Sliding it in under the wire but I’ll be damned if I don’t get caught up today!

Day 3: Pick your favorite read of 2015 and write about it.

I don’t read many books a year, maybe one or two on vacation.

Except for the Hunger Games and Divergent series. Those I devoured like the apparent 14 year old reader I am. Perhaps I just really identify with a girl finding her own way while saving the world one Jam class, er, horrific day in dystopia at a time.

I focused on building this blog and my online training business this year so I suppose that’s what spurred me to read something professional in nature. Ignite the Fire: The Secrets to Building a Successful Personal Training Career by Jonathan Goodman was an easy read that I found surprisingly inspirational and motivating.

I work in a non-traditional personal training setting where I do not have to sell sessions. This a very good thing because a salesman, I am not.

However, I’ve also started this online training business and while forty hours a week of sales-free service is awesome, that’s not going to cut it if I want CTF to thrive. Ignite the Fire provides a great overview of what’s really important in a personal training career. There were also little reminders sprinkled in not just about the business of training, but about training, too. Small, silly things whose importance can sometimes fade as you get comfortable wherever you’re working like always wearing clean sneakers and shadowing the physical level of your client – if she is sitting, you sit. If she is in plank, kneel on the floor next to her. I really found those little reminders to be helpful to me as a trainer but also quite engaging.

Ignite the Fire is a great read for any personal trainer, whether they have their own business or not. Goodman does a great job of reminding you to stay true to your priorities while teaching you how to make money and be a better trainer. Totally worth my precious reading time.

If Ignite the Fire 2 comes out and the personal trainers are teenaged girls fighting to right the wrongs of the adults who sullied their homelands….well I suppose that might be the only way to top the original.