In my position, I get asked a lot of questions about training, diet, and lifestyle. Every once in a while, a person will decide to hire me to train them, do their diet, or both. Unfortunately, sometimes these people greatly overestimate my abilities—not so much in my knowledge and advice given, but in my abilities to completely transform them with as little work as possible on their part. They see me as a genie in a bottle. They’ll tell me they want to lose weight, get stronger, build muscle, and get in better shape. Oh, and they can only train twice a week and cannot say no to a tasty brownie from work.

I begin my process of developing the best program I can by creating a diet that fits their life, something they'll comply to. I give them training activities for the days they aren’t with me, tips on sleep, how to deal with social and family pressures, recovery, injury rehabilitation, and so on. My goal is to always start them out low and build them up, whether that be in training intensity, volume, frequency, or dietary guidelines. Sometimes it may be as simple as, "go for a walk for 20 minutes a day, three days a week, and eat a good breakfast." I know that if they start feeling the effects of the minor stuff, I will be able to get them to do more and more as time goes on. But sometimes this is like pulling teeth.

I am not a genie in a bottle. You can’t just hire me and expect all your fitness goals to come to life. I can’t give you a magic potion or let you in on some secret that all the fit people are keeping to themselves. I can’t make you do anything you aren’t willing to do. Whatever motivation issues you suffered from before hiring me will continue to come into play when you hire me. I am not a tug boat either. I am not equipped to push and pull you into place as you sit in idle. I’ve got too many ships to manage, including my own. I will burn out very quickly if I am spending all my time motoring around finding different angles to push and pull from, in hopes of getting you into port.

So what am I then? I am a navigator. I understand the seas; all the intricacies, short cuts, rough water, and smooth sailings. I know how to get you from point a to b, in the most effective and safe manner possible. I’ve sailed the waters you want to travel before and I’ve helped others navigate through them. I can stand by your side and tell you when to turn left or right, when to give it more gas, and when to take it back a notch. But I can’t steer the ship. I am not the captain, you are. You ultimately decide which direction you want to go. You can tell me 100 times you want to get to a destination, but if I tell you to turn left and you turn right, there is not much else I can do but hang on and hope that you’ll let me correct your path before it’s too late.

With that established, let me give you some ground rules before you decide you want to set sail. I am not in the business of boarding Titanics. If I don’t think someone can have success, I don’t normally take them on as a client. I prefer to put more attention into my clients who are currently succeeding. Although there have been many books and articles written on success, I simplify success into three important steps: try, win, and lose.

1) Try

When I was in seventh grade I would play basketball a bunch. We had a goal in our backyard and I would dribble and shoot out there all the time. I wanted to try out for the school team, but I wussed out and didn’t go to tryouts. I didn’t even try. To this day I am pissed I did that. How many people are stuck in a body, a job, or a situation that they don’t like, yet aren’t willing to do anything about it? When I say try, I mean give it a serious, everything you’ve got effort.

I realize for some people, just making it to the gym is an accomplishment, but if you are a member at NBS or one of my clients, you will be expected to go well beyond that. Everyone at NBS is expected to bring each other up. When one person is getting after it, others will step-up. If I allow one person to be a lazy ass, then it’s not only bad for them, but it’s bad for everyone else at the gym. Effort shows desire. There is a reason I don’t put much effort into making my bed. I could care less if it looks neat. This is my attitude towards fitness. If you care about it, you’ll put in the effort, you'll try, and you'll try very hard. But you must try. Talking about it, writing about it, and being around it won’t get you anywhere. You must first start your own engine.

2) Win

If there is a football game between a team that is 8-0 and a team that is 0-8, it is no surprise that most people will take the team that is 8-0 to win. This is because winning is a habit. When you expect to win, you don’t give up when something doesn’t go your way. You don’t freak out when the challenge gets tough. You’ve been there before and you know how to handle it. Many people struggle to succeed because they’ve never had success. They don’t believe in their ability to win. They believe history will repeat itself and therefore won’t give it everything they’ve got. They don’t really try. When times get hard they stop working out, they close their business doors, and they get out of their marriage—they quit. You will never win a game if you quit.

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward; how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done! Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!"—Rocky

The greatest lesson my parents taught me was not to quit. For example, I wanted to quit tae kwon do, but they wouldn’t let me until I got my black belt. I wanted to quit boy scouts, but they wouldn’t let me until I got my eagle scout. I wanted to quit baseball, but they wouldn’t let me until I finished my senior year. I wanted to quit college football, but they wouldn’t let me until I finished out the semester. Therefore, they taught me to finish what I started. The result is I am now confident in my ability to succeed. If I start something I know I can finish it. You have to succeed. You have to win. Whatever it takes, you have to teach yourself to see things through the end.

3) Lose

Unfortunately, you can’t win everything. That is the reality of life and like the Rocky quote above, at some point you are going to be punched in the face. And you absolutely should get punched in the face. I’ve never learned anything from a bench I’ve successfully made, but I sure have learned a lot from benches I’ve missed. Losses are learning opportunities. Sure they suck, but you have to welcome them as a chance to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, adjust your game plan, and get back out on the field. These are some of the toughest times to deal with, but they are also the greatest chances for rejuvenation. Failure is inevitable, but how you deal with failure is up to you.

Failure keeps you on your toes and it teaches you to thirst for the chance to go again. It teaches you to dig in and grind. It teaches you to improve. It is a necessary part of the process. You must embrace it. Otherwise, you will be like all the other people on this earth who let a little rough patch keep them from reaching their dreams.

"No, maybe I can't win, maybe the only thing I can do is just take everything he's got. But to beat me, he's gonna have to kill me, and to kill me, he's gonna have to have the heart to stand in front of me, and to do that, he's gotta be willing to die himself and I don't know if he's ready to do that. I don't know, I don't know."—Rocky