Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Robyn Tanner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Robyn, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to teach people to fight for their future self. To wake their inner warrior and to live life fully engaged in the promise on their life.

Ten years ago, I was left for dead.

I had been in the best shape of my life, when suddenly, pain ripped through my body for no apparent reason. For weeks I had been battling a war within myself until one day I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t stand up straight. I couldn’t get dressed, put on my socks and shoes or even go to the bathroom by myself. I was crippled by an invisible suffering. There was no accident, no injury, no outwardly obvious reason for my pain.

Knowing something was terribly wrong with my body, I began the fight to discover the root cause of my pain by going from doctor to doctor and test to test for more than six weeks. I was overlooked, dismissed and put off by multiple doctors. Nine in fact. Meanwhile, I was getting worse. I went through countless medical testing, ER visits, a weeklong hospital stay and physical therapy. All to be told nothing was wrong.

However, it was that persistent “one more” try that led to the discovery of a life-threatening rare infection that had been spreading through my spine, hips, bones and muscle tissue forming large abscesses in my spine and hip. At the time, I was just 36 and a mom of two small children.

My life was instantly derailed with emergency surgery to remove part of my spine. I then battled sepsis, was in the ICU, underwent months of painful physical therapy, IV medications and still endure chronic debilitating conditions.

My damage was hidden beneath the surface. You would never know the pain or the depth of the battle raging inside me unless I told you. It is unseen. But it’s rooted there within me. And I think a lot of people are silently suffering in tremendous pain like I was. Hiding. Settling. Fighting fights we can’t see.

I made a choice to fight. To take my second chance at life and live alive. To start living authentically. For me. For the life I truly believed I was capable of stepping into.

When you meet death and get to walk away, you wake up to what matters most real fast.

After my recovery, I went through a divorce, the death of my stepmom, moved with no money and no job and began a fitness business from the dirt up. Even with missing part of my spine and a dead leg, I served people through physical fitness. I wasn’t going to let so-called medical labels and limitations keep me from the calling on my life.

My fight for my own life catapulted me into an unrelenting mission of helping people transform their lives from the inside out. I know now, I am here to help people live alive. To help them create a life that fuels them. Energizes them. And frees them.

My message is simple. Life is leased. Fight for your future self. Be generous to your dreams. Live life on your terms. Alive. Authentic. Full of bold courage.

And fight like your life depends on it. Because it does.

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.

Absolutely!

I’m a frosting kinda girl, eat pickles, love peanut butter M&M’s and a good glass of red wine. I have a book addiction and love me some Benson & Stabler SVU reruns.  The smell of coffee makes me ill and don’t get me started on Greek yogurt and mayo. I don’t do grammar and write like I talk. Plus, I say ain’t and y’all.

I have two amazing, supercool, creative, compassionate, witty, crazy-talented kids. I’m a Tampa, Florida native and the beach is my peaceful place. I have plans to buy a farmhouse somewhere in the middle of Montana with my hubby where there will be goats, mini-cows, otters and somehow a red panda bear.

I hate excuses, laziness and sitting still. Facing death will do that to you. I am the author of The Machete Mentality and have seven more books I am currently working on. I walk when I write, feed squirrels daily and talk to wildlife.

Most importantly, I am a Christian and believe everyone has a fighter inside with Goliath goals. I think the difference in getting to live them out lies within our ability to wake our inner warrior and fight for our future self.

My fight for life birthed my business, Robyn Tanner Coaching, where I help ambitious women build a life they don’t need a break from.

Women come to me to evolve. And as odd as it sounds, they come to me to quit. To quit settling. To quit apologizing. To quit second guessing. To quit playing small. To quit holding back. To quit shrinking themselves. To quit hiding. To quit lying to themselves. To quit jobs and relationships and doing “all the things” they don’t want to do but have been habitually conditioned to do out of guilt, fear, shame, obligation or feeling it is the only pathway to success.

Often these women are tired, stripped of the passion and adventure they are desiring. They are highly ambitious and vibrant women, YET covered by layers of responsibility, worn down from the day-to-day BUT are very much aware there is so much more inside of them. Often, they don’t know the block between where they are and what they “really” want.

I pull that out of them. And I love coaching them to live bolder and more courageous lives.

My high-end coaching services and programs are immersive journeys that guide them to honor themselves and their dreams. I help them create their future self through a holistic method of four essential elements and I teach them to communicate with confidence, courage and continuously evolve in their personal, professional, and physical lives.

My unique practices energize them to pursue themselves relentlessly. And while I am a tough love coach, I walk with them and grow with them. I don’t hide my imperfections or failures or desires. I expose myself with them, clearing space for trust and connection.

Above all, I am a writer. You can purchase a copy of my book, The Machete Mentality on Amazon. It’s about surrendering your old self, questioning your current self and fighting for your future self. You can find it under my former name Robyn McLeod Thrasher.

I am also a motivational speaker on all topics relating to mindset, aliveness, courage, and you guessed it, fighting for your future self.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Absolutely! My favorite is when I was about 18 months into my brick-and-mortar gym business when I took a major leap of faith financially.

I had launched my business with my then boyfriend and business partner. We had believed so heavily in our ability to create a space for people to love fitness, to get healthy while having fun and do it in a community that felt like family.

We naively believed the Kevin Costner Field of Dreams movie quote, “if we build it, they will come.” And they did come, but the “they” that did was not nearly enough to keep the doors open. We had like 19 clients to start with and a huge chunk of overhead coming at us every month like rapid fire. We didn’t know anything about marketing and sales and building a business, much less scaling a business to be able to be profitable or even sustain another month. Money was going out faster than it was coming in. It was brutal. Plus, we were doing it all by ourselves and not only were we depleted financially, but emotionally, mentally and physically as well.

We couldn’t afford both our personal expenses and the business expenses. So, we had a choice to make. It was either give up the dream and call it quits or keep our faith and stay committed.

We chose faith.

Shortly thereafter we were evicted and living in our gym and cooking meals in the backroom on an electric skillet and a six-foot folding table. We slept on air mattresses and yoga mats and hid our secret life best we could. At the end of the day, when we said goodnight to our last client, we remained at our gym with no home to go to.

It is depressing and frustrating and scary and humbling and shameful all at once. Looking back, I call it an adventure, a lesson, a building block of fortitude and faith that was necessary to take us to the next phase of our lives. But back then, it was like walking on eggshells with bare feet and your heart beating out of your chest while you wore a huge smile on your face to motivate and inspire the people coming to you for encouragement and hope and help. When in reality, we were the helpless ones in need of some serious saving.

Around three months of living in our gym, I was scrolling on Facebook and came across an ad for a company called Gym Launch with the now famously known, Alex Hormozi. He was telling us in a quick thirty second blurb to invest in his program and he would teach us how to make sales and grow our gym business quickly. BUT the price tag was one thousand dollars per week for a minimum of 16 weeks. We didn’t have rent money, much less $16,000 to give a total stranger on Facebook.

Instinct. Hope. Stupidity. God. Faith. Desperation. Fear. Humility. Blind belief. I can’t quite say what it was specifically, but all of it called us to answer the ad and somehow, we came up with the money needed for a down payment. We signed up with a total stranger to do a program we knew nothing about. I don’t even think we even researched it. Everything we owned, including our self-worth and self-esteem was anchored in our business succeeding so we could help people live healthier lives. We were not going to give up without a fight.

We just believed.

Within the first 30 days, we had made more money than we both ever possibly imagined. Our gym was packed, and we were at full capacity. Our schedules were booked, and we could actually buy the groceries we wanted, pay the bills and invest back into the business. More importantly, we learned a side of the business we never knew existed and that knowledge is still paying dividends now.

By taking that risk, doors opened for us in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without it. The odds were stacked against us and lined up around the building waiting for us. We should never have been successful. We were personal trainers. We weren’t business owners or entrepreneurs.

We were just dreamers. But the minute we put it all on the line, we became dreamers who learned how to do so in faith.

My advice: Don’t turn your back on the possibility in front of you because of your current circumstances or past experiences. Act from a place of faith and from where you want to be.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Many times. But the scariest was during Covid.

It was a Friday night in March of 2020. I was sitting at my dining room table when I heard the news. Covid was shutting down all the gyms and I would be forced to close.

I lost it. I immediately slammed my fists on the table. Screamed at the computer telling me the news and completely lost my you know what. I cried. I yelled. I was red in the face.

This was my lifeblood. My heart and soul were poured into every ounce of my gym. I had given up everything for this. I had gone homeless for this. I had grinded. Hustled. It was my everything.

And just like that they would shut me down. Rip my dream from my hands.

I was livid. Furious. Mad.

But mostly, I was scared.

How would I live? How would I make money? Pay the bills? Help the people? What else would I do? This was all I knew. My kids depended on me. I needed this. They couldn’t just take it away. These thoughts cluttered my mind.

I remember calling my pastor and asking if I could be rebellious on this? Could I stand my ground? They had no right to shut me down, I protested. As if I was some kind of exception.

Obviously, I would have to shut my doors and comply. The people could not come in.

But by Monday, I had a new plan. A park. Outside. Socially distanced. So, I ran my classes there.

But then that got shut down.

So, I showed up at my gym (without all the people) and went live on camera through Zoom.

I never stopped teaching. I never stopped showing up. It was a must for me to keep going.

I taught classes live on Zoom for months. In fact, it turned into 3 years. It allowed me to reach people across the United States in 13 different states. Even in Canada and Puerto Rico. Eventually Germany. I was reaching far beyond the zip code of my gym.

This upheaval paved a way for me to take my work online, in a fitness app, develop courses and programs where clients could access the workouts and me at any time on their terms. I even started hosting mindset workshops online and teaching life coaching to clients. All along it was the next step in my journey setting me up for what I do now, speaking, writing and high-performance coaching. It ended up being the biggest, unexpected blessing of my business career.

Now there were gyms that shut down. Closed for good. Stopped showing up. Made excuses. Didn’t go live or online or adapt. There were gyms that just pushed paused and waited. But not me. I decided to keep showing up. Just differently. It was my ‘Machete Mentality’ mindset. There is always a way. Find it. Make it. Live it.

That pivot. That decision. Created space for me to impact lives I would have never touched. Covid saved me from staying small. From playing inside only the four walls of one building. It paved a new path for me BUT it took me being gritty and enduring the days and weeks and months and years of not knowing what would happen.

I am proud of the way I handled myself. I am grateful for the hardship and fear and uncertainty. I take bigger risks now. I doubt myself less and I believe bigger. In myself. In others. And certainly, in God.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.robyntanner.com
• Instagram: @robyntannercoaching
• Facebook: @robyntannercoaching
• Linkedin: @robyntannercoaching
• Youtube: @robyntannercoaching

Image Credits
Eliza Passardi, Photographer FemForce Brand Photography