Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 189: Katie Sonier - Lifting for Life

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

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Hey, Coach Danny here. Today we are joined by Katie Saunier. You probably know her from Instagram. She is one of the most recognizable women in the fitness space. She is strong, she is smart, and she has a lot to talk about today. I was really excited to get to sit down with her and discuss her training philosophy, how she specifically trains women, and how she likes to coach women to focus on building confidence and play the long game. We also talk a little bit about recovering from injury, overcoming adversity, and what we're both interested in. So stay tuned, sit back, relax, and enjoy today's chat with Katie Sonia.

Hey, Katie, how's it going? I'm good, Danny. How are you? I'm doing really, really well. You know, we got a little bit of rain out here in California, so it's nice and cool. We were talking off air about you having the AC on. How's the weather out there in Florida? It is quite humid as usual, so it must be on. Yeah, I've only been to Miami around like maybe twice, and actually both times were around this time of year, and it was pretty damn humid. We get pretty good weather out here, but... Yeah, you can't beat that Cali weather. Where in Cali are you? I'm in Sonoma County where the wine's grown. So everybody likes to come out here and go wine tasting, but we have some of the best weather in the world. So you'll never hear me complain. Yeah. It can't be Cali. I've been following you and your content for a really

long time. So I feel like I'm very familiar with you. I feel like most of my audience will be fairly familiar with you as well because you have such a substantial following on social media. Your content is very unique and it's kind of carved out a really nice niche. But I'd love to know, just like to introduce my audience to you and what it is that you do. How did you get started in fitness? What led you to being somebody who's so interested and invested in resistance training, developing strength, all of that stuff?

Because this has become so popular, especially for women. I love to hear how people kind of find where they're at. Yeah, so I grew up always playing a sport, but I didn't really get into weight training until I was in college. really get into weight training until I was in college. So I would say, like, around my sophomore year of college is when I like kind of first got my hands like really on a barbell. And I kind of just instantly fell in love, like I fell in love with the way that it felt, it made me feel. And eventually, I was just like, I want to help other people feel this way but it started out I was kind of afraid to get bigger so I was like my I would start with the I remember I would go in every day and I would do 30 minutes on the elliptical and then I would grab like the light

dumbbells and do some arm stuff and then some core stuff on the mat and then I'd go home and I refused to touch the barbell because I was just like I don't want on the mat and then I'd go home and I refused to touch the barbell because I was just like I don't want to get bigger and like I just didn't quite understand but then like my mindset kind of switched I started playing around with the barbell my sophomore year of college and I just absolutely like I said I fell in love with it and since then I've just been kind of going at it um my love for it continues to grow every year I would say um I started so I'm 29 now so I've been training for like 11 plus years now and I started coaching people I started playing around with it

my senior year of college I would do like some group training classes at a small local gym I picked up some one-on-ones um so I've been kind of on the gym gym floor coaching people in person for about eight-ish years now that's that's really cool our journeys are not dissimilar I've done it for about nine. And I also started in person, which I think I love. And we'll talk probably quite a bit about that. Yeah. In-person training is the best. I will never stop doing it. Even though like my main business now is the Train with Katie online training program. Sure. In-person training is the best. I'll never stop doing that. And I'd like to just unpack that a little bit because you are somebody who has a substantial following on social media.

And I'm more than sure you're probably able to provide for yourself without doing in-person training at all. I know a lot of coaches who can't wait to get away from in-person and they really pursue heavily, you know, developing and creating revenue streams that allow them to essentially connect with people exclusively online. But there are a handful of us who still do in-person coaching for a variety of different reasons. Is there a reason that you stick with it? Is there something about it that still calls to you? What do you love most about it? Because I think that the industry could use a lot more people who've actually worked with somebody in person. Yeah, I just think like it's, it's coaching is a skill. And so it's a skill that needs to be practiced. So like, I think about this all the time, like,

when the pandemic hit, and I closed my gym down for a few months and I, I didn't train anyone in person for a few months. And when we started back up, I was like, man, I feel like fucking rusty right now. Like I forget how to do this. Like that's not ever how I want to feel. So, so the main reason I continue to train people in person is because I believe that coaching is a skill and it's a skill that needs to be worked at consistently to continue to get better at it. When I, when the pandemic hit, I shut my gym down for a few months and, and I didn't train people in person for a few months. And I remember when I started back up, I was like, I feel rusty at this. Like, I don't want to ever feel that way again. I want to keep

coaching, keep my skills up. So that's one main reason I do it. And then another reason is you just learn so much working with people in person. If I were to like, just train myself, like, of course, you learn a ton being in it, doing it yourself, but learn even more when you train other people and you and you learn like I would be like living in a bubble if I if I didn't if I only trained myself. Sure. You have to have that experience training other people. And I train general population women, hardworking women who are working all day. They come into the gym at night exhausted. They have their own struggles. And I've just learned so much working with day. They come into the gym at night exhausted. They have their own struggles and I've just learned so much working with them. So those are the main reasons that I'll continue to do it. And on top of that, I just love it. Like I, I belong in a gym. I recently

even picked up a few more clients because I was like, I need to be in here more. I'm happiest in the gym. Like this is where I belong. I don't want to sit at a desk all day. So on purpose, I'm spending more time in my gym just because I love it. I think that's so great. And our reasons for doing it are pretty similar. And we probably both train similar clientele. Most of my clientele that I train in person are women. And I think it keeps me grounded.

It helps me produce content that I think is helpful. I think in the fitness industry, one of the things coaches and trainers really get caught up in is creating content to impress other coaches and trainers and maybe falling flat and not really resonating with the people who need help the most. And so like what better way to keep a pulse on what help people need than to work with, like you said, real people with real lives and real problems. And so it definitely shows up in your content. And, you know, I think of you as somebody who's incredibly strong. You've developed an amazing physique. You can do stuff in the gym that's exceptional, whether it's lifting specific

or gymnastics, you're certainly an outlier with an incredible amount of work that you have put in. But when we talked off air, just like, Hey, you know, what's the general direction, you know, we want to take for the podcast, we kept it really simple. And you said, you know, let's chat a little bit about what it means to lift for life. And, you know, that to me resonated really deeply, because that's something I try to champion with all of my life. And, you know, that to me resonated really deeply because that's something I try to champion with all of my clients. But, you know, I'd love to hear a little bit about how you've kind of refined your fitness journey. You know, you said at first you started out being afraid, but then you really fell in love with it. And now, you know, this focus of lifting

for life, like what does that mean to you? How does that show up in your training? And more importantly, how does that show up in the people that you work with? Yeah, I think my like as the longer I the longer I've been in this coaching business, the more I realize or I'm learning my greatest passion is helping. Like my ultimate goal is to help women stay in this for life. Like, like a lot of people will say, like, I want to get a barbell in everyone's hands. Like, I love that. It's a great goal, but I want to keep a barbell in everyone's hands. I love that. Like, so I like, I often say this, like I picture myself at like 97 years old with like gray hair wrinkly but I'm still dead lifting sure and I'm not like we're not talking about how much I'm dead lifting I'm just dead lifting sure because I'm playing the long

game here so that's like another aspect of it is when you get into this play the long game. Think, always think long-term with every decision you make. And I think this has, like, I've always kind of had this mentality. I've always really preached this, but I've become like even more passionate about it after I experienced my first real injury last year in the gym. It was like a back injury that really put me out and I've had like aches and pains here. And like, I was an athlete growing up, so I've had some different injuries and stuff, but this was the first time where I like really had to like sit back and be like, what am I doing? So, yeah. Um, so that really put me out. And, and now that I have overcome it, I realize it was like they always say, like injuries can be the biggest gift, your biggest teachers, if you learn from it. And a lot of them want to be the hardest worker in the room and they want to and they want to they're focused on personal records and they want to go in and they want to work as hard as they possibly can all the time.

They want to go ham all the time. They want to hit this PR all the time. And then mentally they struggle with when they can't hit that PR or if their body feels run down and they and they they mentally feel like they should ignore that and still, and still go for the PR anyway. And that's when you can kind of get in trouble. It totally is. And I just, a lot of what you're saying, I see every day, like I can't help, but like grinning as you're talking, because it's so prevalent. I would say more so amongst my female clients than my male clients even, which is just the constant desire to push, push, push, even if in fact that might be detrimental in the long term. And so it sounds like you really learned quite a bit from the injury. Before we like pivot away from that, can I ask what that injury was, how it happened and how you rehabbed, recovered and got to where you're

at. Because to me, that is, I have suffered training specific injuries before too. And it's very demotivating. And I get probably 20 questions a week about, Hey, I just got X injury. What do I do now? And I think the first thing is you got to get back emotionally. You got to get back mentally. Like what was that journey like for you? Because if you can do it at, with the, how high and accomplished you've been physically and what you've done, you probably had to climb quite a bit back. And I'd love to unpack that. Yeah. So I, I, it was just a regular day. I was doing a relatively light load barbell RDL and I I felt like a little weird in my lower back but I decided to ignore it anyway I was like that was weird like I've had kind of weird aches and pains before and they kind of just like go away but this one kind of wasn't

and I was like but it wasn't too terrible like on a pain scale one to ten I would give it like a 4.7 so I just kind of carried on and and my next mistake was I then moved on to barbell lunges heavy lunges definitely felt the pain but continue to push through it because my ego is like no you need to lunge more than you did last week or we're not on program. Sure. And I, I pushed through a little more pain and then the pain maybe went up to a six at that point. And then I moved on to like a deficit kettlebell straddle lift. And I was like, by that point I was like near a 10 and I was like shit but I continued to finish my session um and then I woke up the next day and I was still in pain um and then over the next few days I was kind of trying to just train around it but I was still in so much pain and I started feeling so

lost um so even and I I definitely went into panic mode and like, I see this all the time with clients. Like I have tons of clients that I work with online. And even today there was one guy in our group and he, he hurt his back pulling a deadlift. And like, he even had the video, he felt he was filming himself and like, it looked pretty good, but he tweaked his back. And, um, just by what he was writing he was kind of you can tell he was in panic mode and like totally and this is why i'm passionate about this because this is exactly how i felt i was in panic mode i was lost didn't know what to do i was freaking out like of course i was like crying to my parents like i i just was

like losing my shit i didn't know how to handle it um because it just obviously affected like my whole life one being in pain sucks like sitting on the toilet can't do that and then um getting in and out of the car and then training obviously is a huge part of my life and then training people like i was in pain moving weights around so eventually like all right you guys need to do all these weights which has ended up being a great thing too, which we can even talk about, but like having my clients be more involved in moving their own weights. But yeah, so now that I just, I'm just like, honestly grateful I went through this because I feel like I'm such a better coach now and I can, I can give

such better advice. And I know that a lot of my members, they saw me go through this and, and like they even like, it's been almost a year now since it happened. And they still, a lot of them who are going through their injuries talk about like them watching me rehab. Cause I, I show my whole process. Like every day I show my training sessions on my stories and I just, I, I show my whole process. Every day I show my training sessions on my stories and I show my process. So I was showing my PT and rehab. Yeah. I love that too. I think it's so important to share the journey and having had injuries before, those are the moments where I'm the least likely to want to share what I'm working on because I feel weak or I feel lame or I feel like it's not great so kudos to you for for sharing that anyway continue I didn't want to hijack it I love where this is going I hesitated on that I was like fuck like

I'm gonna I'm gonna like I can't be like strong Katie anymore like what the fuck am I like I like kind of lost my identity and I remember I was, so upset talking about it to one of my clients here in the gym. And she was like, she was like, I didn't hire you because you can like bench press, whatever X amount of weight I hired you because of the way that you make me feel and the way that you help me. So that was kind of like an eye opener, like, okay, I'm, I'm gonna like just own this process. I'm going to show it and I'm going to be open and honest. I think that's the best thing that you can do. And I showed the whole thing. And I, and right now, a year later, I'm the strongest I've ever been. So I just, I'm super passionate about this entire process because it taught me so much. And I feel like I'm such a better coach now because of it.

But I went to PT and, and I, I saw PT one to two times a week and like sure they gave me exercises but as a trainer I was already like I already knew kind of how to train around the pain like I had already done identified that I like I can't bend over so I'm just like not gonna hinge right now I can get away with some body weights like Like I already kind of knew what hurt, what didn't. I knew how to be smart in that way. The main reason I kept going to PT was because of my mental state. I needed someone there to support me one to two times a week to tell me that everything's going to be okay. Because I didn't know that.

I felt like when you're in it, you feel so alone. And you're like, what, like, you just feel so isolated and alone and just not yourself. So the main reason I would go was to just keep my brain. Okay, through this process. But it was a 12 week process, where I didn't, I basically didn't touch a barbell for 12 weeks for lower body. And 12 weeks in the grand scheme of things is nothing. But 12 weeks when you're like us. So long. Every day.

It was so fucking long. It was the longest 12 weeks ever. Yeah. So 12 weeks without the barbell for the lower body. Tons of core work, which I believe helped me rehab it. But the main thing that helped me rehab it was just being smart. And so that was my, that's my big mentality now. And that's part of this training for life mentality is be the smartest worker in the room. Like that is, that is the number one thing. The smartest worker in the room is the one who

will be given the gift of training for the rest of their lives. Yeah, no, I love that. And, you know, it sounds like you've completely rehabbed it. I would love to know the ways in which your training has changed. Just like assuming like, Hey, I'm back. I have fortified and perhaps have even strengthened the tissues that were once injured and nothing is off the table. But have you adjusted the ways in which you train or program around that? Because like, I'll give you an example. Personally, like, when I first started training, I was big into the idea of bodybuilding and powerlifting and incorporating those barbell specific movements into my clientele's programming. But I realized, you know, that not everybody needs a barbell on their back or a barbell in their hands to train these foundational patterns. And so, you know,

after years of doing it myself and noticing like, huh, the stimulus to fatigue ratio here might not be worth it for all my clients. It showed up that, you know, in my training, I did more goblet squats with clients or more dumbbell RDLs, or just more things that I think in general might've been more aligned. Like it just changed how I worked with individuals. And it gave me a lot more opportunity to work with individuals who were in pain because I had so much more empathy and so much more creativity and understanding around how to regress and modify. I'm guessing this made you a better coach, but I'm curious how it shows up even today and how you train and how you train your clients. Yeah. So programming wise, like before pre-injury, I was still big on the basic foundational movement patterns and I still preach that to this day. But like you said, I am also much more open

and faster to say to a client, you don't have to do this. No exercise is mandatory. There is always modifications. And that's something that so many people like hesitate. I think a lot of people hesitate to like join my program because they think, well, we have to like pull heavy sumo deadlifts because they see me do that. But as soon as you join my program, the first thing I'm going to say to you is none of this is mandatory. So I'm definitely faster on that. And then I'm just pushing this smartest worker in the room mindset. So like if something feels off or you slept like shit or your warmup sets are slow, don't push for that PR pull back and being, and being selective. Like I am, I'm much more like before my mentality is like, I want to go ham on the deadlift on the dress on the,

I need to PR my chin ups. I need to PR my bench. I need to push my lunges. Like I was, I was trying to just push everything. And something that I've learned is to vary my intensity. So this has been amazing for recovery. And that's another word that I use more now, recovery. Like, how do you feel? How are you recovering? And everyone's different in that way, too. But tuning into your own recovery is important. So like not obviously not just copying what everyone else is doing or expecting yourself to recover the same way. All of that. Staying in your own lane. That's another thing that I'm constantly talking about. I made a post on that today. I made a post on that today. But yeah, where are we going?

We're just talking about recovery. And I think it's actually an awesome segue because, you know, I, gosh, I remember like probably five years ago, four or five years ago. Because like I said, you've been a fixture on social media for quite some time. And I was working with another trainer and he was working on deadlifting. And he was like, I'm just trying to get as strong as Katie. And I was like, who's Katie? And he showed me, I'm like, damn, that girl is insanely strong. And so like, yes, over the course of many years of lifting, you only had this like one big injury, which I think is actually remarkable. And I think it's a testament to knowing how to take care of your body. Maybe at first it was a little more intuitive and after the injury, it became a little more informed, but so much of the results we generate in the gym are a product of not just how we train, but how we recover from how we train. And I would just love to know what you do

to enhance your recovery in the kitchen, in your lifestyle? Like what are the things that are big to you and not just your training, but also what you practice with clients to make sure that these individuals, specifically women who are super stressed, super busy, super on the go, how can we enhance recovery globally? Like what do you like best? Yeah. So like with recovery, something I always say too, to that is your training program is only as good as your recovery is outside of it. Um, so personally things that I do to improve my recovery, something that I mentioned earlier is varying my intensity throughout my training week. So I usually, I take my training week, one week at a time. That's usually just how I do my life one week at a time. Um, and I'm, I look at it. I'm like,

where am I going to push? Like, where are my goals? Where do I want to push? Where am I going to maybe maintain? And then where might I pull back in order to recover? Well, so like right now, like my personal goals are like really push the sumo deadlift. So I know when I have my deadlift session approaching, I'm going to consider that in my session before that. And I might pull back in an area. And there's oftentimes I talk about this all the time. I walk out of the gym feeling like I can do more, but on purpose, I don't. And that is something that I've learned in my early twenties. I was like, I'm not walking out of the gym until I'm limping out of the gym. It's not good enough until I feel like I literally can't walk.

And now it's like I'm so much smarter. I know that I have to vary my intensity if I really want to be in this for the long term and feel recovered and not get hurt. Because at the end of the day, to become your strongest, you have to be pain free. You can't have constant nagging injuries so that's been huge um another form of recovery that i focus on is sleep luckily i've always been i've always been a good sleeper so i don't really struggle in that area but that is huge um and then nutrition i would say main thing nutrition wise is just focusing on getting enough protein intake. And after working with women for several years now, I have realized that most women aren't eating enough protein. What's going on, guys? Taking a break from this

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who think either meat is bad for you or protein is going to make you bulky or isn't, isn't it bad for my kidneys? You know, which I think acts as a wonderful segue into the next section here, which is like, you are absolutely somebody who I think is positioned as an educational authority in our space. You're educated, not just formally, but also you have a ton of skin in the game. You have put a ton of sweat equity into this. You've built an incredible physique. You've overcome bullshit like injuries. You've built a business. You've built a following and you're an expert. And so because of that, you probably get questions all the time from people who are either misinformed or they just want to know, hey, what's the shtick here? What's the deal

with this thing? What are some of the things in our space right now, whether it's misinformation, whether it's recurrent themes where people are, you know, perhaps uninformed, like, what do you see more often than not when you're getting questions right now? Like, where do you think people are in need of the most guidance? And if you can even be specific to women? I mean, honestly, I think we need the most guidance in our mindsets. And over the years, my content has completely changed like i used to be like do this exercise do this for to get a glute pump like sure do this this way and there's like there's nothing wrong with that like like tutorial videos are great but like stuff that really gets people to like move and like change what they're doing is is mindset mindset stuff. Yes. And it's just all the stuff that

I've struggled with on my own and stuff that I've learned and overcome. And now I just feel like I have to give back and, and help these women think differently because you think differently, then you act differently and you can get what you want. So so yeah mindset stuff is the biggest thing like today's post and like like you said earlier you have so you work with so many people every day it's easy to like get content information like i just crank out i crank like i'm not into video editing so like my videos don't go viral but like captions, I just like crank them out daily so easily because I just, I have so many women to pull ideas off of because I see, I see what they're struggling with. And like, I have this, I have this team trained with Katie and all these hardworking

bad-ass women from all walks of life. And they all come together in this group and we're doing this training program together. And a lot of them struggle with staying in their own lane. They compare, they compare their progress to someone else's in the group, or they compare the weight that she's lifting to the weight she's herself is lifting. Or she's like, why am I not getting that type of result that she's getting? And so, so it's, I'm constantly talking about staying in your own lane it's the best place to be it's a wonderful point and I do find that the comparison being the thief of joy thing is prevalent for all of us I certainly deal with it as a guy I see dudes who have killer physiques and I go damn like I kind of wish that I looked like that but it does seem to be a little bit

more common with women just because there are so many women who have well-developed physiques and great followings. And it's really hard not to make results at the same pace as maybe somebody who's genetically a little more gifted than you, or maybe they have a little more to give because of their schedule. But I saw a quote the other day, it was about money. And it said, basically, somebody out there is going to get rich faster than you. It's not a tragedy. And it's not an indicator that you won't get rich. And I think the same thing is true of fitness, which is that somebody out there will probably get fit faster than you.

But it's not a tragedy. And it's not indicative that you can't get there one day either. But if you just are fixated on the rate and the progress of other people, not only does it slow you down, but it also robs you of the ability to pay attention to your own progress, which as a coach, you know, happens in such small, tiny increments. If you're not paying attention, you almost might not even notice it, especially after you've been in the game for a long time. Yeah. I think that's more mindset stuff. You're focusing on things that you can't control. Like, oh, better than mine like or she doesn't have kids she has more time for the gym like focusing on those two things won't

move you forward and then that scarcity abundance mindset um where like only some people can get what they want and i can't like that again that's not going to move you forward but like an example of like i gave an example today because i always talk about my own self, because I feel like some people, it's easy to look at people online, and you don't think that they're like struggling with the things that they're maybe talking about. So like, like giving good advice is like, is telling like a story too, I think is what moves people or inspires them to think differently for themselves. But like so today for the stay in your own lane thing, I posted a video of me bench pressing and I talked about how much I love bench pressing. Like I genuinely just love bench pressing, pressing. I look forward to doing it every week.

It brings me joy into my life. But if you were to look at my numbers, like you can argue that I'm not that strong of a bench presser, because I'm so I'm six feet tall, 185 pounds. And I still can't bench my body weight, which is like a standard that they have for women benching, whatever. Sure. I can't bench my body weight. Progress has been incredibly slow and a little bit inconsistent. And if I were to join like a powerlifting competition with women my size, I wouldn't place anywhere near the top. I'd probably be the weakest woman in the room with what I bench. But I still love bench pressing because if I focused

on how much stronger those women are than me or how slow my progress is and I'm not where I should be, then I would be miserable and I would probably hate bench pressing and I'd probably quit. And that's the mindset that so many people have. They're focused on things outside of their control and then it totally takes the joy out of it. And then they quit. Totally. It's interesting too. Like I'll give an example, not specific to fitness or weightlifting, but I picked up golf about a year and a half ago during COVID because there wasn't a whole lot of other ways to stay engaged with my friends. We could all meet at the golf course and hang out and get outside. And I'd never swung a golf club in my life. And I am not good at it now, but I was

certainly worse at it when I got started. And if I had paid attention to how good my friends were doing and compared myself to how good my friends were, I probably would have never gotten anywhere. And it was really the first time in my life where I had the opportunity to say, hey, look, listen, you need to just focus on having a good time, enjoying this and getting better one step at a time. I literally had to tell myself that on every swing, I had to fake it until I make it because it was really hard at first not to do that. And I think with weight lifting, I've always done okay. I've always been fine with my rate of progression and where my physique's at. But with this, it was like, oh my gosh, I suck at this and everybody's watching me suck at this. And it gave me so much empathy. It gave me so much better ability to communicate to

people who were new to lifting and maybe nervous about going to the gym or nervous about looking silly and, you know, being new and just getting started with something and having to go through those struggles or something like benching where you're so good at resistance training as an activity, but this particular element maybe isn't keeping pace with some of the other areas where you're excellent. And just being able to give yourself grace and roll with it and be like, yo, this is part of my journey. I'm getting better as best I can. And I am in love with that process. I think that is so phenomenal. And I love that that shows up in your and my content.

I wish it showed up more across our industry. And I think that just being transparent and saying like, Hey, you know, I'm a badass. Like if you look at my content, I'm probably top 1% in the world in terms of what a female can do in the gym. But even I have areas where I want to work on, like, I just got to give you kudos for sharing that. Cause I think that's really cool. Yeah. Thank you. I think it's always important, like, as we are, like, leaders, I think it's important to bring ourselves back to that we are just human, and we're doing what they're doing. Perhaps we have, in training-wise, we have a lot more, many more years under our belt with experience, but we all start somewhere, and I think it's so important to just own that, like, just own, like, I'm going to suck at this and I'm going to ride it out. I'm going to keep

showing up and I'll get a little bit better every time I show up. Here's a question I ask pretty much every coach that comes on the podcast. And I think it's a good question because it shares a little bit about you and how we develop as professionals and what we're excited about. But, you know, are there things in the fitness space, nutrition space, recovery space, anything that you're excited about, that you're learning about, that you find fascinating? All good coaches are constantly continuing and expanding their education. And an example of this would be like I was talking to Jacob Skeppis of JPS Education. They're big in Australia. And he's really fascinated right now by psychology and

elements of how our psychology influences our behavior in the gym. What are the things that you're kind of the most intrigued by and interested in learning about having now been a coach for eight years, nine years, I think. Honestly, I'm, I'm most passionate about this mindset stuff. And I've, I've in the last, the last in 2021, I became a reader. So post college, like I graduated college at 22 and I'm 29 now. So there was about like seven years there where I wasn't consistently reading books. And then last year I was like, I need to, like, I need to sit down and read books. Like I need to keep my brain fresh. I need to be learning stuff. And of course it's important to learn stuff that you're passionate about, so you can stick with it. So I'm endlessly passionate about the mindset stuff, because

once you change your mind, you can change your life. That's true. So I became a reader, and similar to how I teach training, start slow to go fast, or do less, but be consistent. So I started with 10 pages per day. So I committed to 10 pages per day, every day. And I stuck to that for a few months. And then all of a sudden, I realized I'm just like totally in love with reading. And now I'm like crushing a book, like every week. Wow. I was like reading, I literally walked into the gym today with my book. I was like, who have I become? Wow. That's so cool. So the book I'm reading now is 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do. Oh, okay.

So yeah, that's... Have you had a particular book or series of books that you've read since you began this habit that have been particularly transformative? Yeah, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. That was a really good one. And all the books that I read, I share with my team too. And they all read them and a lot of them totally resonates with them. And it's about taking small steps each day that compounds over to something big in the long term. And when I think of anything that I've done in my life, that's exactly how it's done.

And I want to be better about coaching that. And these books have really helped me. So yeah, I think that's my ongoing education is getting my mind right. I love that. And you know what? I think that's probably a journey that doesn't have an end point.

Like there's always refinement we can do on the psychological end of things, whether it's how we interface with the world, how we interface with each other, you know, that, that vein of personal development, if you will, is almost limitless. And it's very encouraging to hear that you're focusing on that. Something I think I'd like to close with is, you know, you've accomplished a lot. I think you have kind of acted as a trailblazer in many ways for a lot of women in the fitness industry. When I first started coaching, you know, female personal trainers were substantially less common than male personal trainers. And now I'd say it's close to 50-50.

And I think that if you were to look at the actual statistics of who's getting certified now, I'd say more women are than men. And I think that that is phenomenal because having more female coaches helps us better relate to female clients and women who are at various points on their fitness journeys. But I doubt this is where you plan on stopping. So I have to ask, what are you building towards? What are your big goals? What are you excited about attacking in your future? Because you've done so much, but I feel like this is just kind of the beginning for you. I just want to live my, I don't have specific goals, but I want to just live my mission every single day.

Well, that sounds really good when you put it like that. Wow. I like that. Yeah. I wake up at 5.01 every morning, like excited to just like keep pushing this movement forward. And I really just feel like I'm a part of that. I feel like I'm a part of something big, like pushing this movement of women training and gaining confidence and feeling great in their own skin and just owning what they do and who they are. And that's what keeps me excited to wake up every day and do what I do. So there's no outcome goal. It's just a process and living my purpose and mission every day. Well, I can't think of a better way to put a bow on it than that. That is one of the most wonderfully articulated purposes, right? We're all out here trying to hopefully live a

purpose-driven life, but that's a pretty great way to put it. I might take something from that and focus a little bit more on pushing for purpose rather than outcomes. Because I think we can all get caught in the destination happiness trap of, I will be happy when I have accomplished X, Y, Z. But to listen to somebody who's accomplished so much say that they're just loving the process. I think that that's a beautiful way to close. Katie, where can everybody keep up with you? I'm sure they'll like to after they've heard this. Yeah. So the main, the main social media I do now is Instagram. Just my name, Katie Sonier, K-A-T-I-E-S-O-N-I-E-R. And then from there you can check out my website and that's where you can check out my online training program,

TWK or Train With Katie. Katie, thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, thank you for having me.