I started training at 13 with my dad, who taught me the fundamentals from his years playing college football. I grew up blessed. A happy Catholic family, two loving parents, and grandparents right across the street who I spent nearly every day with. Private school. A good environment. From 13 to 18 I trained, played ball, and chased one goal: college football. I went to camps, got scouted, and learned from college and former NFL players who poured into me. They gave me more than training and nutrition. They gave me morals and values I still carry.
I worked hard on the field. Off it, I did what a lot of young guys do. Friends, parties, drinking, smoking. I told myself I earned it, that if I trained hard enough I could play hard too. I thought that was enjoyment. What it really was, was a slow leak in my focus.
It caught up with me. I ran out of breath mid-play. I had brain fog from the night before. I started underperforming what I knew I was capable of. I didn't quit, but I didn't change what I did off the field either.
By the end of my football career all I had was a partial scholarship to a D3 school that would still put me in debt. I was grateful for it. But I knew it wasn't what I wanted, because I was only going to play, not to study.
Then 2020 hit. COVID. At first I was relieved. Two weeks home sounded easy. Two weeks became three years. Without football and the gym to balance my bad habits, I had nothing holding me up. TV, video games, same habits, telling myself it would just work out.
For my 21st I went to Vegas with friends. I had "fun," and I was more depressed than I had ever been. Dead end jobs. Bad habits. My girlfriend of three years had just ended it. That was the bottom.
So I made a decision. In an instant I dropped every bad habit, got back in the gym, and took a job at a dealership with people who genuinely wanted the best for me.
It was not easy. It sounds simple written down, but it was sleepless nights. Training, studying business, grinding to move up at work, pouring everything I had into becoming someone new.
Then my grandpa died. I answered it by showing up for everyone. My parents, my grandma, my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I was heartbroken, and I kept building myself. Mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, financially. Six months later, my grandma died. I answered it the same way. Eight months after that, I broke my ankle.
Now I couldn't work, train, or pour into anyone. I laid in a hospital bed for three days with no food or water, waiting for surgery, while they ran needles through my calf trying to wake the nerves. Nothing they gave me touched the pain. When surgery finally came it was the worst pain of my life, because they hadn't given me the right medication. Seven days later they sent me home.
I spent three months in bed. I had lost my grandparents, my relationship, my football dream, and every outlet I leaned on. So I refused to numb any of it.
I let it forge me instead.
Instead of disappearing into a screen, I read The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene cover to cover. Two months in, once I could move a little, I had my mom buy me a pair of 20lb dumbbells. I sat in my office chair with my leg propped on the desk and did curls, tricep extensions, and shoulder presses until I couldn't lift anymore. Every rep sent blood rushing to my ankle and it throbbed. I did it anyway, because I knew the man it would build would be unbreakable. He is.
When I went back to the dealership I still couldn't walk. They sat me in the office doing paperwork, talking to customers here and there. Three months of physical therapy later I started selling cars, then working finance, and within six months I could run an entire deal start to finish on my own. The owners had twenty plus years of experience and they handed it to me. I took it, made it my own, and started making more money than I ever had, meeting and helping good people along the way.
Today I help manage the whole company alongside the men I learned it all from. I'm still learning every day. And I'm thankful. For them, for my family, for God, and for everyone who carried me.
Looking back on all of it, I know one thing for certain.
Everything in life is achievable through consistent persistence.
Everything I am now was inside me the whole time. God put me through all of it to build me into the man who could hold up the life I have today. The same is true for you. That is why Ethan Forge exists. My mission is to help men become the strongest version of themselves, using everything I've learned and everything I'm still learning.
If you're ready to work, brother, fill out the application and book a call. We'll get to know each other and find out if we're the right fit to build you into the best version of yourself, one day at a time.
