Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chad Curtis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Chad, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

In 2017, I was ready for change, it was time to put my vision into motion. I had spent 6 years to that point in the fitness industry as Fitness Director at a major gym in the city and learned crucial skills that gave me the confidence to break out on my own. How to sell, system creation, managing the most critical tasks for maximum efficiency and growth day to day. I had also spent many years building my own brand in the city through bodybuilding competitions, outside of meeting thousands of people through my job at the gym each year. I was able to win my class at the Grand Rapids show twice and win my pro card in 2017. This was the final piece to know I was ready and the time was now to make my move. The gym had been my passion already for 13 years to this point, and I knew my ultimate destiny and vision was to use the years of brand building through my career and competing to begin impacting people on my own. I took this princess very seriously and began working with a branding firm to create a website, logo, and spent 6 months building my business plan and creating a process I could ensure success with and automate. After announcing on social media I was taking my own clients, within a couple months I was overflowing and knew after 7 years my time as Fitness Director had come to and end. The time was right. Since then, I’ve seen growth through the details. All the things I learned through my previous career gave me the tools make growth second nature. Most of all, what allowed me to take that next step was knowing I had put in the time. I had been preparing for years for this leap. In the back of my mind I knew what I was going to do. And I knew that bringing my personal and genuine passion for fitness to the market combined with the skills I had accumulated, and my competitive attitude, would allow me to succeed. Even so, the people I’ve worked with and seen change over the past few years have been the coolest part of it all. I’m blessed and am truly living my dream each day.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I believe what sets me apart from others in the fitness industry is my personal and genuine passion for fitness. Fitness and bodybuilding has been my passion. Since I was a teenager, it’s all I really ever wanted to do, when I was a teenager I wanted to be a face fitness in my city. I want to change lives on a large scale. I do in person, personal training, online training, virtual training, nutrition, coaching, and tailor every program to each individual person.
What I believe sets me apart also is my experience and working with all kinds of people, all kinds of experience levels and limitations. Over the course of 13 years, I have worked with almost 10,000 people, all fitness levels and personalities. One of my favorite parts about what I do is building a relationship with each person, meeting that person where they are in their fitness journey and winter week and allowing them to truly enjoy the process and enjoy being with the person they are working with. I love seeing a transfer of energy between myself and my clients, by living, authentically myself, and striving to build my body to be its absolute best. Always, I believe I can inspire people to believe they can achieve great things, and in the same way, the incredible things that clients achieve, the amazing goals they accomplish inspire me to push harder as well! This is the energy I love carrying into each day.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Another passion of mine, as an entrepreneur is real estate investing. This thought process begin from reading the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosoki when I was a teenager. Illustrated the differences between someone who works hard and saves and avoids risk, versus someone who is an entrepreneur, and is willing to take calculated risk. My journey in real estate began about three years ago after studying the market for a couple of years, I was able to purchase a duplex to house hack. From there I began duplicating a formula that worked well with a great team around me to make the process successful. Real estate is extremely exciting to me because it creates passive income, and it creates an appreciating asset. It also creates incredible tax benefits. with my fitness, coaching business as the foundation, being able to scale, and have multiple units in multiple cities, has been incredible. For me, I see creating passive income as risk aversion. Working for myself creates some risk in that if for some reason, you have to stop working, your income also stops. So by creating insulation through passive income, you’re able to lower risk. This has become something I really love doing and building! Working with an incredible team has made the process even more fun and owe a lot of growth to their desire to be the best at what they do! Whether it be as a realtor or lender or renovator. I can’t wait to see where things go in the future and would encourage people to take risk! If you have put in the work, and done your research, don’t be afraid to take a leap, you just might create something amazing.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I think the growth of any social media presence just comes down to telling an authentic story in a way that captures peoples attention. I never really focused on social media growth, I was just really excited about what I was doing and really loved what I was doing and I wanted to share that with people, and actually have had to be encouraged multiple times to share more! I’ve learned that by opening up, being honest with people, people can actually take a lot from your journey, they can draw inspiration, and use their energy for their own climb.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.proedgefit.com
• Instagram: @Chadcurtisfitness