The Mind Over Body Matter Letter

How about I start a little different than normal this time? Follow closely.

I… am a winner…

Are you?

When I want something, I go after it full force. I don’t b.s. around and wait for it to mysteriously manifest in front of me. I don’t WISH for things to happen. I make them happen.

I do fail, that’s part of the learning process. Did you know that Thomas Edison tried over 10,000 different combinations and ideas before coming up with the light bulb? Failures are only lessons to be learned. After all, we learned how to ride a bike by falling off of it a few times.

Is it the fault of our schools that most people are afraid of failing? Think about it, every test you took years ago, you were penalized when you had the wrong answer.Â

I don’t know about you, but if I missed something on a test, that’s when I really learned. Not from homework.

Isn’t failing just your way of figuring out what NOT TO DO.

Did you know that they say that most people are only one failure away from success?

Here’s a quick story for you: During the gold rush back in California, a couple of (amateur) men struck gold in a preliminary dig. After investing huge sums of money to try to dig up as much golds as possible, they found that the amount of gold available to them in their “find” wasn’t as much as they thought.

So, what did they do?

They packed up, of course. They were amateurs. Now, little did they know that the man that bought all of their equipment (for scrap metal) called a well known geologist in and after careful calculation, discovered that another vein of gold lay just 3 feet under where the other guys stopped.

(Which proves that paying for expert advice is ALWAYS a great way to go. Free advice is the most expensive advice you can get, especially in the fitness industry)

Would you believe that this vein of gold would prove to be the one of the largest veins of gold found during the entire goal rush!

Three feet away.

Are You Half Assing Your Life?

What are you leaving on the table?

Did you ever go on an Easter Egg hunt as a kid? What about a scavenger hunt? How about a hunt for birthday presents?

Do you remember when they told you that there were 23 eggs in the yard and everyone had to find them? Of course you do. Once they were all found, everyone would come back together to find out who had the most eggs… you know, to find out who won.

(What does all of this have to do with getting in shape? No worries, I’ll tell you in a second).

I remember when I was a young kid, there was this BIG easter egg hunt in the mail in my hometown. Everyone in town came. All of my elementary school buddies were there.

But there was a huge buzz around this particular Easter Egg hunt. You see, 2 of the eggs were going to be “Golden Eggs” and they were supposed to have a 100 bill in each. I don’t know about you, but a hundred smackers to a little kid is like a million to me now.

It was a lot of money.

Once the game started, all hell broke loose. Kids were EVERYWHERE in the common area of the mall. It started on one end of the mall and worked it’s way to the other side as more and more eggs were found.

There was one shriek… and a short time later, another one followed (obviously, the “golden eggs” had been found)

Within two minutes, you should have seen all of the kids that started to file out of the mail after the second “golden egg” was found.

Ironically, after about half of the kids had made their way outside with their parents… there was another shriek from the other end of the mall.

Apparently, someone found another “golden egg”. The organizers had told everyone that there were only two “golden eggs”, when in fact, there were 10!

All of the sudden, the place was an absolute zoo once again because no one knew exactly how many “golden eggs” were in the mall. After all, if a third was found, there might be a fourth, or a fifth…

Soon enough, all ten eggs were found and the event coordinators told everyone that the “game” was officially over and that all 10 golden eggs had been found.

Would you believe that it took another 10 minutes after that to get all of the kids to quit looking for eggs? The discovery of the 3rd egg earlier (out of a supposed 2), made finding an 11th egg even more desirable.

But what about the kids that had already left? Do you know what happened to them?

Here’s the funny part: it wasn’t the kids that wanted to leave…

IT WAS THE PARENTS!

The parents were so disgusted with their kids not finding one of the two golden eggs, they actually left before the game was over.

THEY DIDN’T EVEN WANT THEIR KIDS TO FINISH THE GAME!

A game!

Such it is in the game of life. No one really knows how many golden eggs are really out there (although it seems that many successful people seem to find their fair share of them).

Is it luck? OR, is it the fact that successful people keep looking for golden eggs long after everyone else has went home…

The translation to getting in shape and weight loss is this:

Just because things have stalled in your progress doesn’t necessarily mean that nothing is happening. Keep fighting the good fight and push yourself beyond your current limits. Sooner or later.. you’ll breakthrough to your “golden eggs”. Don’t settle for mediocrity. It’s your life. Live it.

If you want to lose weight… lose weight.

If you want to get in shape… get in shape.

If you want to be rich… be rich.

Like the parents in the Easter Egg hunt, only you can take yourself out of the game.

Here’s a better option: Stay in the game, learn the game, study the game, and finally…

Master The Game!

Yes, you’ll hit roadblocks… yes, the unexpected will happen… yes, things will get hard…

But these things cannot dominate you unless you let them.

A great way to illustrate the path of a winner is this:

Picture yourself at the bottom of a hill with no place to go. Now, someone keeps rolling boulders at you from the top of the hill and the only way you get to survive is if you can somehow stop the joker from rolling the boulders down.

As you walk up the hill, you have to avoid boulders (just like life). Sometimes you have to side step (like a lateral move in a job or a workout change) , sometimes you have to take a step backward (maybe to hide, start a new program), but as long as you keep moving forward as a whole, you’ll eventually get to the top and conquer that rascal (your goal) that keeps throwing things down at you.

Oddly enough, the higher you get up the hill… the easier it seems to dodge the boulders (because you’ve learned how).

Always keep moving forward toward WHO YOU WANT TO BE. After all, only you can determine where you go…

Just because you ate badly yesterday or only got to the gym twice this week (a small step backward), don’t beat yourself up and get back on track.

Because, it’s the little steps that mean the most.

On another note, I have a quick announcement: “Weight Loss Black Ops” is almost complete. Check out the Blog on a daily basis for more details on it’s release. I promise you won’t be disappointed.