Faith and Fitness ft. Chad Hackler
Faith is an essential element to many human lives on earth. Faith is what helps us get through the dark times and gives us strength in our weak moments. Faith motivates us and teaches us how to trust the process, it keeps us humble and grounded.
In the fifth episode of Real McCoy Radio, host Greg McCoy brought in trainer and faith leader Chad Hackler.
Chad is dedicated to helping people achieve their greatest potential. He realized that through exercise, individuals not only feel and look better, but perform at a higher capacity in life as well. This made him focus on how people’s personality and spirituality influence their choices.
Thanks to his ambition to learn and godly family heritage, Chad has been able to connect with thousands of individuals and work with them towards success in fitness, nutrition, spirituality and relationship strengthening.
Chad and Greg have been good friends for a few years. One of the first, and most valuable pieces of advice that Greg received from Chad was when he was working only as a personal trainer and did not have his own gym yet. He talked about his dream to own a gym and shared that this is what he wanted ever since he was in high school, but at this point he did not know if it would ever happen.
This is what Chad told him back then:
“God put this in you as a kid, so I don’t expect it to go anywhere. That’s your dream and your purpose.”
Sometimes, when things go south, we are a target for the wrong questions and thoughts, and we start doubting ourselves. This is why simple words like these remind us why we are the right people for our purpose, and only faith can keep us going.
There is so much we can learn from Chad, considering his background and experience. He is the director of the National Personal Training Institute, which is the largest vocational school for personal trainers in the nation. His school aims to create leaders and help fitness professionals find what their strengths are as an entrepreneur.
Here are some of the questions Greg asked him during their interview that can bring insight to your career, habits, and life.
G.M: So, as a Christian, why is fitness important to you?
C.H: Well, the thing about our body, it’s not vanity, it’s about at some point, one of the current themes that you see and is not current, it’s been there forever. But one of the undergirding themes in the Bible is this idea of stewardship.
Every person has been given a distinguishable set of gifts. And so, if that’s what you’ve been handed, it becomes our obligation to multiply those things.
G.M: As a fitness professional that is a Christian, how do you balance when it’s appropriate to talk about spirituality and when it’s not? Sometimes it can make people feel uncomfortable, right?
C.H: I would just say it. This might be one of my only opportunities to love this person in a way they’ve never been loved before.
If somebody was devout Muslim, devout anything, you know, I’m not trying to swordfight and say my religion is better than yours. I’m not interested in saying that. What I mentioned is, hey, regardless of your background, God loves you and God wants to communicate through me how much he loves you.
G.M: A pretty popular statement nowadays is that you gotta get up and grind. But the grinding mentality isn’t necessarily the behaviour of someone, who trusts God, because sometimes you have to stop grinding and trust that God’s going to do what he says he’s going to do. What’s your take on this kind of grind versus faith?
C.H: We go back all the way to Genesis, and we see that on the seventh day God rested. Was he tired? I don’t think so. No way, he was not tired.
In pretty much the same way, we should grind, grind, grind, but on the seventh day, it is a day not to do anything.
There is supposed to be a day that says, okay, what’s the thing that drives your grinding. That seventh day should be set apart, to redirect your energy towards what’s going to fuel you for the next six days.
G.M: How do you recommend people that are busy stay on track? You obviously talk to people more about their life of faithfulness. So, what do you recommend?
C.H: One of the things that we emphasize in our NPTI course is the difference between outcome goals and process goals.
My outcome is I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to have more energy, I want to do this thing. The problem is that your plan to achieve that thing is probably going to fail. The reason is that you’re in love with the idea of change but you’re not in love with the idea of the steps that it takes to get there. That’s why I think fitness professionals and the next generation need to come and figure out.
The easiest example we talked about in classes is being a human GPS.
GPS needs to know one thing. Where are you right now? Every trainer in the world should start with an assessment. If I can assess where somebody is currently, and then together we identify the goals, we can create a plan that works.
Are you interested in listening to the whole podcast and learning more insightful thoughts? If yes, click here.
In case you want more information about Chad Hackler, here are a few links:
If you want to find out more about the host Greg McCoy, check out his website and social media, or come for a visit at Hidden Gym.
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