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Šimon Doboš

@simon.dbos

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Faith. Family. Everything else after.
Father | Coach | Corporate Leader
✝️ You can’t control what life hands you. You control what you build from it.

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2 spots from that 🌐 IFBB Pro 🪪 in the largest MP class of the day.

Back to the lab 🫡

Show: @npcjrnats
Videography: @gilcoproductions
Coach: Self
Shorts: @darcsport
Supps: @supremenutritionwilmington @getnutriprime

"Angel number 93 often appears during times of change or when you are facing challenges. It encourages you to embrace these changes and use them as opportunities for growth"

#stayhungry #npcmensphysique #dadbod taken in Chattanooga Convention Center by @simon.dbos

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a year ago

Most of us aren’t raising our kids from a place of having everything figured out.

We’re raising them while still working through pieces of ourselves. Learning. Unlearning. Trying to be more patient, more present, more intentional than what we may have known.

We won’t get it right every time.

But maybe being a good parent was never about being perfect.

Maybe it’s about doing the work so our kids get a better version of us than the one we started with. by @simon.dbos

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2 months ago

I was 20 years old when I walked into my dad’s apartment building expecting to see him.

When I got to his floor, a police officer stopped me.

I didn’t know why.

So I waited.

About 15 minutes later, an officer asked me to confirm my parents’ identities.

That’s when I learned I had lost both of them.

There are moments in life that divide everything into a before and an after.

That was mine.

I was heading into my sophomore year of college, and suddenly the life I knew was gone. I had no parents, no safety net, and no idea what the next chapter of my life was supposed to look like.

Looking back now, I realize I was standing at a crossroads.

There were a lot of directions my life could have gone from there.

And for a while, I wasn’t building some inspiring comeback story. I was just trying to keep moving.

But slowly, the choices started to compound.

I finished college. I built a career. I found fitness and discovered how much changing myself physically could change me in other ways too. I built a family. I became a father of two.

Today, I have a life that the 20 year old sitting in that hallway couldn’t have imagined.

Not because I did everything right.
Not because the past stopped affecting me.
And certainly not because any of it happened overnight.

I just kept choosing a direction and moving.

And that’s really why I’m sharing more of this part of my life now.

Not because I have everything figured out, but because I know there are other men standing at their own crossroads wondering what their life looks like from here.

I’m still building mine too..as a father, in my career, with my health, and in the kind of man I want to become.

And if there’s one thing my life has taught me, it’s this:

We don’t always get to choose the crossroads life puts in front of us.

But we do get to choose which direction we start walking.

And sometimes those choices build a life you never imagined. by @simon.dbos

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2 months ago

I’ve had a lot of days lately where I get to the end of them and somehow feel like I should’ve done more.

And the strange part is, those aren’t usually the days where I did nothing.

They’re often the days where I worked all day, trained, cooked, spent time with my kids, took care of things around the house and tried to be present for the people I care about.

But there’s always something left.

Another thing I could’ve finished at work. More time I could’ve spent with my kids. Something around the house I didn’t get to. Someone I could’ve been more present for. Something I wanted to do for myself that got pushed to tomorrow.

I think I’ve spent a lot of my life assuming that feeling meant I wasn’t doing enough.

Lately I’m questioning whether “enough” was ever a finish line I could actually reach.

Because none of the things I care about are ever really finished.

There will always be more work I could do. More ways I could show up. More time I could give. More things I could improve.

And if the existence of “more” is evidence that I didn’t do enough, I’ll probably spend my entire life feeling like I came up short.

I’m not trying to lower my standards. I don’t want to become comfortable giving less when I know I have more to give.

I’m just trying to learn the difference between having more I could do and actually having more of myself available to give.

There will almost always be more left to do.

That doesn’t mean there was more of me left to do it. by @simon.dbos

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7 days ago

I ran into a friend at the gym whose wife is pregnant with their first kid.

He said, “I need to get in shape now that I’m going to be a dad.”

It made me think about something I wish I understood before having my daughter.

You can do everything possible to make fitness fit around your family and still miss what your family actually needs from you.

I’d been bodybuilding/tracking my food for years. When my daughter was born, I tried to make sure my fitness goals didn’t come at the expense of my family.

I was in a competition prep, averaging 20k steps a day plus cardio. I’d wake up at 4 AM to get most of my steps before she woke up, train on my lunch break, then take her on walks later to finish what I had left.

I coached myself through the prep so I could adjust everything around my family.

In my head, I was doing it the right way.

What I didn’t understand yet was that I was mostly solving for time.

Pregnancy was new to my wife too. So was postpartum. Her body, hormones, sleep and routine were changing. She was learning how to be a mom while recovering.

At the same time, I had decided to get into the best shape of my life.

Nobody handed me a handbook for that season. I wasn’t intentionally trying to make things harder for her. If anything, I thought structuring everything around my family was me being considerate.

Making sure my goals didn’t take time away from my family wasn’t the same as making sure my wife felt supported while I pursued them.

So if I could give my friend one piece of advice, I wouldn’t tell him not to get in shape. I’d tell him to do it.

I’d just tell him to pay attention to more than whether he can fit workouts into his schedule.

Your wife is entering a season she’s never experienced either. There may be days when shortening a workout, eating at maintenance, missing a session or simply being more available matters more than what was written in the plan.

I understood training, nutrition and how to get lean.

What I was still learning was how to make those things fit around being the husband and father I wanted to be.

That’s a part of fitness after kids I don’t think men talk about enough. by @simon.dbos

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6 days ago

I see a lot of advice about making 5 AM workouts easier.

Lay your clothes out the night before. Have your pre-workout ready. Pack everything ahead of time so there’s as little friction as possible.

And all of that can help.

But none of it changes the part I actually struggle with.

When my alarm goes off, I’m tired.

I have two young kids. Life is busy. Most mornings, more sleep sounds a lot better than getting out of bed to go train.

But over time, I think what’s made 5 AM work for me has had less to do with making the morning easier and more to do with everything I’ve come to appreciate about being awake that early.

There are almost no cars on the road. I usually drive without music. I’m not checking my phone. Work hasn’t started. Nobody needs anything from me yet.

My kids are still sleeping, so I can train without wondering if I’m missing an opportunity to be with them.

It’s just quiet.

I’m still tired. The alarm still sucks.

I’ve just learned to shift my attention away from the one thing I don’t like about 5 AM and toward all the things I actually like about being awake for it.

A quiet drive. Time to think. A workout without guilt. A chance to ease into my day before work, notifications, responsibilities and everything else starts competing for my attention.

The negative didn’t really change. I just gave myself enough positives to outweigh it.

Maybe there are only so many ways to make waking up tired feel easier.

But I think there are a lot of ways to make what you’re waking up for feel more worth it.

That’s been the bigger difference for me. by @simon.dbos

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7 days ago

15 hills I’ll die on as a 34-year-old dad of two:

1. My kids don’t owe me a relationship when they’re adults because I raised them. I want to live in a way that makes them genuinely want one with me.

2. Being related to someone doesn’t automatically entitle them to a place in your children’s lives. What matters is how they show up for them, not what they’re called.

3. I’d rather my kids call me after making a terrible mistake than hide it because they’re afraid of how I’ll react.

4. I don’t need my kids to agree with me. I want them to think for themselves and respectfully tell me when they believe I’m wrong.

5. Becoming a parent shouldn’t mean losing yourself. Your kids should see you have goals, interests and things that make you feel alive too.

6. Providing for your family and being present for them are two different responsibilities. Success at one doesn’t excuse neglecting the other.

7. Apologizing to your kids doesn’t weaken your authority. It teaches them accountability.

8. Strength and tenderness belong in the same man. I want my kids to know I can protect them, carry them, comfort them and cry with them.

9. My job isn’t to make my kids’ lives easy. It’s to help them become capable enough to handle life when it isn’t.

10. Taking care of your body matters more when people depend on you. I want to be physically capable for my kids for as long as I’m here.

11. You can give your kids things you never had without giving them everything they want. Gratitude and entitlement are both learned.

12. How you talk about people when they aren’t around teaches your kids something about character, even when you think they aren’t listening.

13. I’d rather raise kids who know how to lose, fail and be disappointed than kids whose confidence depends on everything going their way.

14. I care more about my kids seeing faith lived out in my life than hearing me constantly talk about it. What I believe should change how I treat people when nobody is keeping score.

15. Tell your kids you love them and you’re proud of them often. They should never have to accomplish something to hear it. by @simon.dbos

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8 days ago

I had this thought while dragging our trash can down our driveway with my daughter in my other arm.

When we were building our house, one of the things I wanted most was privacy. Woods, property, a long driveway, our own little space.

I got it.

And now every week I get to drag a full trash can about 600 feet down a gravel driveway. This time with a 31-pound two-year-old who decided she needed to be carried too.

It’s funny how quickly something you wanted can become something you complain about.

And I started thinking about how often I’ve done that in other parts of my life.

I spent years wanting to grow in my career and become someone people trusted when the decisions were difficult and the answers weren’t obvious.

Now there are days when I feel the pressure of being the person people come to for those decisions.

I wanted to help people through coaching too.

Sometimes that means someone trusting me with much more than workouts or nutrition. They tell me what they’re struggling with, what they’re afraid of, or things they may not have many people they feel comfortable talking to.

There’s a weight that comes with wanting to show up well for someone when they trust you like that.

But lately I’ve been trying to remember what the weight is attached to.

The annoying driveway came with the home we wanted.

The pressure at work came with earning responsibility and trust.

The weight of helping someone came with becoming someone they felt comfortable letting in.

And the toddler making an already inconvenient chore considerably harder is someone I’d carry as far as she’d let me.

None of that makes the hard parts less hard.

I just don’t want to get so used to the life I wanted that I forget how badly I once wanted it. by @simon.dbos

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10 days ago

I listened to a sermon recently about how there are things we go through in life that may never come with a satisfying explanation.

That hit me because I spent a lot of years wanting one.

Why did this happen? What was the purpose of it? Why did life have to go that way?

I don’t know that I have those answers today.

What I do have is enough distance to look at my life now and see how much of the person I’ve become was shaped by things I never would’ve chosen to go through.

The way I think. The way I love people. The kind of father I try to be. The things I care about. The things I don’t take for granted anymore.

My life would look completely different without that pain.

I don’t know if it would be better or worse. And I don’t think recognizing what came from pain means we have to pretend the pain itself was good.

Maybe some things don’t eventually make sense because we finally understand why they happened.

Maybe sometimes they make sense because we eventually see what God was able to build around them.

I still wouldn’t have chosen some of the things that shaped me.

But I can look at my life now and know they weren’t for nothing. by @simon.dbos

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11 days ago

Watching the Olympia this past weekend brought back a lot of memories for me.

There was a point in my life when bodybuilding was one of the most important things I did.

I planned my days around training. I tracked everything I ate. I competed. I spent years chasing a better physique, and if I’m being truthful, there were times when it probably bordered on obsessive.

I loved it though.

And I still do.

I still train hard. I still care about how I look. I still track my food. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I compete again someday when I have more of the variables in my life under control.

It’s just not the most important thing to me anymore.

My kids are.

And strangely, that’s made taking care of myself feel more important, not less.

I don’t need every workout to be optimal anymore. I don’t need to track every meal. Fitness doesn’t need to dictate my schedule the way it once did.

But I want my kids to have a dad who’s strong, healthy and capable. I want to run around with them now and hopefully still be doing it a long time from now.

Maybe I’ll step on stage again someday.

For now, I’m realizing I don’t care about fitness less.

I just care about it differently.

Bodybuilding used to be one of the biggest priorities in my life.

Now fitness supports the things that are. by @simon.dbos

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11 days ago

A colleague told me something recently that stuck with me.

Her daughter is 28 now, and she said she still feels guilty thinking about all the times she’d pick her up from school and take her to the childcare at the gym so she could work out.

More than two decades later, she still thinks about it.

I understood exactly what she meant.

I usually train around 5 in the morning. My kids aren’t even awake, and somehow I still find myself thinking about them throughout my workout.

If I train later, it’s even worse.

Could I be having lunch with them? Could I catch a few minutes with them between meetings? What am I missing while I’m here?

The strange part is, I know taking care of myself is good for them too.

I want to be healthy. I want to be strong. I want my kids to grow up seeing that taking care of yourself matters.

But knowing that doesn’t seem to make the guilt disappear.

Maybe that’s why her story stuck with me.

Her daughter is grown now, and she’s still wondering about time she could have spent with her.

Maybe that’s just one of the contradictions of being a parent. You can know something is good for you and still wish it didn’t require time away from them. by @simon.dbos

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16 days ago

The older I get, the more I understand that growing old is something we’re lucky to get the chance to do.

I’ve always cared about taking care of myself. Having people I want to grow old with, and kids I want to watch grow up, has just given it a different meaning.

It’s not a guarantee of anything.

I just don’t want to take the opportunity for granted. by @simon.dbos

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a month ago