I have helped hundreds, even thousands of people re-engineer their bodies towards what they imagine themselves to be for over two decades now. I have learned many things about human beings.
One observation that stands out is that every individual is unique and what may work for someone, may not work for another. They journey with me through the various programs adopting my unique framework as I customize each program for each student.
Body re-engineering is about many things but I believe it is fundamentally about hormonal management. We are all hormonal creatures after all and I believe we are not ‘in control’ of ourselves as much as we think we are.
What do you think? Do you think you have full control over you? Can you hide your sadness when you’re sad? Can you resist laughing when you recognise the humour in something someone said? Can you resist food cravings when you start thinking about them?
Educating a top national sprinter of the importance of proper nutrition for recovery & optimal performance
Do you have a sweet tooth?
There are quite a few variables that directly affect how well you manage your hormones, in particular, the amount of insulin circulating in your blood. When you get better control of this, you move towards achieving metabolic control. And this is KEY. The quickest – and actually the only – way to achieve metabolic control is to restrict the amount of metabolically active carbohydrate you put in to the system.
It is as simple as that!
A good teacher is hard to find but finding a good student is even harder. Plan the work – to work the plan. Photo: discussing fine points of one of my programs with retired legend of rugby – Phil Waugh.
However, knowing is one thing and doing is another.
If you’re like most people, you probably have a sweet tooth or you don’t mind having chocolate every now and then. Unfortunately, for many, one sweet treat begs another and the unhealthy devotion to sugar can and does last a lifetime for the majority of people.
I believe we’re all sugar addicts, it is just a matter of the degree to which we indulge in this habit.
What I have found is that the craving can quickly disappear if the temptation is ignored. It is probably the most difficult habit to break, because it is everywhere and in almost everything edible. Our body and our brain craves it!
So, taking in to consideration the difficulty of ridding sugar and sweet from your diet and going ‘cold turkey’, I have listed a few possible choices and the relative grams. I have also indicated ‘how’ to consume these so as to lessen the impact on insulin receptors in your cells.
Abdominal/thigh pose with the top 2 Natural Bodybuilders in the world in 2007. I achieved a 4.2% bodyfat level. I didn’t win the World Title because the other 3 guys were leaner than me (<4%). Having a good understanding of sugar , the different sources and the effect these sources have on your blood is one of the keys to sustainability in sugar consumption
You can have sweets or chocolate if you must. I have listed only two examples of ‘snacks’ to give you some idea of quantity and approximate carbohydrate content (you can add to it with your choices). The important thing here is the steps I have listed after the short list below:
Sweet/chocolate
1 milky way (miniature) – approx. 5g of carbs
1 mars bar (miniature) – approx. 8g of carbs
As you want to lessen the insulin response to sugar, try doing this prior to enjoying your treat:
Drink a large glass of cold water 15 to 20 minutes before. Some research has shown that it reduces hunger which could mean you eat less.
Have a bowl of greens (long beans, broccoli, spinach)
Have it with coffee (if you’re having it after dinner)
Have it with some protein (if you’re indulging between meals)
Bodybuilding Pose: “Hands on hips – Most muscular”. My formula for Abs/6-pack: ABS = diet (the Right diet)
Before I go, my best advice to you is to drink ‘til you drown (but don’t drown). Drink water when you wake up, drink before meals, in between meals.
Drink, drink, drink! But, don’t drink while you eat as it hinders optimal digestion. If you do drink – sip, don’t gulp and limit it to less than a glass!
So, don’t just think about your sweet and mentally punish yourself. If you’re honest enough to accept that just like me and the majority of humans, that you have a sweet tooth, go ahead and have a treat or two and keep the pointers I have listed above in mind prior to eating them.
Sweets/sugar/carbohydrates/snacks is not the enemy, the mis-management of it, is!
You don’t need to torture yourself any more than what is already dished out to you by the world. Have your sweet in moderation and enjoy it … simply because you love yourself and you love the feeling you get when the hormones are released when you consume them and … well, you deserve it.
Best of vitality to you!
Until next time,
Setting his own standards through – Mind-muscle connection. ‘flexing the muscles’ in a “most-muscular’ pose. Here, Chris, a very busy and successful businessman working towards achieving his goals. An A+ student and the results show for a 47 year old man who looks fantastic in a business suit. … adopting my framework to body/mind re-engineering. Chris achieved his goals in 5 months in one of my uniquely tailored programs just for him. Chris also enjoyed weekly ‘snacks’ along his journey. Vv
One of the most precious things to me is that first breath I take when I wake in the morning. It reminds me that I am alive and that life is a gift. A gift from God.
I breathe that first breath and silently say a thank you to God for giving me an extra day and then hop out of bed thinking “now, who am I going to help today?!”.
And off I go.
I will die someday, and so will you. And that is a good thing.
My son. A gift 💝 from Life.
Knock on your doorstep.
You see everyone dies but not everyone lives, really lives. Everyone should be dying to live. Yes, that’s right – DYING TO LIVE!
Knowing that we will die someday should allow you to live each and every day as if it were your last because you never know when that last day will knock on your doorstep.
My biological mum died in 2011.
She had a tough life, partly of her own doing and I remember seeing her in her last days, her body laced with cancer, laying in her hospital bed, waiting to die ….
A truly sad but life-affirming sight for a courageous human being.
I sat by her bed-side and asked her many questions, questions I had never asked before. I asked her about death and whether she was afraid of dying. She said “no’, that she was in God’s hands.
Strange, but a month before she died, my son, Zachary was born. Aaaahhh … the “Circle of Life”. Life gives and … life takes.
My daughter . A gift 💝 from life.
The most contented person I’ve ever known.
When I reflect on that experience I realize that she knew God. She had seen the first and the last, the beginning and the end. She knew and believed who had made her and who had redeemed (and saved her). She also knew who was going to take her back (her soul/spirit), back to himself – her broken body notwithstanding.
My mum didn’t die alone in a room. No, she had a room filled with close church-goers to keep her company every day and set her off to God. She was in constant physical pain. I felt real pain seeing and hearing her suffer – in person and on the phone.
But, you know what the strange thing was (and I still find it quite odd) that by world’s standards and every day standards, this woman who was my mum, who was in such great pain – this woman was the most contented person I had ever known.
I teach my kids many things and they teach me too. Two things they’ve taught me is: 1) be more patient 2) never giving up (when they try to get chocolate for example … with all sorts of ways until they get it)
The beauty of life.
Some people may have said that she had lost touch with reality at that time in order to protect herself against the pain of cancer. I believe, however, that she had got in touch with reality in a way that few of us ever do, and had seen it’s beauty… The beauty of life.
So, what does this say about dying?
I’m not sure.
There are so many views of dying but my experience with my mum’s taught me something. If we turned life around, I think that dying (and the realising that we will all die some day) is one of the things that help us understand what living is.
I watched quite a few extended family members die over the years. I saw their’s and others’ pain (including mine). From this I learned one thing about death and that is that dying hurts. Dying hurts both those who die and those who are left behind, who will also die when their turn comes.
I witnessed this hurt in my wife’s eyes and words at her grandmother’s funeral late last year. She was very close to her and I loved her dear grandmother too. I particularly miss her grandfather, who I had a great relationship with. You could say – everything comes to an end … eventually, I guess.
But, I also like to believe that dying may be the beginning of something rather than the end….
The last time I communicated with my mum, she could only murmur sounds, nothing that I could understand. I told her that she shouldn’t worry and that I will join her someday soon. She just had to wait a little longer.
So, project yourself forward to when you are taking your last few breaths and you reflect on your life. Understand that you, we – all die because we have lived. So, choose to live, to have really lived.
To think 🤔 is the most difficult thing to do. Exercise for the brain 🧠 is as important for the brain as it is for the body.
We live in order to know and love the God who made us.
To die is, to some extent, to become more real in this sorrowful world.
You, me, every one of us should be dying to live.
So, grab life with both hands, give it a little shake, say thank you and choose to LIVE IT!
Choose well.
Until next time,
Having fun with a star jump! Live each day like you are dying to live. Vv.
Believe. Believe in YOU. Believe in GOD. Believe in belief, itself! Vv.
Being grateful and thankful for your blessings is one of the most liberating thoughts you could have in today’s world. Everyone or at least, every Christian should practise a spirit of gratitude.
Magic exists, yes it does. You don’t have to travel to exotic countries to witness it. You don’t have to look for a magician to see it either. Matter of fact, you don’t have to look very far at all. You see, I believe Real Magic exists and it lies in every single one of us, you included, but it is based on a choice – your choice.
The choice of attitude you embrace.
There is real magic in having an attitude of gratitude. There is real magic in a thankful spirit.
“How?” you may be thinking.
Well, from my observations of life in my first forty years on this earth, the Real Magic of a thankful spirit (an attitude of gratitude) is that it HAS THE POWER TO –
replace anger with love;
choose belief over fear;
choose peace over worry;
choose to play part of a team than the desire to dominate;
replace self-preoccupation with the concern for the needs of others;
choose an open door to forgiveness over guilt;
replace jealousy with happiness at another’s success;
generate inspired productivity over lack of creativity;
and the power to choose an abundance of self-sharing over lack of love.
I’m sure you can think of many others too.
Explaining some of the finer points of training to Vicky during my ‘coaching conversations’ with my students. Better athletes train smarter.
This to me is what real magic is and it happens every single day in the lives of everyday people. Without any media coverage or fan-fare. This is where the real magic happens – in every person’s individual choice to have a thankful spirit. This is what the real human spirit is and what the spirit of humanity is all about.
This magic resides inside each and every one of us.
A thankful spirit and an attitude of gratitude is one of the many things that the world needs more of. I believe it allows individuals to be appreciative and content with what they have in life and to make the most of what they’ve got. I believe, being content, genuinely content, brings one closer to the elusive ‘happiness’ that everyone seems to be chasing in life.
This real magic (attitude of gratitude) has the power to empower individuals and can change each individual’s world for the better. In turn, the whole world becomes a better place. Every human benefits.
The magic rests in all humans, it rests in you and me. The only catch is that every individual has to take responsibility to make a choice, a choice to be endlessly grateful. A choice to release his or her ‘magic’ to the universe.
Do magic, Real Magic! Release the magician in you to the world if you haven’t already done so.
Choose well.
Before I go, I have to express my gratitude in you taking the time to read this message. I truly am grateful and I hope you are enriched in some way and it has a positive impact on your life.
Best of vitality to you!
Until next time,
Results with care. Here, Brad is ‘feeling the essence’ of the exercise and inching closer to his best self. Vv.
Each rep of each exercise, executed with constant tension throughout the full range of motion gets you closer to the person you ‘imagine yourself to be’. Goal of set: make the last rep as good as the first. As A+ student here – former Australian Rugby Wallabies & NSW Waratahs Captain, Phil Waugh, executing perfect form in triceps extensions.
In daylight or any light for that matter, you cast a shadow. Even if the sun or light is right above you, your shadow is still there. It is always there. Your shadow here can be likened to your self-image, your sub-conscious. Are you the master or slave to your shadow?
It is an interesting relationship – this one between you and your shadow. Can be likened to a ‘master-slave’ relationship where you would think that YOU are the master and your shadow, the slave.
All actions you take comes from this relationship. Well, many actions can be taken by the master but no action whatsoever can be taken without consulting the shadow.
The shadow or the ‘sub-conscious’ ability of the mind houses your very important ‘self-image’. By the time we are adults, we would have developed a self-image about every talent, every characteristic and every performance we have ever had. Have you ever heard yourself or others state perceptions out loud like – “I’m a lousy cook, I can’t even scramble eggs’ or “I have a terrible memory”. “I’m never on time”. “I can’t stick to a healthy diet”. I have heard many of these self-limiting impositions people have made and believed in my time in the gym.
These all make up your shadow, shaped by your subconscious mind. The important thing to remember is this:
“you cannot outgrow these limits you place on yourself – you can only set new limits within which you must live.”
Results with care. Here, Brad is ‘feeling the essence’ of the exercise and inching closer to his best self. Managing your ‘shadow’ better is a giant step towards realising your goals. Vv
I always tell my students that they need to “walk, talk, eat, sleep, sh%t, talk, run …. Like the person they need to be, before they become the person they will be.” As there is another important point to remember:
It is not what you “are” that holds you back, it’s “what you think you are not.”
I have learned a lot about people and a lot from the many thousands of people I have met over the last two decades in the gym. I love ‘people watching’ and one thing I do know that holds true for every person is this:
Individuals DO NOT behave in accordance with reality. Individuals behave in accordance with their ‘perception of reality’.
What is your reality? What is your perception of the ‘truth’?
I have found that if a person does not desire to work on changing his/her self-beliefs that are aligned with the person they desire to be then the change they are seeking will be temporary. This will apply to any worthwhile change, for example weight loss, alcohol consumption or quitting smoking and so forth.
Self-image is fundamental to understanding human behaviour and what I discovered years ago is that if you change a person’s self-image, you change their personality and their behaviour. I think this is a very important part of any mentoring/coaching role, whether it be in a team capacity or on an individual basis.
This is why effort (or will-power) alone is not enough to make a change that is lasting in yourself. Trying to make a worthwhile change at the conscious level by using will-power, will usually result in a temporary change. I have seen this many times with the thousands of gym goers that seek a positive change in their lives. You see them – bursting out of their seams doing all the group classes, sporting the latest clothing gear, looking the ‘part’ but never achieving their goals.
There are many reasons that people fail to achieve lasting change but a big part of it is that they try and take on a new habit for example – going to the gym or give up a bad habit for example – one-pack-a-day smoker for ten years by good ol-fashioned, teeth-gritting WILL POWER.
This is where people fundamentally go wrong: people think that they are masters of their shadow and have not understood that they are in fact slaves to their shadow, the shadow being your subconscious part of your mind. Because they have not spent the time working on their self-beliefs that make up part of their self-image, the conscious mind is still unconvinced.
Two principles of building muscle: 1) Simplicity and 2} Continuity. Become aware; Apply action: Adapt accordingly.
Reminds me of a client I trained a few years ago. He did very well. He lost around 30kg and built a decent physique. He worked very hard and was a very good student. For about 8 months I reminded him daily of the importance of ‘walking, talking, sitting, eating, sleeping, shi%ting …. Like the person he desires to be”. And for those first 8 months he told me he had it under control and he had mastered this request of mine.
However, I wasn’t convinced he was (even though he had achieved a body-weight he had not been at since he was a late teenager). It was unchartered territory for him.
It wasn’t until he went out and played a round of golf with some of his old mates one weekend that he truly understood what I meant by that statement and what I said was his biggest challenge was.
For the entire round of golf, he was having an extremely bad day and he couldn’t understand why he was hitting the ball that bad. It just so happened that a friend in the group (an ex-Olympian who understood a bit of sport psychology) went up to him and said,
“you are still hitting the ball like you were the guy who was 30kg heavier – the old YOU?”
That was when everything crystallised. He then realised what I had meant when I reminded him of how important it was to train his mind and mastering his shadow. I have said this a thousand times over the last two decades – losing weight is the easy part. What is the most difficult thing to do is convincing the REAL YOU that you are the NEW YOU.
In the case of the example of the smoker, your shadow (self-image) has seen you as a smoker for the past ten years and believes that you will still “see” yourself inside as a smoker.
Result:The smoker fails his attempt to quit smoking. Puts it in the “Too – hard busket.”
This is where imagination and emotion (or heart) comes in to the equation. I have always believed that effort (will-power and hard work) alone is not enough to achieve lasting results, one needs imagination and ‘heart’. You need to feel the end result you are seeking.
If you don’t change your self-image or shadow then when there is a conflict between will-power and conviction, the latter will always WIN. You can see this in action for example when you know you’re tired but you’re convinced you won’t sleep, you just won’t sleep no matter how hard you try (will-power).
Chris enjoying a well-deserved rest between sets. A ‘set’ as I define it is: a continuous progression of 15 to 45 sec ‘focused moments’. Focus + heart + visualization ===> results. Vv.
For any worthwhile change to be sustainable and permanent in your personality or behaviour, you should first involve change in your belief-systems and self-image (change the control your shadow has over you). This change in self-image needs to be followed up with a quality plan and quality implementation for any successful change in your lifestyle.
We make decisions (small and big) every single moment of every day of our lives. To me, most if not all decisions in life come down to 2 things:
Plan
Implementation
You need these 2 things if you want to get results. That is easy to understand. It follows then that to achieve QUALITY RESULTS, you need to have a QUALTIY Plan and have QUALITY implementation.
So, a question you would ask yourself is “are you going to be a slave to your shadow for the rest of your life” and use it as a ‘handicap’ or are you going to use this shadow as a springboard to achieving greatness?” However, which way you define greatness.
Scientists agree that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly, emotionally and in detail. This is why your shadow can be used as a springboard to achieving greatness if that is what you choose to achieve.
It is yet another of the many decisions you have to make in your life. A choice.
You need to take control and manage your shadow if you wish to make any worthwhile, sustainable change in YOU and your life. Let me sum it up in this formula:
A quality plan + quality implementation = quality life.
This is what my framework and the products I have developed help people do. I give them a quality plan (tailored to each individual) and I guide them through quality implementation towards a quality result. So, don’t leave such an important aspect of self-achievement with the ‘lottery of life’ attitude, that a big percentage of the population do – you can see this behaviour reflected in the popularity and increasing prevalence of games of chances, led by the gambling industry.
It is the one thing you have some control over, if you desired it. What is needed from you is the courage to manage your shadow better and become master to it and not the servant. Make a quality plan to change your belief systems for the better and use your shadow (self-image) as a spring board to a better YOU, a better LIFE.
Overcoming many small hurdles on your way to achieving your ultimate goal is encouraging. Progress, any form of progress is a motivating factor. So, don’t strive for perfection, instead seek progress … towards your ideal SELF. Former student, demonstrates that desire to be and do his BEST in this photo. … like he has done ✅ all his life. To be his best, he trains with the BEST. Vv
So, if there is one important investment you will ever make and abstain from putting the ‘cart before the horse’ like the majority of people do, is to work on your shadow. In order to do this, you need to understand your shadow, understand the REAL YOU. You need to increase your awareness. The first step to any form of self-improvement.
To do this, to understand – you need to work towards simplifying things. Matter of fact, in the beginning you need to ‘over-simplify’ things to understand things better – to ‘manage your funnel better’.
So, that is your first step, simplify YOU. Simplify your life. Make thecomplex, simple. Simplify to understand. Understand you and your shadow. Seek to understand the master-slave relationship that exists. Before becoming a master of the many other external things in life, become a master to yourself – your shadow.
Work towards managing this master-slave relationship in your favour. Take better control of your shadow by understanding and changing your self-image, with a vivid, clear, emotional, sensory vision of the person you want to be.
If you have children, watch them play ‘pretend’ games. Understand your shadow by adopting this “lets pretend” attitude, and play the role of whomever you want to be. My kids just don’t go out of character until the pretend game has ended. Imagination is one thing my kids have helped me improve over the last few years of fatherhood.
So continue to work on your imagination and believe in your dreams. Believe you can become a better version of YOU and try ‘pretending’ you ARE before YOU ARE. After-all, your shadow cannot tell the difference between “The real me” and the ‘the one I see’.
Managing my shadow better, helped me towards representing Australia twice at the World Natural Body-building Championships and be placed in the Top 5 in the world in consecutive years. It has also been one of the reasons over 84% of everyone I have ever helped over the last 10 years have successfully achieved their goals or better.
So, don’t be a slave to your shadow. Instead work towards becoming the master that you deserve to be and be the best you can be, for YOU first (in whatever worthwhile goal you have), and by default everyone gets the best of you too. Be the best you can be to live the best life you can live.
Besides, I read somewhere a long time ago that life is like a parachute, you only have one chance to open/live it.
Choose well.
All the best.
Until next time,
World Natural Bodybuilding Championships. Side Chest pose. Placing: 4th.
Side Triceps pose in the heat of competition at the 2007 World Natural Bodybuilding Contest held in NY, USA. Represented Australia. Ranked: 4th Best Natural Bodybuilder in the World. Repeated this in 2008.
In my experience, eating right can actually save you time. Save you, life.
It is winter in this part of the world (I’m live in the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia). Stop, project less than 12 weeks from now, when the next season arrives – ahhh, Spring. Picture this: people are getting out their spring/summer clothes from the cupboards and are feeling a little down because they can’t squeeze in to them like they remembered they did last year. It can be quite de-motivating for some.
Maybe , you’re in that spot of bother right now?
In this first blog of an 8.5 Reasons why Eating RIGHT should not take too much of your time.
My Tip # 1: Never Skip Breakfast!
In one of my earlier blogs, I state that imagination is key to the achievement of any worthwhile goal or goal you place value on . So, if achieving a more sculptured (tonned body) is what you desire you need to learn to use your imagination.
Yes, use your imagination to visualize (now) how you would like to look by summer. This is a very important step – ‘seeing’ yourself as you imagine yourself to be. Having a clear understanding of your destination (refer to earlier blog: “Don’t be a rudderless ship”).
The more vivid the picture of your destination is in your mind and the more it connects with your heart, the more drive and focus you will muster.
Champions practise a lot of visualisation and simulation. To create magic, you need to fuse the worlds of sanity (where you are) with insanity (where you dream/imagine you are, before you are). That is difficult. That is one of the key keys. Don’t stop. Trying. Believing. Keep on … keeping on. You’ll get there. Everyone always does. Especially, if you do it with your heart. and …. with LOVE.
And, with the help of “Coach Mo” (incidentally, that little voice on your shoulder, we can call Coach “Mo”) to start your steam train again …. Hoot … hoot … slowly towards your goal). Just like a steam-train, getting started in your body transformation goals, getting those wheels cranking at the beginning of the journey is the difficult part.
But when you pick up [Mo]mentum (Coach Mo), you, just like that steam train can smash through whatever obstacles that lay in your path. To smithereens! Because you have Big Mo (momentum) on your side.
Here we go again.
Its easy to put off things, to procrastinate. Don’t. Don’t leave it for September, it will be too late. That’s when the majority of people start panicking and joining gyms. Start now. Find your plan (or get help from the relevant professional) and work your plan. You don’t want Spring and then Summer time and Christmas to roll around and you not feel happy about the way you look in you clothes, now, do you? Or you can just buy bigger clothes to hide it all.
Up to you.
You’re the Captain of your ship through the seas of Life. Set you goal towards being your BEST and put a quality plan in place (includes your health & overall well-being) and set sail … Towards your destination.
Making better use of the 86,400 seconds given to us every day
I have said this before: no matter what your exercise goals are, eating healthy (well-compositioned meals), can help you achieve them faster.
And right now, time is ticking and time is your friend as we have just started Winter and have a little under 10 weeks to Spring. But, the question you’re probably thinking is how are you supposed to spend time preparing healthier meals. You barely have enough time to hit the weights, how are you realistically supposed to find time to watch what hits your plate? Right, I hear you …. that is why I wrote this blog to convince you to help you, help yourself more effectively.
Eating right is actually easier than you think.
How so?
Well, in my more than two decades in the health and fitness industry and helping hundreds of people around the world. It is one truth I have discovered. They have learned that, too. You can save more of your life. Here’s how …
I believe that spending a few minutes a day making the right decisions about your nutrition could save you from spending twice the time in the gym or four times as much time on the treadmill or aerobics. How so, Paul, you may be asking? I don’t have the time, you may say!
I argue that it typically takes less time to prepare a healthier meal than it does to work off the extra calories you would eat if you didn’t spend time watching your diet.Makes sense? Yes, it does!
Think about it.
You have 86,400 seconds of your life everyday to live, the way you choose to. But, my question is why would you spend more of those seconds sweating and exercising (and for many enthusiasts doing group classes – smelling intense body odour in small bacteria-infested rooms).
I pity these folks and their poor, poor nostrils. If you do like it, God bless you. Applying my tips could mean you spend less time doing those classes. Smelling those arm-pits. That would be good for you and your nostrils, wouldn’t it? Also, I see so many people lining up outside cafes and stressing about what they are going to have for lunch. How about I say, we take that wastage of time and thought pattern with my tip here?
Achieving a well-balanced physique should be understood for what it is: a masterful fusion of art and science. One should improve once’s “BODY Smart”knowledge. this takes time and deliberate practise.
Your daily eating habits
Ok, it isn’t always easy predicting how much time you’re going to have each day to pay attention to your nutritional habits. It isn’t easy. I realise that. Still, there is a smarter way you can make sure you’re getting the most from what ever number of seconds you can use each day.
What if I told you that there are ways to change your daily eating habits without making major sacrifices in your diet. What are you thinking now? For many people, they have tried everything, and ‘nothing works’ is a common frustration. What if I told you that these changes are very real and can be implemented in to your “all-day” eating routine. And the great thing is that you could implement these changes anytime you wanted to?
In the next series of blogs, I will be sharing with you my top 8.5 tips to successfully making changes to your daily eating habits with sustainability in mind. Changes that you can sustain forever. These Valentine Top 8.5 Tipsonly takes a few hundred seconds (a few minutes) to master, but I believe, when implemented, they can take months of unnecessary hard work off your schedule, provided you follow them each day.
This is the real challenge for you:Unlearning old habits that are not aligned with your new, ‘imagined self’ and learning these new habits, my Top 10 tips. Successful change is and can only be brought about through improvement in your self-regulatory behaviour . This is heavily dependent on the power of your imagination.
Changing habits – releasing bad eating habits and adopting some good ones is like facing an internal Predator. You need to ‘face the Lion’ within you. Having a conversation with a lion.
Spring/Summer/Christmas?New Year, here you come – You, only better!
How much time do you have a day to apply these tips?
How much time can you spare? Can you spare 30 minutes in your day or 1800 seconds of your 86,400 seconds? We will do a little maths exercise and count the amount of time each of these tips will take out of your day, starting with Tip # 1 in this blog. Doing all 8.5 of my tips would take less than 30 minutes tops each day. Yet they can give you everything you need to maintain a balanced diet. That’s not much time, is it?
Can you allocate that time to YOU? Simply because your life is important and you would like to do everything you can to not only add years to your life but more importantly, add Life in to your years.
It’s going to save you spending your valuable life, your valuable seconds, thinking and exercising unnecessarily to undo what you unknowingly – did in the first place!
How good is that?!
These tips are not meant to create more stress in your life, it is meant to help make your life a bit more manageable, a little less stressful, when it comes to eating a balanced diet with sustainability in mind. It is about making the best of whatever time you have. Allow me to show you how.
My Top 8.5 Tips will cover all main meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in-between. We will begin with the first meal of the day – breakfast. So, I will go through your day, from sunrise to sun-set and piece together a sustainable, efficient and effective schedule for melting off fat, building muscle and having increased daily energy towards reshaping your body, not tomorrow or next week.
Right now.
Spring/Summer/Christmas/New Year’s here you come. You – only better!
Sunrise – you rise.
Education through a perception of the truth. Increasing your awareness, taking sufficient and appropriate actions and adapting accordingly is key towards self-improvement. Funny thing is that the process also applies to relationships and response. In the photo, Former Australian Wallaby Captain listening intently to learn key principles of my philosophy in to being your BEST, ALL the time, not some of the time. Great student. Great Champion. Great friend. Vv
Tip #1: DO NOT Skip Breakfast.
It should consist of a mix of the 3 basic macro-nutrients: carbohydrates (oats), protein (eggs – 3 eggs/1 yolk) and a little fat (avocado, peanut butter, almonds).
Estimated time spent: < 5 minutes.
Why not skip Breakfast, you may be thinking?
It is one of the best advice our parents and grandparents have given us when we were children. Missing this very important meal creates more hunger later on and increases your risk of ‘bingeing’ and taking in more calories than you truly need in later meals. With no food in your stomach, your body’s response is to take in whatever calories you ate the night before – and whatever you eat later on and … bingeing at lunch and like many reading this – at dinner. Just before bed.
Result? Guess what? All these ‘extras’ TURNS INTO UNWANTED BODY FAT!
Yes, around the gut ( as some call a ‘spare tyre’) for most men out there after they turn 30 and deposits around the butt and legs for the ladies. Very de-motivating indeed. Not exactly what you want, is it?
So, I insist, make this first tip if you’re skipping breakfast a part of you life. Make it your first habit to master: take 4 minutes when you wake up and eat a meal for breakfast but make sure that it combines all macro-nutrients. You will get sustainable energy all day long and lower your desire for extra calories from other food to provide energy later.
This is a very good rule of thumb you should apply for every meal during your day. Ask yourself – do I have a good mix of carbs, protein and a little fat.
Use what I’ve told all my past customers – my “eyeball method” or ‘I see with my two eyes’ method. Look at your plate, ensure the macro-nutrients take up space on the plate in this ratio:
P:C:F = 0.4:0.5: 0.10. ( where P = Protein; C = Carbohydrates; F = Fats)
Steve Reeves was a Master Poser. He imagined and built the Best Built & Aesthetically beautiful body in the world through synergistic awareness. He understood that optimum health of body & mind required the fusion of art and science. Become a scientific artist of YOU … of your life.
Homework: Lets keep adding the time needed to apply each tip I share in successive blogs and see if it requires you to spend less than half an hour of your day.
Let me prove to you using numbers (minutes spent) that Eating right actually takes less time than you think over the next month or so. Let you in on a secret: I love Physics and Mathematics. They were my first majors in my first University Degree almost 30 years ago now.
Let me show you how these little but significant 8.5 Tips can and will encourage an optimum environment that is a fusion of art and science, allowing for Synergy. This synergism is KEY: it is in the combining of the elements that creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Repeat. Make it habit. Make this one change. Repeatedly, with enhanced self-regulatory behavioural change. Repeat.
Believe.
My triple A approach to the development of Self.
Ahoy & all the very BEST… allow me to guide you through my Top 8.5 Tips over the next few weeks.
Cheers & ahoy!
The old Captain Viking Pirate …. & Life Tips
SYNERGISM: The Critical Mind-set to success. Understanding that it is in the combination of key elements to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Create the BEST you firstly, through 1) Education and then 2) motivation.
For the same reason that we should exercise our bodies, we should GIVE. Your body is functioning at its best when it is forced to work, specifically, when your muscles are forced to work. If you don’t do anything and live a sedentary lifestyle, then in the long term you are actually hurting them and yourself.
It is as simple as that.
The thing about muscle training is that you have to ‘expend some energy’. Some people just don’t want to do that, because it means ‘work’. Work equates to pain which equates to fear of it. That’s certainly a very common way of thinking of lifting weights in the gym, but that’s only one perspective.
Another perspective is that ‘working out’ your muscles, when done properly is one of the greatest and most vital pleasures you can possibly experience in your life.
Your lifetime.
In whatever goal you desire, you need to make sure you understand how to use the tools 🛠 necessary to bring about the change you seek.
Energy Crisis WITHIN.
We are constantly reminded that there is an ‘energy crisis’ in the world today. True, there is. The science says this and politicians argue over interpretation of facts about it. Different perspectives again, on a global scale.
However, the biggest threat to man-kind today is evolving within. I refer to the growing energy crisis WITHIN. Within each individual.
There is a direct correlation between what I call an ‘energy crisis’ within and the increase in sedentary lifestyle choices. If you don’t ‘spend’ any energy in the gym and work your muscles, strangely enough, the result is you will progressively have less strength and energy and VITALITY, than if you had.
This individual energy-crisis physically manifests itself in many life-threatening illnesses – both mentally and physically.
First test. Test YOU, always.
Re-charge.
The gym and weight-training is, I believe, one of the last remaining genuine “re-charge points” available for each and every one of us. Yes, available to you, too. Just like your mobile phone and other modern-day comfort and convenient goods need re-charging and energy to function optimally, you do, too.
The more energy and vitality you re-charge and ‘feel’ within you after expending energy working your muscles is akin to what you will get and feel when you GIVE and don’t expect anything in return.
Do you GIVE it just TAKE?
Are you a Giver or taker.
There are givers and there are takers in this world, but I would like to think there are more givers. Are you a giver or a taker?
Lets firstly look at what it means to be a “giver”?
We can certainly look up a definition if we google it but I will attempt to explain it by referring to some behavioural traits we observe in people around us, and you.
Well, there are many traits – you could say, giving people offer friendship easily; they are caring and empathetic – not only with their money but emotions and knowledge; they take genuine delight in the good fortune of others.
Education through a perception of the truth. Increasing your awareness, taking sufficient and appropriate actions and adapting accordingly is key towards self-improvement. Funny thing is that the process also applies to relationships and response. Vv
Giving is an Attitude toward Life.
Just like making exercise a part of your life, giving is an attitude toward life than it is a specific act at one time or another. Givers have certain openness about them. Givers don’t seem to speak a lot about their ‘rights’. Givers do what is right. They generally find time to laugh and don’t wallow in self-pity. They are forward-thinkers but learn from the past and are keen observers of the present.
Givers do not run constant cost-benefit analyses to see if an opportunity for generosity is to their advantage. They are likely to not get too attached to the material possessions in their lives.
Help people strengthen their resolve, internally, with their own souls so… that nothing can tear it out. I give knowledge to those who want to learn.
Want Less, Give More.
There are giving muscles in you, in every one of us. We just need to consciously use it and ‘feel’ the life-giving effects of using it. Feeling its essence. It is, in essence, what it means to be human.
Like training your muscles – for 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes in the gym, you get back ten times the energy and vitality you expended which re-charges you and your being. Your life. You can’t afford not to invest energy. Give more and ultimately, get more. Add more life in to your years and not just be concerned with getting more years to your life.
Giving is to your benefit – physically, mentally and spiritually.
You don’t have to be a saint or martyr to give. Miserliness in all forms, diminishes you – diminishes us.
Diminishes the human race.
The more you keep, the less you have and the less you are.
Giving is a joy.
Want less. Give more.
Try it if it isn’t already a part of your attitude to life.
This is another of life’s interesting paradoxes.
Until next time,
Writing things down sometimes helps in the communication process. The goal is not communication. The goal is EFFECTIVE communication. Making real changes with the knowledge gained from ‘feedback loops’ allows me to formulate the right adaptive strategy for student – ex Australian Wallaby Captain, Phil Waugh. Vv.
I love Pirates … I love skulls. Why the skull? Well, it holds and protects the most important organ we have – Our brain. The organ that allows us to think and do and feel whatever it is that we desire. Thank God for skulls.
Good, Winning Habits
One of the goals in life, as I see it, is to develop a lifestyle that is appealing and inspiring to you and simultaneously setting a healthy guideline and example for those who look to you for guidance and encouragement in their own lives. If you don’t see this as a goal in your life, that is totally fine. It is your life, after all.
I think, the most important thing is to believe in yourself, but more importantly believe in the person you imagine yourself to be. On a daily basis, as sure as you brush your teeth the first thing in the morning, you need to develop a habit of simulating how you imagine your life to be … of projecting that image of yourself that you would most like to become and living and breathing that ‘person’.
That is key.
All habits are learned. That means that just as you work on developing good habits, you can also, unintentionally, develop bad habits. Losing habits. Losing habits like self-criticism, smoking, excessive drinking, overeating, laziness, anxiety, depression, sloppiness, dishonesty, cruelty and insensitivity, amongst many others are all developed in to a part of a person’s character through deliberate and relentless practise. So are positive good, winning habits – learned and retained through the same deliberate practise!
It’s a choice. So, choose well.
Lets make a concerted effort to deliberately practise the latter habits – good, winning habits.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson. Building a World Class Natural Physique takes patience and deliberate practise of key daily habits.
Life ain’ts a dress rehearsal
Life is like a big stage or theater and we play many roles. We do our very best to learn these different roles and play them to the best of our ability. We soon find out that the better we play life, the better life gets for us. Part of this comes from understanding and becoming aware of you, of yourself. When you get better at playing the various roles you’ve been asked to play in life, life gets better for you.
When you work on improving your self-awareness, you begin fantasizing or dreaming your own new ‘scripts’ or better roles, as if your life were a magnificent, epic motion picture opening on all the big screens around the world. Breaking ‘box-office’ records, as you walk down your red carpet.
Play it well, my friend, play it well. Your dreams … your thoughts … your scripts … your epic movie has been written, produced, directed and starred in by no one else but YOU!
There is only one catch: life ain’t a dress rehearsal!
Each second of the 86,400 seconds in each day allows you to get to know YOU, better. Do so. Start by becoming more self-aware. Sometimes, in life, to move ahead, one needs to take a step backwards … so, try stepping back from your own life … and take a long, quiet walk … along pathways in a mountain …or in a quiet park … on the beach.
Absorb the beauty of nature and all its wonders, through all your senses. Bask in its beauty. Become one with it. Then, make an honest assessment of what you are doing, where you are going in your life and most importantly, who you are becoming.
Helping someone achieve his best, in one of the best ways I know how: through increasing self-awareness. Vv.
Love Life and it will love your back
Then, stop!
Stop to appreciate and be in awe of your own uniqueness, of your strengths and beauty. Sit still or stand still. For a second. For a minute. For 10 minutes. Become aware of the one truth that you and many, may have not have stopped to fathom to date and that is that – you have been selling yourself short in evaluating your own potential in the whole stage rehearsal of life.
Do me a favour. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop whinging. Look around you. There’s enough whingers in the world today, already. Stop it. Please. Stop pitying yourself! If you’re breathing right now, than it means that you’re alive.
You see, when I take my first breath in the morning, I say thank you to my God, my universe and I jump our of bed, asking myself, who am I going to help and serve today! Yep, I do that every single day. Giving thanks constantly for all my blessings … on a daily basis.
If you’re alive than nothing else, in my opinion, tops that. You’re alive! If you feel like whinging, don’t! If that is the case, then, you’re enjoying some degree of health and vitality. Just for a second or two, put yourself in to the shoes of the many millions of people around the world that are suffering. Every single second. You cannot and should not complain about life, then!
Love life and it will love you back.
Be YOU. As YOU are. Accept the uniqueness … and weirdness that you know you are. Embrace YOU. Never imitate.
Keep dreaming
I tell anyone that wants to listen that the mind is the most powerful tool that we all have. You become what you habitually think all day. You effectively create to a certain degree, your own horoscope. Your own luck. You are constantly becoming what you are thinking about every waking moment – so it is very important to focus and put your concentration on things and habits that will add to your life. To your feeling of self-worth.
You need to be clear on your desires or dreams and FOCUS on these and not on fears.
So, watch your thoughts. Keep dreaming.
Hold your dreams steadfastly in your mind and focus on them. Let go your fears. Let go ALL fears. Fears do nothing but cause unnecessary stress in your life and this may cause anxiety, depression, ulcers and all sorts of diseases. Stresses, uncontrolled and mis-managed manifests itself in the physical, in the form of diseases, and part of this management comes down to self-awareness as you should also know what your stress tolerance levels are, too.
Its important to keep dreaming. Why? Because they are effectively goals. What are goals? Dreams with a deadline. Set your goals. Set your game plan. Set your game plan or course in the sea of life. Set it with worthwhile goals that are progressive and realistic. Notice, I have said progressive or incremental and realistic. It is very easy when setting goals to not address this two very important factors. Without satisfying these two factors, ones dreams is merely wishful thinking or worse still, delusional thinking.
Very common in the world today. You see it live and well on social media, tv reality programs and just daily living. People struggling to differentiate between positive goal setting and thinking and delusional thinking.
Those who dream … to be different … and aim to share their unique selves with the world, to help … get the love back in return.
Setting goals
I find it easier to put my goals down on paper.
I do it around this time of the year for the next year. Work this in to your New Year’s Resolutions if you’re setting some for 2014. You don’t need to tell anyone. Just you. For you. Try it. Put in down on paper and write down specific daily tasks and weekly and monthly that are aligned to your mean and end goals.
Your subconscious mind and the universe will conspire to help your achieve your goals. Just try it (setting goals, that is) and see. However, this needs discipline but if your heart is in it, if your heart is anything, you will find that you will almost likely achieve the dream or goal.
Real discipline as I see it is being able to imagine you have already achieved the goal even if you haven’t yet. Discipline in the physical daily habits is one thing. Discipline in simulating in your mind the achievement of it is another. This is not easy. Matter of fact this is darn right difficult. It takes a lot of practise. Your brain has to be re-wired or hard-wired and this is done by deliberate practise. It is worth achieving though. It deserves practise.
“Why? ” I hear you ask –
Allow your mind to ”connect’ with infinite intelligence. With consciousness. It is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. The subconscious mind is part of the ‘mind’ Question is: what does the conscious mind do that the subconscious mind doesn’t
Instant gratification
Because, I believe one of the biggest problems facing human-kind today is ill-discipline of the mind.
You can see it everywhere in everyone’s insatiable desire for instant gratification. No one believes in delayed gratification anymore. No one believes in the old fashioned value of ‘patience’ anymore. Its great for business and commerce, as youngsters want the latest gadgets – NOW, not tomorrow or next month. Now!
Lack of discipline. Lack of mental discipline. This is why discipline is necessary. Because discipline, as I have read somewhere in the past, is the ability to ‘practise within, when you are without’. We can summarize this very important philosophy on the achievement of goals in life like this:
As I close on this blog, keep in mind, amongst your many other archived thoughts, that you, yes, you are no more than the accumulated picture of your thoughts and actions.
I. AM. GOD?
So, if you haven’t already thought about this yet, I learned from a wise man once that we –
“have to be very careful of our thoughts, as this determines our actions; be careful of your actions as it determines your habits; be careful of the habits you adopt, as it determines your character; and finally, be aware of your character as it determines your destiny.”
If you want to be loved, be loveable
So, you see, where you end up in life begins and ends in your mind. Become a better manager of your mind, my friend. Become an expert at managing your mind. What you achieve out of life and where you end up in life, depends heavily on it.
It does not matter which race you are, what creed or place in society you were born in to, understand one basic and critically important life rule:
“If you want to be loved, be loveable. If you want respect, set a respectable example!”
My early days in the catholic church taught me that one should treat others as you want to be treated. I’m certain other religions teach a similar thing. Matter of fact, I think, even if you didn’t belong to any religion, you would innately, think the same. I try and apply this every day. Great and simple teaching I think. Try it. See what happens.
Love life and life may just love you back, better.
I hope you believe in hope. It is a great word that encompasses many good things. Things like faith, courage, good, love etc. Its all encompassing. Just like the universe is. Anyway, I would like to wish all you readers the best that HOPE has to offer you, Each and every one of you, in 2014. Your hope for a better you. Your hope for a better future. Your hope for a better life. Whatever it is. Your hope is dependent on you. On your thoughts. On you mind.
We’re all swinging like a pendulum .. continuously moving between two points – activity & non-activity/ entertainment/rest
How does “How are you equal Busy?”
“How are you?” someone would ask you during the day.
“Busy” you may find yourself replying.
Busy.
We’re all guilty of that, being ‘busy’, I mean. How busy is that? How busy is busy?
I guess it would seem, that it is better to be busy than not busy. It depends. This isn’t a blog about how busy you are in comparison to everyone else. It isn’t a blog about not being busy. It is, however, about the two things we seem to swing back and forth every day of our life.
These two things are like two points on a line or two points on a pendulum in a clock. I introduced this thought in my most recent blog “Unthink, to think”. Specifically, the two points on a pendulum of life that we swing back and forth on are:
1) Activity
2) Recreation
We swing back and forth between these every day. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Goes the clock. Your clock!
Keep your pendulum swinging … because to be stuck at one end is not life-affirming
The ebb and flow of the tide
I’d also like to think of this pendulum our lives being as similar to the tide of the open sea moving out and then back, in. The ebb and flow of the tide. Repeating and never stopping.
What would happen if the tide stopped? Well, I would think that there may be a serious problem with the earth’s gravitational force, for one, and our time, our life on this lovely earth would be, up. Hmmmmm …. Not a very good ending.
The same would happen if your pendulum got stuck at one end or the other.
What is it that keeps the clock going? Well, it’s the pendulum of course. Just like the gravitational forces that keep the tides of the seas moving, so does the pendulum keep the clock ticking.
We’ve got to be aware of the forces in our lives and it’s impact on our energy and ability to keep our pendulum swinging.
We all need our Re-charge point
So, back to us. To our lives.
You see, if we represent the pendulum, we have to be aware of how much time we are spending at each end of our clock and not lose ourselves in the busyness of life. We need to keep swinging, ever so skilfully between the two ends – of activity and recreation.
Activity in this context is anything that we do that is not recreation. The most common being paid work, house work and work-related activities – travel, research, meetings etc.
The essential component of recreation, is recreate, which means to refresh by means of relaxation and enjoyment, and as to restore physically or mentally. Is there a place or activity that you do, that ‘re-creates’ or ‘re-energizes’ or ‘re-charges’ YOU?
One of my re-charge points is my hour of weight-training I do 5-6 days per week. Apart from the myriad of benefits exercising with weights and living a bodybuilding lifestyle does for the body, mind and spirit, I feel a sense of improved vitality and an extra spring in my step, after each workout. At its very essence, life comes down to energy management – everything is energy. Just like our many electronic gadgets need re-charging every day, so do we.
We all need a re-charge point!
Orderly chaos. We need to be better managers if the fusion of chaos & order
Keep swinging…
I also see these benefits with everyone I train at my gym. They may commence their session with low energies, feeling tired or depressed, and they leave feeling 100% better with new determination to take on whatever life has to throw at them. I see this every day. Every day. Don’t leave it to your yearly vacation. You should be doing this every day. Yep, every day. Once a year is not near enough.
It is better to work on managing your energies, instead of your time. We have an energy crisis in the world today. Start by becoming a better manager of your energies and you can avoid your pendulum stopping or getting stuck at one end, before its too late.
Ask yourself, where your ‘re-charge’ point is? Where do you ‘re-create’ yourself? Where do you go to escape the hustle and bustle of life? Where do you go to escape? It could be in the car home from work listening to some soft tunes. For some, it could be the golf-course, or for some, ironically, could be the commuter trains and buses from work. For others still, it could be the garden, the pub or your church.
If you don’t have one, don’t fret, try reaching out, maybe you can use just absorb the beauty of the morning, the quiet of the evening, the touch of friends or the smile from strangers, or may be, just the strength of silence to stop. Yes, that’s right – stop!
Take it all in, including a deep breath, fill your lungs up and then keep pushing on.
Wherever it is, whatever it may be, hang on to it. Hang on to that re-charge point. It is vital to you maintaining your sense of vitality.
It is vital to maintaining that delicate balance between activity and re-creation. It is vital to keeping your pendulum of life swinging.
Keep swinging, I say, keep swinging. Back and forth, back and forth. Don’t stop. Tick, tock, tick, tock!
The alternative: six feet under before your time, is not that attractive.
Thanks
yours in iron, mind, heart 💓 & muscles 💪,
Paul e 💝alentine
Keep your pendulum ticking. It relates to the ticking of your heart 💓. Your life.
Become better at “being comfortable at being uncomfortable “ to keep your pendulum ticking … & your life, living
Eliminate and de-clutter the ‘noise’ that has been uploaded in to your brain since the cradle
What are you?
You are many things: you’re human; you’re a girl/boy? You’re male/female. You’re a dad/mum. But who are you. What makes you? Who are you?
Nope, I am not asking you – ‘what are you?‘ or what you do for a job … you’re not an accountant, not a plumber, not a lawyer. I’m not asking what you do, I’m asking what makes you the real “YOU”.
Hhmmmmmm …?
Feel your emotions. Think through and with your heart. Listen to your íntuition
Tick, tock, tick, tock!
You could say that you are the accumulated thoughts and choices you have made in your life, thus far. Your are your connectome. You become what you habitually think and do. Maybe, you are like a pendulum; the accumulation of the daily swing between activities and recreation.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Responsible for transmission of critical electrical, chemical & hormonal messages -internal communication
The Power of Habit
To assist you in attempting to arrive at your answer to this question, I believe, one needs to un-think to think. How do you unthink? You may need to unlearn what you have learned. You may need to un-school what has been schooled. Maybe just for a few seconds or if you’re brave enough for a few minutes or a few hours.
How do you do that?
Well, like many things you have become an ‘expert’ in, you may need to rack up the necessary hours to become even remotely good at this. One of the keys is to ‘quiet the mind’. Just like all habits, the POWER rests in the consistent and persistence application of the particular habit. That is the POWER OF HABIT! As a little aside: choose your thoughts and hence, your habits, well.
Try this Unthinking routine 5 minutes before hitting the sack at night:
Lie still in bed
Try to eliminate all unnecessary noise – audible noise.
Clear your mind of all thoughts. Try. Try again.
Quiet the mind: you do this by eliminating ALL THOUGHTS. Try. … Try again.
This isn’t easy. Matter of fact, it is darn hard.
Don’t stress if you cannot quite your mind. Turn the light off and go to sleep.
Try again tomorrow.
To unthink, one needs to get in to a state whereby one ‘quiets or slows the mind’. The essence is to accept that;
all thought needs to be eliminated
be fully aware of your presence
all senses are heightened
you are in the present moment – no other place but here – now.
You will truly be in the present moment if you are able to ‘feel’ someone reach out to touch you whilst having your eyes are closed. That is your test. You are able to see what you’re not physically seeing with your eyes, that’s when you know you have quietened the mind. Then, and only then, can you start to learn to UN-THINK. Just like muscle, you cannot build this over-night but will take many years of concerted deliberate effort.
That is the start of becoming a thinker. Try it.
Seemingly easy, you will find it is a most difficult thing to do: TO THINK!
True? Neuroscience is still at the level of where medicine was in the 1700s A long way to fully understand who we are…. Who “I AM.”
To Un-Think helps you be the best you can be
Keep trying.
Why?
Because it is one of the most important things you can do for your life. After receiving the clarity when you un-think, you will think for yourself rather than continue to carry biased, unfounded, prejudiced thinking around with you. The old thoughts may have come from people or experiences that have crossed your path in life thus far, of which that may have influenced your current choices. Pause.
Think.
Think again.
Not thinking may hinder your ability to achieve your goals. To un-think helps you to be the Best you can Be.
Stopping to reflect, is a vital key to adjust your attitude if you need to.
Don’t give up
Keep practising. Don’t give up, even when you don’t feel like you’re making any progress.
Learn to do it right.
It’s worthwhile getting a competent mentor. Learn from someone who knows, not from someone who doesn’t. No one can teach you something they do not know.
I have a neighbour and friend who started playing golf as a teenager and he regrets not taking lessons from a professional at the start. He spent 20 years playing less than his best and was constantly frustrated. More recently he had lessons from a competent professional. It took a lot of time to unlearn the bad habits he had learned, he had to re-think everything, re-learn the basics.
He had to un-think what he had previously learned, and learn a better technique. He is now enjoying his golf and has dropped his handicap considerably. He had experience – yes, 20 years of getting his golf wrong, because of whatever reasons that held him back from asking for help from someone who knew the right way.
There is always a ‘right way’. Find it.
Never give up. I took me 10 years to reach the top of my chosen sport in the world. Never give up
A great coach once said that “Perfect practice makes perfect”.
Like I tell my daughter, if you’re going to do something do it right, not some of the time – ALL OF THE TIME. Perfect practise makes perfect. There are many people who practice ‘wrong’ for many years and don’t improve or achieve their goals.
Practise thinking winning thoughts.
Think BIG!
We are all, ordinarily – human, most of us, love being so. I know I do. This new habit of unthinking just might make your ordinariness seem extraordinary and might reveal the champion that is inside the REAL YOU.
Bring the Real You – out!
If you are scared, don’t be. There is nothing to fear. Take as much time as you need; it’s your life, your pace. Life is too short to keep hidden from the eyes of the world. And I am not just thinking of ‘your little world’, not just your circle of friends and family. Not just your street, suburb and community.
If you’re going to do this and take the risk to think for yourself you may as well, do it with a vital element in mind and that is to: THINK BIG!
As the great Leader, Nelson Mandela said –
“Being and thinking small serves no one … you must think big”
The whole world is waiting for the Real You. Unleash him/her! Who knows what your actions may have over another fellow human being in the world. There is more that the Real You can offer your World. Get up and give.
Get up and share the Real You. The World is waiting.
Thank you for reading this far.
Until next time,
Cheers & ahoy!
The old Cap’n Viking Pirate … & a re-think of thinking
(Paul)
Front double biceps at my favourite beach here in Sydney, Australia. Enjoying the sun and the creator that it is. Be not like the moon, be like the sun. Take time out of ‘work’ to enjoy your surroundings. Vv.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I was once the proud owner and manager of a gym for about 7 years. It was the first gym I ever stepped foot in when I was in my late teens. I used to stand at the doorway as I left the gym, turn around to look at the owner (then) and say –
“One day I’m going to own this gym or something like this Tony!”
Imagine that, a young teenage boy still completing High School audaciously believing and saying out loud that he would own “this’ gym or something like it … one day? But I knew that I loved it and I didn’t know how then, but I knew that I desired it strongly. I had many dreams … this was one of the many. It lay dormant for a number of years.
He would say – ‘yep, but not this one … I’m not ready yet.”
Fifteen years later, I receive a call from him … saying “Remember me … remember what you said when you still in High School … well, I’m ready now, would you like to buy this gym?”
I said .. .”What took you so long?”
The rest is history.
I ran it like a family. A gym like no other. My little young family was intricately connected with hundreds of other families, making it one large huge extended family in this phase of our lives. I loved all the hundreds of relationships I had with the members along with the wider community. We won the Best Small Business Award for the Northern Beaches in one year and was a Finalist for many years.
I knew instantly that I wasn’t in the business of running gyms … no, I was in the business of managing relationships and I just happened to sell health, vitality and life-enhancing products and services. People would say “what?!” including my wife who would, after a few months, realise the truth in my statement.
Friends that workout together … stay together? Some of the family of gym members that called my gym ….. our gym .. their gym. Lovely people in a lovely phase of life.
Stories … ahh … this is one of the things I miss – listening to the hundreds of individuals’ stories over the years. Was fascinating and I feel very blessed that I was able to listen to and help the members write chapters of their life stories. I also feel very blessed to experience life through other peoples’ experiences.
Our gym was a place of social interaction where everyone knew one another’s names and we were always happy they came to the gym. Our gym was a ‘home away from home‘ for all the family of members. Just the way I envisioned it to be, the way gyms used to be.
I loved it. I lived and breathed it. I never took leave for 7 years because I loved what I did in serving the community the gym was in and all that came from afar (some driving past up to 15 gyms before they got to my gym). I helped serve people increased awareness, through increasing their knowledge of possibilities that would take them from where they were to where they would want to be. Using programs tailored specifically for each individual that was based on the framework that took me to 2 x World Championships and place in the Top 5 of both.
This blog is about one particular member. Her name was Margaret. She was an amazing woman.
The Family of Male Friends that bonded and developed great friendships in my gym … our gym.
She had been frequenting the gym 3 times per week for about 8 years. Rain, hail, dust storm, heat-wave. You name it. No extreme weather pattern stopped her from walking the 2km walk from her home to the gym. And Back. She does so with so much enthusiasm. I don’t think I have ever heard her whinge in the time I knew her.
Ever.
What’s special about her is that she is accompanied by her friend – Desarae. You see wherever Margaret goes, her friend is by her side. Her friend knew each corner of the gym now and each machine. Her friend never utters a word but observes her very intently. Her friend watches and observes Margaret’s every move and never lets her out of her sight. Her friend even knows the order in which Margaret has to move from one machine to the other when she is executing one of her daily ‘work-outs’ specially tailored to her goals and needs.
Her friend listens to everything Margaret says but also most of what she does not say. A possible definition of a very good friend. But Desarae has not lifted one piece of weights equipment. You know why? Well, you see, Margaret’s friend is a guide dog and Margaret is blind.
Now, I know we read and see a lot of things and people that can be classed as “Inspiring” almost every day of our lives. You see and hear many grand, over-the-top stories that people class as inspirational. Well and good.
With Margaret and her guide dog. She was such a lovely human being. Never said never. I trained her daughter (who was also partially blind) to represent Australia at the Paralympics. She was one tough school girl with a lot of GRIT. Just like her mum.
However, each individual’s idea of what is or who is “inspiring” could differ and vary quite greatly. It’s all a matter of perspective. What someone may find inspirational may not be to another. If anyone asks me what or who I would consider inspiring, apart from my beautiful wife, Margaret would be another that would readily come to mind.
I’ve mentioned it countless times since I have known Margaret that everyone – men, women and boys and girls – everyone, could ‘take a page out of her book’.
Why?
Well, in a world; where there is a dwindling of personal responsibility and accountability; where reasons are only too readily replaced with excuses; where mediocrity is celebrated; where instant gratification dwarfs delayed satisfaction and patience … We have a no nonsense and unassuming, visually-impaired lady “working” on herself. Without fan-fare. Just going about what is part of her ‘daily-routine’.
It seems like she has turned this apparent weakness into a strength. I see the strength in this woman every time I see her. Not only when she lifts weights and goes through her workouts but the strength in the way she walks, talks and laughs. In the way she relates to the other members of the gym. It’s in her air of quiet confidence as she goes about her business.
Some of the members that came and enjoyed being part of my big ‘extended family’
Although she is blind in one sense, she seemingly has a special kind of blindness for a lot of the ‘other’ things in life that tends to affect us. Those of us who are fortunate enough to see.
So, I leave you with one thought: try to block out some of the clutter of life and don’t let anything or anyone prevent you from carrying out certain daily habits if they contribute to you being a better person – physically, spiritually, emotionally or intellectually.
When you find reasons to give in, think of Margaret. Work on developing your special kind of blindness. There is a champion in every single one of us, including YOU. Believe it so. Never stop dreaming, dreams do come true and dreamers change the world. Listen to your intuition. The combination of these two important ways of thinking …. is the beginning of taking the “I-M” out of “IMpossible”
All the very best!
Until next time,
Yours in muscles & iron,
The Old Captain Viking Pirate Fiji-Island born Muscle Monk
Some of the older female family members showing ‘how it’s done!” Branka and Karen were two ladies that had very positive outlooks on life and did everything they could to maintain the discipline and privilege of staying strong, healthy and wise. It was a way of life for them … and all the family of gym members.
Gym Extended Family Members enjoying a day of Lawn Bowls. We had some great lawn bowls events over the 7 years.
Changing lives. Empowering people. One life at a time. 
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