Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

“It is said that all peo­ple who are hap­py have God with­in them.” This quote from au­thor Paulo Coel­ho’s book The Al­chemist per­fect­ly rep­re­sents busi­ness own­er/fit­ness in­struc­tor Akeil Lee, who al­ways gives thanks to God for all his ac­com­plish­ments.

“Every day at 5 am, Lee’s fit­ness stu­dio opens, wel­com­ing mul­ti­ple clients who come in for dif­fer­ent work­out ex­pe­ri­ences. It is more than just a gym; it is a space where peo­ple can freely ex­press their thoughts and share their strug­gles.

“We have a lot of clients that say this place is ba­si­cal­ly like ther­a­py for them; some of them have said that they’ve been bat­tling with de­pres­sion, and since they start­ed the gym, it changed their life,” Lee said.

Born in­to hum­ble cir­cum­stances, Lee grew up in an ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly home where laugh­ter, re­silience, and faith were the cor­ner­stones of life. His fa­ther was ab­sent, but the love of his fam­i­ly and the in­flu­ence of his lo­cal church shaped him.

Nev­er known to be a parti­er or limer, Lee found an in­ter­est in sports at a young age, specif­i­cal­ly foot­ball, as this was the ac­tiv­i­ty that brought him clos­er to his peers from his com­mu­ni­ty.

At the age of 16, Lee took his first steps in­to a lo­cal gym, fu­elled by hours of watch­ing YouTube videos about ex­er­cis­ing and a pas­sion for self-im­prove­ment.

From then, fit­ness be­came his es­cape and his call­ing as he par­tic­i­pat­ed in 5ks, half marathons, and hy­brid train­ing ses­sions, con­stant­ly push­ing his lim­it. Al­though he saw fit­ness as a pas­sion from a very young age, it was not un­til he was in his late 20s that he re­alised he could turn this pas­sion in­to a ca­reer.

Work­ing for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for the last 14 years, he sought cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to be a fit­ness in­struc­tor in 2016 as the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force of­fered a Phys­i­cal In­struc­tor’s course but un­for­tu­nate­ly was not se­lect­ed at the time. Rather than giv­ing up, he took it as a sign to pur­sue his dream in­de­pen­dent­ly.

In 2019, he en­rolled in a per­son­al train­ing course at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fit­ness Acad­e­my in Ch­agua­nas, where he suc­cess­ful­ly be­came cer­ti­fied, mark­ing the be­gin­ning of his fit­ness stu­dio. To build his rep­u­ta­tion as a new fit­ness in­struc­tor, he start­ed small by giv­ing free train­ing in his com­mu­ni­ty.

“So ba­si­cal­ly I start­ed out­doors; I start­ed in Grande out­door, like had a lit­tle free stuff at one of the sa­van­nah’s recre­ation­al grounds, so any­body in the com­mu­ni­ty who want­ed to come could’ve come. I brought some stuff like lad­ders, hur­dles, and some small weights, and I was of­fer­ing free train­ing,” he said.

The free train­ing was go­ing well un­til the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit, re­sult­ing in him hav­ing to shut down the train­ing ses­sion.

Lee did not let the chal­lenges of the lock­down stop him from pur­su­ing his dream. Af­ter the re­stric­tions eased, he rent­ed a small room above his land­lord’s prop­er­ty and con­vert­ed it in­to his first gym. With just a sin­gle tread­mill, a bat­tle rope, and an un­shak­able de­ter­mi­na­tion, he grad­u­al­ly built his gym from the ground up.

Just as Lee’s busi­ness was be­gin­ning to take off, un­ex­pect­ed chal­lenges arose. His land­lord re­claimed the space, forc­ing Lee to search for a new lo­ca­tion for his gym.

Tak­ing it as a sign from God, he set his sights on a new­ly con­struct­ed build­ing he had ad­mired for months.

“Fun­ny enough, I’m a per­son re­al­ly big on faith. When this place was be­ing built, I al­ways kept my eye on it, and when it was fin­ished con­struct­ing, I came and parked up out­side and said, You know what? I’m go­ing to bring my gym here. It was kind of pricey at that time, so when I wasn’t get­ting any place, I was like, let me reach back out to them to ask them if they were will­ing to drop the rent a lit­tle bit, and they agreed to do it. So then we moved in here and start­ed to pre­pare the place,” he ex­plained.

Known as the ‘Woman’s Gym’ since 98 per cent of the clients are women, the stu­dio has be­come a place where these clients can feel em­pow­ered. Bal­anc­ing his roles as a po­lice of­fi­cer, busi­ness own­er, and fa­ther, the 35 year old’s dai­ly rou­tine is noth­ing short of in­spir­ing.

His morn­ing be­gins at 4:30 am, train­ing his clients be­fore head­ing to his job in law en­force­ment. By evening, he’s back in the gym, wrap­ping up his day by 9 pm.

Guardian Me­dia asked Lee what in­spired him to keep go­ing on.

He re­spond­ed con­fi­dent­ly, “I have a daugh­ter; I have a sev­en year old, and I would like to cre­ate that gen­er­a­tional wealth for her, so she wouldn’t have to strug­gle and just have the things that I would’ve liked to have at that time of life.

“The ba­sics we want to have like a home, some mon­ey in the bank, just to give her a foot in. I want to be able to give her an op­por­tu­ni­ty where she doesn’t have to fight up for things that I was fight­ing for.”

Lee’s stu­dio is ap­proach­ing its sec­ond an­niver­sary this March, and he re­mains fo­cused on strate­gic growth.

“We want to be able to grow in a way that still main­tains the brand and the qual­i­ty and the ser­vice that we of­fer, so we don’t want to rush; every­thing is strate­gic, and we don’t want to be tak­en a set of peo­ple and lose that qual­i­ty or ser­vice that we pro­vide.

“So, it’s ba­si­cal­ly about growth, but time­ly growth,” he said.

Lee’s jour­ney from a young boy with big dreams to the own­er of a thriv­ing fit­ness stu­dio is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of faith, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty.