Meet Gil Acevedo

We were lucky to catch up with Gil Acevedo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gil , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
For me, resilience comes from family, fitness, and fortification from a lifetime of challenge and adversity.

But first let’s define what resilience means. To me, it means the capacity to persist through challenge and adjust to change.

My family and loved ones are the most important thing to me, and it is from them that a lot of my resilience stems. Nothing beats family, like Torreto from Fast and the Furious always says. It’s our love for others that makes human beings capable of feats beyond ourselves. For my family, I am driven to overcome the hardest of challenges. They inspire me to make this world a better place, so that the next generation can pick up where I left off. This bond to my family and with others keeps me moving forward. I love my family and my partner with everything, and it’s for them that I overcome challenges day in and day out.

My resilience also derives from my physical and mental fitness. Fitness isn’t just looking better at the beach – it’s about having the physical and mental capacity to adapt to whatever environment I’m thrown into. By training my strength, stamina, attention, and emotional control, I am better able to conquer life’s physical and mental challenges with ease. The principle of recovery, which I learned through the gym, has also bolstered my resilience. Without challenge and recovery we ‘d never grow. Challenge puts stress on our body and mind. But it’s the recovery and subsequent adaptation that enables us to grow stronger.

Finally, experiencing various challenges throughout my life has ingrained resilience: with each challenge I’ve developed more skills, improved my traits, and molded my mindset. I experienced a lot of challenges in my childhood. From immigrating from Mexico without speaking English, growing up in a trailer park, facing sports injuries, and taking some of the toughest classes, to starting my own business, I’ve struggled, failed, learned, and grown more resilient than ever.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am co-founder of Nexus Fitness, an innovative health and fitness coaching business that aims to improve quality of life by enhancing human performance and eliminating both mental and physical disease.

The reason? Growing up, fitness was a crucial component of my identity. After sustaining a running injury, I started resistance training as a form of rehab. It not only transformed my body, but also transformed my character and mind. Moreover, seeing my parents and many other family members struggle with health problems stoked my passion for health and fitness. The pain from seeing them suffer has shaped me and my outlook on life. That’s why, every day, I am incredibly passionate to help not only them but the the rest of humanity that faces health issues.

Nexus Fitness helps people with their health and performance through more generic virtual programs and personalized 1 on 1 coaching. In person, we provide group training at De Anza Cove in San Diego on the weekends, where we teach people resistance training and mobility exercises.

What’s special about Nexus Fitness, and what brings me the greatest excitement, is how we’re blending and applying the latest research in health and fitness to bring about holistic change in people — helping them improve their mind, brain, and body.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I can point to three aspects that have built the foundation of my character and abilities. They have led me to become the person I am today and, in turn, generated all of my achievements. Underlying everything is the skill of learning, which is kindled by my industriousness and drive toward my goals, and amplified by constantly improving my mental and physical fitness.

I’d argue that the foundation of our survival is learning. Without our unparalleled capacity to learn, humans would likely be extinct. To me, learning is not just stuffing my mind with new information. It’s actually using this knowledge to modify my behavior. If I gain new knowledge but fail to act differently as a result of it, I’d argue I haven’t truly learned. It is the learning of many things that lead to a skill. And the more skills one has, the more valuable they are in the marketplace, and the more impact they can have on this earth. That’s why it’s important for me to invest in myself through books, instructional videos, courses, and honing my craft daily. And I’d recommend the same to anyone seeking more out of life.

Learning is one of my foundational skills, but it wouldn’t provide me much utility without the quality of industriousness and drive toward a goal. Without the diligence, hard work, and drive toward a goal, I’d stagnate. That’s why it’s important to set an exciting, fulfilling, and clear goal that, day by day, I chip at with everything I have. Nothing beats that sense of accomplishment as I work toward my goals. Then, once I achieve it, I get such an indescribable feeling that I want to do it all over again. I’ve developed this trait from watching my father provide for family growing up and from linking the reward to the process. And it’s something everyone can do by surrounding themselves with industrious people and becoming intrinsically motivated. Then, I combine that with a goal that’s clear — so I know when I’ve reached it — and exciting enough to keep my enthusiasm high. This powerful combination sustains my motivation and the pursuit of personal greatness for the greater good of society. And if people are serious about their goals, I’d highly recommend they try this.

I further stoke my fire for life with mental and physical fitness. I believe fitness is our currency for living: without it we don’t have the capacity to adapt and overcome challenges. Fitness not only enables me to become better at life, but it also it increases my inner fuel tank to achieve more and live more vital lives. But fitness is not just going to the gym and exercising. Fitness is getting the proper sleep and nutrition to recover. It’s also cultivating mental fitness through mindfulness meditation and breath work. It’s working on my mindset daily to achieve peak performance and motivation. All these activities refill our fuel tanks to continue living — and there’s scientific evidence that they also enlarge our metaphorical fuel tank for greater success and fulfillment in life. The beautiful thing about it, is that it’s something everyone can do by resolving to take care of our mental and physical state.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
At Nexus Fitness, we understand that our mind, brain, and body are all connected. We believe that by knowing and using these connections, we can improve life for everyone. But it’s not just about our own connections. The way we connect and work with others can also make a big difference. That’s why we’re always looking for ways to team up with others in different areas. It could be in fitness, education, business, or even fun stuff like entertainment or sports. We want to share health and fitness knowledge and inspiration with their groups and audiences. We believe that knowledge alone isn’t enough if you’re not inspired to act on it. And being inspired isn’t enough if you don’t know what to do. So, we aim to provide both so that people can improve their lives for the better.

If you’re reading this and think we could work together, feel free to reach out. You can message us on any of our social media platforms, or send an email to [email protected]. We’re excited to hear from you and explore ways we can collaborate.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Holly Dong/Gina D’Andrea Penna

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