First, let me tell you – I’ve never been a powerlifter or an athletic person.
In fact, the first time a started lifting heavy weights like I’m doing it now is just a little more than 2 years ago.
I used to be that guy – checking myself out in the mirror, doing all those exercises that’ll grow my biceps and triceps so I can look like that pumped-up dude at the beach.
So why did I become “Iron-Happy”? Is this just my early mid-life crisis? I think it’s more than that…
3 years ago I got off the couch, decided I’m much too young to feel this damn old, and started reading and learning all I can about strength training.
Honestly – it’s like reading your body’s manual (like our car’s manual – we never took the time to stop on the sidelines and read how this magnificent machine works)
And once you start that motor… you feel the fire of life and youth roaring through your veins…
When you understand your body’s not much more than classic mechanical physics and some chemistry (nutrition), it all gets quite simple, because those are concepts strategies for treating it like nature intended.
But when guys just want to look good, they stick to the “pumped” tactics out there, trying to imitate some chronic steroid pumping guru online, and then…
They get hurt, broken up inside and out…
Then decide to “take it easy”, “act their age”, sit down on the inclined bench, telling tales of their glory days when they were big and strong, warning you from a similar fate.
The same applies to your business –
The one big connection between life in business and life in the gym is if you stick to your passions in both, deeply studying the proven concepts, strategies and objectives, those “common-knowledge” myths everybody around you is chanting don’t apply to you –
“What do you think you’re doing? Your gonna hurt yourself!”…
“You’re not 20 anymore, you shouldn’t be lifting that kind of weight!”…
“Look around you – is anybody else doing and thinking these crazy things?”…
“What kind of grown-up family man leaves his comfy little corporate job to start a business in a niche he knows nothing about?”…
“What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like a little kid”…
You know, that kind of stuff…
But we entrepreneurs don’t have any good answers, do we? We just know we don’t want to sit, calm down and fade away.
“Common-knowledge” is the language of beat-up, worn-out “never-was” people, looking back in fear and regret, thinking what might have been if they wouldn’t listen to all that “common knowledge” in the first place and just went after their heart.
Down the line, it’s better being a “has-been” than a “never-was”, or even worse – a “what-if..”
My iron-pumping hero is CT Fletcher
(don’t look him up on YouTube if you’re easily offended by some motivational profanity – he’s all “F-this” and “F-that”… )
This guy… man, talk about living obsessively –
Almost died 2-3 times under the knife because of his iron addiction.
His “magnificent obsession” he calls it… words of a truly passionate man.
But if you think about it, only exceptional people do exceptional stuff, and the only way to be exceptional is to be obsessed.
Steve Jobs… Elon Musk… Jimi Hendrix… Some exceptionally obsessed people I admire.
Obsession is a gift, and combined with knowledge – it’s divine, the stuff that legends are made of.
“Always shoot for the moon – it’s one of the few real thrills left today!” – Eugene Schwartz