Storming to success
STORM FITNESS DIRECTOR KEITH RICHARDSON TALKS TO SORCHA CROWLEY ABOUT TAKING A LEAP OF FAITH FROM ARCHITECTURE TO FITNESS WITH THE HELP OF SLIGO LEADER PROGRAMME
SITTING in his kitchen, staring out the window, Keith Richardson knew something had to change. Like thousands of others, the Architectural Technician found himself suddenly unemployed in 2008, with no prospects for the future. “I thought this can’t be right. You can get caught in a situation through no fault of your own where you think, ‘I’m not to blame for this, so therefore it’s up to someone else to fix it’,” he told The Sligo Champion.
“I had to change and didn’t want to go back to having my main focus on being money-orientated. The life balance wasn’t there,” he said.
His all-consuming career in architecture had brought him financial success but other stresses too.
“Like all people in their mid-twenties my career took over. That was the pursuit I had to follow, 100%. Getting married and trying to get a mortgage all took over too.
“I got pretty unhealthy from the want of trying to be more successful in that business. Long hours, a lot of stress, bad food choices. It accumulated to a point where I got pretty ill from it,” he said.
The turning point for Keith came when he was offered manual labour painting walls and insulating roofs.
He decided then and there he was going to work for himself, doing something he loved.
He got himself fit and became interested in personal training. For two years he drove to Dublin every third weekend to study neuromuscular therapy and physical therapy.
“I’m a glutton for punishment - I took on a second course in Personal Training in the National Training Centre,” he said.
Once he was qualified as a personal trainer and gym instructor, Keith started applying to commercial gyms and they all turned him down.
His persistence paid off eventually and he got work in commercial gyms around the North West. But he still wasn’t happy with what he saw.
“There was a lack of empathy, of individualism in treating people in gymsgyms. When you walked in you wewere just a number.
“I really didn’t like it. People were just handed a generic sheet and they were like they were standing in No- man’s Land.
“You knew that within a week or two weeks they’d be gone. They were like lost sheep. It’s the hardest step in the world to take that first step. I just felt there was more emphasis put on getting people to sign up and not on actually helping them.
“My idea was that regardless of whether you were a soccer athlete or you just got off the couch after five years, you should still be treated with the same empathy, respect and due care and attention,” he said.
Keith went out on his own, founding Storm Fitness in 2014 with the help of the Sligo Leader Programme.
“With Leader, what I thought was brilliant was you had an infrastructure behind you. I would always have preferred not to ask for help, but to know that they were in the background and there was a go-to if I was having problems was massive.
“In hindsight I possibly should have used them a little bit more than I did. I wrote up my business plan and they gave me loads of advice to help me qualify for Leader funding and mentoring.
“They’ ll give you mentorship and advice, training, all the small things people don’t realise are involved in setting up a small business, such as securing a building.
“There’s loads of hidden costs that people don’t tell you about. Leader helps you out and tells you ‘ this is the direction you should go’. I was able to just call in and ask them what they thought.
Keith is quick to stress that Leader don’t do the work for you - that can only be done by yourself.
“Where a lot of start-ups fall down, they just sit back because they’re getting a supplementary payment. It doesn’t work that way. You really do still have to drive hard to get established and get off the ground,” he said.
“You still have to have the clarity of vision of what you want your business to be. If you’re unsure about what you want to deliver then no amount of mentorship will be able to fix that.” he stressed.
Keith has been back to Leader since to speak to potential new course users.
For him, the most helpful aspect of Leader was the positivity and goodwill of Leader mentors.
“They want you to succeed. That’s not just talk, they put in an awful lot of work behind the scenes.
“The thing that they do most is give you the self-belief that you can do it. They give you that self-belief that this is possible. You can do it,” he said.
Storm Fitness is now up and running and “business is going great.”
“We’re doing really well, working with many interesting people and seeing some great results.
“That’s the thing about the move from architecture, I was working for people that I never really met. You very rarely met the main client.
“Now, although I don’t earn half as much as I used to, I can get in to the car in the evening and drive home and say ‘did I make a difference in a positive way to someone today?’ And the answer is yes - that person has lost a couple of pounds, they’re feeling a little bit more confident and they’re ‘up’.
“If you can help them do that, that’s a massive thing,” he smiled.
There’s no mirrors in his gym. How you look is probably the least important thing. It’s more about your overall health and fitness first. “We don’t do the Instragram six-pack thing. We promote general health and the benefits of that,” he said.
Thinking back to his days sitting in the kitchen, Keith would definitely recommend Leader for anyone thinking of diversifying their career.
“Leader gives you other options. They help you to think outside the box, like what would you be happy doing?
“Leader don’t dismiss your ideas but can steer you so that it will work for you,” he added.
Sligo Leader TÚS/RSS Co- Ordinator Declan Foley can be reached at 071 9141138 or dfoley@sligoleader.com for anyone interested.
THEY GIVE YOU THE BELIEF THAT THIS IS POSSIBLE. YOU CANDOIT