Career at Poliquin Group

well I think when I when I went to pollock and group so I started studying Charles's stuff when I was very young like 12 to 14 through muscle media and also testosterone.net which is now I I think it's T-Mag now. And when I read his articles, I was like, okay, I get this guy and his stuff, it works. And he became almost like a father figure to me. So I liked his humor and I liked the way he wrote and everything he said about Strength and Condition made a lot of sense. And then when I did the programs he put together and the periodization, it worked really well for me. So I said, okay, eventually I'm going to save up and I'm going to go take this guy's certifications. And then in 2007, I flew for the first time by myself outside of Texas and I flew to Chicago and I did my PACP1 and my bio-sig. And at that point I was hooked because the culture for, for Polycon Strength Institute was crazy. It was like a real, real brotherhood, sisterhood type of thing. And so it was always exciting. And you look forward to going to courses and, um, made a lot of really good friends that I'm still friends with now. I still go to courses with now, I still talk to now. Um, so over the few years, I kept going to more and more courses and eventually asked me to come and teach with them. So I did that. And then in 2013, um, they called me and said, Hey, do you want to come up? We have to shoot some material for, um, a video and for our new books and things like that. Do you want to come be the model? And I was like, yeah, sure. Like how close are you to being shredded? Dude, I was like 20, I was like 23, 24% body fat. I was fat as shit. And I went, uh, yeah, I'm pretty close. They go, can you be here in four weeks? And I went, yeah, sure. So they booked my flights and I shredded down to about 10 to 12 percent over four weeks, which is horrendous. And then I flew up there and I did some of the videos and the pictures and stuff. And they asked me to come back on full time. And I said, well, yeah, I'd love to do that. You know, at that point I was selling fitness equipment and things like that. And I said, yeah, I'll come back on. And they said, we have to move to Rhode Island. And I went, absolutely not. No fucking way. I'm not moving to Rhode Island. They said, well, we don't have part. We don't have full time for you unless you move here. And I went and I'll get. And then a few months later, I said, you know what? Screw it. And so I flew up there in our first meeting. Charles was gone. Andre Benoit was gone and Ryan Finley was gone. So I walk into this meeting and I go, hey, where is everybody? They're like, oh, they're gone. Like what? They go, yeah, you're now head instructor with Derek Woodsky. And now you're teaching all the courses. And I went, uh, OK. OK, so why did I move to Rhode Island if I'm going to be gone 230 days out of the year? And so, yeah, so then it just became this crazy, crazy travel schedule going all over the world. I never thought I would ever travel like that. I had no interest in traveling until that point. And then I fell in love with it. So, you know, a few years later, I was having some issues with the way they were doing things and some of the stuff they were teaching and me having to teach what they wanted me to teach. And I didn't agree with it. And I would have arguments with them in meetings.