It’s often purple.
Occasionally it’s blue. Every once in a while it’s red or green or even yellow.
But when really pressed for an answer Henry will tell you that his favorite color is rainbow.
To him it seems like the most obvious answer in the world.
I asked him to explain it to me once. Why is rainbow his favorite?
He quickly typed out: Because I like all the colors.
A simple yet somehow perfect answer to the question.
It’s such an unfiltered way of seeing the world. Why choose one thing when you can have it all? Why pick a lane when the entire sky is lit up in streaks of red, orange, green, blue, violet?
One of our many weaknesses as adults is that we forget that. Instead we pick our color, our label, our story and cling to it. Even when it stops serving us.
But not Henry. He wears rainbow tye-dye. As I write this he’s running around behind me in a tank top that proudly proclaims (in multi-color lettering, of course) “we are all magical beings”.
I admire him more than he’ll ever know.
There was a time in my life—maybe in yours too—where I tried to be who I thought I was supposed to be. I wrote about this a bit last week.
The hard worker. The impenetrable guy. The stoic one. The one who didn’t ask for help.
And I’m still like that a lot of the time. And it’s not all bad.
There’s value in discipline, in grit, in putting your head down and doing the work. We need people in our lives and in the world who are like this.
But there’s also a real cost to building your identity out of armor.
Because when you only value what you produce, what you lift, or how much you grind you start to lose track of who you really are underneath all of it.
The barbell doesn’t care about your resume. It doesn’t care about your bank account.
But if you show up consistently, if you put in the reps, if you listen more than you posture, it will start to reveal who you really are behind the facade.
It’s one of the great things about being a coach. You get to observe people under a type of stress that breaks the shell and starts to show you what people are really like. It’s the true gift of the profession.
I’ve seen this happen over and over at The Fort.
People come in wanting change. Sometimes it’s body composition. Sometimes it's pain relief. Sometimes they don’t even know. They just feel off. Like they’ve drifted too far from something important and can’t quite name what it is.
So they lift. They learn. They push. And slowly something unlocks.
They don’t just move better. They move more like themselves. They walk taller. They laugh louder. They stop apologizing for taking up space.
It’s a beautiful thing. Maybe the best thing.
The truth is, most people come to training looking for something external. We get on the phone and they talk about a goal, a number, a transformation. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But if you do it long enough, and if you do it right, you start to realize that what you were really looking for wasn’t a better body. It was a better connection to yourself.
The treasure that comes from training isn’t the strength. Or the faster mile time. Or the abs.
Turns out, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow has always been you.
You have probably noticed that these Monday blogs have taken a more emotional tone the past few months. This could be for several reasons.
The first is that I always write from a place of whatever it is I am feeling. It's one of the gifts of having no editor or client or other filter telling me what it is I need to do. So, apparently, I must be feeling more reflective these days.
Secondly, based off of feedback, this is what you guys enjoy reading. Certainly I get the occasional "what was the point of this email" response from a reader (and, to be fair, that is a very valid question) but mostly people tell me they've enjoyed what I've written or it's resonated with them or, when it's operating at it's best, it propelled them to take action to change their life for the better.
And, while the mechanisms of hypertrophy is unquestionably a topic I value and could prattle on about for days, getting people to move forward and take action is something I value more than getting them to nerd out while reading a computer screen.
That being said, I know there are many of you who still enjoy the more direct training-based blog posts I've done in the past. Because of that, I've started a Substack that focuses a bit more on the pragmatic side of training.
Don't worry, I won't stop including some of those here. And, double don't worry, the writing on the Substack still includes plenty of dated pop culture references and Dad jokes and personal stories and fawning all over Kelly Clarkson.
So if you want a bit more nuts-and-bolts training content, or just cannot get enough of my writing (and, really, who can?!?!) feel free to follow me on Substack. Just like this newsletter it is completely free. Unlike this newsletter, I do not promise to put out content there on any predictable basis.
My finger are delicate and can only take so much.
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