My Path, The Challenges, Our Vision

After graduating from Bethel University in 2011, I started my journey in the health and wellness industry at Life Time Fitness out of Eden Prairie, MN, where my time was spent as a personal trainer. As a life-long athlete with aspirations of playing in the NFL, I expected my personal training business to be focused around athletes and helping them rise to the next level. However, it didn’t take long to realize that my passion and career was going to be centered around working with people from all walks of life as they fight through various challenges. My perspective at this point was that the problem and solution was to get off the couch, move, and leave the cookies on the shelf…while that is partially true, there is much more to weight loss and fitness success than that. The daily obstacles most people face involve mindset, failure, motivation, fear, disappointment and discouragement.

“My entire family is overweight, it is in my blood”

“I can’t do that, I am too old”

“I am too tired after work. I am on my feet all day”

“I don’t want people to watch me workout”

“Every time I try to lose weight, it doesn’t stick”

“I don’t enjoy working out, I can’t do this forever”

These were the true problems my clients were facing, and the problems that I needed to find solutions to. The truth is, I understood! As a matter of fact, I was incredibly DISCOURAGED by the fact that I couldn’t help everyone, especially when they didn’t have the energy to help themselves. It is a dangerous track to get on when you feel hopeless, but the true solution was to do something different, keep searching for a solution, and LISTEN.

Throughout this process, I continued seeking a career in professional football and even had some minor success, but really this time traveling gave me the ability to reflect and figure out what I was going to do differently for my clients and for the fitness industry in general. To be completely honest, I didn’t have enough clarity to start something on my own at the time but knew that I needed to do something different that the traditional personal training environment didn’t provide.

When my football career came to a screeching halt, I NEEDED to find something to compete in. As I struck out finding anything that would satisfy that void in competition, I was invited to a CrossFit gym in Chanhassen, MN. Well, needless to say…I fell in love for the second time.  Not because I was finally able to compete, but because I saw people of all ages, sizes, athletic backgrounds, and walks in life pushing themselves to the limit. This is what people need; an environment where technique is at its core, training instruction is a requirement, accountability is fostered, motivation comes naturally, and joy is brought back to the word “exercise”.

This is what Staylight Boot Camps are all about. We want to take people from all walks of life, help them find a community of people that can push them to limits they didn’t think were possible, and in turn transform their bodies and change their lives in more ways than we can put on paper. This is what we are excited about at Staylight, and what we will continue building upon to ensure our communities become healthier one day, one family, one person at a time.