a look at that statistic that I throw out there. I say 90% of level zero trainers quit within the first year and your experience at Equinox now over two years or coming up on two years, would you agree, disagree? Would you add to it? What would you say? I?

Speaker 2: 5:32

would say yes because, like just from my, I don't know if they quit, I don't know what they've done, but just from my experience from starting at Equinox with the crew that came with me I'm the only one still there and then I done seen probably about 15, 10 to 15 other trainers leave, and that's within a year. You know, I'm not saying what they done, I'm not saying I don't know why, but I just feel some of it is not being prepared because it was a lot of ups and downs, there's a lot of roads, it's a lot of oh, you think this is going to happen, but it really doesn't. And by being part of show of fitness it kind of helped me to mentally prepare myself. It's like you're not going to get in the game and make a hundred thousand dollars in your first year myself. It's like you're not going to get in the game and make a hundred thousand dollars in your first year. That's not going to happen.

Speaker 2: 6:24

You know, you have. You have to be in the field, you have to go, you have to get the battle wounds, you have to go through the ups and downs, you have to take time to sit back and realize and study yourself. You know, because it's a different, especially coming from a tire world. I always had customer service skills to the like. I always had customer service skills to the like, I always had great customer service skills and I knew business. But there's a lot that you really don't know as far as the business side, as far as time management, how to re get get customers referrals from, from clients referrals from anybody period, how much to charge for a per session, how to do an assessment it's just a lot that goes into it that you're not going to learn unless you really get out there and start trying to learn it.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So you did something that most trainers don't do and you went to a seminar and you were our first live CPT and I remember Travis and Josh administrated that and Katie was there as well, and there's just something about being able to talk through it. That's so much more applicable to the training world versus level zero. You take a test and then I would say, in my 20 years of being a trainer, I would say 99% of trainers say the same thing Well, what next? I don't know how to train. This didn't do shit for me. So can you just imagine being in that spot where you have your textbook certification. You go to a gym, you look good, you're confident, whatever it is, and then they say go out there and get clients and you're like well, I don't know how to do that. I don't have the business skills, I don't have the people skills because maybe you don't have a background like you do, and I don't have the trade skills because this textbook didn't teach me shit. So you start going around putting back equipment and then, before you know it, you get a couple of assessments. They don't sign up. Your confidence just goes low, low, low, low.

Speaker 1: 8:12

And then two months later you're looking at your paycheck You're like I'm making minimum wage, I can't live on this, what the hell? And then you're talking to mom or dad or someone else and they say you know, this isn't a sustainable career. Do something that's serious, Do something where you can actually make money and do something that's respectable. And you see, they will then leave. And then they kind of talk shit about the industry. It's so hard to make money. Equinox takes all your money. Lifetime takes all your money.

Speaker 1: 8:36

But in actuality, the big problem is they weren't ever really sat down and given realistic expectations. This is what you're going to expect. You're going to get declined, yeah, but there's going to be a lot of growing pains. And going through your career so far, say 18 months how empowering does that feel, knowing that you're going to hit your highest month ever 100 sessions. When you started out you were probably doing less than 10 sessions. But that evolution with those highs and those lows. Talk to us how that feels and and what were some of those things that helped get you there oh, like like being at the point now to being at the beginning, it's, it's a struggle.

Speaker 2: 9:16

It's a struggle especially when you have um, for one is the income. You know, like, like you said you, you could come in and your first month you might not pick up a client and you're just depending on floor shifts and for the whole month, just say for that whole month, you, you gross five, four hundred dollars. You know, when you, when you're used to making four thousand dollars a month, you know you go from four thousand to four hundred400 in one month.

Speaker 2: 9:43

You know income is one. So it's like how long can you sustain a living while you're trying to build a business?

Speaker 2: 9:50

And then some gyms like I just said for instance, if the population, how the flow is of the gym. Some gyms might not be as busy, you know, so it might take you longer to build a clientele base. Some gyms you might walk into and it's just booming. You just you build clientele base right off the bat. I done seen some trainers come in and hit a hundred sessions in a month and a half. You know. For me personally it took me to get to a hundred sessions in a month. In a year, you know, a little bit over a year to get to a hundred sessions.

Speaker 2: 10:27

But the thing about it is I don't compare myself to the next person, you know, and that's one thing and I always kept focused on like their business, not your business, you know. And so it was like to me it's like, if I'm not going to get a lot of clients, what are my strengths that I know I can focus on? And one of my strengths that I know that I could focus on was service. Service was my biggest strength that I knew I could focus on. So it's like how can I provide the utmost service to keep the clients the longest until I can build on top of these clients that I do have? And that's mainly what happened was I get a client, I keep a client and I build on top of those clients until it's a point where now I have a full book of business.

Speaker 1: 11:07

I love hearing that because there's just so much truth and realness to it where you started out $400. And now you know your living expenses we talked before in Houston, aren't? You know an arm and a leg, that's there. Nothing crazy, maybe a couple of grand. But now you're bringing in some stuff where you're making like you were making before, four or five grand a month, and you want to keep on making a little bit more so you can see what it's like at that level, and then you're going to be at a fork where you can make that decision. All right. So now I know what I have to do to get here. I know what it's like to provide the training, the programming to do to get here. I know what it's like to provide the training, the programming. That's easy, it's not hard. You probably haven't thought too much about your programming in a long time, right?

Speaker 2: 11:46

I don't even think about a program. I walk in like I have, like you know, the CCA always tell it like it's a system.

Speaker 2: 11:53

You know you can use this system to your advantage and you could pivot off of it if you need to. And one thing about the gym is, whenever you're coming into the gym, you can always have a, let's say, for instance, six o'clock. Do you know how many sessions goes on at six o'clock in the morning? That's the time before everybody wanted to go to work. So you have a floor full of trainers at that time and also you have a floor full of members that's just working out that doesn't have a trainer. You can't just go in there. Okay, this is what we're going to do. Nah, you have to know what you're going to do and you have to be ready. So, yeah, I program, but at the same time I just track and see what we did last time and then I just progress from there. So we did 10 push-ups this week, next week, I know whenever we do push-ups again, we're going to do 11.

Speaker 2: 12:41

But sometimes you have to pivot. So programming like nah, I don't like, no, I don't even think about that, no more.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I love that, because I think there's newer trainers out there that would lose their shit, like that's so important. You got to understand the principles and the principles of over, like you just said it right there where they did 10. Well, next time, do 12. Or you could do 10 again, but you could lessen the time. Or you could do eight, but this time, instead of it being 30 seconds, you do it for 40 seconds. These are all variations of overload, but you understand the fundamentals of it. And then you progress them and you do it from one day to two days. And I remember we had a call in our La Jolla gym and I was getting my steps in, because it must've been like November. I was trying to get 20,000 steps and we were chatting on the phone and I put you on my book the second volume, for this, because you said, chris, I should have listened to you a long time ago, man, it's all about the MAs. It's all about the MAs. What do you mean by MAs, and talk to us more about that?

Speaker 2: 13:38

So like to me. One thing that I did feel it was working myself around the gym starting off because you have member advisors. That's basically what the MA is a member advisor If you really take it into the facts and thought the member advisors is the person to sign every person up into the gym. It don't matter who it is. They got to go through certain any, any any member advisor to get signed up.

Speaker 2: 14:05

Um, the advantage of being cool with the member uh, the member advisors is they know more about the member than anybody else is going to know because they signed a member up. So they're going to know front hand if this is a good client for personal training. If there's not a good client for personal training, then they're going to know if this client wants personal training for personal training. If this is not a good client for personal training, then they're going to know if this client wants personal training, they're going to know that this client don't want personal training. So you would have first access to this member if you have good connections with the MAs, before they even touch the computer base.

Speaker 2: 14:36

So that's one of the best things to help wrap up your business very fast If you're new into the. If you're coming into the gym and you're trying to get clients real quick is to go through the is to get the member advisors. But the thing about it is is you don't want to base your business on getting on them, because what if one leave, want to find another job, something like that, and that's where your business was coming from, what you're going to do without that debt revenue to flow through. So sometimes it is very good to be on the floor talking to members and putting yourself out there also, but having the first way to the path line is the member advisor.

Speaker 1: 15:14

I was having a conversation with one of my clients this morning and he's in the film industry and he said that last night he was up thinking, and it happens when he has big meetings with people and I'm curious what are things that potentially keep you up at night thinking, getting lost in your thoughts? Not necessarily it could be. Maybe it's the ants, automatic negative thoughts, maybe it's the what's going to be next, but what are some things that keep you up at night?

Speaker 2: 15:41

Starting off with income, trying to figure out excuse me, trying to figure out how I'm going to make a living and figure out how I'm going to get more clients, figure out how I'm going to build more business. But now, like I say, being in there long enough and really felt what the real struggles will be, it's more about the excitement. Now it's like where, where am I going to go?

Speaker 2: 16:07

and once I get to a point like how, like, like, what, like it's, it's like where, where? What do you really want? You know, that's what keeps me up, like I always think about what I, what do you want like?

Speaker 1: 16:18

what do you want out of?

Speaker 2: 16:18

life. What are the things that you really really want? You know, like you know you want to Like, what do you want out of life? What are the things that you really really want? You know? You know you want to make it a career, but, like, how far in the career do you want it to be? Do you want it to be where you own your own gym? Do you want to be where you're teaching trainers, like you know? Do you want it to be like what do you want to be with it? Are you comfortable with just being at a corporate gym, working at a corporate gym? At a corporate gym, working at a corporate gym? You know, like what do you want more out of it?

Speaker 2: 16:47

And to me it was always like I always wanted to work for myself in some kind of way, form or fashion. I just really didn't know how to get to that point. And I and being with training even though I know I'm at a corporate gym, I don't see myself going long-term there, because I do want to be able to spread out and do more with my life. You know I don't want to just be contained and that was one of the reasons I left the tire place, because I felt, working for somebody, you're going to only be able to do so much in life and if you want to be something, you're going to take a lot of risk. So that was one of the biggest fears, was like you got to just do it, like you know.

Speaker 2: 17:21

And once I left the tire spot it took me out of my comfortability, like I already. I knew every week I was going to make this amount of money. I know my what my weeks will look like. I will work weeks and everything else like that. So I knew how everything was structured. So I was very comfortable. I didn't have no worries. I knew bills going to be paid. You know everything was structured All right, I don't have no worries. But now it's like it's all on you. You know how much you gonna put into it. If you want more, you gotta give more, and it's just a difference. Like they tell you, like the vibe you, you are worth the service that you give. The more service you give, the more you will make. So it's like to me. It's like well, what are? What services do you want to provide, you know? And how do you want to help the next person?

Speaker 1: 18:05

And it's so important for people who are listening, cause I know there's thousands of trainers in that comfortable position. Whether if you're at a gym or you're just starting out and you're trying to leave that other job that you have whether if it's bartending or hairstyle or some massage you want to get in this full force, but you have that kind of monkey on your back. And so I think now and this is going to be really important for you all to really absorb what T's about to say but when you look at where you're at now, t, and you compare it to the life at the tire spot, which one do you enjoy more and where do you see a future?

Speaker 2: 18:40

I never see myself going back to a nine to five. I never, never, ever Like the first six months of working at Equinox and going through the ups and downs of everything. It toughened me so it's like you already went through the worst of the worst you know. So it's like it's really up up from here you know, and I like like all the fears and everything that I had. I'm like man, but now it's like it's only up.

Speaker 2: 19:11

So like like that was the best decision I ever made. Like like that was the best decision I ever made. Like that was the best decision I ever made was getting out of my comfort zone. And like I'm an introvert. So I'm okay with being comfort, being enclosed and you know, but at the same time I get out there, I got the extrovert Like don't get me, I'm not shy.

Speaker 1: 19:30

But like, all right, I've been around a lot of people.

Speaker 2: 19:34

I'm ready to go home. You know that's me, but, yeah, like it made me grow a lot. It made me grow up a lot more than I was. You know, because, being in a place that you get comfortable, you go to work every day, you get comfortable, you stop learning, you start gaining knowledge and you just become, you know, just a spinning wheel. And now it's like, no, you can't just a spinning wheel. And now it's like, nah, you can't be a spinning wheel, you got to get out there and keep growing. So it's different. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2: 20:04

And I tell anybody, like, jump off that porch. Like, if it's something you want to do, jump off the porch. You know, as long as you don't need bad seeds, those other seeds that you left behind, you can go back to them. Like if I had, if I felt, if I had to go back to the tire spot, I can go back. But I don't, like, I don't, I don't even want to even think about it. You know, because where I'm at now, so like yeah, you got to jump off the porch.

Speaker 2: 20:31

I tell anybody like, if it's something you want to do, you know you're going to have a lot of negative thoughts, a lot of negative thoughts. But at times you know, especially if you've got family behind you, just make that jump. If you have somebody behind you that's going to support you while you're doing it, just do the jump. You know because you have help. But you know, sometimes if you're by yourself, then it makes it easier on you because you've got to worry about yourself. So make that jump. I can tell anybody, just make the jump.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Make the jump, it'll pay off in the long run. That's great man, and so with 100 sessions, it's roughly 25 per week. How many clients do you currently have, right?

Speaker 2: 21:05

now I have anywhere from 12 to 15 clients.

Speaker 1: 21:12

And you've had definitely more than that while you've been in Equinox. Some leave for personal reasons, business reasons, whatever. Let's say you've worked with 100 people at Equinox. Just use that number for now.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Chris, I could tell you how many clients I probably had. I probably had a total of 22 clients. Since I've been there.

Speaker 1: 21:32

Okay great, I love that. So if you've had 22 clients in there, okay great I love that.

Speaker 2: 21:40

So if you've had 22 clients, how many of them have some sort of pain? It's funny, not many. But if it is, it's something light or something like they had a past injury and something like that. But I don't have too many clients come in they'd be like oh, is this, this? It might be a knee, their knee, they might have a knee issue, it'll be back or it'll be shoulder. Those would be the three points. You know that they might say ah, this right here will be an issue. And sometimes the elbow Like the ones that sit down at desks a lot and type and keep and my play on the mouse a muscle, it'd be the elbow, but just mine, because I got a very young to older clientele and they really don't have too many injuries.

Speaker 2: 22:24

I guess because there wasn't too many athletes I have, so I don't have a lot of athletes, so I don't have a lot of injuries. You know they have a lot of weaknesses but just not a lot of injuries if I say just from what I have right now. But if I do a cramp across anybody it's going to be the knee, it's going to be the back and they're going to say the shoulder.

Speaker 2: 22:46

And it's going to be more like a rotator cuff injury, like they told a rotator cuff a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 22:51

And you're a smart guy so you know that if they do have some sort of injury. You were in the Facebook group and you made a great comment talking about no, actually that was someone else making that comment, do you have?

Speaker 2: 23:03

the Prehab Guys app yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:03

Do you use that much?

Speaker 2: 23:05

Yeah, what do you think about that gives? Like if somebody say, oh man, I did this, I can go straight to the app and I can look up the video and I can look up the muscle and then we could do some some of the exercises off of that, and then even like, I could use it, like it gives you, it just opens up your exercise library and by opening up your exercise library, it just gives you more value, like more value, like it just helps you out more, you know. And they'd be like dang, I didn't even know I could do that. Yeah, and then, and I show it to them, I don't even like, I don't even hide it, like, oh, this is only me.

Speaker 2: 23:43

I'd be like, look, I got this prehab guys right here and um, they're part of the um, the the show of fitness internship, and I'm with certification, I'll with and certification, now show me, we watch the videos together. All right, we're gonna do this, this and this and this, like I, it's not magic, but I know they're very good at what they do, you know. So if you're not with me, I don't. I recommend, if you have to, you can go on their youtube channel and and do what you need to do and get something off of there. You know, if you're not with me, are you on vacation or something, because they travel a lot.

Speaker 2: 24:13

you know, that's one of the things about my clients they travel a ton.

Speaker 1: 24:17

And one of the cool things that I tell people about working at higher-end gyms like a Lifetime or Equinox, is the people you're going to be around Now. Tell me T, what chance do you think that you would have of hanging out with Ray Lewis if you didn't work at Equinox Zero Tell us about that.

Speaker 2: 24:41

It's a pretty cool story. I like it. Yeah, just I met him at a party and he's a man, he's an awesome guy. He's an awesome guy, you know, just sit there and just see somebody just walk every five seconds you see somebody walking up to him and and actually just just admiring them and taking pictures and he was just humble the whole time and just he gave love to everybody that came to him and he, he, like, he gave the love that came to him. So it was just awesome. Like I can't, like I never in a million years thought that that that that right there would happen, like, like that would happen. Never in my life I would have thought, yeah, something like that would happen. You know, not a mess of people, but not in that like. Not in that like that statue. That's Ray Lewis. That's Ray Lewis, that's all I can say. That's Ray Lewis.

Speaker 1: 25:33

That's pretty cool and there's we've got a lot of students come through the program, but you stand out because you've gone to the seminar, you've done online, you're always participating, but something that you do a great job of. You ask great questions. One but two is that you are direct and you straight up ask me Chris, I want to know how I can be an instructor, I want to work for, show up, and I think that's really respectable, because a lot of people will think they're not ready to do it or they're not good enough. And so when you look at your future, where do you see yourself outside of an Equinox? Or maybe say, three to five years from now, what, what does T want to be having going on?

Speaker 2: 26:10

If I'm still working at Equinox, chris, is only because my clients are still with me and I don't want to leave. Like to be honest with you, if I'm still there, it's because my clients love it there and they want me to stay. So I would be there just to train them. But I wouldn't be looking to build no more business. I'd be trying to really focus on something on my own.

Speaker 2: 26:31

You know, doing something for myself that can really well, I don't have to put too much time in, because one thing about being a trainer if you're not training, you're not making any money, you know. So I do want to be able to get to a point where, like, I'm not working for basically I'm not working for money, but money's working for me. So I do want to be at that point in a time. So I'm not exactly where it's at or how it's going to be, but I know. That's why I like to focus a little bit online. You know I want to do some more online training. That way I can have a clientele base that can make it come where I'm not there. So it'll just be figuring it out, you know, figuring out why I'm building what I'm building right now, but in the next three to five years I'm most definitely not going to be needing like depending on nobody to pay my bills. That's a guarantee.

Speaker 1: 27:28

That's awesome, man. I appreciate everything you've done for the training world and you're making some big contributions. I think your, your best line of the day was make that jump. So for those that are listening, just remember that you make that jump. That's how your story is going to be started and you're going to make you know, make it happen by showing up. So I appreciate everything. My man, where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 27:54

You go to my Instagram, Tyrus Sumlin, Like anything that you just type that name in. That's me. I don't go by any kind of pen handle. My name is my name.

Speaker 1: 28:06

I love it. Well, I appreciate your time, my man, and we'll be seeing you soon. And remember, most importantly, show up. That's right, keep showing up. Have a good one.