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Who Are Your AO1 Coaches? Part 1

Who Are Your AO1 Coaches? Part 1

Coach Stefanie’s Story

Hats off to anyone who has ever written a full auto-biography! Just sitting down to type out what we hope will give you readers an accurate picture of who we are, makes our heads spin enough. It’s easy in this ‘insta-life’ to show our powder coated lives but we’ve also seen the opposite where someone, in the name of ‘authenticity’, went way overboard to try and show their faults. We’ll each give you a few stories and highlight reels from our childhood through adulthood. If you want to know more, feel free to comment below or DM us on facebook or instagram @ao1fitness.

From Stefanie’s perspective

Any other second children out there? I don’t know if the number of children following your birth order matters but I’m second of four. And man do I have FOMO!! (Fear of missing out 😉 )

I grew up two years younger than Jas and wanting to do everything she got to do. That’s probably where my love of challenges started. One of my most vivid memories as a child was camping. I was eight and I convinced my younger sister who was six, to sneak off with me and follow this secret trail. We arrived at the base of a cliff that I knew my mother would not allow us to climb… but she wasn’t there. We miraculously made it up but it was pretty clear that we wouldn’t have the same success coming down. I assume now, the logical response would have been fear, but instead, my mind romanticized the experience and I started planning how my sister and I could live on the mountain indefinitely. My wise parents did come to find us with a rescue team and I’m very grateful for that 😉

As a child, I lived in bliss and didn’t really pay much attention to expectations. Somehow the summer before grade 6, I took a sharp turn. I decided that year, that I would get straight A’s…. and I did. Then I started joining all the sports teams that I could, and started babysitting to earn more money, and started volunteering and my faith in Jesus was deepened so I was at church more, and I decided I wanted to be a pilot so I joined air cadets… I look back at these years and have so many great memories but I was definitely fueled by expectations and accomplishments… a cycle that would take a long time to break.

Three years after joining air cadets, I did reach my goal of making it into ‘power’ – the flying scholarship camp. This was a 7-week camp and at the end, each successful cadet earned their private pilot’s license. This is worth over $10,000 and it is free through air cadets. It was an idyllic summer and it was there that I first fell in love and met my future husband. As soon as camp ended, I left right away to go to Alberta where I was enrolled at Prairie Bible Institute.

I did a one year program on Leadership and Intercultural studies. Four months of the program was based in Guatemala and El Salvador. It was eye opening and life changing, to say the least! During this time Justin and I were dating long distance. The next year I came home to work and save money for school and Justin went and did the same program I had just done. So another year of long distance. The summer after his program, we were married. At 20 years old, we went back to Alberta, this time to continue on our aviation studies.

After 4 years of working and flight school, a recession took away all the ‘promised’ flight jobs that were meant to be available when we graduated. We decided to head to Vancouver Island for a bit of a re-start. Our two boys were born on the Island, Justin worked his way up in a new career, and I started dabbling in teaching fitness. When my oldest son was a baby, I figured teaching some bootcamps in the evenings would be a great mom gig. So I got certified to teach bootcamps and later teach aquafit. It whetted my appetite, so when an opportunity to teach bootcamps at a CrossFit gym came up, I jumped on it. CrossFit pushed me to find my limits and break them over and over. I love the challenge and the community that keeps me coming back. Three years ago the opportunity to buy the gym came up. Myself and three friends went for it. We’ve seen countless more lives changed for the better as people experience this amazing community and push their own limits in the workouts. This propelled me to want to find a way to make this experience accessible for everyone.

I had dreamed of flying in any open cockpit aircraft forever. Of all places, while I was on the beach of El Salvador, this beauty does an approach and lands right on the sand.

Audience of One Fitness & Mindset Training

This led me to numerous conversations with Jas. We both had growing passions inside of us to start some sort of fitness venture online. The more we talked about it, the more solid the mission became: We want to build a community through fitness and mindset training who are empowered to live out their full potential.

So, who am I?

I am a dreamer, a challenge seeker, I’m passionate about my faith, I put family first, I’m an influencer. Don’t worry, I recognize my myriad of faults as well – I’m often late, I don’t see details, I don’t think through consequences very well, I allow interpersonal conflicts to drag me down to the pits and I can obsess over a problem until I figure out the solution… but I don’t identify myself in these things. They are not what define me.

I welcome further conversation. It’s new territory, but I’m trying to walk this line of showing my real self online but keeping boundaries to preserve what’s personal. If you’ve never done it before, try writing a mini autobiography. Even if you never publish it, it can be an eye-opening experience!

~Stef

AO1 Coach Stefanie Hitchborn
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One Response

  1. […] I’m Jasmine, the first of four sisters.  While Stefanie is the adventurist, no fear, “I can do anything” sister, I am the older, much more timid, […]

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