Shahin Safai is the Founder and CEO of Royal Personal Training (RPT), a premier private training facility in Beverly Hills, CA. In a town like Beverly Hills where people are obsessed with looking good, being seen and crafting a perfect physical image, making it to the top of the fitness and wellness world is no small feat to achieve. You have to have a tenacity of spirit to beat the odds. His story of overcoming multiple failures, getting knocked down and almost losing his business is the American Dream writ large.

McCord’s unvarnished story is one of a young man filled with much promise looking for his place in the world as he comes to grips with his sexuality and wrestles with the demons of alcoholism. His story is also one of hope. Where a person once passed out drunk on the floor of his job, can now hold his head high with a fierce humility and say, “I am recovered. I am living.”

We speak to Ryland during a time in his life when he is the process of rebuilding, reflection and reexamination. This is his season of life where there is no production, but silence, stillness and tarrying as springtime glimmers on the horizon. It’s a lesson for us all, really. As he describes it, there is a “divine timing for the inhale and the exhale.” And as with each breath, there is always a pause.