We were lucky to catch up with Serene Augustain recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Serene thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The year of 2020 was one that many will not forget, as it was the time that covid had shut out people and businesses from the outside world. At the time, I was finishing my Junior year at California State University East Bay in Hayward, California. I studied Kinesiology (the study of the body in movement), which is essentially an exercise science major. Little did I know, that when I came back to my home town in Queen Creek, Arizona- I was going to never turn back and my life was going to take a complete three-sixty.
I was a competitive swimmer for 16 years of my life. Through hard work and a near unbreakable athlete’s mindset, I made it to the collegiate level and swam during my time in college. Having struggled with mental health most of my life, the rigorous training hours and school work took a toll that I hadn’t quite imagined or prepped myself for. By my junior year, depression and anxiety were at an all time high, my eating disorder and body dysmorphia were rampant, I would be sick often, and felt I could barely make it through my days. At that time in my life, I had begun to journal. I barely had a morsel of faith, and my belief and relationship with God or something greater than I was near non-existent, but I came to a day where I felt I had no where else to turn than to a higher power. I wrote prayers in my journal that something in my life would change, that God would help me because I didn’t know how much longer I could bear my own suffering. Then covid happened.
When all the schools in California were shut down for covid, I made my way back home to Arizona. Through a good friend of mine, I came to find the most unique little gym- Optimal Performance Training (OPT) ran by Joey Bellus and Ryan Jimenez. Joey, who is now my co-worker and one of my absolute best of friends, trained me while I finished my junior year online and tried to figure out if I would be going back to California to finish my senior year of school and swimming in person.
Joey is also a meditation/life coach. Through his mediation courses and personal development programs I began to address many of the issues that had plagued me most of my young life. I began to create a new identity for myself, reading about my own personal Native American/indigenous roots, connecting with parts of myself that I had repressed mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and addressing the trauma in my life that had manifested as my mental health issues, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia. Slowly, I began to find real healing and resolution to these issues through meditation, breathwork, sauna and cold plunge modalities, exercise, and the continuation of learning about my body, who I am, how I think, and where I, and my ancestors come from. This holistic approach to health and wellness works. It healed me in ways that I would have never thought possible or imagined, but I sit here today with the utmost confidence that it can change anyone’s life if they are open minded and ready for transformation.
I never went back to school in-person. I finished my Bachelor’s online. I decided to dive head first into personal growth work, as well as pursue becoming a personal trainer for OPT as Joey had offered me to bring me on to the team. throughout the next 4 years, I worked with general population clients, Native American sobriety clinics/communities, and even athletes. I never stopped studying or doing my own research. Over-time my skills in fitness developed. During those three years I experienced great change in my own health. I took to healing my eating disorder and self-image day in and day out with my built practices and mediations. I balanced my hormones and healed my relationship to food, fitness, mind, body, and spirit. In this process, my depression and anxiety began to disappear over-time and I became filled with a new found compassion and self-love. In conjunction with my own journey and process, I began to develop a deep passion for women’s health and wellness and the conversation that is had today around women’s health and wellness, especially in our current fitness industry.
Within the context of women’s health and wellness, I also began to take interest in fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the full life spectrum changes and milestones that women undergo when it comes to our bodies and health. This led me to begin the process of becoming a doula as a side gig while still doing personal training. My hopes are to someday become a full-licensed midwife with my own practice.
While my side gig as a doula is still in the works, I began to wonder how I could begin to help women in a REAL holistic way that is not being taught or talked about. Sitting with and brainstorming the journey of my own experience and 4 years worth of journal writings, meditation courses, and personal growth insights, Fertile Grounds began to take shape.
‘Fertile Grounds: Health, Womb Care, and Empowerment for Women’ is a transformative 16- Week curriculum designed to empower women through reproductive education, personal development, and embodiment of intuition, allowing them to step into undeniable confidence, clarity, and inner-harmony. This course was the creation of all my 4 years worth of learning indigenous practices and teachings, self development, and transformation funneled into wisdom and knowledge that can be shared with women of any age.
While my course title is ‘Fertile Grounds’. My goal is for this to be the name and idea of my business- the umbrella that hosts all my gifts and talents underneath, be it in fitness, personal development work, or birth work.
I am incredibly proud of myself for where I am standing now today. The moment the idea came to me, I knew it was worthwhile because for the first time in my life, I could see myself in a career field for the rest of my life supporting, guiding, and coaching women. I felt this would work because I am the living, breathing example that it does. I did the work, and I have documented writings to prove that these meditations, modalities, practices, and philosophies, are nothing less than life changing. I believe as a fitness trainer/women’s health and wellness coach and doula, that my approach is absolutely unique and unlike any other fitness trainers out there. It makes me incredibly excited to share my knowledge as I believe I help to mesh together aspects and topics of health and wellness that are often left out, not talked about, or seen as taboo.
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.
If you read about how I came to the idea of my business, you will know that same story to be how I came into the fitness, health and wellness, and later- birth industry. Today, I currently work alongside Joey Bellus, owner of OPT Beyond Fitness, located in Mesa, AZ.
The services I provide are:
– 1-1 personal training
– Group training/workouts
-1-1 Nutrition coaching
– 1-1 Meditation/recovery sessions
– 1-1 Sauna + Cold Plunge therapy sessions
– Group Sauna + Cold Plunge therapy sessions
– Group Meditation sessions
– 1-1 Womb Wellness sessions including personalized fitness program, nutrition coaching, and guidance through ‘Fertile Grounds: Health, Womb Care, and Empowerment for Women’ 16-week program.
– Group Coaching Fertile Grounds 16-week program
– Individual Coaching Fertile Grounds 16-week program
– Birth/Postpartum doula services
If you are a woman looking to start your fitness journey, get in shape, gain/lose weight, improve nutrition, or begin a personal transformation, I am your lady! If you are pregnant or in the postpartum and in need of mental, emotional, and spiritual support, my services extend to that department as well.
I am most proud to say that I truly believe my approach to fitness, health, and wellness is different, as a huge part of my work incorporates emotional work to create longevity and maintainable habits. My knowledge in women’s health and wellness is vast and while it would be potentially impossible to know everything there is to women’s health and wellness, I am always learning! Be it about the newest science on how to balance hormones or the physiological affects meditation has on the body, stress levels, and quality of life (can you tell I am a research nerd?), I am always looking for ways to best help my clients and give them the knowledge, tools, and guidance they need to achieve their goals. While the fitness industry can be intimidating to navigate, my goal is to help each and every client find their confidence in navigating their health and wellness journey!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson that I had to unlearn to become the leader, coach, and person that I am today was simply the belief the I was unworthy of teaching or stepping into this role at a young age (25). I say simply with a grain of salt. This was a hard belief for me to untangle. One thing that really helped me and that I now understand is that when it comes to fitness, mind, body, and spirit- it doesn’t matter what age you are.
Unworthiness is a common emotion that we feel. We can relate it to low-self esteem, low-confidence, and the belief that we are undeserving of love, prosperity, and abundance. Feeling unworthy towards self can lead a person to make low-quality choices and accept low-quality results. I did not love myself authentically for who I was and I did not deem myself worthy of becoming an entrepreneur- educating and leading others because of my lack of self-love and confidence. Somewhere in my subconscious mind had festered a self-hate that only spoke to how unworthy I was of good things. For me, I always get down to the root of the problem. The first time I ever felt unworthy was as a child. Through the chaos of my adolescent years, my world perspective and how I viewed myself had completely shifted. I felt my first feelings of immense guilt, shame, and unworthiness. These feelings don’t just go away as you age. They follow you into adulthood and occur in various areas of your life, behavior, and patterns! It’s not until you recognize where such emotions and patterns block you, where they originated from, and a desire to transform, that these parts of ourselves can be healed. In doing so, we can begin to fully embody who we are meant to become.
Taking the time to unpack these emotions and patterns took a lot of effort and courage. Once I pinpointed the root of the problem, I could see how unworthiness bled into more than one area of my life: my career, my relationship to self, family, friends, romantic relationships, and how I present and express myself.
When I first became a personal trainer, this was a common emotion for me to feel. I knew that I needed to untangle that feeling to truly be able to show up for clients in a way that could truly help them. Through meditation and personal development work, I began to mend my self-love and relationship to self in a way that left me with the ultimate self-belief and an empowerment that I could do anything I chose to pursue and was worthy of everything good and abundant in my life!
Having to unlearn that I wasn’t worthy was a process that highly impacted my journey. I wouldn’t change it, as it opened many doors of opportunity for me as an entrepreneur and has left me passionate about helping other women do the same!
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Growing clientele was a difficult area for me to navigate. Not because I’m not great at what I do, but because of my own self-induced limitations and lack of clarity, which can be huge blocks for many entrepreneurs that are just getting started.
Some strategies and ways that helped me get passed my limitations and create clarity to grow my clientele base were:
1) Getting Clear on My Niche/Calling
This allowed me to really narrow down what I was passionate about, what kind of content I wanted to market and how that content related to the audience that I was trying to pull from of clientele. For example, I am passionate about women’s health and wellness. Specifically, I am passionate about fitness, nutrition, hormonal balance, and mindset/personal development. Having clarity on what it is I want to help, educate, and coach others on allowed me to create marketable services and creatively sell them to potential clientele.
2) Picking an Audience
I received great advice once that trying to appease to everyone in the market is unrealistic! Once I figured out what my niche and calling were, I was able to visualize who my ideal clientele was. What do they look like? How old are they? What do they need assistance with? How can I help them? This also allowed me better insight into how I would market myself and my services to them.
3) Cold/Warm Outreach
It’s great if you can visualize reaching out to potential clientele, but you’re only going to have as much success as the effort of action you put in! Cold outreach (reaching out to people you don’t know) can be a little intimidating as we usually don’t want to face rejection from others. If this is something you struggle with, try to frame it as a way for you to gain more insight to what you can improve in your business! This could be in how you conversate/ introduce yourself and your business, how you sell your services or business, or how you structure your business. Cold outreach can be incredibly helpful in gaining traction and growing clientele. I’ve found it very useful to use city local Facebook groups where people are searching specifically for fitness trainers, nutrition coaches, or to better their mental, emotional, and physical health. This can also be specified to women’s health! There are plenty of all women’s groups where I can partake in cold outreach to members and invite them in to try out one of my services, such as a free workout session (freebies are a nice strategy as well). Warm outreach (reaching out to people you know or are acquainted with) is another helpful strategy. While reaching out to people you know can be even scarier at times, more than likely they will want to support you in your business! Facing that fear can lead to great outcomes and referrals.
4) Be Your Authentic Self!
You are a one of a kind human with unique gifts, talents, knowledge, and wisdom! You want to stand out from the rest of the crowd and the best way to do that is to be your most authentic, true self! People love when they can relate through commonalities, however, your own uniqueness will be a magnet to the audience you are trying to pull clientele from. Be confident in your creative expressions, marketing, and conversations/topics you speak on. I know from personal experience that it can be difficult to put yourself out there on the phone, camera, or screen for others to see, whether it be through marketing content/videos, phone calls/outreach, or social media posts. Don’t down play the work you are doing and don’t be too hard on yourself of how it looks or sounds! Create with the colors and styles you like, speak with candor and let the magic happen as you put yourself out there for clients to see!
Contact Info:
- Website: optimalaz.com
- Instagram: @_srfitopt
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/serene.augustain
- Other: Email: [email protected]