Meet Renia: 20 Years Coaching Leaders and She’s Just Getting Started
When Renia Carsillo walks into Sol Fitness, she brings two decades of experience helping some of the most driven people in business find their footing again. As the founder and lead strategist of Realign Consulting, she has spent her career guiding founders and executives through the hard work of building something meaningful - without losing themselves in the process.
Now she's doing something she didn't entirely expect: getting her Certified Personal Trainer certification through Sol Academy.
And the more you learn about how Renia thinks about coaching - in any form - the more sense it makes.
A Coach Recognizes a Coach
Renia has been training in some capacity since her teenage years. But finding a gym that felt genuinely safe and welcoming - free from the kind of toxic gym culture she had experienced in the past - got harder as she got older.
When she relocated to Kentucky, she found Sol Fitness.
"Sol looked different when I found you online," she said, "and was different from day one."
Within nine months of training at Sol, Renia had lost over 20 pounds and was lifting the way she had in her early 30s. But she's the first to say that's not what keeps her showing up several times a week.
"I keep showing up for the women I train with and the trainers who hold space for us. It feels like the hour I spend there helps ground me for everything else I have to do that day."
That's not just a client talking. That's a coach recognizing what good coaching feels like from the other side.
Why She Chose to Go Deeper
Renia came to the CPT program with nearly two decades of studying Ayurveda and yoga already behind her. What she wanted was something she hadn't found yet - a grounded, science-based understanding of movement, anatomy, and the body's role in human performance.
"I wanted to learn more about why we train the way we do, how to spot movement patterns, and find community around some transitions I'm making in the work I do."
She already trusted Sol. So when she decided to pursue certification, the choice was easy.
What she found at Sol Academy wasn't just a curriculum. It was a hands-on, mentorship-driven experience - the kind that can't be replicated by an online course taken alone at a kitchen table. That distinction matters deeply to us at Sol, and it clearly mattered to Renia too.
Because she already knows what that kind of learning produces. She's seen it in the leaders she works with every day.
The Way You Move Is the Way You Lead
Here's where Renia's story becomes something bigger than a personal milestone.
Every day, she sits across from founders and executives who have built remarkable things - and quietly fallen apart doing it. "What I see far too often," she says, "is people who have sacrificed their health, their body, and their spirit to their business."
She's spent nearly 20 years helping people fix their businesses. But as she looks at the second half of her own life, she finds herself drawn to something deeper - helping leaders, particularly female founders, come back to themselves. Not just to their strategy or their numbers, but to their bodies, their energy, and the person they were before the business consumed everything.
The physical body work, she says, is part of that. And the more she trains, the more she sees why.
She put it this way: "Sustainable Courage - that's what counts. Not the guts to stand up once, but the practiced pursuit of doing what is aligned with our values over what is easy. Intentional movement practices build that, better than just about anything else. When I work with founders, I find over and over again that the way they move is how they lead, how they build, how they live. Tell me about your movement practice, and I have a pretty good idea of how you'll show up as a leader."
That philosophy - that physical training is inseparable from personal development - is exactly what drives Sol Academy's approach to certification. We didn't build the CPT Pro Series to produce trainers who just know the exercises. We built it to develop coaches who understand the whole person standing in front of them.
Renia understands that instinctively. She's been doing it for 20 years.
What She Plans to Do With It - and Why She's Not Rushing to Define It
Renia doesn't have a neat, mapped-out plan for how the certification fits into her practice. And honestly, that's one of our favorite things about her answer.
"I've had a very successful career as a coach and strategist, helping people fix their businesses," she says. "As I am looking to what I want the second half of my life to be about, I believe more and more that it's about helping leaders - particularly female founders - come back to themselves. The physical body work is a part of that."
And then, with the kind of clarity that only comes from 20 years of trusting your own instincts:
"I don't know exactly how I will use the certification yet. How it's always worked for me is that I pursue the things I can't stop obsessing about - and the connections find me."
For someone who coaches leaders for a living, she's modeling something worth paying attention to: the willingness to follow what's calling you before you know exactly where it leads. That kind of courage - the sustainable kind she talks about - starts with deciding to begin.
This Is What the CPT Pro Series Was Built For
At Sol Academy, we made a deliberate decision when we designed the CPT Pro Series: we weren't going to be another online certification. We wanted to build something that reflected how real coaching actually works - through relationship, mentorship, and hands-on experience with real people.
Because a certification that lives only on your screen doesn't prepare you for the human being standing in front of you.
Whether you're stepping into personal training for the first time, or you're already a certified trainer looking for deeper education and professional community, the CPT Pro Series meets you where you are and pushes you further than you expected.
Renia is proof that the path to this work looks different for everyone - and that the best coaches are often the ones who bring something unexpected to the weight room.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
The Sol Academy CPT Pro Series is open to aspiring personal trainers beginning their certification journey and certified professionals ready for mentorship, continued education, and a community that takes this work seriously.
Learn More About the CPT Pro Series → https://www.solacademylex.com/
Questions? We'd love to talk. Reach out and let's figure out together if this is the right fit for where you are.
