Fitness Modeling

I am having a great time in NOLA at this internet marketing conference I’m attending to learn how to communicate my message in a more impactful way. There are over 500 men and women who have seen incredible success (financial, emotional, and otherwise) at this conference. The tickets just to attend this conference are extremely expensive, but I was blessed to be one of the main speakers a couple years ago and now receive life-time free tickets to this conference.

Why am I sharing this with you?

I am surrounded by men and women who are doing massively positive things in the world and helping so many people. Being in a room where I am one of the smallest businesses, having a relatively small reach compared to others in the room is very powerful in a positive way. Sure, I could compare myself to them and get down on how much further ahead they are than me, but instead I choose to talk with them, feed off their energy, and learn what they did to help more people. Their success becomes the “norm” and I no longer question whether that level of success is possible. I know now that the more I associate with like-minded people and follow their formulas for success; it’s only a matter of time before I achieve the success and reach they have attained.

The same thing is true in fitness. When I competed in the fitness modeling world championships, having a six pack wasn’t the norm, it was an eight pack. 🙂 Just being around those guys from around the world in the locker room made you want to train harder and eat cleaner. I can only imagine how fit I would be if I had them as my workout and accountability group day in and day out.

This is also the phenomenon I noticed early on in my career – my one on one clients weren’t reaching the same level of success as those of my clients training with groups of 10-40 people. Having a trainer is great, but it doesn’t really put you in a peer group and provide the opportunity to feed off of each other’s successes. It is one thing for me to share a personal success with one of my clients, but it is a whole different thing for another client to share a success with her workout group or partner. Success breeds success. We don’t want to be left out in the results game.

For this reason, when we launched our now sold out (we will eventually open up more spots), personal training program, we intentionally placed the clients into groups of 3-4 women, linking clients with similar goals. This group will become each of their biggest cheerleaders, while the trainer is there to guide and push each person along their own journey.

Let me give you a couple more examples of ways to up your game in all areas of your life by associating with other successful, like-minded people:

• If you want to be a better knitter this year, join a knitting group with very experienced knitters and your skills will undoubtedly increase.
• If you want to write fiction books, contact some of your favorite authors and ask them some questions, or join a local book-writing club with more experienced writers than yourself.
• One last example from my own life… I love ping-pong. I have played since a young child and started off playing on our make-shift table which was a 4X8 sheet of plywood on two sawhorses. I got as good as I could with the players I had (my family), took a few lessons here and there, and then became a ping pong leader in college. Each step of the way I would improve a little bit, but it was only when my practice partners and my competitors were better that I really saw massive improvements in my play. When I played with players who were below my skill level, my skills actually got worse. My level of table tennis didn’t really skyrocket until I joined the TT club in Madison, which consisted of many of the top players in the state. I remember the first 3-5 months… I hardly won a match. I might have been able to keep up with the bottom 20%. But I kept practicing, trying to play better and better players. In a six month period I went from the bottom 20% to about the top 70-80%. There are only a few guys that I can’t beat there at all, and most everyone else I can either split or win every time.

The only reason I got better was because I surrounded myself with better players. The principle is universal. Surrounding yourself with people you want to be like (in any area of life), requires vulnerability and courage. What will happen if I am the worst one there? Will everyone think I am weird or stupid? These questions have run through my mind and everyone else’s mind that have made the decision to overcome mediocrity and strive for excellence. Push past the doubt and discomfort and you will achieve transformation and success you never thought possible!