From Mopping Floors to Building HUMN

HUMN did not start in 2025. It started much earlier, back when I was a teenager mopping gym floors so I could afford to train.

My first real job in the health industry was at a gymnastics gym called GymNasti in Wheaton, Illinois. I trained there during the off season in high school, but my mom couldn’t afford the monthly membership. I asked the owner if I could clean the gym after practice in exchange for training, and he agreed. If you have never been inside a gymnastics gym, it is essentially a large warehouse with padded floors everywhere. Cleaning it was not glamorous, but it was there that I learned something fundamental. Clean spaces create trust and trust is the foundation of any health environment. Even now, I believe cleanliness is one of the most overlooked elements of great facilities.

I spent so much time there that eventually the owner asked if I wanted to help coach the kids’ classes before my own training sessions. I said yes. For about two years, my days followed the same rhythm. I coached, trained, cleaned the gym, went home around 8 p.m., ate dinner, and went straight to sleep. Four hours a day inside that building became normal. Looking back, I was not just learning gymnastics but more so learning how health spaces actually function when no one is watching.

Leaving the Industry Without Really Leaving It

Life moved forward. I went to college and eventually built a career in tech at CDW. Fourteen years later, I found myself back in a gym only this time as a group fitness instructor. I started teaching part time at a friend’s gym while working full time in tech and that year felt like a tipping point.

I began waking up at 4 am and training became non negotiable. My workdays were full and my evenings and weekends were spent teaching classes. I studied for my group fitness certification through the American Council on Exercise and passed later that year. Not long after, I was recruited by Fitness Formula Clubs in Chicago. I remember how excited I was to be there. I fought for classes, not because I needed the money, but because I wanted the reps. I wanted to learn from people who took the craft seriously.

People in my corporate life would ask why I didn’t just become a trainer full time. I thought about it seriously but something didn’t sit right. I loved the industry but I didn’t feel called to a single role inside it. At the time, I couldn’t explain that feeling clearly. I only knew enough to trust it and keep leaning forward.

The Year Everything Shifted

In 2019, I went sober and that decision quietly reshaped everything. It felt like standing at a fork in the road. On one side was the version of myself I had known for years, the social and familiar version that had shaped much of my adult life. On the other side was something unfamiliar but steady, rooted in health, structure, and discipline.

After I got sober, I started questioning nearly everything, including how I spent my time, who I spent it with, and what I actually wanted my life to look like. It was uncomfortable and disorienting, but the one thing that remained consistent was training and teaching. That consistency mattered more than answers at the time.

I leaned further into that stability. I added a personal training certification and kept my schedule full. I trained in the mornings, worked corporate during the day, and taught classes or trained clients in the evenings and on weekends. I didn’t have clarity yet, but I had something equally important… momentum.

The Pause That Created Space

When the pandemic hit, gyms closed, social life disappeared, and everything slowed. For the first time in years, there was space to think. That stillness gave me clarity I had not had before. My girlfriend at the time and I made a decision that did not make much sense on paper. We quit our jobs and moved to Colorado with no plan and no built in network, only a strong internal pull that it was the right move. That decision changed the direction of my life.

In Colorado, I found mountain running and went deeper into obstacle course racing. The training demanded a different level of endurance, both physically and mentally. At the same time, I started learning content creation. With no in person clients or classes, I filled my time filming workouts, editing videos, and teaching myself Final Cut Pro. What started as a way to stay engaged turned into a deep obsession with the process of building something from nothing.

Building Something of My Own

Out of that period came The Hybrid Method, my online training business. That obsession carried me for years. I competed, podiumed, earned sponsorships, traveled, and built a life around performance. From the outside, it looked like I had found my lane.

Internally, I could feel another shift beginning. At some point, I started asking myself a question that I still return to today. Was I running away from something, or was I running toward something. Early on, being an athlete anchored me and kept me from returning to a life I no longer wanted. Over time, I realized that chapter was becoming increasingly centered on me and that realization did not feel negative. It was nice.

Integration Instead of Another Chapter

From mopping floors, to coaching, to teaching, to competing, all while managing a demanding corporate career, I had built a set of experiences that didn’t fit neatly into one box. I understood the health industry from the ground level and from an operational and enterprise perspective. It felt like the right moment to integrate everything rather than continue stacking chapters.

HUMN didn’t suddenly come into existence in 2025. It had been forming quietly since 2004. Every early morning, every late night, and every season spent balancing two industries began to make sense once I could see the full picture. I needed to understand the health industry deeply before committing to it fully, and I also needed to develop the skills required to build something durable. Systems thinking, operational discipline, and long term execution all mattered if this was going to be done the right way.

Where This Leaves Me Now

HUMN is not meant to be a moment. It’s meant to be a company that outlives me. That responsibility excites me more than anything else. I feel grateful that I get to build it and even more grateful that I get to do so with patience, perspective, and respect for the industry that shaped who I am. This is not a highlight reel or a conclusion. It’s simply an honest accounting of how time compounds when you stay close to the work. Your purpose rarely shows up early but it almost always shows up eventually. When it does, you are either ready to act on it or you are not.