Yeah. The running joke, especially in my own family is that I try to find the most indirect route to the final goal. That’s how it was with the strength training. Certainly, then with my education, I actually started out.

I originally went to school to be what I guess most universities would call a philosophy major. Anyway, that didn’t work out. I went to a small school in Arkansas for a year and a half. Actually, Greg Nuckols went there too.

We didn’t know each other, and because I think he’s much younger than I am, but we ended up at the same place, but I left and I switched my major to biology because I just thought science. I wanted a science degree, but I wasn’t like pre-med or pre — anything — I just wanted a science degree.

Graduated with a biology degree from Truman State, and it turns out, you can’t do anything with the biology degree. There’s really nothing for you to do except for going to a professional school, get your master’s, PhD at a medical school, whatever.

I ended up working in a lab at a company called Vitek Systems, which they basically are a microbiology company. I think they’ve rebranded. Anyway, Boeing owns them. I worked there for three months and I hated every minute of it. Because I was just pouring plates that you would stain different bacteria on. I hated that.

I ended up trying to figure out a new way to make money, and I was like, “What do I like to do?” I was like, “I love training, and I love researching and that stuff, so I’ll work as a personal trainer.”

I got a job doing that and I loved it, fell in love with it. My business took off, which is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. I had this imposter syndrome thing going on where I was like, “I don’t think I know enough. I know how to lift weights, I know how to coach this stuff.”

Which at that point was based on trial and error because there were no resources back in 2007, 2008 on how to really do this. I was like, “I’m just going to amass as many different credentials as I can because that’s going to make me feel better.”

I was like, “OK, I already got my CSES. I’m going to get my ACSM HFS cert, I’m going to get my USAW cert, I’m going to get CrossFit certified, I’m going to get my RKC, I’m going to get CISSN nutrition cert.” All these different things, which in hindsight didn’t prepare me to train anybody. It really didn’t. It just gave me more letters after my name.

On the flip side though, it did allow me to move into a position with the company I was working for as a coach, as more to educational role, which got me further ingrained in, “I need to learn more if I’m going to be responsible for teaching these trainers how to train.”

Which ultimately, led to me thinking about higher education because I was like, “Should I go get a PhD degree? Should I go get a master’s in something, should I go to medical school?” I had this conversation with a couple of close friends and mentors.

Basically, the only thing that was worthwhile for me, given how old I was, I was 24 at the time. What I was doing in my career already was medical school, but I had been out of school already for a number of years. I needed to figure out a way to shore up my resume, my application.

I ended up getting a Master’s in Anatomy and Physiology from St Louis University School of Medicine. I actually taught anatomy to their med students and PA students, as well as neuroanatomy. That was fun, a fun experience for me.

After that, I applied to medical school, got in, went to medical school, and then ended up doing a residency UCLA in family medicine. I spent some extra years in there working and getting a master’s.

If I would have gone to medical school right after undergrad, I think I would have had a much different experience. If I even would have been successful applying and going through it in the first place.

Again, there’s very indirect route, but having all that educational experience, I do think it gives me some insight when people ask those questions like, “Should I go get this professional degree?” I don’t know that. There’s one answer for that. It just really depends on what do you want to do.

If you need additional professional licensure to do what you really want to do, hey, knock yourself out. On the other hand, if you just want more education to know more things, I don’t know that you always have to pick a formal route for that.

For instance, for a lot of adult learning programs, there’s a lot of masterclass, or mentorship programs that may be more suitable. It really just depends on what you want to do. Spending a whole bunch of money, both it costs money to go to school, and then opportunity costs of actually going and not working and stuff, might not always be the best solution.

For me, going through medical school and stuff like that was a good trade off.