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

Kendra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

After deploying out of the country for a year away from my two young daughters, I returned home determined to be with them as much as possible while still maintaining our life and home as a single mother. To make this happen, I got certified as personal trainer and transitioned my garage into a gym/training space to make an income at home. This quickly turned into groups of 20(+) attending my garage bootcamp classes, catching the attention of the city. Shortly after, I was notified in person that I had to relocate my business to an actual business location, due to not having any parking specifically for my clients. Without a thought, I jumped into my first commercial lease and have been hitting the road hard to grow this thing ever since. We are currently at almost max capacity in our facility with 10 certified personal trainers (not including myself) and over 150 general key fob access members. Our facility is now 24/7 and offers some of the best strength training equipment out there!

Kendra, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am an Army vet with over eleven years of military experience in leading and coaching large groups in physical fitness, logistical operations and finance. I graduated from Purdue University Global in April 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition degree and is currently in Grad School at PU Global in their Masters of Health Education program (all for FREE using my military benefits). My military background brings a great deal of discipline, organization, and knowledge. Although always dreaming of helping people by practicing medicine while growing up, I prefer to focus on a more preventative approach to health and wellness now. Being a mother to two young daughters, I understands the importance of taking care of myself first in order to be the best version that I can be for those around me. I am fueled by my passion for wanting to help others live healthier and happier lives. After spending the majority of my deployment rebuilding my own physical and mental strength in the gym, I returned home on a mission to build a place for my family and those in my community to do the same.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Our brand reputation is one of the very sole reasons that we have been able to grow at a pace that was necessary to survive the rough patches that COVID and other issues have brought. Building and maintaining a solid brand reputation simply came from having passion about the work that we do, doing what is right even if it is difficult, keeping communication lines open with the team and members, and community involvement.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I have been listening to Dave Ramsey’s Entre-Leadership podcasts the past few months while driving and cannot begin to express the amount of information, second-hand experience, and so much more from the episodes of that podcast. Coming from a family that has never had any part of business, I had often felt as though I was working against the grain due to not having enough knowledge and experience but this podcast has truly helped me grow and expand in ways that have effected not only my entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy, but how I see and think about life, family, values and myself in general.     

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fearlesspowerandstrength.com/
• Instagram: fearless_power_and_strength
• Facebook: Fearless Power and Strength
• Other: https://linktr.ee/fearlessbootcampandbarbell?utm_source=linktree_profile_share

Image Credits
Ashley Renee Photography Wanderlust Photography Whiskey Bee Photography