Business Talk
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Business Talk
When you lift weights, you also lift your spirits and self-confidence
Discover the revolutionary intersection of strength training and mental wellness with Dr. Sharon Gam, who brings 18 years of fitness industry expertise and a PhD in exercise physiology to this eye-opening conversation about transforming lives through mindful movement.
Dr. Gam reveals how the mainstream fitness industry's focus on physical appearance often misses the profound mental health benefits that properly designed strength training can provide. Drawing from her research on how exercise controls brain function and vice versa, she explains her unique approach that has helped over 300 clients build not just stronger bodies, but more resilient minds.
The concept of "mastery experiences" stands at the heart of her methodology - creating moments during workouts where clients overcome small challenges, gradually building deep confidence that transfers to all aspects of life. Through a moving client success story, Dr. Gam illustrates how a woman who once suffered from panic attacks transformed into someone who confidently handled a stressful situation that would have previously overwhelmed her with anxiety.
What separates this approach from conventional fitness is its sustainability. By focusing on mental wellbeing first, physical improvements naturally follow, but in a way that creates lasting change. Dr. Gam's advice for both fitness journeys and entrepreneurial pursuits reflects this philosophy: align your actions with your deeper values and self-identity to stay committed when facing obstacles.
Ready to experience how strength training can revolutionize your mental health? Visit drsharon.gam.com for free resources including over 115 blog articles, e-books, and a newsletter, or call 407-342-7613 to learn about Dr. Gam's specialty programs that might just change your relationship with fitness forever.
Welcome back everyone to the podcast, where we uncover the stories behind thriving businesses and bring you the expert insight straight from the source. I'm your host, dda, and I'm excited and delighted to introduce you to Dr Sharon Gam. She's the owner of Fitness, personal Training and Wellness. Good morning, dr Gam. How are you?
Speaker 2:Good morning, I'm good, thank you. How are you wellness?
Speaker 1:Good morning, dr Gale. How are you? Good morning, I'm good, thank you. How are you? I am doing great. So we're excited for you to share your background, your business, your services with our listeners. But before we go into that, listeners from behind the scenes experience to valuable advice. This podcast is your go-to resource for learning about the businesses that shape our communities and discovering how to make the most of their services. And if you do like this content and you want to see more of it, please comment, subscribe and like the video and the channel as well. So, with that being said, we're going to jump right into it and kind of get to know Dr Gam a little bit and Dr Gam kind of share with our listeners a little bit about your background.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I've kind of always been into health and fitness. I've played sports as a kid. I played basketball since I was about five or six. I've been a runner since I was about eight years old and I started strength training about 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:And professionally I've been working in the fitness industry for about 18 years now. So 18 years ago is when I got my first personal training certification and I started working as a personal trainer. And that was while I was doing my bachelor's degree in sports science. And then I went on to do my PhD in exercise physiology, which is the study of what happens in the body and the brain before, during and after exercise and how you can use exercise to address certain health conditions and achieve certain goals. And after that I continued working as a personal trainer. But I had a few different roles in the fitness industry. So I did some health coaching. I've worked in employee wellness and corporate wellness and health promotion, and then also health research. So I've been in the industry for a long time and I started my business about four years ago and now I do one-on-one personal training, both in person and online, with a focus on using fitness to improve mental health and wellbeing mental health and well-being.
Speaker 1:I love that and your experience is second to none. I mean based 18 plus years doing what you're doing and as you were going through that road of success, road of business and defining what your mission was, evidently you, kind of like, focused and kept going that path which led to where you are today Correct.
Speaker 2:Correct yeah.
Speaker 1:I also was looking at your website and I took something out of what you said on the website. It says I know how to integrate it and that knowledge with motivation, science and behavioral psychology to help you make lifestyle changes that you can actually stick with. So you not only get the results, but you keep them forever, and that's pretty powerful. And not only that you have helped over 300 clients when it comes to motivation, accountability and support, so kudos to you for that. So, with that being said, let's talk a little bit about getting more specifics of your business, if you can maybe kind of mention some things that really resonate with your um customers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Again, I kind of focus on the mental health piece. So what I was kind of learning during my PhD was how exercise controls brain function and how the brain controls exercise performance, and then the other way around, how exercise can control brain function and how it can actually fundamentally change the brain in ways that have these like huge effects throughout people's lives so we can improve mood and energy, we can build self-confidence in like a really deep way that honestly has nothing to do with the way that people look, but it's a confidence in their abilities. We can also manage stress through exercise and all of these things that I was finding people were really wanting from their fitness experience but that they were kind of having trouble finding in the mainstream fitness industry. So the mainstream fitness industry is still very much about the physical right Physical health, physical appearance, physical performance.
Speaker 2:The way that you train for those things is not necessarily the best way to train for mental health and for mental well-being.
Speaker 2:And so I had a lot of people that were having these experiences where they kind of knew what to do, or they knew what they should do, they were exercising the way they thought they should exercise and they just it wasn't helping them feel better and it wasn't sustainable for them.
Speaker 2:So I started to try to integrate the mental health piece and finding different ways to approach fitness that were more supportive, more sustainable and really looking at the psychology of motivation and how do we get people to do what they know that they should do and maintain that over time and maybe doing it in ways that they're that they haven't really tried before from a fitness perspective? So a lot of the training that I do is is very much focused on strength training, on teaching people how to lift weights, but I integrate all of these other aspects in terms of of motivation, in terms of having things like mastery experiences, where you're building on small skills, in terms of creating these small progressions where people can really see and feel themselves improving, and kind of layering that stuff on top of a standard workout to get better results from a mental health standpoint, a motivation standpoint, and then, as a bonus, people also improve their physical health and get all those other physical benefits as well.
Speaker 1:I like that and I took a couple of things that I wrote down. You said maintain it over time, because I guess what you'll find is, once we get to a point where we feel good, it can always come back if we don't continue to maintain the progress correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then another thing you said you talked about mastery experience. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big part of what I do.
Speaker 2:So a mastery experience is achieving a small goal or building a small skill in the moment.
Speaker 2:So it's the difference between, like, a long term goal somebody says I want to be able to bench press my body weight right, that's a long term goal that takes months and months to to achieve, depending on where they're starting with. A mastery experience is something where, in the moment, somebody can look at a weight that they think, oh, this is, I'm not gonna be able to lift this, this is too heavy for me. And then they pick up that weight and they successfully do it and they have this experience where, all of a sudden, they feel not just know, but they feel like they're strong and capable and they're able to overcome challenges. And so I think that's a huge key in terms of approaching fitness from the kind of mental health and motivation side is to set people up to have as many of those experiences during a workout as possible where they they really feel themselves improving and there's ways to structure, you know, progressions and things like that, where you can make sure that somebody is having a lot of those experiences.
Speaker 1:So overcoming those challenges actually focuses more, not so much on the physical, but more of the mental. Is that what you're kind of saying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. When you stack a lot of those challenges, a lot of those wins on top of each other, over time, you'll get the physical results. But each and every one of those challenges that you overcome, or those small skills that you build, is in itself, a what we call a mastery experience and something that really boosts mental health and starts to change the brain. And something that I've found really amazing as I work with people is that it it starts to actually change the way that they see and think about themselves, so they start to see themselves as somebody who's strong and capable. And when you feel that kind of deep confidence, it really spreads throughout people's entire lives and really helps them to just do the things that they need to do and feel good about themselves. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:That's well said. I like that. So let's talk about a story. I don't need to know the person's name, please don't share that but let's talk about a story that really resonates, that can resonate with our listeners, about who you helped. Is there one that stands out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a client recently and I can tell you a couple of stories about her client recently and I can tell you a couple of stories about her. So she came to me because she her therapist had advised that she started doing some fitness. She was having panic attacks Previously. I worked with her for about two years and over time we worked on heavy strength training and basically just like what I described in incorporating those little mastery experiences over time and doing those progressions. And as she got physically stronger she started to feel mentally stronger and more resilient as well.
Speaker 2:So she started to notice that things that maybe in the past would have felt really overwhelming for her and difficult and anxiety inducing for her, she suddenly started to feel them as not such a big deal. So one example she went on a trip with her mom and they ended up at an airport with a cart full of really heavy luggage and it was just the two of them and they had to get up this long ramp to get to where they needed to go and her mom started to get anxious and look around for help and didn't know how they were going to be able to get from point A to point B and my client kind of described to me that, you know, a couple of years ago I would have been the same. I wouldn't have known what to do, I would have started to feel anxious, but instead she took that cart and she just pushed it up that ramp by herself and she basically said you know, I knew that I could do it. It was basically just a sled push and we do those all the time right and so, as she was describing it to me afterwards, I just could see this, this pride in her face of just the knowledge that she was able to take this challenge, which again a while ago would have been really difficult for her and made her feel bad about herself.
Speaker 2:And now she was, she was able to overcome it and feel successful and feel good about herself. And it's just those kind of little things that add up and can help people to really start to lead their lives differently, to take different actions, to maybe put themselves out there when previously they wouldn't, or to apply for a job that they thought they couldn't get, or things that maybe they would have shied away from before. Now they're able to do them and get the benefits of that, and that is, I think what the real value of strength training can be.
Speaker 1:I love the way you said that, and how does that make you feel?
Speaker 2:Yeah it's. I mean it's wonderful. That's why I do what I do. I personally have experienced these benefits. I mean I do what I do because I personally have experience with depression and anxiety, and it was really weightlifting that started to pull me out of that, and so when I can see other people having those experiences, it just it kind of makes it all worth it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kudos for you for doing what you do. It's awesome and that is such an inspiring story as well. So, as we wrap up, you know there are our listeners here that are aspiring to be entrepreneurs. Maybe they are business owners and they're trying to get over that hump. Any advice? What say you about trying to give them some tips?
Speaker 2:I think I would probably answer that in the same way that I would advise someone who's trying to achieve a health and fitness goal which is to aligns with your values and your self identity. That can be really powerful, Because when you're really clear on that kind of deep motivation, it's so much easier to navigate obstacles and stay committed to taking actions. It's kind of the same idea, I guess, as the motivation piece of fitness. People kind of know what they should do, but it's actually taking action and putting one foot in front of the other every day. That's the hard part, and when you can draw on that really deep motivation, I think it makes all the difference.
Speaker 1:Great advice and, as we wrap up here, could you provide your phone number as well as your website for listeners that may want to get a hold of you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Phone number is 407-342-7613. And my website is wwwdrsharinghamcom. So D-R-S-H-A-R-O-N-G-A-Mcom, and on my website I have a lot of free resources because I really do just want to spread the word of how powerful strength training can be from a mental well-being perspective. So I've written I think 115-ish maybe blog articles at this point about different health and fitness topics, including specific things about strength training for mental health. I have some free e-books on there and a free newsletter, and that's also where people can learn more about the specialty strength training for mental health programs that I do more about the specialty strength training for mental health programs that I do.
Speaker 1:Well, dr Gam, it has been such a pleasure for you to be able to express and share your business with our listeners about what you do and the services that you provide, and definitely thank you so much for being a guest and we wish you much success.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:You're very welcome. Thank you for tuning in to First Media Consulting Podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, subscribe today To nominate a business you would like to recommend to be on our show. Go to firstmediaconsultingcom or call. Thank you for listening.