Let’s just say that I didn’t have the best childhood in the world. My parents divorced when I was five years old and that destroyed my life. I developed a severe case of anxiety. What did I do to cope with the pain? I ate. And I ate a lot.

I became the fat kid of the class who sucked at sports. Do you remember the guy that got picked last for sports? That was my childhood. I got picked on at school and life at home was not the best. I soon started feeling like I had no control over my life. This sense of being powerless made me develop a stutter.

By the time I was 14 I had lost complete control over my life and I was thinking about ending it.

For some reason I decided to join a gym on a New Year’s Resolution and that was it. That became my escape.

It took me 7 years of GRINDING to get where I am now but the lessons that I learned where priceless.

Lesson 1 – Don’t be afraid to create your own path

I’ve always been a nerd so it was natural for me to approach the gym with science. I started counting macronutrients when I was 15. There were no applications or programs for me to use back then.

I would constantly carry notebook and a calculator making calculations concerning the foods I was eating. I needed to make sure that I was consuming the EXACT amount of protein, carbs and fat in each of my meals.

I also had to make sure I was eating my meals at the exact times of the day. Everyone looked at me weird for doing this. I didn’t care. I knew that with time this was going to pay off.

Lesson 2 – Work your ass off

I lived by the following motto: “I don’t care if you’re better than me. I will work a hundred times harder than you. If I lose, it will not be because someone worked harder than me”

Every day at 3:15 I would raise my hand in class and run to my locker and get my pre workout meal. I would go eat it in the bathroom. Why? I wanted to have the exact amount of carbohydrates exactly 45 minutes before I was going to work out.

Every little detail counted. In the gym I worked out until I was about to faint. During my free time I would spend hours and hours researching every single aspect of training and nutrition.

Fridays were my favorite day of the week. Why? I could workout for 2 extra hours cause there wasn’t any school the next day.

Lesson 3 – Losing everything makes you stronger

I realized I was motivated to compete in bodybuilding my senior year in high school. But there was one problem.

I was born with a deformity where my chest bone and rib cage sank into my body. This did not look pretty at all and gave my entire upper body a very weird look.

I was so determined to accomplish my goal that I went through a surgery where they inserted a metal bar underneath my chest bone to push the entire rib cage outwards.

Imagine braces but for your chest bone and rib cage. I couldn’t work out for 6 months and my recovery was almost a year. I lost every single pound of muscle I had ever gained.

Do you think my friends supported me? They would constantly remind me that I looked anorexic.

Recovering from that surgery and gaining all my muscle back gave me the confidence to know that I could lose it all and would still manage to find the way to gain everything back.

That experience gave me more confidence than anything else. And yes. I still have a metal bar in my chest.

Lesson 4 – Embrace the haters

Everyone around me told me I wasn’t going to make it. Everyone around me told me that my tactics were weird and wrong. Trainers at my gym would mock me and tell me I would never get anywhere without steroids.

I took all of this as fuel to the fire. I knew that one day they were going to blush at what I was going to attain.

Prove people wrong just once and you will NEVER doubt yourself again. You will start believing you can do anything.

Lesson 5 – Each Day Counts

How fast you accomplish your goals is completely up to you. Each you have an opportunity to do one more thing that will get you closer towards your vision.

Christmas parties? I took my own meals to every single Christmas party and every single birthday. I refused to break my diet no matter the occasion.

I will admit that I went to a few parties throughout high school but I would always end up leaving towards the middle to go buy some yogurt from a gas station.

What happened with my stutter?

At age 19 I realized how much I had overcome. I realized that I finally had the power to control the course of my life.

This realization made me realize that I too had control over my speech. After one week of confidently talking to people, my stutter disappeared.