Jonathan Goodman

10/05/2026

Early in my career, I was jealous of a trainer named Jim.
He worked seven days a week, ten clients a day, no fancy certifications, nothing that looked special from the outside. And he was making six figures. I couldn't figure it out. I had more education than him. I studied more than him. It didn't seem fair.
So I started watching him instead of resenting him.
Turned out Jim greeted every single person who walked in, not just his clients, with a real hello. He remembered what was going on in their lives outside the gym. He was fully "on" with a client, then fully off between sessions, resting so he could show up again. Twenty-five years of that, and people didn't just hire him. They stayed.
I'd been comparing my resume to his results. Wrong comparison. He wasn't better credentialed. He was better at making people feel like they mattered.
I stopped being jealous of Jim and started following him around instead. Best career decision I made that year.
-Coach Jon

10/04/2026

10/03/2026

Years ago I had a manager who was obsessed with periodization. We built these elaborate programs together. Every rep, every tempo, every micro-cycle planned out four weeks at a time. Soviet coaches would've been proud. It took me an hour or two just to write one program.
Then I had a client miss two weeks because her kid got sick. Another one because work blew up. Another because of a vacation I'd forgotten was booked into the middle of his mesocycle.
I kept blaming the clients for not sticking to the plan.
Eventually I realized the plan was the problem. Regular people with regular jobs and regular families aren't professional athletes. Training isn't their first priority. It's usually somewhere around their fifteenth.
So I stripped it down. Picked two exercises per client. Usually some version of a squat, a deadlift, a press, a pull. That was it. Progression was just: is the form better, or is the weight going up. Everything else was warm-up and support work.
I thought clients would get bored. They didn't. They got results. Real ones. I ended up turning people away.
The fancy program never beat the boring one. It just looked better on paper.
-Coach Jon

10/02/2026

After training clients in-person for eight years, I wasn’t happy.

My earning potential was maxed and the long hours meant I had no time for friends, family, or a girlfriend.

The catalytic point for me happened during an ice hockey game one night. I got tripped and strained my hamstring.

For most people, a hamstring injury is an inconvenience. For a trainer, it’s a catastrophe.

You can’t train clients from your couch, which means you can’t make a living.

That was when it all changed for me.

I thought, “If a single injury could wipe out two weeks’ worth of income, training clients isn’t a secure way to make a living. Too many things can go wrong.”

Online fitness and nutrition, on the other hand, is more than sustainable.

It’s efficient.

It allows you to systematize and scale your business, training more clients, in less time, while potentially making more money.

And it doesn’t have to be a full-time gig. Most online trainers do a combo online and in-person giving them the best of both worlds.

But it’s not easy.

So, I hope that this helps you with your own professional journey.

Can I get an amen? 🙏

10/01/2026

I started training a woman named Cindy years ago. She was in her 60s, dealing with shoulder and knee pain, no gym experience at all.
I didn't do anything fancy. Just focused on making the gym feel comfortable for her. A few months in, she was noticeably stronger. She referred a friend, Pam, who was just as nervous and just as new to all of it. I let them train together, introduced them around, checked in when they weren't in the gym.
Weeks later, Pam walked in glowing because she'd climbed a ladder at home for the first time in years. Cindy stood up one day without holding onto anything and didn't even realize she'd done it until she was already up.
I wasn't the most technically skilled trainer at that gym. Plenty of people knew more than me. But at one point, two-thirds of my clients were direct referrals from Cindy and Pam alone.
Nobody teaches you that in a certification course. You don't build a career on the clients you're chasing. You build it on the ones you already have, treated like they're the only ones you'll ever get.
-Coach Jon

09/30/2026

Dishonesty and associated distrust defines our industry.

For this reason, you need testimonials.

But asking for them can be awkward.

And when you get them, they usually don’t say much that’s specific or useful.

For those reasons, here’s what I suggest:

Don’t ask for a testimonial.

Instead, every 3 months, give your client a quarterly review form to fill out.

Ask them to review your services and provide you feedback.

This helps you improve.

And it’ll also provide you with all the info you need for a great testimonial.

With it, write the testimonial from your client yourself.

Then ask the client permission to use the testimonial.

Doing it this way has two benefits:

1. Makes it easy for them to say yes

2. Ensures you have the highest quality testimonials

—
Do these kinds of tips help?

I hope that they do.

But they certainly aren’t sexy for IG.

So, I have a request:

Stuff like this usually doesn’t get much engagement because it’s not sensational or controversial.

-Jon

09/29/2026

I met a guy named Jeff at a party once.
Bad back, bad shoulder, bad knee, all from a motorcycle accident years earlier. He'd tried a trainer after the crash, got hurt worse, and never went back. Tried acupuncture. Tried massage. Nothing stuck. He couldn't ride his motorcycle anymore. Couldn't go mountain biking, which he used to love. He was just managing the pain, week to week, and calling that his life.
We talked for maybe twenty minutes. Not about programs or sets or reps. About what he used to be able to do and couldn't anymore.
Three days later he called me.
Five months after that, he was pain-free. Stronger than he'd ever been. Back on the bike.
Jeff never once told me he wanted to get better at bulgarian split squats. He wanted his life back. The training was just the thing that got him there.
That's the part people miss. Nobody's chasing the workout. They're chasing the version of their life the workout hands back to them.
-Coach Jon

09/28/2026

Most people are sacrificing their health, but for what? This is the cheat code they need to hear.

09/27/2026

Most people think low energy is something that happens to you.

It's not.

It's the result of treating your body like an afterthought. By skipping the workout because you're tired. By staying up late and waking up groggy. By reaching for the coffee before the water. By sitting for eight hours and wondering why your brain won't work.

Energy is not a personality trait. It's not something you're born with or without.

It's something you build. Every early morning. Every heavy lift. Every meal with protein. Every walk before you sit down to work.

Jerry Seinfeld works out six days a week. He hates it. "You got to put the ox in the plow," he said. "Make it do stuff it doesn't want to do."

He's right.

So take care of yourself.

More than feels necessary.

More than feels convenient.

The energy finds the ones who keep showing up for it.

-Coach Jon

09/26/2026

Here’s the part nobody tells you about the boring stuff. It's never just one habit. Pull one thread and the rest of your life reorganizes around it.

-Coach Jon