Sometimes, life’s biggest transformations come from its toughest challenges. In this episode of Epic Begins with 1 Step Forward, host Zander Sprague welcomes Austin Page, founder of GymFlo Coaching. Austin shares his powerful journey from a near-fatal accident to building a thriving fitness business. He dives into the mindset shifts, daily habits, and resilience that fueled his fitness transformation. Whether you’re looking for fitness inspiration or motivation to overcome obstacles, this episode will empower you to take that first step toward lasting change. Tune in now!
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From Rock Bottom To Gym Flow: Austin Page’s Epic Transformation
I am so honored to be joined by Austin Page. Austin, tell us who you are and what you do.
Thank you for having me, Zander. I am Austin. I am a Coach, Owner, and Founder of GymFlo Coaching, which I started in 2015. What I do is help people build themselves or build their days to build them, pretty much, in simple terms.
I’m going to guess that you own a gym.
I do, and it didn’t start off that way, but yes, I made it to a point or part of my journey where I have my own personal gym now.
From Rock Bottom To New Beginnings
Tell us a little about your background and how you got into doing GymFlo.
My journey started off with having to create a new identity for myself. Back in May 9, 2010, which was Mother’s Day back then, I gave my mother the gift of almost losing my life.
How nice of you.
If I’m going to do it, I know how to do it, or at least I did back then. Coming up, I’ll give a little backstory to give context to this event that flipped the switch in my life. I was big into partying. I didn’t have a purpose or passion when I was in my early 20s, and I didn’t have any direction, which a lot of people may feel even now. I just took that lack of direction and found my way to drinking a lot during the week and weekends, looking for the next party, chasing drugs, chicks, and things that weren’t serving me in the moment.
They felt good in the moment, but in the long-term, they weren’t making me feel good. I was always looking for happiness in the same place I was losing it, drinking, drugs, chasing chicks, nothing good in return and going nowhere fast. That long period during my early 20s led to me going to a party one night. I wanted to go home. I remember the night, but I decided to get in my car and try to make it home. The typical story, I made it about a mile away from the house, ran off the road, and ended up in the hospital.
I flipped my car a few times, but I don’t remember the wreck. I don’t remember the night, fortunately, and fortunately, I didn’t hurt anybody else. There was nobody else on the road. I just ran off the road, drunk, and ended up in the hospital for about six weeks. I’d ruptured my intestines and broken both my legs from the knees down, with my left ankle fractured as well. I came to in the hospital and things got real pretty quickly. I wasn’t ten feet tall and bulletproof anymore. I wasn’t Superman. I wasn’t invincible like I always thought.
After that six-week stay in the hospital, I was sent to a rehab center, where I learned how to live and take care of myself for two months. I lived there, and that’s where the seed was planted for creating a new identity, new habits, and a new lifestyle, which ultimately helped, not fix me, but gave me a process to lean into to help develop myself mentally and physically. Now, I’m able to do that with others.
During that rehab stay, I was pushed, whether I felt like it or not. Bedbound or not, I was forced to do some type of exercise every day to get myself out of that rehab center. The physical therapist would come in every day and give me some type of routine to do, even if I was in my bed. I had these rubber bands, and even if I didn’t feel like it, they were like, “We’re going to sit here until you do it,” type of deal.
I wasn’t working out or focused on exercising or my health, obviously, before this event. Once I became wheelchair-bound, I was able to get into a wheelchair. From there, they were like, “Austin, we’re upgrading. We’re going to roll down to the gym every morning now.” There was a gym in this rehab center, and they said, “We’re going to give you a list of things to do. You’re going to do it before you can go back to your room and chill.”
Every morning, I had to get up, whether I felt like it or not, and go down to that gym and start to develop habits of building myself. Slowly but surely, the initial urge of not wanting to do anything, not wanting to get out of bed, slowly started to fade away. I started to feel contentment and confidence within myself, building myself up. Strength was coming back quickly, day after day. I realized that I didn’t have to chase after these things that were giving me a false confidence in myself and weren’t serving me. I was finding a way to build myself with better habits.
Rehab, Recovery, And Finding Purpose
We’ll get back to the story in a second, but just a couple of things. Going down to PT, it may have started off as something you thought of as physical torture. I was in a year of PT because I busted my shoulder up when I came off my mountain bike and stuff. I always had a good attitude. I loved my physical torturers, but it’s not a walk in the park. They’re making you work hard. What you’re doing is challenging, difficult, and often painful.
I think it’s important to say that it probably did turn into, obviously, very much for you, a therapeutic time. The other thing is, as you discovered with the exercise, that release of endorphins is a fabulous, natural antidepressant. It makes you feel better about yourself. I’m guessing that you started to get to the point, you’re obviously there now, of saying, “That’s what I’m after. I want that good feeling.”
The antidote to bad self-talk, negative self-talk, or lack of confidence is something like exercising, something that helps build you. For most people, the easiest foundational entry to it is exercise. It’s so easy, and you can create it yourself. It’s something you can control. I found so much happiness from it. I found, just like you were mentioning, contentment within it. It didn’t happen overnight, this 180 of habit and lifestyle, but the way I’m explaining it, it might seem that way. It took months and months and reps and days to continue to cast votes into this new identity of, “Austin is a health-conscious person.”
“He isn’t a health nut. He isn’t some militant person about it,” even though it might look like that at face value. It’s just years compounded upon years of me having these daily habits that have been implemented, but it’s a process that I’ve been able to build and lean into that truly helps elevate my days. It helps build my mental fortitude, mental strength, and makes the rest of the day’s stress just roll off my back a whole lot easier than if I wasn’t, probably.
The Power Of Exercise For Mental Health
I’m a big proponent, as a mental health provider. I tell my clients all the time, “Go out and get some exercise. You don’t regret a day you went out to exercise, but you do regret the days that you choose not to.” Trust me, I used to run and was working in the corporate world. I was running at 5:00 in the morning. Often, it was dark and cold, and sometimes raining, and the bed was warm and comfortable. I’d be like, “Get out of bed. Go do it. Get it done.”
You never regret doing it. You only regret when you miss. You don’t know what you don’t know. If you haven’t started that journey for yourself, try something. It may not have to be 5:00 AM. That’s something that I’m definitely into now. Now that I’ve built myself up to that, I try and knock myself out first thing. If someone is reading and doesn’t know where to start, start by just saying, “I’m going to set a small goal of 10,000 steps a day,” which may be doable at first.
It may not be. It may seem impossible at first, but the work comes before the belief. You won’t have any belief in yourself until you start taking those first initial steps, at least trying. One day, you might go out there and be able to do half of that. That’s okay. As long as you continue to show up one day at a time, giving your best intent and best effort, eventually, you’ll cultivate that confidence, that inner self-belief, to where you can push to that 10,000 steps or that run first thing in the morning, or that 30-minute workout, or whatever the case may be. It’s small baby steps. It’s not leaps and bounds.
One thing that you mentioned that I think is important, I know it’s important for me, is you’re making exercise or movement a priority. I want to be clear to the people reading. I’m not talking about a hardcore boot camp style with burpees and stuff. Move your body in a way that’s appropriate to you. I was surprised when I started running. I wanted to understand my running better, so I wore a heart monitor so I could measure my heartbeat and stuff. I was amazed at how incredibly slow I could run and still be in my target zone.
In fact, where I thought I needed to be was so far in the anaerobic zone that I would gas myself. It doesn’t require this monumental effort. There is effort. The other thing I wanted to say about getting up at 5:00 in the morning, initially, it was difficult, but it isn’t anymore. One, because it’s a habit and your body gets used to it. More importantly, since exercise is important to me, nothing is getting in the way, or incredibly little gets in the way of me doing my exercise first thing in the morning.
If I say, “I’m going to do it after work,” a meeting comes up. The kids might need you. Something gets in the way. That’s why, even though it’s early in the morning, here’s the thing, you energize yourself for the whole day. Mentally clear. You feel good about yourself. Your mood is elevated. Why? It’s because we have those endorphins pumping.
Winning The Morning And Building Confidence
There’s a saying that I use within my coaching group, and it’s “Win the morning.” Not everybody’s schedule is going to be like mine or yours. If you can get up and accomplish something for yourself, whether it is reading something positive, maybe a nonfiction book in the morning to get some forward-thinking thoughts, or getting that workout or run in, something that makes a deposit into yourself first thing in the morning before the day gets ahead of you, at least you did something for yourself. You feel like you accomplished something. Even if the world burned up around you the rest of the day, at least you did something to move the needle forward within your life that you could control.
Win the morning. Even if the world burnt up around you the rest of the day, at least you did something to move the needle forward with your life that you could control.
The Birth Of GymFlo Coaching
Take a moment, if you can, and share with me and my readers about your GymFlo. What is it?
GymFlo is a coaching group that I created. It started off with me personal training at a Gold’s Gym. I realized once I got into personal training that it isn’t more so the physical work, it’s more so the mental work that needs to be done for lasting results. I would get frustrated in the beginning years ago working with people because, 6 or 8 weeks in, they’d make some good progress and see results, but then they’d go back to their old ways, their old habits, their old lifestyle, and yo-yo back and forth.
I just would get frustrated. I was like, “I have to change something up. I have to get to these people on the inner work, on who they need to become to get these long-lasting results.” That’s when I ventured off on my own and started my own brand and coaching company. Now, I do online and in-person coaching, where I provide mindset training and nutrition coaching through my private online coaching app and in person here at my gym with people who want to figure out how to break those self-limiting beliefs. I still have to work through those things daily myself. It’s never-ending.
I can absolutely attest to that. I’ve been lucky to do some pretty epic things athletically. I want to be clear, this is not the body of a world-class athlete. However, I got this body to do some pretty incredible things. I’ve done 10 halves, 4 full marathons, and a 50K ultra. I don’t run anymore, but I did achieve all of that. One of those things was getting to run the 2014 Boston Marathon, which was awesome.
Let me be clear, I did not time qualify. I will never time qualify for Boston. I got in on a sponsor exemption. I got a bid from Adidas, for which I was very grateful. I need to give props to my younger sister, who was doing massage work. Offhandedly, she said to Adidas after the Boston Marathon, “Would you ever want to run Boston?” I’m like, “Yeah.” I don’t honestly know too many marathoners who wouldn’t jump at a chance to do that.
That’s the race. At least one of them.
It’s the oldest continuous marathon in the world, aside from the Olympics. The Olympics is the only one you have to time qualify for. By the way, the time qualifications are ridiculous. Obviously, it changes with your age, but it’s still the same window. You just get a little more time. As you get older, it’s harder. You still have to be running, averaging about a 7-to-8-minute mile.
That’s fast for a marathon.
It is. What I like to joke about my Boston Marathon experience was, first of all, I grew up outside of Boston, grew up watching it. I love the Boston Marathon. In my ten-year-old head, I’m like, “Someday I’d like to run that,” with no idea what it is to run a marathon. The Boston course is very challenging. A lot of downhills. It’s a net downhill. Let me tell you, running a marathon, when you have lots of downhill, will blow your quads out so bad. Famously, there’s Heartbreak Hill. The hill itself is a bunch of steps. The hills aren’t that steep. It’s not that they’re steep.
It’s just that where it comes, mile 17 to 20, you’ve done some pretty big downhills. Your legs, when you hit those hills, are pretty toast. What I like to joke about my marathon experience is I discovered that I am not faster than an 85-year-old woman. I met this woman who won her age group. She’s 85 years old. You’d never know it. I was talking to her on the airplane. I got home, and I looked up. I’m just interested to know. She finished 1 minute and 30 seconds before me. I was like, “Look at that. I’m half her age, and I’m still slower than she is.”
That would take the wind out of the sails, for sure.
It didn’t. I ran my race.
You’re right. That’s what it is.
I finished. The marathoners, there’s a great joke, “In my dreams, I’m Kenyan.” When you see those elite runners run past you, they all look so effortless in what they’re doing. It’s insane. I ride a road bike. They’re running just below my average speed. I’m out there to have fun, but they’re running now close to four-minute miles. They’re doing 13 miles an hour for 2 hours. That’s insane.
Obviously, I’m not a runner at all, but I can’t even sprint that for ten seconds.
In some of the big marathons, they’ll have the runners’ expo. This is funny. They’ll have a big treadmill with lots of pads around it. You can get on and see how long you can run at the elite pace. Those videos are on YouTube. They are great because these people look all confident. They get in there, and the good ones might get a minute, maybe two minutes at that speed, and then they’re done.
I need some pillows laid out to the side.
They got all kinds of padding because people are lying. Anyway, enough about that. I think now the mindset is so key to success.
Developing that, switching my business into coaching is where things began to definitely take off and have a more long-lasting impact. Obviously, it gave more results for me to have referrals, trust or social proof. When I started to adapt that into my coaching, things began to grow all-encompassing. That’s what I do now. I just provide value where I can with mindset training and nutrition coaching, all through my online coaching app.
Mastering Nutrition Without Perfection
Speaking of nutrition, it is certainly important, but so hard at times.
It’s probably one of the bigger challenges for everybody. It’s trying to navigate that. At least for me, with the coaching I do, I don’t tell people what they should and shouldn’t eat. I base my nutritional guidance off of what’s called macronutrients. Protein, carbs, and fats, you fill them in with what you want. If you want to eat some pizza, you want to have a beer, a glass of wine, or whatever, as long as it fits within those things. Hopefully, you’re eating wholesome foods.
If you want to fit some things in there and it fits, go ahead. It’s not about being perfect to those exact grams of whatever. What I call it within my group is horseshoes and hand grenades. If you can get close to your numbers each day, you’re going to win. You’re going to compound interest, and you’re going to get results in 30, 60, 90 days, or however long you continue to do it. It’s livable. That’s how I’ve lived the past decade, just tracking my macros.
I’ve done that in the past. Very effective. The fact of the matter is that if you are trying to totally deny yourself of things that you might want or you like, you’re much more likely to fail than if you say, “I’m out at a party, whatever. I’m just going to have two tortilla chips. I know I’m already close to my carb limit.” I found personally that if I just had that little taste, that sample of it, I didn’t crave it anymore because I sort of satisfied that taste, crunch, salt, all of that. I’m not going to have it. You get home, and you eat something much more than you should, but no one is perfect. We all make mistakes.
The ‘Not Yet’ Mentality: Trusting The Process
One of the things I talk about in my book, and I love to ask my guests about, is I think two of the most important words on our epic journey are not yet because not yet means there are things that take time. Certainly, creating a healthy lifestyle takes time. If you aren’t already living it, you need time. You mentioned before with your PT, it’s repetition. It’s not instant. Changing, building muscle mass, getting more cardiovascular fit, and being able to do more just takes time. Not yet is part of it. Have you met your weight goal? Not yet. You’re on your way, but you’re not like, “I’m going to watch what I eat, and instantly 25 pounds is going to fall off.” It’s not, folks.
I like that. An analogy I use sometimes within my group is baking a cake. We have the sugar, we got the flour, we got the eggs, so on and so forth, all the ingredients to bake the cake. We’ve got to put it together and mix it. These are the actions and the daily habits for which we’re trying to use the analogy. When you go to bake it, you have a timeframe to bake it at. You have it at 20 minutes, not 10, not 8. If you go hotter, quicker, it’s going to burn it. It’s going to take X amount of time to bake that cake just right.
It’s probably not the greatest analogy because it’s not about being perfect, but you want to hit that. You have to allow time to bake. A lot of people want to turn the heat up to 500 for 6 minutes instead of doing 350 for 20, and they end up burning themselves out, or whatever the case is, instead of just letting it give time to marinate and bake.
I love your cake analogy. It’s making me hungry for cake, but that’s not the point. There are things in people’s lives where we naturally understand. For example, if you’re a freshman in college, no one’s asking you, “Do you have your degree yet, Austin?” No. We understand that there’s a time period that it’s going to take you to get it.
Maybe you do it in three years, yay for you. In general, we accept that it takes a certain amount of time to get that. Yet somehow, in our own personal life, be it exercise, work, or anything, why haven’t you achieved it? I’ve written books. “Is your book done?” “Not yet.” “Why?” It is because it takes time. It’s not just writing the book. It’s editing. The book takes time. All of this takes time. When we want to change how we eat, it takes time. It’s hard. There’s a struggle, but there’s something good about the struggle.
It is. I think making the diet work or starting to take effect, your workout routine starting to gain traction or build momentum in your life, or writing that book or finishing the book are all kinds of skills. They’re built over time. We start off sucking at most of everything. Think of maybe playing the guitar or piano, you are probably horrible at first.
Every time you give it attention, give it intent, give it effort, practice it, do it, take action on it, you develop that skill. You strike that knife across the sharpening block one step forward at a time. It’s like any other skill. The skill of writing probably gets better the more you do it over time. The skill of getting your nutrition down and becoming more disciplined with it probably sucks at first. Over time, as you give it attention and intent, it gets better.
You find what works for you. Just because you’re like, “I should be having tons of leafy greens,” that’s great. Maybe you’re like, “I can only eat so much spinach and kale. I’ve got to find something else because I just can’t eat six cups of spinach or kale every day. I know I should, but I can’t do it. That’s not what’s working for me.” I wanted to get back to the not yet. I’d love to ask my guests, what’s 1 or 2 of your not yets? It could be your business. It could be just a personal goal. Maybe you’ve always thought of writing a book, running a marathon, jumping out of an airplane, or traveling somewhere.
Balancing Aggressive Patience In Business And Life
As far as business goes, outside of coaching, I have tried to delve into other business areas and other areas to invest, reinvest into myself. I got into real estate with buying rental properties, and I bought my first one. I have these big plans that I’ve been thinking about and drawing out, and it’s more like a five-year plan. I haven’t got to those yet, but I realize it takes time. These other properties I want to build and develop, not these grand scheme things or single-family homes, but nonetheless, I realize it’s going to take time. Do I want it tomorrow? Of course, but I’m going to have to let things mesh and settle to finally get to those points.
Things take, if not double, three times as long as you think and about 10 times more effort than you think.
I think, for me, maybe I’m jaded, but everything that I think about doing, I realize there is a timeframe to it or a progress arc to it. There’s going to be a lull for a good amount of time. I think fitness, exercising daily, and things like that have built an internal patience for me. Over time, they’ve built a good aggressive patience in me, because I take action daily on these things, being aggressive about it. I realize that I’ve failed in a bunch of businesses, too, before coaching. While I did coaching, I tried to start businesses on the side, doing some other things, and failed quite a bit with those.
I realized from failing at some of those that things take, if not double, three times as long as you think, and take about ten times more effort than you think. It’s taken me a lot of failures and getting my hand burned off the hot stove many times to learn that. Finally, I realized I need to have patience and be aggressive daily in my actions.
Some people are like, “That’s a good question,” but again, your whole real estate, that is a not yet. It’s happening, but it doesn’t happen just like that. If you were building a house, we all understand it’s not like, “I’m building a house,” and tomorrow the house is done. It’s not Minecraft.
For example, the first house that I purchased, I bought it, and I thought within a year, I would have it ready to be rented. Two years later, and much more money into it, it finally got to the point of being ready, and it still has plenty of work to be done. Things are always going to take a lot longer, and you don’t know until you start walking that path for anything. You’ve got to take the first step to get going, though. You can’t just think about it. You’ve got to take the first step.
You do. Epic begins with one step forward. You go, “That step wasn’t too hard. Let me do the next one.” There’ll be detours along the way. That’s okay. I say in my book that failure is part of the journey.
Failure is part of the journey. No one is perfect. Hopefully, we learn from the things that didn’t work out.
It’s a must.
No one is perfect. Hopefully, we learn from the things that didn’t work out. We go, “That’s not the way to do it.” If you’re advertising your business and you try something that doesn’t have the results, you’re like, “Maybe that’s not where my audience is. Maybe that’s not working.” Austin, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come here and tell us about your epic story. I think it’s awesome. How can people find you, get a hold of you, and work with you?
How To Connect With Austin
You can sign up for coaching at www.GymFloCoaching.com, and I’m super active on Instagram. That’s where I’m at, and you’ll find me daily, posting throughout my stories, throwing up question boxes for people to drop me questions, and I answer them live. Give me a follow on Instagram and shoot me a DM if you have any questions. Catch up with me.
Thank you so much. I want to thank you so much for coming in. I want to remind everyone that if you’re ready to begin your epic journey, go to www.EpicBegins.com. As always, remember, epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
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About Austin Page
I’m Austin page, founder of GymFlo Coaching. I am your guide to help break your self-limiting beliefs and build yourself into a person you would admire.
From living a reckless life of vices and following the crowd that almost cost me my life to now chasing each day with purpose and intent of breaking that self-limiting belief that is rampant in today’s society.
We are ONLY as good as the example we set.. My mission is to help you build your highest version through mental toughness and self-mastery.