We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shawn Stuart a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shawn, 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?

After retiring from the US Air Force with 20 years of service and 5000+ days of deployments I thought my risk-taking days were over but then came the idea of opening a gym. Which I thought to be a considerable risk, but nothing out of the ordinary for as a new entrepreneur. Only to be in final stage of my lease negotiations and a global pandemic arises. Not only making my process of building out extremely hard but it also shut down the entire active gym industry. One year after retiring from the Air Force I’m now embarking on the largest risk to date outside of my previous combat and tactical career in the military. It seemed odd something not life threatening being such a huge risk, yet after all things considered it was a risk worth taking and I did. In March of 2020 I begin the buildout of Full Circle Fitness the first and only personal training gym in Summerville, SC. Full Circle Fitness is not a franchise but an LLC that I established based the close connection I have with my military brothers in which we refer to our relationship to one another as “The Circle”. That inspiration was why the struggle and the delays over the next 6 months didn’t deter me from going forward with my plan to open. On the day I was supposed to open the town of Summerville still had restrictions preventing gyms to return to normal operations. On September 8, 2020, I had to do a soft opening (no training) until cleared for normal operation which I was granted 21 September 2020.  September 08, 2022, marked my 2nd year of accepting the hardest risk and challenge post military. I love my story because I had the option to go the easy way and I didn’t.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My story is much like many inner-city black kids in America. Very cliché, Single mother raising 3 kids. We never had all we wanted but always got what was needed. At that early age I recognize hard work would always get you by not matter what you didn’t have. Born in Brooklyn NY and raised in upstate Catskill NY, Where I graduated high school and joined the US Air Force. It was in the Air Force I found my calling to not only lead people, inspire people, teach people but ultimately serve them by helping however I could. People look at the military in many lights but the core of what we are doing by enlisting and taking our services respected oath is volunteering to serve our country, the citizens of our country as well as other countries. Which is why after retiring I decided to continue to serve my community in a way, I thought would most benefit people, while also staying within my passion and expertise. Those passions are personal training, coaching and motivational speaking. However, at the forefront of it all is Full Circle Fitness, it is not a traditional gym because in all the years I’ve spent training all over the world I never seen a gym give anything to their people of this magnitude. A personal training gym allows me to be very attentive to individuals results good and bad which gives us the opportunity to adjust and get positive results. People are so misled about what true fitness and health is especially as we age. Full Circle Fitness is my opportunity to deliver realistic training, results, lifestyle changes to people and improve their quality of life faster than they thought possible. The health industry is a billion-dollar industry, but childhood obesity is climbing every year and adults are more obese now than ever before in our history. In my eyes the industry has gotten it wrong in many aspects. Fitness is far deeper than a gym workout or counting steps on our watch. What we are consuming for nutrients is far more important and what we are thinking (mental health) supersede any workout. After 2 years of training almost 400 people I recognized people’s mental health, strength, stamina, and endurance are the bigger issues behind their physical health. Once a person’s mindset could be re-directed people maintained their health, fitness, and appearance better.
I’m excited about being a trusted agent that helps people get healthy in a way they can sustain and appreciate the results and process.

Full Circle Fitness is about taking each person’s training personal because group solutions do not work for people with individual issues.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Life is all about the adjustment. We all must pivot to keep going otherwise we find ourselves in a fixed mindset very alone, stressed, and unfulfilled. Opening a gym was complicated enough, 90% failure rate in the first 5 years. Statistically speaking my chances of success were 10%-30% for my first 5 years. The battle was going to be a hard no matter what but a global pandemic and a recession right behind each other I’d guess puts me in the 1% -3% success category. Yet here I am. Not because I made the best plan, but because I’m ok with making all the adjustment necessary. I tell my clients the plan gets you started; the adjustment makes sure you finish.

Any advice for managing a team?

Morale is like motivation; it is hard to maintain. Maintaining morale or motivation should never be the main goal. The real goal is to have an environment that morale and motivation can foster in, spread through, as well as grow internally in each person. When this happens, it can be displayed in their work and how they interact with each other. People have a lot of things going on in their lives; coming to work motivated or with a high morale day in and day out isn’t a realistic and trying to create that atmosphere can attract the wrong kind of employees. Also, while always having high morale and high motivation might not be possible, it is very possible to have an environment where it job stress is low, working conditions are discomfortable, people trust management, feel safe, encouraged, and respected. Morale and motivation can thrive there often and daily, my advice is to always take care of the people and they’ll take care of you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fullcirclefitt.com
• Instagram: fullcircle.fitness
• Facebook: fullcirclefitt
• Youtube: shawn stuart of full circle fitness

Image Credits
Images take by Frozen Time Photography- Charleston