"Ice Skating Uphill: A Fighter's Road From Survival to Purpose"

Every day is a choice. An opportunity to let the world and its troubles beat you down and break you — or to rise up and defy even your own expectations.

I wasn't born a fighter. The role was thrust upon me. Growing up, my choices were simple: fight or die. Struggle and strive to improve my situation, or collapse in despair. I often joke with my wife that our family motto should be "loves to ice skate uphill" — because we have a habit of choosing the hardest paths available. Fighting is no longer just a choice. It's a way of life.

The fight has always been hard. My earliest memories are of starting work at 14 to help my parents make ends meet. My birth father left when I was six. My stepfather was ill-prepared for parenthood and abusive — and he left eventually too. By the time I was roughly 17, my mother had checked out as well, leaving me to navigate adulthood largely on my own. Whatever support existed felt like asking a friend for a favor rather than receiving the kind of safety and protection a parent is supposed to provide. I was jealous of kids whose parents paved a path forward for them. That jealousy only deepened my sense that I was always fighting circumstances beyond my control.

My late teens and early twenties didn't get easier. I made the brash decision to open my first martial arts studio at 17. It failed. I lacked the maturity and the business knowledge to make it work. I was essentially homeless, sleeping in the dressing rooms and showering at the local Gold's Gym. When the landlord — who had a drinking problem that rivaled my own at the time — decided to challenge me in front of a class of students, I knew it was time to walk away.

My next studio was a small space inside a rec center in Ogden, Utah, and for a moment, things looked like they might turn around. I had repaired my relationship with my stepfather and was living with him and his new wife. I was beginning to understand what success could actually look like. Then the rec center sold to a private company that converted it into a private school. Because I had no contractual protections — one of many things you don't know at 19 — I was shown the door the moment the sale was final.

That's when I got my introduction to the American healthcare system.

I took a hard right hook to the face during competition and needed maxillofacial surgery to repair the damage. This was before the ACA, and neither my mother nor I had health insurance. If you've ever needed hospital care without coverage, you know the nightmare that follows. You don't just get a bill — you get all the bills. And when you don't know how to negotiate cash payments, or that paying even a small amount regularly can keep a debt out of collections, you find out the hard way. I found out the hard way. Having your credit destroyed at 21 is a special kind of setback. I've since spent nearly two decades working three jobs to rebuild it, and today my credit is nearly perfect — but the road to get here was long and brutal. Learn from my mistakes, not my example.

I can already hear some of you thinking: you're just complaining — or worse, you brought this on yourself. And honestly? You're not entirely wrong. There are moments when it genuinely feels like you have no choice, but I've come to believe that even in those moments, there's a choice in how you respond. I've learned to relish the challenge. To thrive under pressure. To find something in myself that sharpens when the odds are stacked against me.

And I've seen what winning looks like too. A martial arts career in my twenties that showed me my own value as an instructor. A woman who chose to love me and has kept choosing me — we've been married nearly 14 years. Two kids who, by most reasonable measures, are turning out pretty great. I'm at an age now where I can see what peace might look like. I can see the finish line.

And yet here we are again — the goalposts moving.

Capitalism — the very engine that made my upward mobility possible — has become the thing keeping me on the hamster wheel of debt. I understand I could sit back and let the weight of it all push me out of a game I've been playing my entire life. But there's a reason retirement kills people. Checking out is not an option at 42.

I want a life for my children where their merits matter. Where their character matters. Where if they're willing to give something to this world, the world gives something back. And to build that life for them, I have to keep going.

So I will