Chapter 1: Behind the Veil
What's REALLY going on here?
Click Here to Listen to the Audiobook in Your Favorite Podcast App
In 2010, I graduated from college with a degree in print journalism.
I chose journalism because it was the easiest major that I could think of.
I still remember sitting with my Mom, going through the catalog of things to study and settling on Journalism.
“You’re such a good writer.” she said to me.
But inside, I was thinking, “There’s no tests, only essays. JACKPOT!”
You see, at this stage of my life, I was 100% certain that I would be playing in the NBA someday. I simply couldn’t allow trivial distractions like studying get in the way of my hoops dreams.
“My major is basketball.” I would say.
Well, you know how this story ends.
I did not make the NBA…at least not as a player.
After my college basketball career ended, I was left with a vanquished dream and a degree that I wanted nothing to do with.
For that first year, I actually was a journalist. I worked in the sports department of the New Haven Register in New Haven, Connecticut.
I found the workplace to be remarkably dreary.
It was just a huge open room with desks scattered about and a constant low hum of phones ringing and people typing on their computers.
My supervisor was hardly aware of my existence. I would be given the lowest possible busy work like calling local high school volleyball coaches to record the team stats so we could print the box scores in tomorrow’s paper.
As I began to realize that nobody had any clue that I was even there, I just stopped showing up. I would be gone for weeks at a time. I would pop back into my supervisor's office on my rare trips to the office just to show face.
As you now know, I did not last as a journalist. I quit after one year.
The next year, it was time to try something new.
I was going to be a substitute high school teacher.
And I joined the workforce at New Haven Academy, also in New Haven, Connecticut.
I decided that I was going to be the “cool sub.”
I would just let the kids talk quietly amongst themselves and enjoy a light period.
Well, on the very first day of school, I immediately lost control of the class.
The kids were getting so loud and rowdy, that I began scrambling to regain control.
One of the students jumped up onto her desk and began to dance. The rest of the class was loving it. I was in a complete panic.
The school had a security officer who would roam the hallways. He was not a policeman but he was a very likable person and I needed some help. So I paged him.
A few minutes later, he walked into the classroom to find quite the rambunctious scene.
I motioned towards the student dancing on her desk and signaled that I needed help.
He sauntered his way over to the student and said, “Hey, c'mon now! Get down from the desk.”
The student turned to him, raised her middle finger and said, “FUCK YOU, I DO WHAT I WANT!”
The officer turned to me and said, “Well, I tried.”
And sauntered out.
I quit that job after the school year.
Barely out of college, I already had two failed career attempts and I had no idea what I would end up doing with my life.
One day, while watching my favorite show, King of Queens, with one of my best friends, he asked me the classic question when you’re trying to decide on a career.
“What do you like doing when you don’t have to do anything?” he asked.
I was frustrated with this big life decision I had to make.
“I can’t think about this right now,” I said, “I’m going to the gym.”
He stopped, looked at me and said, “Do that!”
“Be a Strength and Conditioning Coach!”
At the moment, it sounded reasonable. I liked the idea of wearing shorts to work every day and the Strength and Conditioning Coach that I had in college was awesome and seemed to love his job.
I decided to take the first step.
The next day, I walked into my college Strength and Conditioning Coach’s office and asked him what he thought.
Without answering me, he turned to his bookshelf, grabbed a huge textbook and dropped it on the desk in front of me.
“If you want to be a Strength Coach, you’ve got to learn this book.” he said.
I flipped through the pages for a moment.
“Ok.” I said, “I can do that.”
He continued, “And you can intern for me this coming school year.”
That was good enough for me. I was in.
Now, you’ve got to put yourself in my shoes. I had a JOURNALISM degree. I knew NOTHING about exercise science. My only experience was in being the athlete going through the workouts. I didn’t know any of the methods behind the madness.
I still remember opening that textbook and seeing “Actin and Myosin Cross-bridges” on the first page.
It may as well have been written in Chinese.
Each excruciating page was filled with things I had never heard of. I had to Google every other word to find out what the heck it was. It was a painstaking process.
A process that I didn’t quite understand either, because, after all, I knew everything there was to know about working out.
…or so I thought.
The interesting thing about fitness is that the world does not THINK they know how to workout, they KNOW they know how to workout.
Why else would 95% of the gym-goers in the world show up to their local health club and go at it alone?
I was the same way.
I thought that fitness was simply a game of mental toughness, intensity and volume. Do more, go harder, do it longer.
Almost immediately, I was blown away by the complexity of the human body…and I was just getting started.
I spent a few years making my rounds as an intern but eventually, I had to get a real job.
I loved the idea of working in sports but the only places willing to hire me were local gyms looking for personal trainers.
This journalism degree was really getting in my way.
Every exciting job posting had the same paragraph….
JOB REQUIREMENTS: Must have three years of experience and a degree in Exercise Science, Kinesiology or a related field.
After months of getting turned down for jobs, my Mom started to apply some pressure. I had to get going here.
“If you really want to work in sports, you should send an e-mail to all the current Strength Coaches and see if they have openings.” she said.
Of course, as a know-it-all kid, I scoffed at the idea.
But later that night, I decided she was right.
I pulled out my computer and sent an e-mail to every single Strength and Conditioning Coach in professional baseball.
Since every Major League Baseball team had four or five affiliated Minor League teams, each with their own Strength Coach, I figured baseball was my best chance just given the amount of jobs that existed in the sport.
The next day, I got e-mails back from a bunch of teams.
Then my phone rang…
“Hello?”
“Hi Sean! This is the Head Strength Coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I got your e-mail.”
I was in shock.
“Could this guy be calling me from inside the Diamondbacks stadium?” I thought to myself.
I ended up landing interviews with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets.
I was offered positions with the Mets and the Diamondbacks but the Diamondbacks was my top choice.
And in 2013, I was hired to be a Minor League Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
My story that you’ve read so far is important because I need you to see where I’m coming from.
I walked through the doors of the Diamondbacks training facility for Spring Training for the first time in the spring of 2013…with a JOURNALISM DEGREE.
To say I knew nothing was an understatement.
All of my colleagues had relevant degrees, many certifications and talked well above my reading level.
Truthfully, I was mortified about how little I knew compared to everyone else.
At the end of every day, the Strength Coaches and the medical team would hold a meeting to discuss the various injuries amongst the players.
“What’s going on with Andrew?” the medical director would ask, “What’s our plan for his rehab?”
He would call on me every day.
I vehemently hated this.
He knew I didn’t have the answer but he would still call on me.
My routine was to just re-word whatever someone else said before me.
The only thing I was capable of doing at a high level that year was setting up the cones for team stretch.
Eventually, I hit a breaking point.
I was so fed up with getting called on in those meetings.
I was so fed up with players asking me a question and then another coach telling them not to do what I said because it made no sense.
I decided that I was going to get as smart as humanly possible and put an end to my ignorance once and for all.
My goal was to one day become a Strength and Conditioning Coach in the NBA and I knew that, if I was going to accomplish that, I would have to overcome the fact that I had a degree in writing paragraphs.
I knew that every interviewer would take a look at my resume, scan down to the college degree section and immediately toss that resume in the trash.
I needed to find a way to make my degree irrelevant.
This left me with only one option.
I had to get BIGGER and BETTER results than anyone else. And I had to do it FASTER than anyone else.
Here, I uncovered my greatest advantage.
You see, I was not weighed down by academia. I did not have a pre-scripted routine that I was “supposed to follow.”
While my colleagues were looking through the lens of “this is what I’m supposed to do,” I was looking through the lens of “what actually works.”
I vividly remember being in my first weight room in Missoula, Montana (Short Season Single-A Affiliate for the Diamondbacks, the Missoula Osprey) and watching my players go through a very popular ankle mobility exercise.
The goal, of course, was to increase ankle mobility.
The problem was, no one’s ankles ever became more mobile.
And yet, it was an accepted staple of everyone’s routine.
I threw it out.
I began to see weightlifting and exercise from a different perspective.
I began to see the HUMAN BODY from a different perspective.
Now, this book is going to teach you the lessons that I learned and the discoveries that I made, so I’ll spare you the details now.
But as I read more books, attended more seminars, spoke with successful coaches and continued to look through the lens of “what really works” the tides of my career began to shift.
After my first season with the Diamondbacks, the National Strength and Conditioning Association invited me to be one of their keynote speakers at their national convention in Louisville, Kentucky.
Each offseason, I began going on mini-tours of conferences and universities that were intrigued as to what I was doing.
I was developing quite a reputation.
People were noticing that I was doing things quite a bit differently than anyone else and the results were striking.
Soon, NBA teams began to take notice.
In my fourth season with the Diamondbacks, I was working in Mobile, Alabama with the DBacks’ Double-A affiliate, the Mobile BayBears.
We were on the road in Montgomery, Alabama and I was standing in the outfield during batting practice when my phone rang.
On the other end was the Los Angeles Lakers.
They wanted to fly me out and interview me for their open Strength and Conditioning position.
I didn’t tell anyone.
The next morning, I took an Uber to the local Macy’s to get a suit. I got a purple tie for Lakers’ colors.
Next, I went to get a haircut.
A few days later, on our off-day, I left my Mobile, Alabama apartment at 3:30 in the morning to head to the airport to catch the first flight to Atlanta, where I would then pick up a flight out to Los Angeles.
I landed at LAX several hours later, went down to the baggage claim area, walked into the handicapped stall in the bathroom and changed into my suit.
I hailed a cab to the Lakers’ training facility in El Segundo.
There I sat, in the waiting room of the Lakers’ practice facility. I remember thinking how cool it was that this is where Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant trained for many years.
Maybe I would see them while I was here.
For the next few hours I went through the interview process.
I interviewed with the performance and medical staff.
I interviewed with the General Manager.
I interviewed with the Head Coach.
When it was over, I hailed another Uber back to LAX to catch a flight back to the Bible Belt where I would meet the team in Biloxi, Mississippi.
No one knew a thing.
About a week later, the Lakers called and offered me the job.
The funny thing was that, in the entire interview process, no one ever asked me about my journalism degree.
They simply wanted to know how the heck I was able to deliver such crazy results and would I be able to bring that to the NBA.
This is the Flammarion Engraving.
If you look closely, you can see a man in the bottom left corner of the engraving.
The man is living in the normal world, but he’s a curious man.
You can see that he’s poking his head through the veil of the universe to see its inner workings.
He’s looking to find out how all of this REALLY works.
This painting is centered on the wall behind me in my office because I am that man. This is what I do.
This is how I was able to go from Journalism Degree to NBA Strength Coach in just four years.
This is how I’ve been able to help so many people get out of pain, recover from illness and unlock a level of health they never thought possible.
All of that came from looking through the lens of “what actually works.”
I do not know why you are reading these words.
I assume you are looking to do something similar. You may be in pain and desperately seeking a solution.
You may be sick and looking for an alternative strategy.
You may simply be looking for a way to be healthier, live longer and improve your overall quality of life.
If this is you, I can emphatically state that the answers you seek are in the pages ahead.
But I am not writing these words to meet your expectations.
I am not here to pander to the conventional.
I have no interest in getting you to like me, to agree with me or putting out a book that draws no criticism.
My only commitment is to the truth.
You may have come here seeking exercise routines, biohacks and nutritional guidance. All of which are coming your way.
But you will also most certainly find the unexpected as you continue to turn these pages.
My only commitment is to the truth.
My only commitment is to showing you how all of this REALLY works.
Thank you Sean! We spoke 6 years ago about navicular fractures and you helped direct me during my undergrad towards being a strength coach. Your insight towards the Nervous System and pushing me to understand and study humans as not only an athlete but an organism has helped me be successful. I wish you nothing but success and appreciate your wisdom from years ago!