1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,800
What's the story behind your why? We'll choose that one. What would you get to this point where

2
00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:11,200
you care about this? For sure. How much time do we have to go for the elevator pitch version still?

3
00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:17,360
Yeah, we'll keep it the bridge version. So, you know, I didn't grow up an athlete at all. That was

4
00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:23,040
my brother in the family. I'm like the band kid math nerd of the family, but basically like the

5
00:00:24,080 --> 00:00:28,400
typical story got out of college. I had gained a lot of weight in school, you know, shocker.

6
00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:34,400
And basically had a visit with my doc and he was like, hey, man, like, you know, you're 300 pounds,

7
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:38,800
like you need to like get your act together basically. And so, you know, sort of have that

8
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:43,440
that that moment like that defining moment, like I need to make a difference and do make a shift,

9
00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:50,800
you know. So I joined a CrossFit gym that had just opened up near me and down here in Princeton,

10
00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:56,400
and started training and had really great results. Like within six months, I had dropped like

11
00:00:56,400 --> 00:01:01,200
60 pounds. I was getting stronger, I'm more confident, all those things. And the owner

12
00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:05,920
actually approached me and he was like, hey, man, he's like, you're here all the time. He's like,

13
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:10,000
people seem to like you a lot. Would you have any interest in coaching, like becoming a coach and

14
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,640
working on staff here? And I really I was like, yeah, absolutely. Jumped right on it and just

15
00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:19,040
sort of fell into the position of being a coach. So I didn't, you know, I didn't grow up with the

16
00:01:20,320 --> 00:01:24,720
dream or desire of coaching people. It just is something that happened organically. And I just

17
00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:29,440
fell in love with it. So I started coaching folks at the physical brick and mortar location.

18
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:33,920
And then I had clients that, you know, were like, hey, man, like, I see what you're doing

19
00:01:33,920 --> 00:01:38,640
online. Like, I can't be there in New Jersey. Is there a way we could work together like over

20
00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:42,640
the Internet? And so I joked that I started coaching people online, like before it was cool.

21
00:01:42,640 --> 00:01:49,840
This is like years ago. Spreadsheets and emails. That was I started coaching at CrossFit in 2011.

22
00:01:49,840 --> 00:01:56,800
OK, so it was like shortly after that. That's fine. I had just learned about CrossFit as well,

23
00:01:56,800 --> 00:02:00,720
because I was a lifetime fitness representative and some guy came in talking all about it. He's

24
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:06,960
like, cool. And like, I mean, like you, a Kool-Aid drinker. He was, you know, like, but it, you know,

25
00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:11,440
it was all of a sudden I saw like, wow, what everybody else in the world now knows. Yeah,

26
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:18,400
yeah, no doubt. Yeah. So so I started kind of growing like an online base of clients outside

27
00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:24,720
the gym. And then that progressed to I had like a smaller contingent of that group were like

28
00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:29,040
business owners, entrepreneurs and things. And they were saying, hey, can you come in and like

29
00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:33,360
talk to my staff? Like, your approach is different. It's been working great for me. And that's how I

30
00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:37,600
got into like kind of doing seminars and talks. And from there, I was like, you know, I really like

31
00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:42,640
being here and serving these people, but it would be cool to help them for longer than an hour.

32
00:02:42,640 --> 00:02:46,800
You know, like just this one seminar. And so that's what kind of spawned like the corporate wellness

33
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:52,000
side of Paragon, which is my company. So we work with like small mid-sized groups, typically

34
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,160
companies that, you know, are forward thinking, they care about their employees, but they're not

35
00:02:56,160 --> 00:03:01,840
afforded like the access to these bigger vendors because they're a small organizations. Yeah. So,

36
00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:06,480
you know, we'll do like wellness challenges and like kind of ongoing programs for them. And then

37
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:12,240
I have the one-on-one online coaching side of it as well. And so I, I joke, I retired from coaching

38
00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:17,120
CrossFit like a year and a half ago now when my wife and I moved, so a little too far away from

39
00:03:17,120 --> 00:03:43,360
the gym, but, but I've kept up with the online stuff and I do that now. So that's how I got here.

