We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jose Anthony Pagan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jose Anthony, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Meaning of Day Zero

The very first day in boot camp is called Day Zero, it doesn’t even count!! This day is meant to wake you up and shake off the old habits from home. You will be screamed at and told that you are worth nothing. Drill Sgts will work your mind and your body from 6 am to 10 pm nonstop. You will be dragged through the dirt and thrown in mud for hours with no break. It’s designed to be a simple reality check, “you’ve left home and now you belong to us.” The most amazing part of the entire day is during the intense mental and physical breakdown, and towards the end of the day. Drenched in sweat and dirt, you look around and see everyone else who made it. It is joyful to see that you made it, and along with everyone else, you helped each other make it. Day Zero brings total strangers together for one common goal, to make it to the end.

Offering the “DayZero” Experience to the World

Most of us live in Day Zero. We live without purpose, lacking confidence and giving up. We live most of our lives battling ourselves and never make it to the end. DayZero wants to enable people to see that there is an opportunity to succeed. DayZero allows people to challenge themselves beyond their limited mindset through physical workouts, teamwork events, and competitions. DayZero lives to see perfect strangers arrive to events and leave as friends.

My entire life was a long grey day with no tune and no color; obstacles were my 3 meals a day. The hardest obstacle for me was doubt. I doubted myself my entire life, not realizing that my successes were won in baby steps. I thought I had to become rich, become a CEO, or win some type of award to be successful. My biggest challenge was changing the way I thought. Once I understood that I was my biggest obstacle, I gave everything to change that. I simply wrote down everything I needed to work on and improved it. I put it on paper because thoughts are bubbles of ideas in your head. It’s when you write things down that they become tangible and a reality.

I have risen from a challenged state of mind to a positive and influential person. Health is not just improving your physique, but your state of mind as well. I believe that we should not wait on fate to determine the path to success; we should build our own path. I believe that wanting to be successful must come from within the deepest part of your soul, and from wanting it as bad as you want to breathe.

DayZero BootCamp is a military-inspired fitness bootcamp that mimics the type of training we conduct in the military. Through strength, teamwork, and grit, the military is able to breed soldiers. One difference about DayZero is that at the end of the workout, we add fun activities like sack races, dodgeball, and tug-a-war competitions to help create that ‘community” feel at the end of the workout. I call it the competition phase. DayZero BootCamp is a fitness boot camp with options to conduct personal training sessions, photography profile photos, and motivational speeches.

1. Boot camps

Our daily and weekly boot camps always work the entire body. They consist of various stations in which the person rotates every minute. These workouts consist of about 10 to 12 people and are a test of muscular and cardiovascular endurance.

2. Monthly Boot camps (bigger event)

This event is large in scale. Attendees are divided into 2 teams, blue and red. It is divided into 3 sections on any given field and can work as many as 100 people at a time. The sections are Camp Strength (muscular and cardiovascular endurance via workouts), Camp Teamwork (meant to put leadership, teamwork and communication skills to the test via obstacle course) and Camp Grit (meant for perseverance and determination via team competitions).

3. Photography/Videography

As a professional photographer, I am the only personal trainer in the country to offer professional photography and videography opportunities for clients.

4. Motivational Speaking

DayZero wants to build a community through fitness, but we understand that to become successful, a person must change the way they think! We cannot hone in on goals if our minds aren’t ready to take on challenges. We offer speeches to enlighten clients and those who participate in the program.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Like DayZero Bootcamp, Angles photography was born through pain and anguish. I began photography in 2013. As a returning Veteran, I was homeless, suffering from PTSD and challenged with transitional issues back home. It was a friend who told me to look into photography as a form of therapy, that I looked into buying my first professional camera, a Nikon D3200.

I walked New York City day and night snapping photos of everything I saw; blurred snapshots on old memory cards serve as a reminder of those days. The most challenging days brought about longer walks in the city along with thousands of photos; I got very good at photography. Interesting to say, I noticed I had picked up on a photography style, I was very good with angles. I noticed that most photographers would shoot only using their height and never going higher, nor below their waist. I began to carry a ladder and take shots higher than usual, or lay completely flat on the ground to get shots below the waist. I found different ways to set myself apart and it worked.

People began to notice my style, hiring me to work with models, kiddos and lifestyle shots. It is now that I have combined my passions for fitness and photography to offer an opportunity to the fitness community, a chance to capture their grind. Almost 10 years later I still work with my D3200 and a 50mm lens, they have never let me down. I’ve added additional equipment for a variety of photography shots, and recently dived into Sony cameras.

Angles Photography is happy to work with you, along with models, athletes, schools, sporting events, lifestyle shoots, gyms, small businesses, feal estate, fundraisers, product and baby showers. If you ever wondered, photography did help me heal. I am well in charge of  my life, confident, positive and would have not found my passion had I not picked up a camera.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I am Jose Pagan and I was born in The South Bronx, New York to Puerto Rican parents. Growing up in the projects was tough. We grew up poor with barely any positivity to get us excited about life. My dad served in the Army and was barely home. My mom was beautiful, but caught up as a single parent of 2 children and living in the “hood” led her to drug usage. After years of messing around in the streets, my mom lost my sister and I to the foster care system. I was about 8 years old when we traveled to Puerto Rico and straight into a stranger’s house. We lived in Puerto Rico until I was 20 years old.

I returned to The Bronx in search of my mom, she was homeless. Once I found her, I dedicated many years trying to help her. In the midst of trying to set ourselves right, I fell into homelessness and found myself surviving against the toughest streets in the country. I was getting jumped and got into fights pretty often. I began hanging around the wrong people which lead me into almost getting killed a few times. It was this one time that I got jumped so bad, I was left for dead and in a coma on a sidewalk. I was taken to the hospital and it was there that I met a Vietnam Veteran, life would change.

After 2 weeks, I woke up and instantly remembered what happened. I wanted revenge, so I would tell my nurse to let me leave the hospital. He would always divert my anger into long talks about his time in the Army. He said that the best revenge was doing something positive and suggested I join the Army as well. After 3 months of therapy, I finally left the hospital and straight to a recruiting station. There, I was challenged to return in 30 days with an 8-mile run time, 50 push-ups, and 50 sit-ups.

I really wanted to leave the Bronx and found myself working out so bad that I returned in 30 days winning a bus trip straight to bootcamp. It was on!!

It was in bootcamp where I was stripped of the streets and clothed in discipline and positive thinking. I learned everything it takes to become a soldier. It’s through strength, teamwork, and grit that the military molds ordinary people into soldiers. I became a Combat Engineer who went to Airborne, Air Assault, Mountain Climber, and Sapper school.

I served 8 years in the Army under the 3rd Infantry Division (Georgia) and the 25th Infantry Division (Alaska) with 3 tours of duty to Iraq. Iraq was something else.

War is war, you see and hear things that make no sense. The worst part of it all is that we spend most of our time trying to make sense of it, which is why we come home depressed. I came home to a bench in Central Park; I had severe PTSD. I don’t know how I became homeless, but that old season was back in my life.

I began to sweep bodega stores for breakfast and mop other stores for dinner, lunch was a privilege. To help heal PTSD, I worked out like a maniac. People began to notice and join in on the fun. I smoked almost every Central Park jogger for that year I lived on the bench. It helped me realize that fitness was life, and in fact, it was truly helping me heal.

After feeling better, finding a job and a place to live, I bumped into another issue, my ex-wife wouldn’t let me see my daughter. I was truly in love with my baby, but couldn’t see her. I married her mom while serving and divorced in Alaska. It was one of those rocky parenting issues where the mom kept the good father from seeing his child. They lived in Hartford, CT.

After years of trying to see my child, crying to judges in court and begging her mom to let me see her, I got nowhere. It’s when that old saying “if you can’t beat them join them” rang a bell in my head. I signed up for college and decided to study law. I failed my first 3 attempts (3 semesters) and Anila was getting older. She was 5 years old. I tried once more and did well in college. In school, I was the SGA president, the International Club president, the Veterans Club president, an SGA board member, a Fashion Club member, a Law and Justice Club member, a Debate Club member, a photographer for the school, a mentor, a tutor, an orientation leader, the student ambassador, and an Honor student.

I went back to court and the judge couldn’t recognize me. As angry as she was that I had challenged them through education, she fairly gave me all the rights I needed to be a great dad. We won Anila!!!

It was in college that I met my future wife. She was a Navy veteran. We met in the library as I was the photographer for the school, I was offering students free headshots (till this day I owe her a photo).

She lived in NJ and I was in NY. After quite some time together, we decided to get married. It was pretty cool to graduate with my wife.

My PTSD got the best of me and after moving to Tampa (2018), I fell back into depression and anger-driven emotions. My wife and son were in the middle of a battle between Me and Me. Jeremiah is 8 years old, he is my lovely stepson (he’s my son). Around the summer of 2019, she and I got divorced, September 11th to be exact. It was sad. We both loved each other, but I needed to work on myself.

I left Tampa for NY and as I began to drive on I75, my uncle called me crying, he found my mom dead in her apartment. I just got divorced, was living in my car, and was driving to my mom’s funeral. She died October 11th. After a few days, I was driving to her wake, when a car rammed into the back of my car. My car was almost totaled. I couldn’t even mourn properly. After a month of driving around NY and waiting for my car to get fixed, I finally got the call to pick it up. It was November 11th, 2019. It felt as if the 11th of September, October, and November were all in on something.

Driving back to Tampa and spending a few months alone helped me see the bigger picture in life. If I wanted real change, it had to come from me! I invested months in therapy, counseling, and exercise. I became a better person which in turn helped me get my family back. I am with my wife/girlfriend again and we plan on remarrying one day.

I barely mention fitness, but fitness played a big role throughout all of these obstacles in my life. It was my “go too” when I was down and out. Fitness helped me heal. I was able to think clearly and feel better. Not just that, but I was able to train and motivate so many people throughout the years and help change their lives as well. I didn’t understand the power of fitness until it changed my entire life.

One chilly morning in January (2021) as I am preparing for work, I asked myself “Jose, if you turn 50 years old, would you be happy?” My answer was no. That same day, I put in my last 2-week notice with the company and decided to embark on this journey of passion. I didn’t want to be a 50-year-old grumpy guy living on regrets.

I signed up for The National Personal Training Institute and in 4 months of daily classroom and hands-on practice, I earned a diploma in personal training. I began to create logos, invest in equipment, apparel and marketing. I began to face my fears and network with people (I am an introvert). Soon, I was conducting boot camps around Tampa.

I have risen from a challenged state of mind to a positive and influential person. Health is not just improving your physique, but your state of mind as well. I believe that we should not wait on fate to determine the path to success; we should build our own path. I believe that wanting to be successful must come from within the deepest part of your soul, and from wanting it as bad as you want to breathe.

MEANING OF DAY ZERO

The very first day in boot camp is called Day Zero, it doesn’t even count!! This day is meant to wake you up and shake off the old habits from home. You will be screamed at and told that you are worth nothing. Drill Sgts will work your mind and your body from 6 am to 10 pm nonstop. You will be dragged through the dirt and thrown in mud for hours with no break. It’s designed to be a simple reality check, “you’ve left home and now you belong to us.” The most amazing part of the entire day is during the intense mental and physical breakdown, and towards the end of the day. Drenched in sweat and dirt, you look around and see everyone else who made it. It is joyful to see that you made it, and along with everyone else, you helped each other make it. Day Zero brings total strangers together for one common goal, to make it to the end.

OFFERING THE “DAY ZERO’ EXPERIENCE TO THE WORLD

Most of us live in Day Zero. We live without purpose, lacking confidence and giving up. We live most of our lives battling ourselves and never make it to the end. DayZero wants to enable people to see that there is an opportunity to succeed. DayZero allows people to challenge themselves beyond their limited mindset through physical workouts, teamwork events, and competitions. DayZero lives to see perfect strangers arrive to events and leave as friends.

DayZero BootCamp is a military-inspired fitness bootcamp that mimics the type of training we conduct in the military. Through strength, teamwork, and grit, the military is able to breed soldiers. One difference about DayZero is that at the end of the workout, we add fun activities like sack races, dodgeball, and tug-a-war competitions to help create that ‘community” feel at the end of the workout. I call it the competition phase. DayZero BootCamp is a fitness boot camp with options to conduct personal training sessions, photography profile photos, and motivational speeches.

1. Boot camps

Our daily and weekly boot camps always work the entire body. They consist of various stations in which the person rotates every minute. These workouts consist of about 10 to 12 people and are a test of muscular and cardiovascular endurance.

2. Monthly Boot camps (bigger event)

This event is large in scale. Attendees are divided into 2 teams, blue and red. It is divided into 3 sections on any given field and can work as many as 100 people at a time. The sections are Camp Strength (muscular and cardiovascular endurance via workouts), Camp Teamwork (meant to put leadership, teamwork and communication skills to the test via obstacle course) and Camp Grit (meant for perseverance and determination via team competitions).

3. Photography/Videography

As a professional photographer, I am the only personal trainer in the country to offer professional photography and videography opportunities for clients.

4. Motivational Speaking

DayZero wants to build a community through fitness, but we understand that to become successful, a person must change the way they think! We cannot hone in on goals if our minds aren’t ready to take on challenges. We offer speeches to enlighten clients and those who participate in the program.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Like DayZero Bootcamp, Angles photography was born through pain and anguish. I began photography in 2013. As a returning Veteran, I was homeless, suffering from PTSD and challenged with transitional issues back home. It was a friend who told me to look into photography as a form of therapy, that I looked into buying my first professional camera, a Nikon D3200.

I walked New York City day and night snapping photos of everything I saw; blurred snapshots on old memory cards serve as a reminder of those days. The most challenging days brought about longer walks in the city along with thousands of photos; I got very good at photography. Interesting to say, I noticed I had picked up on a photography style, I was very good with angles. I noticed that most photographers would shoot only using their height and never going higher, nor below their waist. I began to carry a ladder and take shots higher than usual, or lay completely flat on the ground to get shots below the waist. I found different ways to set myself apart and it worked.

People began to notice my style, hiring me to work with models, kiddos and lifestyle shots. It is now that I have combined my passions for fitness and photography to offer an opportunity to the fitness community, a chance to capture their grind. Almost 10 years later I still work with my D3200 and a 50mm lens, they have never let me down. I’ve added additional equipment for a variety of photography shots, and recently dived into Sony cameras.

Angles Photography is happy to work with you, along with models, athletes, schools, sporting events, lifestyle shoots, gyms, small businesses, feal estate, fundraisers, product and baby showers. If you ever wondered, photography did help me heal. I am well in charge of  my life, confident, positive and would have not found my passion had I not picked up a camera.

Any advice for managing a team?

Assertiveness, Knowledgeable and a Great Listener.

To be a great leader you must be assertive, knowledgeable and a good listener. Managing a team starts with listening to their needs and understanding the needs of the job. Listen without judgement, be knowledgeable to know what decision is important to make at the time and be assertive so that the people you work with trust your judgement.

To motivate your team, you need to improve and invest in yourself. Make sure you watch videos, listen to podcasts, and read as many books as you can about the job, and the people you work with. Take courses and certifications like communication skills, leadership skills, management skills, computer skills, soft skills, social skills, public speaking etc. and continue to grow. The people you lead will see your willingness to invest in yourself and see that you take your job serious. Once you’ve gained their confidence, they will follow you blindly.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Genuineness and Respect.

You must have an insurmountable level of genuineness and respect towards your craft and your client. Share your passion without fear; people will instantly feel your level of respect towards what you do, and how you feel about those your work with or train. You must share that feeling and interest with those around you.

If you learn everything there is to be learned about your craft and combine it with energy and design thinking (think out the box), people will gravitate to you without question. People will share their experience with others and recommend others work with you. The power of referral is unmatched. Social media and other means of marketing like Google ads, flyers, etc. are powerful as well, but word of mouth is something we cannot discard and take for granted.

The most effective strategy for growing my clientele is being genuine and respectful towards them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram/dayzerobootcamp.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dayzerobootcamp/
• Other: Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZfeWhrKuXDmN9vX27 Photography Portfolio: https://anglesphotography.myportfolio.com/

Image Credits
Jose A. Pagan (myself)