Early Career and Mentorship with Charles Poliquin

at about 14 is when we finally got the internet so this is 1992 and that opened the world to me because up to that point everything that I was studying was only what I could find in our local library so it was like Jane Fonda books and like really crappy workout books from like the 60s and 70s. But when I got the internet, that opened up Charles Poliquin, who later became my mentor, and I became somewhat of a protege and took over parts of his job when I worked for his company later in life. And Charles Staley, Paul Cech, all these guys, like the heavyweights that were there before the industry was what it was. And so I got my start fairly early, started competing in powerlifting, football, baseball, track and field, basically everything you could possibly play. and then later I had the opportunity I'd never been out of Texas really I'd only been out of Texas a couple of times by the time I was in my mid-20s and I had the opportunity to go and basically do a do a seminar I attend a seminar by Charles Poliquin who if people don't know who that is he's deceased now but he was considered one of the world's like leading strength and conditioning coaches in the world and so I went to a few seminars kept going kept up communication started working for him and that was my start in the strength conditioning and personal training realm and at the time I think at 19 is when I first started actually training people I just turned 46 so I've been doing it a very long time and when I got into the industry it was one of those things where it was almost laughable like there were only a bunch of weirdos like me that were actually being personal trainers it didn't it wasn't a real job back then and like my parents laughed at me and my mom told me it would always be a hobby. I'd never make a career out of it. And now it's like the hottest thing. Everybody wants to be a personal trainer, you know? So yeah, so all that.