Built from the bottom.
Refined at the top.
Still in the work.
Before KVFL, before really anything, my life was about avoiding how I felt. Skating, binge-eating, doing drugs, that was it. Chasing dopamine to drown out the self-pity. Even becoming homeless multiple times in the process. I'd try to change, occasionally. A couple of days of dipping my toes in the water, then nothing. It never felt like I failed, because it never really began. Then a major injury at the skatepark took away my main escape. Borderline disabled, I tried drowning myself in more video games, weed, and binge-eating. But I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't just stagnate while the world passed me by.
...So I stopped dwelling and started moving. Moved back in with my family, quit drugs, got surgery, went back to college, and got into fitness. Fitness made me feel like I was building something worth respecting. But I had no idea what I was doing. Way too much stimulus, with no recovery. Cutting so aggressively I was nearly passing out. My numbers plateaued and I couldn't figure out why. Seems obvious now. Driven by my love for training, I left uni and got qualified as a personal trainer. Threw myself at books, podcasts, and the coaches around me. My drive paid off as my physique, strength, and understanding skyrocketed. But getting training right was only one piece. The rest of my life was running at a pace I couldn't sustain...
...Now I coach full-time whilst trying to grow in every direction I can. My life had gone from one extreme to the other. It goes without saying, I was burnt out. A lot. Weeks of brain fog, insomnia and chronic stress, because I refused to go back to who I was before. Everything, every client, every idea, every workout, every priority, I'd give it 110%. But eventually I realised I was throttling myself. I was limiting my own potential by refusing to accept that not everything deserved 110%. So I learnt how to manage it all. Not from a textbook. From lived experience.
I don't coach from theory. I coach from every version of this I've personally built my way out of.