Insight, A Warning, and an Apology
In 2019 I was accomplished, financially successful, and faced with unlimited possibilities. It would appear from the outside looking in that I had succeeded. All of that was about to change, and it was all my fault. This short story is a cautionary tale to all of you overachieving crazies out in the world. You know who you are. You are successful in one or a handful of areas in life, but there always seems to be something missing. There has to be another challenge to overcome. You are constantly asking yourself, “This can’t be all that there is or all that I am capable of.”
That has been me my entire life, and I have never stopped to wonder why until now. My hope is that I can help one or two of you to avoid a few pitfalls that I have just experienced, and hopefully I can entertain you along the way. This is me making myself vulnerable to all of you in hopes that I will learn something about myself in the process while saving all of you the heartache and frustrations. However, I will also make note of the invaluable personal growth that I have experienced by taking a few risks and following my passions. Coach Dave Spitz always says, “we’re either winning or learning”, and I believe that statement to be, outside of God’s precepts found within the Bible, the most crucial value to live by no matter your path in life. These last two years have been filled with a lot of mistakes, hurt, and loss, but I have experienced an equal amount of success, wins, and personal growth.
Well, that’s what all of you stand to gain by continuing to read on. Plus, I believe that more successful people should be honest about their failures. I am doing research right now in the area of daily readiness for athletes. As part of my literature review, I have combed through most of the research that relates to negative psychiatric and physical side-effects of social media. Humans alike are suffering from depression, fatigue, and burn out due to an increased frequency of social media use. Social media use has led to the Fear of Missing Out (FoMo), due to the incessant need of humans, this can’t be limited to youth anymore, to be popular, wanted, and noticed. This leads to people constantly comparing themselves to their friends, competitors, or to the people they want to become. Most fail to remember that they are only seeing a snapshot into the lives of the people they follow. It isn’t full truth just a partial peek at who they want the world to believe they really are. Never before has there been a need for transparency than right now in this generation and time.
This short story is an attempt to do just that, to be transparent. I am human just like you. The more you get to know me might lead you to believe that I am nothing like the character you might have created in your mind. I am a person that loves the Lord, but makes a lot of mistakes. I am thankful for a forgiving Savior. I love my wife an enormous amount, and I believe her to be my biggest accomplishment in life. I have four children that I love very much, one out of wedlock during my younger nonbelieving years. I was a terrible father to her, and find myself regretting that every day of my life with no way to go back and make changes. I sometimes still fail her as I can’t seem to break the communication code with her, but I will continue trying. I love to learn new things, and lately see this as my favorite hobby. I am a former world champion and world record setting powerlifter, but I find it hard to remember that person at all.
Most of you know me as Coach Travis Mash, the strength coach and weightlifting coach. My team has been responsible for 30 Team USA Athletes in the sport of Weightlifting, hundreds of Division I athletes, several collegiate athletes in just about every sport at every level, several professional athletes (NFL, NBA, and MMA), world champion and world record setting strength athletes in every discipline (Powerlifting, Strongman, CrossFit, Highland Games, Bodybuilding/Figure, and of course Weightlifting), and regular people trying to be their very best.
However, I am at a crossroads in life where I know that my full-time coaching days are nearing an end. I am aiming for 2024 and the Paris Olympic Games, but I am struggling. Here begins my explanation of where I am in life. I felt this change coming on since 2019, and so have my athletes. Don’t get me wrong. I still want to coach, but in a limited capacity. Coaching requires a person to give almost everything of themselves. These athletes become family, so you are required to have a bandwidth massive enough to fit them, your family, God, and yourself. I am out of room! I sometimes think that fulltime coaching might best be served by a single man or woman or by a coach that has children grown and on their own. However, this is just a thought, and I am in no way judging. Several of you seem to be doing a great job of balancing both.
Before I dive into the decisions that led to the disastrous past few months, I need to explain the internal conflict I have faced since childhood and continue to face to this very day. I am not sure exactly when it started, but I am quite certain I know when this inner voice took control of my life. I have always desired affirmation from others. I wanted to make my mother and father proud of me as well as the rest of my family and friends. I didn’t just want their affirmation, but I actually felt a driving need for it. When I was in seventh grade, my mother met my stepfather, Randall Eller. He was and still is a bigger than life character. He was a great athlete, and still one of the greatest entrepreneurs that I have ever known. He lifted us out of poverty in what seemed like overnight. I had spent my life watching my mother get up at 5am to get me ready for school before she left for her factory job. She would come home exhausted from a long day of line production life. I remember her working three jobs, and she still seemed to make time for me and my sister. However, I also remember staring at the worry in her eyes as she struggled to pay the bills each and every month.
Randall rescued my mother out of all of that along with my sister and me. I went from being teased as one of the poor kids to a spoiled rich boy in what seemed a blink, but this is also when the inner-voice took over. Randall taught me to be a winner. He taught me the work required to be successful in sports and business. Everyone in the community looked up to this man, and I was the president of his fan club. I craved his attention, and more importantly I wanted to make him proud of me. He had two sons that he absolutely doted on, and so did I. I took my stepbrothers as real brothers. I loved them more than most of you love your blood siblings. They were six and eight years younger than me, and yet I took them into my heart fully where they remain to this very day. Oh man, they were incredible athletes, and they could drive just about any vehicle or machine on earth at a very young age. Genetically they were way more gifted than me athletically and mechanically, and all that Randall talked about was their skills and abilities.
This caused me to develop a work ethic that far exceeds most humans. I spent all of my time working out and practicing my athletic skills. I would go outside and shovel the driveway during snow storms, so I could practice basketball. When I met him in seventh grade, I was just a kid glad to be on the team hanging with my friends. I literally drove myself to becoming one of the best athletes in my high school just to get his approval. This also led me to become the world champion powerlifter, a successful entrepreneur, and one of the best strength coaches in the world (arguably, trust me I know). Yes, it led to all of these great rewards, but I was still missing his affirmation. I just wanted him to say that he was proud of me just once. I wanted him to acknowledge me as one of his, but none of that was ever to come.
What I did experience was conflict between him and my mother sometimes violently. By the way, this was my second stepdad, but more of that in another story. The point is my mother was married three times, and we moved a lot. Subconsciously a child starts to believe that he or she is somewhat responsible for the men coming and going. I suppose that had something to do with my obsessive desire to obtain affirmation from this man. At the end, I wanted our family to stay together with all my heart and soul. I would come home from Appalachian State University and sometimes find them together, and I would be so exuberantly happy. My joy and self-worth relied on my family being together. I felt like I was more accepted and elevated within the community when my parents were together. When they would split up, I felt hurled right back into my position of disparity within my small-town society.
Thank God Kevin Jones (KJ) entered my life also in seventh grade. He was my best friend and remains so to this very day some 35 years later. Most of you probably have a best friend, but I doubt any of you have someone in your life like KJ. He was my rock in a life that tossed around like a sailboat in a hurricane. He had a similar life with a single mom raising KJ and his two siblings. His family also struggle financially, and he had a dad that was in and out of his life. It would probably have been better for his dad to stay out of his life all together. He was so driven, and possessed the extraordinary skill of not only leadership but the ability to make people see their gifts and skills that they had never realized existed before meeting him. He did that for me. Randall gave me the desire for greatness, but it was KJ that opened my eyes to those realities in existence already within me. He gave me confidence when I had none. He forced me to persevere when I wanted to quit. He inspired me to be better each day than the day before. He made me believe that greatness was possible. All of his employees at Celero Commerce, his company servicing $10 billion dollars in annual payment volumes, know exactly what I am talking about.
KJ seemed to have been born with a never-ending supply of confidence along with a drive that refused to retreat or surrender. He did have a mother, Mickey, that loved him and believed in him. She did the same for me as I still look at her as a second mother, God rest her precious soul. However, like me, the men in his life didn’t understand him. You see, his grandfather and uncles were all successful people in our Mountain Community. Their family business is Christmas Tree farms and produce, Furches Family Evergreens. KJ was never drawn to their business, and he chose college instead. At first, he entered community college to save money, and then University of North Carolina at Greensboro. That’s when he began to excel in school and leadership. He’d always been a great athlete, but in college he became something quite extraordinary. However, his grandfather and uncles thought he was just wasting time and money. They even considered him lazy simply because his path was slightly different. This can be devastating for most causing doubt in one’s talents and ability to succeed. For some reason, KJ was able to ignore them, and was able to succeed in spite of their unbelief. His actions remain inspiring to me still yet today. Not only did he inspire me to expect more from myself, but he also provided consistency in my life. My parents might split up, but KJ was and is to this day a rock that I could count on. He was there to pick me up when I would fall. He was there to tell me when I was being soft, but he was also there to lend a shoulder to cry one during times of sorrow. Sometimes I wonder if I don’t really owe him my very life as there were a few times where the world appeared completely dark and dismal except for that bit of light in my life that KJ provided. Only God knows!
KJ brought out my confidence to believe and taught me to conjure those skills to the surface already present deep within. His work ethic is unremitting, and he expected me to be the same. His influence and belief in me allowed me grow as an athlete and person in ways that aren’t common in my family. College was a rarity in my family. My lineage is one of hardworking men and women with a focus on family and a touch of wild. Risk is uncommon as most get a job out of high school and work hard at that job. They do tend to rise within their individual organization, but they are a very grounded group of people. I get it! We hail from the Appalachian Mountains. We know hard times. We know poverty unlike most any of you will ever witness. The winter months in the mountains can be unforgiving. My point is that I had plans that required a quite different approach and path in life. Playing football at Appalachian State University was the next ingredient needed to boost my confidence to face my fears and take calculated risks. We had a coach that expected greatness, and my teammates expected the same. By the time I graduated this culture had been transferred to me. When I graduated from Appalachian State University, I had no problem jumping in my car with only $200 in my pocket to make the journey to Colorado Springs to pursue my dream of Weightlifting with no place to live, no job, and absolutely no guarantees.
I officially became the Black Sheep of my family. No one understood me, and the truth is that I don’t blame them. When I think back to my actions, even I am in disbelief that I made that decision. However, thanks to KJ and a cousin that deserves an introduction as well, Kimberly Simmons, I had developed the skills and the bravery to partake in such a risk. By the way, Kimberly, my cousin, is five years older than me. She’s actually Dr. Kimberly Simmons, PhD, and another inspiration in my life. She was the one person in my family that encouraged me to follow my dreams, and she too like KJ has always supported me and believed in me.
I hope that I am getting the point across of the importance in supporting your friends and family. You never know how important a little encouragement and belief in another human really is. You can literally alter another’s destiny by helping to shift his or her reality paradigm. On the other hand, you can be the one to shift that reality paradigm in a way that never allows that person to fulfill a destiny otherwise incredible.
This may seem like a lot of useless detail, but stay with me as I finish developing the root cause of the current reality. I have a mother that has always been loving and supportive of me to a point. She believed in my abilities to succeed, but there was a limit with her own definition of success. She demanded the best in me when it came to school, athletically, and socially. She wanted me to have good grades. She loved that I was a star athlete, and she absolutely demanded that I hung out with the popular kids in our community. I definitely owe her dearly for my success in common demands in life. However, when I told her about my dreams that appeared uncommon of our family norm, she lacked understanding and belief. I don’t blame her. A person only knows what they have been exposed too, and I believe that she did her absolute best. I mean this lady worked herself to the bone to support me and my sister, so this is not a knock on my dear mother. However, that doesn’t make her actions any less paralyzing to me.
Just this past week, I was with my family in the mountains at my dear mother’s home. I had found one of my old creative writing books from college. I had also found a novel I had read during college, Oral History, by Author Lee Smith. I told my mother that Lee Smith had been a guest lecturer at Appalachian State University in a creative writing class that I was then a part of. She had encouraged me to pursue writing, and set me on a path that I am still journeying. I was hoping to impress my mother that a New York Times Best Selling Author had encouraged her son to be a writer, but instead she only said “don’t you wish you were a writer” once again causing an all too familiar internal conflict.
You see that response is a typical response from someone who has never pursued his or her dreams or stepped outside their comfort zone. Her life is filled with “could haves” and “should haves” as are most humans. It’s simply hard for her to empathize with me as she no experience pursuing such risky ventures as writing. When I pursued a career in weightlifting and later powerlifting, she would frequently encourage me to “get a real job” or ask me when I intended to begin a “real life”. As a parent, I understand her much more than before because I am sure that she wanted me to live a safe and secure life. However, it’s these moments of doubt from my mother that cause an exceedingly dark internal conflict within my very soul. On one side I am angry and determined to prove her wrong and to show the world my greatness, but on the other side I am battling doubt. When your mother expresses her doubt in your abilities, it’s near impossible not at least ask the question, “Is she right?” Now that I have developed this final potential element relating to my internal unrest, I can get on with the story.
This obsession to prove my worth in high school athletics was transferred to the world. Each season of my life has added to my confidence and actual abilities. The moment I decided that I desired to be the best powerlifter in the world and desired to do so by breaking the then 15-year-old world record of the legendary Ed Coan was the moment I set myself apart from the rest of the overachievers in the world. At that moment my obsession of greatness became what most considered madness including myself at times. This is where my desire to prove my worth to my family, the world, and ultimately to myself became potentially destructive in a way that relates to my current situation. Now I will let you all into that dark part of my brain that I wrestle with all too often. Get ready because this is also the part of the story where I open up more about the real me. If you wanted to know the human side of me to feel better about yourself, you will enjoy the next few paragraphs.
The Quest to Become the Greatest Powerlifter in the World
By the time I began my quest to become a world champion powerlifter, I had blossomed as an athlete physically and more importantly mentally. This began in 2001 when I became a professional powerlifter with the newly founded World Powerlifting Organization. It was 2003 that held the event that eclipsed any doubt that others or myself might still have in my abilities. I believed that I could become the greatest, but that belief grew with each victory. In 2003 that belief took on its own life.
It was the end of summer of 2003 in Biloxi, MS at an APF Invitational Meet directed by the legendary Joe Ladnier. At this point in my career, I had totaled somewhere around 2,200lb still 200+lb from the all-time world record of 2,408lb set by Ed Coan some fifteen years in the past. Even though I believed that I was capable of such numbers, it was still a very distant goal. Most believed that total to be unreachable like the four-minute mile or something, but I did not. I had lots to prove before taking on that challenge. At this meet, I squatted 900lb, bench pressed 600lb, and then it was time to deadlift. I opened at 700lb, and on my second attempt succeeded with 750lb. I was prepared to take 770lb, which was still a lofty goal with 750 already being my all-time best. However, several of my friends and handlers were quick to point out that 800lb would eclipse the 2300lb barrier not to mention 800lb is quite the barrier as well.
In my head I quickly discerned that 2,300lb would put me in a small group of humans to have ever lifted that total, but more importantly I would be in striking distance of the 2,408lb needed to surpass the world record. Of course, I had it loaded on the bar, and for the first time I was able to enter the flow state where anything is capable. I was no longer scared or uncertain. My breathing was calm. I was prepared to seize the moment, and that’s exactly what I did. I lifted the 800lb with ease having never come anywhere near such a massive weight until that very moment. My quest to prove my worth took on a whole new life at that point one that will help explain my current circumstances.
I was no longer uncertain, but instead I was obsessed. I struggled to sleep. I would lie in bed consumed by the faces of any past or current critics. I was going to show the world, and then all of my problems would be over. The next year, I broke that record with a 2,410lb total and took on my role as pound for pound that strongest man in the world. That weekend was filled with celebration and good times with friends. I earned lots of money, my sponsors were ecstatic, and many potential sponsors filled my inbox. Life was incredible! Right? The answer is a confusing, no.
I was depressed. Nothing had changed. I was still Travis only a little richer. There were no congratulations from my stepfather, and that little annoying voice deep inside wondering about my true worth was still present and possibly more than ever. This caused me to take on more challenges. I broke the world record again in just a few short months. I was competing as often as possible, which is a big problem in the sport of powerlifting. Then I started taking on more and more challenges like bobsled, weightlifting again, and the consideration of strongman. This didn’t end well for me or anyone around me. I imploded!
This ended with me injured, depressed, broke, and alone, but fortunately it led me to the one place that I would find peace, Christ. I had neglected everyone that I loved to reach this one obsession. I skipped funerals, weddings, and birthdays to become the world champion, and in the end realized that I had everything I needed the entire time. I also met my future wife, Emily Drew, and a whole new era of discovery was upon me. I no longer so desperately needed the affirmation of my stepfather or anyone else. To be clear, my stepdad isn’t the villain here. He didn’t owe me those words of affirmation. I placed that need upon him. He did a lot for my family in the way of support, and he taught me a lot about competition, work ethic, and business. He also bailed me out of my fair share of mess ups. I am the one that made up that need in my head. I am the one that placed the need for my mother to understand my vision. All along, I simply needed God, and I needed to realize that His affirmations were done over 2,000 years ago.
Some words of much needed advice that I am sure will go unnoticed are the minute you stop living for your own pride and ambitions is the very minute you will begin to live at all. I know this is in conflict with the words of advice typed each day on just about every influencer’s Instagram, “love yourself”, “you have to love yourself before you can love others”, “focus on yourself”, and what other self-love cliché that you can think of. Those phrases are eaten up by all of us because it makes all of our selfish desires seem ok like neglecting everyone around me to focus on breaking a world record. I have been on both sides of this debate spending the first 35-years of my life focused on self-love that led nowhere but depressed.
The moment I put God in charge of my life and put needs of my wife and family before my own needs was the first time of real peace and joy that I had ever experienced. It was calming, and incredibly success followed. Our business took off, and our athletes started dominating. The best part is that it didn’t require me to neglect or hurt anyone else. The more I helped other people led to more and more success. This success and the joy that came with it lasted until the end of 2019, and then a feeling of needing something more crept into the picture. My weightlifting team, Team Mash Elite, had more Team USA Athletes than any other team in America. We had international athletes in every age category youth, junior, master, and senior. At the 2019 Senior World Championships, I had eight athletes from four different countries competing. I was working with Stronger Experts, a platform consisting of the best coaches in the world, and we were working with Jamaican Sprinters. Working with the Jamaicans was a dream that I had pondered for many years, and there I was doing the thing.
You see, I had already started the process of blowing up by having that many International Athletes without enough qualified coaches and staff members to accommodate that amount of talent. That little internal voice of doubt was still there. It had never left, but had simply gone dormant. I’m not quite sure if it was all the attention I was getting or the desire for more that caused me to start taking on so much work. I was writing a blog per day, releasing two podcasts per week, editing at least one YouTube video per week, and of course posting on various social media channels multiple times per day. I was writing a 200+ page E-Book almost monthly, developing new online courses, and hosting multiple clinics both in person and online.
Coaches regarded me as one of the most efficient coaches in the country at the amount of content and products I was able to produce while coaching so many amazing athletes. I was coaching the best football players, throwers, soccer players, powerlifters, and of course weightlifters. I was on a roll, and I was able to make plenty of time for my wife and children. However, that soon became not enough for me, so I embarked on the journey of starting a new University Weightlifting Program. I considered taking on an existing program at Northern Michigan University, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to start a program from the ground up.
I was able to do just that at Lenoir-Rhyne University. As you can see, I have the ability to accomplish just about whatever I set my mind too, which might seem like a great gift. In the hands of a focused person, it is an incredible tool. Lenoir-Rhyne University wasn’t looking to add a weightlifting team, but the Athletic Director, Kim Pate, saw something in my passion, and she gave me the opportunity. On top of that I started back to school with the end goal of obtaining my PhD in Human Performance. Having a clear vision of the end goal is the yin to my yang as it’s clearly my weakness. This is where the story gets a little dark, so prepare yourself.
My arrogance and pride led me to believe that I could continue to run Mash Elite Performance, continue my public speaking and seminar business, continue to coach my athletes, grow the weightlifting program at LRU, continue podcasting and content creation, go back to school, stay in shape, continue to grow as a father, continue being a good husband, and continue to worship my Lord. Let me tell you, I have failed miserably.
The apogee that opened my eyes was an argument with my wife this past summer. We never fight, ever! Here’s what happened. She was given the opportunity to be the pattern designer for a new startup Tiny Roots, which is a high-end children’s clothing company. The popularity of Tiny Roots exploded in what seemed to be overnight as did my talented wife, Emily Drew. She’s always been amazing. I fell in love with her partly for her artistic side that I couldn’t identify with, but instead I have always been enthralled by her talents. When we first met, I used to go to the art studio with her, and I would pretend to be working. I was actually watching her create images so beautiful that I couldn’t form them in my head let alone somehow make them appear on a canvas. She’s incredibly beautiful, and our attraction is something on a level that I will never tell all of you. Her wisdom is something that only belongs to people three-times her age. A word never leaves her lips unaccounted for as each delivers a message worth noting. Yet it was her creativity that set her apart from any woman that I have ever known.
When Tiny Roots sought her out, it was something that was inevitable. The world deserves a share of her beauty in the images she creates. However, we had spent a lifetime building my business and my brand. She never once had a sign of jealousy or envy. She remains a perfect example described by King Solomon in Proverbs 31. She raises our children with wisdom that no school could hope to teach. She keeps our home clean and organized, and even tracks our expenses and bank accounts. I have always said that I make the money, and she saves and grows it. However, now she has quickly become an incredible success with Tiny Roots, and still maintains all of her other duties.
All of this is happening to her, while I am seemingly falling apart. Here’s the update that will lead to my apology and insight. I love school, and I am maintaining a 4.0 through all of this. Yet I am failing at just about everything else. I have successfully grown our weightlifting team to the biggest and most successful team in America. We’ve turned out six Team USA athletes in only a year and a half, and we won the Men’s University National Championship in our inaugural year. This has been great, but now I am at a point where I can’t attend the needs of these athletes. We’ve had a lot of internal disputes that I feel assured wouldn’t exist if the team were coached by a more present coach. My business has suffered because the way our online coaching is set up currently, I can’t meet the needs of our clients. I have written two e-books in the last two years both being very successful. I have also created a weightlifting certification course that is performing really well, and I am very proud of. However, I ended up in the hospital with what I thought was a heart attack during the making of that course.
The point is that my wife’s success led to me lashing out in an ugly bout of jealousy this summer. I said something that I still can’t believe came from my mouth. I told her that “maybe we need time apart”, and honestly, I couldn’t even believe that I was saying it. I didn’t mean it at all, but I just wanted to upset her like I was upset. I didn’t know where the anger was coming from at the time, but I instantly knew that I was in a place that required corrective attention and immediately. The only good thing about this interaction with my wife is that I immediately contacted our church for counseling. It has taken my months to earn my wife’s trust back, but I can promise that I will never stop building that trust and our relationship ever again. This was the eyeopener that I needed.
I wish that I could tell you that after a couple of counseling sessions I figured out exactly the direction for my life, but it’s not that easy. However, all of this has led to me understanding the cause and identifying a pattern. My relationship with Christ has definitely suppressed that feeling of wanting to prove to the world that I am worthy of love. However, there still lies a deep-down desire to make my loved ones proud of me mainly my wife, children, KJ, and a few family members like Kimberly. However, it’s that deep internal battle that I have with doubting myself that causes me to pile on more and more. On one side I am uncertain of my abilities, and that causes me to pile on more and more to prove that I am indeed capable.
Lord only knows how many emails, texts, and messages that I have left unanswered. It’s not because I don’t care. I literally piled on so much work that I ran out of time to get it all done. I am talking about people I care about like my athlete Sarah Johnson. She has been one of the most loyal athletes that I have ever coached, and we have done some incredible things together in her becoming one of the greatest Super Total Athletes of all-time. I have neglected family members that I love with all my heart that needed my help like my cousin Will Taylor. My athletes at the school have had their texts go unanswered. I hope that they can accept this as my sincere apology. Apologies without actions are just words. We are almost to the insight part, so definitely stick with me.
Having lots of opportunities is a blessing. Having the ability to bring ideas to life is a blessing. Without clear direction of where one wants their life to go and without a system that allows a person to tend to each area of their life that’s important, opportunities, ideation and conceptualism are curses leading to a life of clutter and regret. This break has allowed me some time away to think clearly on where I want my life to go. It’s probably not what most of you that know me would expect.
I am going to tell you all about the two books I am reading that are helping me so very much with clarity. Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt is a book that I am reading with my wife, and one question that I have been attempting to answer is one that all of you should ask yourself:
“What does your life look like in an ideal world?”
I warn you that it’s a powerful one. When you answer this question, you can examine your life and start to make the necessary cuts and additions. What are the things that you are good at that you enjoy the most? What are the things that you are good at, but you don’t necessarily enjoy? What are the things that you do that you are not good at, but you enjoy them and want to be good at them? What are the things that you are doing that you hate and are not good at? A big lifehack is to cut out or hire out all the things from that last question as soon as possible. I am going to explore these questions a bit more to bring out the insight for all of you.
However, the other book that you are going to need to read is, Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you have been doing things in your life a certain way for several years, you are going to want to master the advice from this book. Look, you have spent your whole life developing your current habits. Clear lays out an awesome system for changing your unproductive habits that are keeping you from becoming the person you want to be. To summarize, Free to Focus lays out the ground work for clarifying your life vision. Atomic Habits teaches you a systematic way to make the necessary changes to your current life habits.
Here’s what I have discovered. I love to learn new ideas and truths to pass on to all of you. I enjoy writing and creating content and products that make the lives of others better. I am not just talking about strength and conditioning books that I am most known for. There are other areas of interest that I want expand upon. I like to write fiction. There it is! My coming out of sorts and revealing my desire to write stories that either entertain or teach a deeper moral or principle. It’s only in writing fiction that I can let my brain wander embarking on journeys in faraway places that I desperately miss. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to write about strength, fitness, and coaching, but I simply want to expand my writing genres.
I love podcasting with my friends at Barbell Shrugged that along with writing brings me the most joy in my professional life. I love to help, encourage, and entertain the people that seek out information. I also want to go a little deeper in regards to the development of youth from ages 5 to 25. I want to bring clarity to parents regarding the all areas of performance scholastically, athletically, and in becoming overall a productive human. It comes down to notion that I like to create new things. If I feel my life with endless daily repetitive tasks, I am stifling the professional side that I enjoy the most.
There’s another area of my life that has slipped unlike any other season of my life, and that’s my own health and fitness. This past semester was filled with so many tasks that training became near impossible. The effects on my attitude and literal joy for life were devastating. Strength training has been a part of my identity, since I was eleven-years-old. I enjoy training with a barbell. When I am training, my entire demeanor is shifted to one of optimistic excitement and a vigor that is contagious. When I am unable to train, I become less excited about life in general, and my skills as a coach are lowered extensively.
I also want quality time for my family to play with my children and continue dreaming with my wife. I want to be there when she experiences success after success in her artistic life. I want to continue courting her as if we first met. I want to fall in love with her each and every day for the rest of my life without worrying about all the unreturned messages I have in my various inboxes. I want to travel with my family, which is something both my wife and I dearly love to do together. I want our children to share this love for exploring new lands and meeting new people from cultures unlike our own. I want them to share the love I have for people throughout the world. I want them to see that in all countries, races, and cultures that there are beautiful people simply trying to make a better life for their families. I really hope that my children will share the love I have for people in South and Central America. I hope their hearts swell with joy when they dream of sailing the Caribbean, and I hope they build a special bond with the Jamaican people like I have. I dream of the day that they can all meet my friend Brave from Kingston, and drive throughout the mountains in Jamaica with the same feelings of disbelief in the sheer beauty.
I still love coaching, so don’t misunderstand. However, I have to make some changes so that it doesn’t consume my entire life. Otherwise, my love for coaching starts to dwindle. It all comes down to how many total hours am I willing to allot for this aspect of my life. Right now, I am working on that answer, and I am using data that I have collected that will help define the average number of hours required per athlete to coach them the way that I believe is best. This statement deserves a bit more clarification. I could coach like other coaches around the world, and simply write one program that the entire team follows. That would definitely be the easy way to do it requiring way less hours. However, the unfortunate reality that I already knew before beginning my graduate studies is that individual programming and coaching in general is definitely the best chance for maximizing the potential of each and every athlete. My studies have not only confirmed that notion but added to the complexity of individualization. The answer to this complex equation is expounded upon later in this short story.
Most importantly to me, I want more time to spend building my relationship with Christ by studying His word, pondering their meaning, and praying to show my gratitude for all that He’s done. This is another thing that has slipped, and I believe it’s most obvious in the way I treat others including my family. All the preceding desires rely on this one most important value. The closer my relationship with Christ becomes a direct light is shown on the motivation for all areas of life, and that is to glorify God by following his precepts and showing His love and majesty to the world by my actions and deeds. If this one value is held at the greatest esteem in one’s life, loving others is simply one of the main byproducts. Not to mention, work ethic and quality of work are to be performed in a manner as if a gift to the Lord above because they are meant to be just that. Colossians 3:17 “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” This isn’t meant to be a sermon, but this is me trying to demonstrate complete transparency.
Now I will list the items that I don’t enjoy or that require too much of my time, and I want to explain what I intend on doing about them. If you follow me on social media, you have probably noticed that the amount of content has greatly decreased over the last few months. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy creating content of high value like articles, videos analyzing technique, and podcasts that answer particular questions. I would simply rather not be the person posting and writing the ‘eye-catching’ copy. I am too susceptible to get caught up endlessly scrolling. If you have read this far, you realize that I can’t afford an hour of looking at all the fancy tiny homes of the world or flipping through the astonishing predators of the world. This will be one of the first duties that I will look hire out. In exchange, I will look more towards developing a community by answering all messages and conversing with the followers that engage each post. You can see how I took the very thing that I dislike and turned it into something I love, teaching.
That brings me to coaching and the hardest confession of this short story. I started coaching in 1997 a young volleyball player named, Jenny Driscoll. I look back and am grateful she gave me the undeserving opportunity. Coaching Jenny led to coaching thousands of young athletes of all levels. I have been a part of some incredible moments in the lives of some equally astonishing athletes. I have helped seemingly average athletes earn Division I Scholarships. I have coached young men and women from 10-years-old all the way to the fields and courts of some of the most prestigious Universities in the land: West Virginia University, Penn State, Clemson, Wake Forest University, and so many more. It’s always such an honor to be a small part of the process for a young man or woman. I have had the privilege to work with Olympians, soldiers bearing the crests of the various Special Operation Groups, and professional athletes. I have worked with some of the best athletes in the various countries throughout the world like Australia, England, and Jamaica. However, in just a few days I will have been coaching 25 glorious years, and I realize that a lot has changed.
The biggest premonition that I have pondered especially over the last couple of years is that a really good coach is much more than a person that teaches a skill or shows an athlete how to get faster. Heck, in most sports teams the strength and conditioning coach is main point of contact for most of the athletes. An athlete will communicate with the strength coach all year round, so a good strength coach has the opportunity to positively affect the growth of an athlete more than any other coach on staff. For a weightlifting coach, we are the sport coach and the strength coach, so we take on a roll that is quite unlike other sport. I have filled both rolls for the past 25-years.
I enjoyed this roll, and have felt very honored to be in the lives of so many young people. The problem is that I have four of my own now, and I want to be present in their lives as well as my wife. We have over 25 athletes at Lenoir-Rhyne University, and I have hundreds more that I work with locally and online. Over this last semester I admittedly failed some of them. I didn’t fail them because I didn’t care. I failed them because I didn’t plan. That’s something I am rectifying as we speak. Here’s my plan:
1. Figure out the things that I love to do, and that I am good at.
2. Figure out the things that I have to do, and that I am good at.
3. Figure out the things that I am not good at, and either get rid of or sub-out.
4. For the things that I love, am good at, but out of time for, I am either getting someone as equally good to help me or find someone that can handle pieces of those things.
The books I told you about earlier, Free to Focus and Atomic Habits, are making the process much easier. For example, I am writing in my personal workouts, content creation, writing time, and several other items that are important to me as appointments. That way, I won’t say ‘yes’ to something that I can’t actually handle in a way that reflects my knowledge and my concern for the person or organization. This past year hasn’t come close to a representation of who I am or how I feel about other people. For that, I am sorry. I am also changing the way that I do things that will make the products and services that I offer to other people a better experience and more streamlined for me.
My wife, Emily Drew, has been the biggest help by listening to me and giving me unbiased feedback. I have also talked to my best friend, KJ, and feel like I have a clear vision forward. To be clear, for all the people that didn’t get a return email or text from me in the past year, I am so sorry, and I am doing everything that I can to handle my obligations, and more importantly, to make sure that I never get into this situation ever again. Now I want to finish with some insight for all those high performers or future high performers reading this.
Here are the keys to long term success, and a life filled with joy and contentment:
1. Have a clear vision of a life worth living as defined by you.
2. Clearly define the areas you are proficient in and love, the ones you are proficient in but don’t necessarily love, the ones you aren’t proficient in but love to do, and the ones that you are terrible at and hate.
3. Clearly define why it’s important to you to be successful.
4. Know that money or success isn’t God.
Don’t let someone else define a worthy life for you. Is it to be a millionaire? Why? Is that worth neglecting your wife and children? Is that worth skipping a worship service with other believers that we are called to do? Is that worth skipping your workouts and dying a little earlier? Maybe that’s your jam, and I say more power to you. Here’s what I want in life: workout daily, study God’s word and pray daily, write daily, time with my family daily, time with just my wife at least once per week, create content that will help other people solve a problem or to entertain them, podcast with my guys at Barbell Shrugged, read or study something new every day, spend quality time with my friends, spend time just relaxing and dreaming some daily and a whole day once per week, and coach with the amount of time I have left.
I am in the process of mapping each of those out, cutting the things that I don’t have to do, shipping out the things that I am not good at, and getting help with the things that I don’t have time for. I am creating processes with the help of my wife that will help streamline some of my tasks, and I am talking to those that I might bring into my organization one way or the other. I am no longer going to try to do the things that I am not good at and hate to do. The just clog up all the things that I am good at. However, there is a lesson more important than all of this.
I have taken a step back to reflect on why it’s important for me to be successful. I have talked to my wife, and we’ve both talked to our counselors at church. I have looked at my life to determine why I add more and more to my life until I simply wreck it. Thankfully I no longer expect success to miraculously fix all the shortcomings in my life. I have Christ in my life to securely take over that spot. However, I have determined that deep inside I am still trying to make my stepdad proud of me. Lately, it’s really my wife and friend KJ that the little boy inside me still feels unworthy to have in my life. Honestly until lately, I have never felt like I deserved to have a friend like KJ. I mean, he’s so successful, and he’s accomplished more than anyone else I know one-hundred times over. Heck, his company is one of the main sponsors of the Tennessee Titans, and the word on the street in Nashville is that he’s taking over the city. The best part is that didn’t come from him, but instead two people I met hanging out with him said that to me when he walked away. I am so dang proud of that guy. I would literally rip the heart out of my chest to save him.
Then there is my beautiful wife that has taken the art world by storm over the last year with her work at Tiny Roots. Everything that she does is completely mind-blowing. She tells me that she doesn’t like to write. Then she writes something, and I feel like I am reading the work of a famous author. She has done most of the homeschooling for our children during COVID, and sometimes I can’t believe the things my kids are learning. She’s teaching them Spanish, French, Sign language, different forms of art, and of course all of the common subjects. She gets a request to paint a portrait daily, and now she’s the Pattern Designer for the successful startup, Tiny Roots. Meanwhile, I am imploding and struggling to figure my way.
Luckily, my wife and I didn’t get married with the typical expectations or even the typical view of marriage that most people have in modern society. We didn’t just make a ‘vow’ to each other. We made a covenant between ourselves and more importantly God. We both took that view the moment we were engaged, and my wife simply had to remind me. That brings me to my final piece of insight for all of you that have made it this far. By the way, when I started this story, I was thinking 2 or 3 pages. Yikes!
If you think that a championship, a world record, a million dollars, a significant other, or any other thing is going to make your soul feel complete or give you lasting joy or even happiness, you are in for a most terrible awakening. If that sounds like you, then you are making a goal, person, or thing into a god. I promise that nothing can fill that void except the one true God. Now this isn’t meant to me a sermon. I am nowhere near a pastor, and anyone that knows me realizes that I am as far from perfect as it gets. You can feel free to ignore this, but God is the only thing in my life that has ever given me a sense of peace and contentment. Therefore, if I didn’t tell you, I would think that I am trying to keep God all to myself. I love all of you enough to tell you the truth.
That’s it! I have said what I needed to say. Hopefully I have reached a few of you out there. This is as transparent as it gets. Saying all of this makes me feel naked and vulnerable because some of you might see this as a weakness. However, for the first time in my life, I am ok with that. I look back, and I wish that some of my heroes or mentors would have told me all of this so many years ago. Instead, I was told to turn my back on everyone to reach my goal of becoming a world champion. I was told to be selfish because that was the only way to reach the pinnacle of anything. Looking back, no one that was an actual world champion told me that. Funny, if you’re not a world champion, then how do you know what it takes? I should have asked that question thirty years ago. Most of my friends that have reached that level in powerlifting, weightlifting, or in some business all share the same story of the major emotional dip after reaching the goal.
A lot of you will find success and joy right now in life if you follow some of the advice, I have given you in this short story. Here’s my final life hack for all that are still reading. In the book, Free to Focus, the author sites research that showed higher productivity from the majority of people that cut out all of the elements in life and work that he or she didn’t enjoy and/or wasn’t proficient. Not only were they more productive in the amount and quality of work, and experiencing more economic growth, but they also had cut their work weeks to 30–40 hours. The author also sited research explaining that the amount of efficiency after 50 hours of work not only dipped, but it dipped below the total amount of efficiency had they only completed the 50 hours. Simply put, the amount of work he or she was getting done dropped after 50 hours to less than they would have produced at only 50 hours. Energy, aka Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) isn’t infinite. ATP fuels every metabolic function of every organ and tissue in the body including the brain. Not to mention working out and movement in general has shown in several studies to increase brain activity (check out this article that explains more: https://www.mashelite.com/sharpening-the-brain/ ). The same goes for nutrition. Energy is created and replenished from the food you eat. The quality of food and the balance of fruits, vegetables, fats, and protein are not only essential for energy but also every process in the body.
Sadly, if you are the person that says they are working 70-hours, skipping workouts, and skipping meals because of the amount of work you have to get done, science clearly states that you would actually get more done taking an opposite approach not to mention your longevity and quality of life. If you want to produce and live a life filled with incredible relationships along with peace, joy, and contentment, here are a few of my recommendations:
· A morning routine involving exercise and creativity
· Create habits not goals (read “Atomic Habits”)
· I suggest a morning routine, a start the day work routine, an end the day work routine, and end of the day prepare for bed routine. I will elaborate in the next section.
· Have a clear vision of where you want to go to avoid saying ‘yes’ to things that don’t fit that vision.
· Cut everything that you don’t have to do.
· Hire out the things that you don’t love, so you can focus on the things that you love and are proficient.
· Learn to delegate properly (read “Free to Focus”)
· Learn to say ‘no’ often in a respectful way while suggesting an alternative solution
· Schedule your social media time, so the time isn’t open ended. I have a feeling that if most of us actually looked at the amount of time that we wasted on social media, we would find a whole other work week that we’re missing out on.
· Scientifically working 60+ hours isn’t more productive, so consider stop bragging about it.
In this next session, I am giving you guys an example of my upcoming schedule that I am implementing. It’s a way of showing you all how to practically implement some of these life hacks. It’s still a work in progress, but here’s what I have so far:
1. Wake up early and move! My morning routine is under construction along with the rest of my life, but the goal is to get up, walk the lake listening to God’s word, pick a spot to pray daily, body weight mobility and stability work, and then immediately write. The exercise will get the brain working at a much faster rate improving creativity and memory. I recommend reading the book Spark by John Ratey.
2. Write or any other creative medium. I recommend this being performed early before the day starts, the texts start rolling, and the phones start buzzing. While your brain is still bright from the past night’s dreams and the early morning exercise, empty those creative notions onto the screen or canvas to be shared with the world. Remember, no matter how the world perceives your art, your writing, your painting, or your drawing is left to communicate with future generations of your family for as long as they are passed along. I dream of reading the journals from my great grandfathers and great grandmothers. I hear the tall tales passed from person to person within my Appalachian family, but I long to hear from their mouths. I have a great grandfather that is a legendary bear hunter. I can only imagine his stories. I have a grandfather that supported his family by working in a West Virginia Coal Mine. I would love to know what was going through his head as he descended into the depths of the earth day in and day out. We owe this to our children and their children to capture our thoughts in one form or the other, so they can communicate with us long after we leave this earth.
3. Create for Work- this is when I will create any piece of content or product that still relies on my imagination and creativity. For example, if I am working on my latest course or an informational video, this is the time hopefully still before 9am.
4. Go to the Office and Practice Routine- The key is to practice forming habits, so that almost all productivity is streamlined and automated. This is when I will check texts, emails, messages, and video analysis for my online team. I will also review my three biggest goals for the day, and confirm my appointments for the day.
5. Study or learn something new. While I am still in school, I will use these two hours to study. When I am on break or when I finally finish my PhD, I will read and study something new that I am interested in. While I am in school, this will be two hours. After I will cut this to one hour to focus on business.
6. Lunch and Train. I am giving myself 90 minutes for lunch to eat something nutritious and strength train. This is a great way to get the brain rolling again to avoid that midday fog. If you perform some hard anaerobic training, your body will have an excess of lactate. The old school train of thought would say this is a bad thing, and something would be mumbled about lactic acid. I recommend watching Andy Galpin’s YouTube series on lactate to understand how lactate is used by the brain more efficiently than glucose improving all the neurological processes. That means you will learn at a faster rate, and you will be able to remember information during that important board meeting.
7. Podcasts or Meetings- I will use this post-workout time to either podcast or meet with individuals.
8. Wrap Up Workday- I will once again answer emails, texts, and messages. My goal is to empty my inboxes and communicate with the people that care about me. I will then review my goals for the day to make sure I handled them. I will then plan for the next day.
9. Coach- the amount that I am going to coach is up in the air for now. I am mapping out the amount of time each athlete should be allotted and how much time I can physically give mentally and spiritually, and then I will determine how to proceed. I am getting there. For the first time in a very long time, I am developing clarity in my vision for the way I want to live my life.
10. Home by 6p. This is the goal. I am going to have to figure out how to make this happen, but it’s going to happen. I want to be home, phone completely turned off, and engaging with my family. I want to play sports in the yard, and dolls with my princess. I want to hear about all the beautiful things my wife has created without having a brain stressed about the forgotten emails or the balls that I dropped during the day.
11. Screens off by 8:30- at this point I will help Emily Drew put the children to bed. We will have a nighttime devotional, and I will read them a book. From that time to bedtime, I will read a book and hangout with my wife.
12. Asleep by 10pm- I am going to put a lot of thought into my nighttime sleep process. I want to work on completely blacking out the room, 68-degree Fahrenheit, light ocean waves for background noise, and I want to look into nose breathing during the night. I am going to research this topic even more to make sure I am fully rested and recovered during the night.
There are still things that I am looking at implementing, but this is where I am at. My wife asked me what I intend on doing with this story. After considering her question, it was clear to me. I wrote this to sort through my life, to organize my own thoughts, to give insight to some of you, and to say I am sorry to the ones that I have let down in the past year. I feel like this has been one big confession opening a door into the side of my life that I rarely show all of you. It’s transparency, and a call for other influencers and coaches to do the same. I feel this is more real, and hopefully gives some of you hope if you find yourself drowning from a life filled with endless projects and responsibilities. If you are a young coach, online educator, or entrepreneur, I am hoping that you learn from this not to get caught up in a life with an endless schedule. If you are working 80+ hours, it doesn’t make you cool. Unless you are single and just love to work, it makes you a fool like I have been.
If you have the same inner-voice that’s causing you to doubt your worth, I recommend acknowledging the voice, reminding yourself that you are more than adequate, and remember that you are working to help others, support your family, and not working to prove yourself. When I look back over the last five years, I was already exactly where I wanted to be. Before starting school in 2020, I was writing every day, producing lots of new products for all of you, creating all the content, coaching hundreds of great athletes, and spending lots of time with my family. I just couldn’t feel satisfied because I hadn’t thought about an end vision or acknowledged the silly inner-voice.
I want to end by saying that even though these last two years have been incredibly stressful and at time painful I have still learned something about myself that I would have never figured out if I hadn’t taken the plunge. I love academia. I love research, and I love teaching and coaching other people about the incredible things I am learning. I love using my experience to interpret research results in a way that I believe is more practical for coaches and athletes on the frontline. Also, I have to admit that I love change. If I do something too long, I get bored and complacent. It’s just who I am, and it’s something that I don’t want to change. I am going to make a lot of changes over the next year, and some will be changes that some of you will love and some of you will hate. I understand that is part of life, but the change that all of you will appreciate will be my clarity and transparency moving forward. I hope that some of you have appreciated this story of an obsessive and sometimes out of control coach. More importantly, I hope that some of you have learned a thing or two. For all of you that stuck with this story for all 11,300-ish words, forgive me for being so longwinded. I simply had to get all of this off of my chest, into words, and out of my life forever. Now I can move forward in a way that suits my family, my God, and even myself in a more fulfilling way.
Here’s to new beginnings,
Coach Travis Mash
