I only look in the mirror to ensure I’m squatting correctly.

I am a very private person. Talking about myself is not easy. I just don’t talk very much at all. Even around the people I love the most I’m quiet. Sometimes my mom and I will not say a single word over lunch, and it’s great.

I don’t like posting pictures of myself on social media. When you like my pictures, it makes me uncomfortable. I know that’s weird. I know other fitness people post a lot of selfies, and I know they’re using the mirror for more than just checking their form. Sure, they’re really fit and their bodies are hot. But their posts might as well be captioned, Look at me, look how great I look! I don’t want you to look at me. I don’t want you to tell me how great I look. I’m here to champion  you: I want you to look at yourself, to think you  look great. It’s not about me.

Until now! I’ve decided it’s time for me to be uncomfortable. No, I’m not going to start posting a bunch of selfies, I’m going to start talking about myself in this weekly blog. I’m nervous about it. But it’s only fair. I ask a lot of you each time you walk in the door at JSF; I ask you to be uncomfortable, to push yourselves, to learn, to grow. I’m so proud of what you all accomplish here. I have the best clients and the best trainers, and I owe you all the best of me too. So here goes, because if you all can do it, so can I.

Here are a few things you probably don’t know about me:

· I love going to the movies. I go every week, sometimes even twice a week, frequently by myself. The last movie I saw in the theater was MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. It was okay. I got popcorn, no butter.

· I am the shortest man in my family. My dad is 6’4” and my brother is 6’6”. I’m 5’11”.

· My favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin. I don’t otherwise like raisins.

· Every Sunday I drive out to the country to help my dad. In 16 years I have only missed four Sundays; two because I was in China, one because I was in Belize, and one because I’d had my wisdom teeth out and at 30, it was especially tough.

· I am a neat freak. My house is always VERY clean.

· I can play the piano, the organ, the saxophone, and the drums.

You probably already know that I have a lot of energy, but here’s something else you probably don’t know:

When I was in elementary school I had a really bad stutter. It was terrible. There was so much going on in my head but I couldn’t get any of it out of my mouth, and it was frustrating and embarrassing. Luckily my school had a speech therapist, but I was so shy about needing help that I would hide between her office and the classroom so the other kids wouldn’t know what was going on. I spent two years working on fixing my stutter.

Ultimately what I learned in speech therapy was that there is literally no way to verbalize even a fraction of what is always going on in my head. This realization changed my life. Over the years I’ve had to work really hard on harnessing my brain’s frenetic energy and translating it into something productive. It has not always been easy, but I feel like it’s working. Look at what we do here at JSF; where else can you get 70+ different classes a week under one roof?

Through this journey I have become a very deliberate person. All that not talking? It’s often because I’m thinking. I want everything I say to mean something, so I think a lot about everything I say before I say it. I’m already thinking a lot about what I’m going to write about in this blog. I have some ideas – I’m going to talk about Gamecocks tailgating, and about my morning routine, and about cooking – but this is an exercise in discomfort, so – what do you want me to talk about? Please comment below, and I’ll think about it.  :)