Above: Bob Whelan doing a set of 9 reps with 360 pounds on the Hammer chest press at WST.
I can't believe how time flies. It seems like yesterday when I left the Federal Government to make my passion my profession in 1990. It was a scary but exciting time in my life. People thought I was crazy to leave a prestegious career with CIA and almost 14 years of Federal service. (Counting my Air Force time.) Don't get me wrong - I loved the Agency and worked with some of the highest quality people in the world, but me and God had other plans for me. I already had a graduate degree and thought I was "done" with school, but I did what I knew I had to do. In my mid thirties I took the "hard road" less travelled, I switched careers and I started graduate school (again), this time at GMU in exercise science. I wanted to be great not just survive in my new business and that meant a degree in the field, not just a phony certification like most personal trainers get.
I had no more money coming in anymore from the government but I had faith and just put an ad in the paper. It was either do this or become homeless. There was no turning back. It was sink or swim. I had no equipment at first and went to peoples homes for about 2 years while going to graduate school and working part time too. It was tough but I made it. It was worth it. I'm so glad I had the guts to follow my dreams and not be a numb robot just to get a pension. I bet on ME and won!
My advice: Don't follow the crowd and have the courage to take a chance on yourself. Follow your dreams and you will make your own "security". Time flies when you are having fun.
Bob Whelan
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt
"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
