professional life as an athlete, a soldier, a platoon leader, a volunteer firefighter and someone just interested in training and teaching and coaching for people of all ages. Have you had a mentor, or someone you’ve look up to? Yes, I have had many mentors in my career, but the one that I would focus on is Colonel Michael Teague, a Lieutenant Colonel when I was joining the 52nd Engineer Battalion. I always felt that Colonel Teague was someone who took a personal interest in his young leaders. He was able to be firm while also being caring. He had this unique balance of never raising his voice, but making it very clear if you had done something that was a big mistake, or if something needed to be changed. And I always really respected the way he was able to communicate very clearly and with conviction in ways that were also caring and showed compassion. I think that’s why I’ve tried to do that with my teams throughout my career since the military, which has been almost 20 years at this point. I try to lead with love and compassion and also recognize that when you’re a mentor and a leader, you are also responsible for ultimately everything that your team succeeds and fails to do, and that requires ensuring mistakes are highlighted and corrected and problems are solved together and that the people you lead have the mentorship they need as they grow as humans and professionals. I would say the piece of advice that’s been instrumental to my success is to lead with compassion, but realize that everything you do is ultimately your responsibility if you’re the one who’s in charge. What is the one principle you’ve always lived by? The principle that remains my north star throughout my life is to bring my love, light and energy with me and sprinkle it everywhere I go. I had a friend who worked with me during the time I was launching FitFighter and on Shark Tank, and he rephrased that and said that my principle is to sprinkle steel wherever I go, and I loved that because steel absolutely is a manifestation of me personally in that inner steel and outer shine has become one of our taglines of FitFighter: “To find your inner steel so you can release your outer shine.” So if I were to be able to use my own tagline, that is my principle. But really, in more casual terms, it’s sprinkling my love, light and energy with me wherever I go because that is definitely why I was

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