Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashlyn Knox.
Hi Ashlyn, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The seeds of both of my businesses were planted during my undergraduate career at the University of Texas at Austin. I started my fitness coaching business, Legitimate Fit, early on in my sophomore year at UT after growing a community on social media sharing workouts and fitness tips as I worked to attain my personal training license over my freshman year. It was an empowering experience as I had not even come to UT to pursue fitness education – I was a business major planning to walk on to the Track Team. In this process though, I found a community of people who had one thing in common: We were all going through the big life transition of coming to college and living on our own with no guidance on how to be physically healthy. In the years prior we had your parents, PE coaches, sports coaches, etc. who had told us how to work out for years and suddenly we were in this space where we not only how to figure that out but how to plan our entire day to day lives with no guidance.
So for some time, I was posting to my @train_with_ash Instagram platform and sharing what I could but once I got my personal training license I no longer wanted to just be an inspiration for my peers – I wanted to actually help them, so I scaled what I was doing from sharing to actually training through, Legitimate Fit. I got to train all types of peers from so many walks of life that I probably would have never even crossed paths with on-campus and I grew to love gaining new clients every semester because we would eventually become close friends after so many early morning workouts. After some time, I knew why training my clients was so special to me and it was because my clients felt like they could relate to me – They trusted that I understood their struggles because we were similar in so many ways because of our lifestyle. This level of trust made my training never really seem like work and since then as I have continued to train it is still just that rewarding.
While still being an undergrad the same year I started the business I was so hungry for knowledge and undertook a second degree in Kinesiology in addition to my Business degree in Mccombs. People would often as me if it was tough having two majors that seemed to not intersect but I actually found it to be quite the opposite. Since I had turned my coaching into a business, everything I was learning in that realm of my academics seemed necessary to strategically put my knowledge of the human body to work for my clients.
It just so happened that at this time, McCombs (The UT School of Business) had created an entire department dedicated to entrepreneurship and I soon found myself so immersed in not only the entrepreneurial coursework but all of the extra-curricular that came with it as well. Through this program, I got to meet so many like-minded peers, mentors, and professionals that all almost turned into opportunities for me down the line. During my senior year, during one of my entrepreneurial courses, a local marketing agency owner spoke to one of my classes and I was so inspired by her story of how she built her business that I reached out. Soon after I was shadowing and later interning at her company where she allowed me to own a newer area of the business – TikTok content creation. I soon fell in love with creating content for brands that their consumers were engaging with and I now know I loved it because of the same reason for training my fitness clients – The content resonated with the consumer. They enjoyed what I was creating for them because it was delivered in a way that made sense to them.
I worked at the agency until the end of my senior year, but while graduating from COVID and my preconceived notions about security, I took a full-time job in tech that I knew would likely not be fulfilled but would essentially give me the time to decide how I could sustainably make a living doing the things I enjoyed. I worked at my job for about eight months while coaching and doing TikTok content creation for a few clients on the side. After a long period of struggling with my mental health, I recognized that my job was keeping me out of alignment of what I felt was my purpose and that life was too short to keep on with it. So in February of 2022, I took a leap of faith to leave my 9-5 to get back into coaching and to scale the TikTok and User-generated content creation I was doing into a business. Since then, I have started my business, XonkCreative which is a vision I am undertaking with my siblings who are also in their own creative spaces, which is great because we are all able to contribute in our own ways. Both of my businesses are very much still “under creativity” as I like to say, but as I focused my energies on learning about how to run a business and the different industries I am immersed in my clientele is coming to me organically which has been the best feeling.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In full transparency, my businesses have been anything but smooth sailing. I think that today having your own hustle is glamourized, and for many good reasons: It is rewarding, empowering, and freeing among other things. But the early stages of it like I am in right now are quite exhausting. I think it’s important to not really draw a comparison to what other people are doing for work (way easier said than done) because having more or less work doesn’t make something better – It is really about what is fulfilling for you personally. That is probably the biggest struggle, getting trapped in comparison or thinking that my businesses should look like someone else’s who may not even be offering something similar or they may be 5+ years down the road with what they are doing.
Right now, I am not working any less than I was my 9-5 – I am probably honestly working more than I was. The only difference is that I am choosing what kind of work I do and when I am doing it. This means there have been many late nights and working over the weekends and I even got to a point recently where I got to complete burnout. It is really easy when you become the person in charge of what’s going on to never turn off work mode but it is something that I have to learn. Creating boundaries in my work and personal life is something I am working on daily because I know it is essentially to fully be able to pour into my clients and show up as my full self in both of my businesses.
As you know, we’re big fans of XonkCreative and Legitimate Fit. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Legitimate Fit:
I specialize in small group and personal training for the everyday athlete who is looking to make their lives easier by taking care of their physical. I work with clients on increasing their strength to serve them functionally to make their day-to-day lives easier and help them unlock a level of mental confidence both in and outside of the gym.
What sets you apart from others?
Rather than focusing on how to help a client “look” a certain way, I challenge my clients to change their mindset about their fitness goals. I encourage my clients to view their goals from a lens of how it will make them feel because a mindset is way more sustainable than how you look.
What do you want our readers to know about your brand, offerings, services, etc?
My exercise programming takes into account the longevity of the body and the mind. I believe in doing exercises that will serve you in becoming better and not just doing exercises for the sake of doing them. I believe if a client asks me why they are doing a certain movement and I can’t explain to them the purpose of it – It doesn’t belong on the program.
XonkCreative:
Creation of UCG style photos, TikToks, and Instagram reels for various social media clients (brands, brick and mortar businesses, e-commerce platforms, etc.)
What sets you apart from others?
Since right now, most companies are looking to appeal to the Gen Z audience, being a part of that target audience is a big value I bring to the table. I am not only able to tell a brand or business’s story from the perspective of a content creator but also a consumer. Since I am constantly consuming content, I am at the forefront of trends and can ideate content that someone like myself would want to engage with.
What are you most proud of brand-wise?
I am most proud of my ability to serve a diverse set of clientele with a single set of services by simply finding what speaks to a brand’s audience.
What do you want our readers to know about your brand, offerings, services, etc?
I offer monthly creation services in which I create authentic content that perfectly supplements professional/advertisement-generated content.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
I advise anyone getting started in any space to seek mentorship and to speak up when they need help. As someone who has been hyper independent their entire life: I would have saved myself many headaches and a lot of time if I just asked someone how to do something rather than just trying to figure it out on my own only for the sake of saying, “I did it by myself.” The truth is that most successful people have a village of support behind them so find your village and lean on them when you need to.
Contact Info:
- Email: ashlyn@xonkcreative.co
- Website: https://ashlyn-knox.format.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashlynnovember/ and https://www.instagram.com/train_with_ash/
Image Credits
Photographers: Rishab Vasudevan (IG: @RishVee) and Denzel Brown (IG: @GetKnarly)
