[00:03] Intro: Welcome to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast, a journey of self discovery and transformation. Moira Sutton and her amazing guests share real life stories, tools, and strategies to inspire and empower you to create and live your best life. Come along on the journey and finally blast through any fears, obstacles and challenges that have held you back in the past so you can live your life with the joy, passion, and happiness that you desire. Now. Here's your host. Create the life you love. Empowerment Life coach Moira Sutton.

[01:01] Moira: Five-episode 94 Mobility Equals Freedom with our very special guest, certified personal trainer and human movement specialist, Trevor Pickett. Trevor is a certified personal trainer and human movement specialist that has worked in the fitness industry for over eleven years. He has won numerous awards including being named 2023 Fitness Professional of the year for personal training and best in business from 2021 to 2023 for his work as a can fit pro. There you go. Pro trainer. Trevor teaches the can fit pro personal trainer specialist certification. That's a mouthful. And his own course, yes, entitled Mobility Coach, which is very fascinating for me. You're going to love what he has to share today. His passion is not only helping clients to achieve their goals in the gym, but to improve their quality of life and lifestyle. He was honored to be named Canadian Fitness Professional of the year award 2023. He has also been featured on fitness podcasts, magazines and interviewed on CBC Radio and more. And here he is today with us. So without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Trevor Pickett. Welcome, Trevor.

[02:16] Trevor: Hi Maria. Thank you so much for having me.

[02:18] Moira: You are welcome. You really got my attention. I'd never heard anybody talk about that before being a mobility coach. And I think today that really got my attention. Not only I'm 65 and I'd have to get up and move or I'm in trouble, but even like my husband, he's mid seventy s and the people in our neighborhood, they walk here though. Let's start there. Because you are now from Hamilton, Ontario. You made the leap to live to a rural lifestyle in Nova Scotia as we made the leap from London, Ontario to Nova Scotia. And these people walk, do they walk in your neighborhood?

[02:57] Trevor: Well, it's. I do see walkers. My neighborhood is very rural like you mentioned as well. Yeah, so I can see my closest neighbor, but the rest of the street, I don't see them as much. One of our neighbors that we became very close friends with, though I do see her walking routinely. She'll come up and come by and say hi to my dog sometimes in the morning and I live pretty close to Lockport Nova Scotia. And actually, at the moment, I'm volunteering with an initiative there called make your move. And that's one of the things we're trying to do, is get people out just walking just to start it off.

[03:50] Moira: Yes, I love that. Make your move. Like today, it is very cold. I don't know what the temperatures at this moment. Sunny, though. So, when I open the door, I think, oh, warm and then, no, cold. And I said to my husband after you and I talked, I said, oh, let's go down to the mail and the beach area there and just make the walk. Because I was becoming a wimp. I was like, I'm not going out there in that cold. But that's when you have to just get up and move. But I love that being called. That's a great initiative to start. Do you see that as an issue in schools today? Like kids, they're sitting down with these computers, they're talking on their computers. It's just a whole new world where we saw that at a restaurant back in London where these young girls, let's say they were 1012, they were at a little party. They all had their cell phones, and they weren't talking towards each other as in it. They were talking through texting on their phones. And we've seen that at dinner tables on cruises. We're like, what is that movement? So, do you see it? Your avatar? You love working with seniors, but who's everyone that you work with? And do you hear that kind of difficulty today that people just aren't moving enough? That's a big question, my little chunky thing.

[05:00] Trevor: Yes. First off, just an observation. It does seem like we aren't taking advantage of that, because when I'm teaching trainers, I'll say, you wanted to see the best form of an exercise like the squat. Take a look at how a toddler will squat. And if you were to line it up at a gym, it would be picture perfect in terms of form. The knees line up over the toes perfectly. The hips are hinging beautifully. Nobody taught them to do that, though. They just see a toy on the ground or something like that, and they squat down, they pick it up, and they don't even think about it. And I remember thinking about that with my nephew years ago and said, wow, look at the beautiful squat. Well, sort of informally. I'd be hanging out with him now. He's becoming a teenager. And I can remember even as he was approaching seven and eight, he'd been in school for a little while, and I noticed that the squat wasn't looking quite as picture perfect anymore. And of course the bones are growing and stuff like that. But I would imagine environment does have some effect on that. Right? He's now got to sit in school. Yeah, he's got to sit in school all day. Walking itself, if we're just centered on that, for a lot of people, doesn't always seem like the most exciting thing. I can remember years ago, I loved to walk. It was one thing when I was a teenager growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, I had very little interest in a car. I liked to just walk everywhere. I don't have to worry about anything. I can just walk one 2 hours to get places. It didn't bother me.

[06:58] Moira: Wow.

[06:58] Trevor: Well, people thought I was a nutcase, but for me as a young guy, I was like this actual kind of relaxes me. It was so long ago. We still had Walkman’s then. So, I put on my little Walkman and head out on a walk. Yeah, I do think it probably does start when people are young. And of course, we even see that with grown ups, with our adults, our devices are really affecting our mobility for sure. Yeah.

[07:32] Moira: Well, I know, again, working from home, this is a smaller home. We moved to a bungalow from big houses, but we traded it for land in the lake, so it's all good. So, I get up from my bedroom, which is on this floor, and then I go in and I get a juice or a coffee or something. Then I go same floor into my office. Like it's not very much walking. And I've been felt. It's like coming home from a vacation. We were on a cruise and then we were in Fort Lauderdale. And I always lose weight and tone when I'm on a cruise because you walk everywhere. You're not just sitting, you're walking at dinner, you're walking to the pool, you're walking on land. And then when we got to, you know, walking along the beach on the sand was just know just that. And that's all-natural stuff, like just to do that. So that's wonderful that you used to love to walk because. Yeah, I know a lot of people that don't like to walk in this neighborhood. They do. They are walkers. We're taken back by that. And the kids are healthy. They're out, they're not on computers, they're out on their bikes. They're walking, they're waving. Yeah, it's just really great. Now, were you always passionate about health and fitness? When did that start? At a young age. What was that? Big. Aha. This is what I want to do.

[08:49] Trevor: Yeah. It's funny. If you were to get somebody from my high school when I was a teenager, if you told them that I would be a professional personal trainer, that's what I was going to do for a living, they would just have thought you were nuts. They would have had a laugh because I wasn't really active. I'm not a very athletic person, and I didn't really play a lot of sports growing up. I played a little bit. I did martial arts for a little while in high school, but that was just so I could get the bullies to back off. But after that, I didn't really have a big interest until I got into college years ago and I started working out and kind of getting into it, but I actually started my career in the film industry. I worked as a production assistant for a number of years in Toronto. And it was actually my know, because I wouldn't shut up about working out and all these different things, talking about walking, and they said, why don't you go do that for a living? Why don't you go figure out how to do that? They kind of set me on the path many years ago now. It just kind of spiraled from there.

[10:08] Moira: Yeah, that's wonderful that you were talking away and they said, hey, go do it. Go check it out.

[10:14] Trevor: Yeah, I got to thank them for that because I was just young. I was probably only 24 or so. And they said, why don't you. I thought, yeah, why don't I just go do what I kind of want to do? Yeah, check that out.

[10:29] Moira: See, I was really lucky, Trevor. That's a great message for our listeners because even was my degree was psychology and social working. And then I went into the healing field, and then I thought, that's my field. Sometimes I felt to myself, oh, you've invested so much here. You can't go down that other path because you've put so much money and time into this path. But that's not true. Like, anytime in our life, we can turn something around and really, like you said, follow a passion and see.

[10:59] Trevor: Does that work?

[11:00] Moira: Give it some time. Don't just jump over there and keep jumping lanes but give it some time and see. Is this it?

[11:07] Trevor: Yeah. I like the way you put that, Moira. Just because you put so much time into something doesn't mean that's your faith forever. You can switch into something you're more passionate about. Absolutely.

[11:26] Moira: Yeah. So, what do you see as the biggest challenge today with your clients? What is their biggest challenge? Their health and physical and mental, emotional, all those areas.

[11:37] Trevor: Well, we sort of burgeoned on that a little bit already with just talking about. I think maybe one of the big things is people seem to kind of have like an all or nothing approach to their fitness, at least to start. I can't remember who posted it, but it was some type of meme or message or something like that. And they said, a lot of people think that exercising a week would be a waste of time since that the conventional workouts are like, you're not getting in enough, you're not doing enough work. There's no point to it. And I'm sort of like, that's just so silly, right? If that's all you could ever do, is you could just get out once a week, exercise, or do whatever you needed to do, would that be better than nothing? And of course, you and I are thinking, yeah, absolutely. That's way better than nothing. And I think a lot of us, we end up thinking of the workout or exercise. It's maybe got too much of a ceremonial aspect to it where it's like, if I can't perform the whole ceremony, there's no point in even starting it, which you and I have already started discussing your workout, your activity level, you can insert that anywhere into your day. One of the things living out here on a sort of homestead type thing going on, I end up working it out by default, is what I say. Even if I decided I'm never going into my little gym ever again, I'm still going to be exercising, I'm still going to be, like you said, going to walk around your community. Just even some of our chores that we do here, firewood, all those different things, they add up. If I were to never step foot in a gym again, I would still probably be relatively healthy because I'd have a sort of a default activity level.

[13:48] Moira: And that's another good point. Your homesteading is being part of your mobility training. For people to realize it doesn't have to be in a gym. It's just taking those steps every day. What is it they say? If you don't use it, you lose it.

[14:03] Trevor: Yeah.

[14:06] Moira: Do something every day.

[14:09] Trevor: Yeah. One of the things I sometimes mention when people are talking about exercise and prescription and all that, my biggest hero, my biggest mobility hero, whenever people ask me about it, was my grandmother. She passed away. She was almost 95 when she passed away. And one of the big things about her was she maintained her independence pretty much right till she went to hospice. She still lived at home. She was really lucky. She was blessed that way. But I did always sort of observe her behaviors. And the one thing about her, she rejected age as a restriction from the get-go. I'm not Italian, neither side. But we weren't allowed to call her grandma. We called her Noni because she became a grandmother at kind of a youngish age. And she said, I don't want to be thought of as grandma, so call me something else. Call me Noni instead. That's like the Italian way, I think. Okay. And so, for however long years after that, 50 plus years, probably, she was Noni. So, I said, boy, everything about you, your philosophy is at a rejection of her age. And one of my most inspiring conversations I ever had with her was right around her nintieth birthday. I said, you're going to be 90 soon. She said, yeah. She said, to be honest, trevor, I am starting to feel kind of old. I said, oh, yeah. She said, I really miss my 70s. That was such a time. I really was feeling good in my 70s. Wow. Because I'd be talking to clients in their 50s who, to me, are babies. Really. They're older than me. But when I think about all my other ages, and I thought, wow, that's inspiring. I said, I wish you could talk to some of those people that are not so old, but kind of go, I'm old now. And I go, yeah. Yes, I get it. Things change. But maybe there's some mindset to sort of think about that as well. Yeah.

[16:27] Moira: Well, I know we've been out here just over two and a half years, and Cliff's father died about two years ago at 104, and he was still living at home. Yeah.

[16:38] Trevor: Wow.

[16:38] Moira: He had that metallic. He would exercise every day because he knew if he didn't. I don't mean, like big exercise, but it was sometimes painful. And Cliff was saying, well, is it painful? He says, yeah, but you do it because if you don't do it, you're dead.

[16:54] Trevor: Yeah.

[16:55] Moira: And then in my mom's case, who's 96 with a walking disability, we have physio here now coming in because she needs to walk and challenge her and not us challenge her because we're the family. Right. That doesn't work.

[17:11] Trevor: Yeah. You need some expert to come in and be your. I'll take your.

[17:18] Moira: Does somebody. Where does somebody start to improve their strength and their mobility? Do you assess somebody and then you create a program for them, or how does that work, Trevor?

[17:30] Trevor: Yeah. So, when I take somebody on as a client in that scenario, one of the first things we do is, after all of our sort of safety stuff is I run them through what I call foundational movements, which would be sort of primary movements. So, for example, the squat, I brought up hinging exercises where the action you would do to pick something up, for example, pushing and pulling. And what I kind of gather from that is just where you're at. What are your strengths? Some people are naturally very mobile and what are the things that we need to center on and focus? And in terms of being like a coach, it's going to inform pretty much everything in a given program. So, from there, that's where I would design how we're going to warm up for your workouts. We'd have specific joint warmups that we would do and even your exercise selection. So, what are some exercises sort of where you're at in personal training? We call it entry point, like, where do you start? Are you doing a squat holding a weight, or are you somebody who's going to start off by just sitting on a chair and standing back up and those different things? So really, assessments are a really good tool. And then the other thing that I think is helpful is interviewing a client and getting a sense of what their day is. And I just call it a movement inventory. Yeah. It's like what a dietitian would do for somebody that wanted to work on their diet. You would take an inventory of what they normally eat, what are their habits? So, I like to try to get as detailed of a movement habit what your movement habits are, as much as I can. And, well, in some cases, it's just an awakening, right? We kind of go, oh, I didn't realize as you and I were joking around how little I actually am moving. Or at the very least, then I can start to help them maybe strategize where they can insert movement into their everyday, just like we've been discussing so far.

[19:57] Moira: That's great. Now you talk about joint mobility. What if somebody has a kind of bummer knee or damage there and they can't squat? They even have problems going upstairs at times because their knee hurts. Is there exercises you can work to strengthen that knee? I mentioned to you, I had a television show many years ago, and one of the girls I interviewed, she was a wrestling champion in the Olympics, but she hurt her knee and she was pampering it, not putting anything on it, but using it, using the other one. And then she took yoga and she started doing exercises to focus on that knee, to strengthen it. That's what she did. What do you do with people that have that issue? Because, again, if your knee, you can't do a squat and you have issues with stairs at times. What would you say to that client? That potential client?

[20:55] Trevor: Yeah. I mean, in some cases, if the injury is severe enough, then I will have to refer out like personal trainers do obviously help rehabilitate people, but we're not really designated to diagnose injury. As a human movement specialist, that's my other designation, though I am pretty good at. I usually say I don't diagnose injury, but I can diagnose bad movement pretty well. I use the word nobody can see but quotation marks, bad movement. So, what are your quirks, your characteristics of your movement? And my general rule to your question is, what I would say to them is, we're going to do everything else that we can. We're going to focus on every other joint in the body if we can't specifically bend your knee right now. And what I tend to see happen is if I improve mobility, let's say, for example, you mentioned the knee. If I improve the mobility in your hip and your ankle, I don't make any guarantees, but very often that knee pain seems to get a lot better because in my mobility coach course, I always tell the trainers something I just call the other joint rule, which is when one joint is not operating, let's look at the other joints around that, surrounding that area and make that our focus. And very often we do see some cleaner movement. And I've seen that scenario so many times where the person said, I can't go upstairs, I'm in pain. I say, okay, let's focus on fixing your hip mobility and maybe your ankle mobility. And I got to tell you, when I get one of those comments, a text or something, like, I just walked up the stairs and it didn't hurt. That's everything. That's really cool.

[22:55] Moira: I like that. I know to myself, I did Highland dancing when I was brought up in ballet and tap and all those things, but a lot of Highland dancing and our parents didn't really know the exercises we had before we danced. And one of them was like, really sitting on your bottom and your legs in a v, and the teacher would go, one, two, three, and push on your knees. So, you had a turnout and then you'd have to. Yeah, and then you lied on your stomach and did it, which was worse. And a lot of us got issues with our knees in that, through that kind of thing back in our, like ten 910. So, I have issues with one knee because back then, that's where it started. So, I like what you're saying focus on some of the other ones. So, let's talk about resistance training. I hear a lot of people that really enjoy that and how that's a great way to improve our flexibility and our strength, I think.

[23:52] Trevor: Absolutely, yeah. In terms of sort of bang for your buck, I think resistance training is one of the best things you can do for your overall health. And we tend to think of like resistance training. We think, oh, you've got to be in a gym with tons of weights and machines and all these different things. But there are lots of great practices out there that are what we would lump under resistance training. You brought up yoga, right? Yoga is a great practice for resistance training. It's just using your body weight typically, but you are strengthening your muscles, your tendons and all the connective tissue for your joints. So resistance training for creating functionality for your everyday is a huge tool. When I'm talking about, I mentioned the foundational movements, like our basic exercises, I sometimes just refer to them as what I call the toolkit. And basically it's just when you are out doing things in your yard and stuff like that, the more you focus on resistance training, focus on how to lift things with good form and stuff like that, everything gets easier. And when things get easier, you're more likely to move. If movement feels good, you're going to want to move more. Even if it's unconscious, you'll just feel better getting up, you'll want to go for walks. You want to do different things from our overall health as well. I do train a lot of older adults and as most people know, our bone density does diminish as we start to age. So resistance training can be a tool for increasing our bone density. The bones respond to the stimulus of weights and resists. It can be a great way to mitigate or even slow down conditions. Bones like osteoporosis and stuff like that. So, resistance training for me is a big recommendation that I can do. Sorry that I try to put out there in any form. Like I said, it doesn't have to be a gym with weights and stuff like that, but anything you can do to practice using your muscles against resistance, I think for your overall health is a huge boom for sure.

[26:27] Moira: I like what you said about the bone density. I didn't know that because like you said, as you get older, but if that helps that, that's wonderful. We mentioned earlier on that cliff and I, when I met, I was 30, he was 40. And we sold everything and we bought a boat and we lived in the Bahamas. It was one of our healthiest moves. He dove for lobster and conch and wow, fish. And we were always moving and we didn't even realize. You didn't lie in the sun. You were in the sun. But so we were tan, I lost weight, I was lean, and I didn't even realize that was happening. And you walked everywhere. You didn't have a car, you walked everywhere. You swam. Healthy bread, no preservatives. It was one of those. And I told her this morning, he came in and there was some sun coming in, even if it's cold today. And I was thinking of the islands. And then he said, oh, I was looking at some catamarans. This know should get one of those right? And I said, you know, you read my mind. I would love to be in Nova Scotia six months and then somewhere on a boat somewhere because I love Nova Scotia. So, there we. Yeah. Do you also teach, incorporating your program, like nutritional guidance and healthy eating habits? Because, again, I know there are people on this call that that would be something that they would be interested in.

[27:45] Trevor: Yeah. In terms of nutritional advice and guidance there, it can kind of depend on severity a little bit. I mean, nutrition itself is such a pain point for so many folks in terms of the psychology around it. There's economics even involved normally. My first approach with nutrition and clients is very similar, actually, to my movement inventory. I just try to get us to become aware. It's funny because we do usually categorize like, this is good food, this is bad food. And of course, some stuff is blaringly obvious that it's probably not going to serve our needs very well. Bag of chips or something like that.

[28:42] Moira: I was going to say potato chips.

[28:45] Trevor: I'm thinking of my favorites right now, cookies and all those things. But I think the big thing is we don't always realize how much we're inputting, taking what we're eating. Sometimes even health like things we think of as healthy, if we're not aware of them, we might be sort of creating calorie surplus without even really thinking of it. Now, I don't like to just simplify things completely. That is just math. Calorie in, calorie out. In terms of weight loss, though, there is some truth, there's obvious truth to that. If our calorie were in surplus, then we tend to put on weight. But what I just try to do is create awareness, is what I'm getting at. Once in a while, I'll do an inventory on just a meal that I ate. Just do a quick little calorie intake. And I'll go, oh, that's 300, 400 calories more than I thought it was going to be. Right. So just on that level, you start to create awareness around nutrition. And that's kind of my first go to though, is to just have the client do an inventory and create awareness and then take it from there. I can give general advice from there and say, let's start including a little bit more of maybe a macronutrient that I think they might be missing. Seems like a lot of us in our sort of modern society, protein is a nutrient that a lot of us tend to be deficient. I can make a general advice, well, looks like to me, just based off of this little log you've given me, that you're maybe not getting enough protein in your diet, which would affect your function and possibly weight gain and stuff like that.

[30:44] Moira: Trevor, how do you help somebody stay motivated to make all these new healthy choices in their life? Maybe they start like that thing at the beginning of the new year's, what you're looking for the year, and then maybe you're at the gym. I think there's a number about that. They go to the gym for a month and maybe two months and it's like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to do, yeah. How do you keep that momentum up to continuously make healthy choices? Maybe what they say, fall off the wagon or just maybe one week. You just don't feel like doing that, but you get back on it. How do you help people stay motivated?

[31:21] Trevor: I think one thing that the fitness industry maybe more in the past, but still, there's still some issues with it. Fitness marketing has always been really geared around, you're going to see results quick, you're going to drop this weight quick, you're going to do all these, you remember seeing those infomercials, you'll have abs in four weeks type thing. And that has really been detrimental because it sets up this scenario where for one, the results are fast, which is not always the case and maybe not always the healthy route. And not only that, it kind of creates this sort of idea that it's a temporary solute, like a temporary thing you're going to do. You're going to work out for six to eight weeks, drop the weight, and then you can go back to exactly the way you were living before. So what I always do is before we get into keeping the motivation, I just try to set expectations. And I always say to my clients and even friends or anybody, I say, how long do you plan on exercising? And they say, well, what do you mean? And I say, how long are you going to keep some type of exercise practice in your life? Are you planning to do this for a month? And they go, well, of course I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. It's for my health. I say, okay, so what we're going to do in this month is a blink of an eye of your training life, like your health life. A year is a pretty short amount of time in your training life. It's just one portion of that. So take things slow. Take it very slow. And you brought up the new year's scenario. And what I often see is, again, that sort of all or nothing approach, right? We make a list. And of course, I've been guilty of this in the past before. I'm like, okay, I've got these six different things that I'm going to attack. It's January, it's a new year. I didn't get them done and I don't like to diminish that for somebody. But normally what I say to a new client at that time, I say, the only thing I want you to focus on is just getting to your workouts for a month. Just show up. If you can get here for the just show up. And I don't care what else you're doing. They'll be like, but Trevor, I'm also not eating, right. I'm drinking beer at night and stuff. I said, don't worry about that. Right? If you don't feel like drinking beer, then don't drink a beer. But don't beat yourself up about it just yet. Just focus on this one thing and we cross it off like any task, right? Once you get something done, you feel good and you kind of go, maybe I want to get something else done. So maybe I'll go and look at water bottle and say, you know what? I'm not drinking enough water. Okay? So that's going to be the new thing that I'm going to adopt, this new habit. I'm going to make that my focus. You could imagine if you picked six habits that you wanted to work on and you just worked on them for maybe eight weeks at a time, focused. Within a year, you have completed quite a lot of new habits, but you got to give yourself that time. So, most people give themselves, as you said, two months, really two months to make themselves a completely different human being. They hit march and they kind of go, you know what? I'm not as completely different as I had hoped. So, what's the point? And they just say there's no point. And then it's like a deck of cards. One card breaks and then they go, okay, I'm not going to the gym tonight. I'm going to go drink the beer, I'm going to go eat the bad food that I want to stop moving and all these different things. So, my advice to them and for other personal trainers to set those expectations in the beginning and say, listen, this is a lifelong journey. It doesn't mean you have to train with me for the rest of your life but expect to work on this for the rest of your life. Certainly, I plan to be working on it for the rest of my life and I'm not perfect. I'm still working on it. That's the expectations I like to set up. Anyway.

[35:32] Moira: I think also. Thank you, Trevor. I think also about celebrating our successes every, like I woke up this morning and I do this, you can do it on your back or sitting, but it's like a leg extension so your hips have mobility. Because when I sit at the computer a long time, that can lock up. So, I started with stretches and then you inspired me. Before this, I was doing stretches and toe heels. I was doing all the stuff before the call and I thought, I'm going to do that today before I meet with Trevor. So, it was kind of my own little moira challenge.

[36:08] Trevor: Yeah, I completely agree with you, though. We call those sometimes my friend, in her book, she called it small wins, where these little things you can do that just keep you motivated. You're like, okay, I'm not perfect, but you know what, I had a salad for lunch, which I don't normally do or whatever. Those little things. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Anyways, I just wanted to agree with you on that.

[36:32] Moira: Yeah. And I think the other thing is you have to set up your own what you want, not somebody else's, because if somebody else wants you to change, they want you to change, but that has nothing to do with them. It's what do you want for your life. Right? You can hear somebody else and say thank you, but then what do I want? What weight do I want? Because there's always people around us. If we don't create healthy boundaries that want to tell us, if you don't know what you want, they sure might be in there telling you what you do want, which isn't a healthy boundary because I used to teach healthy boundaries.

[37:06] Trevor: Yeah.

[37:07] Moira: And even in my own life again, my mom at 96, she comes up every other day for coffee. She folds the laundry. That's her job. And then she has a coffee and something and talks. She does use email and she's on Facebook with some people at 96. So, I'll wake up in the morning when by the time I come to my office, there'll be like three emails with problems. Right? And I'm like, oh, my goodness. And then even our cat, she calls the cat nosy. I said, he's curious. It's a whole different vibration. He's curious. And I have to train her how to look at it. But it's like, no. And I'm saying that because not looking at problems all the time, what is your success? I said to her the other day, you're alive. You're not below the ground, you're alive. That's a good one to celebrate.

[38:03] Trevor: Absolutely. Yeah. I love that term you use vibrations. I like that. It's funny because as teacher, I might steal that from you because I get people. Sometimes students will say, I'm having so much trouble understanding this concept, this thing about, say, you know what, though? The more you struggle with it, the better you're going to understand it than anybody else. Struggle is such a good teacher. So maybe the positive spin I'm trying to put on it is it's good that you're having a tough time with it.

[38:39] Moira: Yes. Any struggle or obstacle or anything that comes in our life, it's there to help us grow or you diminish. You can go either way, but we have choice points, right? So, you can choose in that moment and empower yourself or disempower yourself. But I'm all about vibration. Yeah, kind of my teaching area, we had that pandemic. We talked about it very briefly before we got onto our call, how it affected people, and especially people who are very social. They need to connect. Do you think it's very important for people to connect for their well being or maybe for some people, not others. What's your take on?

[39:20] Trevor: You know, I think the idea of the gym or the training space, and this was something that our industry was really trying to get across during the pandemic. And I think it really well, I can only speak for Ontario, but it really was kind of falling on deaf ears. Is this idea? Know, when people picture the gym, we say the word gym. We kind of go to our movie and television representation, which is a bunch of meatheads grunting and pushing weights around in there at a training space. But in reality, it's just so much more to people they're going there for the workout, or that's their reason for going. But really, by and large, their social health is maybe the more important aspect of it. I was a coaching group fitness studio as the pandemic started, and of course we shut down and it was awful for many different reasons. And of course, this is my first pandemic, too, so I'm trying not to be too judgmental. So, I thought, this may be a good idea. But as it went on, though, I was getting lots of texts and messages from the members of the gym and they said, Trevor, I'm doing nothing right now. I'm not active, I'm not meeting with friends. Some people live alone. That was their only social outlet. It just was just heartbreaking. It was probably the darkest days for the pandemic, for me, for that reason, because I just thought, I'm ten minutes walk from you. And at the height of the pandemic, it was illegal for us to even be in the same room or even be close to each other. So, it was just highlighted how important social health is an aspect for anybody's activity. Especially people that live alone are lonely. I mean, I'm sure there are some people that prefer to exercise alone. There's nothing wrong with that. But, yeah, it's a huge aspect of it and it's a motivating aspect. There's people that don't feel like working out one day, but they're like, but I want to go see my friend. So, they show up and we all know if you show up, then you can get a bit done. Yeah, I think that that's a huge part. Group fit studios, I've always really admired for that reason, because the best ones seem to create community, which is something, I'm not a psychologist or anything like that, but that seems like a human need. That's one of the reasons we moved out here, is we wanted a different type of community. We wanted to move to a smaller city and sort of feel like we were really a part of something, I guess. So, for our own health, that really helped. But, yeah, I absolutely agree. It's a big part of our overall health, for sure.

[42:40] Moira: I'm on the same page with you, with that, with Cliff, who's my soulmate and life partner, and I adore him. He went through some health challenges with prostate cancer and then stents on his heart. And we got to a point looking after my mom and stress, stress, stress that after that, I said, that's it. We can't be on a boat right now. We want to be on water. And then we. And like you, we didn't even know there was communities like this when we first came. They came with gifts, pies and wine and jams. And everybody said they're coming, and it's just a little cove that we're in. And we get together for Appy night. We didn't even know what that was till we came here. Appetizers and wine and people, they all know what you're doing, but they're not nosy. They're caring. And one person goes into town to our biggie, Costco, or something, or even into the social superstore, they'll say, do you need anything? Because it's a little. And so, it's like, wow, these people are just the best.

[43:49] Trevor: I love it. Yeah, it's got a little house on the prairie thing going on. We've become really good friends with one of our neighbors, and we raise chickens on our property. So, I have eggs. I'm over there with eggs at their place. Any spare ones I have. And then she's routinely showing up with fresh baked bread for us. And I'm just like, there's no way I could ever move back to my old cliff. So. Yeah, I hear you on that.

[44:19] Moira: Yeah. Cliff does the fresh. They all do it here, too, the fresh baked bread, and so does Cliff now. And that connection you're saying with that, it's interesting. Again, what I said earlier about Cliff's father. He lived to 104 when we moved here. We said, when we were sitting on the front porch, people, we just waved. I couldn't see them. I didn't have my glasses on, but I just waved because people wave here. Some people would come up to the door saying, well, I'm coming to say hello, because you just won't stop raving, like, waving at them. And his father said to us, this is good for the two of you. You guys have worked as entrepreneurs a long time, and it's good for you to just stop and sit on the porch and wave. It was a whole very different for your mental health. Now, tell us about this.

[45:04] Trevor: Absolutely.

[45:05] Moira: Yes, tell us about this. Can fit pro certification, and you came up with offbeat fitness. What's that all about? I know it's your business.

[45:15] Trevor: Okay.

[45:15] Moira: Yeah, I want to hear more about that.

[45:18] Trevor: Yeah. Well, I'll start off with Can fit pro. Can fit Pro is probably the most widely recognized personal trainer, and they do other certifications, but the one that I teach is for personal training. Most widely recognized personal trainer certificate in Canada. And so about three more years into my career, I took the job of teaching their certification course and certifying trainers. So, I've actually been at that ten years teaching the certification course, which is really cool because basically I am mentoring and helping new fitness professionals come in and I'm actually in the middle of a course right now on break right now to hang out with you. But it's really cool to see new people come in and with their ideas and get fired up. And I do a lot of kind of extra things to help mentor them as they start to encounter their own problems. Mobility, for one, and stuff like mobility with their clients and everything from program design to business advice. And then along the way I took my business. I have two branches. Offbeat fitness is my personal training business. And then I have sort of another branch, offbeat fitness education, which is what I do my Can fit pro courses and my certification course, the mobility coach course. But yes, I am often asked, where the heck does offbeat fitness come from? And there's kind of an origin and then it's kind of changed names and it's rooted in what we've been talking about. I mentioned when I was young, when I was a teenager, I thought I was kind of an odd guy. They'd say, I saw you walking 3 hours from your house. Like, where were you going? You were walking on the side of some road and I said, I was walking home. And they go, what do you mean you were walking home? Like, that one has taken you forever. I said, that's what I enjoy. I love freedom of being able to go anywhere I want. I don't like getting on buses as much and stuff. I didn't at first. It was just kind of my whole life I've been told I was kind of a weird guy for other reasons, too, but maybe my sense of humor and stuff. I am the kind of, I'm the offbeat trainer. I have a different take on things. Typically, I approach fitness maybe a little differently than some trainers and my viewpoints sometimes maybe a little bit different as well. Well, over the last couple of years, though, and it sounds like you and I moved to Nova Scotia right around the same time. It'll be three years for me in June that we moved here and I moved very rural community, and now I'm off the beaten track. So, fitness for me has taken on a different definition now that I have to do for myself a lot more out here. I absolutely love it. We got chickens. We're raising. So, there's a lot of labor that goes with that, I started cutting my own firewood on our wood lot. And so, fitness, I've been posting videos for fitness for chainsaw users and stuff like all these. So, me, it's kind of taken on this new thing where it's literally off the beaten path. Right. So that's where offbeat fitness is sitting at this moment anyways.

[49:06] Moira: Yeah, I like that. I also was considered very different growing up because I'm very spiritual and I see spirit and I communicate with the dead.

[49:16] Trevor: Okay.

[49:17] Moira: Yeah. My family would say, don't talk about that. And my brothers used to say it when I didn't get married to later, some of the engagements didn't go through and they said, don't tell people about that. Don't tell them you do that. And I got to a point when I was 30, when I met Cliff, I said, if they can't handle me, too bad. This is me. I'm not changed for anybody.

[49:41] Trevor: I love that. Yeah. I think it took me a little while to come to that conclusion as well, but, yeah, that's where I'm at, too. Sure.

[49:49] Moira: And once you get there, you embrace yourself. We're all very unique, and that uniqueness is what makes us special in our.

[49:58] Trevor: Absolutely. So, yeah.

[50:00] Moira: Tell me, Trevor, what is your big, big vision and your mission in the world and what's on the horizon for you and your lovely partner for the next, let's say, five years? What's the big one?

[50:13] Trevor: Yeah, so a couple different things we're working on. One thing I briefly mentioned out here, I'm Sable River, Nova Scotia. So about 2 hours west of my new, my new thing this year is I started volunteering with, as I said, it's called make move Lockport. So, I've been, just joined their committee just before the end of the year. So, I've been volunteering with that, trying to come up with initiatives to get people in the area to start moving more. The committee leader was mentioning that huge percentage of their population is older adults, so they're trying to come up with different ways to get those folks moving more. So that's one big, really exciting thing for me. I'm just kind of learning how it all works and stuff like that. But in getting to know the community over the last almost three years, now that we've lived here, I've kind of had this mission of like, I really want to become. Not just now. I feel like we're a part of the community now. I want to be sort of like a contributor to the community and just using my talent I contact and said, listen, I'm a personal trainer. That's what I do for a living. But beyond that, I really want to help people with their health and just the community get healthier and start getting more active. So that's a big thing that we're working on and on our property. We do have a pretty sizable property, so we're creating product. My partner, she's a horticulturalist, so she knows a thing or two about gardening. So, we're growing our own food and we added the livestock last year, so we're starting to produce food. We're also really passionate about humanely raised meat. And one thing we noticed out here is we have to travel really far to go find farms that are humanely raised and places like that. So, we are creating a hub out here. We've been visiting different farms so we can see how the animals are treated and making sure they're being treated with dignity and humanely. We're basically going to become a little store out here where we only sell well in terms of meat. We're only going to sell humanely raised frozen meat. We're very entrepreneurial as well, like you and your partner. So, kind of a few different things on the horizon at the moment.

[52:56] Moira: That's exciting.

[52:58] Trevor: Yeah, it's really exciting. It's cool, too, because my partner, as I said, she's the horticulturalist. I joke around with her. I'm like, boy, what you put me through is nothing compared to my workouts because she's got me huffing bags of soil all day and getting everything. Boy, gardening is no joke. It's a workout, for sure. So we have a lot of fun, though, working on our property and getting things done.

[53:26] Moira: No, that's great. And the other thing, as you start this whole initiative and what you're starting, this could grow into a franchise for other communities to use your foundation and your format. So, it could really take off and create a snowball effect.

[53:42] Trevor: Yeah, actually, I just reminded myself, I got a post on social media on Sunday. I'm teaching a free at that little rec center in Lockport. I'm teaching a free mobility class to teach people a little bit about, they're calling it ready to move. So, I'm trying to help them come up with a little bit of like a warmup they can do to have some guidance. So, they want to go out to do gardening or even going for a walk and stuff like that. So, yeah, trying to get out there. Well, obviously get my name out there, but meet more people in the community and help them get moving.

[54:22] Moira: Yeah, well, let us know. I'm all about community, collaboration, contribution of three of the C's. There's many C's there. So let us know here at heart, soul wisdom podcast how we can help you in any way.

[54:36] Trevor: I appreciate that.

[54:37] Moira: Oh, you're more welcome then. It's important your message and what you're doing. Trevor. Please share the gift which I have here written that you'd like to give to our listeners today. And please note all the links to find Trevor his programs and your gift will be below in the show notes.

[54:54] Trevor: Yeah, I'm happy. So just so you know, I do personal training. I do summit in person out here in Sable river, my little barn gym. But for the most part, my clients are trained virtually. But I wanted to offer your guests if they're interested in personal training, they can reach out to me and I'm offering a free percent discount on their first month of training.

[55:24] Moira: Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

[55:25] Trevor: Just so you can kind of try things out and sort of see if it's the right fit for you and if there is any fitness professionals that are happen to be listening and are interested, I'm offering a discount as well on my mobility coach course. If you want to add that as your continuing education as a trainer as well.

[55:48] Moira: I was trained in fault many years ago, my late twenty s. I don't know if you know that fitness one at Toronto University with my girlfriend and it was quite the training. So I like this mobility coach course thing. It really interests me.

[56:01] Trevor: Okay. Yeah, maybe I can check it out too. Yeah. I'd be an honor to have you there. Yeah, for sure.

[56:07] Moira: Hey Trevor, thank you for today. For sharing from your Heart and Soul your Wisdom on Mobility equals Freedom. Namaste, Trevor.

[56:17] Trevor: Namaste. Thank you so much.

[56:18] Moira: You're welcome.

[56:24] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Heart Soul Wisdom podcast with Moira Sutton. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please join our community@moirasuton.com and continue the discussion on our Facebook page. Create the life you love. You will be part of a global movement connecting with other heart centered people who are consciously creating the life they love on their own terms. Together we can raise our consciousness for the greater good of humanity and for our planet.