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The Most Important Promise You’ll Ever Keep

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 Most of us consider ourselves to be someone who keeps their word. If we say we’ll do something, we do it. That’s just who we are. But here’s something I’ve been thinking about lately—what about the promises we make to ourselves? At a recent mastermind meeting, I noticed something about the most successful people in the room. They all had one thing in common: They don’t drift from what THEY want. Sure, they show up for others. They keep their commitments to their teams, their families, their clients. But they don’t sacrifice their own goals in the process. They don’t wait for permission. They don’t put their needs on the back burner. They set targets, they commit, and they follow through. And because of that, their businesses allow them to show up even better for the people around them. That hit me hard .  Because while I pride myself on keeping my word, I’ve set some personal targets and fallen short. Not because I didn’t care, but because I let other things take priority. I ...
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What Will You Do With It?

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  By far, the best part of being a coach is the interaction I get to have with people. I love learning about them and seeing them grow.  If I'm honest about it though, I learn way more from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them. This weekend, I was given some unbelievable wisdom from a client via an email check-in. I had emailed my clients asking them three questions.... 1. What was your biggest fitness accomplishment in 2021? 2. What was the biggest lesson you learned this year? 3. What is the #1 thing you need to improve to make 2022 a huge success? I love reading people's replies and I was happy to get a lot of great responses. One, though, really stood out and literally stopped me in my tracks. I have an online client that's been in an extended fight with pancreatic cancer. I haven't seen her of late due to a pretty rigorous treatment schedule so when I saw her reply to my email, I was eager to get an update. Here's the message. "I lik...
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3 lessons I learned from my first training tool.

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  It's over 30 years old now. It weighs 16lbs, the handle is slightly bent and it's once sharp edge is a bit blunted from years of bludgeoning it's target. My dad bought me this metal handled splitting maul because my accuracy as a teenager when splitting wood left a bit to be desired. (It still does)  As a skinny kid who was desperately trying to prove otherwise, I had a knack for breaking handles of axes and mauls with my somewhat wild swing. Fortunately for this maul ( and for those that would be a six foot radius) I got lots of practice as we heated our house with wood so lots of hours were spent after school stockpiling for winter. Like many things that seem to be mundane on the surface, there is some skill and knowledge that can be acquired if you do them long enough.  Here's just a few of the lessons if picked up from my trusty maul.  1 . Swinging with all your power won't do you any good if you can't be accurate.   Like most teenage boys, I thought the h...
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One of those afternoons in the woods

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So....in case you didn't know, I'm a hunter and I pretty much live for this time of year. We are in the first week of PA's rifle deer season and I'm still chasing one of the few mature bucks we've seen on the property we (My Dad and I) are fortunate enough to hunt. We got some snow this morning  But by afternoon, it was melting fast as the sun came out from behind those dark cold front clouds. It gotten quite windy and combination of wet leaves and a gusty wind made for good conditions to do some sneaking (Still hunting) around in the woods.  Still hunting has always been one of my favorite ways to hunt as it seems to quiet my mind while simultaniously heighten my senses. Leaving the world of 2020 behind for a few hours is always a good thing and having only to focus where my next footstep should go so as to remain quiet while always on the look out for anything that resembles even a part of a deer keeps my somewhat A.D.D. brain in check. Today's plan was to hun...
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When it comes to Fitness and Nutrition, "First Learn stand, Then Learn Fly"

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The Karate Kid is one of my favorite movies. (Not the new one with Jackie Chan... I guess I'm showing my age here) Not because the kid from New Jersey beats the California pretty boy for the championship but because of the awesome lessons I find it. In one scene during training Daniel is berating Mr. Myogi about learning how to do the "Crane Technique. He's frustrated that all he has learned is some blocking techniques (Everyone knows "Wax on, Wax off") and is convinced that his training is going to slow and that he will never be ready for the tournament. Myogi simply replies, "First learn stand, Then learn fly. Nuture rule, not mine." Overly simplistic advice from an aging martial artist or a great life lesson that most take for granted? I'll take the latter. Every day in the gym, I state and restate the need for simplicity in training and in making changes outside the gym. As humans, we seem to want to make things complicated. We a...
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Sticking with a fitness program....Offense versus Defense

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There’s an old saying in sports that says, “Offense sells tickets but defense wins championships.” I know.... I sound like your grandfather watching a football game. It's pretty old school but it's totally true. Nobody enjoys watching a football game  that ends in a baseball score buuttttt  if your defense can't stop the other team, they have no chance of winning I see this in fitness all the time. The latest, greatest, coolest fitness gizmo, workout program, fad diet, or new fitness franchise in town will all sell a lot of "tickets". They’re exciting.  They’re sexy.  They scream fast results and "the thing" they've been missing all their life. It's easy to understand why people flock to these programs in droves. But do they help them win?  Will they keep you safe? Will they keep you from getting hurt? Will they make you feel better? Will they make it easy to stick with it? Or will you be so sore that the mere ...
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Breaking out of your own jail

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One of the best things about being a fitness coach is the conversations you get to have with people. If you start having enough of them, you start to see some pretty consistent patterns and a few you are even forced to recognize in yourself. Whether the goal is committing to a fitness program, eating a little better, or even chasing a dream, it's staggering the number of people who will rattle off a bunch of great benefits to their life by making a change but will end the sentence with but. Then automatically, they will proceed to tell me all the reasons it isn't possible. Time, money, knowledge, etc. There's a reason for that famous motivational Speaker, Les Brown, likes to say we are wired to be negative with our thoughts on things we'd like to do. Isn't human nature kind of mean? The interesting thing is that if you ask those same people why something is possible, they, completely on their own, come up with solutions for the barriers they first mentioned...
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