Doing what you love and loving what you do

I was blessed earlier this year to lose my job. Yup, you heard me right, I said blessed. I worked as a government contractor, and, if you’ve ever tried that before, you never quite know if you’ll have a job the next year. For the second time in my life, my company ended up losing the rebid on the work we were doing and so one day I went to work thinking we would be there the next day and when 4:45 came around, I learned that we’d lost and I packed up my stuff and left the building, never to return! Ahh, memories!  Thankfully, with Kel and ME’s encouragement, I’d started expanding my repertoire in 2010. I earned my Personal Trainer cert, then my BodyPump and Spin certs. I then followed up with enough yoga training to get me started in teaching yoga. I immediately started teaching these fitness classes, working it around my 8-5 job (whenever did 9-5 go away, I wonder?). So, when I got laid off in the spring, I just took every single sub class that I was offered. Coincidentally, I had submitted a bid as an independent contractor, to provide services to the gym on the military base teaching Spin and yoga, as well as providing personal training. Conveniently, I won the contract and had two months before we moved to build the program and provide classes to the military service members, their families, and the civilians who support them. 

So, even though I’d lost my income, I was able to at least replace some of it with this increased work. Then, my boss from my contracting job, fought hard to be able to rehire me as a part-time consultant where I can work from home and support the company on projects from time to time. Oh my goodness! Who doesn’t want to be able to work from home? This position now gives me the flexibility to increase my foothold in the fitness industry...just what I wanted.

This brings me to where I am today: working from home when called upon and teaching classes at the gym when I can. I’m working hard to increase my class load and I’ve also looked into various avenues to get more experience in the fitness industry. If any of these pan out, I will let you know, but for now, I’m excited that I’m getting out there and trying new things...that I would have never thought of trying before!

~ Samara