Origins

Our Founder’s Story and Vision

Let’s start with a fair warning. Anyone who knows me is well aware that I can be long-winded, happy to talk... and talk… and talk… especially when it comes to everyday people and their health!

Why?

Because when it comes down to it, I love this stuff. I get so excited at the prospect of what singular actions can do for a person’s life, health, and happiness. Engineering health has so much potential for all of us; I start buzzing at the possibility of what’s available to you and me.

Keep reading to catch a little fire too.

My life has been perennially defined by a craving for movement, challenge, and growth. It doesn’t matter what kind; I’ve always wanted more.

At age 15 in the heat of puberty (fond memories for you too, no doubt) I came across an article in Scientific American that claimed creativity - a thing I’d assumed you were born with - was a skill. This meant that creativity, and pretty much everything a human body and mind can do, could be changed, shaped, or improved.

This set me on a quest for growth that has never really stopped, as I’ve explored and gained understanding of how we can utilize this concept to continually improve the health of everyday people.

Engineering, Quidditch, and Loss

I began college without a strong sense of what I actually wanted to do in life. I defaulted to Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering - I care about the environment and heard engineers made pretty good money. This would be a decent start until I better understood my own direction in life.

School was simple: working my tail off in a degree that sparked massive growth yet little passion, becoming a rock climber, and competing at the national level in quidditch (yes, this is my dinner party claim to fame).

It was during winter break my junior year that I unknowingly started down a new path…

My parents brought my sister and me into the dining room. There was gravity in the air; we’d never really been much for family meetings. Keeping her composure, our mother told us she’d been diagnosed with cervical cancer. The following days blurred and in that moment we entered a chapter that would change all of our lives.

I returned to school in the Spring as she began treatments, enduring a battery of chemicals, radiation, and surgery. As the process dragged on, her condition worsened and that fall I moved back home as her primary caretaker.

In spite of our efforts and those of her doctors, it wasn’t enough. Each day I furiously combed through the internet, hoping to find the cure - the answer - she needed. But, of course, that too wasn’t enough. 

Her 10 month fight with cancer ended Thanksgiving morning, 2013.

This was the most important wakeup call of my life.

I came across a quote at the time, and nothing has ever rang truer for me:

“Chaos is the most fertile time for change”

When our world turns sideways, we are faced with change, and if we embrace that change, we can shape our situation for the better.

Shifting into motion, I focused on passion and how I could channel it. Serendipitous events launched me into health and wellness; a space I’d been in love with since my early teens. Rather than solely pursue my own health and physicality, I was fueled with the recognition that what I chose to learn (or not learn) could have a very real impact on the lives of those around me.

In the years since, I’ve been fortunate to be a trainer, nutrition coach, educator, medical team member, speaker, and coach of coaches. I’ve gone through countless cycles of learning, interpretation, application, and evaluation. 

I’ve shared spaces with incredibly skilled practitioners, working with elite athletes, people battling lifelong obesity, the “tough cases,” and everyday people who want to take genuine pride in their bodies.

The amazing thing? I came to see that what drives results for every person can be traced back to the same overarching concept:

Spending Willpower Where It Counts Most

Science crossed with an understanding of the everyday person’s challenges means we can identify what you need to prioritize and how to make those priorities stick.

The result? We’ve built a model to help any person attain health they can be excited about.

Because in the end, what I want for you is the same thing I want for all of us. To possess the body, mind, and capacity to spend our lives doing the things we love with the people we love.

If you’re at all interested in how we can help you, I hope it’s now clear we would be excited to do so. Let’s start the conversation.

-Max