The Dogma of Grit and Success

As I look back on my childhood, the impact sports had on my life, and how I achieved success, I

often compare my trajectory to the athletes I train today—and the starkly different mindsets that

drive us.

For me, I grew up super poor. I didn’t have the things most people consider universal or assume

everyone has. I didn’t even have my own bedroom until I was almost eight years old. I slept in

an unfinished basement with my parents on one side and me in an unfinished room next to

them. We didn’t have drywall—just the bare wooden framing. My early childhood was spent

bouncing back and forth to my maternal grandparents' house. My family didn’t own a home of

our own until I turned eight. There was even a Christmas (the first year my dad didn’t have a

job) we didn’t have money for anything let alone gifts and we were surprised to see on our

doorstep a basket of gifts for my sisters and me with everything a kid could want or dream for.

Candy, toys, gift cards (which I bought Kangaroo Jack with, one of my favorite movies because

it was the first movie I purchased for myself). I learned that someone had 'Secret Santa-ed' us because they knew we weren’t getting anything on Christmas morning.

Through it all, I always loved basketball. From as young as four, I remember having a little

plastic hoop display I could shoot a ball through. Around that same time, Space Jam came out,

and I was completely obsessed. Michael Jordan became my idol because of it. Growing up in

Salt Lake City in the late 1990s—when the Utah Jazz were at the top of the Western

Conference—that passion was always there. It came in waves until I was ten years old and saw

Like Mike, a movie about a kid who finds shoes that make him play like MJ.

I fell in love with the fantasy. As I’ve shared in previous blogs, I was dealing with childhood

sexual trauma, bullying at home and school, and severe emotional, psychological, and physical

abuse from my father. Watching that movie, I dreamed of being Bow Wow’s character and

having the lifestyle it brought (his character lived in an orphanage and was super poor). I also

naturally gravitated toward hip-hop culture, and the movie revealed a world completely different

from the one I knew growing up Mormon.

That movie was the catalyst. I set a firm goal: I was going to play in the NBA one day.

—

The Confession and the Recreation Center

I knew it was going to take relentless work. In 2002, I started practicing constantly and watching

basketball, especially Kobe and Shaq.

That spring, some kids and I broke into a HUD home and vandalized it. Afterward, I couldn’t

sleep because my conscience wouldn’t let me rest. I confessed to my mom and showed her

what we had done. Without getting into too much detail, we had poured paint directly into a

furnace.

When my mom told my dad, I thought I was dead.

To give context on the kind of punishments my dad normally handed out: when I was six years

old, we were strictly forbidden from watching The Simpsons because it was "evil." My parents

loved watching Fox News every night. The next day, I turned the TV on, and it was still on the

same channel—but The Simpsons happened to be airing. My dad walked into the room right at

that moment and lost his mind. He called me a liar when I told him I had just turned it on, and he

grounded me for three full weeks. No friends, no TV, nothing.

When you are six years old, three weeks is not a temporary discipline; it feels like an eternity.

Your sense of time is completely different, and being locked away in isolation for nearly a month

feels like a lifetime. Worse than the isolation was the injustice: I was telling the absolute truth,

yet I was branded a liar. That single experience—and the many that followed—planted the

seeds for a lifelong struggle with respecting authority. When you learn at six years old that facts,

honesty, and truth do not matter—that your reality is dictated entirely by whatever an authority

figure irrationally chooses to believe—you stop trusting the concept of authority altogether.

Another time, when I was four or five, my sister and I were fighting over the TV remote while my

Dad was outside working on a car. My sister threatened to scream to get me in trouble. The

second she did, I panicked and locked myself in the yellow-walled bathroom. My dad charged

in, shaking the frame and roaring, "OPEN THE DOOR!" When I unlocked it out of pure terror, he

slammed the door open, grabbed me by the back of my neck, and violently shoved my face

directly into the metal sink faucet—screwing his face up and shouting to establish dominance

like I was an animal. He then banished me to the basement, grounded for two weeks.

So when my mom told him about the vandalized HUD house, I prepared for the worst. But

surprisingly, due to his mental health issues, he didn’t react the way he normally did. It was a

rare, brief glimpse of who my dad could have been. He was disappointed, but he told me to

decide my own punishment.

Knowing the severity of what I’d done—and knowing how his mind worked—I thought it was a

trap. I knew the punishment had to be high to fit his standard.

"Three months from everything," I said.

Both of my parents agreed.

Because they didn’t want me sitting in the house all day—and seeing my new passion for

basketball—they signed our family up at the Kearns Recreation Center. They dropped me off

every day, Monday through Saturday. I would practice drills, play pick-up games, and watch

others play, staying there from 10:00 AM until 7:00 or 8:00 PM.

I became good enough to make a Super League team. It was a grade older than mine, but I was

decent enough to make some baskets and score a career-high of 8 points that season.

After that season, I realized something: I was never going to play in the NBA scoring 8 points in

a Kearns Super League.

—

The Work Ethic and the First Redirection

I shifted into another gear. I started waking up every weekday at 4:30 AM. Kearns Rec Center

opened at 5:00 AM. I would wake my parents up, and we would go to the gym together. They

lifted weights while I practiced basketball until 7:00 AM. Then we would drive back to Magna—to

the first home my family ever owned.

Because my dad was a police officer, we were able to buy a HUD home at a heavy discount.

The only drawback was the location—parking squad cars outside was intended to lower

neighborhood crime rates in the rougher “hood” areas.

After school let out at 3:00 PM, I would get back to the gym by 3:45 PM and play until 8:00 PM.

I’d come home, eat, shower, and be asleep by 10:00 PM, only to repeat the cycle the next

morning. Because I was practicing twice as much as my peers, I got significantly better.

By sixth grade, I was really good. I was invited to play on Bingham’s AAU team for a

Thanksgiving tournament. This was a massive deal—Bingham was a prestigious, wealthy

school known for athletics. I played alongside my cousin (my dad’s brother’s son), and we both

performed well. I genuinely thought I had made the team.

Afterward, the coach called my parents to say it was only for that single tournament; their official roster was already full and they wanted to keep roster spots for local kids from South Jordan—considered the wealthiest area on the west side. It added fuel to the fire because they might have a better life than me but they weren’t going to be better at basketball than me.

I was devastated. I cried uncontrollably. I wanted so badly to be on that team, but I felt I wasn't

good enough. How was I going to play in the NBA if I couldn’t even make this team?

Around that time, I watched Michael Jordan to the Max. It covered his life story—how he got cut

in high school and used that rejection as fuel. Hearing someone I idolized share the exact pain I

felt, flip the script, and become the GOAT changed everything for me. I began dreaming of that same redemption arc.

I doubled down on my dedication, starting jump programs and leg workouts so I could dunk. By

the start of sixth grade, I could almost touch a 10-foot rim being able to touch the orange box

under the rim.

—

Puberty, Trauma, and the 14-Point Game

To his credit, my dad called everywhere trying to get me tryouts. By age 12, I was already 6 feet

Tall.

This early growth spurt was directly linked to the childhood obesity I’ve written about before.

When you are severely overweight or obese as a kid (over 22% body fat, like I was), your body

produces excess leptin, which can trigger early puberty. Combined with severe childhood PTSD,

I hit puberty at age nine.

I likely would have grown even larger, but during that growth spurt, I struggled with severe

eating disorders:

1. Binge eating.

2. Compulsive purging through cardio: Trying to burn off every calorie on exercise bikes,

ellipticals, and treadmills.

3. Severe restriction: Eating only one meal a day for an entire summer between 4th and 5th

Grade.

By age 12, I weighed 120 pounds at 6 feet tall—having lost over 35 pounds during a massive

growth spurt. I was physically overdeveloped compared to other kids my age; I even received a

razor for Christmas in 6th grade because I had to start shaving.

I joined a Super League team called the Panthers, made up of kids from the West High area,

and I dominated immediately. Our first game was against my cousin’s new team. We went back

and forth, and I had my best game yet, finishing with 14 points.

Unfortunately, I fouled out in the fourth quarter with about five minutes left. My team had a

double-digit lead, and I thought the game was locked up. Then my cousin went on a tear, hitting

five three-pointers to win it in overtime.

Even though we lost, I was happy. It was a great game, and I had improved drastically from the

year before. My cousin and I walked off the court together, smiling and talking trash.

Then my dad stepped in. He was livid. He marched up to me immediately and barked:

"I don’t know why you have a smile on your face. You lost the game—and you lost to your

Cousin."

I was emotionally crushed by his hostility. My dad had always been relentless. My mom told me

that when I was four years old, if I didn’t play well in soccer, my dad would yell at me and call me names like "loser," "pussy," "sissy," and "little bitch." Being spoken to like that at four years old conditions you to fear losing above all else.

Standing there at twelve, being publicly humiliated after giving everything on the court, I

snapped. I threw my water bottle across the gym and ran out with tears streaming down my

face. It was another catalyst in my obsessive drive for perfection—a desperate attempt to

escape his criticism, paired with the belief that basketball was my only ticket out of poverty.

—

Salt Lake Metro and the Endless Track

After that game, I went on a rampage. I averaged 25 points per game, becoming the leading

scorer in the league. I had finally achieved my goal of being the best player on the court.

Then came my first taste of sports politics. The other players and their parents didn't like how

many points I was scoring; they wanted the coach to limit my touches so their kids could shoot

even if it meant losing. The coach caved. The next game, I scored around 18 points—mostly off

offensive rebounds—and we lost our second game of the season.

My dad was fed up. He made me quit the team on the spot and secured me a position on the

top team in the state: Salt Lake Metro.

That team was stacked with the best players in Utah, driven by a single objective: win at all

costs. In one game, we beat a team 119 to 19.

Again, I give my dad credit: he believed in my potential. He scouted the competition, recorded

my games, and analyzed my mistakes. If I had a bad game, we went home, watched the tape,

and identified what went wrong. At 4:30 AM the next morning, we were at the gym correcting it.

He even attended my team practices, studying other players to tell me what they did better so I

could beat them.

It was extreme, and it stripped away the fun. Whenever he caught me "horsing around," he lost

his mind. He demanded absolute lock-in at all times. My dad struggled with severe,

undiagnosed mental illnesses—bipolar disorder and schizophrenia among them. During his

episodes, the intensity was terrifying. I remember one two-hour practice where he forced me to

use only my left hand the entire time. I learned to wear a mask and keep my nervous system

locked in fight-or-flight out of raw fear.

The positive outcome: my left hand became lethal, making me a far better player. My dad wanted me to succeed; he just had no healthy way to deliver it. Years later, during our final

conversation, I told him: "You raised me to be a man when you yourself weren't one."

Another breaking point happened early one morning when my hook shot wasn't dropping in the

game the night before. My dad invented a bizarre drill on the spot: standing on the right side of

the rim, I had to use my left hand to scoop the ball and bank it off the left side of the hoop.

"No, I’m not doing that," I said. "That’s not a real drill." I was already doing college-level drills

and knew what actually built skill.

He lost it. His face shifted from excitement to pure rage. His eyes went dead—that pitch-black

coldness familiar to anyone who has been around severe bipolar episodes.

"That’s it. We’re leaving. Grab your shit," he said.

It was 5:08 AM in the middle of a freezing Utah February. He drove us in complete silence, not

even the radio on to Matheson Junior High in Magna, parked near their oversized track, and

ordered me out of the car.

"Start running," he said.

Because I had questioned his drill, he was going to break me. My dad was former Navy and ran

our lives like a drill sergeant. But what happened on that track was a whole new level of abuse.

Not knowing when you are going to stop is a level of stress and fear that, if you have

experienced it, is a truly gut-wrenching experience. When you run a measured distance or a

timed drill, your mind can brace for the pain because you see the finish line. When you have no

perceived endline, the suffering feels infinite, making it the longest time of your life. It was

freezing cold, pitch-black, and completely empty—just the two of us out there with no witnesses.

* One lap. "Go again."

* Another lap. I asked if I was done. "Another."

* A mile and a half in, exhaustion set in. I ran another—two miles.

When I broke down crying and tried to stop, he screamed that if I quit, I would be grounded from

everything including basketball for four weeks. Basketball was my only perceived escape from

the emotional hell of my home. So I kept running.

I ran from 5:30 AM until 7:05 AM—over an hour and a half of continuous running in the freezing

cold. I had never felt such physical pain, fear, and exhaustion. My dad projected all of his

unaddressed rage onto a twelve-year-old child that morning.

As I sobbed on the track, the most painful words he uttered were:

"I’m not your dad. Don’t think of me as your dad. I’m your coach, and my job is to make you the

Best."

To experience what could be compared to abusive militant command at twelve years old by

someone who was the "father" in the relationship completely shattered the notion that I had

anyone to save me. I felt completely abandoned and subhuman. When he finally called it off, his

rage had evaporated because I had submitted to his demands like a beast of burden.

Yet, it also showed me that my body could do amazing things. That morning forced me to

confront a reality Friedrich Nietzsche described best: the crucible didn't break me; it fortified an

iron threshold for suffering. I learned to endure whatever was demanded of me, which became a

distinct advantage later in sports.

When coaches in the past made my team run for punishment, I was able to knock it out mentally

with no problem because of the psychological torment and abuse my father put me through

throughout my childhood.

Reflecting on moments like that explains why Epictetus and Stoic philosophy resonate so

deeply with me today (and why his concepts are tattooed on my body). Epictetus was enslaved

by a master who broke his leg, yet he taught that we must master our own minds, accept fate,

and control what we allow to hurt us internally.

—

National Exposure and the Reality Check

By March, our team won the AAU State Championship, going undefeated in Utah play. It was an

incredible feeling after two years of relentless daily labor.

Winning state qualified us for a national tournament in Las Vegas: The Easter Classic. It was my

first time playing on a national stage. I thought we were unstoppable, but we quickly realized

other states were playing a different brand of basketball. We barely survived pool play and got

knocked out by a 5th-grade team from Houston. A left-handed guard scored 50 points on us by

Himself.

It was a massive wake-up call. On the drive home, I was consumed by a drive to get stronger

and faster. I bought JumpSoles with money saved from chores and birthdays. JumpSoles were

heavy 5-pound platform attachments that strapped to the front of your shoes. The marketing

claimed they stretched your Achilles tendon to build explosive vertical pop. Looking back with modern exercise science, it’s humorous, but at 12 years old, I worked in them 3 times a week. My vertical shot up from 7 inches to 14 inches in three weeks, and by the end of 6th grade, I was grabbing the rim.

That summer, I trained twice a day. My mom worked out early, so I went to the gym with her

from 5:00 to 7:30 AM. We’d go home, I’d eat, shower, read or play N64, and then head back out

so she could attend college classes.

(My dad had quit his job as a police officer in the fall of my 6th-grade year. My mom worked as a realtor part time while taking care of me and my two sisters, did the dishes, laundry, cleaned the

house all while going to school to keep us fed and clothed).

In June, I traveled to Houston for another national tournament. We played exceptionally well

until we ran into that same Houston team. This time, they had a 6'4", 200-pound 5th grader who

looked 18 years old. I was 6 feet tall and 120 pounds; this kid was built like a truck, slapping the

backboard with both hands on layups. Even when we triple-teamed him, he dropped 40+ points.

I returned home feeling humiliated, carrying the heavy guilt of letting my team down.

—

The Domestic Climate and the Escape to Stoicism

The volatility I experienced on the court was only a reflection of the dysfunction that governed

our home. Back in Magna, my dad’s behavior grew increasingly erratic. He had been

unemployed for six months, spending his days highlighting newspaper clippings about sports

competition, claiming it was his equivalent of earning a college degree. He filled totes with these

cutouts and forced us to study them. He also bought broken-down cars, parking them across

our backyard in Magna to "fix and flip" them. He never fixed one of them for resale and at one

point we owned over 9 junk yard looking cars.

After a confrontation over moving a trailer in the backyard that summer, my dad gave me the

silent treatment for three straight months. I used that cold isolation to stay entirely focused on Basketball.

Meanwhile, my mom was taking college courses to build an exit plan. My dad’s instability was

worsening; he had pressured her into taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans

under her name just to cover our living expenses while he pursued vague business ideas.

To fully understand the domestic dictator we were trapped under, the generational pattern of

control was inescapable:

* The Car Battery: When my mom was pregnant with me and raising my toddler sister, she told

my dad they needed to start paying rent to her parents, who were struggling financially. My dad

was furious. When my mom went to get groceries, he snuck outside and stole the battery out of

her car to punish her for disobeying him. Around that same time, he abandoned her at a grocery

store, forcing her to walk home pregnant while carrying my sister.

* The Prince Memorabilia: My parents married when my mom was barely 18 and my dad was 23 (after pursuing her while she was still in high school). Right after the wedding, he ordered her to stop listening to Prince, forcing her to throw away all her favorite records and posters.

* The Side-Yard Trailer: When I was seven, my dad wanted to move us out of my grandmother's

basement into a trailer. My mom refused, wanting a safer area for the kids. My dad moved out of

the basement and lived for two weeks in a trailer parked on the side of that same house,

claiming my mom was destroying the family.

Living in that environment forced me inward. Extreme isolation pushed me into fantasy novels,

Pokémon, and eventually Stoic literature—because I needed to imagine being anywhere, and

anyone, else.

—

Moving to West Jordan

By the summer before seventh grade, we sold our Magna home and lived in limbo. We

temporarily moved into my maternal grandfather’s house in Brighton ("Top of the World"), where

I slept on a living room couch.

We were waiting to move into a house owned by my paternal grandparents in West Jordan. My

aunt had lived there previously, and heavy chain-smoking had ruined the interior. My family

spent weeks stripping the walls, tearing up the floors, and repainting every inch just to make it

Livable.

When we finally moved into the West Jordan house at the start of seventh grade, it was

completely bare. The subfloors were painted white, and scaffolding sat in the middle of the living

room covered in tarps so my parents could paint the vaulted ceilings. It stayed like that for a

year and a half.

But my basement bedroom had brand-new carpet—a luxury I had never experienced. Because

the living room wasn't functional, I inherited the family's massive 40-inch TV downstairs. I

hooked up my N64 and Xbox, finally having a small sanctuary of my own.

I was entering seventh grade in a completely new city, attending a new middle school, without

knowing a single soul. It was terrifying.

—

The Psychology of Poverty vs. Privilege

Looking back on those years and analyzing the psychology of the athletes I’ve trained over my

career, I finally see the true reality behind the dogma of grit and success. I don’t believe anyone

should ever have to endure the trauma, abuse, or poverty I lived through, nor should any child

have to go through worse just to build character. Trauma is not a prerequisite for greatness, and

nobody should have to suffer to earn their place.

Yet, that is the brutal paradox of competition.

Working with athletes from severe poverty alongside my own lived experience allowed me to

recognize a specific level of commitment—a drive born strictly out of necessity rather than play.

Kids with all the resources can approach the sport they are playing as a game. They have

access to top-tier skill trainers, elite recovery tools, the best supplements, customized nutrition,

and high-end gear. Money can buy every physical advantage imaginable.

What money can never buy is the psychological wiring forged in survival.

Athletes who come from nothing have an all-or-nothing mindset and an acute fear-of-failure

complex. They use sports as their sole escape from a terrifying reality. That desperation is a

double-edged sword: it often drives them to overtrain, and it breeds a paralyzing anxiety of

failure because losing feels like falling back into the abyss. But when those kids step onto the

court or field against competitors who have had everything handed to them, a dangerous

dynamic takes over.

The resourceful kid plays for achievement. The traumatized kid fights for survival. They will claw, bleed, and fight to the absolute death for victory because, in their minds, losing isn't just a bad stat line—it’s an existential threat. That desperate, primal fire is something wealth can never

purchase, and it’s the exact reason why grit forged in the dark remains the most terrifying

weapon in sports.

—

The Statistical Lottery vs. The Mamba Blueprint

Statistically, however, surviving on desperation alone rarely guarantees the pinnacle.

Kids from poverty have the grit, but statistically, only one in millions hits the absolute lottery:

having all of the right genetics, the right opportunities, and the mindset to become truly

successful. For every one who breaks through, countless others with the same all-or-nothing

hunger are swallowed by overtraining, lack of resources, career-ending injuries, or the crushing weight of their circumstances.

At the opposite end of the spectrum sits the archetype of Kobe Bryant.

Kobe came from a higher-middle to upper-class upbringing, with his father being a professional

athlete. Having a professional athlete as a father, combined with financial security and elite

basketball guidance from birth, allowed him to forge the mindset he later labeled the "Black

Mamba."

When you pair that relentless mindset with the proper resources and the right people guiding

him—which you typically see in non-poverty households—you get arguably one of the best

basketball players of all time.

—

Changing the Game for Resourced Athletes

As coaches, trainers, and mentors, we should never want to manufacture trauma or abuse to

teach grit to kids who have resources.

So, a logical way to change the game for kids who have all the resources is showing them that

while they have every advantage, there are kids out there working harder—even if possibly not

smarter—who will beat them with a mere will to compete, win, and dominate.

We can bridge this gap by:

* Exposing the Reality of Competition: Make them understand that resources alone will not

protect them against an opponent playing with an all-or-nothing survival mindset.

* Forging Friction Through Competition: Keep drills competitive and engaging, but intentionally

design them to test mental stamina, push past uncomfortable thresholds, and demand

relentless execution under pressure.

* Instilling Authentic Discipline: Teach the foundational virtues and non-negotiable standards

required to maximize potential rather than relying solely on talent.

When a well-resourced athlete realizes that privilege without disciplined execution will get them

dismantled by raw hunger, their approach shifts. They stop treating the game casually and begin

to match their material advantages with an earned, authentic fire.