There are certain moments in time that can change the trajectory of your life, your business or life as you know it. I was reminiscing this past weekend about how far we’ve come over the last 3 years and some key moments that allow us to be where we are. This is a Radix Origin Story that’s a key in the success we’ve had so take a sec to buckle down and enjoy.
I started doing CrossFit in 2012 in Mississauga where Rach was the Head Coach and Manager. She taught me everything in those first couple years, we fell in love, got engaged, started a gym, got married, had a beautiful baby boy and it’s wonderful but that’s not the story for today. During my time at that CrossFit gym I made some good friends and a couple frenemies along the way, I never would have thought the impact that one friendship would’ve had on the Success of my families future business.
Sometime in 2013 I started coming to the morning classes at CrossFit and I joined the Athlete development program and trained with that group twice a week, that’s when I met Nick K. aka ‘Lonely Nick’ aka ‘Ol’ Man’. There were a couple people in the AD program who I didn’t care for but Nick and I hit it off pretty good. He was a meat head who enjoyed lifting heavy, being loud and who had trained with my Muay Thai Kru and owner of Kombat Arts Joey in the past. Little did I know he was some local Real Estate Celebrity lol.
Man did Nick and I have a good time in those classes, I remember one 930 am class that had bench press in it and it was me and Nick and The House Wives of Mississauga in the class. I was stronger than Nick in most lifts 🙂 but Bench Press he always out-did me, I remember vividly we were doing max reps at 260 pounds and Nick put up an absurd number of reps and I was spotting him. Then it was my turn and I got to my 7th rep and I thought I was gonna decapitate myself if I went for the 8th and I started to go to rack the weight up and BAM, I hear screaming in my hear at volume 100! You FU*#en GOT THIS!!! 2 MORE REPS!!! My eyes bugged out like WTF is this guy trying to do to me? Now there are 8 house wives watching me in pure surprise and horror and Nick screaming and me being like F it, I got 2 more reps or I’m gonna die either way it’s gonna be epic! I grinded through the 2 hardest bench press reps of my life with a big celebration and a lot of eyes rolling at the amount of testosterone displayed between to psychotic meat heads. LOL
You build a bond with the people you sweat and breathe hard with and I could tell more stories of The Saga of Lonely Nick and #Eat Like Dan(it was a # given to me by the AD crew cause of the absurd amount of donuts I consumed weekly trying to get stronger and didn’t really gain weight lol) We can save those stories for a different Newsletter let’s continue on…
Fast Forward a couple years later and I left that CrossFit gym as I was training full time clients out of my garage gym in Oakville teaching my brother, Danielle, Jacob, Jeff, Frazer, Nigel how to Crossfit! They’re all still members here to this day. I hadn’t really kept in touch with Nick after I left but one day I was going to make a deposit at the TD Bank across the street from where I was living and training out of on Kent Ave. and Nick was standing there in line. I walked up to him and we shot the shit for a while, I missed those training sessions. I asked him how his training was going and he mentioned he’d been dealing with a knee issue for a while and wasn’t having any luck with programming and it wasn’t healing. In that moment I could’ve said good luck with that and hopefully they can help you. Pretty standard but my immediate gut reaction was man I know that feeling too well I need to help him out, so I asked him if he’d be interested in me doing his programming to help him heal? He seemed super interested and agreed but I’ll never forget what he told me that LOL He was like “Dan listen I’m not guaranteeing you I stick with this long term””If I feel like I need to switch programs I will””It’s nothing against you, it’s just the way that I am””I could just want to go back to bodybuilding” I said “No worries dude, Let me just try to help your knee get back to 100%” Side note- That was 2014 and we’re in 2019, Nick’s been following my programming for almost 5 years now, I guess somethings working so far LOL
In 2015 we opened up here where we are today and I was still programming all Nicks workouts and he decided to come join us in our new location full time. That one meeting in a TD Bank and that gut feeling to help a friend get better has turned into over 30 members here at Radix, 4 midday classes, 3 PT clients and multiple 12 week challenge participants. Between Nick his brother Tom and Mike D. more people have heard about what I’m doing here at Radix then I could’ve ever imagined.
Don’t miss the small opportunities in life to make a difference, to reach out and help. I wasn’t doing anything spectacular and Nick paid me for the programming but in a moment of deciding whether or not to say something I did and it reaped major benefits to my future.
Thank you Nick! Thank you Tom! Thank you Mike!