Mindset Training

Message from the Founder

From a very young age I became obsessed with sports and athletics. My mom loves telling this story of when I was 2 years old and got a kid set of golf clubs for Christmas. I went out into our backyard and hit golf ball after golf ball until I had broken all the cheap plastic clubs in the set. That’s when my parents realized sports might be in my future. By age 9, I was spending hours and hours hitting baseballs in the batting cages while my friends were playing video games. I still remember those days. I remember them feeling like a different reality, time seemed slow and my focus was unwavering. Once I got older, I found out this phenomenon was called “Flow State” or “The Zone” which is now recognized and studied in Neuroscience.

This feeling was something I chased my entire life through sports, and quickly realized it was only achievable if I was pushing myself just beyond where I felt comfortable, like cranking up the pitching machine to 75mph even though I played against pitchers who only threw 65mph.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, I never became a pro athlete, but searching for that feeling has been a centerpiece in my life even after sports.

When I dropped out of school at 20 and started my first business, I remember the stress and anxiety and the level of risk crippling me to the point of selling my first business shortly after launching it. I thought I just didn’t have what it took to be an entrepreneur even though I had dreamed of having a brand ever since I started a graphic tee shirt company when I was 12.

I ended up moving home for a while to rethink my next stage of life. After my first business, which I deemed a failure and due to my lack of direction in life, I became extremely depressed and was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder called dissociative disorder which then caused extreme panic attacks and a vasovagal syncope condition where I would pass out unexpectedly. One time I passed out in the bathroom and landed with my neck over the side of the bathtub obstructing my airway while the bathroom door was locked. Luckily my family heard me fall and came to help me, but I ended up in the emergency room and realized I really needed to do something to address my mental health.

The first thing I did was start exercising again. I wasn’t very active after I stopped playing sports and I was dealing with an injuring so I couldn’t skateboard anymore. I very quickly went from exercising as a routine to falling in love with weightlifting and trail running. Weightlifting specifically started to give me that “Flow” feeling I had experienced playing sports. It was a beautifully similar version of adding more pressure/weight/resistance in relation to where you currently felt comfortable. You could quite literally add as much or as little resistance you wanted to. I started to get deep into lifting as my sport and began studying the mental side of training. I became very intrigued with the fact that my brain would tell me that I couldn’t do another rep, even though physically I could. I started to “train to failure” as often as could to see where my mind would tell me to stop vs. where my muscles actually needed to stop. I was astonished that I usually has 20% more reps in me physically after my brain triggered me to want to stop.

This practice changed my entire life.

I began trying to apply this 20% philosophy to everything I did. If I felt too tired to read more of a business book I would force myself to read even more. If I was too afraid to apply to a college, I would apply to 2 other colleges that I was even more afraid of applying to (I actually ended up getting into a school that I had deemed way outside of realistic just by using this strategy). I started to be hyper aware of when my mind would “tell me to stop” doing something, and then I would use that moment to push even further.

The psychology of this is actually well studied, just give “Lizard Brain” a quick Google search. Basically, there is a part of the brain that is constantly trying to keep us “safe”, but the problem is it is very primitive and very overactive. So, what keeps most people from going after their dreams is an internal misguided safety mechanism trying to keep us safe when there is no real danger. It sees any risk as life threatening and tries to keep us safe by making up reasons we shouldn’t do that thing, even as basic as not applying to your top school because of the “what if you get rejected…” thought it sees as a life and death situation.

ASRV was the Phoenix out of the Fire after all these events in my life.
I was about to resign my life to going back to school because I was too afraid to start another business just in case it “failed” but I had this idea to start an apparel company focused on connecting the physical benefits of training to the mental benefits that training could create.

Creating ASRV has been risk and risk after risk, but the difference is my perspective. I see the stress and anxiety of running a business as just bumping up against my mental “max” every day. The stress and anxiety aren’t stress and anxiety, rather just going past failure day after day after day. Every day I want to do more, create more, tell a better story, design a better product, hire more people, expand into retail etc. Of course, every day is filled with “risk” and my Lizard Brain tells me I’m in a life-or-death situation and that I need to stop and “stay safe”- just like when my brain would tell me I didn’t have more reps left in me and I would push out 20% more.

When the pressure and risk feel like it is crushing me, I just remember THAT is exactly what it takes to grow. By applying this philosophy it allows me to tap into the “Flow State” that I experienced playing sports at a high level. It’s exactly the same thing but I’m trying to play life at a high level, and the sport I have chosen is building a meaningful brand with innovative products. And if our brand and products help just one person continue past that mental point of failure, then I’m fulfilling my purpose.