We were lucky to catch up with Juliana Sigthorsdottir recently and have shared our conversation below.

Juliana , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I used to work in corporate Fitness at one of the bigger named gyms. During this time I was starting to work my way up the corporate ladder by evolving my skill set from being a personal trainer and moving into assistant fitness manager, with the potential of going into the fitness manager.

During my time in corporate fitness, I was becoming more and more unhappy seeing how members and clients were seen as a number and how much I could sell them in training compared to seeing them as individuals and how I could help them on their fitness and health journey.

I wasn’t necessarily actively looking for a different gym to train out of though, I did have an opportunity presented to me to help kickstart a small independently owned gym.

Having been presented with an opportunity to help individuals on a deeper level and create more meaningful relationships excited me! This was also extremely terrifying because I would have to leave the safety net of job security to not knowing next steps and no security net.

I had to take a leap of faith to fully stop at corporate fitness and move to becoming an independent trainer. This would allow me to be able to take on the position at the new independently owned studio.

The first year we were out in the park with a single client and a couple of kettlebells and the park benches. Today we have grown to multiple locations with a full training staff in each location building meaningful and long lasting relationships with our clients.

Juliana , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

This is one of my favorite stories to tell actually! I got into the fitness industry a little late compared to others. I started my own personal fitness and health journey when I was in college earning my mortuary science degree. Yes, I was studying to be a mortician/funeral Director and embalmer.
The human body is fascinating and I loved my mortuary science studies!

During school I was extremely stressed trying to balance a full-time job, a full class load, as well as an internship at a funeral home. Thankfully I was still in my early 20s and had enough energy to get me through the day.

I found fitness during school and realized how much it helped me manage my stress, increased my focus, and gave me more energy. This was life-changing!
Seeing how much it helped me personally, I wanted to learn more and share everything I learned with everyone in my life.

I dove headfirst into learning more about fitness and health, and how I can utilize my knowledge of the human body to help others. During my research, I discovered the different types of personal training certifications, as well as the different vocational schools that gave you hands-on experience and a class structure.
I decided to pursue a vocational program from the American fitness and nutrition Academy, and absolutely loved my experience there.

Directly after completing my studies, I was offered a job in corporate Fitness where I got my start with personal training.

Today I am the area manager for GoTRIBE fitness and work directly with the owner Karlos Galvan.

At GoTRIBE we strive to create meaningful and lasting relationships with every single individual that walks through our door. I want every person that comes to any of our locations to feel seen and heard as the individual human being that they are.

We have worked extremely hard to create a community of acceptance, encouragement, strength, self awareness, integrity, and respect. We live and breathe these values daily.

Every single one of our members is seen as an athlete. Each athlete has different capabilities, and where they are in their fitness and health journey. We are here to meet every athlete where they are, and to create long lasting success in their health and fitness journey.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Every single one of my trainers is seen as an individual within the team. Each one of them brings a specific and unique skill set to the location that they are working.

We all work together to solve any problems within the gym.
We brainstorm as a team each week to communicate about every single athlete in the gym and how we can help each other succeed.

We also strive for continued development to ensure the success of each individual trainer.

I truly believe that listening to your team and being open to feedback has helped increase the communication as a whole as well as made us better as a company.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I actually met Karlos when we were working at the same corporate fitness location.

He was the membership manager at the time and I was a brand new trainer.

I worked hard to get into his good graces so I could have help building a client base lol

We ended up working really well together, and when I found out he was going to be part of GoTRIBE it was a no-brainer for me to make the switch.

Today we work closely together in the day-to-day to ensure the continued success of each individual trainer, and each location.

Contact Info:

• Website: GoTRIBE.fit
• Instagram: juliana_gotribe