Like a Boss

In today’s hustle culture, hungry entrepreneurs are encouraged to do as much as humanly possible. Having a job just isn’t enough. There’s so much pressure to have a side hustle, and even more pressure to have an extra gig beyond that, just something to show you’re out there grinding your hardest. Despite how much society idealizes this approach, it is not a universal guarantee for success, a lesson Ron “Boss” Everline learned the hard way.

After his dream of playing in the NFL evaporated, Everline became a serial entrepreneur in Atlanta, spreading himself thin between training, landscaping and a host of other projects. His plan changed after hearing someone call him “a jack of all trades, but a master of none.”

“For me, it was a tough thing to hear,” Everline says. “I thought I was going to be in the NFL and that was going to be my life’s work. I was just trying to figure out anything that could create any type of success for my life and it took me a few months to understand what had been said to me. I took it in stride and hyper focused on fitness, which made a really big shift in my life.”

Growing up surrounded by family members who’d played in the NFL, that was Everline’s No. 1 goal from an early age. Throughout high school and college he put his dream of playing in the league first, but ultimately, things didn’t work out and Everline found himself in Atlanta without a plan. Instead of pivoting to something completely different, he used his many years of training for the NFL to make a difference in other people’s lives.

“I had this lady who came to me at 300-plus pounds and she’d lost about a hundred pounds doing my football workouts,” Everline recalls. “She came to me and said, ‘You changed my life.’ She was crying because she was finally healthy enough to carry a kid and it really hit me that I’d drastically changed someone’s life through fitness. At that moment, I realized it was time for me to dive into this and make it everything I’d wanted it to be.”

To grow his business as a trainer, Everline knew he needed to set his clients up for successful and long-lasting results, a goal he has achieved by infusing the spirit of competitive sports into his workouts. “I love the idea of walking into a gym and competing as if you’re an athlete,” Everline says. “It’s really a mindset for me and it’s why my company motto is ‘Just train the mind and the body will follow.’ A lot of people think it’s all about body accomplishment, but to be a hundred percent honest, it’s about having the mental fortitude to continue to push through.

“I wanted to create a space that gave people hope and power to believe in themselves through exercise,” Everline continues. “I’ve seen it transform lives and I’ve touched hundreds of thousands of people. I’m very fortunate that I can scream at the top of my lungs that the methodology works. My training style may not be what some people consider the best, but it’s changed bodies and minds.”

Everline’s mindset not only applies to his work as a trainer, but throughout every aspect of his life. He instills commitment through his training, even when a workout is especially challenging, which comes in handy when enduring a grueling tattoo session. “I have a sequoia tree tattoo, which represents motivation and dedication,” Everline says. “It took three 12-hour sessions and I still think that I have more work to do. I wanted this tattoo to be symbolic and have a true meaning that I can build around.”

There are plenty of personal trainers working a proven methodology with their clients, but chances are you don’t know who they are. It was Everline’s tactful use of social media that allowed him to take things to the next level. Well, that and his cadre of celebrity clientele, notably comedian Kevin Hart, who’s been in his corner long before he developed his fitness empire. “I met Kevin back in 2004 when I was playing college football. We went to the same barber,” Everline recalls. “When I started training Ne-Yo, Kevin said to me, ‘Hey man, I need a trainer.’ I saw my career going on an upward trajectory and I told him that if he wanted me as his trainer I needed to be his business partner as well. That partnership has created so much and we have a long-lasting relationship that’s grown past fitness.”

When Hart suffered major injuries from a car accident in 2019, Everline was there alongside him every step of the way, even helping the comedian relearn to walk. “It’s very sensitive for me to talk about because when you see your friend go through something like that, it’s tough,” he shares. “When he was in the hospital, there wasn’t much I could do for him but I wanted to just be there. There were days where I would show up and they didn’t even need me. As strong as he is, I know how it is when you’re in a tough spot, and I knew that being there mattered.”

Everline was once called “a jack of all trades, but a master of none,” but no longer. Instead of letting the comment deflate him, he used it as motivation. Through decades of hard work and dedication, he’s taken the fitness world by storm and become a true master of his trade. That’s what being a boss is all about.