Katie St. Clair on Using Your Story to Empower Your Clients

Nothing ever becomes successful when you don’t hold a safe space for people.

People seek connection and a place to belong and be themselves.

How do you empower people to live the best life they can and be vulnerable?

Katie St. Clair is a wife, mom, strength coach, educator, business owner, and lover of all things movement. After 20+ years in the industry, Katie decided to create an educational program based on her passion for seeing other women excel in the industry as leaders and educators. There was a time when life got in the way and she couldn't be the professional she wanted to be because she had to put her family first. She has spent the past 5 years embarking on a journey of learning and combining that knowledge with her love of athletic movement, as well as her passion for empowering female movement professionals, with the intent to elevate the entire industry standard.

In this episode, Katie shares great life lessons and benefits sports and gymnastics taught her in terms of hard work and achieving your life’s goal.

She also highlights the many struggles she went through and knowing how she overcame them is one great inspiration for us to ponder on.

Finding an emotional connection to why you are doing something is one great factor to keep you going and continue working hard to reach your goal. Without that, you will get lost in the process and not move forward.

She found a way to truly connect with her clients and that gives her the privilege of doing what she loves.

When we create a safe space for everyone where they feel empathy and empowered to live their best life, half of the work is done. And that’s when it opens up a lot of opportunities for you to help others at the same time earn a living.

One big factor in creating a successful community or membership is when you create a true connection with your people. Katie has a lot to teach us about that.

As to her, with the fitness industry making changes because of the pandemic, it is only by providing a better connection from an emotional standpoint that you will always have a place in the industry. After all, people seek connection. 

“What's more important is that you just figure out why you can't connect. And work with someone on that. Once you learn how to connect and be open and vulnerable to everyone, and empathetic because that's what clients want -- empathy, then you have the opportunity, the privilege to be able to do what you want to do. The privilege comes because you are able to connect with that part of yourself.” - Katie St. Clair

What you will learn from this episode:

02:54 - Knowing how to have fun and not taking things too seriously

04:20 - Getting into Gymnastics at a very young age

06:53 - Life lessons and benefits of living her childhood life in a ‘gym’

09:47 - How sports provide a safe space for her and everyone getting into it

15:22 - Creating the emotional connection behind your hard work

18:56 - Finding authentic connection and being vulnerable to others

25:35 - Dealing with the mental aspect of pain and the struggles that come with that

27:52 - Starting from scratch and on to success

30:32 - How she got chronic pain from playing sports and how she got over that

38:58 - How Empowered Performance came to be

43:38 - Creating a safe space for men and women

46:50 - Dropping down your ego to create a safe space for everyone

Connect with Katie St. Clair:

Connect with Gavin McHale