SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Some people trudge through their roughly 40-hour work week. Others zip through theirs without complaint.
Then, there’s Jordan Miller.
The 28-year-old has a full-time job as a personal trainer at GreatLIFE Woodlake Athletic Club.
He also owns a business, Run2Gun, aimed at fitness training for hunters.
And he hosts and produces an outdoors TV show.
Miller estimates he works 90-100 hours each week across his different gigs- not including his duties as a husband and a father, the Argus Leader reported (https://argusne.ws/2cYxbQ0 ).
How does he keep going?
“The people when I’m just absolutely exhausted that (are) jacked up because of a result - when they succeed, that jacks me up. That’s how I get through a lot of my days and a lot of my weeks_their excitement.”
This is not to say Miller dreads the work he does. Quite the opposite.
“I embrace the long hours,” said Miller. “I feel like it’s another way of living beyond average. The whole goal of what I do is just to help people live a life beyond average. … It takes some sacrifice. If I’m not sacrificing, I can’t preach it.”
Living beyond average - a pretty fitting motto for a guy who works nearly 100 hours each week helping people reach health and wellness goals.
Miller was born in Murdo, S.D. His family began molding him into a hunter almost immediately. Whether it is anxiously waiting for his father to return from hunting trips at age 4, shooting his first pellet gun at 5 or tagging along on pheasant hunts at 6, hunting has always been in his blood.
“I’ve always had a passion for being outside, and I’ve always had a passion for fitness,” Miller said. “(Run2Gun) was just kind of a no-brainer.”
Miller said the idea first started when he was in college. His grandfather and great uncles stopped going on big game hunting trips- which were a big part of their life - because of fitness concerns.
“Seeing them stop their hunting careers earlier, I wanted to help that,” Miller said. “I wanted to help guys prolong their hunting careers.”
A local Sioux Falls gym hired Miller right out of college to be a personal trainer. Despite having a new career, Miller still wanted to turn his hunting fitness idea into reality.
He met some people at an outdoors convention who liked his idea. They worked for a large gun company on the east coast, and they flew him out to their headquarters in 2011 to film a series of YouTube videos titled “Hunter Fitness.”
Miller suddenly had every small business owner’s dream at his fingertips: a far-reaching platform he could use for free publicity.
But there was a problem.
His business was still just an idea.
“That was the motivation for me to get my business off the ground before those videos released,” Miller said. “If people watched it and they had no way to find (my business), it was a waste of great promotion.”
With the help of people he’d trained at his full-time job, he filmed promotional videos and built a website just before the YouTube videos came out.
One of those videos, a 60-second promo, made Miller realize his business could reach a wider audience.
“We kind of realized, man, this would be a sweet concept for a TV show,” he said. “So we pitched it to Midco Sports (Network).”
Midco picked up the show in 2012 and Miller started filming a year later. Miller’s brother Matthew does all of the filming and producing for the show.
Miller doesn’t train Run2Gun clients in person. With clients as far as Mexico City and Florida, that’s just not realistic.
Whether it be a face-to-face workout with a GreatLIFE client or a phone call holding a Run2Gun client accountable, Miller motivates his trainees with enthusiasm.
He and a group of GreatLIFE team leaders once read a book called The Energy Bus team-building activity. He uses lessons learned in that book when he trains people.
“When a leader is leading with enthusiasm rather than always pointing out what’s wrong, it makes a huge difference,” Miller said. “I try to carry over what GreatLIFE teaches me into (Run2Gun).”
Miller says that same passion is what makes his work as a trainer for Run2Gun and GreatLIFE unique.
“Since Day 1, it hasn’t been about me,” he said. “It’s always been about our clients. It’s been about changing lives and helping people make a difference in their life.”
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Information from: Argus Leader, https://www.argusleader.com
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