The Dream
The EN was dreamed up out of a personal desire of the founder to want to catch up on putting in the effort into his physical fitness and health that had lacked for years. His attention was highly concentrated elsewhere in primarily just a few other areas of life and it eventually became time to put in the kind of attention required for a highly-performing body to be formed! Not only was The EN supposed to be something that the founder could use himself to greatly improve the state of his own physique and health, but also it was supposed to be something available to the people he loved the most to help themselves, could connect others who shared an appreciation in the vision to be a part of something unique and valuable, could be available to the general majority of people interested in doing self-work, if possible, and be something that people generally wanted to be involved in.
The Why
The founder had been a part of various organizations to work on achieving his goals, but he found himself noticing a lot of inefficiencies in the processes (like using clunky notebooks to manually track his progress through workouts) and associations that were short-lived (weightlifting classes in college, sports groups that disbanded, gym training with changes of partnerships and skill training with changes of ownership, etc.). The founder also dealt with internal issues that are somewhat common in people critical about their physical condition, appearance, and having the hope of becoming their best. Money and resources were an issue, as well, and even the management of time was concerning.
The Hope
It seemed like many prior hopes were just not going to come to fruition... it's not like just anybody can become a well-paid semi-pro or professional athlete, especially while not being able to roll back time and start younger or even to find the waning willpower to try (just imagine the kind of personal connection(s) you might need to make to pursue an endeavor like that - all this being back in the day before having a Social Media account was a common thing!). Then, the founder began dabbling in website building and learned that this company (PayPal) had created a button that non-developer website builders (not computer experts!) could incorporate into their sites!... which meant that he could build an online exercise network that people could join! It was so exciting! A service could be built and funded without the overhead of a brick-and-mortar building and with enough work, we could all be working out, coordinating activities, and having a better experience! It was going to be SO COOL!
The Beginning
So, the founder planned to create The Exercise Network, which later became EN Exercise Network (The EN) after he found that the domain for www.exercisenetwork.com was being squatted on and the owner would only sell it for a high price, way above his affordability! He planned to build a simple website using Google Sites and to invite people from Craigslist and other places to participate! There was a funding plan modeling a network marketing model and everything!... only over the years... it all changed.
The founder, being continuously on the look out for ways to improve The EN's administration, rolled with the punches as Google shut down their Classic Google Sites and migrated to New Sites, blockchain software became available for experimenting with and use, new customer management software and group messaging software showed up, and all kinds of changes and improvements became available and implementations became obsolete. AND NOTABLY, there was a discovery: Kartra! Kartra had been created and shortly thereafter became the new home for The EN's main hub, but it did NOT come without problems... Glitches and re-works and server errors were abound (and are still something that must be battled with, though things are working out pretty nicely now, it seems). Sometimes, it seemed like it may never be a reality to have an online membership site with a scalable, easy to use functionality that the world could fall in love with. But, then it happened.
The Fruition
EN Exercise Network HAS BECOME something the founder can (and does) use himself to improve his physical fitness. It IS something available to the people he loves the most to help themselves. It CAN connect others who share an appreciation in the vision to be a part of something unique and valuable... AND... it IS ON ITS WAY to being available to the general majority of people interested in doing self-work. It's currently published only in English so it's not quite far-reaching enough yet to say it "IS available to the general majority of the world", however, it is widely available to anyone with an internet connection. The founder and the community is very excited that currently the functionality is great and anybody who is interested can even join in a special specific way to replicate the membership sites (with push button solutions) and help build with practically NO techy computer skills!... which means, we have something great to use to exercise and track our progress, and to scale up to include a HUGE amount of variety in a network that is even hard to conceive! It is truly amazing!
The founder has been fortunate enough to have gone from just having an exciting idea, which is great, but, to having a REAL manifestation of that idea into something that can truly reach and affect lives the world over. He feels extremely blessed and is very grateful to all who join in getting the benefits of his work and the work of the extremely talented programmers and people who have contributed to all of the parts of the journey along the way to get The EN to where it is today!... AND to where it will be in the future!!! He takes great enjoyment in seeing members' results as they improve their health and fitness AND in those who take the initiative to build onto the network and expand it, carving out their own little piece of The EN's virtual real estate and a part of this interesting, unique history in-the-making.
