Good Works: Fit For Life

“I’ve always had a passion for the underdog,” says Brian Miller, owner and head trainer of CrossFit Superfly in Mason, Ohio. “It’s ironic that right now, it’s me.”

Four years ago, Miller, now 30, had lost his job, his apartment, his car and his girl. What he found was CrossFit, a fitness program of high intensity, constantly varied functional movement. As he trained physically, Miller also applied the perseverance skills he was learning to his life, lifting him from depression. Miller discovered that in life as in physical training, it’s not so much about where you start or finish, but that you just keep moving.

As Miller sought to move his own life forward, it was important to him to help improve the lives of others as well. From its very beginnings in a two-car garage with a group of friends and a couple of space heaters, Miller developed a program of using physical training to help people become better at life in their roles as parents, friends, students, employees and employers.

With initial funding from Self Sustaining Enterprises, a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the marketplace to fuel transformational ministry, CrossFit Superfly opened its big garage door in a former warehouse on the Grace Chapel campus in Mason in May 2014. Miller’s goal is to have 100 members by the gym’s first anniversary, develop an after-school program, and eventually open other locations.

Miller wanted to develop a profitable business that benefited his clients, but to him, success meant even more. His dream from the beginning was to help an orphaned teen living in a group home in Monterrey, Mexico, train and start his own CrossFit gym.  To do this, he pledges to use 20 percent of his eventual profits to fund the teen’s training and business startup.

 “I want to help people realize that just because they come from difficult circumstances and have struggled in some areas, they can find their inner genius,” says Miller. Superfly’s approach is community-oriented, with small groups of people training together regularly. The emphasis is on overall health, both physical and mental. He conducts training sessions that use constant, unexpected variety to prepare athletes to meet with confidence the unexpected in life.

With Superfly still in its fledgling stages, Brian Miller says he’s financially just scraping by. But this underdog says he’s doing what he loves, every single day, and he’s moving forward. “This has already snowballed into more than I thought possible,” he says. “It has been a blessing, and it will be successful.”

Chuck Proudfit is the Founder and President of SkillSource, a business consultancy; Director of At Work on Purpose, a ministry to working Christians; and, Executive Board Member of Self Sustaining Enterprises, a global innovator of social enterprise.

Other published stories in this series: Building Success Through Relationships, Care is in the Air and Much More Than Coffee