A lucrative fitness career is not based on a degree (or another one) or a certification (or six more). It's not about luck.  It’s about risk.  About 35 years ago I told my parents I was changing my major from graphic design (they understood) to physical education (no one really understood yet). About 30 years ago my step dad asked me, “just what is it you’re majoring in?” while I was in grad school, studying exercise and sport psychology. Again, he hadn’t a clue about what I was doing in school or about how it was going to help me once out of school (and off the payroll)! I talked recently with Sara Kooperman of Sara’s City Workout. She mentioned what it was like - around the same time - telling her parents she was going to open a gym and teach aerobics … with a law degree.  That’s a risk. It was then for sure! There weren’t fitness businesses on every block or hundreds of thousands online yet. It wasn’t common knowledge that we all need to exercise. Today if you’re a high school student who wants to be a personal trainer no one looks at you like you just said you want to work long hours and be broke. If you’re 50 or 60 and decide you want to switch careers and be a health coach or trainer people will think it’s cool not that you’ve lost it! Still it might feel risky. A lucrative fitness career doesn’t just come automatically with a degree or a certification or because you personally look fit. Creating every new project elevates the game so the nervous feelings or insecurities you feel are a part of your success not signs of failure.  Random Conversations Someone just two days ago said hello to me in the women’s locker room at Rally sport where I personal train and train personally. She recognized me and asked me to remind her my name. We were literally 10 feet from the steam room where we met the very first Saturday I was at Rally. Exactly 16 hours after I drove into Boulder. She said, “you made it.” I said excuse me? She said, I wouldn’t want to be moving into Boulder in these times. It’s a tough town. It’s expensive. I was quiet. I didn’t know what to say. But I was thinking. There wasn’t a choice. I didn’t have a choice. I never thought it wasn’t going to work out. It hadn’t crossed my mind there was another option but to do it.  Don’t think I didn’t consider other things, but for other reasons. There were other opportunities, not alternatives because of a dead end. Had I not HAD to take risks and make things happen I don’t know what would have happened.  I think… less. Just less. I would have been comfortable. I would have been FINE. And by that I do mean the acronym. Fucked Up Insecure Neurotic and Emotionally disturbed.  I would have gotten resentful and small instead of growing so much more. I would have missed moments that changed my life and others around me forever. There were hard things. Incredibly hard things. But nothing about my life will be the same because of them no small things will matter the way they once did. I see people better.  Weasel words that get in the way of a lucrative fitness career If you’re giving yourself an out, a possibility that it won’t work here’s how that shows up:  You say,“try it.” You’re going to try it. As opposed to you’re going to do it. You won’t come up with the best answer right away. You may have to try different things… different headlines, different images in your marketing, different sales scripts even different exercises in a session, but that should feel like a strategic testing process.  That’s just part of the steps anyone goes through to define the right answer to a new problem. You don’t have to. You have a spouse who’s really the breadwinner. You are just doing this because you love it. You’d do it even if no one paid you. You may think these are good things, even be proud of them. Yet, they hold you back. Invest in something (yourself for one). Take a risk. You’re not really reaching potential until you create something. Be an answer to a problem. I didn’t have a