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

Jamie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?

There were a few defining moments in my career but the cardinal moment for me was when my employer up and went bankrupt over night.

In May 2012 I started my personal training career at David Barton Gym in NYC on Astor Place in east village. I was an early 20 something and eager to learn. Having already started competing in the world of bodybuilding in the figure division, personal training was a good field for me to explore as a career. After a challenging start I grew my clientele and became one of the top trainers at the location.

Fast forward a few years and David Barton Gym started to look dismal. There were a lot of complaints about management and members were unhappy. Us trainers would joke about the gym shutting down, until a couple days before Christmas in December 2016 that joke became a reality.

I’ll never forget the feeling in that moment, years of building up clientele, all washed away. My partner now husband reassured me I would persevere. In the coming days I began to get offers from several box gyms and this was my defining moment, continue along the path that I had already been down and rebuild my business for someone else or begin a uncertain path where I work for myself. I chose the later.

From 2017 until 2020 my business grew substantially. I transitioned from one independent gym to another that better suited my needs. While working out of this new facility that had great equipment, I also traveled to clients apartment buildings throughout the city. It was a hustle and bustle, running around NYC daily but I had more clients than I could fit into my busy schedule and it was great. In retrospect being thrown into the situation was one of the best things to ever happen to me and forced me to believe in myself and abilities.

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 had been active my whole life, as a young child I was involved in competitive gymnastics and participated in sports throughout school. In the end of high school I had a pretty bad relationship with food and body image issues that stemmed from depression, and some other problems. I had gotten extremely thin. At this time, my pastor who was also a personal trainer started working with me and really showed me how to appreciate my body and its strengths. Through lifting weights and bodybuilding I really found myself. I started competing in women’s Figure division. Although I at first loved the sport, I realized life is about balance and being to restrictive can back fire.

I moved to NYC and I went to college for Fashion Design at FIT, although I am a design/creative oriented person, I quickly realized this wasn’t for me and became a certified personal trainer and pursued this path!

I thoroughly enjoy helping others work towards achieving a healthy life. The three most important elements to achieving your goals are consistency, hard work and discipline. I look at the body as a whole focusing on all aspects of health; exercise, sleep, nutrition, and supplementation. Helping you feel your best is my mission! Everyone is different, there is not one set program that will work for everyone. This is why I create programs based on the individuals needs. I believe that forming small habits over time is key to successfully changing an individual’s lifestyle for the future. This process can be extremely challenging and it is where I deliver the most value because I support my clients every step of the way.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

During the Covid epidemic I had to pivot my in person personal training. It was crucial for me to continue to help my clients whom had made so much progress and entrusted me to guide them. I began to transition most of them to an online coaching platform. Creating this new online structure for clients created some new challenges but ultimately offered more flexibility and gave me back some time since I didn’t have to travel to each client. Another benefit was not having to pay the overhead at a training gym. This allowed me to also offer a better value with clients that had lost their jobs as a result of the difficult time. Now days being online has allowed me to spend more time with my two year old daughter.

The online platform forced me to develop my communication skills to another level since I wasn’t there to cue my clients in person. I offer both virtual 1 on 1 sessions as well as coaching programs. Change can be a scary thing. But sometimes change is for the better. It is in times of struggle that we grow. I have since grown my coaching business and train people across U.S. and am loving the versatility.

Having the rug pulled out from underneath my business for the second time, I realized it’s time to start thinking about how to invest the capital we had put away to this point. My husband and I made the decision to sell our apartment and move out of New York City. This was a catalyst for us to start in the world of real estate investing.

We began by educating ourselves for the road ahead, we listened to podcasts, specifically bigger pockets and also spoke with some close friends who were already experienced investors. The process of learning helped to alleviate the fears of investing our life savings.

We began with purchasing a duplex and soon after another. We continued to learn about real estate investing and now that we were actually owners we began putting systems in place that would allow us to grow further.

Most recently we developed land near the Grand Canyon where we run a short term rental. It turned out David Barton shutting down was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. My business has morphed and evolved along with many aspects of my life. Challenge is change, this is what I often tell my clients and also live by. Change and growth does not happen when we are comfortable, it happens in the uncomfortable.

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

When we started our real estate investing journey there were many trials. Learning how to be property owners and manage folks staying at your home has been a huge learning curve. Owning long term rentals has had it’s fair share of stories but one story sticks out the most.

At one of our properties which is a duplex we had tenants living upstairs and downstairs. The downstairs tenant started fabricating break ins almost every month right before rent was due. At first we felt horrible, took steps to provide safety- installing security cameras, rekeying locks etc. Accept what we started to notice was every “break in” had no forced entry, nothing was stolen except rent money, with many other valuables left sitting in the house. After speaking with police at every break in they came to the conclusion with us that it was fishy and all fabricated.

Meanwhile while this was happening we had a woman living upstairs, who unfortunately allowed her brother whom had many personal issues to live in the backyard on a mattress. We were unaware of this for a couple weeks until we went for a maintenance property check up. Dirty underwear, candy wrappers and garbage scattered about the backyard. We spoke to the tenant and had everything cleaned up. She assured us her brother would be leaving town. Only a few days later we get a call in the middle of the night that the brother was still there. And he left the water running in the upstairs apartment which in turn flooded the downstairs apartment. Needless to say this was a disaster.

After these two misfortunate stories the word SELL popped into my brain multiple times. I wanted to give up so badly, but instead we cleaned up the mess and pressed on. Through this challenge we developed a better system for vetting our tenants as well as expanded our policies to protect ourselves better in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Jamiecorso.com
• Instagram: @jamiecorso

Image Credits
Lydia Hudgens