What’s wrong with thinking?

I’m convinced that people are so self-absorbed in their own little worlds lately that thinking will soon become extinct.

I was at the gym the other morning, an Anytime Fitness. It was technically, from what I’ve been told by management, an Anytime Fitness ‘Express’. ‘Express’ in this context can loosely be translated into, ‘we don’t have much equipment at this particular location’. The management knowing this, by the way, is what makes the following all the more comical.

There is a bulletin board on the far wall of the gym that has a potpourri or items, including quotes, recipes, and the subject of this post – the ‘workout of the month’.

How these workouts are chosen I’m sure, is random at best, and haphazard most of the time. In this month’s case, it’s downright brain-dead.

This months workout is for legs. It starts with calves, then goes to hamstrings. This is followed by walking lunges, and ends with the leg press – performed on the leg ‘sled’.

The first reason this is moronic is the order of the workout. Any lifter worth their salt knows that just like the ‘weakest’ link principle, for the best workout you work the smaller (weaker) muscles after you work the larger muscles. Just as a chain breaks when the weakest link gives out, there is no way you can give the larger muscles an adequate workout if the supporting muscles are already fatigued. Also, by working the larger muscles first, you have the energy and fuel they need to give them a worthwhile workout.

BUT the dumbest part of this workout is that THIS GYM DOESN’T HAVE A LEG SLED. The 'workout of the month' requires one, but there isn't one available. And, depending on the person doing the exercises, it may not even have adequate size dumbbells for the walking lunges. While this gym is perhaps less equipped than some of the other gyms, the postings on this board are not ‘corporate’ postings administered by Anytime. These postings are placed individually at each gym by the management, and could be adapted to fit the individual gym.

Either the manager can’t think, won’t think, or just doesn’t care. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me since the result is the same – no one can do the workout of the month. I’m all for providing free information to customers, but is it really even worth providing information if it’s worthless?

My point of this entire piece can be summed up by the sign Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, kept on his desk. It merely had one word – THINK!

Are you caring them away?

That’s not a typo. I do mean ‘caring’ and not ‘scaring’, even though they can occasionally be interchangeable.

So what the heck do I mean? Ask a female.

Why? Because they are often the recipients of guys who give so much attention, and ‘care’ too much, that it drives them away.

‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘What do you want to eat?’ ‘Can I do anything for you?’ ‘I’d like to spent time (a lot of it – maybe every hour) with you.’ Etc, etc. Annoying.

This can, of course, go the other way. The woman can also get too overbearing, and over-caring, and drive a guy away too, but I usually find that it’s men that often just try too hard for women. They are too afraid to lose the little ‘nibble’ they got when they met a female, and they hold on to it so tightly they kill it.

This can also be generalized to almost everything in your life. I like to say that the person who wants something least is the one who ends up with the best deal. Caring too much, and trying too hard will only move you further away from what you want.

The person who is desperate to sell their home will sell it far too cheap. The person who wants so badly to do a business deal, will drive the potential buyer away. And of course, that guy who wants the girl so badly that he's calling every minute, and showering her with gifts every chance he gets, will eventually lose her every time.

You can come up with your own examples, but I think you’ll find you won’t have to search your brain too deep.

Any time you are faced with a decision that you need to make so badly, and 'immediately', take twenty-four hours to think about it. After you distance yourself from the decision with time, you will probably never even want that thing any more. And if you do, you'll have a much clearer perspective on what it really means to you.

When faced with more daunting, or more important decisions, take a little longer than that to think about it. Never give in to your own ‘overbearing caring’ about something, especially if you want someone to do something for you. You just might care/scare them away.

Remember, there will always be another chance to find that special something. When I’m faced with an ‘important’ decision, I like to occasionally remind myself that once-in-a-lifetime deals come around about every month or so.

Just give me 15 seconds…

That’s what my good friend, Joe Amoia, “TheSmarter Dating Guy”, tells me. He says that when he’s consulting with a woman about dating, all it takes is 15 seconds on the phone to know if he’s able to help her or not. Some women, those who have no interest in changing their ways or taking advice, no matter how much anyone tries, just can’t be helped – yet.

I find the same thing during my coaching sessions. Unfortunately, however, one I did recently took almost five minutes into the call before the telling words came spewing from her mouth. “That’s just the way I am”, she said, as if I was supposed to work around that ‘minor’ issue, and fix her problem anyway.

My thoughts: Presumably, you wouldn’t be talking to me or looking for advice if you were 100% happy with your life the way it currently is.

What I actually said: “If you continue to stay the same, and continue to do what you’ve always done, you will continue to get what you’ve always got. Are you happy with what you are getting from life, and the position you are currently in?”

I don’t even have to tell you that her answer was a resounding ‘no’. Yet she was unwilling to change ‘the way she is’. Sorry, can’t help you. There is just no way to help someone who is unwilling to change.

We can take this a bit further. We can’t solve our problems if we are thinking on the same level as when we got into them. We have to think at a higher ‘frequency’, or on a higher level. Let’s look at an obvious example when we know we can’t think clearly – when someone is intoxicated by alcohol. A lot of people get in trouble when they are operating at a thought level of being drunk. It isn’t until becoming sober that you can start to solve the problem you got yourself into when you were drunk. When you try to solve your problem, still under the influence of alcohol, you tend to create more problems for yourself.

The people around you can see this quite clearly. They are operating at a much higher thought level, and you are literally moving, and thinking, much slower. Sometimes the difference is almost comical. Unfortunately, when we are talking about success or failure in life, the results are not comical. The level we are thinking on will dictate a happy and fulfilling life, or a life of misery and disappointment.

Before you can even get to the higher level to think more clearly and solve your problems, you must first be willing to change what you are currently doing if you want something different in your life. Remember, ‘insanity’ is simply doing the same thing today as you did yesterday, yet expecting a different result tomorrow.

Gold Nugget for the day

You've gotta have at least a few clouds in your life if you ever want to see a beautiful sunrise.

Have all the colleges closed?

One of the most redundant statements I hear on a regular basis is, “I’ve always wanted to…”

You can fill in the blank with anything you can think of.

I was talking to a friend the other day about the book I’m currently writing. At some point in the conversation he said, “I always wanted to take a writing class.” The first thing I wondered was if I had miraculously missed the memo saying all the colleges, and anywhere else offering writing classes, had closed. Does no one provide education past the age of 22 anymore? Once we graduate from college are we no longer allowed to take any continuing education? Is it a one shot deal, and once we stop going to classes that's it?

“I was gonna go to college.” “I always wanted to take a writing class.” “I should take CPR.” Well then, but what?! Life got in the way? Isn’t what you always wanted to do, or what you know you should do, a part of life?

Then there’s the guy who say’s someone is lucky to live in San Diego, or Carmel, California. Why is someone lucky? You can pick wherever you want to live! You live in the place you want, and you’re doing what you want, because the choices you’ve made have placed you in the position you are currently in, for better or for worse. And the choices you’ve made are what you want to do whether you admit it or not - because we all do what we want to do. We may know we need to make certain choices for a certain outcome, but the choices we make are the ones we want to make.

All actions have consequences. We all get to choose our actions, but we don’t get to choose the consequences. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter what actions we take. It means that there are smart actions and dumb actions.

You can make the choice to murder someone, but it will be a jury, not you, choosing the consequence. You can make the choice to travel 70 mph down a residential area in a neighborhood, but you don’t get to choose how it will end. You can choose not to go to work tomorrow, but you don’t get to choose whether or not you have a job the following day.

There are a lot of people with regrets because they would have made different choices had life not gotten in the way. There are a lot of people who could have done something different with their life if only they had better circumstances. There are a lot of people who die knowing they should have made different decisions.

Wouldn’t your life be more enjoyable if you actually did the things you’ve wanted to do? What’s stopping you? You! The only person you need permission from is yourself.

Are you a ‘woulda, coulda, shoulda’ kind of person? Or are you going to live the life you want, with no regrets?

Got a problem sitting next to a guy in a bra and panties?

Apparently US Airways doesn't mind seating him next to you.

This one can be another topic chalked up to the slow destruction of the United States, due to the widely accepted, and devastating results, of our new 'politically correct' society.

Everyone's fear of offending someone else, even though it's occasionally the right thing to do, has created a society of wimps afraid to do what's right.

The article I just read talks about a man dressed in women's panties, a bra, and thigh-high stockings, who boarded a US Airways flight from Ft. Lauderdale, to Phoenix. No one working for US Airways asked him to cover himself, or get off the plane. According to a US Airways spokesperson, their policy is that anyone can fly as long as their genitals are covered. She said, 'We don't have a dress code...if they're not exposing their private parts, they're allowed to fly.'

I, for one, do not want to be seated next to this guy exercising what is no less than moronic judgement. I don't want my leg to touch this guy, and I wouldn't have any interest in seeing anything like that - especially trapped only inches away, on a four-hour flight.

The American civilization is declining at a dramatic rate due to the current generation's seemingly only motto - not to make anyone feel uncomfortable, welcome diversity, and let anyone do anything they want without judging.

There's no question when we use our god-given brains and common sense, that this case severely crosses the line of public decency. Other business have dress codes indicating things like, 'No shirt, No shoes, No service'.  Surely US Airways could implement a policy similar to these if they desired. I don't think too many people would argue with, 'Cover your *ss, or you don't get a seat'.

While some people will publicly argue that this is o.k., I don't think most of the population actually thinks that way. And I don't think most people would actually want to sit next to this guy. I think the biggest problem is that people are too fearful of hurting someone else's feelings by speaking up when they should.

If someone dressed this way wants to sit next to me on a flight, you better believe I'll be asking the flight attendant to seat him next to someone else. Hopefully my move will make everyone else bold enough to do the right thing, and presumably if no one wants to sit next to this guy, it will send a strong message to US Airways, or any other airline moronic enough to have a similar policy.

For those of you who are a bit squeamish about doing the right thing for fear of offending, here's the line I use to decide where I feel it's o.k. to voice my opinion - if it is something physical about a person that they have no control over, it's off-limits for comment. That's it. If it's something the individual chooses to do, causing others to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced, it's fair game. I don't cut on people, but the moronic actions people take are fair game for my big yap all day long.

Have you trapped yourself in?

As I was leaving my house the other day, opening the storm door I noticed a huge spider between the window and the screen. It had an elaborate web made of what looked like a combination of tubes and regular webbing that it could navigate practically from the bottom of the screen to the top.

The odd thing was that this spider was so large, there was no way it will ever be able to get out – unless someone opens the window, allowing it to escape, which I’m sure it probably would avoid, for a number of reasons that I'll get into later.

I realized that this is a real good comparison to a lot of people’s lives.

When we are growing up, or as we meander through life, we put ourselves situations where we don’t look at the big picture, and where we will be years down the road because of our decisions. Undoubtedly, the spider placed itself in between the screen and the glass when it was quite small. We too, often grow into a situation that we couldn’t get out of, even if we tried. Our web has gotten so large, and we have accepted where we are at for so long, we feel there’s nowhere to escape.

This spider has another problem - now it is at the disadvantage of where it placed itself when relying on it's food source. What it must eat now has to be smaller than the size of the little squares in the screen, making it a lot harder to get what it would have, if it were outside the screen. In the normal environment it would get large flies, and other insects, with much less work. It now has to hope things work out, and that enough small bugs decide to wander in.

Unfortunately, when someone ‘opens the window’ to allow the spider a way out, it will cower back in its comfort zone, too afraid to leave. Instead of taking advantage of the opening, it runs away scared, choosing to run the other way, deeper into it's confined life, to remain in the same spot where it's going to die. 

This is similar to a lot of people. When a door opens, they refuse to go out into the world where they would have a much better chance of having a meaningful, useful, and enjoyable life. Instead, like the spider, they will remain in their confined, mediocre, and often miserable life, knowing that it won't get any better where they are at, and they remain, just waiting to die.

Hopefully you're different, and when you find that the window or door has been opened for you, you won’t hesitate. Take that opportunity to escape from a life of misery, to a life of opportunity!