Today is the day
Today is the day. New adventure is awaiting.
I’m writing this from Houston, TX.
It’s our last day here before we set off on a new adventure that’s taking us to Boise, ID with a few stops along the way.
We’ve been in Houston for a long time. Blakley for over 30 years and Jonathan for over 20. We met here. We got married 18 years ago here. We’ve owned homes here. We’ve had beloved pets born and pass here. Our friends of over 20 years are here. Blakley’s parents and brother are here. Our beautiful baby niece is here (you have seen Blakley holding her). We’ve had careers here and started our own businesses here.
We have roots here.
SO MANY DEAR FRIENDS… AND FAMILY!
AND THE SWEETEST NEICE WE LOVE LOVE LOVE!
But without change, there can be no growth. That’s what growth is after all. A change.
I’d like to say that we had some grand master plan for this new chapter of our life and that we’ve executed flawlessly to make it come to fruition but that is far from the truth. It’s been an evolution that has unfolded step by step and opportunity after opportunity no doubt orchestrated by God.
We started Digital Barbell over a year ago just as an instagram account with the mission to share the things that we’ve learned about training and nutrition that have allowed us to change our lives. Blakley owned a CrossFit gym at the time and also worked part time for Rice University. I was working full time as a superintendent for a small custom home builder.
As we shared and educated through Digital Barbell, the demand grew for us to help people in a more one on one setting with their own nutrition and with custom training plans that actually worked for their lives and goals.
During this time Blakley’s gym was growing and a new owner purchased the building that she leased in. As the time of her lease was nearing renewal her new landlord told her that he planned to increase her rent substantially. Like a lot. Like more the gym was bringing in in income. Obviously not an ideal situation, especially considering that we made the decision for her to leave her job at Rice University just a few months before this news. It was clear that Blakley wasn’t going to be able to keep the gym open. It was a heartbreaking decision.
Fortunately during this time Digital Barbell was growing and we were getting great results with both our nutrition and training clients.
About 2 months before the closing of the gym we had plans to have dinner with some of our closest friends. They’ve been on a mission for years to find where they want to live after they leave Houston. They looked all over the country over for many years and settled on Boise. In anticipation of moving there, they pounced on the opportunity to buy a house in the North End of Boise even though they weren’t moving for a few years.
Knowing about the impending closing of the gym and our increased focus on Digital Barbell, they presented us with an offer. Their renter was moving out of the house in Boise at the end of August and they thought “Why not see if Jonathan & Blakley would like to live in the house until we move to Boise and need the house.”
Needless to say, we were blown away by the offer.
When you’ve lived in a city for a long time and planted deep roots there, the decision to leave isn’t easy no matter how incredible the opportunity is. Once we did decide to make the move there were roughly 2,000 things that needed to happen. Much like it often happens in life, when things are meant to be, things fall into place.
Almost all of the members of Blakley’s gym were able to stay together and transition to a new gym that recently opened just a few blocks away.
We sold our house to friends that we love. They are going to breathe new life into it over the coming months.
We sold Blakley’s boat to someone who described it as his dream boat. After years of neglect in storage its already been out on the water with its new owner.
I left my job (and salary) at CityLife Homes and we’ve continued to add members since that day.
It’s pretty amazing how things work out.
Even though we have peace about what we’re doing, we’re a little terrified. But we’re excited.
We keep reminding ourself that if we keep pursuing excellence, honesty and a commitment to do the best that we can for our clients we will be ok.
We’re quite literally getting out of our comfort zone, much the same way that we encourage you guys to.
Change is hard. Change is scary. But we’re making this change because we know it will force us to grow and become better people who can help even more people. It’ll force us to rely on each other and our faith more.
Do you know that you need to make a change? Are you scared to do it? We get it. We are too. We crave the familiar. We long for security. The kind of security that gives us feelings of control over our lives. All that control that we crave is an illusion.
We’re trusting that there is growth, opportunity and adventure in this change.
We set off for a week long drive to Boise tomorrow morning. We’ll take our time, see people along the way. Do a few workouts with some dumbbells and ultimately end up at our new house on September 2nd. We’re excited even though it’s been a hard decision to leave this place and the familiarity and most especially all of the people we love here.
We’ll be sure to keep you guys posted on how the drive is going and how we like our new digs. Thank you all for your support and trust. We really appreciate you all.
Stay tuned.