”The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something” — these words of Naval Ravika capture the invigorating and beautiful life story of Rosamaria Rago. Popularly known as Rosa Rago, she experienced the bittersweet reality of life right from the tender age of eight. Born in North York, Ontario, the now 36 years old fitness and life coach was down in dumps regarding her family problems. Growing up in a home of physical, mental, and emotional abuse was tough. Her family struggled, her parents divorced and her parents filed for bankruptcy. Yet enjoyed a successful streak in sport, playing her heart out in soccer. Rosa played for the U17 Ontario Provincial team for 3 straight years in a row (ages 14-17), even training with NTCO (National Training Centre of Ontario from 16-17 years old).
In her late teens, Rosa began to develop a sense of responsibility arising from a yearning to help people. Watching her family suffer from mental illness awaken the desire to attend medical school and gather experience to make a difference in the world. She loved school, in fact, Rosa enjoyed a soccer scholarship at the Central Michigan University before eventually doing a 6-month internship at the hospital.
The 6-month internship served as a basis for a full turnaround, making her realize the overwhelming number of sick people — a realization that prompted her to dig deeper into the cause of illnesses and how to treat the underlying causes. To treat people such that they do not get to the fatal and pitiful state she saw at the hospital. And to also tackle what starts from the heart which is always the root of many human illnesses.
In a period spanning 2007-2012, Rosa’s career boomed as a fitness trainer. After ranking among the top five trainers out of 2800 across Canada at the Good-life fitness facility, Rosa Roga became the name on most clients’ lips and she started having a full plate of schedule, increasing the number of members for Goodlife. At 24, she was earning 6 figures and was a top seller at the company she worked for. As a top seller for the renowned fitness center, there was no doubt she was doing something right; reaching the heart of clients and helping them achieve wellness in all spheres of life.
Individuals who felt her passion and drive, alongside her brilliance petitioned Rosa to start a place of her own. At the dawn of 2012, she started her show which budded fast partly due to referrals and existing individuals who had her as their trainer for almost a decade.
Some turbulent points in her life came gradually and with lots of pains. Apart from her childhood trauma, Rosa was in four different accidents and one near-drowning experience within two years. One of the most tragic experiences was when she was struggling to recover at the hospital and the news of her parent’s divorce hit her hard. Her fourth car accident was the most fatal and left her with metal plates and screws in her arm. Despite the horrific experience, however, it happened to be a changing point in her life. Her body took longer to recover, and she couldn’t continue as an athlete. It all became worse when her body started to respond badly to workouts. This coupled with her childhood traumatic experience coalesced into a major breakdown. However, she wasn’t swallowed by her disappointment and problems. She chose to fight! To look beyond the present and focus on the future. To focus on her goals to become a better individual capable of assisting others with their hardships. More importantly, Rosa found God during this period. All these factors became a moment of change for her.
You know success is not limited to the material acquisition or the general notion of financial stability. It transcends all that to include getting better in a field. Rosa Rago’s growth in her field is a true definition of success as she was able to help her clients better and cover more areas beyond the physical. How? Since she had spent roughly 9 years with her clients, she was able to go over with a fine-tooth comb — having a full understanding of their challenges. In the past 2 years, she reverse-engineered these experiences to better attend to their needs. And to help not just the existing clients but as well as new ones. And during this period, she wrote her first and detailed book ” Journey to RISE: how to master self-love and discover your life purpose. A book incorporating her life experience and the Rise Method. Her life experiences as a personal trainer, how she recovered from 4 accidents especially the one that nearly killed her and left her physically unhealthy (experiencing a swollen body after physical exercise) for a period. All these coupled with a good knowledge of remaining positive during challenges earned her a reputation as the go-to guy for physical as well as relationship harmony, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and suicide, etc. Not that she made claims to help with these supplementary aspects, but while Rosa pointed out to people that she didn’t help with those things, she emphasized how she can help them with freeing their bodies — and teaching them self-love and her clients still chose her to be the be the person to help them through with her methods.
As the demand grew, Rosa knew she needed to devise a channel to reach more people efficiently and in less time. A decision that led to owning social media pages and creating rich podcasts.
Speaking about her vision, Rosa Rago says ” My students who have been with me for a while have become RISE Self-Love Coaches and Body Intuitive certified. I now offer certifications for the two. I also offer Journey to RISE retreats year-round. The vision is to create the RISE school, to help children of our future learn how to love themselves and understand who they are. To empower them to be fully self-expressed, and to eventually make the Journey to RISE a charity. I am so grounded in the vision of world peace, I will not stop”.
Rosa Rago’s story brings to mind the very core values that make the world a better place; which is to examine society from a microscopic view and assess some fundamental issues that can be tackled to make the world a better place. For Rago, world peace was her goal and worked hard to assist as many as she can to reach her goal. As you learn from this, remember the path wasn’t smooth for her, Rosa Rago persevered despite drawbacks; right from childhood and particularly during the series of accidents that affected her life. How wise and beneficial then are words of Al Goldstein in the case of Rosa Rago– The true success is the person who invented themselves.