We were lucky to catch up with Donald Montero recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Donald , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
What I feel my mother did right when raising me was making me understand that the only way I’ll ever attain any sort of success out of my life it would be through nothing but hard work , dedication, and consistency. She’s also made me start working at a young age which helped me manage not only my schedule better but manage my budgets wisely. My dad also taught me that nobody will ever want more success for you then yourself therefore stop expecting hand outs or help and just go out there and get whatever you want on your own.
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 am a 21 year old guy who didn’t have much confidence in himself all throughout high school , got picked on , had no idea who I was as a person nor who I wanted to be When I left high school I started to work right away and started to workout which helped me gain some confidence in myself, it wasn’t until the pandemic hit in 2020 in which I had all that time to myself. I was drinking , watching so much tv wasting my time , until one day I said “screw it I’m going to start working out as much as I can” then I started to workout 3 times a day at 5 am, 12pm, then finish off with my last workout at 5pm. It was mostly all bodyweight exercise using coolers to squat or any bars for pull-ups and endless pushups. When the pandemic kind of started to fade and gyms started opening back up , I was offered a job at a gym in south beach miami called prestige miami fitness club, as a fitness enthusiast I couldn’t have been more excited to take the job even though I would make 2x less then I was making at my prior job in a bowling alley as a server. I started to open the gym at 6am every day, it was super tough at first but man was I excited to wake up everyday at 4:45 am and go workout, that was what I looked forward to the most out out of all my days. I later then became a personal trainer at the same gym and got certified as well! I was now modeling as a signed model, working at the gym , and just started to train a few clients. Becoming a trainer was my god given purpose, never in a million years would I have thought I will help people improve the quality of their lives through fitness. What I think sets me apart from others is my relentless tenacity to wake up everyday at 4am , come workout , train my clients , take care of my gym and still do all my other side jobs such as modeling. What I am most proud of as a trainer is that all the people I’ve ever trained grew an undying love for fitness and now workout with or without me.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
A great story that illustrates my resilience would be the time I walked around all of south beach miami with my modeling portfolio in my hands going to almost every agency in Miami and being told NO by 100% of the agencies I went to for several different reasons such as age, body, looks and so on. I did not let that stop me I kept going until a friend connected me with an agent that goes by the name of Corey Grenier from select models miami who I thank so much for believing in me when nobody else did. He signed me to select models and as I developed as a model I ended up walking the runway for dolce gabanna , doing a campaign for gatorade , commercials for Range Rover, worked with FILA and many other amazing brands all because someone took a chance on me and I NEVER gave up open my goal of getting signed.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
The best source of new clients has been social media without a doubt. Instagram has such a high reach I can post content training a few clients and friends and family or people I don’t even know start to reach out interested in training.
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