Your journey shouldn’t be like mine… or anybody else’s.
The most interesting heroes follow their own path.
Welcome to Ask Coach Tony!
These are unfiltered field notes from the goal-crushing life: coaching wins, personal breakthroughs, and the failures that taught both me and my clients the most.
All real, all useful, all here to help you move forward.
Ready for a dad joke?
Consider this a lighthearted amuse-bouche for your brain before we get serious. Sure, it might be groan-worthy—but hey, at least you’re getting your money’s worth, right? 😆
🎃 Halloween Humor Season 🎃
Why are there fences around graveyards?
Because people are just dying to get in!
Your Journey, Your Way
Happy October… my favorite month of the year!
This month, every Operation Melt blog is built around one truth:
Your journey doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s.
After more than a decade of coaching and mentoring people, I’ve learned something important. No two goal journeys are the same. Even when two people are chasing the “same” goal, their why is different. Their circumstances are different. Their journey will always be unique.
And yet, when the path feels hard or uncertain, that’s when most of us start talking shit about our own goals:
- “This is dumb.”
- “It doesn’t matter.”
- “It’ll never work.”
That’s not honesty. That’s fear, trying to sabotage you.
So when that voice shows up, remind yourself of the truth: your goal matters because it matters to you. Nobody else has to get it. Nobody else has to approve.
Your job is simple: own your path, do the work, and prove yourself right.
All month long, you’ll hear stories, lessons, and tools to remind you that the only path worth following is the one that belongs to you.
Why My Journey Isn’t the Model to Follow
This week marks the fifth anniversary of achieving my first coaching certification.
That certification was a pivot point in my life, giving me new tools to combine with my writing and project management so I could help more people achieve big goals.
I am still proud of this milestone that helped me more fully realize my life mission and purpose.
Reviewing My Story Arc
When I achieve any big milestone or accomplishment, I like to look back and reflect on how I got here. What are the steps and events that led me to this moment? I think of it as reviewing the story arc for my character in my life story.
This is something that I started doing while standing in Celebration Village after finishing the 2018 Columbus Marathon (read about that moment in Week 71: 325 Pounds to Half Marathon) after completing my first half marathon.
In celebration of my five-year COACHiversary, I paused to re-reflect on my journey.
This reflection yielded a big ah-ha that applies to YOU.
Following Our Story’s Hero: Coach Tony
Our hero’s journey has been anything but straight. Coach Tony’s path has taken unexpected turns, each one shaping his mission and his voice.
Origin Story
Coach Tony was born into a family in survival mode. He grew up poor, overweight, and mostly invisible to the world.
A Taste of Superpowers
In high school, Tony joined junior ROTC and discovered his first spark of achievement. Chasing awards and promotions built confidence and showed him he could aim higher, even college.
Superpowers Unleashed
At Ohio Dominican, Tony refused to stay invisible. He dove into activities, freelance IT work, and the honors program. He even took computer science into his own hands through independent study. College is also where he met Liz, his best friend turned life partner. Together, they built their own unconventional path, reinforcing Tony’s belief in doing things differently.
Superpowers or Kryptonite
Graduating in debt but full of drive, Tony threw himself into climbing the career ladder. Promotions and titles became fuel, but he neglected his health and tied his identity too tightly to work. Difficult bosses and toxic environments rattled his confidence and left him questioning his voice.
Superpowers Become a Quest
Eventually, the universe forced a change. Tony decided to take control of his health. Weight loss became a proving ground: he set goals, achieved them, and kept reaching higher. As his body shrank, his confidence grew. He launched the Operation Melt blog, wrote a book, and turned setbacks like a layoff into fuel for reinvention.
Saving the World, One Goal at a Time
Long before he was a coach, Tony was mentoring colleagues and serving his community. Those experiences planted the first seeds of his mission. Through his writing and coaching, Tony’s mission took shape. He wanted to help people decide to try, equip them to succeed, and give them confidence in their own stories. To sharpen his tools, he pursued coaching certification.
Goal-Crushing Hero
Five years later, Coach Tony continues working with clients and has released the Project Manage Your Life system to help people achieve goals step by step. He rewrote his story out loud and became proof that weird, raw, kind, and powerful can all live in one body.
He is Coach Tony, and he is never looking back.
Here are the truths revealed by Coach Tony’s journey.
- Achievement focus fueled his love of goals, but also pushed him into impatience.
- Independence drove him to do things his own way, but it often led to mistakes and setbacks.
- Humility came through hard lessons, not easy ones.
- Resilience kept him moving, even when confidence was shaken.
Today, Coach Tony’s superpowers are sharper than ever, and his quest continues with clarity and focus.
Don’t Follow In My Footsteps
Are you the hero in your own story?
You should be.
Nobody else owns your story but you, and you get to tell it however you want.
Like any great story, it becomes more powerful when it’s unique. Replicas are predictable. The most interesting heroes follow their own path, not someone else’s.
I am proud of my path. It is full of moments I will carry forever, but it is also full of mistakes, struggles, and setbacks. That combination is what made it mine. It worked for me because I lived it, not because it was the “right” way forward.
That’s why I don’t recommend following my footsteps.
There is no single right journey. The only fulfilling story is the one you create for yourself.
So give yourself permission.
Be the hero.
Build your own journey.
And never feel guilty when it looks different from mine or anyone else’s.
Your journey doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s… it only has to look like yours.
What’s Your Next Chapter?
Every hero story keeps moving forward. What’s next in yours?
Your journey will not look like mine. It should not. Maybe your next chapter is chasing a big goal, making a career change, or tackling something that feels impossible right now. What matters is that you keep writing your story and that you have the tools to shape it.
That is why I created Project Manage Your Life (PMYL). It is a system that helps you commit to meaningful goals, build a clear plan, and keep momentum until the work is done.
PMYL brings together everything I use with my coaching clients and packages it into three connected tools:
📘 Project Manage Your Life teaches the complete six-step PMYL framework for turning goals into accomplishments
📝 PMYL Workbook helps you apply the framework with exercises, templates, and coaching prompts.
🎯 PMYL Coaching provides accountability, clarity, and one-on-one guidance to keep you moving.
The best way to begin is with the PMYL Starter Kit. It bundles the book, the workbook, and a guided mini course so you can start writing your next chapter today.
Not quite ready for the full kit? You can still grab the free PMYL eBook and start learning the framework today.
✍️ Your hero story is still unfolding. Let me help you write it boldly.
✨ I believe in you. Let me help YOU believe in you!
Meet Coach Tony
Tony Weaver is a master life coach, technologist, consultant, writer, and founder of Operation Melt.
He helps project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue their biggest goals.
Through free resources, personalized coaching, and his proven Project Manage Your Life system, Tony empowers clients to move their dreams from “someday” to success… one step at a time.
Learn more about Project Manage Your Life, the system my clients and I use to crush our goals, at OperationMelt.com/PMYL/
Meet Coach Tony