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

Hi Nathalie, thanks for joining us 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.

I’ve been in the fitness industry since 2012. I went into that field because I have personally gained a lot from what it had to offer. I always felt my best when I was moving my body and doing fun things like playing sports, racing friends, and climbing over fences just for the heck of it. My experience started with coaching a 12-year-old volleyball club team that quickly turned into training athletes for sports performance. After doing that for several years, I felt like I was missing something. So I decided to go into personal training and help people get fit. I started coaching all sorts of group classes and doing personal training. I loved doing this until again I felt like I was missing something. After a few more job positions at different gyms, I noticed a common theme: I wasn’t understood, I wanted to provide more for my clients, and I was always burnt out after a few years.

I found a company called ActiveLife; their main goal is to bridge the gap between healthcare and fitness, in other words, help people live a life without pain, without fear, and without compromise. Everything they said resonated with me.

This was the risk I took.

I did a 13-month internship, quit my job, and started a business. Finally, I was able to do things my way and be able to provide the service I wanted to provide. This was the thing that was missing. I am so happy I did this because had I not taken this risk, I would’ve been in the same situation I was just a few months ago.

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.

Mission Statement:
Challenge the body, mind, and spirit to cultivate unconditional self-love and physical freedom.

Problem We Solve:
We help people get out of pain and get back to doing the things they love to do through movement, mindset, and mentorship.

Our Process:
Consultation
The first step is scheduling your free, in-person consultation. The purpose of this is to find out whether or not there’s a clear opportunity for us to help you and if there is, we’ll ask you to enroll in the program that makes the most sense based on what we learned from you.

Assess
We begin with the Assess Phase by uncovering your history, needs, goals, movement patterns, ranges of motion, and skill level. We do this by guiding you through a joint-by-joint movement screen, strength balance/tension tests, custom competency and tolerance tests, a functional skills test, interviews/questionnaires, and conversations. We do this to help you gain clarity on where you are and where you want to go.

Acclimate
Once the Assess Phase is complete, the Acclimate Phase begins with implementation of custom in-person individual training at a prescribed cadence and the introduction of critical conversations about mindset, words, breath, stress, sleep, nutrition, movement, etc. The purpose of this Phase is for you to develop confidence, competence and autonomy, as well as an understanding of the application of intensity and how to communicate with your guide.

Ascend
Next is the Ascend Phase in which we provide proper dosing of custom programming, autonomous group sessions, and individual in-person training and consultations in order for you to gain enhanced autonomy in base movements, skill sets, how you think/talk to yourself, and establish the foundation for a more resilient mind and body. It will also help with improvement in mastering the application of intensity.

Reclaim
Finally, you will apply learned skills to live a pain-free and active life in the Reclaim Phase. This is accomplished through the continuation of the previous stated with added support from your guide to safely pursue and progress activities outside of conventional exercise. We do this so you are able to reclaim your active life with peace of mind and confidence.

About Us:
Have you ever dazed off thinking about what total freedom would feel like? Wondering what the absence of pain, frustration, and suffering is really like? Us too. All the time. We always thought that the best way to be free was to be as physically fit as possible to be able to do whatever we wanted. We wanted to play; to jump, fall, climb, swing, dance, crawl, and do whatever movement possible. To attain that, we did all the “functional fitness” modalities out there, from spin classes to CrossFit and everything in between, just to find ourselves burnt out, bored, and injured over and over again.

Not understanding why injuries kept happening, we turned to medical professionals for help, only to be prescribed a few exercises and told to “ease back into it” or “don’t ever do _________ again.”

Frustrated, completely lost, and defeated, we thought we’d never be able to be free.

We began to question everything because nothing made sense. Doctors had no answers for us. Functional fitness that was supposed to make us stronger and injury-free was actually making us less mobile and less athletic. Exercise modalities were encouraging us to go to that “dark place”. Shoe companies shoving us into casts because our feet are “too weak and fragile”. Work environments and schools had us sit for hours at a time in front of computer screens so that we could make ends meet. Enough was enough, we could not stand by any longer and watch others take advantage of people that simply wanted to live their life to the fullest potential.

We shifted our attention to really finding out what was going on in our bodies and found that we had it backwards the entire time. We’d been focusing on the wrong things, like aesthetics, weight loss, macros, calories, “no pain no gain”, push until you can’t, sweat the fat away, and buy tools and gadgets to “fix” you.

Now, we focus on ourselves. We tap into our intuition and go with those “gut feelings”. We listen to our bodies and allow play to be a practice instead of forcing a routine. Instead of limiting our capabilities with equipment, we expand our expression by experimenting with any and all movement types and what earth has to offer as a playground. We are constantly learning new things and plan to have our views constantly challenged. We understand that we are ever-growing beings and that we do not have the answers to everything. Knowing this allows us to trust ourselves and learn by feel instead of being informed. We strive to simplify our lives and not permit metrics to reduce the knowledge that we already have within.

We are grateful for the lessons we have learned along the way. They have inspired us to create an environment where people feel safe to learn more about themselves, become empowered, and experience unconditional self love. We call this…

True Wild Existence.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

Meet people where they are, let them exist there as they will learn/grow at their own pace, provide guidance when they want it, and understand them.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Taking care of my clients completely. Then they tell others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.truewildexistence.com/
• Instagram: truewildexistence

Image Credits

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