A Blog Post by Big Chris

Hey there, I hope life’s treating you as well as you’re treating it… in this blog post I wanna talk about one of the most powerful things in life we can do for ourselves and others… this a VERY personal post for me by the way…

Ya know, life is a trip.

Fun at times, depressing at times, empowering at times, heartbreaking at times.

It seems as humans we can’t know the good without the bad.

Anyone who is “always great” is full of shit… or is gonna be in for giant surprise once the drug cocktail wears off… and it will.

Many of the people I know who have the most awesome lives, have had to go to the darkest places to get there… trust me, I know the journey well.

It can be intense at times, a little slow at others… but always a trip… maybe that’s why it’s called a journey… cuz you’re literally on a trip.

Showing up in ‘The Great Here and Now’ is the name of the game… and since The Here and Now is all that exists… unless you’re dead, you have no choice but to be in it..

Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug… sometimes kicking a lot of ass… and sometimes getting your ass kicked ( Don’t ya hate when that happens BTW?)

This road of life is uncertain…   no matter how good at goal setting and taking ‘right’ action you are, life can throw curve balls, bless us with unforeseen gifts and basically have it’s own plans for us once in while…

We can have the map or GPS out, watch for the sign posts and be among the trustiest of friends riding shotgun… but still, sometimes the road gets weird, the weather turns funky, we get off course and get lost…

Or sometimes we’re driving along without a care in the world and then out of nowhere get all bent outta shape at the guy who just cut us off…  and at this point we completely forget to enjoy the view.

An old biker buddy of mine once told me… “Ya know you never have to let anyone cut you off ever again?”

I’m like “Really? .. How?”

He said “Just let em’ in”

Old curmudgeon got me again!

In this journey of life, while I still do make monumental mistakes and have a TON to learn.. there’s a few things I’ve discovered along the way that I think are important to help keep things in perspective… and make the ride a little smoother if you know what I mean… plus this stuff can make your business a helluva lot better ( Much of this stuff  I learned from those who’ve walked before me and then the lessons were cemented into my soul once I applied the stuff to my life) …

Gonna start with a few basics just to make sure you’re up to speed and act as reminder… but there is some pretty funky serious stuff coming up…

1. Have a clear vision of your destination that you are passionate about reaching and involves helping others – DUH … nuff said about that one… it’s Business 101 IMO

2. Feel good about those goals coming true and take massive “right” action to reach them… don’t just meditate on this stuff

( Bear with me, it’ll get deeper here, trust me)

3. Enjoy the journey… stop and smell the flowers… or the beach… or the air.. or your loved ones… Basically show up and notice the damn Present Moment as often as you can… it really is all there is.

4. Don’t concern yourself with what others think about you… it’s not your beeze-whacks .. your beeze-whacks is what YOU think of YOU and what YOU think of THEM… and how YOU act… NOT how THEY act.

5. Embrace your pain and your flaws … for many of us our biggest curses are also our greatest gifts…

For me personally, while my obsessive compulsive nature has caused me a great many troubles over the years… even driving me in my twenties to stints of doin’ time for marijuana distribution… and homelessness due to some pretty gnarly drug addictions…

My problem was I just had my relentless ability to focus .. focused in the wrong directions... once I was able to channel that energy towards some positive things, it’s allowed me to achieve what I consider to be MY version of a successful life.

What I once considered a major flaw in my life, I now feel is a gift that I am VERY fortunate to have been blessed with.

I call it Obsessive Compulsive Advantage… I seem to have ADHD for most things in life … but OCA for my passions.

6. NO MATTER HOW HARD IT MAY BE SOMETIMES …  Do your best to treat others the way you would want to be treated – This is as old school as it gets, but I truly believe it’s one of the keys to success and happiness… and I’ll admit, sometimes it’s tough… come up and try to ask me a question when I have my headphones on 10 cranking ‘Five Finger Death Punch’ and am in the middle of a hard workout… you just might encounter an a-hole ( I take my workouts pretty seriously… it’s my meditation.. no one else necessary or welcome)

And when I’m super hungry or tired? Forget about it.

I don’t always live by this one as well as I could, but I do my best… and I find the better I treat others, the better life treats me… but only about 100% of the time

7. Be yourself – Don’t just be a friggin’ number or another “me too” person or business owner… let your true-self shine through and be known…. align with your passions and ignore the status quo or what others say should be important to you

It’s YOUR journey, only YOU have the right to paint the picture.. sure get input from others, and follow others who have gone before you, but do it with your own style.

8. – Be Cool with having different aspects to your personality – You are human, you are a flawed creature, you are also perfect in every way…. even in all your flaws.

I mean that…. embrace that sometimes you may be a goof ball, sometimes dead serious…. sometimes all business… and sometimes you may be a total lazy-ass.

Sometimes the totally coolest person around… and sometimes maybe even a DICK.

Humans are almost never just one way… in fact we’re all over the place.. confident in one area, a nervous wreck in others… and we all have a light and dark side.

I know an old American Indian dude who often says we all a black wolf and white wolf that lives within us.. the question is… which one are you feeding right now?

Be cool with the fact that you’re not perfect, not always good, not always on your game.

You’re human… it’s cool man… don’t stress it.

Skin Graft Covering Third Degree Burns on my Right Hand from a Pan Full of Hot Oil – Some of My Lessons I've Learned The Hard Way

9. Embrace your mistakes – Mistakes are how we learn… and MAN have I made some doozies… I think I make WAY more mistakes than most people, but I also take a shitload of action towards my goals, never waiting for things to be perfect or just right, cuz they never will be…

… And when you live like this the possibility exists that you’ll be a “blundering mistake making mofo”

And that’s just in my business… in my personal life I’m one of those people who sometimes has to touch the hot pan to realize it’s hot… you coulda told me a million times it’s hot… I coulda seen YOU burn YOUR hand on it… but I still feel compelled to touch the pan. ( That pic to the right is of my right hand which I burned most all the skin off one time)

It’s not the mistakes that count so much … it’s what we do with them… do we learn from them? Adjust our course?

If there’s pain, allow it… don’t deny it… but deal with it and move in… let it fuel your success.

And often those mistakes… those perceived “f-ups” end up to be gifts from above.

Just like good ole’ Napoleon Hill said “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit”

10.. Transcend – We all need to evolve, to be better, to improve… to quote one of my all time favorite movies The Shawshank Redemption… “Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dyin’”

Life is kinda like trying to ride a bike up a hill, stop peddling and moving forward and you’ll soon find yourself headed backwards down the hill FAST… right before you eat it real bad into the hot asphalt.

I just looked up the term ‘Transcend’ in an online dictionary and the definition is “To Rise Above or Go Beyond The Limits Of”

I used to be someone a lot of people wrote off as a nobody and a loser who could never do anything great… even when I started my personal training business and then when I first started this Fitness Marketing Info stuff I do now… I was told it just couldn’t work out the way I saw it… that I was wasting my time

Well they were wrong.

The term Rise Above holds a great meaning for me, in fact I got it tattooed on my forearm a while back it means so much

Rise Above “settling” for anything less than what you truly want, Rise Above the status quo, Rise Above the naysayers and people who want to hold you back and see you fail because it makes them feel better about themselves and their lack of living a good life, Rise Above mediocrity, average pay and deadly self-limitations… Rise Above limited thinking and close-mindedness.. Rise Above selfishness…. Rise Above fear and a sense of lack… Rise Above what others think… Rise Above stagnation.

Rise Above the masses, the 99% who tip toe through life everyday hoping to make it safely to death…

Rise Above and be a 1%er who creates my own reality, contributes to the world in MANY positive ways, doing what I love for a living… on my own terms, and creating an amazing life for myself and the ones I care about… a life that the other 99% would say is impossible to achieve and doesn’t exist…

Well I’m living proof that it DOES exist… and I’m just one of em’… there’s a ton of people who decided not to accept what others told them is possible and they did what THEY wanted to do…

Believing in themselves when no one else did… even when the world seemed to be saying “Not possible, you can’t do it… it’ll never happen… so just give up on your dreams and settle like the rest of us”

F – THAT

One thing that most people settle for is an “hamster in a wheel” average work day… and usually a pretty lousy average workday where they just go through the motions to make a paycheck… getting up by the alarm, commuting, waiting for a break… waiting to get off… trading the hours of their day for dollars… now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that for anyone else but me… I can only speak for myself here… but deep in my gut, I KNOW it’s not my path… I want to spend my time doin’ things that I’m passionate about, with lots of flexibility, helping the make the world the best place I can and having a helluva lotta fun in the process.

I refuse to trade my life away for money… working to make someone else rich… living by others values… and thinking that the only way to financially succeed is get up, put long hard hours in at some job I could care less about, go home and get up and do it all again the next day… living like a rat in a cage

I wanted to create a business that gave me the kind of work day and lifestyle that I really wanted deep inside… so a few years ago, I sat down and wrote out exactly what that day would look like, made it a goal, and figured out how many people I’d have to help get what they wanted in life to make the kind of money that would make this ideal work day of mine a reality… and how I could help them.

I got it set deep in my gut that I would make this happen no matter what… cuz otherwise… I’m just settling, and then my entire Rise Above philosophy is just a philosophy, and not a way of life.

But once I set my sights on something and lock it into my gut, and let my sub-conscious go to work putting all the right  steps in front of me for me to take action on… success is pretty much guaranteed… provided I take those actions and persist like a true bad mofo. ( This may seem paradoxical to some things I talked about at the start of this post, howlife throws curve balls and whatnot… but life itself is the greatest paradox of all )

Today, because of locking in on my target and taking massive action… I’ve achieved what most people don’t even think is possible…. especially not for a one-time homeless drug addict.

( I hope you don’t think I’m bragging here, just hoping to motivate you a little)

Now, what success is to ME, might be boring and lame to you…

…you may wanna jump out of planes into the jungle for a living, or guard the president, or work as a bouncer at a strip club for all I know… or who knows, it’s an individual thing.

My question to you is, are you transcending those parts of your life you’re not happy with ? Those things you wanna change or wish were different?

And VERY IMPORTANTLY…

11. Help others to Transcend – If you wanna be truly happy and really succeed in life… I believe it’s not enough to work on your own Transcending… You need to help others transcend as well

If you’re in the fitness industry, then YOU ARE IN A PERFECT POSITION TO DO THIS ( In fact, if you’re a reader of this blog, there’s a good chance you do it to some extent or another already)

Help people to be the best person they can be… to be healthier, happier and more confident.

Help them slay their demons.. even if those demons are complacency and late night food binges.. whatever it is… if you want to be a master of transcending your own funkalicious junk… help others transcend theirs.

I truly believe this to be one of the most important things in life.

Help others to evolve… to get what they want in life… to live their dreams and passions and become the best people they can become, EVEN if only in the area of health and fitness… which is a HUGE area of life and can have a positive spill-over effect into EVERY OTHER AREA.

Wanna Be Extremely Reasonably Happy and Have a Ton Of Success and Cool Experiences In Life?

Help Others Transcend

I’d love to hear your comments below (=

Some of these photos are Copyrighted by Orange County Photographer Mitch Enright … in fact Mitch did some of the best photos on this site.. Click Here to contact Mitch for Photography in your business.