Most people in fitness know how to train. That’s not the problem. The issue is they don’t know how to talk about it.
That’s what stood out most in a conversation with author and keynote speaker Jen Gottlieb. Before she became a speaker and entrepreneur, she was a personal trainer herself – someone who understood the work, but struggled with the part that actually gets people in the door: communication.
“You go from being able to hide behind a role,” she told Muscle & Fitness, “to having to actually be yourself, and you’re risking being judged.”
For a lot of trainers and fitness creators, that fear shows up in familiar ways—overthinking, hesitation, or waiting until everything feels perfect before posting anything at all. But as Gottlieb sees it, finding your voice isn’t about confidence showing up first. It’s about putting in the reps until it does. And in a space where attention is tied directly to opportunity, learning how to communicate might matter just as much as knowing how to coach.
Why Do People Stay Quiet?
Gottlieb doesn’t think the issue is a lack of skill. It’s something more internal.
“There’s so much noise that comes up,” she says. “I actually refer to them as symptoms of fear.”
That “noise” shows up as perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and the constant feeling that someone else is more qualified. In fitness, that’s amplified by the environment. It’s a results-driven space. People are used to measuring progress, seeing improvement, and knowing when something is working.
But communication doesn’t work that way.
“You’re risking people thinking you’re cringe or saying, ‘Who the hell does she think she is?’” she says.
So instead of posting, people hesitate. They tweak. They wait. In most cases, they end up doing nothing.
The irony is that the same mindset that helps people succeed physically—the attention to detail, the discipline, the desire to get it right – can actually hold them back when it comes to being seen.
Why Playing It Safe Doesn’t Work Anymore
A few years ago, you could grow just by posting consistently and staying within the lines. That’s changed.
Gottlieb calls it the shift from social media to “interest media.” Content isn’t just shown to your followers anymore—it’s pushed to people based on what they engage with.
Which means if you’re not giving the algorithm something to latch onto, your content disappears.
Her term for what doesn’t work: vanilla content. “It’s basically content that everybody would like,” she says. “Just nice content. Doesn’t really state my option.”
The problem is, nobody cares about nice.
“You want people to say one of two things only,” she explains. “You want them either to say, ‘Oh my God, me too…’ or you want them to say, ‘Not me. I hate it.”
That’s uncomfortable for a lot of people, especially in an industry where being liked feels important. But staying in the middle—trying to appeal to everyone—is what gets ignored.
With a crowded space like fitness, being ignored is the bigger risk.
Reps Matter—On Camera Too
For anyone who’s ever hit record and immediately felt awkward, Gottlieb’s take is simple: that feeling foes’t go away on its own.
“It is the weirdest thing in the world to talk to a camera,” she says.
Even for someone with a background in acting, it took time. The difference is, she treated it like training.
“I live stream every morning while I put my makeup on,” she says. “I do it to practice speaking to the camera like a normal person.”
That idea of treating communication like a skill you train is where most people fall short. They wait to feel confidence before they start, instead of understanding that confidence is a byproduct of repetition.
She also offers a practical fix for the robotic tone a lot of people slip into when they’re on camera.
“I think about someone I love and I imagine that I’m sending them a video message,” she says. “So, I’ll be like, ‘Hey, [name],’ and then I just edit out the ‘Hey, [name] part.”
It’s simple, but it works because it shifts the focus.
“If you’re thinking about how you look or sound, you’re thinking about yourself,” she says. “It’s not supposed to be for you—it’s for the person on the other side of the phone.”
Consistency Is the Real Separator
In fitness, consistency is understood. You don’t expect results after one workout.
But online, people expect traction almost immediately. When it doesn’t happen, they stop. This is one of the biggest mistakes Gottlieb sees.
“You might be posting for a very long time before you get your first hit,” she says.
Her approach is to remove emotion from the process and treat it like a habit.
“Posting one time per day… needs to be a non-negotiable habit,” she says.
Not because every post will work, but because eventually, one might.
When it does, it can change everything.
“It looks like it’s an overnight success,” she says, “but for mem, it was years.”
That’s the part most people don’t see.
Authority Isn’t About Being the Expert
One of the biggest barriers for fitness creators is the idea that they’re not “ready” to speak yet.
They haven’t been doing it long enough. They don’t have enough clients. They’re not the best in the room.
Gottlieb pushes back on that completely.
“You don’t necessarily need to be an expert per se,” she says.
Instead of trying to position yourself as the authority, she suggests documenting the process.
“You can be on a journey,” she says. “Come along the journey with me as I do it.”
That shift, from teaching to sharing, is what resonates now. People aren’t looking for perfect. They’re looking for real.
The people who grow aren’t the ones who wait until they have everything figured out. They’re the ones who start talking while they’re still figuring it out.
The Responsibility That comes With Being Seen
By the end of the conversation, Gottlieb circles back to something that reframes the entire idea of showing up online.
“If you have a service, a story, or a product that helps people, visibility is your responsibility,” she says.
It’s not about ego or attention for the sake of it. It’s about access.
Every day someone doesn’t share what they know, someone else fills that space. Sometimes with less experience. Sometimes with less care.
This is the real cost of staying quiet.
In a space like fitness, where the barrier to entry is low, but the impact is high, being good at what you do isn’t always enough.
People have to know about it, and that only happens if you’re willing to be seen and heard.
Follow Jen on Instagram @jen_gottlieb
