Six Pack and Senior

Any of us who have lived through difficult times or who have desired to be better knows this truth. Letting go after losing, making a solemn personal promise, or coming to the end of ourselves (the prodigal son or the every man’s story) understands that in order to move in another and better direction requires us to throw away something that is causing a drag on us. Let’s take the prodigal son as a first example, When he came to himself and realized that even the lowest of his father’s animals were better off than he was, he determined to go home and beg to be part of his father’s house again and be forgiven for being so arrogant and stupid. A truly bad situation to be in but he did what he had to do. He became a better son and a better person. He had to die too himself.

Bringing the conversation back to bodybuilding there are times when we are getting killed, injured or are languishing while others are blowing the doors off. We feel defeated and there seems to be no way forward. It’s here that we have to submit ourselves to others whom we trust and who know what we need. This is a tough pill to swallow. Our egos take a severe beating at this point.

It’s not that we don’t care but being able to recognize when we need help and are smart enough to ask for it and act on it. Always remember that when we need something more we often have to let something we have counted on as important to die and go away. We do this because this thing (personality trait, false belief, friendships, and sometimes marriages) are no longer enhancing our lives or enabling forward progress. The storm must occur and we must lose in order to rise again as a much better person and a more determined soul to progress and to be better.

This whole process is extremely painful and there is no guarantee of success but the choice, the action, and the consequences have to be made. Another way to say it: You can take a chance and act when it’s obvious to do so or you can stay where you are and live on your knees with a heavy chain of regret.

In the gym, look for the road forward and do what’s required. Listen to the wisdom of those who have gone before. Let that part of you die that is making you doubt and to remain the same.

Be better by losing that which keeps you from rising again and being better. Fear of losing what we have is a heavy burden but living with and bearing the burden of regret extinguishes the spirit. You will be a much better version of yourself…..Don’t believe anything less!

When I was 13 I sustained a jagged wound on my right inner forearm just below the elbow. I was at the swimming pool and I reached over an old chain link Long Fence to fetch my towel which had dropped on the other side. I pulled my arm back after I had secured my towel and I received a massive gash from the fence. I bled like a “stuck hog” and I got blood everywhere. I was taken by the swimming pool staff to physicians office where I received 9 stitches and a pretty hefty bandage. I cried like a little baby. Also, I was supposed to play a baseball game that night and so I did. I could not extend my arm for fear of popping the stitches from the wound. But, like a stupid 13 year old I played 2nd base. Around the 2nd inning I got a grounder to my right near the bag, I turned like I normally would and uncorked a perfect throw to the first baseman. Blood gushed out from under my hefty bandage and ran down my arm. I played injured, I survived my teenage idiocy, and to this day I have a scar that reminds me of my youth. Nobody can ever say that I could not play hurt. It’s been the story of my life.

Each of us have scars either on our bodies or in our psyche or in our hearts that attest t o our toughness to “take the pain” and still go on. Rarely, do any of us take the time to explain the scars and often nobody else even knows about our scars. Scars are deeply personal and should remain so. Afterall, they belong to our human experience.

As noted, a scar is simply a reminder to ourselves and to those who know us that we have taken a hit and survived. When we lose at sports, academics, at love, or in the workplace we learn something more about our constitution as people. The biggest lesson is that we cannot quit just because we are hurt. We have got to learn the lessons related to digging deep. Finding the strength and reasons to keep going. When we are injured there is always a scar from the encounter with defeat. This scar is a reminder that we are tougher than we look or feel. We have learned also to win when winning seems out of the question.

I can recall standing beside some of the fastest sprinters in the state and thinking life is about to be a crushing experience. I prepared for the worst as I got down into the blocks. But, years of training and years of pushing myself had prepared me for this moment….little did I know. When the gun went off and the 60 yard dash was all there was for about 5 seconds there was only effort and pain. I finished 3rd with my fastest time ever and I was just 15 years old. The scars of shin splints, sprained ankles, strained groin muscles, split calf muscles were my badges to bear. Nobody saw them but they were mine.

Each of us bears the markings and scars of being a winner. Nobody can give us what we have to learn. Life tries to hurt us just by showing up. But, the real testament to our human experience is whether we will try again when we have been hurt. We will never always win. But, we will always be given the opportunity fo overcome a personal hurt whether it is physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual or professional.

My parting comment is from the New Testament: “Be strong, be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world…..and all of us must overcome our own world………So, ignore the scars. They don’t hurt anymore but are simply reminders that we can have life after injury and hurt.

Ge back to the gym! Being hurt is not death!

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I envy nobody

We all are measuring ourselves against other people and their accomplishments. We are often obsessed with trying to figure out why they make it and we don’t. It could be our best friend. It could be a professional athlete, the classmate that seems to have it all, our colleagues etc. To do this exercise always leaves us exhausted and defeated. The reality is that we have missed the truth. Most people around us never make it to their goals and rarely do they measure up to the standards they set for themselves. Hint! We are looking in all the wrong places and at all the wrong people to motivate us to be our best selves. I say, stay focused only on what you want for yourself and the ones you love. By blocking out the failures of others we are then free to build the personal expectations, goals, your life, your journey with no dead weight associated with guilt, shame, or regrets.

Now that we are free of artificial images of success and we have grasped the truth that we can make it by doing it ourselves. We have stopped the nonsense of “worship of others.” Today, especially in the gym for us muscle heads, move in a new direction that includes only you and your own progress. Dig deep and feel the difference in your training. Notice how easy it is to smile, to laugh, to horse around between maximal efforts. You truly are the “Captain of your own ship” and only you can sail it and only you can “MAKE IT.” I love to live in the moment and know that this moment will carry me to my future. I love pushing to the stage! Win lose or draw it’s all about doing it and “MAKING IT” when so many will not even try or will not make it.

“MAKING IT” is about far more than winning. It’s about finishing what you start and bringing it forward as a resounding victory. I like the description of a successful marriage that seems to fit this illustration, “WHAT STARTED AS A SIMPLE MELODY HAS GROWN TO THE ZENITH OF A ROARING SYMPHONY!” This says it all! We decide what we want and no matter who falls by the wayside as we progress, we push our efforts in the gym and in life to the level of “A ROARING SYMPHONY!”

Many are not going to make it! But, I believe I/we can and we will. There are no positive lessons as you look to your right or to your left. We don’t learn by asking life questions of the fighter who has been knocked out and is lying prostrate on the floor. Look inside and decide what you want and never give up the vision of “MAKING IT!”

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In order to be able to run fast, jump high, endure a beating, love intensely, we must be willing to suffer the requirements for accomplishment. There are no short cuts in life. Like the Navy Seals say, “When you are surrounded on all sides, we group up and CHARGE!” The best results that yield the best and most enduring lessons are the ones that costs us the most and the ones that are direct and straight to the target. Believe me when I say that this path is painful. However, be on track and focused on the target teaches us the best lessons.

My Father-in-Law, David S. King, Congressman Utah always said that the best lessons we learn in life are usually the ones associated with our worst failures. How many of us have said after a solid butt kicking, “I’ll never do that again!?” I think the answer is a universal, “ALL OF US!” I’m also betting that 99% of us who uttered those words actually ‘never did that again.’ So, supreme effort, coupled with supreme failure begets supreme lessons. As a result, because we handled the worst we are now very much prepared to “Handle the best.”

In bodybuilding we are always about the business of honing our craft. We have accepted the maxim, “There are no short cuts and we are on it. With each workout and the accomplishment of specified goals we learn the best way to handle our training is to show up every day, make personal observations regarding what works and what doesn’t work. There are times when we over train (my personal sin), become distracted, waste time, listen to close friends, relatives, and knuckle heads and thus we suffer. We have got to go where nobody else will go if we want the best for ourselves. The trip to the nether world will only be painful as we learn the tricks of the trade and persist on to the things that will make us great. These things we have to handle are sometimes bigger and more horrible than our minds can imagine. But! like a U.S. Marine friend of mine said, “commitment means biting off more than you can chew—-and chewing it”

This is our journey and it represents our lives. Don’t ever think that anything is free. But, you can think that almost anything is attainable with the right mindset and willingness to get dirty as we work.

In closing! Handle the worst things so you can handle the best things!

“A very simple to understand principle but a very difficult effort to implement and live!”

Every single person on this planet has to come to grips with these three principles. Pain begets a sense of being alive which solidifies our resolve to fight for the things we want and love. The the pain confirms that we are “in the game.” All of us has to believe that the only way to victory at any task IS our commitment to fight for it….and if I fight for it…..I can win.”

Most of us believe, or we have been taught that if we can just “speak out loud, that which we want, we can have it.” The idea being that by clearly stating your goals brings everything into focus and then into reality. I could not disagree more. The way of success is hatched in solitude, in the recesses of your mind way before we even begin the journey toward the stated goals. Just saying what we want helps but there is a world of difference between “talking about what we want” and “pursing” that which we desire.

The very first subjective and confirming event we experience is “PAIN” which occurs because we exert Herculean effort to start the journey. Pain can be physical, (as in bodybuilding), mental (as in marital relationships with wife and kids), or emotional (as in episodes of overwhelming discouragement, disillusionment, or conversely “Giddy Emotional excitement.”

For our purposes here and how it relates to Bodybuilding will be our focus.

“Pain” is secondary to extreme physical effort. There is something paradoxically tortuous and magical at the same time when pain comes as a result of extreme physical effort. It is encouraging and it defines the price that must be paid to win. It’s this dichotomy with resultant pain that confirms to me and all those who do bodybuilding that we are “ALIVE” and on the journey to being better. It’s this effort with resulting and predictable “PAIN” that sets our faces like flint to win. Being totally aware of being “ALIVE” sets the stage for us to win. Strangely, the “PAIN” of training makes us feel “ALIVE” and confirms in our hearts that we can win…..I would take it a step further and say that because of the “PAIN”we are “obligated” to win. Besides! Why willingly subject ourselves to “PAIN” and then choose NOT to win? I’m many things but I am not a masochist. It’s all worth it.

So, this discussion is mostly about being self aware and allowing the natural process of accomplishment to dictate the outcome.

This is the Sequence of events that must be experienced along the way. Close your eyes! Imagine what must be done after you see and understand the requirements to win:

1.) Effort which causes PAIN

2.) Confirmation via the pain that we are ALIVE

3.) By realizing we are alive we now can (Must) WIN!

In summary, these steps are just another series of ideas for us to focus on to keep all of us moving forward. By latching on to the essence of each step in the process and turning each step into something great we accomplish new things that will push us beyond the moment to the thing we have decided is “worth it” to have.

Never look back….! This is your time……

Most of us can related to this little gem. If you want something bad enough we will do almost anything to get it. Can you remember when you just had to see your girlfriend during the early days of “puppy love” and her parents seemed hell bent on keeping you out of the picture? Of course you can! Remember the chances you took just to hear her voice, see her, hold her hand, smooch her and to inhale her essence? The whole experience was intoxicating. You would scratch on the screen to her room until she came to the window. The rest was “MADNESS” but worth every risk, every moment to possess her attention. Boom! Life was suddenly alive and all “MADNESS” was put into play…..We win!

In the world of bodybuilding there are so many parallels to this story. At first, it was trying it out. Then, it was a regular thing. Then there were goals. Then there were plans. The plans took on a life of their own. Then, the first show came around and “MADNESS” took over. You would hide your intentions so as not to be ridiculed. You may even workout twice per day. Once with all your gym buddies and then late at night when there was nobody watching. Without thinking you filled out the applications for the NPC Card, then the selected show. Too late to go back now. Nobody really knows except a select few.

The day of the show arrives. You make up some excuse about being out of the loop for a day or so. “MADNESS” reigns with every minute of preparation. Nobody does this sort of thing you tell yourself. However, here you are!

When you are waiting to go up on stage you’re terrified about the whole experience. You secretly want to do well but also you don’t want to be discovered by those who can render judgment and hurt you and say out loud while laughing at you, “I told you so!”

“MADNESS” prevails! Up you go along with the other competitors. Your heart pounds. You sweat. You entertain every fear you have ever had. You do the poses, turns, you flex, you grunt and when it’s done you exit to the right….Relieved! You made it.

Just know that nothing in life and certainly in bodybuilding is accomplished without extreme risk and a “TOUCH OF MADNESS!” Nobody, sets out on a journey knowing the end. But, more often than not, we and many others talk ourselves out of the journey because of the fear of the unknown. But, it is precisely here that our “MADNESS” must save us from our life of quiet desperation. We take the step toward what we want knowing full well we might not make it. But, the “MADNESS” required will be worth it and we begin to believe it and so we do it. The victory belongs to he who prepares and is willing to get into the arena.

Nothing is for sure in life and bodybuilding is an object lesson in this universal truth. But, in order to live the “EVERY MAN’S STORY” we have to do the irrational/MAD thing to get it done and to win.

I wish the best. for all of us who are willing to exercise “MADNESS” to be our best or to touch that which others have defined as unreachable. Start and never look back. Nobody can take it away but you can surrender your dream by not exercising a “TOUCH OF MADNESS!”

Initially, I cringed at these words. Mainly, because all of us who are gym rats and competitors like to espouse the sacrosanct position of “MOTIVATION“ in our bodybuilding lexicon of sought after tools and virtues. Everywhere we go we discuss the things that make us better at our craft. Inevitably “MOTIVATION” is tossed on the table for analysis. We look at it from every angle. We turn it over. We turn it upside down. We consider the source of “MOTIVATION“ and why it pushes us to do the hard stuff and to be better.

Dictionary definition of “MOTIVATION” — the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way: FOR EXAMPLE: escape can be a strong “MOTIVATION” for travel. • OR: the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

“MOTIVATION” in my opinion is anything or anybody who can serve as a defining inspiration or reason to begin or to pursue and endeavor.

We are always on the hunt for the thing that will “MOTIVATE” us to engage in training. To push us to new levels of success. For some it’s a picture of a great bodybuilder. A slogan. A special Proverb. A story etc.

However, our character is found in our “DEDICATION” to our craft. We have to dig deep and the strength and the power to keep going and to execute comes from our personal “DEDICATION.”. Remember that before we started down. this road we got tons of time alone to decide whether we wanted this road or not and we decided that we did want this path. This heartfelt commitment resulted in our “DEDICATION” which is and has been unwavering. “MOTIVATION” should never been needed. We do it because we are “DEDICATED” to the path that leads to improvement resulting in victory on stage.

Let’s keep things in perspective. “MOTIVATION” is a short term fix it is no substitute for the core quality called, “DEDICATION.” This is the bedrock of all forward progress and victory! Never forget this basic truth!

STAY THE COURSE AND LET YOUR DEDICATION BE THE PRIMARY MOTIVATOR

This is essential to growth—–We don’t need and audience, we need focus in solitude to think, pray, and work!

I absolutely hate being alone with myself, my thoughts, and my reflections. It’s a scary thing to come face-to-face with yourself. That person who has been you all your life. Who has seen your miserable failures and your grandest victories. That person who knows every nano-particle of truth that you are made of. When we do face ourselves we have to understand that there is a way to succeed despite all that we have done badly that cause all the guilt and shame we carry. In order to succeed we have to know that there is another side of you that is good and longs to win. I submit that bodybuilding, like Bible Study is daily and it requires a total rewiring of our thought presses and a change of our mindset. It happens very slowly but only I/we can do the work.

Napoleon Hill asserts this:

“Remember, too that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start, and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they “ARRIVE.” The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis, through which they/we are introduced to their/our “OTHER SELVES.”

Broadly and generally speaking this is a truism that must be understood. The key component is what we do with this “OTHER SELF” when he/she is introduced to us.

In bodybuilding, the greatest crisis we can face is to decide that we really want this life, these goals, these moments of absolute pain, sacrifice, sweat, and most of all doing it alone. During a crisis we can have all the right motivators around us with all the best arguments for us to go forward. But, we don’t hear them because of our current crisis. Then, when the lights go down and the friends all fade away, we are all alone and we have to decide to either quit or to move forward. Bodybuilding with the help of God helps to refine us in the fire of isolation and uncertainty. It is here the we must face our “OTHER SELF” the person that will carry us forward, that will shed the baggage of laziness, non focus, doubt, fear, and the unholy decision to QUIT. Another great quote I got recently says, “If you think the price you have to pay to reach your goal is to high—Wait for the price you will be required to pay for Regret.”

Bottom Line: Get alone. Face the bad person down. Be willing to see and be introduced to the ‘OTHER SELF” that will transform you into a winner. Never! Be afraid of being alone. In your solitude and quietness you will discover that great “OTHER SELF” that you never met before. He/she because of God will lift you and drive you to your “BEST SELF!”

NOW GO WIN AND NEVER LOOK BACK!

Ain’t it the truth! Often in our lives we take off in a direction, hell bent on winning or getting someplace fast. We fight, we plan, we sweat, we are happy, we are sad but forward we go with quitting as a non option. Somewhere along the way we lift up our heads and we look around and we realize that all of our friends, family and colleagues are nowhere to be found. Actually, we are all alone on this quest. It is here that we have two choices. 1.) Quit because we become afraid and we don’t have a cheering section or even company. In short the realization that being alone is the norm. Nobody will rescue us or talk to us in any meaningful way to keep us going. 2.) Embrace the challenge because it’s just part of the journey. We come to the conclusion that fair weather friends, family and colleagues are not needed. Essentially, our own person becomes our best friend, our greatest buddy and everything is better now that we have identified the source of our strength which is —- ourselves. We are left with the superb confidence that we have all we need and nobody can give us more.

I remember that Phil Heath gave an interview after winning his last Olympia where he said, “I am so glad to win. Nobody know what it was like to be there in the gym alone at night training in silence.” That’s our road—-Nobody is going to prop us up……I have to depend on myself especially when there is nobody there with me.

Bottom Line: Take help where you can but ultimately learn to become your own best friend and be happy with what you have, who you are, and what you must do to win—-alone! This is where our supreme comfort comes from. Be there for yourself always. The Cavalry is not coming to save you or to keep your going…… See you backstage, on stage, and on the steps down off the stage. We’ll talk when it’s over.

Sometimes when I listen to this new generation of people growing up around us, I get the distinct impression that they have no real idea of what work and accomplishment looks like. Everything is a smug truth whether it’s true or not. The basic fact of all things in life is that having anything to love, to hold, to value, to use, to keep safe involves tons of effort and sacrifice. Like I tell my wife all the time, “If it’s worth loving then it is worth working for and fighting for to get it and to keep it safe.” If it costs me nothing to have then I probably do not value the person or the item very much.

In bodybuilding we all go to the gym and we see the “fair weather” lifters and “ego driven personalities in the midst of their admiring groupies.” Each loves to be seen but usually none of them likes the out of sight and behind the scenes training sessions that are required to excel.

All wishful thinking in the gym results in nothing more than self-deception and NO RESULTS. All of us must stop day dreaming and become visionaries with a plan and a purpose. Hard work doing extra sets, adding more weight at key times, training with intent, disappearing inside our heads to the music, knowing we can do better and then doing it. As they say, “the results will come out in the wash.”

Nobody sees any of this. We are alone with ourselves and our visions and our purpose. We never forget what we are doing and why.

In closing let me just say this. “IF IT’S WORTH HAVING, IT’S WORTH WORKING FOR—INVISIBLY, ALONE, AND QUIETLY.” The best to all of “us” who have learned this lesson. See you at the top!