Off The Mat

It’s been a few weeks since the last Off The Mat email, and I’m excited to be back this week to talk about something VERY important to me – something I think should be equally important to YOU, too – personal time. Personal time is your YOU time. It’s when you hang out with yourself and allow your thoughts to process, without anybody but YOU to tell yourself what’s right, what’s wrong, or to persuade you to think in any one direction.

In case you’re wondering, I did break my rib recently and I have been learning much about myself as a result. Fortunately, I have read and talked about turning setbacks into opportunities enough by now that it only took me a few days for me to look at this injury as an opportunity to do yoga with broken ribs –

Everyone from Oprah to Ben Greenfield talks about the importance of gratitude, so with so many successful people talking about its importance to their own success it must be pretty important, right? But… if you’re anything like me, being open about gratitude and saying, “You know what? I’m really grateful for ____ and ____,” might just feel downright uncomfortable. Let’s be honest – it’s tough to be emotionally open as a guy in our society. Well screw it – if people think that’s weird, that’s just too bad. Practicing gratitude works, in the sense that it helps you be happier, more fulfilled, and succeed in your goals.

Have you seen the commencement speech from Admiral McRaven in which he talks about the importance of making your bed? Like many things, people take this too literally. The point of the speech isn’t to say that making your bed is the basis of a successful day; rather, what makes this action a potential success booster is the MINDSET that it promotes. It’s about starting the day off by setting and completing a task. I’ll give you another example…

This post discusses the important of keeping a workout record, so you can track your progress, plan your workouts, hold yourself accountable, and watch yourself grow.

In June I spent about a week speaking with Members of the Members’ Area. The goal was to improve the Members’ Area, but also to figure out how they were using it within their own workout programs. It was really cool to see that there were so many similarities amongst the community. Despite geographics, age, and other differences, it was relatively easy to group people into specific groups or identities.

More than the others, there was one particular group of people that had a higher level of discipline. This group of people had a set schedule for their workouts. They took the time and made the extra effort to ensure that they would be able to stick to their workouts, even with professional and familial obligations.