There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look more attractive. If that’s what gets you into the gym, then so be it. But the fifth maxim in Be The Total Package is about appreciating the things you can’t necessarily see with the naked eye.

If you want to get fit and stay fit, you need to build momentum. All you need to do is know what the elements of momentum are and apply the formula. The application of the formula is, of course, where most people fall short. Why? Because they live according to mental paradigms that conflict with their goal of getting in shape.

I’ve seen people quit in the middle of building momentum because they didn’t know what momentum felt like and didn’t even realize they were building any. So for you or anyone you know who needs reasons to stick with it when progress seems too slow, the fifth maxim will be a shot in the arm.

Download your copy of the ebook today and change your life!

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep

Sayonara until next time.

Time—your time—is what the fourth maxim in Be The Total Package covers. Whether you’re wasting it or maximizing it, time keeps moving in one direction.

So, what are you really doing with yours? More to the point, are you habitually distracted? Distractions are ubiquitous and seductive, but once you recognize when you’re in a distracted state, you can take steps to resist.

Be intentional. That’s the key, and it requires that you take some of your time back. Your priorities need to include you, so no matter how much time you’re giving to other things and other people, remember that a part of each day is rightfully yours to work on yourself.

Discover everything about the fourth maxim by downloading your copy of the ebook.

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep 

Sayonara until next time.

The third maxim in Be The Total Package is all about energy. Too many people are lacking in it, while some people have an abundance of it.

Whatever type of energy you have, it creates momentum, either positive or negative. In other words, it feeds on itself and produces more of the same. The big question is: in which direction?

Perpetual weariness can’t be hidden because it pretty much goes hand in hand with looking terrible. It makes it hard to smile and even harder to live. I have concluded that people who accept it believe, somewhere deep down, that it’s what they deserve. With no one nearby telling them otherwise, they may even think it’s normal.

The good news is that feeling tired all the time is a choice, which means another, better option is always available. So what are you willing to accept?

Learn all about the third maxim by downloading your copy of the ebook.

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep 

Sayonara until next time.

This is week 2 of my Be The Total Package teaser series of posts. The question you need to ask yourself is: Am I not worth it?

Cost is not value. Understanding the difference between the two allows you to make wise decisions about allocating your personal resources. No matter what you decide to do each day, you’re going to spend your time or your money on those things, or both.

Remember to value the value. What I mean is that any investment in your fitness must first be judged by its value. What are the quantifiable benefits, and what are the unquantifiable benefits? Is there some benefit that is invaluable? And, most importantly, are you worth it?

To gain more insight into the second maxim, download your copy of the ebook.

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep

Sayonara until next time.

I wrote Be The Total Package for you—yes, you. I want you to be excited about everything the book will reveal to you. So, for the next eight weeks, I’m going to provide brief glimpses of what each of the eight maxims in Be The Total Package is about. 

Being the total package is a choice. You don’t have to be. After all, most people are not, and neither are they trying to be or even aware of what it takes. This is most obvious simply by looking around when you’re out in public. Vastly more people are in terrible shape than are in excellent shape. Excuses abound, but the truth is that most people are comfortable being average. Sure, it would be nice to be better than middling, but the truth is that they don’t want it badly enough.

I believe you’re someone who chooses to be more and accomplish more in your life so you can know for yourself what your real capabilities are. To gain more insight into the first maxim, download your copy of the ebook.

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep

Sayonara until next time.

Be The Total Package is my new book, and it’s now available for download at the homepage of bouncepep.com. To be blunt, if you’re happy being average, it’s not the book for you. It speaks directly to high achievers who know they must get in better shape but have trouble committing to it and building the necessary habits.

If you know your life is missing something despite your success, that’s your intuition whispering to you. Having an impressive title, wealth, or an advanced education doesn’t mean you’ve fulfilled your promise. Those accomplishments are not enough for you to be the total package. In the book, I reveal the elements that comprise being the total package and explain the role your fitness plays. While a strong desire is required for you to get in shape, your mindset and reasons will make or break your efforts.

Be The Total Package provides 8 maxims to fortify your mindset while identifying several self-sabotaging ideas and behaviors that can keep you from getting fit. Your desire to be healthy, strong, and bursting with energy is all well and good. But desire has to align with identity first. I break that principle down for you and reveal many other insights to help you overcome misconceptions and mental roadblocks to getting yourself in better shape.

Knowledge is power, so download your own copy of Be The Total Package to get the full picture. I want to share these maxims with as many other high achievers as I can. As a bonus, you’ll be awarded an honorary membership in the Bounce Pep Society. Go and get it!

Be The Total Package eBook – Bounce Pep

Sayonara until next time.

There’s a time for comfort, but it’s not when I’m working out. So long as I don’t risk injuring myself, I don’t mind straining and struggling. A workout is not rewarding to me otherwise, so I welcome discomfort when training.

Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the inflammation of the muscles you feel for a couple of days following an intense workout. What your body is doing is repairing muscle fibers that you tore, and that’s what you want it to do. Some people experience DOMS as pain, but I experience it as pleasure. Some people hate it, but I love it. To me, it feels good to be strong, and DOMS lets me know I’m becoming stronger and more resilient.

It’s not that a workout shouldn’t be fun, because it can be at times. And you can hit a comfortable stride sometimes as well. But remember that it’s called a “workout,” not a “fun-out,” and I hope you embrace DOMS because it affirms that your workout involved some actual work.

On the other hand, if you rarely feel DOMS, you might want to push yourself a little harder when you train. Life in modern, advanced societies affords you plenty of opportunities to be comfortable and risk nothing. I submit to you that your workout is an opportunity to challenge yourself. The physical stress is only one aspect; the true challenge is mental. It’s you against you.

Sayonara until next time.

There are people who never figure out what their purpose is. They exist. They survive. But they don’t ascribe any meaning to their lives. To cope with the mundaneness of living, they surrender themselves to distractions.

For the person with no sense of purpose, distractions are impossible to resist. They relieve the boredom of a life lived haphazardly. They provide something to focus on, albeit misguidedly. So many of us are obsessed with the frolics and foibles of celebrities we don’t know. We spend our free time distracted by things like social media, video games, television, and gambling. We rip and run the streets. We have no shield against all the distractions bombarding us.

Purpose is the shield. And that’s why you need to know what your purpose is. Even a humble worker bee knows exactly why it exists. How do you know there’s not a higher level for you? Or why couldn’t there be something bigger than yourself that you could build or contribute to? Maybe there’s some way you can inspire or help other people.

This is one reason why I encourage you to work out regularly. It summons intent. It focuses your mind on something constructive and helps you see what’s possible for your life. You make it happen, contrary to the passivity of being distracted. It puts you in a purposeful frame of mind.

I can’t tell you what your purpose is, but if you don’t know, it’s time for you to find it.

Sayonara until next time.

Everybody is somebody, but most people would find it difficult to respond if asked, "Who are you?" The straightforward answer would be to state their name, but that’s merely a label. It fails to answer the question behind the question.

Identity is rarely verbalized, but pay attention to a person’s patterns of behavior and it will be evident. If you know someone who’s always been out of shape, that’s an issue of identity. They can imagine themselves being out of shape. More importantly, they can accept it, which is why they are.

Identity may seem like an amorphous concept, but it’s not so hard to understand. It’s the beliefs you have about yourself, some of which you may not be conscious of, and the character traits that result. Character traits would be things such as consistency, unreliability, or curiosity. Taking it a step further, whatever you really believe about yourself will manifest as patterns of behavior.

Then who are you? You have to claim your identity, especially regarding your fitness and health. The key to staying in shape is an inability to see or accept being out of shape. You must identify at your core as health conscious. When you have that conviction, your behavior aligns, and you manifest a fit body and healthier outcomes than you otherwise would.

Who you are is not immutable. Whether it’s fitness or some other aspect of your life that you want to improve, start by claiming the identity of the person you want to become. Your behavior will gradually become a reflection of it.

Sayonara until next time.

This week’s Pep Talk takes place on the #TeamWoods Podcast!

It’s a one-on-one interview about everything from growing up in Detroit to founding Bounce Pep to inspire high achievers to get in better shape and be the total package.

Go here now and watch:

https://youtu.be/wQ0I0xqmdFQ

Thanks to my great friend Scott Fain for hosting and producing the podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to his podcast and hit the "like" button when you watch the video.

Sayonara until next time.

They’ll be with you at a restaurant, a bar, or perhaps a home party. Everyone has arrived in good spirits. There are no problems to speak of at the moment. You’re asked what you want to drink or eat, and you request something quite modest. Maybe it's a glass of water or a salad. The next thing you know, they’re stunned and taken aback that you have no intention of getting drunk or eating yourself into oblivion.

You reassure them that everything’s o.k. It’s just that you’re being more careful about how you eat, and you’ve started working out.

They look at you like you’re from another planet. Why in the world would you be trying to level yourself up? They implore you to lighten up and stop worrying about indulging a little, even though you’re not worried about anything. They act as if you’re stealing their fun, even though you never suggested they shouldn’t indulge.

There’s nothing wrong with you. Understand that most people struggle with discipline, so when you exercise discipline in their presence, they feel second-rate. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. They think destroying their health is more fun than preserving it. They can’t hold back and don’t know how to pace themselves. For them, enough is not sufficient, and a little feels like utter deprivation.

Hold your ground. Mediocrity has a gravitational pull that will suck you down if your mind is not fortified against it. Don’t drink or eat something you’ve intentionally and smartly cut back on just because they feel insecure. If your limit is one glass of wine, enjoy one glass and then switch to something non-alcoholic. If you’re cutting back on deep-fried food, ask to have whatever isn’t deep-fried. It’s your prerogative, not theirs.

Sayonara until next time.

You may or may not be a morning person, but I have a simple prescription for you this week. If you’re not already in the habit, start exercising each and every morning within an hour of waking up for at least five minutes. Of course, if you customarily do a full workout in the morning, you’re already ahead of the game. This directive is for people who currently have no regular fitness routine in the morning.

You can keep it simple with a few exercises and stretches that are just enough to get your heart rate up. Typically, I get out of bed at 5:15 a.m., and I’m in my living room ready to meditate for a few minutes by 6:00 a.m. Then it’s time for some light exercise. Upper and lower body stretches, push-ups, stair-stepping, biceps curls, kickbacks, body-weight squats, and planks are some examples of the types of exercises I do on any given morning. I rarely go for more than seven minutes. In that vein, it’s important that you don’t overthink things. Just do something to move your body against some kind of physical resistance. Having a set of resistance bands and some dumbbells is useful in that regard.

You should have a couple of objectives in mind when establishing this habit. Your main objective is to boost your mood so that you’re in the right frame of mind for the day ahead. You need to be alert and firing on all cylinders because every day holds the possibility of an unforeseen challenge. Think of it as a mental trick you play on yourself. You’re inflicting some mild but controlled stress on yourself first thing in the morning so that stressful situations later on are less likely to fluster you.

The secondary objective is to keep fitness at the top of your mind. I call it making fitness "conspicuous," and it affirms your identity as the kind of person who stays in shape. I believe the reason so many people struggle to stay motivated to work out is because they’re able to see themselves as being out of shape. But when being fit is part of your very identity, you don’t struggle with motivation to work out because your commitment supersedes your motivation or lack thereof.

Don’t beat around the bush. Implement this in your morning routine immediately and watch what happens. It’ll be habitual after a few weeks, and you’ll be loving the benefits.

Sayonara until next time.