What’s up Fit Fam,

I hope your weekend was great and you are ready to make moves this week. I had a great weekend up in Ventura with my family – It’s always good to put time in with the fam – laughing at each other, eating good food, and just enjoying the time we have on this beautiful planet.

My Dad just had his 69h birthday and he is as healthy and happy as they come. He is the only one in my family that works out and eats well… and it shows. He has unlimited energy and is always on the go. I am very thankful he introduced me to working out.

He has always taught me good lessons on how to be successful in life, and I was motivated to write about it this Monday.

Here are a couple of things he taught me growing up.

1. Always have a couple goals to work toward, and work toward them every day. He always said I needed to make time for these goals – don’t assume you will just miraculously have time. Re-arranging your day and finding what needs to be cut out is as important as adding in something new. So instead of chillin inside and watching tv, we were encouraged to go outside, build things, climb trees, scrape our knees, hike the hills by our house, bike, skateboard, rollerblade, play foot ball, baseball, basketball, pretty much anything a young child growing up in the 90’s would like to do. I guess anything to get us out of the house when we were kids. This taught me to be active and adventurous as a young kid.

2. No one is smarter or better than you. When I was struggling in school and having a hard time I thought I was so stupid and would never be the “smart” kid. He would tell me that we all have skills that we are good at and excel at. He re-enforced that all things are learn-able and even if you don’t 100% understand it today, you can always continue to learn and always improve. He said if you want to be better, keep trying and keep moving forward. He said all challenging things will never be given to you, but will be earned.

3. Focus on what you can change and don’t worry about anything else. There are so many distractions in life – so focusing on just one thing that you know you can change will help you move in the right direction. Make a list of of actions that are needed to get to your goal and tackle them one by one. Give them a length of time and when you will do them every day or however long the frequency is.

4. Always be patient, and work hard. Never be discouraged at where you currently stand. Focus on what improvements you have seen and what good qualities/skills you have and build upon those. Never get down on where you are, because you can always be better. Always.

I hope this message finds you well. Lets make moves this week toward your fitness goals. I sat down with a bunch of you last week and I really appreciate the time you took to go over your fitness questions. 🙂

Let me know if you want to meet up this week to re-assess your fitness badassery. I am here for you.
Jon