Speaking

Bring the work into the room.

Talks for rooms full of people who are very good at looking fine.

The colony becomes a state. The pain becomes a person.

I knew how to push harder. Work longer. Endure more. Perform when people were watching. I was considerably less skilled at sitting still long enough to ask why.

What I lacked was a mirror.

That is what I bring into the room. A story about what I inherited, what I built to hide it, and the long work of becoming someone who stays.

There are laughs. Mostly at my expense. Then, if I have done my job correctly, the room gets quieter. Because somewhere along the way, people realize I stopped talking only about myself.

The Alibi of Achievement

When performance becomes the hiding place.

I built achievement into a respectable form of escape. Most high performers do not call it escape. They call it discipline.

There is a difference between a record and a life.

For: leadership teams, sales organizations, athletes and fitness events.

Takes home: a way to tell discipline from hiding, in themselves and their teams.

The Fumes We Pass Forward

Nobody wakes up hoping to hand their damage to their children, marriage, team, or community. We are usually more civilized about it. We pass it along without naming it.

Like secondhand smoke, nobody remembers lighting the thing, but everybody in the room is breathing it.

For: parents, churches and men’s groups, veteran and military family organizations.

Takes home: how damage moves through families and teams without anyone naming it, and what it looks like when someone decides this goes no further.

The Practice After the Ashes

Responsibility. Repentance. Rebuilding. Not a great trailer.

Just the quieter work of staying in the room, telling the truth, repairing what can be repaired, grieving what cannot, and building something different from what burned.

For: veteran transition programs, churches, and leaders rebuilding after a failure.

Takes home: practical habits of repair: telling the truth, staying in the room, and rebuilding without pretending nothing burned.

Formats

Format	Length
Keynote	45–60 min
Workshop	90 min to half day
Fireside chat or interview	30–45 min
Virtual	Any of the above

Arnold Classic, 2018

Arnold Classic, 2018. On stage.

Side A: my voice.

Side A · The Introduction

An invitation from the man behind the stories.

Transcript

Hey.

I’m Guy Valentino.

I once did 5,862 pull-ups in twenty-four hours.

Took me years to admit why.

The record was not an achievement. It was an alibi.

I fought in Ramadi. I owned a gym. I’m a father of two daughters.

And for a long time, I was a man very good at looking fine.

Then I wrote it down. All of it.

The book is called Ashes Still Sing: A Marine’s Reckoning.

The songs came out of the same fire. So did the coaching.

I’m not on the other side of this story. I’m still in it.

Look around.

Stay a while.

Who’s talking

U.S. Marine Corps, July 1996 to June 2006. Infantry sergeant and platoon guide, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
Led patrols in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2005.
Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat “V.” Combat Action Ribbon.
Youth pastor, Calvary Chapel Dallas, 2006 to 2011.
Navy Reserve Chaplain Candidate Program, 2006 to 2012. Graduate study at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Founded and coached CrossFit Rev40, Farmers Branch, Texas, March 2019 to January 2025. Led more than 20 workshops and events there on fitness, mental health, faith, Mind-Body-Soul, meditation, and breathing.
University of Oklahoma, 2003: addressed the graduating class of Navy midshipmen commissioning as Navy and Marine Corps officers. Congressman Tom Cole attended.
Former Guinness World Record holder, most pull-ups in 24 hours. Times Square, Veterans Day 2015. The record has since been broken. The Guinness certificate was presented live on Fox & Friends, Veterans Day, November 11, 2015. The coverage.
Spike TV Veterans Operation Wellness, beginning with a Gold’s Gym segment and including a 2016 Firestone commercial.
Arnold Classic, 2018: a talk on depression, and on helping veterans get active to overcome it.
Panel speaker, Clever Talks 2018: Made in America, San Diego Marriott Marquis. Shared the bill with Jocko Willink and Tim Kennedy.
Hosted my own podcast on Podbean. Host of “Overcoming PTSD,” a seven-episode series on the CrossFit Rev40 podcast, 2020.
Author of the memoir Ashes Still Sing: A Marine’s Reckoning, complete and seeking a publisher. Songwriter. Father of two daughters.
Coaching in person in Dallas, Texas, and online.

Short bio for the emcee

Guy Valentino served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1996 to 2006 as an infantry sergeant with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, and led patrols in Ramadi in 2005. He holds the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with Combat “V.” He later served as a youth pastor, studied at Dallas Theological Seminary, and founded CrossFit Rev40. A former Guinness World Record holder, he has written the memoir Ashes Still Sing: A Marine’s Reckoning.

Book a talk

Tell me the organization, the date if known, the city, and whether it is in person or virtual.

I will write back.

Or write directly: speaking@theguyvalentino.com