Pursue Your Strength: Dan Mayes and Cliff White

Dan Mayes re-racks his barbell after tough set. His lifelong best friend and lifting partner, Cliff White, does the same. They push harder when they lift together. They’ve been gym partners for 14 years – through some of life’s highest highs and life’s toughest mental and physical battles.  

They’re lifting on similar power racks, although Dan’s is a little fancier and he prefers colorful animal print bumper plates to Cliff’s more versatile equalizer plates with the hand holes. But then Dan has to maximize a smaller space in his garage (complete with Incredible Hulk paraphernalia), whereas Cliff has an entire house filled with gym equipment. Literally. Every room in this house has been converted into a sprawling home gym. Underscore: home. 

Their story is as unlikely as they come. Dan and Cliff lift weights together nearly every day of the week, but Dan lives in California and Cliff is in Illinois. They live on opposite sides of the country, and these best friends are opposites in many other ways too. Yet strength training unites them through the decades.  

Cliff adjusts the video call on his phone and applauds Dan’s hard work.  

“When you see somebody grind -- of course we want to show each other what we’ve got – it's easier to push yourself,” Cliff says. “We celebrate each other every day.”  

And today's celebration runs deep: remembering how far they’ve come, despite all odds.   

An Unlikely Pair 

When people first meet Cliff and Dan, there’s always a moment of surprise.  

“You can see in their eyes: How can two people who seem to be completely opposites of each other be as similar as they are?” Dan says. “I say, if it can be true for a guy like me and a guy life Cliff, there’s no reason it can’t be true for anyone.”  

In 1980, Cliff and Dan met as kids in a Georgia town still largely divided by race. But they were more concerned with making up outdoor games and riding bikes than the color of their skin.  

They were inseparable until Dan moved to Florida for graduate school; his aunt’s dying wish was that someone in the family would go further than her master’s degree.  

His field of expertise in human factor psychology then led him to work on how people interact with systems, environments, technology, and in Dan’s case, aviation. Beyond helping optimize airport x-ray machines post 9/11 -- what color combinations help TSA agents best decipher between a hair dryer and firearms, for example -- he says his work also helped him understand the human brain.  

“A lot of the world is how you perceive things,” he says. “Color is what you perceive. It’s not a thing in the world.”  

The science backed up what he always knew growing up with a black best friend in the Deep South. 

His work then led him to Seattle, where he worked on the first two generations of Xbox and hundreds of game titles, including multiple Halo games. But the long hours, a new family, and the stress of living far from his support circle weren’t gentle on Dan’s health. One day he stepped on the scale at the doctor’s office; it maxed out at 400 pounds. He didn’t know how much heavier than that he was. He didn’t want to know. But he knew he had to make a change to save his own life. 

Meanwhile, Cliff and his own young family had relocated from Georgia to Illinois for better, safer schools. With Cliff’s wife as a busy flight attendant, he spent his days braiding his children’s hair, volunteering for the PTA, and going to every school event. Life in Illinois was on the upswing – until Cliff was assaulted on the job, injuring his neck. He knew the pain of a spinal injury all too well; his father was paralyzed from the neck down from a farming accident and spent his life in a wheelchair.  

“Dan was dealing with his own battle with his weight, and I was dealing with an injury to my spine and scared,” Cliff says.  

It was at this rock bottom that serendipity or maybe destiny opened up a career relocation for Dan – to move to the same part of Illinois as Cliff.  

Dan had hundreds of pounds to lose and was uncomfortable in a commercial gym, and Cliff was battling with surgeries and muscle loss on the right side of his body. But they had each other. They would fight side by side.   

Ready for Change 

At first, Dan stuck to the stair climber in the dark movie room in the commercial gym. Then he moved from the dark room to a machine in the back of the gym. Then a machine in the front.  

Cliff had begun training with a small group of friends. He stopped by Dan’s machine a few times: "When you’re ready, you can find us in the stairwell.”  

Eventually, Dan was ready to trade the stair climber machine alone for the stairwell with others.  

The goal was to run up and down the stairs as many times as possible in an hour, but that was just the goal. No one could actually last the full hour.  

“Just do your best for as long as you can and next time, try to do a little longer,” Cliff explained.  

But when Dan had decided he was ready, he was ready. He didn’t stop for the entire hour – the first person to run the stairs without a break for the full workout. The entire gym erupted into clapping and cheering. Dan realized how much he could achieve with the right mindset, and Cliff realized how powerful a group could be.  

More Change Strikes 

Dan lost more than 200 pounds, and Cliff rebuilt strength after the assault. Over the years, his atrophy slowed, and he continued to squat and deadlift, even though doctors never thought it possible.  

“I cannot live in fear of life. I’ve got to live, and through the gym, through my friends, I attribute it all to being able to live life open and fearless,” Cliff says. “My body is a side effect of the fire that burns inside me to take care of myself and my future.” 

Just in time for more challenges.  

Dan was laid off and forced to move to the West Coast again.  

“It ripped our hearts out,” he says. “I felt like I was in prison, and not being able to work out with my friend felt like a sentence I couldn’t endure.” 

Shortly thereafter, the Covid-19 quarantines shut down Cliff’s meetups at the gym. It felt like life was missing one of the four elements, he says.  

“I needed something stable in my life. I had to take control of my own health and body. I had to be the master and take back possession of myself,” Cliff says. “I knew I had to make a leap of faith.”  

He bought a power rack and put it in his garage. It wasn’t much, and if he turned on the fans too high, they’d blow loose insulation around. Dan saw the rack and decided to get one too – for his health, but also to connect with Cliff. They began lifting together in their similar home gyms on video calls.  

Dan had been trying different gyms, but so much had changed after quarantine. People were hiding behind headphones, silent, heads down, disconnected from community.  

Cliff felt it, too.  

“I needed a place where if someone had a rough morning, we could sit down and talk about it and get it out before lifting weights,” he says. “If your mind isn’t there, you know it’s going to come out because you weaken yourself as you train hard. So best to provide a space to get it out first and train with a clear mind.”  

On his 25th wedding anniversary, his wife agreed to help him transform one of their real-estate properties into a separate gym – to build the community that he was missing. The plan was to tear down the house to build a big commercial space.  

“But then I thought, ‘I’m losing the home part of the home gym.’ It would take the soul out of what I was trying to do,” he says.  

He decided to keep the house as it was and fill it with gym equipment. This is how the unique Fire, Meat, and Muscle Gym began.  

Opposites Yet the Same 

The first thing you’ll notice at Fire, Meat, and Muscle is the scent of food smoking on the grill. Cliff is always cooking something for his members.  

Inside, it looks like a normal home, with couches, a TV, dining table, and full kitchen. People hang around, playing videos games and talking.

Those who are done lifting are eating a plate of BBQ. Others pass through on their way to the cardio room or one of the multiple power racks. Although this gym is set up in a historic home, broken into various smaller rooms, its equipment rivals your favorite big-box gym. Except here, they want you to stay as long as you want.  

“Come as you are. I don’t care what weight, color, or creed. It's about taking care of your body, mind, and soul,” Cliff says. “Everyone here is heard and seen. You are enough in this building, just as you are. I don’t need your six pack. Just keep stepping through that door. Keep coming.”  

Cliff built the gym and community that he and Dan needed. Still need.   

“We were so lost. We were just so lost,” he says. “But having a relationship with my friend, a true workout partner that won’t judge me, it’s a healing experience.” 

Especially after Covid and the current political climate, he says. Dan may not be able to workout in Fire, Meat, and Muscle every day in person, but it’s his gym too -- in spirit and remotely on his video calls with his best friend.  

“We’re a black man and a white man who have been friends for years and heard and seen it all. It pains us to see such division – such strife when there’s such joy in being opposites yet the same,” Cliff says. “That’s our magic.”