My mother died in a car accident when I was 14.

My 9 y/o brother was murdered when I was 19.

My sister committed suicide when I was 36.

My father died last year in Oct.

I was broke and struggled for most of my life.

Now I’m living the life of my dreams.

Don’t give up

My mother died right before I started high school. And instead of putting me in therapy, my father and step-mother sat me down, told me the news, and thought everything would work itself out.

It didn’t.

I ended up committing crimes, using drugs, getting arrested, and stole my parents’ car and ran away from home for a week.

When I came back home, I was put in a special class for “severely emotionally disturbed” kids.

Although my IQ was 120, I barely graduated high school.

When I made it to community college, I had to take a lot of remedial classes in math and other subjects because I was so behind in education.

But I felt like I had a second chance to do things right this time.

And I was living on my own and away from my toxic parents.

Not only did I start to get better grades, but the anger and depression I was struggling with improved too.

But the new found success wouldn’t last long.

When I was 19, my 9 y/o brother went missing.

My brother’s disappearance became national news.

This is a photo of my father and step-mother with President Bill Clinton getting a law passed to help find missing children.

But Jimmy’s disappearance was still a mystery.

A few months later, we learned the truth.

Jimmy was kidnapped walking home from school that day.

He was raped and murdered at the hands of his kidnapper.

Here’s the story if you’d like to read the details:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jimmy_Ryce

The truth of what happened destroyed our family.

My parents turned their rage and sadness into action, but left me and my sister to cope alone.

I started falling apart emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually.

After dropping out of college and wandering through life for a few years, I learned a powerful truth that would help me find purpose in my pain:

Getting in good shape physically makes it easier to get into good shape emotionally.

So I became a personal trainer in Miami Beach

I was living in Miami Beach at the time and had just quit my job.

I wasn’t sure if I was oils be able to make money as a personal trainer.

But I knew I loved fitness and helping people so I had to try...

The @EdenRocMia ended up giving me a chance and hired me to work the gym floor cleaning up equipment and putting back weights.

It wasn’t personal training, but it was a foot in the door.

And they said it would be 2 years before they would@let me work with clients

I took the opportunity.

And I started training clients for free in the gym because I loved to help ppl so much.

Instead of waiting 2 years, I was able to work with clients in two months because so many gym members wanted to train with me.

Fast forward a few years, and I was working with celebrities and CEOs of successful companies.

I thought I was on track to have a 7-figure net worth by the time I was 30.

I mean, how could I not be successful when I’m surrounded by so many successful people?

Because of a lack of business knowledge and communication skills...and investing money in the wrong things...I was never able to reach my financial goals.

I was charging $150/hour at the end of my training career, but I still struggled to pay my bills every month.

I felt like a loser.

And this went on for years.

Stuck in a cycle of charging high prices but never having the consistency to grow my business.

Then another tragedy struck...

My sister had handled my brother’s murder better than me.

Then she started struggling in her 30s after a failed marriage.

She started sinking deeper and deeper into a dark place...

At the end of 2012, just before New Year’s Eve, I got a call from my sister’s friend.

She told me that she found Martha face down in the bathroom surrounded by blood with a gun laying beside her.

She had taken her own life.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/miami.cbslocal.com/2013/01/14/sister-of-child-miami-murder-victim-jimmy-ryce-dead-at-age-35/amp/

Another loss.

My heart was broken again.

My father was devastated.

And a year of hell began....

What no one tells you about tragedy is that life goes on while you struggle.

Rent needs to be paid.

Lights need to stay on.

Clients need to be trained or they’ll find someone else.

So I took a week off, attended my sister’s funeral, and got the fuck back to work.

People think they hit rock bottom.

But I know from experience there’s always another level off hell to sink down to.

I should’ve gotten therapy.

But I felt like I was already struggling financially.

So I powered through it.

That said, a year later something happened that would put me on a path that would eventually change everything.

A year after my sister’s suicide, my podcast Legendary Life was born.

Have a listen here

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legendary-life-podcast-lose-weight-fight-disease-live/id870958144

Although podcasting helped me bring my expertise to the online business world and expanded my network in a way I never could’ve imagined, another struggle began...

I cut back on my hours of training people to work on my podcast AND I had to pay $1000/month to keep it going.

That was a lot of money for me at the time.

And I was still struggling from all the tragedy that I had been through.

Paying the bills became harder and harder as I stressed over how to make this online thing work.

I interviewed guests, got on other podcasts, did speaking events, wrote articles, and more.

But the truth was I still didn’t have a business.

It cost me more money to keep the podcast going than I was making from my online work.

Even though I keynoted conferences, I was broke

Then an opportunity happened.

Gisele, my business partner and wife at the time, had an incredible idea.

We managed to make a few thousand dollars after a successful campaign.

She looked me in the eye and said, “ We can keep doing what we’re doing. Or we can take a chance.”

She suggested that we leave our life in Miami Beach and move to Thailand to focus on our online business 100%

It took me 2 seconds to agree.

I had never been to Thailand, but whatever it was like, it couldn’t be worse than the life I was living.

On Feb 14th 2018, we arrived in Bangkok, Thailand

This would be our home for for nearly 2 years.

Here’s a photo from those first days. It was taken in Yao Warat road —Bangkok’s Chinatown

Although more struggles were to come, we had broken out of the trap we were stuck in.

We would go on to live in several cities in Thailand , Bali , Vietnam , Malaysia , as well as visiting places I’d never though I’d ever see like Singapore and Hong Kong

Fast forward to now, I work from my computer , help high-performing executives and entrepreneurs with their health, make more money than my younger self thought was possible, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Even with all struggles and tragedies in the past.

The moral of this story is to never give up on your dreams.

Stop a strategy if it’s not working and try something else.

Stay flexible.

But NEVER give up

I have big plans for socks media this year.

But what I’m best known for is my podcast.

If you’re looking to get inspired to take your health and life to the next level, give it a listen

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/legendary-life-podcast-lose-weight-fight-disease-live/id870958144