Women In Wellness: Tiffany LeRoy of Envision Personalized Training On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
Surround yourself with people who are only going to empower you and lift you up. They always say “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” and if you are constantly surrounding yourself with people who are negative and bring you down, then you will become just that. Don’t be afraid to cut people out of your life who no longer serve you because in the end, you are all that matters.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tiffany LeRoy.
Tiffany LeRoy is a Fitness & Lifestyle Expert in Scottsdale, Arizona and the owner of Envision Personalized Training. She is one of the most respected up and coming names in the Phoenix fitness scene. Her passion and drive make her a living example of what she inspires in her clients. In less than a year of starting her own business, her success continues to elevate with new partnerships and a growing clientele.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Growing up I always loved being active and playing sports. I was a swimmer throughout my adolescent years and in high school I qualified for the State Championships all 4 years. I enjoyed every second of it, but even though I was active and constantly moving my body, I wasn’t exactly what you would consider “fit”. I was always the tallest girl in the class, so I was as “big” as the boys throughout grade school. That made me feel a little self-conscious as a kid growing up, but I remember specifically in middle school being told that I had cottage cheese legs. I never forgot about that day. During my last year of high school, I decided I wanted to take my fitness to the next level because I no longer wanted to feel self-conscious about my body, and that was when I was introduced to the gym. Trust me, I had no idea what I was doing for the longest time when I first started, but I fell in love instantly. I just loved the way it made me feel and I was so eager to learn more, so I spent my last year of high school learning what I could about the gym.
When I graduated high school, it was clear that I wanted to go to school to be a personal trainer, and I was so PUMPED, but at the time, I was young and naïve, and I allowed a boyfriend I had to talk me out of going to school for training and to stop working out altogether. I instead went with the safe route of going to school for nursing because overall I really liked to help people, so it made sense to me. One year went by and I ended things with my ex and also realized that I definitely didn’t want to be a nurse. I loved the thought of helping people, but that wasn’t it. Feeling very lost and so annoyed for all the time I wasted, I once again switched majors to something “safer” which was communications and business.
Finally, after 5 years, I graduated college with my bachelor’s degree in communications and business. I tried dabbling in the field for half a year, and don’t get me wrong, it was fun and all, but it was NOT my calling, so once again, I felt so lost and confused. Well, during that time I was also eating, sleeping, and breathing the gym while also consistently posting about my fitness journey on Instagram. I started getting a lot of friends and strangers messaging me asking for fitness help and advice, and I LOVED IT. It hit me so hard like a ton of bricks that helping others and training was my calling and that it is what I needed to be doing all along. So once again, I took myself back to school to get what I needed to be able to train, and I also posted on my Instagram that I was accepting clients to start gaining real life experience. I got 3 clients that I trained for 3–4 months for dirt cheap while I also still worked my full-time job. After about 4 months of training on the side, I got the opportunity of a lifetime to train full-time with the training company of my dreams and be mentored by a very well-known trainer in Scottsdale. I was on cloud 9, a real dream come true! After two years of constant learning and mastering my craft day in and day out, I decided to branch out on my own and start my own training company called Envision Personalized Training which brings me to where I am today. I am so passionate about helping people change their lives inside and out and being able to say I do this as my “job” every single day is really a dream come true!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
When I first applied to my first training job, it wasn’t your typical application, but I was asked to send my resume over, so I did, and from there I never heard from them again. I was so discouraged and started to feel like I was wasting my time trying to be a trainer when I graduated for something completely different. A couple months go by and the same training company I applied to posted that they were looking to hire a new trainer, so I took a big deep breath and messaged them again. At this point I had nothing to lose, they already rejected me once, so how much worse could it get? Well to my surprise, they messaged me back and wanted to set up an interview and from there the rest is history. I landed my first real training job, and I was so ecstatic!
This just shows that if I were to give up after the first time I got rejected and failed, then I would not be here today almost 3 years later owning my own training company. Life isn’t always going to be rainbows and butterflies. There is going to be a lot of ups and down along the way, but you can’t go up without being down, and those downs are what is going to make those ups so much more worth it. Be persistent about what you want in life, and you will be amazed at how much life will work for you.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started, I didn’t realize how much effort it took to come up with training plans for each individual client. I sort of went with the “one size fits all” method and shortly found out how wrong that really was. Each client has so many factors as to how they exercise and what fits them best, and I learned quickly how to identify what fits each client’s needs best. To me this just shows that even when you think you know, you still can learn more. I am constantly trying to learn new things every day to perfect my craft, and if I were to just settle down and think I had it all figured out because I landed the job, then I would fail as a trainer so fast. Always take life as a learning opportunity, no two days are the same, so go out and make the best of them.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
When it comes to health and wellness, I train women in the gym on how to properly perform exercises and execute a successful workout while also teaching them how to find that balance of incorporating their fitness and health goals into their lifestyle. I train women of many different professions which means everyone’s approach to how they can integrate their health and wellness into their already busy schedule will be different for each. I think that it is important to understand that if you are trying to have a life of good health and wellness that you need to properly learn about what that actually looks like for your own lifestyle.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
- Practice mindfulness. I know this can be a vague word, but I think that it is very powerful to be aware of your situation, your flaws, your way of thinking, the way you act, and why you do the things you do. Being mindful of your life and the world around can help your understanding of why things are the way they are.
- Drink the damn water! Water heals you from the inside out. It delivers important nutrients throughout our bodies to help it function properly on a day-to-day basis. Not only does it aid in physical health, but mental health too and even though it may seem like such a small thing, water makes a big difference in how we feel!
- Move your body daily! It doesn’t always have to be something intense, but it will make all the difference in living a healthier lifestyle if you keep your body moving! It can be something as simple as walking your dogs, playing outside with your kiddos, going on a hike, doing yoga, dancing, etc, so if you’re not working out that day, just make sure you move your body.
- Slow it down. Don’t forget that your life is for living! Make sure you are taking time out for yourself because your mental health will be at stake, and that really matters! You cannot pour from an empty cup, so make sure you are filling up your cup.
- Surround yourself with people who are only going to empower you and lift you up. They always say “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” and if you are constantly surrounding yourself with people who are negative and bring you down, then you will become just that. Don’t be afraid to cut people out of your life who no longer serve you because in the end, you are all that matters.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- You do not have to have it all figured out to start. You will constantly be learning no matter what part of the journey you’re in, and a lot of what you need to learn will only be through experience and actually doing what it is you want to do. Messy action is better than no action, so take action.
- Failure is normal. Having a “poor me” mentality when you fail or when things get tough is going to get you nowhere and will make a huge difference on your outlook on life. Failure is how we learn, grow, and get stronger, so changing your outlook on failure and seeing it as an opportunity to be better will make it much easier to handle those tough times of failure. Which leads me to my next point…
- It is not going to be a linear path. One day you may feel like you’re on cloud 9 with everything going right, and the next day everything feels like nothing is going right. You must remember that this is normal and is part of the process. Just always believe in yourself, stay consistent, and keeping pushing forward no matter how far off path you feel.
- Stop trying to please everyone! You can be the juiciest peach in the patch, but there will always be that someone who doesn’t like peaches. It is not your job to please everyone around you, so take care of yourself first and stop making your decisions based on trying to please others. Live for YOU and your purpose.
- It is okay to take breaks. I know society glorifies “the grind” and I’m all for it and working hard for the things you want in life, but burnout is real and if you aren’t taking care of yourself, then you won’t be able to take care of things you are doing to your fullest potential.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
Although I think all of these are very important, mental health hits a little close to home. Being close to a lot of people that struggle with their mental health and knowing firsthand how it effects peoples lives, it is something that I take very seriously. Mental health is so important because it affects how we feel, think, and even act. If our mental health is suffering, that starts to bleed into other aspects of our lives and the effects are rippling. I always say “change your mind, change your life” because I truly believe that if you actively work on changing that way you think on the inside, then how you live your life on a daily basis will reflect on the outside. With how the world has been these past couple years, now more than ever, is it extremely important to check in with yourself and make sure you are doing okay, and also know that it is okay and normal to not be okay every single day. If we had perfect days every day, then we would start to judge those days too.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
You can find me on Instagram @tiffanyrochelle_ , or if you are in the Scottsdale area I’d love to meet for a free trial! You can visit my website envisionpersonalizedtraining.com to set one up!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Women In Wellness: Tiffany LeRoy of Envision Personalized Training On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.