This One Line Took Me Nine Years To Write. (I'm not kidding)

"Professionals Trainers Get Paid"

I sat in the Barnes and Noble cafe down the road from my gym. I liked the abundance of natural light from the glass storefront. I hated the faux wood tile floor. My MacBook displayed a single line of text across the black background of my notes app. 10/13/2016: "Professional Trainers Get Paid."

Nine F*ckin Years

I forgot that note. I forgot how mad I was when I wrote it. I was 28 years old then. As of that day, I had opened a gym with my first employee five and a half years prior and had zero dollars to show for it. I lived (roomed) with my brother because I couldn't afford the $800/mo house I was renting.

Tommy's was a madhouse. His animals and mine didn't get along. I came home late one night to blood everywhere. Fully expecting one or both of my dogs had murdered his beloved cat, "Kitty", I crept up the stairs to find my larger, older dog, Charlie, with a cat claw sticking out of his nose. Kitty sat far from reach on top of a dresser without a care in the world, still mocking him and flicking her tail, " I finally got you, you annoying asshat." I cleaned the carpet all night. Dog #2 was asleep on my bed, not like an angel. She was the only thing that wasn't going wrong.

I had maxed out my credit card limit to start a gym, lived off the little personal training income I made between classes, and tapped my nearly nonexistent savings during the months we didn't break even. Some other notable accomplishments were: attending my wedding and my divorce hearing in the same $300 suit. I fell head over heels for someone I wasn't ready for and ruined that, too. Somehow, as clearly an alpha male master of my domain, I thought I could pull off being a fitness hermit and foster dogs in a modest home, from which I would call the landlord to say, "I can't pay rent next month, what can you do for me?"

Evict me, that was what he could do for me.

So here I was, twenty-eight and single, in bed on a Friday night, with severely undiagnosed depression, wondering where it all (Me- Hi, I'm the problem, it's me.) went wrong.

Where was the good life I saw business owners living out on social media and YouTube? YouTube was a thing back then. Why wasn't I buff, rich, and hot, and everything they were? But mostly- why wasn't I rich? I was a great trainer, well worth being paid. "Where's my money!? Where's my life!?"-- I may or may not have barked into the abyss.

Charlie frantically answered by attacking the bottom of the bedroom door, looking to earn another nostril claw from Kitty.

That was nine years ago.

I am still in business.

I am still a great trainer, if not better.

And I got paid, but not in the way I thought.

Three people told me suicide was a thing for them before joining the gym. They are all still alive.

Strangers have become couples in my gym, and those couples have gone on to get married.

I have married some of those couples! Like, I wore slacks and made them say gushy stuff to each other and kiss at the altar.

I figured out the money thing. The gym has made multi-seven figures by this point. I've given most of it away and still refuse to buy a new car.

I have friends who have stuck with me through thick and thin, and the times I just mentioned.

I have found love does not only come into your life once.

I know what to tell people to do to lose their 1st or their 100th pound.

I know what to tell people who have just lost a loved one.

I make people laugh every day.

I'm the smartest guy in the room when I'm alone. (Mark today as done, you just fukkin' laughed.)

And I get to watch people smile every time they walk in, or have a fun moment, or break their old record, or meet a new "stranger" in class.

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Somewhere along the way, amidst all the life going on, I forgot about the money.

And yet, I am wealthier than "2016 Jeff" could have imagined, and in ways he wasn't mature enough to comprehend.

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So, today, nine years later (ten would have been way cooler though), I have updated that note to say:

Professional Trainers Get Paid Along the Way.

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