Holy crap, I’m 30!
Almost four years ago to the day, I quit my amazing day job (seriously, my job was to help create floating music festivals) to focus on a small website I had been working on every night as a side hobby for the previous 18 months. I turned 26, and started the next chapter of my life.
Believe it or not, when I quit I hadn’t actually made any money with Nerd Fitness yet!
I just believed so strongly in the power of this community that I knew I had to take the leap and see if I could turn my “hobby” into something more. I knew there was a group of men and women out there like me: people who loved video games, fantasy novels, comic books, who also wanted to get healthy. People who wanted to use those books and games and movies as inspiration rather than escape, who wanted better lives for themselves and those around them.
Here we are, four years later. That hobby has evolved into a worldwide community of over 200,000 email subscribers, 27,000 message board members, 40 volunteer moderators, four full-time team members, and over a dozen contractors. That’s a lot of nerds!
Now, because it’s my birthday today, I’m gonna ask for your help.
Rebel Acts of Kindness
The part of Nerd Fitness of which I’m most proud has to be our community.
We have rebels that fly across the country to support folks at races and events they’ve met through Nerd Fitness. We have relationships that have popped up as a result of Nerd Fitness (I wonder how long before we have our first Rebel wedding?).
Heck we’re even having a freaking CAMP NERD FITNESS this fall to bring Rebels together for an epic weekend of adventure. Yesterday, we had a Rebel buy a ticket to Camp Nerd Fitness that’s flying all the way from AUSTRALIA (Hey Jade!). I hope to see you there too!
If you told me four years this is where we’d be now my head would have exploded. Luckily my head is still intact!
Now, want to know WHY this community works so well? Because we’re dedicated to helping each other. We support each other when support is needed. We pick each other up when we’re down. We offer assistance, help, and guidance to whoever, whenever.
We try to make our lives better, and we try to make the lives of people around us better too.
Though I don’t actually want to grow up (and don’t plan on it), I think today is a cool opportunity to introduce something to Nerd Fitness that many of you are probably already doing:
I want you to complete a Rebel Act of Kindness.
What’s that, you ask?
It’s simply a small (or large) act of kindness that you complete to make somebody’s day better:
- Sponsor somebody’s gym membership for a month.
- If you eat out for lunch or dinner tonight, leave an unusually large tip – they work hard.
- If you see somebody struggling in the gym, give them a spot.
- Pay for the coffee of the person behind you in line – unless it’s full of sugar, haha! (kidding)
- You know that homeless guy on the street you see EVERY DAY…have a conversation with him. He’s a person too.
- Go through your closet, grab the things you haven’t worn in FOREVER, and donate them.
- Find a member of the armed forces, shake their hand, and thank them for their service.
If you have the chance to write a note with your RAK (Rebel Act of Kindness), write “For The Rebellion! Pay it forward :)” on it. We’ll see how many of these random acts make their way back to us 🙂
Last year we built a freaking library down in Peru, raising THOUSANDS of dollars more than we had hoped to raise. That was us just getting started.
I’m not gonna lie, I totally expect Nerd Fitness and the Rebellion to take over the world some day. After all, we’re building an army of super smart, super strong, travel hacking rebels!)…and that means we have a responsibility to leave the world a better place than it was the day before.
So, for my 30th (!) birthday, and for Full-Time Nerd Fitness’s (4th birthday!!), I want you to pay it forward, and encourage the random folks you help out to do the same.
Let’s make today better than yesterday, for ourselves and for everybody else.
Thanks for being here, and thanks for being a part of the Rebellion. We have some great things to announce and update over the next few weeks, but for today – let’s just focus on our RAKs. I love this community and I’m honored that I get to spend every day working on it.
ONE FINAL REQUEST: If you happen to RECEIVE a random act of kindness today, I’d love for you to share it in the comments for this article – it’ll be a good reminder that there are awesome people out there who do good things just for the sake of doing good things.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Rebel Acts of Kindness to carry out!
For the Rebellion!
-Steve
###
