For years, my career was in fitness. I built my company with onsite fitness centers for government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. I sold my company in 2001 to a Corporate Medical company and became a subsidiary focusing on corporate fitness and wellness.  I traveled the world, had a powerful sounding title, wore a suit to the office (hated it), and worked as a high-level executive partner with some of the most famous clients in the world.  I was paid well, lived in a nice neighborhood and drove a fancy car.

But the story behind the story was that while everything looked good on the outside, on the inside I was hurting. The more successful I got at it, the less I wanted to do it. I got into the fitness business (against my Dad’s advice) to help others at a personal level, but here I was working with big corporations, and not at that one-to-one level.  I wanted to help people discover their passions and to help them dream big. I didn’t want the “spotlight.”

It’s funny — how something of sorrow happens that changes your life.  That something for me was in 2006.  My mother was in a Pittsburgh hospital in her final stage of cancer.  My whole family was with her.  She said she wanted to see each of her kids one last time.  I went first.  I sat on the side of her bed, she looked at me and said, “I am so proud of what you’ve done in your life, but you work too hard”!   I left the room in tears. 

She died two days later and, on my drive, back to Washington DC I decided that Mom was right.  I did work too hard and missed too many life events.  So, I went to the Chairman of the company and said – “I’m done”.  He said “What?  You need to think about this – you have the fancy car, the big house, more money than you ever dreamed and a country club membership.  Why would you want to give that all away?”  My answer was simple – “I want to do more”. 

So, a little more than a year after Mom died, I left my high paying job, sold pretty much everything I owned, including my house, and decided to take Mom’s advice and “live”.  I had promised her that at some point in my life, I would earn a master’s degree.  She also loved Ireland, so I combined the two and, in her honor, earned my Master of International Business and Entrepreneurship in Ireland (and played a little golf as well). 

That same year (2010), the Irish government asked if I would be interested in a PhD (they would pay for it).  I thought for a bit (3 more years of fun, golf and travel in Europe with an exciting opportunity to learn even more) and said yes, but only if I could study how we can use mobile phones to improve physical activity through social networks.  So they put me in the School of Engineering and I studied exactly that – disruptive health technology, Twitter and emerging business tools in the fitness industry.

I’ve been blessed to now be able to put all the pieces together – my exercise science education, my entrepreneurial skills, traditional learning of business and technology and my passion to help others to create a very unique and special brand that I hope to be able to share with you.  I now teach future fitness entrepreneurs how to “work smarter, not harder” and to achieve their dream of breaking free from the traditional gym and “dream big”.