Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christos Monastiriotis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Christos thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?
The valuable things I’ve learned a previous jobs in the same field as mine is learning what I don’t want to be. Being able to work in an environment that is related to your field in my case another gym was being able to see how I didn’t want to run my business and being able to learn from others mistakes. I think most people they take it as a bad experience when working for a company that they don’t like. My goal was never to be just a regular employee at a gym I knew for a long time that I wanted to run my own gym and with that I made sure to learn every aspect of whatever gym I was working at. I wanted to see what I could make better, so I was always looking for a way to improve on an existing business model but most importantly removing the things that I didn’t enjoy about the jobs that I worked at.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I got into the industry of personal training and fitness because growing up I was never the most in shape, I was diagnosed with sports induced asthma, I was overweight and had no idea the amount of misinformation that their was on nutrition. As I got older I realized that if I wanted to change for the better I had to start doing something about it. At first I just started with running, running is what you normally hear about people starting with to drop some weight go out for a run so I started running a lot. I joined the track and field team my senior year of high school and became a shot put and discus thrower I wasn’t very good at those but this was the first time that I was actually taken into a weight room and I started to really begin to notice physical changes in my body. Shortly after high school I joined a gym and signed up with a personal trainer. I enjoyed the process of learning new lifts and how to lift correctly. During the time of me working with this trainer I was working in Washington DC as a physical rehabilitation Aid mainly for quadriplegics and amputees . I enjoyed my work as a physical therapist but my favorite part was being able to take my clients down to the gym where I was able to get them so much stronger . Things such as them being able to lift them out of bed would give me so much satisfaction to see the smile on their faces when they were able to do it themselves and not ask for assistance . I left this job only because I was butting heads with the higher ups because they deem some exercises not safe when I knew in fact that they were safe and effective I got the understanding that we want them to be better but we don’t want to heal them so I decided to leave and sign up for an education program at National Personal Training Institute. After completing the program I was offered my first job at a personal training only Studio. From this job I went into Gold’s Gym and then after working at these two facilities I was ready to go out on my own and open my gym resilient reps.
I decided the name Resilient Reps because you must be resilient in your efforts of your physical goals. In life there are always going to be setbacks and always going to be things that get in the way but at the end of the day you will always make time for what’s most important to you. No matter what happens in life you must make your physical and mental health a priority and I believe that getting into the gym is the best way to do this. I was told my clients the gym is an hour to an hour and a half a day that is your time. A time to shut off and focus on you, to help make you stronger, to help make you more focused, and in some cases make you more relaxed. There is something very therapeutic about lifting weights in the gym. I have had the absolute pleasure of working with some of the most wonderful people and from them I’ve learned that it is never too late to start lifting. I have also been fortunate enough to see and hear these stories from these wonderful people and I can tell you the one thing they all have in common that they said they wish they had started earlier. My clients between the ages of 60 and 80 have always told me the last thing they want is to not be able to get on the ground and play with their grandchildren, or be able to pick them up, or be able to chase them around the park. The younger generation doesn’t think about when they’re older if you stop moving your body you will regret it you will look at others saying I used to be able to do that and be envious of those in your age group who are able to get on the ground and move with their children and then later on their grandchildren easily and be able to get up. Never stop improving on your physical health or you will pay for it in medical bills later on.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
The first gym I opened was called RT training and performance center. The RT in the name stood for my LLC known as ruthless tactics. I chose the name ruthless tactics as my LLC because I still believe we must be ruthless in our Pursuits. I always enjoy the quote “motivation is fleeting, dedication is forever” and I wanted to embody that in name to be ruthless in your Pursuits whether it’s in the gym or out of the gym.
My first gym ended up failing. The second year of my gym being open covid had struck and and we were unable to conduct business I also was not going to charge memberships to the people who had signed up at my gym because people were being able to afford food and I didn’t feel right charging them a membership that they could not use. I had to make a decision I was either going to renew my lease or pay out the rest of the lease and shut down the gym and I chose to shut it down. I came to this decision because many gyms who were there long before me with many more members than I had for shutting down left and right I didn’t want to be stuck in a 5-year lease and not be able to pay it with members. This was a crushing blow for me. I had my dream facility I had incredible members and had some incredible moments in that gym. Taking all the equipment out of there selling the equipment that I could not keep stored was very difficult. I decided that this would not be the end for me so I took the equipment that I could and moved it into my basement and started the rebranding process from RT training and performance center to resilient reps and have been running business of one-on-one personal training and virtual approaching since that day and I’m glad I kept being resilient myself in my efforts.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Building a presence on social media is something that I had always found very difficult. I am still working on now building an audience and I’m planning on opening a YouTube channel for resilient reps. The best advice I can give to everybody out there is to be genuine. Don’t act like you know everything I always tell my clients if you find a personal trainers that says oh I know everything get a new personal trainer. Know the field that you’re in is constantly growing and information is constantly changing and do your best to keep up with it. People like to see the real you and even through social media can tell when you’re being unauthentic. For me I was letting my clients do the talking for me on my pages constantly posting their achievements and constantly posting their failures because we don’t quit when we fail failure is a learning experience and I think that’s something that people forget. I say that because with social media don’t be afraid to fail there’s another quote that people say is your one viral video way from becoming a success so don’t force that video to happen it will happen organically as long as you keep putting in the work.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @rttraining & @resilientreps