Finny Akers: The Provider

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Horrific. Raw. Those are the two words Finny Akers uses to describe the moment he heard that both of his parents were dead. Of course, every man loses his parents eventually. But Akers was 21 years old at the time, and the circumstances of those deaths were, yes, horrific and raw: His father had murdered his mother and then killed himself.

“I was living in a fantasy world before that,” says Akers, who still becomes emotional about it now, more than 15 years after the fact. “I have two married parents, things are going great . . . and then all of a sudden, the unfathomable, worst-case scenario, crazier-than-a-movie thing happens.”

That day everything stopped, and a kid who was enjoying a gap year before starting at the University of Virginia had new responsibilities: caring for his 10-year-old brother and 9-year-old sister. He moved them from Washington, D.C., to a small town in Alabama, where his father had family. There he not only helped raise them but also helped them heal. “I knew the right thing was to go with them and make sure they were okay. I attended counseling sessions with them and acted as a dual brother-father figure as best I could.”

 

It would be very easy, especially for a 21-year-old, to become bitter. But Akers never fell into that trap. And because he didn’t, neither did his siblings. What saved him?

Sports and fitness were key to maintaining that positivity, he says. Akers had been a competitor his whole life–even courted by Division I colleges for lacrosse–and credits his commitment to physical strength as one of the primary reasons he was able to maintain focus when his family life fell apart. “Fitness can be misconstrued as being very vain and self-centered,” he says. “But it’s deeper than that. You can overcome and achieve anything with mental fortitude, determination, and discipline.”

Nothing has changed that approach over the past 15 years. Akers eventually did earn his degree from UVA–and started a career from an unlikely spot: as a clerk in a Ralph Lauren store. “To my surprise, I loved it,” he says. Since then, he’s worked his way up to running stores in Connecticut and Georgetown and ultimately the Ralph Lauren flagship store in New York City.

If his discipline is showing, that makes Akers happy.

 

Akers has another 10-year-old depending on him these days–his son from a previous marriage–and he intends to set an impressive example. It all starts with the fitness: He rises every day at 6 a.m. for his workouts, starting with a 10-minute, 360-rep core routine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he does yoga. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he completes a high-intensity resistance training workout. He also eats organic foods. “I maintain a healthy lifestyle by making it a defining part of each day,” he says. “And yeah, I’m a morning person.”

But even today, as well as he has repaired a wrecked life, his parents’ deaths haunt him. “You can look at anything in a negative or positive way,” he says. “You can’t control things that happen to you, but you can control your reactions to them. Instead of letting them destroy you, how can they make you stronger?” Akers decided to enter the Ultimate Men’s Health Guy challenge in part to show that by carving out a great life (and some serious muscle), you can inspire others. “A Men’s Health guy is a well-rounded man,” he says. “He works out to make himself better all around, but especially for those around him.”

 

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Finny Akers: The Provider