Limitless Athletes by Crazy Muscle Crazy Muscle

Maximus here, and today is the day you and I put pen to paper and take dreams from the Sleep realm, to where they belong: into reality!

As promised, last week I told you I'd share with you some questions you can ask yourself to get into the mindset of achieving more. I recommend you 


print these out, 
grab a pen or pencil and 
sit down in a quiet place where you can think, and 
answer these without rushing or distraction.

Maximus’ Questionnaire


If you desire to change the world where would you start? 
What holds you back in this life today?
What can you do about those things that hold you back in your life today? 
Write down 10 things you would do if you had absolutely no fear? ...then pick one and do it! 
What kind of person are you? 
What is your comfort zone? 
When is the last time you failed? And what did you learn?
If you had absolutely no limitations and could confidently know everything you attempted would be successful what sort of person would you be in 1, 5, 10 years? (3 part answer)

Download a PDF version here to print out.

These sorts of questions are meant to drive creative thought, get you thinking about your blind spots and shortcomings, and show you a path to overcome them.

Putting pen to paper is how you’ll get something out of this exercise.  Simply answering the questions in your head doesn’t have nearly the same level of psychological effect.

In closing, I'll leave you with an idea I got from Steve Chandler who, along with many other books, wrote, “The Prosperous Coach”. While it's written to a coach audience, this quote applies to athletes and weightlifters and humans in general. 

Think on this:

The struggling *person* has huge dreams that overwhelm them. The professional *person* has huge dreams and takes tiny steps every day.”

(I substituted “person” for “coach”)

May you be inspired to take action today like never before!

Wanna get more shit done?

I do.

Want 3 powerful strategies to “create” time and get shit done (GSD) in your day?

Okay, but before I do...this is how I think about productivity:

Working on tasks is USELESS, Completing tasks is EVERYTHING.

That idea speaks to my enduring disdain for “Being Busy.” You probably know plenty of people who are “always busy” and never getting anything COMPLETED. 

If you see yourself in that statement, here are those three tactics to end “the busy,” and get MORE done...

1) STOP TRYING

What does “try” even mean? Trying is not the same as doing. What is the difference? Remember that feelings drive actions. “I will TRY to do that” is not the same as “I WILL do that”. Think about how each of those different sentences drive different feelings and emotions, which will likely yield different results.

2) STOP DISTRACTIONS

 A distraction is an agitation of your mind. A distraction is stopping what you're doing to do something else and not get what you were doing, done. Distractions pull us away from progress and since our minds are all naturally lazy they would much rather rest. It takes a conscious effort to ignore distractions and keep our brains working.

One of the easiest ways to minimize distractions is to make them harder.

I’ll give you one real life example for me.  When we started REALLY growing on Amazon, I developed a habit of checking my phone every 15-20 minutes to check for new orders.

By simply putting my phone on the other side of my office, I didn’t have easy access to it so that habit was broken after a couple weeks.

3) STOP MULTITASKING

There is no such thing as multitasking.

Accept this reality right now.

Trying to do more than one thing at a time means getting less done because it takes time to shift from one task to another. Getting closure in one task before moving on to the next typically yields much MUCH better results in the long term because you generate momentum, which frankly is the secret to productivity.

There you have it! Three of my most effective tactics for getting shit done. 

Hopefully one or more of those resonate with you, and you will take Massive Action today to implement the ideas into your routine and get better results than ever before! 

Have a GSD-filled day!

Today I’d like to address some very common thinking you might relate to, what I call “past-thinking.”

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi

I think this is also mentioned once or twice in one of the Rocky movies.

Many well-intentioned people say to our customer service team: 

“I’d like to get back to my high school weight,” or 

“I’d like to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.”

Today I suggest to you this is counter-productive. See, the problem with wanting to go back is that many of us have been trying to attain those goals, and have been met with failure. 

When we define our goals by some point in our past, I think many humans include the failure, regret and frustration not attaining those goals represents.

It can be easy to become discouraged and feel hopeless about our current goals. 

What I recommend instead is to accept my past exactly as it should have been.

Perfect, even. 

From here, I choose to move forward, toward the future, applying my energy into the NOW and what I might become. 

It’s much more productive for me this way.

After all, the past is gone. There is no going back! The good news is, you and I can OWN our future. We can, starting right now, create a future that’s better than our past. We do not have to be defined by who we used to be!

If you ever find yourself saying things like:

“That’s the way I’ve always been.”

“That’s how I’ve always done it.”
“I’ve never been good at that.”

Those are clear signs that you’re being defined by your PAST. Your past does not have any more control over you than you give it!

--->Right now, and every moment, you have a choice to refuse to be controlled by your past!

--->Right now, you can take charge of your NOW and create a future based on what you want, rather than what you’ve done.

It’s time to look to the road ahead, to create the future you want. Your past set you up to be the person you are today, and right now it’s time to get excited about the future.

You got this!

In 1989, the overall #1 pick in the NFL draft was a young player from UCLA.

His 12 seasons as the starting quarterback for a team in Texas was a star-studded career...


He was selected to the Pro Bowl six times
He led his team to three Super Bowl victories 
...and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

This man was Troy Aikman.

During Troy’s career, the Dallas Cowboys were so feared, most teams went to the stadium with the expectation of LOSING!

Why?

I would argue those teams were way too deferential. They feared their own inferiority. 

Or both...

Fear is unhealthy and one of the worst things you can fall into. 

Fearing your opponents, who or whatever they might be, automatically makes those things seem bigger, faster and smarter than they really are.

Thus, there is a great advantage to be found in being UNIMPRESSED.

Take a look at current presidents, kings, so-called titans of industry, celebrities and billionaires; you can easily find plenty of reasons to be completely unimpressed. 

Don’t fall into the intimidation trap.


Refuse to be easily impressed.
Rather, see your own talents as impressive.
Remember to notice the reality of “Exalted Ones”; they’re just like you and me. 
They might have an impressive talent, but we’re all a mixed bag. 
No one is better than you, no one is more “valuable” than you.
There’s no real reason other than the ones we create in our heads, to be intimidated or deferential.

Be unimpressed. Notice this in the DNA of every underdog story… you too can cultivate the fine art of being unimpressed. 

Remember, courage isn’t the absence of fear--it’s the ability to ACT, despite the presence of fear.

Try this out, and let me know if you don’t find yourself winning more than ever.

Be brave!

I don’t hang out in bars, but I was having a drink with a good friend while I was on a business trip and I literally heard two groups of people more or less say the same thing.

Let me paraphrase it.
“So I finally got a new client, they wired me $X in my bank, so order anything you want.”

What I processed was this:

“I’ve been flat broke, but the second I got some money in my checking account, I found a way to spend it here today.”

I see this EVERYWHERE and frankly, whenever someone asks me how to become an entrepreneur, I say this to them...

Say you wake up tomorrow with $10,000,000 wired into your bank account...paint me a picture of what your entire day would look like.

If at ANY point, they mention something about buying something beyond their means, I will literally stop them in their tracks and say they’re not mentally ready.

You might be wondering now...

What’s that got to do with lifting big ass dumbbells at the gym? 

Stick with me for a sec….

What’s the number one stressor most Americans worry, lose sleep and divorce over?
MONEY.

That’s right.

Your financial security, by this logic, has a considerable impact on how relaxed and stress-free your gym workouts can be.

Now, I’m no dummy--I know talking about money is taboo. And I wouldn’t bring it up, if the statistics weren’t so troubling.

According to a Careerbuilder study, 78 percent of American workers report they are living paycheck to paycheck. 

40% of Americans, according to CBS can’t cover a $400 emergency out of pocket.

I truly hope you’re not one of them.

If you are one of the 4 in 5 who’s worried, here are NINE tips I developed when I was $65,000 in debt, had 4 credit cards maxed out with only $92 in my bank account that you can use today, to ease the burden:

1. Make More Money - If you work for someone...pick up a copy of Seth Godin’s book “Linchpin” and become a freakin’ monster at your job to the point where they can’t afford to lose you.

2. Snowball your way out of it-- List out all of the debts you owe from smallest to biggest. Focus on knocking out the smallest debts with ALL of your excess money first while making the minimum payments on everything else.

3. Sell crap you don’t need-Have a garage sale or list them on Craigslist.

4. Negotiate with your bill providers-there’s services like BillCutterz who will hound service providers you’re using to negotiate lower rates.

5. Stop shopping at convenience stores-- It's the little things that add up to the big things.

6. Eliminate subscriptions-- Get rid of your cable subscription and go to the library; drop your Amazon Prime membership and build patience with 3-day shipping instead of 2.

7. If you’re going to shop online, be smart about it- Use apps like Honey to scour the internet for discounts.

8. Commit to saving- Be intentional, set a goal and save. 

9. Stop trying to keep up with the Joneses-- This lies at the root of most people’s money problems.

Here’s the crazy part.

I STILL DO MOST OF THESE THINGS!!!!

As hard or as crazy as this might sound, making money isn’t the hard part.  Holding onto it is!

Here’s to your financial health--and less stressful workouts, moving forward.

Have you ever heard someone talking about “making really good money?”

Do you make “good money?” I always crack up when I hear that phrase, because of how subjective this is.

$15 an hour is “good money” (a lot) for some, and $150 an hour is “bad money” (not enough), for others.

But the hard numbers leave out what I see as the crucial metric:

Do you ENJOY what you DO for money?

Beyond the dollar amount you earn, what’s really at stake here is the life you’re creating through the actions you take each day. 

Now, I don’t know what you do personally, or if you’re happy doing it. What I hope to give you in the next 2 minutes are a couple things to think about, which absolutely changed my working life. 

--->First, (predictably) a story. This one comes from a book called “Delivering Happiness,” A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.

(It’s by Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, the giant online shoe company.) I highly recommend the book, for reasons which will be obvious in a moment…

First, the story:

A Zappos employee’s husband passed away in tragic style, back in 2007. The wife’s first call was to her manager at Zappos. 

The manager, hearing the devastating news, “showed great compassion and gave me sound advice to calm me. She assured that I shouldn’t be concerned with anything else but to take care of myself and family, and that--day or night--I should call her if I needed anything. After she gave me every single one of her phone numbers, I knew she meant it.”

Further the manager reassured her she shouldn’t feel pressure to return to work, and offered to cater the funeral. Robin’s visiting family heard about this stuff and couldn’t believe these kind of gestures were given by a workplace. 

Robin said, “Wonderful. That’s what Zappos is.”

Wrapping up, Robin talked about her “extended family” at Zappos who supported and showed friendship, was her “refuge and healing place that gave me everything I needed to continue with my life.”

(paperback, pp. 178-9)

Wow.

You might be thinking, my job’s nothing like that…

Or, I wish I had a boss like that…

--->Well, I’m here to express the idea that you can experience something like Zappos, if you’re willing to put the work in, first. 

While most people complain about their jobs, their co-workers, their clients and customers (not to mention their bosses), you can be Crazy. You can be different, and I guarantee you, your results will be that much better.

Today’s email is meant to inspire you. To motivate you. To supercharge your creative juices and enable you to find, or make your workplace into the best it possibly can be.

Remember, you don’t have to accept things the way they are. Here at Crazy Muscle, for instance, we talk about each other as if we’re a big family. Because look... that’s what we are.

From each team member, to our partners and our customers… we’re simply a dysfunctional family who wants nothing but the best for one another.

And sometimes it can be bumpy (soooo like a family) and challenging. But we stick together, because we have a clear mission…

To support you in achieving your biggest, crazy goals--and making *truly* good money while you’re at it!

Here’s the thing…

If you EVER need anything, I along with my entire team are here for you...SERIOUSLY!

All you need to do is ASK!