All classes are cancelled for Saturday, January 23rd due the storm.
Please be safe!
The Power of Words
I just wanted to send out a quick message to ask everyone to take 2 seconds out of their busy holiday season to spread a little cheer. Our words can put a huge smile on someone’s face or lift the spirits of just about anyone.
Check out what happened with me and a co-worker recently. As innocent as it was, it really made an impact on her day and maybe even her week.
As I was driving through the parking lot at work, an employee from another part of the building was walking towards the building. It was early and she was walking sluggishly, with her head down. So being light-hearted as I am, I rolled down the window as I was passing by and gave her an enthusiastic “Good Morning Sunshine”. It startled her at first. Then she gave a huge smile. I smiled back and continued on driving. About 10 days had passed before I had seen her again, this time inside work. She came over to tell me how much it meant to her, and that she wasn’t having such a great morning that day until my kind words filled her with real happiness. At first I barely remembered the situation, but then it quickly came to me. I then realized it was just those few words that made the impact. So the moral of the story is…
What and when you say something to someone can really make an IMPACT on their day. Whether it’s a quick “Hello,” a “Nice to see you,” or a quirky funny little phrase, it may be just what someone needed to put a smile on their face for hours or even days. Your words may cheer someone up that’s having a bad day or a hard holiday season. Just be cheery when you can. You never know whose life or day you’ll touch.
Have a wonderful holiday season, and keep doing what you’re doing!
Steven Fleischer
NASM CPT, YES, TBBC TRANSFORMATION COACH
How to Really Grow as a Person
We can say certain things are important to us but it’s what we do in the face of adversity that matters.
TBBC’s Values
Our core values are near and dear to our hearts. And it’s not just me. It’s all of our team members. Rather than just hang them on a plaque in our office we try to live them out each day. Often times when we are making decisions we look to our values for clues on what we should do.
To illustrate the difference of saying what your values are and living them out, I share with your Enron’s core values listed in its annual report to share holders…
1. Communication – We have an obligation to communicate.
2. Respect – We treat others as we would like to be treated.
3. Integrity – We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and sincerely.
4. Excellence– We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in everything we do. (Enron, Annual Report, 2000, p. 29).
Personal examples
One think that is extremely important to me is health and fitness. I’m willing to sacrifice things that might seem better in the short term for it. Things like tasty treats, time doing other things, more sleep, etc. I know I will be so much better off in the long term. In fact, my wife and I were blessed with our second daughter this past Thursday. One goal that I had was that no matter how difficult things get I will not miss my workouts and I will continue to track my nutrition. These are habits that I want to keep strong. So far so good.
Another example is family. It’s one thing to say my family is important but that doesn’t make sense if I am working around the clock to support a lifestyle that isn’t really needed while the “valuable” family time is sacrificed. In fact if our basic needs are met I’m willing to sacrifice money in the short term. I believe that this will pay dividends I the long run both for the family and financially.
As mentioned, we are so excited about our new baby. One of my biggest dreams and goals has always been to do whatever I can to help facilitate an environment where my children can be close with one another. My vision is to see Alyssa (4) and Olivia (just born) grow up being extremely close and supportive of one another. I will do whatever it takes to help this occur.
Action steps
The first step is to understand what values are important to you.
Next, spend a few minutes after the day and jot down the times throughout the day that you had the opportunity to live those values out.
If there were times that you didn’t, what changes can you make?
A Hug, a Kiss, High Five, and Fist Bump
My newly turned 4 year old daughter Alyssa has a pretty unique (I think) routine she does with my wife and I each evening before retiring. It started out as a gesture of endearment between her and her little buddies from church and has taken on a life of its own.
At first it was a hug and a kiss. Then it became a hug, kiss, and high five. Then a second high five was added. A fist bump came next. Then of course a second fist bump. Now the complete routine looks like this…
• Hug
• Kiss
• High five (us to her)
• High five (her to us)
• Fist bump (us to her)
• Fist bump (her to us)
• Up high high five (us to her)
• Down low five (She moves her hand and says, “Too slow.”)
• Up high high five (her to us)
• Down low five (We move our hand and say, “Too slow.”)
• Up high high five (us to her)
• Down low five (She lets us hit her hand and says, “Aww you got me.”)
• Up high high five (her to us)
• Down low five (We let her hit our hand and say “Aww you got me.”)
Are you still with me? Are you exhausted yet? Yeah we do this every night.
I don’t have time
One night I was busy typing up something on my laptop and Alyssa wanted to come up and sit on my lap. I told her the lie that “I didn’t have time” so I couldn’t lift her up at the moment.
An hour or two later she was going to bed and came to say goodnight. I went to do our usual ritual when she looked at me with disappointment in her little blue eyes and said, “Daddy I’m sorry I don’t have time” and went off to bed.
OUCH! Man I knew I was a sensitive dude but that hit me hard like a stiff jab to the nose.
I know kids like to “push the envelope” sometimes and see what they can get away with but I’m assuming she felt this way at least partly because of my comment earlier.
We can make time
The reality is we all have time. We “make time” for those things that are important to us.
I think if we tell others, especially our kids that we don’t have time we are not being completely honest. A more honest but probably more difficult response would be “Right now I want to do ____________.”
What are you not making time for and how can you change that?
How Some People Can Overcome any Obstacle and Achieve Greatness
This past weekend I watched the movie Gifted Hands which was about Dr. Ben Carson. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend you watch it for some inspiration and entertainment. Cuba Gooding Jr. did an amazing job in the film.
Many of us think because we started out with few advantages that we aren’t capable of achieving our goals. If anyone knows hard times, it’s Carson. His mother was in and out of foster homes during her childhood and battled severe depression later in life. She was on her own to raise Ben and his brother with little resources. She was on her own because her husband (Ben’s dad) decided to sell drugs and eventually start another family while still married to her. I don’t want to spoil the movie if you haven’t seen it but as you can imagine, this led to quite the ripple effect including extreme anger in young Ben Carson.
Wild Success
How did this person from such humble beginning go on to be the youngest major division director in Johns Hopkins hospital’s history as director of pediatric neurosurgery at age 33? He is also the first to successfully separate conjoined twins who were joined at the back of the head. He has now announced that he is running for the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election.
Hard work
There is no doubt that Carson has worked extremely hard to get where he is. He was inspired by something his mother would often say…”You can be anything you want to be in this life as long as you’re willing to work for it.” And work for it he did. Frustrated with her family’s plot in life, Mrs. Carson once angrily remarked to Ben and his brother while they were watching TV, “If you spend your free time developing your God-given gifts, it won’t be long before they’re watching you on TV.” This lit a fire in Ben and he became a ferocious reader and would spend countless hours at the library learning about a variety of subjects.
Mindset Shift
When Ben was young, he had a very poor self-image. He told himself that he had a “dumb brain” and wouldn’t amount to much. Once he realized his actual self he began seeing major strides in his results.
Faith
At one point Ben became enraged with his friend at something as trivial as which song was on the radio and tried to stab him. Fortunately the knife broke instead.
Ben ran home and prayed to God to take the anger from him. After praying and believing the anger was miraculously gone!
What can we take from Dr. Benjamin Carson?
Dr. Carson was certainly given natural gifts. We might not be called to be world class neurosurgeons. However, with a dose of hard work, mindset shift, and faith there are no limits to what we can achieve.
Weight Watchers or Waist Expander?
On Wednesday, Jean Nidetch, founder of Weight Watchers died at the age of 91. Nidetch has one of those feel good stories which illustrates the American dream. She was the daughter of a cabdriver and a manicurist. In 1968 when Weight Watchers went public and was sold to H.J. Heinz Co., Nidetch became a millionaire. What started as a confession of a cookie obsession to a group of friends in her Queens, NY apartment ultimately impacted millions of people. That’s inspiration!
The part you may not hear so much about
Like most things Weight Watchers has advantages as well as flaws. Most women end up heavier than when they began just one year later. In fact, there is a 99% long term failure rate. To top it off Nidetch struggled with her weight into her later years.
The Positives of Weight Watchers
This isn’t an article to bash Weight Watchers. It’s simply my opinion. How can I hate on someone who did so much with her life!
• Weekly meetings – Accountability is a great tool for weight loss/fitness.
• Empathy – There are a lot of emotional factors behind dieting and Weight Watchers certainly addresses this.
• Focus – You are required to track yourself both in terms of weigh-ins and food consumption. This definitely can be a plus
The Down Side
• Weekly meetings – This might seem like a contradiction as it is in the list above. To me it depends on what happens at the meetings. I worry that some Weight Watcher meetings are nothing more than a pity party. Positive action must be the emphasis for success.
• A calorie is not a calorie – While Weight Watchers generally keeps your total calories in check, it is missing a crucial component; what those calories are made up of. For example, a 7 point plate with protein and refined carbohydrates will have a very different effect on your health and metabolism than one with protein and healthy fats.
• Not Performance Based – Unfortunately just focusing on weight can sabotage results. If you are constantly telling yourself you want to “lose weight” you’re just reinforcing that something is wrong with you. Instead, focus on the positives (e.g. healthy habits) or even a performance goal (e.g. I easily run 2 miles without stopping).
What does work? As mentioned, my opinion is that some of the principles of Weight Watchers can help. I do feel there are some missing ingredients that could be game changing for most people. Here are 3 action steps.
1. Cut out (or minimize) simple sugar and refined carbohydrates.
2. Choose a goal. Performance based goals are great.
3. Eat some protein at each meal. This supports lean muscle tissue which will help you maintain or increase your metabolism.