IAM035 – Former Athlete Becomes Personal Trainer Helping Clients Meet Health & Fitness Goals

Maurice D. Williams, MS NASM Master Instructor & Trainer
CPT, CES, PES, SFS & WLS, FNS, NSCA-CSCS, BTS Level 1 & Pn1

Owner & Personal Trainer, Move Well Fitness, LLC.
Owner & Lead Educator, Move Well Fit Academy

Maurice Williams offers a rare combination of advanced academic training, personal experience as a competitive athlete, and seventeen years of experience in personal fitness and training. That combination- a strong understanding of exercise and sport science and clinical exercise physiology, the determination of a competitive athlete, and broad fitness experience makes Maurice uniquely effective in helping his clients meet their health and fitness goals.

He has a BS in Exercise/Sport Science from Elon College (Now Elon University) and an MS in Clinical Exercise Physiology from Ohio University. Recognized as a Master Personal Trainer by the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and an Elite Personal Fitness Trainer by IDEA, the Health and Fitness Source, Maurice can help you no matter what your age, condition, or fitness goals. He works with mainly women between the ages of 40-60 who are looking to regain the energy and look that they had in their 20’s and 30’s so they will not be frustrated and upset with themselves when they look in the mirror.

He also is certified as a Personal Fitness Trainer, Corrective Exercise Specialist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Senior Fitness Specialist, Weight Loss Specialist & Fitness Nutrition Specialist by NASM, a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), a Barefoot Training Specialist-Level 1 through EBFA, a Fitness Nutrition Coach-Level 1 through Precision Nutrition and a Master Instructor for Stroops & Most-Fit. As a fitness educator with Move Well Fit Academy, Maurice teaches the Certified Personal Trainer course through NASM.

Smart training that produces results.

Maurice exercises his clients through the concept of functional training – focusing on everyday body movements, not muscles, in a progressive fashion to allow for optimal improvements in everyday activities, such as walking and lifting, as well as helping contribute to weight loss, increased stamina and strength. Maurice has helped people match exercise to their specific health challenges, too, including diabetes, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, coronary artery disease, lower back pain, pulmonary issues, and pregnancy. Even if you have only limited time to train, his 30-minute personal training sessions can make a difference.

The Right Values

Maurice believes “Everyone has fitness is them, the challenge is bringing the fitness out.” His current workout includes resistance training and yoga. A former high school and collegiate athlete, Maurice grew up in South Carolina with roots that reach back to Brooklyn, NY. An avid sports fan, he still roots for Elon and his favorites, the Miami Hurricanes, and the UNC Tarheels. A leader in his church, husband with a beautiful wife (just ask him) and father, Maurice brings the right values to his work and his clients – a shared commitment to good health and fitness, an honest determination, and an understanding of what it takes to meet difficult challenges.

• CEO Hack: Have a business coach
• CEO Nugget: Why are you going into the business?
• CEO Defined: Being a servant leader

Website: movewellfit.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/movewellfitness
Twitter.com: http://www.twitter.com/movewellfit
Google: https://plus.google.com/b/115832644990092783937/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricewilliamsmovewellfitness/

Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello. hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Maurice Williams from movewellfit.com.

Maurice, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Maurice Williams 0:39

Oh, I appreciate it, man. What's happening?

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Nothing much, nothing much. Well, what I wanted to do is read a little bit more about Maurice so you can learn a little bit more about him and hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

Maurice D. Williams is the owner and personal fitness trainer of Move Well fitness. Maurice offers a rare combination of advanced academic training, personal experience as a competitive athlete, and 17 years of experience in personal fitness and training. He works with mainly women between the ages of 40 and 60 who are looking to regain the energy and look that they had in their 20s and 30s so they will not be frustrated and upset with themselves when they look in the mirror.

Maurice brings the right values to his work in his clients a shared commitment to good health and fitness and honest determination and understanding of what it takes to meet difficult challenges. Maurice, are you ready to speak to that I AM CEO community?

Maurice Williams 1:27

I'm ready, man. Let's do this.

Gresham Harkless 1:29

Awesome. Well, what I wanted to do was just give you the mic so to speak so you can tell us a little bit more about your CEO story. What led you to start your business?

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Maurice Williams 1:36

Yeah, so I guess it started way back when in college in terms of fitness, I've always had a love for sports, played many sports growing up, but mainly football all through, you know, younger years all the way through high school and college actually. Then really fell in love with the human body probably in high school and decided I was going to do something with my career involving health and fitness. I didn't know exactly what it was with the route of an athletic trainer to physical therapist. It finally settled in the fitness arena and did the traditional route work in a big box gym and helped a lot of people.

Then one day, I finally paid more attention to how much money I was making. And I said, Man, I could probably do this on my own. Without going through the whole spiel of all the mistakes I made and going off on my own and failing and then going back into a big box gym in 2012 is when I actually did it the right way. So I decided I'm going to go off on my own. I don't know exactly when it's going to be but let me go ahead and start setting things in place so that I'll be more prepared. So I started looking online and doing some research on how can a fitness business owner be more successful business-wise? I found a company called NPE which stands for Net Profit Explosion, signed up with them and things kind of took off from there.

Then my wife and I found out we were having our third child and I said if I don't do this now I'm never going to do it. So that was the end of about 2013 and 2014. I went full time and Move Well Fitness actually was founded in 2009 part-time, but I went full-time in 2014 and trained in people's homes and decided within the first four or five months of doing that full-time that that was not for me living in my car pretty much and not having just the camaraderie and the whole energy of having everybody in one place. So I decided, you know, let me start looking for my own facility.

Long story short that finally opened up in October and November of 2016 and here we are today. So that's just a quick background on business.

Gresham Harkless 3:34

Awesome. It was great to hear because you definitely sound like you've gone through like all the quote and quote phases, I guess of building a gym where you had and experimented with different ways you wanted to provide your services, but decided that wasn't for you. So you decided to do this.

I think definitely a lot of people can learn a lot from you know, all the process that you had to get to where you are now.

Maurice Williams 3:52

Yeah, yeah, man, for sure.

Gresham Harkless 3:53

Absolutely. So I wanted to ask you a little bit more about like your secret sauce, or what do you feel makes your organization and your company unique?

Maurice Williams 4:00

Yeah, so the way we work with our clients, as I mentioned earlier, is that our clients are all pretty much females between the ages of 40 and 60, who are either stay-at-home moms or professionals, busy professionals who have dedicated pretty much all their time to their kids, to their job, to their husbands, taking care of them and letting themselves go. Now they're at the point where they look at themselves in the mirror, and they don't like what they see in their husbands, their husbands don't tell them that they look pretty anymore. They're getting friends or whatever are people thinking that you know, they're pregnant, and they're not because they're not in the shape that they want to be in. So that's who I mainly work with.

How we do that is we mainly work with them in 30-minute sessions, which means it's a short period of time you're able to come in and get out so we cater to the individual that doesn't have a lot of time to work out or they don't want to work out longer than 30 minutes. We do that and what I call a semi-private setting. So what that means is we have three to five People training in a small group.

What sets me apart from my competitors is that we don't train in a circuit fashion, meaning everybody kind of does the same exercise and you just kind of switch off. What we do is each person has their own individualized workout based upon their goals, and what we call the fitness assessment and they go through that. That kind of sets us apart in addition to the time that we spend with them on nutrition and making sure that they're taking supplements, if it's specific, or if it's needful for them.

Then we focus on sleep, and also just reducing stress as well. So I would say that's my unique selling proposition.

Gresham Harkless 5:34

Awesome. I wanted to see if there was anything additional that you can kind of touch on like, I sometimes call it a secret sauce, but you kind of touched on some things, was there anything additional that you think does kind of distinguish you from you know, maybe other personal trainers out there?

Maurice Williams 5:47

Just I mean, I've been in the business for a long time, man, I don't want to, you know, pat myself on the back, but in terms of most trainers and fitness professionals, they come into this industry as a second, this is all I've done. I went to school for this so my bachelor's and master's degree is in exercise science. Just in terms of the personal training industry, in the United States, I've done a lot of different things. So I'm pretty well known, and have a pretty strong reputation for just being a great fitness professional.

So I mean, some of those things really, really set me apart from a trainer that may make you go to a Gold's Gym, and nothing against Gold's Gym, but you go to Gold's Gym, or maybe like a sport in hell for like Equinox or something like that, and you go work with a trainer there, that's what's going to set me apart like tons of experience since, you know 1998 really, 2000 is when I got out of school and became a professional.

So that comes with experience and that's the biggest thing for me, and learning how to deal with different personalities and adjusting and knowing when to push on and when to pull back, and all those types of things that said, definitely sets me apart and makes you unique.

Gresham Harkless 6:59

Awesome. I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack, which might be like a resource, or book or an app, or something that you use on a regular everyday basis that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner,

Maurice Williams 7:12

I have a business coach, man since I went off on my own in 2013, or when I decided to go off on my own in 2013. I've had a business coach and that started with the company that I mentioned earlier. Now I just have a person who just has their own business. That's it, man, if you look at all the successful people in the world, I mean, Warren Buffett and, you know, Bill Gates and all those types of individuals, typically, Coach maybe don't have one now, but they have one or if it's not a coach is a mentor, somebody who keeps them on contract somebody who knows a little bit more than they do somebody who's in the position where they are trying to get to.

I have that person, as a matter of fact, I have a couple of people that I can refer to. So between the personal coach, and at three o'clock today, I have a mastermind group. So I have people that are like-minded like me, we're all trying to get to the same point we meet every Monday. And we have to report on what we've done for the past week.

So that's the secret sauce right there. Man, I can't say I've invented anything I have not, I'm not just taking stuff and either recycled it or stuff that people do give me and I've incorporated it into my business and just have kind of checks and balances. So those two things, man, that coach and, being a part of the mastermind group were really helpful for me.

Gresham Harkless 8:30

I love it especially because you're tapping into what people have done already to be successful. Like you said, you're not reinventing the wheel, but you're doing the exact same thing to drive success in your business. So I love those two hacks.

I want to ask now for what I call a CEO nugget and that might be like a word of wisdom or piece of advice that you might have for entrepreneurs and business owners.

Maurice Williams 8:48

Yeah, particularly for I mean, this could go to any industry, but particularly for fit well, you know what, let's just keep it broad. If you have a goal of opening up your own business, like a brick and mortar, or any type of business, you have to ask yourself, why you're going into business? Is it simply you want to break away from the man so to speak, because you feel like they're taking all your money? And you think this is a better way?

Well, if that's the only reason why don't open up a business, if you're not ready to put in some blood, sweat, and tears if you're not ready to spend a little bit less time with your family if you're not ready to cut the TV out and hanging out with the boys or hanging out with your girls grow the business and it's not worth it because that's what it's going to take to be successful.

My personal opinion is you don't have a successful business until you can step away from the business and the business still runs by itself. If you don't have that going on, then you just kind of have a glorified job. At least that's what I've been told. So that's where I'm at. I'm trying to get to the point where I will have employees and they'll be the brand and running the stuff on the surface and I'll be kind of behind the scenes making the ship run so That's my kind of CEO nugget.

Gresham Harkless 10:01

I love that, I love that, I love that measure of success. Because you know, for a lot of people, you know, they leave their job and they want to grow and start a business. But really, they're creating their own job. And it's usually probably a more stressful job than they had before. It's so having that as a kind of like a measure or a kind of a goal is a very, very important thing. So I think that's awesome. And now I wanted to ask you which is my favorite question, which is the kind of definition of what being a CEO means. So what does being a CEO mean to you?

Maurice Williams 10:29

To me, it means being a servant leader, because I run a small business, and I have no desire of being run a very large business or franchise in my business, so to speak. So I want to be very hands-on. So my understanding, my definition of a CEO is someone who's a servant leader, which basically means I'm out front doing everything that I'm asking you to do. Either I've done it, or I'm still doing it, and you can see me doing it.

So personally, in my business, that means you see me, training clients, eventually I'll stop doing that, but you have seen me do it. So you know that I can do that. I don't have any problem with cleaning equipment, cleaning up and straightening up, and doing all the dirty work because that's kind of what a servant leader does. So I'm right there in the trenches with my team, helping them to understand that I'm one of them. And that's my definition of a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 11:17

Awesome, awesome. awesome. Well, I truly appreciate you, Maurice for taking some time out of your schedule to tell us about your business. Give us those words of wisdom and piece of advice and those hacks that you have. So wanted to give you the mic so to speak to see if there was anything additional you want to tell us about your business or advice or anything, and then how people can best get a hold of you.

Maurice Williams 11:35

Yeah, so I think I gave you guys enough. I don't have too much more for you. But how you can get in contact with me from a website which is www.movewellfit.com This email is maurice@movewellfit.com So that's all one word and movewellfit.com And then if you Google search, movewellfitness sure you can find lots of things about myself and in the business as well.

Gresham Harkless 12:01

Awesome. awesome. Thank you so much, Maurice. And I truly appreciate you again and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Maurice Williams 12:08

And I appreciate you too. Man. Keep doing things like this. We need it.

Gresham Harkless 12:11

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

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Thank you for listening

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