Helping His Hometown Get Healthy And Swole

Shawntes Gary is a personal trainer and gym owner who is making his community healthy and strong — just watch the joy he gets from that mission.

Video Transcript

Meet Shawntes Gary, a personal trainer who owns a gym in his hometown. He wants his community to be healthy and strong – even his own brother.

Shawntes: Yeah. That's up. Down slow. That's the case right here.

His brother (lifting weights): I feel like you helping everybody else more than me.

Shawntes: Nah. Nah.

Shawntes is holding a water bottle above his brother’s head.

How am I letting you taste it?

Brother: Give me a waterfall.

Shawntes: But I think a lot of people think, “I don't know what I'm doing, so I shouldn't go to the gym.” When it should be the opposite. If it's Tuesday today, show up on Wednesday.

We see and hear Shawntes giving advice and encouragement to people lifting weights. 

Usually before I start with the client, I try to find out why. Why they want to do it. Why they want to see the results. If they're doing it more than, “I just want look good.” That way, down the line when they get burned out, if it's important enough and that why is important enough, they'll remember, “Oh, that's why I'm doing this.” And they'll stick with it.

We see and hear him having fun in the gym with others.

So, when people are coming in, I'm seeing them come in. I'm greeting them. So over a short period of time, I'm getting to know these people and we're talking about more than just gym stuff.

Seeing them from day one, and then seeing them maybe a year later, still coming in and they've lost a hundred pounds — there's not too much that's better than that as a gym owner.

My message would just be start somewhere even if it's not coming into the gym. It's like a snowball effect. It's like, “All right, I started at the gym.” Once you start, and even if you could see a little bit of progress, that's going to motivate you more. Yeah, I don't think it's too late for anybody that actually wants to put the time into doing what they need to do. And if you got some weights at home, just start doing something. Watch some videos on the internet.