We were lucky to catch up with Steve Johng recently and have shared our conversation below.

Steve, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

This will probably be the most round about way of getting to where I am.

What I have found is that any type of coaching is more about leadership then the actual fitness. Anyone can learn facts, or teach you an exercise, I mean shoot, you can just look online and find a bunch of different people telling you how to do an exercise or what to eat. However, to be a coach its more about leadership and helping other individuals discover their own strength and capabilities on their own.

Started when I was 16 or 17 years old in High School where I was part of this club called TAFE (Texas Association of Future Educators). I did it mostly cause I was friends with this group of girls and well…that just kind of explains itself. The girl were older than me by a year and so when they graduated I was still a junior and to preserve their legacy, I was elected as the next president!

That was probably my first real position in leadership and understanding how to communicate to others and figuring out what it actually means to be in charge.

Fast forward to 2017 and I was then asked to be the leader of a Bootcamp when the instructor and her family moved.
Crazy part is that I wasnt actually certified as a trainer yet! Because I knew the people in the class, presented good form, and what not the just put me in charge.

When I eventually became an actual certified trainer, I took the Bootcamp and started forming R3NEGADE Training and learning the things that people liked, what got them results, and leading them in away where they enjoyed doing really hard things that made them uncomfrotable, and learning that the results were on the other side of that discomfrot.

It wasn’t really until I had formed my own non-profit in 2011 called Project Delta Soccer, where I had put a board together, and volunteers, and stake holders that I had to figure out how to communicate in different ways, but still have the same message come across. Plus, taking the soccer players who were part of the local community and getting to the heart of the message.

All that to say you get to the founder of a company and teaching clients and others what being R3NEGADE is all about.
Not conforming to the patterns of the world.

The way we move
The way we train
The way we eat
Mind, Body, Soul.

Teaching each client 1 by 1, that its not about transforming the body first, but the mind!

Steve, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Steve Johng, a half Korean-Mexican that operates as a performance specialist.

I have to give credit to one of my mentors, Jonathan Ruzicka at RPM Physical Therapy in The Woodlands, Tx who got me into the world of Physical Therapy and helped me really understand how the body moves, why people end up in pain and then help them get out of pain!

Though I myself am not a physical therapist, I’m trained in the arts where I specialize in bio mechanics and patterns that the client has to prevent injuries and even thought patterns that can be detrimental.

Also a nutrition coach I help identify areas that clients need assistance in to maintain a proper nutrition plan to get them to their goals, smash false beliefs, and create sustainable results where every diet they have done has failed!

As an avid soccer player, Liverpool FC supporter, and Spartan Racer I also serve as a coach that can help clients achieve athletic goals that they might have! From getting back into action to performing at the highest level on the field!

One of the most proud moments is a 54 year old athlete who thought his playing days were over because of a severe achillies injury. We we worked and did the basics and then got him playing in Nationals when that dream, at first, seemed unattainable.

Its really fun to see clients go from point A (hopeless) to point B (further than they thought they could go)!

R3NEGADE Trainining is about 2 things:
1. Not conforming to patterns of this world (because thats what got you to me in the first place)
2. You renew yourself with YOUR mind. Not mine. Yours!

Also can check out the podcast: R3NEGADE Radio where we speak with other R3NEGADES in different fields!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

What do you do when the world around you is dark, and it feels as though you are in a pit, a cave, the wilderness?

What do you do when its your own brain that is fighting against you? Makes you feel as though you are on the outside, and watching life take place in front of you, while you remain in your own prison, that you just can’t seem to get out of.

This is not just my story, but the silent story of countless other across the globe.

The depression that I had undergone is called dysthymia, now persistant depressive disorder. This is a type of depression that you have to have for a minimum for 2-year before it is actually diagnosed as dysthymia.

When it first happened, it felt as though I had lost all control, and couldnt seem to get my mind to work correctly. I noticed it the first time I attempted to read a map. I couldnt recall any information. It was too difficult to inturprut. Slowly, I went into emotional blunting and lost all sense of joy, happiness, excitement, even fear, and sadness not longer had any sway.

Imagine having to go to work, and dealing with what you have to in the workplace, on top of your own fight within.

Showing up day in and day out. Not knowing what is going on with you and still needing to show up.

There are no classes/courses you can take to help you get past this. There are no self help books or methods, systems, or processes to get push you through an experience like this.

When you fall into the pit, its lonely and disoreienting, as you look around and the once familiar environment is now forebodding, dark, and oddly “slimy”, When you first fall in, its not a literal pit. But you feel ‘stuck’ even though you might have freedom of movement in the physical plane. However, your mental state has now become stagnant and placed into shock.

Once you’ve crawled out, you enter what I call the ‘Cave Moment.’ The pit has actually opened up into a just a massive cavern. Still dark, cold and lonely, but you have may be a little more capacity, however you’re in the dark, there is no way of being able to tell what direction you re going. Because of that, the difficulty in planning your future, organizing, and attempting to get life going again isnt just incredibly difficult, its damn near impossible.

Last phase is the wilderness. This is where I spent years. You wander. Head doesnt feel right, you might have a clue of where you would like to go, but you still have no idea where your start point is. This is where I was doing odd jobs. Contract work for a non-profit. Soccer coaching, more contract work for a friend that was below what I should have been getting paid, IT work for a family friend, UBER for a spell. Just so many random deals, but all as a means to survive.

When you deal with a real mental health issue, it is not only crippling, but it prevents you from being, let a lone doing.

Resilience?

Never succumbing to internal battle of the desire to quit.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

Technically yes and technically no.

I would definitely have stuck to my roots of wanting to go to pre med and harnessing my nerdy science side, and then probably pursuing more the Physical Therapy Route or some type of Doctor. However, having said that, I would have pursued military and done something like Bear Grylls. Who knows maybe I would’ve ended up as some type of adventure med doc!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @r3negadetraining
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejohng
• Youtube: R3NEGADE Training

Image Credits

Jen Darnall:

@Jenadarnall
@Sunshinesentiments