My interview with Scott Jones was extraordinary, just like his personality. Mr. Jones is a charismatic, determined, and extroverted man. He and his wife, Krishna, are certified personal trainers. My interview with him brought to light that physical therapy can actually lead me down a slightly different path.
Mr. Jones was one of the people who helped me along in my recovery journey. He was my personal trainer who came over to my house two or three times a week for about five months to work out with me for about an hour. He is a wonderful personal trainer and he genuinely, wholeheartedly, cares about his clients. The reason I reached out to Mr. Jones was because he was actually a physical therapy student in college and completed physical therapy school - he just didn’t become a physical therapist. I found this very curious, so I asked him to tell me more about this. His response was that he, above all, values the personal connection a physical therapist makes with their patients. That is his favorite thing about physical therapy as a whole. However, physical therapists sometimes have two or three overlapping appointments with clients at once. This can make it very difficult to spend time getting to know the patient and to form a bond with them. Mr. Jones had a close friend of his actually become a physical therapist who told him that his greatest regret was not getting to spend enough one on one time with his patients, and this bit of information was the deciding factor for him that prompted him to skew his career choice a little bit. So he became interested in personal training, which involved a lot of the aspects of physical therapy that Scott loves but most importantly allows him to spend that personal time with his clients. He never trains more than two people at a time in an intimate setting so that he can give each client his full focus and attention. He found a combination of physical therapy and the quality he desired most in a career, and he was able to make a living out of it that supported a wife and three children.
Personal training and physical therapy are very similar professions. They are both centered around teaching the patient or client how to get better, stronger, and faster while preventing injuries. Mr. Jones was certain he wanted to be a physical therapist up until that one fateful day that sent him on a slightly different path, and on that path he was able to utilize everything he learned in physical therapy school to help others in the setting that he wanted. When I asked him his favorite part of being a personal trainer, he told me without hesitation that it was knowing he was helping people to make a difference in their lives. Whether it’s helping them to lose weight or gain muscle, he is honored to be the guide during their journey. His patient’s successes are his successes, and he cherishes every small step in the right direction that he takes with his clients. He told me that he loves being a part of the reason people feel better about themselves, and I think that is incredible. Mr. Jones, like Mrs. Valencia and Mrs. de los Santos, is extremely passionate about what he does and his sole purpose is to help others.
My interview with Mr. Jones gave me some important insight - I don’t have to become a physical therapist. I can still go down this path and learn all this information and become something slightly different that suits my wishes for my career. I am grateful for this knowledge, because it puts a lot less pressure on me and reassures me that it’s okay to turn out as something slightly different than what I had planned because I can still make it work, just like Mr. Jones did.