What's the story behind your why? We'll choose that one. What would you get to this point where
you care about this? For sure. How much time do we have to go for the elevator pitch version still?
Yeah, we'll keep it the bridge version. So, you know, I didn't grow up an athlete at all. That was
my brother in the family. I'm like the band kid math nerd of the family, but basically like the
typical story got out of college. I had gained a lot of weight in school, you know, shocker.
And basically had a visit with my doc and he was like, hey, man, like, you know, you're 300 pounds,
like you need to like get your act together basically. And so, you know, sort of have that
that that moment like that defining moment, like I need to make a difference and do make a shift,
you know. So I joined a CrossFit gym that had just opened up near me and down here in Princeton,
and started training and had really great results. Like within six months, I had dropped like
60 pounds. I was getting stronger, I'm more confident, all those things. And the owner
actually approached me and he was like, hey, man, he's like, you're here all the time. He's like,
people seem to like you a lot. Would you have any interest in coaching, like becoming a coach and
working on staff here? And I really I was like, yeah, absolutely. Jumped right on it and just
sort of fell into the position of being a coach. So I didn't, you know, I didn't grow up with the
dream or desire of coaching people. It just is something that happened organically. And I just
fell in love with it. So I started coaching folks at the physical brick and mortar location.
And then I had clients that, you know, were like, hey, man, like, I see what you're doing
online. Like, I can't be there in New Jersey. Is there a way we could work together like over
the Internet? And so I joked that I started coaching people online, like before it was cool.
This is like years ago. Spreadsheets and emails. That was I started coaching at CrossFit in 2011.
OK, so it was like shortly after that. That's fine. I had just learned about CrossFit as well,
because I was a lifetime fitness representative and some guy came in talking all about it. He's
like, cool. And like, I mean, like you, a Kool-Aid drinker. He was, you know, like, but it, you know,
it was all of a sudden I saw like, wow, what everybody else in the world now knows. Yeah,
yeah, no doubt. Yeah. So so I started kind of growing like an online base of clients outside
the gym. And then that progressed to I had like a smaller contingent of that group were like
business owners, entrepreneurs and things. And they were saying, hey, can you come in and like
talk to my staff? Like, your approach is different. It's been working great for me. And that's how I
got into like kind of doing seminars and talks. And from there, I was like, you know, I really like
being here and serving these people, but it would be cool to help them for longer than an hour.
You know, like just this one seminar. And so that's what kind of spawned like the corporate wellness
side of Paragon, which is my company. So we work with like small mid-sized groups, typically
companies that, you know, are forward thinking, they care about their employees, but they're not
afforded like the access to these bigger vendors because they're a small organizations. Yeah. So,
you know, we'll do like wellness challenges and like kind of ongoing programs for them. And then
I have the one-on-one online coaching side of it as well. And so I, I joke, I retired from coaching
CrossFit like a year and a half ago now when my wife and I moved, so a little too far away from
the gym, but, but I've kept up with the online stuff and I do that now. So that's how I got here.