If you embrace anything, embrace the suck

"Embrace The Suck". We have all heard or read this phrase at some point and time. Hell I even have it on one of my t-shirts I wear here at the gym. What does "Embrace The Suck" really mean? A lot of people put a negative connotation towards this phrase, but in reality there is nothing negative about it. This phrase is pure positive.

When we "Embrace The Suck" nothing but good comes from it. It means embracing the obstacles in life and turning them into opportunities for success. It means taking on the challenges and goals you never thought possible. It means living the experience to the fullest. It means taking the road less traveled, because it's harder to do. It means not shying away from adversity.

It means staying true to your goals and doing the work. It means sweating your @$$ off and doing it with a smile when everyone else is complaining. It means showing up when know one else will. It means seeking out the more difficult challenges, because you know the outcome is a stronger version of you. It means doing a little more because you can.

Find your challenges and goals and embrace them with everything you have to give. A stronger you is waiting on the other side.

When was the last time you tested yourself?

This week is test out week here at Big Tree Fitness. Test out week is where gym members have the opportunity to post a new PR's (personal record) in their book and on the public board. The members have a chance to put the previous 6 weeks hard work to the test. Sometimes they will make new PR's and sometimes they won't. The PR number is not necessarily the most important part. The opportunity to evaluate the work done over the past 6 weeks is the important part. The test is just the end result, but if you don't test yourself, how will you ever know if you are making progress.

When we test ourselves whether we pass or fail can all be traced back to the work we have done leading up to the test. We all used to have to study for tests in school. Are preparation was a direct on how our test scores would come out. Now most of us have left school behind years ago, but do we still test ourselves from time to time.

In order to see progress we have to test ourselves. Testing on a physical fitness level is easy to put together and complete, but testing ourselves when it comes to our emotional and mental strength is much more difficult. This kind of test requires more time spent reflecting and asking hard questions about oneself. It may require asking the same questions to someone you trust. Someone who will be open and honest with you in a positive way. The emotional and mental test isn't a pass / fail test, but more of a progress test. This test allows us to see what we have accomplished. It also allows us to see how far we can go when it comes to self care and self improvement.

Every 6 weeks I test myself to see where my physical strength is at. It is a week that I look forward to. I know that I have put the hard work in and now it's time to test this work. Hopefully I will be happy with the results, but if not it's Ok. I will test it again in six weeks. I also take time to put my emotional and mental strength to the test. I do this each week when I spend time doing my "Thinking Time". I will always spend my last hour of my Thursday long runs to spend time reflecting on myself and what I have been working on. I will ask myself the hard questions and I will always be honest with my answers. I look forward to this time running in the woods and having this time of reflection. This time allows me to create the map to make all other parts of my life more successful for myself and those around me.

Don't be afraid to test yourself. If you don't take the time to test yourself, you will never know how far you have come and you will never know how far you are capable of going.

Finding true strength

I believe real true strength is not only physical but emotional as well. Some of the strongest people I know, willingly choose to be the most vulnerable. They choose to engage with their emotions in a positive way. They don't let their ego get in the way. They choose serving others over protecting their ego's image of themselves.

True strength comes from within one's self. It has to be nurtured and brought out into the open before true strength can become a physical part of our lives. When you think about it, your body just didn't decide one day to become strong. It all started with thoughts and emotions. But far too often we fall into the trap of what society has deemed real strength.

Men are very susceptible to this issue of what is real true strength. To often they are led to believe that they need to act macho and not show any signs of weakness. This attitude is so far from the truth. If more men would destroy the walls that they have built up around themselves, they would learn to look at life with the vision of how to serve and help others. When this happens a man can come to find his real true strength.

In today's complicated and social media driven world, where everything seems to come across as "look at me". We could really use more people finding and creating their real true strength. Maybe then we can get to a place where people show more concern for their fellow humans then how many likes they get. Maybe we could find the lost art of the conversation among each other and maybe then we could really find out what we all really need to make our world a better place to be a part of.

Give service to others and the world will serve you in return.

Breaking the boredom

What happens when we get bored? All movement and personal growth comes to a grinding halt. When we get bored it can literally paralyses us and stop all physical and emotional movement. Our brains can become entwined into what feels like an unbreakable loop of stagnation. Our decision making power gets stalled. Nothing sounds good whether it be work, fitness, food, entertainment, etc... you get the picture. We have all experienced these episodes throughout our lives. They aren't fun to go through.

Why is it so hard to break out of this boredom? Because boredom is a form of resistance and resistance is a powerful enemy. Resistance makes us comfortable. It takes our minds off of the tasks at hand. Resistance wants to keep us right where we are at. It loves the control we allow it to have over us. The more control we give resistance, the more powerful it becomes.

So what do we need to do to fight back against resistance and boredom? It is just one thing, but I must warn you, it is hard to do. The one thing we must do to break the paralysis of boredom is get up and move. All you need to do is take the first step, but as we discussed in a previous email "The first step is the hardest step". This is where your resiliency and your self manufactured adversity comes into play big time. You will need to draw on these powers to beat the powers of your enemy, resistance. You have done it before and you can do it again.

Some people will say, ``Just don't let yourself get bored, "yeah right". We will all face bouts of boredom in our lives. The key is building the tools with inside ourselves to fight boredom off and fight it off early when you start to feel the onset of it. You can build these tools in many different ways. Through physical fitness, yoga, meditation, mindful practices, morning rituals. You can make a portion of your day that is a non-negotiable portion, that is for you and you only. Use this time to work on what makes you feel whole inside and out. You control how you fight resistance and how you fight off boredom. Don't let it control you. You are stronger than that.

Did you meet your goals? Why not?

We are entering the time of year where reflection over the past year becomes a driving force in our lives. We look at our goal list we created at the beginning of the new year to see how many goals we accomplished. We evaluate whether the goals we accomplished meant as much as we thought they would. We look at the goals we failed at or we didn't get to. We look at the goals we let go of because their value was not what we thought it would be. All this reflection time is a necessary action in our lives. We use this reflection time as a measuring stick for ourselves and our lives to see how much we have grown as human beings. I think we can sometimes go through paralysis through analysis when we spend to much time reflecting over the past year.

I propose that, while we are doing the healthy actions through our reflection, we should be formulating your new goals. Some of you new goals should be built off of your past goals that we were able to accomplish I.E. 30,000 burpee's for 2019 to 30,000 burpee's + 10,000 pullups for 2020.

The goals that were not accomplished need to be asked Why Not. The answer to the why will allow you to refine these goals (if they were worth it in the first place). This will allow you the opportunity to go after them again. Any goal that you feel in your heart, mind and soul has a meaningful value to you should never be abandoned. These goals are probably very hard and complex. They have a deeper meaning that is difficult to convey through words and voice, but you know deep inside you have to find a way to keep working at them.

Doing 30,000 burpee's and 10,000 pull ups is easy. It really just requires dedication, commitment and work. Three traits all of us are capable of doing. Fixing a relationship, changing careers, becoming a parent, letting go of a negative past, these are hard goals. They require deep resiliency and serious amounts of faith. But we should not be afraid of these goals.

We should embrace them. We know they will be difficult and hard. We know there will be pain involved, but we also know the feelings and emotions of the journey are worth it and will have a positive and profound effect on our lives and those around us.

Remember, wake up.... kick ass.... be kind....repeat.

What if there is no magic pill?

"Waiting around will get you nowhere". We have all heard this statement and sometimes waiting can be a really good idea. Yes, if you want to take control of something in your life sometimes you just have to do it, but sometimes the best course of action is to wait. You just don't want to step back and just wait for something to happen. You want to step back and ask yourself, is this something I need in my life right now? Is this something I even want to take on right now?

With our easy push button society we live in, the art of slowing down the process of decision making has gone out the window in a lot of cases. We want everything easy and faster no matter the possible end results that we did not think about. We do this even though we all know that if something is really worth it, we must do the work to make it happen. We must slow the instant gratification syndrome down and go out and earn it.... It's hard and I know it because we all live in it everyday.

When you take the time to look back on your life I guarantee, everything that has the most meaning in your life just didn't happen overnight. You set out to earn these things or ideas. Along the way you had successes and failures. You had obstacles to overcome and you turned those obstacles and failures into opportunities. You ended up learning the most through your failures and not much through your successes.

The reason I am writing about this today is because I see this attitude of not wanting to have to do the work required to really earn something around us everywhere. I see so many people wanting the magic pill, well there is no magic pill. There is only consequences for taking the magic pill. Life is not always supposed to be easy. Having difficulties and dealing with hard times is how we learn to live life. It teaches us how to enjoy our successes and the successes of those around us. These lessons seem to be getting lost in all the clutter that surrounds us every day. I hope that we will never stop learning these lessons and that we will constantly and lovingly keep passing them on.

Friendsgiving!

This past Friday I wrote about "We are what we create". This past weekend brought that point home to me very clearly. I was reminded about the powerful emotions that happen when we spend a long period of time and create friendships and bonds that can last the test of time and distances.

My family and I decided a month ago we needed to revive a past tradition of friendsgiving that we used to with all of our neighborhood friends and a few others. This past Saturday all but two of the original (Joe & Sally in Florida now) Friendsgiving group got together for an amazing evening of feast and cheer. Aside from some additional grey hairs on most of us, the main difference from this year and years past was the amount of kids running wild through our house.

This past weekend I was able to sit back and really experience what my family and our friends had created over the past 10 plus years. The growth and change in all of our lives was on full display and it was awesome. We had all created something very special with our families, but something even greater when we are all together. We all were able to answer, Why.

When you are in the thick of life and it seems to be happening at hyper speed we have a tendency to miss the fine details. It's not until we slow life down that the pictures that surround us become much more clearer. It 's when this happens we really get to see what we have truly created.

I know we as a group of friends are not doing something extraordinary. There are plenty of other families and friends that are doing or have done the same thing for many years before us and will for many years after us. But when you are in the moment with your family of friends nothing else matters except for what you are all experiencing. I hope all of you will find time to experience these feelings and emotions as we embark on this season of giving and great thankfulness.

We are what we create

When we start out in life we have know idea what we have gotten ourselves into. We rely on our parents, teachers, peers and society to guide us and teach us as we grow older. Eventually we need to be able to spread our wings and find our own way in life.

We start to create a life of our own. We decide what we want to be, who we want to be and where we want to be at. But did we ever as why to ourselves? I bet a lot of us did not ask why, we just did what, who and where.

I think the reason we did not ask why is because we didn't know how to ask why and more importantly we didn't know how to answer why. Looking back at this part of my life, I think the answer was because I did not have enough life's experiences to ask or answer why.

As we start to gather and store life's experiences we start to see the why. We start to become "We Are What We Create". The trick though is, are you happy with what you have created and if not, have you found the courage to change it.

We all go through phases in life where what we are creating does not align with our true north. At this point in time we must make a decision, whether to keep pressing on and hope that we eventually get it right or do we put our egos aside and have the long hard talk with ourselves to make the necessary changes to align ourselves again. This can be a very hard and emotional conversation to have. You have to be willing to look deep inside yourself and really be honest in your self evaluation in order to find any real true answers.

I truly believe that most of us in this world wants to create something special that we can share with others and show that we can truly lead by our actions. That we can share our wisdom and experiences to those that are just starting out. But in order to do this we have to be true and honest to ourselves and constantly be able to look in the mirror and ask, "Am I being true to what I am creating". Don't be afraid to have this conversation. This is the kind of conversation that can help set you free to really create something very unique and special for yourself and for those who mean the absolute most to you.

Press On

PRESS ON

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; The world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

- Anonymous 14th Century

I was given this quote earlier this week by one of our Big Tree Fitness members. Thank you.

You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don't know how to use it or choose to waste it, what good is it? You can go to the finest schools and learn as much as possible. What good is it if you have know idea how to use it in the real world? I have seen both of these issues take place many times throughout my life. Some of these people have been some of my closest friends and even family members.

I have also seen throughout my life many people and role models who never spent a day in college or where one of the last to be picked on the team. Some of them have gone on to do great things with their lives. How did this happen? The one thing that they had were the others did not was an internal drive to find more than their god given abilities. They pushed themselves and willed themselves to cross the finish line. They gained real life experiences through their hard work and tenacity.

I have great respect for this type person. Why? Because that person was me too. I tried, but failed miserably at college. I was not the most talented guy in the neighborhood. I had to work harder at everything. Eventually I realized that if I wanted to make a difference in my life and for others around me, I was going to have to rely on this ability I had with in myself. Because of this determination and the fact that my mom raised a fiercely independent person who hates to follow other people's rules. I have been able to do and experience things I never thought possible because of this attitude and desire.

This ability of persistence and determination is in all of us, but it requires the desire to cultivate it. You must be willing to look past your natural abilities and work harder at expanding these abilities to new levels. The most powerful force on earth is the human soul on fire. You must put your ego aside and realize there is more to you than just your talent or your education.

Control the controllable ... or, how golf is like life

Did you know in order to have a perfect golf swing 36 things must go mechanically right throughout the swing. That is a lot of things to think about and control during a swing that takes an average of 2 to 3 seconds. Did you know the average golfer who shoots under 50 for nine holes actually can only actively control about 5 to 6 of them. The average professional golf actually controls only 7 to 9 of them. So that means the remaining mechanical pieces (27 to 31) are out of our control.

That sounds an awful lot like life when you think about it. We really only have control over a few things in our lives. Yet we are always trying to control so many things in our lives that we have no real control over. This can lead to frustration and a feeling of helplessness. We feel out of control and we feel like nothing is ever really getting accomplished the way we want it to be. I tell my kids all the time, don't worry about what you can not control. Only worry about what you can control and what you can control is you.

None of us can control the behavior of the world around us. The only behavior we can control is our behavior. Each day brings on new challenges and obstacles that we have no control over, but if we practice taking control over those few things that we know we can control. Those challenges and obstacles become less formidable and can turn into opportunities that we were not able to see.

So be your own positive influence and take care of the things you know you can take care of today and let the rest sort itself out. Because those challenges and obstacles, they are going to be here tomorrow again. .

Finding your role model... and then becoming one

I am 53 years old and I still have role models in my life. Do you? I look up to these people for various reasons. Their Success and achievements. The hard work they have done. The obstacles that some of them have had to overcome or endure throughout their lives. The list can go on and on. There is one I believe is the most important though.

The most important thing my role models have done for me is to guided me and have taught me how to become a better role model. What they have taught me is about the hard work that goes into being a role model for others. To often we only get to see and hear about all the glory and great things that have happened or are happening to social media people. Real role models will let you in a little deeper and allow you to see their struggles and the difficulties that they themselves go through on a daily basis. Role models don't portray themselves as overnight successes. They made a decision along the way at some point in time in their lives to work hard and search out the difficult path. They chose the less road traveled.

I have found along the way in my own life, that I enjoy searching out the difficult path. As Joe De Sena of Spartan Race puts in "Sometimes you have to manufacture your own resiliency". This means choosing the hard way over the easy way. This means not just thinking about doing a 1000 burpees, but actually doing a 1000 burpees. As they say you just don't "Talk the Talk you must Walk the Walk"

When you choose to live life like in this manor, along the way people will start to notice and they start to look at you differently and may start to view you as a role model. This is not a pretentious act on your part to want to be a role model. This is a serious decision on your part and it can never be taken lightly. Your actions have a direct affect on people and you have a new found responsibility to have your actions be aligned with your perceived values.

I believe wanting to be a true role model is a noble cause. I hope more people will want to be role models and will want to help influence positive change in the people's lives that surround each of us. The world and all of us who inhabit it could really use this, now more than ever.

Veterans Day 2019

Today we honor the sacrifices that all the men and women who signed up to defend our country and all the freedoms we enjoy and quite frankly demand from our country. Some of these men and women paid the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield and for that will thank you and your families for the courage they showed in the face of war, but we still have an average of 22 men and women that pay the ultimate sacrifice everyday here in this country.

The United States sees an average of 22 men and women veterans committing suicide every day due to their inability to cope with life after serving our country and going to war. Sometimes these men and women come home visibly broken on the outside, but what we don't get to see is how many of these men and women come home broken on the inside. They struggle with everyday life. They sometimes make it home physically but don't make it all the way back home mentally and emotionally. Many of them suffer from PTSD and never recover and ultimately give up.

There is not enough care and awareness out there for these men and women who need it so desperately. We as a country fail to realize that we have been at war in one form or another since 2001. That is 18 years of non stop war. The strain of that burden on our military has been monumental and even worse for the men and women who serve as well as their families.

So, today is a day of honoring these brave men and women. How will you honor them and help bring greater awareness and positive change to their lives? Here at Big Tree we are doing a Burpee Challenge to raise money for two foundations. "The Courage Foundation" which helps returning home veterans and their families and "Wheels For Change", which is a local foundation whose goals are outreach, education and awareness for our local veterans. For every burpee done today we will donate a monetary value based on the total burpees done by the end of the day. If you would like to donate please feel free to help. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. Well it is time for me to get back to my burpee count.

Row, row, row your boat

In 2015 the English 8-man rowing team was training for the 2016 Rio Olympic games. You see the English rowing team had qualified dead last. Nobody had any high hopes for the team and neither did the team as well. The coach knew this and set out to change the attitude of the team. He called a meeting with the team and laid out a simple rule. He told the team, everything we do for the next 8 months, we will ask ourselves one question, "Will it make the boat go faster".

Let's go to the pub after practice, "Will it make the boat go faster"

Let's go get some ice cream, "Will it make the boat go faster"

There's a huge party this weekend, "Will it make the boat go faster"

Let's hit practice at 5am instead of 6am, "Will it make the boat go faster"

These men decided to put everything off over the next 8 months that would not make the boat go faster. They searched out ways to manufacture their own resilience and suffering. They did this because they knew this would make the boat go faster. They won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics.

When you go throughout your day are you making decisions based on "Will it make the boat go faster"? Each of us has our own boat and this boat carries a lot of passengers. These passengers are depending on us to ask the question "will it make the boat go faster".

We need to train our mind, body and soul to think along these lines. We must find a way to create our tenacity and resilience. It's hard and it is hard work, but this attitude and mindset leads us to a place where we can grow and become a better version of ourselves. It allows us to look in the mirror and say I know you and I am proud of who you are and the person you are becoming. So ask yourself, "Will it make the boat go faster"

Embracing the suck

This past January I started a challenge with in the gym that was going to create what we viewed as "Extreme Commitment". I started the Big Tree Burpee Challenge. It entaled one thing, Commit to doing 100 burpees at every workout.

The reason we viewed this as extreme commitment was because we all HATED BURPEES!!! There was only a couple people in the beginning that would start the challenge with me, but like all great dumb ideas many more decided to join us on this year long commitment journey.

None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into or what affect it would have on all of us. We would soon find out and man it has been awesome.

1-Created the foundation to extreme commitment

2-Competition among each other

3-Self competition

4-Pride in what where doing and accomplishing

5-Mind, body and soul transformation

6-Commitment to others who would be joining us along the way.

The list is longer, but be assured the the journey has brought out some of the best in all of us. The feeling you get with inside yourself, when you know that you are moving past the idea of thinking something was impossible. To the feeling of how far can I go? What can I truly accomplish? This is how you create life altering changes. For me as a coach and trainer, this is the mountain top. Along the way I have got to experience a handful of these mountain tops. Watching the transformation when someone has reached the 10,000 burpee mark. Knowing the effort someone has put in when they hit the 20,000 burpee mark, which Erin did last night. The most special one so far has to be what happened here last Friday at the 4pm class (See Blow). When you see this happen and you know what someone has gone through and the effort and commitment it took for them to reach this point, you can't help but feel something bigger than just the moment. This is where lives change in the most positive way.

Extreme commitment doesn't have to be just gym related, but what it does have to be is the willingness to commit to something that is difficult. Extreme commitment requires commitment everyday even when your mind and body is telling you NO. Extreme commitment requires you to embrace the journey, not the outcome. You must "Embrace the Suck".

Like Frost Said, "The road less traveled"

I shall be telling this with a sigh.

Somewhere ages & ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

How often have you taken the road less traveled? I often think about this idea of the road less traveled. I especially think about this when I am out West backpacking in Yosemite. When you go into the back country where you are cut off from the modern world. No technology, only your backpack of supplies, the clothing on your back and your mind and body you realize that you are no longer on top of the food chain. As a matter of fact, you become acutely aware that you have slid down the food chain dramatically. When you stop and look around at the vastness of space and nature, you are humbled. You start to understand your size in this great big world. You realize you are on the road less traveled.

Now this will either scare the living daylights out of you or you will embrace this powerful feeling. If you embrace this feeling or mindset, you will purposefully look to find the road less traveled throughout many parts of your life.

The beauty of the road less traveled is, that as hard and as difficult as it can be. To take on life with this mindset. The reward along the way is much more profound and carries a much deeper meaning. What you get to see, smell, feel and experience will change you from deep within your soul.

I love taking the road less traveled. It is what helped shape me and teach me. It allows me to experience life in a way that I feel and believe is fuller and with greater meaning. Up at 10,000 feet above sea level the world looks very different and different in a good way.

Finding (and living!) your passion

Do you live out your passions in life? Can you think back to when you were 11 or 12 years old? Think back to what you wanted to be when you grew up. Think about what it was you wanted for your birthday or Christmas that was totally tied to your young passion.

Now think about today and where you are at in life and ask yourself "Am I living out my passion"? What you were passionate about when you were 11 and 12 years old may not be exactly the same as what you are passionate about today, but the core idea should be very much the same.

My passion when I was 11 and 12 was just to be outside as much as possible. I wanted to play outside, act out my dreams outside, work outside, anything I could to be outside. So as I grew older and matured I made sure that my jobs in my younger years where outside. Painting houses for a couple years, construction and landscaping for 26 years. As got older I started to realize that my passion was not just about being outside. I wanted to figure out how I could help and coach people. I wanted to take my love of being outside and turn it into a positive for others.

I found out coaching and teaching people throughout my landscape career was away to further my passion for being outside. I coached, taught and trained people to form and amazing team that was able to come together and do great things with in the landscape industry. But it turned out I was missing a big component to my passion. I missed the play time part of my passion. I needed to fix this.

Big Tree Fitness. What could be better and more important than really getting people moving again like they did when they were 11 or 12 years old. Big Tree Fitness became one of my passions. It became more than just a gym. It is a big playground where we all could come to and go back to being a kid. We could play and make new friends. We could use the energy we create to fuel our passions.

It took a long time for me to come to this point. From the time I was 11, to when Big Tree Fitness was born is a span of 39 years. During those 39 years my passion for play and being outside has morphed into many different forms, but the core belief of my passion never changed. Live your passions. Make them happen. Remember death is the price we pay for life, make it worth it. Let your passions live and breath. They are a big part of who you are.

Thinking Time

I wanted to tell you about a concept I recently heard about called "Thinking Time".

Thinking Time is an exercise that should be done once per week in order to get the most out of this mental exercise. It takes roughly 45 min and the set up is very easy.

• You will need a quiet space with a table and chair.

• You will need a basic kitchen timer, a notebook and a pen. You will use the same notebook throughout each Think Time session.

• NO PHONES OR ELECTRONIC DEVICES. You want your space to be void of distractions

• Try to make your Thinking Time very routine. Same time same place each week.

Now the hard part. Focus. Each week you want to come to your table with a problem you are trying to solve. This could be any problem ranging from personal, business, family, you name it. Now I want to think of your problem as a symptom. Example: I need to get more sleep each night. That in itself is not the problem. It is a symptom to a large problem of why am I not getting enough sleep.

When you go to sit down at your table, turn on your timer to 45 min. Open your notebook and start to think about and write down all the questions you can come up with, about how to solve your problem / symptom. It is said that smart people can find the answers, but it is the genius that finds the questions to the answers. The answers are always the same. It's the questions that always change.

There are a ton of questions you should be able to come up with in the 45 min. After you are done, look at all the questions and pick out the ones that you truly think can help solve your problem. Use these questions during the week to help solve your problem. Keep in mind though that all this will not always solve the problem right away. This exercise is a starting point and some problems are meant to be chipped away at. So in order to make this exercise work for you on a consistent basis, YOU MUST DO THE WORK.

If you want to get busy solving problems in your life so you can have better problems, try this exercise out and see if it will help you. By the way the person who I heard talk about this exercise has been doing this for the past 20 years. His company produced over $100,000,000.00 last year alone in revenues. This guy has created some good problems for himself because of this exercise.

Taking A First Step

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step"

- Lao Tzu

For some reason we all have an issue with taking the first step. It can paralyze us in our tracks. The first step doesn't just have to be towards some monumental thing in our life. The first step can also be the mundane daily issues as well.

I think when it comes to the daily mundane issues, it simply comes down to motivation and self discipline. When either of these two personality traits start to wane we become lazy and start to procrastinate. We are all guilty of this one.

How do we stop this from continuing? It is a little easier said than done, but it is quite simple. Just get up and get to work and start creating momentum. You don't even have to start with the task or issue you are procrastinating over. You can start with something as simple as straightening up the magazines on the coffee table. The point is you are starting to put your mind and body into motion, You are starting to solve small problems.

Soon enough your mind will start to feel better about what you are getting accomplished. Before long you will have music playing in the background. The TV will be turned off because you realize the TV is a distraction and the music provides motivation. You will step back and laugh at yourself and ask yourself, "why was I making the first step so difficult". Well procrastination and lazy are two very powerful enemies that need to be respected, but also need to be defeated all the time.

Taking the first step when it comes to big monumental things. Well that's a whole different can of worms and requires a different mindset and a different conversation for another day.

Think Yourself Happy

'It is not external events themselves that cause us distress, but the way in which we think about them, our interpretation of their significance. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble. We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.' - Epictetus

This statement encompasses everything I have been writing about recently.

Happiness is a mindset. Things like cars or house or relationships or a job can not make us happy. What makes us happy is how we chose to utilize these things within our lives. The reason this statement is true is because as much as they can make us happy, they can also make us mad as hell as well.

So it can't be the physical item that makes us happy. It is how we choose to control or express our feelings towards these many things that determines our happiness. Yes, these physical thing can be used to elicit feelings, but ultimately we control those feelings whether good, bad or ugly.

To often we get confused and think "if I just had this or that I will be in a better mood or a better place". We can feel the pressures of society, friends or family to have the next best, greatest thing in our lives. When this happens, 9 out of 10 times we are still left with and empty hollow feeling. We end up realizing that there needs to be something more. We realize that our happiness needs to come from within ourselves

Remember when you were a little kid? You could sit inside a big box and all you had was your imagination to play with. The box was the physical thing, but your imagination was really where the fun was at. I bet if you sit back and think about that scene in your head, you will sit back and smile. This is where happiness resides. It's within you and nowhere else.

Defining (and living) your core values

Do you know what your core values are? Do you have them written down? If you have them written down, do you read them out loud to yourself on occasion? Do you look at them when life is throwing curve balls at you all the time?

We should all have a list of core values that we work on trying to live by on a daily basis. Yes some days are better than others. The point is, do you have your core values and are they aligned with how you choose to live your life.

Big Tree Fitness core values

1- Effort

2- Added Life Value

3- Genuine

4- Passion

5- Dedication

6- Non Judgmental

These core values I have for Big Tree Fitness are the same core values I carry in my personal life with one additional core value, Unconditional Love. My core values are what guide me as a husband, father, friend, business owner and man. They define me as a human being.

We all have many other beliefs and values that guide us everyday, but our core values shape all the other beliefs and values we carry with us. Our core values are what shape our character and who we are. These are the values that come through day in and day out. They are the values we express to our families, friends, co-workers and so on. When these values are not aligned with our action we know right away and so do others.

You should try like hell to have you actions align with your core values. Do they always? No. Why? Because we are human and we make mistakes and we fall down. The question is how fast and how well do you get back up. With out knowing your core values you will never know.

If you haven't written your core values down or haven't thought about them for a while. Spend some time and either writing them down or re-examining them. Once you have them, keep them close to your heart and soul and use them to help guide you. Especially when life is feeding you those curve balls.