We recently connected with Janet McConnell and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Janet, thanks for joining us today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

As a young person transitioning into middle age, I was always strong and healthy. Until I wasn’t. Frequent business travel had taken a toll on my health so gradually that I wasn’t even paying attention. All the restaurant food, sleep deprivation, wine receptions, and airline travel was racking up excess bodyweight and the damage. My defining moment was when I sat in my doctor’s office listening to him tell me that I had high blood pressure, high triglycerides and high cholesterol. Not only that, I was on my way to early heart disease. It felt like I’d been struck by lightning! I was a little overweight, sure, but I didn’t think it was that serious. The doctor slid a stack of prescription slips across the desk in my direction, and something inside me defiantly rebelled. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me! I was only 46!

I’m too young to be this old!

I decided right then that my little athlete self that I used to be needed to kick into gear. I made a deal with the doctor that I would come back in 6 months for a repeat exam, and that I would not need those prescriptions. He skeptically agreed to let me do that. That very day I hired a personal fitness trainer and got to work. I trained 3 days a week for 6 months. Back at the doctor’s office, I had lost 30 pounds, and all my numbers were in the safe range.

I didn’t stop there. I kept going, and a year from that followup day I was on a stage in my first bodybuilding competition! I was lean, muscular and strong. It was such a powerful experience of transformation that I quit my corporate career and became a fitness coach, wrote and published a book about my journey and became a keynote speaker on personal transformation.

Here I am, 67 years old, with all the trophies, a published book about aging well and trainer testimonials to know that I have made an impact on my tribe of people who want to age powerfully and enjoy the third trimester of their life.

Aging is Inevitable, but Decay is Optional!

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

I described my “how I got into this business” in the defining moment segment above. A moment of crisis with my health is what catapulted me out of complacency. Since this wakeup call was what it took to get me to clean up my act, I thought, “wouldn’t it be great if people knew about this before they experienced a crisis?” Well, as it turns out, in middle age we are pretty set in our ways. It takes orthopedic surgery, recovery from an accident or a disease, or some other non-planned, unwelcome event for most people to change for the better.

What sets me apart is that I’m a fitness trainer approaching my 70’s, so the clients that want to work with me are mostly age 50 and older. There are a lot of trainers in their 20’s and early 30’s, but they don’t have the life experience to have the empathy and knowledge of what it’s like to not be young anymore. Rather than being motivated by having a “beach body,” we are motivated by feeling good in our skin and having the strength to travel the world or having the flexibility to stoop down to scoop up a grandchild. I’ve trained a woman who wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for her 60th birthday. I’ve trained an 82 year old woman who wanted to scuba dive along the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve also trained another 82 year old woman who just wanted to fit back into her Max Mara pencil skirt! The Boomer and Gen X generations are reaching retirement and are ready to keep living full, rich lives and don’t want to be slowed down one bit by being weak and overweight!

This prompted me to write and publish a book “Elements of Aging Well: My Journey So Far,” about my story, and also the importance of wholesome nutrition, movement, resistance training, resilience, setting boundaries, and establishing new habits. You really CAN teach an old dog new tricks!

Then I started getting asked to speak before large groups about healthy aging and what I’ve learned. I love to get this message out to people. I travel all over, encouraging people to join me in rewriting the rules of aging!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I wrote a whole chapter in my book about resilience. People often don’t recognize that they have very much of it. When you live a long time and you’re still here, you DEFINITELY have resilience. I discovered an exercise that I lead in workshops about resilience.

We know that we are not the same person we were 10 or 15 years ago. What is interesting is to reflect on a photograph from the past decade. If you take a photo from, say, 10 years ago and place it beside a recent photo, and then begin to brainstorm a list of all the difficulties and challenges you faced in those years in-between, and how you overcame each one it can be a revelation into the degree of resilience you have.

When I first did this exercise, I found a picture of when I was out of shape, before that doctor visit. Then I had a competition stage picture. I had so many things come up in the time between those two photos that almost seemed like life was trying to get me to give up on getting into shape. Setback after setback. Wave after wave. Yet I kept going. I didn’t realize the shear volume of obstacles until I sat down and did this. It gave me such an appreciation, a self-love, and also gave me the resolve to face what was in front of me still. “If I did all those things before, I can absolutely do this!”

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I became a person fitness trainer, I had never been an entrepreneur before. I had always worked on salary. I was a classroom teacher, a Director of Operations for an educational software company, a Marketing Manager for a private university, and always had an office, a secretary and a paycheck. This entrepreneur thing was all new.

I had to learn by the seat of my pants how to find clients, how to market myself, and most difficult of all…how to claim my own VALUE by what I charged! Why is that so hard? It was much harder than asking for a raise!

I was training my clients in a little “garage gym” where I paid rent to the owner and there were two or three other trainers there. The rent was cheap, and I made a decent income. There was a little bit more of a grunge vibe than I wanted, but I was doing alright.

Meanwhile, I was training with my own trainer who owned a beautiful mid-sized private gym, all bright, colorful, clean, with good music and smart trainers. My trainer talked to me every time I trained about my business, my practices, my opinions, etc. He must’ve known that I was right for his gym, so he asked me why I didn’t bring my business to his gym. I had to be honest. He charged four times more for rent than I was paying! I wouldn’t be able to afford it and also pay my bills.

He knew what my issue was. I needed to recognize and claim my value. So he hatched a plan. He suggested that I pick a week in the near future, and have each one of my clients come to his gym to train one session with me. The two gyms were geographically close, so that wasn’t an issue. For each client that I brought, I would pay him a $10 day use fee. Then, see what happens.

Well, EVERY one of my clients loved this new gym, and didn’t want to train at the old one anymore. It was mutiny! They said, almost in unison, “Why don’t we move there?” So I had to say, “I can’t afford the rent unless I charge you more.” They responded unanimously, “Charge me DOUBLE! Get us there!”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ignitefitnesswithjanet.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/interplanet.janet.9
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-mcconnell-65703a1b2/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Wraithpaz/videos
• Other: Amazon Link for “Elements of Aging Well: My Journey So Far” by Janet McConnell https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Aging-Well-Wisdom-Journey/dp/1956203109/ref=sr_1_1?crid=26NEZ1HSO2VOJ&keywords=janet+mcconnell&qid=1679971535&sprefix=janet+mcconn%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1

Image Credits
Photos by David Byrd