MINDSET

Fitness has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. There wasn’t a lot to do (safely) growing up in Liberia, West Africa, so us kids were always playing some sport. War came, and we emigrated to the United States. Not sure what club sports was like then, probably as big as it is now, but I do know my dad knew nothing about it. I did attend a small high school, though, so I had the opportunity to be a multi-sport athlete. I mostly grew up on a beach too, through high school, so lots of beach volleyball as well.

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I was a point guard, and that helped me become a decent setter when my school started a boys program. I learned many lessons through team sports and from my coaches.

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I think that experience shaped my response to the adversity we all face daily, in some way. My dad was on a plane into Chicago on September 11, 2001. We were told his plane was either hijacked or shot down. It, in fact, was almost shot down. I had lost my mother suddenly several months earlier to pancreatic cancer, and dealt with my father’s cancer diagnosis a few months after 9/11.

 

9/11 crystallized my vision for my life. It drew me to the law, and to the service of my adopted country.

You see, my dad rarely spoke about his life. But, every now and then, he’d slip.

 

Born in a colony, to a local villager from a well-known tribe. Participant in two civil wars. Escaped his country and left his mother and siblings after ordered to a concentration camp. Dreamed of coming to America.

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America was the shining city upon a hill to my father, and it was good to my family. I owed it service.

 

I decided to forego a more lucrative path and put on the uniform in 2012. For the next eleven years (one month and two days), I advised commanders, served as a prosecutor, and represented Airmen facing discipline and court-martial in trial and on appeal. I represented the man that almost killed my dad in my last litigation assignment.

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Fitness is not only advisable in military service, it is a job requirement.

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I was introduced to CrossFit in 2014. I wasn’t a fan. Too fast. Too heavy. Too dangerous.

 

Then I took the L1 Trainer course. And the purpose of functional fitness clicked. It’s not the stuff you see on social media, that’s the “sport” of CrossFit; it’s the real life that’s happening inside the box. The athlete building capacity, agility, and mobility. The athlete taking back control of his or her health and fitness after years of life.

 

I became a convert.

 

Not to the flash of the “sport” of CrossFit, but to the mission of building health and fitness through functional fitness and accessible nutrition.

 

After several years of considering when it was time to return to civilian life, I decided to hang up my boots and return to civilian life after my last litigation assignment representing the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

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My fitness story began in team sports as a student-athlete. It matured through my military service. And through this journey, the mindset I bring to the coaching relationship has been shaped by constantly digging deep to overcome adversity.

 

This isn’t just a business. It is my way of life.

 

Forward. Always Forward.

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