I expected Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson and Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp to teach me about parenting.
Instead, they changed the way I think about coaching.
While reading these books, I kept thinking about the people who walk through the doors at ID Fitness. Adults trying to rebuild their health. Families learning new rhythms together. Kids discovering what their bodies can do. What surprised me most was how much these books challenged my assumptions about motivation, accountability, and what real transformation actually looks like.
Although both books focus on raising children, they reminded me of something that applies to everyone:
People are not projects to fix. They are people to shepherd.
The Heart Comes First
One of the central ideas in Shepherding a Child’s Heart is that behavior is never the deepest issue. The heart is.
When a child struggles, Tedd Tripp argues that the goal should not simply be behavior management but understanding what is happening underneath. What does this person believe? What are they afraid of? Where are they looking for security or identity?
As I read that, I immediately thought about coaching.
Most people already know they should exercise more, sleep better, and eat healthier. The challenge is rarely a lack of information. More often, the struggle is emotional, relational, or mindset-driven.
Someone missing workouts may be battling discouragement or fear of failure. Someone stuck in patterns of emotional eating may be dealing with stress, loneliness, or a need for control. If we only address the surface behavior without understanding what is underneath it, lasting change becomes difficult.
People bring their whole selves into the gym—their exhaustion, insecurities, stress, and past disappointments.
I think about members who disappear for a few weeks because life becomes overwhelming. Often, they return expecting guilt or criticism because they assume they have failed. What they usually need most is not pressure but understanding and a clear path forward.
A coach who pauses to ask, “How are you really doing?” is doing more than collecting information. They are building trust and helping someone feel seen beyond their performance.
Grace Over Performance
Give Them Grace challenged me in a different but deeply connected way.
Fitzpatrick and Thompson warn against teaching children that love and acceptance are earned through performance. When success, appearance, or behavior become the measure of worth, people begin living in constant fear of failure. Grace changes that by making love the starting point rather than the reward.
I believe the fitness industry has a serious performance problem.
Many gyms, often unintentionally, communicate that people become acceptable only after they lose the weight, hit the goal, or achieve the right look. By the time many people walk into a gym, they already believe their body is a problem to solve rather than a gift to steward.
At ID Fitness, we want to resist that message.
Grace-based coaching does not mean lowering standards or avoiding accountability. It means helping people pursue health from a place of worth instead of shame.
There is a significant difference between someone trying to survive a program and someone learning how to live as a healthy, disciplined person for the long term.
Identity-based change lasts.
Shame-based motivation does not.
Relationship Changes Everything
Another idea that stood out to me in Shepherding a Child’s Heart is that rules without relationship often produce resistance rather than growth.
That principle is just as true in a gym as it is in a home.
People are far more likely to trust feedback, show up on hard days, and be honest about their struggles when they know their coach genuinely cares about them.
Clients do not just need information.
They need encouragement.
They need honesty.
They need trust.
They need someone who will remain consistent with them over time.
That kind of relationship is what separates a transaction from true transformation.
At ID Fitness, we are not simply delivering a service. We are investing in people.
Whole-Person Health
Both books pushed me to think more carefully about what transformation actually means.
Neither Tripp nor Fitzpatrick are satisfied with surface-level change. Both point toward a deeper process shaped through truth, consistency, grace, and relationships. That kind of work is slow, and it cannot always be measured by a scale or a progress photo.
At ID Fitness, we talk about helping the whole person—physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Health is more than body fat percentages or strength numbers. It involves how we think, what we believe, and the deeper reasons behind why we pursue health in the first place.
A person can become stronger physically while still being driven by insecurity, anxiety, or a constant need to prove something.
That is not complete health.
Real transformation is integrated. It looks like someone who moves better, thinks more clearly, and develops a settled sense of who they are and why they are taking care of themselves.
That kind of change lasts far longer than motivation alone ever will.
What I Am Taking With Me
The longer I am in this profession, the more convinced I become that people rarely come through our doors needing only a workout.
Many need encouragement, truth, accountability, grace, and someone willing to walk with them through whatever season they are facing.
Programs matter.
Nutrition matters.
Strength matters.
But people are not projects to fix.
They are people to shepherd.
That is the kind of place I want ID Fitness to be—a place where people are challenged and supported, held accountable and shown grace, and reminded that their value is far bigger than their performance.
Because lasting change does not happen when people are shamed into becoming someone else.
It happens when they are cared for, guided well, and given the opportunity to become who they were created to be.