Becoming Savage

The contrast between my old self and new self is the thinest of vails...

Because going back to the old me is only a feeling of giving up away.

or not doing the things scheduled in my diary...

or worse, letting a negative comment derail me.

Like when I first started writing. I didn't get any negative comments externally, but the biggest critic wasn't a keyboard warrior, but the voice in my head.

and that voice hated the fact I was trying to better myself.

Over and over and over again it told me that was a pointless exercise trying to gain new skill, because there would be no use for it. You won't help anyone...

Like my first CrossFit workout.

Like my second CrossFit workout

Like my third CrossFit workout...

I knew what was coming and it wasn't going to be pleasurable.

Neither of myself nor my ego wanted to go though the physical pain of 12 minutes of breathing fire.

Equally, neither of us wanted to start getting up at silly o'clock to get shit done before work too...

But no matter how much my ego and my real self protested, I decided to own my life.

Own my mind.

Own my body.

Own my relationships.

Own my business growth.

I wish I could say that following my self-imposed schedule has been an easy process.

It hasn't, especially when you throw in to the mix family, illness, household chores, fun time, parents evening, weekends, night time routines and work to pay the bills.

Yet today marks my 171st Facebook post which astonishes me.

Said differently. That's book number 2 in 19 days time.

But I could have equally done nothing over 171 days.

Like last night. It marked my 100th CrossFit workout which has led to a breakthrough in my mind...

Which led to having a purpose in life.

To leading a mission to make impact in peoples lives through the Kinsmen Regiment.

Which turned into crazy never been done before challenges to get military homeless off the streets.

Which has turned in to a world of possibilities to create a better world. To live a better life. To take total responsibility for who I am and what I will do.

To live a challenge based life no matter how hard the things I want to achieve in my life look...

This momentum came from nothing but asking, "What if..."

What if I don't...?

What if I do...?

What are the possibilities...?

But the question that really scares me on a daily basis is getting to the point where I have to ask myself, "Why didn't i...?

The only antidote to this question is to keep building.

Most of us go to pretty great lengths to grow, to expand, to become better. We challenge ourselves. We spend money to attend learning events...

We read book after book..?

We innovate what we've made to improve the entity...?

We're already doing too much. So why do you keep pushing...?

You may have a full time job, so why are you taking on more?

What people don't understand, they don't appreciate.

And, if they don't appreciate what you do, why you do it, the risks you take, the sacrifices you make, then they'll just think you're stupid.

They won't support you.

They'll think and call you a fool and can happen even within families...

This is the point at where I'm supposed to pivot and tell you a story to explain why I do what I do.

But I'm not...

I'm not even going try to explain why I do what I do to people that believe the more money you have the more credible you are...

and neither should you.

You know what you're doing.

and you intrinsically know it takes 10 years to become an overnight success...

Better just to leave the haters to drift through to life, whilst you're too busy making an impact on others...

Have a day people...

#storyathlete #drive #push #staycommitted #freetodecide

Not because I'm self conscious, but because I didn't know my numbers.

Had I actually put weight on like my mirror told me or was Char right?

I didn't know...

So sitting in the Doctors surgery getting Logan a routine check up yesterday, I jumped on the scales...

www.johnsavage.co.uk

Standing at the entrance to our garden. A wonderful place. I'm agreeing with Kai. The sky blue and the temperature perfect to kick a ball around with him and Logan.

As he's standing there telling me I'm the worse Dad in the world because I won't play. That other dads take their sons to the park more than just a Thursday after school.

Monday after school, the boys have football practice and Amelie has gymnastics. Tuesday after school, the boys and Amelie have football practice. Wednesday after school, Amelie gymnastics.

Saturdays and Sundays mornings are taken up with football for all three of them...

So although Kai is right and I feel guilty...

www.johnsavage.co.uk

Whether you voted for Brexit or remain, we can all agree, everyone wants to wake up safe.

All remainers and brexiteers all want to know they're not going to be attacked in the street.

All of us want to be financially safe.

and all of us want to know our children have a future...

www.johnsavage.co.uk

I jumped out my skin as Char wasn't laying beside me this morning!

Reaching over to grab my iPhone it was 06:54am.

She went out with the girls last, but where was she?

www.johnsavage.co.uk

But notice, I didn’t complete the 100th workout I was meant to have achieved by the end of last year.

For whatever reason, no big deal. I’ll do the workout tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went. No work out.

I said to myself, ‘As long as I get 3 in this week, that’ll do.’

Which of course I was doing well if I did just one.

Then the Christmas period came.

I don’t eat meat so that wasn’t gonna be sitting on my stomach, but a thousand mince pies were!!

Which led to what I was trying get rid of.

Being skinny fat.

In other words, fat nowhere else on my body but around my stomach. Like constantly carrying a life guards rubber ring around my waist.

It may not look like that to other people, but that’s how it feels. And when I bend over, I see it.

This year I promised myself I would work out every day bar Sunday's no matter what.

So what’s changed this year from last year?

I live in the very same house I lived in last year but for a couple of months.

I have the same three beautiful kids. The same gorgeous wife.

I still do the same job.

I have the same and if not more problems and even less time.

So what’s changed?

The thing changed is the story I was telling myself.

That’s it.

The story.

I got a bad back or I’m already out of shape, so what’s the point.

‘I hate the way I look’ whilst I was slurping on an ice cream.

FUCK… THAT!!!

This week I will have completed 295 Push-ups, 400 Pull-ups, 45 Burpees, 45 Squat Jumps, 720 Squats, 85 Overhead Press and 170 Sit-ups.

Does this mean I’m better than anyone else? More capable than anyone else?

No. Not at all.

Honestly…

There’s not one part of me that wanted to do any of this week's workouts and I can assure you my ego was making all sorts of excuses to get out of doing them.

But will it hurt more if I don’t complete the workouts.

Honestly. Yes.

Why? Because the difference between me this year and last year…

This year, I've committed to a challenged based life.

I can't pretend anymore.

and as far as my body is concerned, I challenged it to see who’ll break first.

Our choice in life.

We either learn and grow.

Or…

Choose comfort and complacency…

And if I can’t win a challenge against my body, how the fuck am I gonna beat life…

Since leaving the army in 2005, I had never really known who I was.

All I had was a moral compass yet didn’t know where north was.

In the army where 'always doing the right thing even if it hurts' was par for the course.

The opposite of doing the right thing, your jaw became a legitimate target.

I thrived in this environment.

I loved it because I knew where I stood.

In civvi street I soon found that doing the right thing wasn’t par for the course. In fact, doing what was right had a different meaning altogether.

The majority in this environment were doing what was right by the individual. NOT the greater good of people.

Sharing the secrets my new colleagues had learned on the job. No chance. Sink or swim.

I’d came from a place where your mucker would risk his life to save yours.

So not being a quitter, I went from one internet guru to the next buying sales upon sales books in search for answer on how to sell.

I’m not gonna lie. I struggled for months and months.

Yet as soon as I discovered the secret, I started doing the arse kicking but never lost sight of always doing the right thing despite what someone may have done to me in the past.

I struggled with a pure capitalist without consciousness mindset and left to another sales job.

Again, I found myself in another me me me my money sales environment and soon left to go to another sales role.

I now was doing well.

But wanted more.

A lot more and got the opportunity to earn a tax free OTE commission only income of £250,000+ per year working and living in Oman.

I was faking it until I made it. The flash suit. The sharp tie. But I never did make it and was fired a year later leaving the Middle East penniless.

I hated the head I was trapped inside. I felt guilty for not being what I was led to believe a proper salesman was or in fact a proper man.

Why couldn’t I just fall in to line and over-value a house to win an instruction? Why couldn’t I tell half-truth to sell a product?

Why couldn’t I just do something I didn’t agree with for the sake of my family?

If you’re beating your head against a brick wall wondering what the hell truly makes you tick? If you feel like you’re not understood in this world too.

You’re not alone…

Which gets to my point.

Just a few weeks ago, I discovered what makes really makes me tick.

Why I’ve hopped from employer to employer and why I make seemingly unorthodox decisions.

and why I've walked away from lucrative business deals to my own and families financial detriment...

I am grateful for all of my experiences. I’m grateful for all the people I've met and worked with.

But if I’d known my numbers when I left the military my choices since would have been completely different.

Decisions would have been made not by my head but by my gut.

I guarantee once you know your numbers, with a bit of investigation you’ll instantly know whether you’re on your life’s true path or not…

Which begs the question. Do you need to change your life's course?

Because if you know you do, but don't I guarantee it'll cost you your life...

Don't waste it...

Google ‘Life Path Calculator’ to find out your numbers now.

Have a great day people!

Love to all.

#StoryAthlete #Alwaysdotherighthingevenifithurts #Numerology#fullfilinglife #W73/47

‘Save a soldiers life…’

So straight after the in-laws left, I banged out my first CrossFit workout of the year.

I gave myself 15 minutes to complete 45 pull ups, 45 press ups and 45 squat jumps...

21 reps of each. 15 reps of each. 9 of each…

I was in bits, made worse by the Christmas diet weighing me down and the fact that I hadn’t workout for the entire festive period…

With each rep my ego was shouting at me, ‘Enough…’

I thought I was gonna collapse but willed myself to finish the fight.

My mouth was full of sticky phlegm. My heart beating hard.

I couldn’t go on and not a single endorphin after the workout, made me good about myself either.

I just lay there in the bath exhausted and unable to wash.

Part of how I got through the workout, was a conversation we had had about mental health earlier in the day.

I had said that during the invasion of Iraq, being in a war. In a foreign land. Seeing and hearing bombs explode. Being in built up areas under the threat of death each day, it became the new norm.

Once back in to the UK, I still had massive amounts of aggression inside me. I was checking anyone and anything for signs of hostility.

Every unfamiliar civilian face I saw was a legitimate target to have their heads ripped off.

Slowly, I fell deeper into depression. Despair and Paranoia.

I became sceptical of everything.

I even planned on murdering my muckers in my 4-man room ploting the best way of achieving the objective without getting caught… (sorry Marc, Rich and Steve. You almost didn’t make it)

I didn’t understand or could comprehend why I felt this way. Like a computer that doesn’t understand a command its been given.

I wanted to live.

But I felt like my soul was slipping from me.. I was literally turning in to the walking dead.

In 2018, 71 ex and still serving soldiers committed suicide.
The first soldier to kill himself was Warrant Officer Nathan Hunt on New Years day exactly a year ago.

He wasn't a private solider that had just joined the military, but a senior soldier.

In other words, the equivalent of a premiership football manager.

Another soldier was 31 year old Corporal Mathew Shillito. He kept telling his mum: 'I'm not safe Mum, I'm not safe, I don't feel safe, I know I'm going to do something'

His mum pleaded with Mental Health to get him sectioned. They didn’t.

He died on October 1st 2018.

I was lucky. My battalion had listened.

Admittedly, I didn’t join the Army for Queen nor Country. Nor did I do it for the adulation of others.

I did it because I wanted to experience war. To be the best I could be.

But you know the thing that tipped me over the edge into the abyss of PTSD.

Was that no one when we arrived back in the UK smiled at me.

Just a simple smile to let me know I was safe.

That I was seen.

That the random person in the street acknowledged me.

That I wasn’t a ghost.

I know there will be more suicides amongst soldiers this year. I hope there won’t.

But as people of this country regardless of whether believe in the UK’s foreign policy or not, we can come together to help stop suicides in soldiers.

Literally, the value a simple smile or even a knowing wink whether you see a soldier in military fatigues or civilian clothing would be immeasurable.

If they smile back. Good.

If they burst into tears. Good.

Because this simple act could save someone’s life and the pain of last night's workout was/is nothing compared to endless battle these 71 soldiers went through.

If you know any military personal still serving or now left service and suffering.. get them in contact with me.

I'll be more than happy to listen.

#alwaysdotherightthingevenifithurts #PTSD #asimplesmile

I’m ashamed to admit it but I chose not to stick by the person who stuck by me through thick and thin.

As shocking as this is, I chose instead to find solace in someone else and that wasn't my wife...