“You know how Laura is- she was so enthusiastic. She touched on the 1,000 things they needed to improve upon but emphasized the things they were doing well. All of them were so excited and worked so hard. Laura Pinkley was made to inspire kids.”

That is what Amanda had to say when she returned home from the OBCF CrossFit for Kids class last night. The whole house was filled with good energy…and tired little humans.

It’s not entirely true, though. Laura wasn’t put here to only uplift kids, she has a gift of uplifting people.

I talk about it all the time and I have no intentions of ever stopping but I was broken when I walked into a CrossFit gym. I had no idea what was going on but I knew that I did not belong. Laura and a handful of others changed me. They changed everything about me. They changed my identity, they changed my level of self-confidence, they changed my belief system, they changed my level of energy, they changed my outlook and they changed my future. She and the others did this with simple acts of encouragement and enthusiasm.

Fast forward five years, my kids are attending their first CrossFit classes and what do ya know? Laura Friggin Pinkley is running the class. And, of course, she is instilling the same amount of self-confidence, energy, and enthusiasm by virtue of her charismatic spirit into our 12-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl as she did me….only with a few less curse words…maybe.

I really don’t have the words to describe it. Watching the kids light up when they talk about their experience at the gym, the idea of having folks, ages between 20 and 70, providing the same amount of encouragement to my children as they do to me, being present while the kids get down on the floor in the den to demonstrate the movements that they learned at the gym,  watching Grayson humbly try to act is if the compliments aren’t causing him to walk on clouds-  it is more than I can even describe. There is no parent alive that doesn’t enjoy watching their child find themselves and be happy in the process.

It’s a culture. Encouragement, enthusiasm and self-confidence is something that Laura planted at the gym, and the members continue to take ownership of it while continuing to water and fertilize the seed.

So, yeah, CrossFit might not be your jam, and that is totally cool, but if you find a place that makes you better…if you find a place that will make you better and turn around and use those same contagious tools to make your family better…I’d suggest immersing yourself within it. The people who knock things don’t have this in their life. When you have things like this you don’t knock other things because your time is spent in gratitude for your thing. Find a thing. Do that thing and bring something to the table. Laura Pinkley is proof that oftentimes a little enthusiasm is more valuable than any asset in the room.

The fact that what I am writing about occurs at a CrossFit gym is irrelevant. When you bring enthusiasm, encouragement and self-confidence to the table, you can carry that into any environment.

I’m glad OBCF found me but I’m more grateful that Laura Pinkley came along with it.

Peace, Love, and all things Beef related,

Beefcake