Throughout my entire youth, people told me "You Can't..." more times than I can remember. You can't do anything; you can't play baseball, you can't play football, you can't wrestle, you can't sing, you can't be in the play... it went on and on. It was always about what I couldn't do and not what I could do.

Fast forward to being a young adult. People told me I couldn't my entire lift up until then, so I always assumed I couldn't. No matter what it was. I lived my life being a submissive people pleaser, always going with the flow and doing what others wanted me to do and not what I wanted to do.

The constant barrage of "can't" led me to believe it was my destiny always to fail. It's what made me twice try to fail out of life ultimately. (I mean, I failed at that, thankfully.)

I sort of stumbled around for a while. I still remember back in 2015 when I tried for the umpteenth millionth time to go to the gym at New Year and overheard someone comment on me behind my back about how I would fail out before the end of the month. I did because I felt so bad, and I still had that mindset. It wasn't long after this I was told if I didn't change my ways, I would be dead before I was forty.

Some months later, I received that fateful call that changed the course of my life; it was my soon-to-be coach who would help guide me to the next part of my life. Through fitness, I turned things around, and it was through the support of him and the other coaches in my gym that I became a more confident person than who I was.

The thing about those times at that gym was that no one ever said to me, "you can't." They challenged me; they pushed me. Here I was, a 38-year-old severely overweight guy who had never seriously lifted weights and had never done things like kettlebell work, battle ropes, and other functional fitness stuff. It's sort of funny thinking back to how many of the things I was doing, my coach, were doing the same things. Here was someone with years of experience in fitness, and I was doing the same things he was doing! When things started clicking, and I told him I wanted to go at it hard, he let me. I remember telling him, "train me like you would any person who was your age," and he did. I persevered. I thrived. 

There was this one moment that still amuses me to this day. It was deadlift day for both of us. It's a small gym, and we're both in the corner deadlifting—our bars striking the ground sometimes at the same time. 

It was always a challenge, but I always pushed through. I loved it. It's still some of the best years of my life, thinking back to those days of being in that small gym in a rural town. 

These days I'm a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and no less ferocious about going after my workouts. I might be 39 and a nickel, but it doesn't mean I ever let it slow me down.

A little less than six years ago, I fell in love with fitness and movement, and I haven't stopped. I will continue to push hard until my body says it can't. I genuinely do believe that age is a mental state of being; people say they don't believe I'm in my 40s, and I think a lot of that is because I don't believe I'm in my 40s. I don't train like someone who is in their 40s. I work hard.

These days, if anyone says "you can't," I take it as a personal challenge. "The hell I can't." The only one that will make the decision that I can't do something is me; over the years, I've learned my limits. My only goal is success. My mantra is "Be Untamed," and damn right, I will be untamed. 

"You can't" isn't in my vocabulary. Maybe "you shouldn't" should be, and I'm always learning more. The only person who knows their body best is themselves. I've finally learned to listen to it much better than I have in the past, and I actually listen... most of the time.