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When the French Revolution began in 1789 those who had inherited their “Elite” status were identified as The Enemy and over the course of the following century, they were deposed and violently replaced with people who demonstrated military power and showed allegiance to the state. Because of this troubled history, the term “Elite” has become something of an insult. It refers to those who schmooze or bully or luck their way into status and wealth, while guarding the exclusivity of their position, rather than those who get there by being the best and helping others to join them.

An identity is a kind of plan. We use experiences to build a picture of our selves in real time. We call this picture “I” or “me”. We identify with it. We then go beyond that and use the picture to predict the future based on the results of our previous experiences.This is a super quick way to decide what to do next without having to newly assess every experience individually. This is how we navigate the world and steer ourselves towards more experiences we want and fewer experiences we don’t.

The world is eternally driving forwards in this way. There’s no end to the tomorrows we can be aligning our behaviours towards. When we take action and make goals to do something good and right and healthy, we ought to think as far into the future as possible and do things based on history and trajectory we can predict will be good not just for now, but later today, tomorrow, and on for weeks, months, and years into the darkness of forever. With this in mind, we must look outwards. In order to continue acting in a way that is beneficial for the years ahead, we can’t only be focussed on our own benefit. Staying healthy in our own lifetime involves the health of the friends, family, and community around us.

EVERYTHING you do in The Real world is done with your physical body.But it's more than just flesh and bones. It’s how we turn our ideas and concepts into objects that share in our existence so we can connect with them in reality. In this way, your body is an expression of you who really are. When you learn to take your body through change, you also learn how to transform yourself in less obvious ways.

When I first started personal training, I bought a book called “Ignite the fire: the secrets to building a successful personal training career” by Jonathan Goodman. It contained some great advice on how to interview well for gym jobs, how to develop client relationships, how to coach exercises effectively, and things like that, which was very helpful.I still recommend the book for new personal trainers. But there was little nugget of advice buried in the text that I have taken and run with.

I don't think it's difficult to argue that the world we live in is NOT The Real World.If you’re consuming this content on a website, If you are surrounded by machines and right angles, if you buy your food from a supermarket, then you don't live in The Real World. You live in a world that has been constructed (for better and for worse) by other human beings.