Amateur Trainer or Amateur Trainee

I had some time this evening, and didn’t have anything planned so I took it upon myself to give a "fitness hand" to the kid that works for me who I wanted to choke out a few weeks back.  He’s a good kid, just doesn’t’ t know much about anything, I don’t blame him because he comes from a situation where I don’t think he was exposed to much, and he tries to overcompensate his feelings of inadequacies by talking too much.  He’s one of those kids that can’t appreciate silence, in the movie Crimson Tide, Gene Hackman tells Denzel Washington "Good Job Hunter…" and goes into a diatribe about egg heads who would have fucked up the view, this kid would have just fucked up the view.

He is also a major hypochondriac, he has been in the ER more times in the last year than my two parents who are in their 70’s have in the last 5 years combined.  I started talking to him before I left for Malibu in March that he should focus on getting his health better.  He drinks cokes all day, smokes too much, and eats crap.  What’s so funny is that his constant need to talk will actually prevent him from eating sometimes, I recall one time I went to check on the wash that he works at, and he was so eager to talk to me that his lunch which he was about to eat went cold, so he threw it out.  No he didn’t buy anything else to eat, I've never met a mouth prevent itself from feeding itself.

The other guys he works with at that location workout 3-4 times a week, and are in good shape.  He really wants to get stronger, and build his confidence from the inside out.  I know what he makes, which is not enough to afford at trainer, and I am generous but not that fucking nice.  So I decided I would workout with him this evening and teach him technique on a few basic exercises, and then put him through a shorten Metcon workout. 

If you have ever seen a chicken try and dance that would describe this guy.  His body is so tight everywhere that he can’t relax enough to keep his chest up and back straight, he stays hunched over, I ended up spending more than 90 minutes a good chunk of trying to get him into the right position.

Every time he wanted to start talking about high school wrestling, or relate something to me or the situation I told him to shut up, and keep working.  The funny thing was in this context he just did it…

I taught him how to do a dumbbell chest press, a standing bent over row, a body weight squat, lunges, burpees, mountain climbers, dumbbell curls, and a couple of stretches.

During the Metcon which invovled 1 minute each of the following push-ups, pull-ups, squats, burpees, push presses.  I gave him 1:30 rest in the middle of the Metcon at which point he said to me that I’ve told him I’m not a "rah, rah" type of guy so don’t expect it.  He said that I was, and didn’t realize it.  I can push and motivate this kid in the context of athletics, but why can’t I apply that to him in business.

It made me realize first that I need to hire the best all the time, and with my rediscovered mental fortitude, the best people who are coach able, and have the mindset to learn.  Then I am going to motivate rather than break balls.  I'm going to change this business like I am changing myself, and turn it into either the most well oiled car wash in the US, and keep it long term or position to sell it as the best car wash in the US. 

This is a challenge I will take on, and thanks to 90 minutes with this kid, I've realized that like the way I felt about my body, the way I feel about my business is the same thing.  I will change it from the inside out and make it something that generates great financial freedom, or a cash cow that I can cash in at the cage like stacks of $100,000 Belagio Chips. 

Ultimately if I’m not happy with this business I don’t think I could be happy in any business, because it’s what I make of it.  I am still a business owner who makes his time and schedule not the “man”.  I realize today a great deal of my unhappiness with the business was a direct result of my health and lack of positive personal development.  Regardless of what I do in a year today, I am going to do the effort to take this mature business the next 10-15% growth curve where every business goes from being good to great.  I plan on doing everything in my life great.  I will start with this business.

Daily Recap

After a week of great workouts, I capped it out with an uninspired morning.  The night before I had a guest over, who kept me up longer than I anticipated, and as an added bonus I had to drive this guest to the airport at 5 AM.  Needless to say I got 5 hours of sleep which apparently after the age of 25 no longer recharges you enough to make yourself functional.  Waking up I felt like I had been out at a fraternity party all night, doing keg stands, and bong hits while trying to watch the movie Friday spending the entire night pretending to be Chris Tucker, playing Mario Cart endlessly for hours, and trying to devise a way to bake a cake only using my mind, a spoon, and a bowl…not that I’ve ever done that before…or ever seen that happen…

When I got to the gym I wanted to go back home and go back to bed, from the start of the session I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a back to back.  This wasn’t just a case of the “I don’t want to work blues”, I actually felt for the first time if I push myself as hard as I normally do I will hurt myself.  I think the only fortunate outcome of the circumstances that lead up to my session with Ali was that he had a person in the time slot an hour behind my original one, so I didn’t start working out with him until two hours after my original time, which meant when I was done I had to go work.  Otherwise I’m pretty sure I would have tried to run on the treadmill today, precisely because of how bad I was feeling.

Ali had me warm up on the treadmill doing cart pushers, and boxing.  The initial round of boxing with Ali defined the term uninspiring, I couldn’t get a good snap into my punches, and my hand speed was nonexistent.  Amidst the mediocre boxing I found a way to get a good combination of punches probably once every 3^rd or 4^th punch.

After the warm-up Ali had me start with some back work doing upright rows using a barbell, and doing squat to upright rows.  Each exercise was done for a minute at a time, and done for two sets.  We then moved into some chest presses with dumbbells.  While lying on a stability ball I warmed up my chest doing presses with 40 lbs dumbbells, and then moving to 50 lbs dumbbells.  He would have me alternate between regular chest presses and negative resistance presses. 

 It was a struggle to get through the next 40 minutes of the session, not because he wasn’t keeping it interesting but I physically didn’t have it, or more importantly I allowed my mind to give up and I was mentally not prepared. 

With the remaining time we were able to work in more boxing and focused a great deal of attention on biceps, triceps, and shoulders.   I didn’t rest between sets for very long, in fact I was only concered about keeping my body moving. 

When we finished I went home had breakfast, and then went to work.  50% of me felt awesome that I was able to gut out a workout, whiel the other 50% of me was pissed that I didn’t do the treading session afterwards.

I guess I am learning a bit of moderation, yet I hope it’s a not case of back sliding.

My eating went well today, it was one of only a dozen days were I have actually eaten everything that I had planned from the day before.  In terms of sticking to a diet plan, it couldn’t get much better than this…