Month: August 2010

Positive Experience – Meeting LMI’s Glen Ostergaard

I have been teaching LMI’s RPM for the last 3 years – it was the first indoor cycling certification that I received and it is where I meet and fell in love with Rachel. There were two key figures for program at the time, Glen Ostergaard for New Zealand and Dan McDonogh from Canada.

On Friday morning when I was walking down Front Street near the Toronto convention center I noticed a group of 4 or 5 people that looked very familiar. I made eye contract with one of them and found myself saying “Glen” and walking over to him with my hand extended. We walked over to me with the hey do I know you look on his face and hand up. We shock hands and I told him that I loved RPM, loved what he was doing and asked him if he liked Canada – yeah, it’s a little silly but I tend to ask anyone who is from another country if they like Canada because I think it’s the best place in the world. He said he did, and asked what classes I was going to be taking the next day. We chatted briefly about nothing in particular, exchanged names and I thanked him for his time and for RPM. He smiled and said “your welcome”.

It was an amazing experience because I have tried to model the way I teach after the way Glen instructs and because he was really cool about it. I’m sure it gets annoying to have people come up to you like they know you but I tried to let him know that he had made a positive impact in my life through RPM so I don’t think that is as hard to deal with hearing – frankly, I can’t think of anything that I would rather hear than “you have had a positive impact on my life”.

Thanks Glen, you made my day!

Feelings And When To Act

It’s the CanFitPro weekend here in Toronto so I’ve been attending a few lectures to keep my personal training certification up to date. After leaving one of the sessions yesterday morning I happened to walk past a lecture room where Paul Chek had just finished up and was answering questions.

I’ve read some of Paul’s work before and respect his point of view about a lot of things so I figured I would go in an listen. I prefer to listen to guys like Paul answer question because I think his off the script stuff is going to be more interesting. Well, I wasn’t disappointed.

He was addressing a question about fear and feelings of low self worth. His answer was a breath of fresh air. He told the questioner to accept that there were feelings and that the feelings were coming from a place of love. Next he alluded to the feelings revealing some information that is important but not necessarily worth addressing in the moment.

He said “with things like that I like to play the counting by three game where you count by threes as quickly as possible”. If you find yourself able to do it, then the thoughts do not require immediate action given that you are able to complete a trivial task instead saving your life (I’m paraphrasing here). If you can’t count by threes then you probably need to action quickly because there is something serious going on.

I think this is important. Paul didn’t discount the feelings as he has accepted that feelings do reveal important information or alert us to the fact that something important is happening in our immediate environment; so it is important. But if we are able to shift focus onto something else, then there is a very good chance that there is no immediate threat and therefore a more logical approach may be what is needed to address the situation.

5 Things To Live By

Five things that could make your life easier. 

Accept the world for how it is. Seeing the truth and accepting it will improve your productivity dramatically. When you stop fighting against reality you are free to work with it to improve your experience in the world.

You cannot control the world so focus your energy on things that increase the chance of you being successful. There is such a huge interdependence with all things on the planet that it is impossible for you to control the world. Accept this and focus your energy on the few things that you do have some control over – your thoughts and your actions.

Listen to other people because you will learn something and because it makes the other person feel useful. Almost everything you know you have learned from another person. When you shut your mouth and listen when people are talking you will open yourself to new lessons. You’ll also be giving them the opportunity to clarify and consolidate their memories while feeling they have value for having given their input.

Rarely give unsolicited advice and when giving advice accept that the other person isn’t going to follow it. Unsolicited advice doesn’t cost anything and is therefore viewed as worthless; so don’t expect anyone to action on your worthless opinion. If you want people to do what you say make them pay you to tell them what to do.

Do it now. When we say we’ll do it later we are conceding that it isn’t a priority; what reason do you have to believe that it will become a priority at some point in the future? If you are going to table an action until later, make sure you table it to a specific time and not just “later”.