Life Unsettled

This topic is about women in the workplace. When I say women employees, there are all kinds of things that pop into people’s minds, and probably everybody’s thinking something different. What I’m going to get into is (and there’ll be a bunch of recommendations at the bottom, both for women and for men) are women cheap and inexpensive employees? Are they worth the risk? Are they an opportunity?

What happened was I was talking about something with a woman, I’m talking about the topic in planning of an episode, and all of a sudden she started talking to me about incidents that happened. How other women set a really bad example and hurt other women’s chances.How opportunities are ruined or restricted because of the way some women behave in the workplace. I’m not talking about how they go after each other. That’s well-noted, well-documented. It’s happened over and over again where it seems like the woman boss doesn’t really help out a woman who’s coming up. Those things may be changing over time. Hopefully they are. I’m talking about something a little different.

What she was talking about was the fact that here are a lot of women who are trying to show and demonstrate that they are really good employees, workers; that they’re creative, innovative, productive, etc.; all of the things that you would expect from a great man or woman regardless of what category, what sex they are. She started citing, and then another woman chimed in with other examples of women who, for example, come out of school, they go into a job, and they start out by saying and demanding on day one: “I graduated such and such, I am this. I need to have this much time off. I need to be allowed to have such and such for my kids. I’m going to be having kids in the near future. I’m going to need so many months or so much time off,” etc. They’re making these demands, because popular opinion in the media has said this is what is expected, that this is what everybody should have.

Let’s go to the other side. From the woman’s perspective, here she’s trying to establish that she is independent, just as good as a man, and then there’s a woman who’s saying: “I’m just good, and I’m so good in such a limited period of time that I can have things where I don’t show up because something happens in my family or I need time off,” etc. There’s a real conflict there.

Let me explain it by going through what happens in hiring a person or a woman. In some cases there are certain positions that people are going to be reluctant to hire a woman in certain situations. Why would that be? Take a look at it. Yes, there is bias, there’s prejudice. Is it in some cases an appropriate business decision? Nobody wants to say it. Let’s say for an example that you have (a key employee need), and I’ve had this discussion with many women, and quite frankly they understand it very well and can see the problem with it.

When a business hires somebody that would be a key employee, think in terms of how long they go out there, strive, and search for the right candidate. They don’t hire the candidate just to fill a spot, but they might spend months looking. We’re not talking about an employee that you put an ad in Craigslist or in the newspaper, or go to the local agency and say: “I need a new person to do XYZ,” or that you’re just going through the recent graduates in college. I’m talking about people that will end up being in key positions or going to be hired right into a key position. If it takes a long time to hire that person and choose them, then it’s also going to be hard to replace them, even for four weeks, three months, whatever the period is. It’s going to be very hard for somebody else to substitute during an absence. If it was easy for somebody to substitute, they wouldn’t have spent four, six or nine months searching for somebody for that key position. They spent a long time because they thought somebody else wasn’t appropriate or wasn’t sufficiently skilled.

This topic is about women in the workplace. When I say women employees, there are all kinds of things that pop into people’s minds, and probably everybody’s thinking something different. What I’m going to get into is (and there’ll be a bunch of recommendations at the bottom, both for women and for men) are women cheap and inexpensive employees? Are they worth the risk? Are they an opportunity?

What happened was I was talking about something with a woman, I’m talking about the topic in planning of an episode, and all of a sudden she started talking to me about incidents that happened. How other women set a really bad example and hurt other women’s chances.How opportunities are ruined or restricted because of the way some women behave in the workplace. I’m not talking about how they go after each other. That’s well-noted, well-documented. It’s happened over and over again where it seems like the woman boss doesn’t really help out a woman who’s coming up. Those things may be changing over time. Hopefully they are. I’m talking about something a little different.

What she was talking about was the fact that here are a lot of women who are trying to show and demonstrate that they are really good employees, workers; that they’re creative, innovative, productive, etc.; all of the things that you would expect from a great man or woman regardless of what category, what sex they are. She started citing, and then another woman chimed in with other examples of women who, for example, come out of school, they go into a job, and they start out by saying and demanding on day one: “I graduated such and such, I am this. I need to have this much time off. I need to be allowed to have such and such for my kids. I’m going to be having kids in the near future. I’m going to need so many months or so much time off,” etc. They’re making these demands, because popular opinion in the media has said this is what is expected, that this is what everybody should have.

Let’s go to the other side. From the woman’s perspective, here she’s trying to establish that she is independent, just as good as a man, and then there’s a woman who’s saying: “I’m just good, and I’m so good in such a limited period of time that I can have things where I don’t show up because something happens in my family or I need time off,” etc. There’s a real conflict there.

Let me explain it by going through what happens in hiring a person or a woman. In some cases there are certain positions that people are going to be reluctant to hire a woman in certain situations. Why would that be? Take a look at it. Yes, there is bias, there’s prejudice. Is it in some cases an appropriate business decision? Nobody wants to say it. Let’s say for an example that you have (a key employee need), and I’ve had this discussion with many women, and quite frankly they understand it very well and can see the problem with it.

When a business hires somebody that would be a key employee, think in terms of how long they go out there, strive, and search for the right candidate. They don’t hire the candidate just to fill a spot, but they might spend months looking. We’re not talking about an employee that you put an ad in Craigslist or in the newspaper, or go to the local agency and say: “I need a new person to do XYZ,” or that you’re just going through the recent graduates in college. I’m talking about people that will end up being in key positions or going to be hired right into a key position. If it takes a long time to hire that person and choose them, then it’s also going to be hard to replace them, even for four weeks, three months, whatever the period is. It’s going to be very hard for somebody else to substitute during an absence. If it was easy for somebody to substitute, they wouldn’t have spent four, six or nine months searching for somebody for that key position. They spent a long time because they thought some...

The Game of Life, a real challenge for everybody, the idea of the topic is game. What is a game? We often hear and think in terms of a game. I looked up all kinds of definitions of it. I want to refer to and bring in the idea of The Game of Life.

Make projects a game yields a positive Attitude

A game, something that is structured, has rules or whatever, you use it for play or enjoyment, but it can also be educational. Gee, if a game can be educational, that brings up other topics and other ideas. There are some definitions that say the difference between game and work is that a game you’re not paid for, whereas work you’re paid. But wait a minute, there’s golf, tennis, baseball, football, and lots of games that people are paid for once they learn how to do it well. Even the video games, there are things out there that people make money competing in a video game. The difference between game and work is really blurred, so what I want to do is get back down into it really deep and talk about how YOU can make life a game.

First let me start by telling you what I used to do when I would train some of the programmers, developers, database administrators, etc. across the country. Very often I would go in there and they were at their computers already, etc. or I was standing up front as they entered. After we got everybody there and we got started, I would usually say something on this topic because I already noticed many of them playing things like Solitaire.

Most of them were playing Solitaire. I would say: “I can’t understand why people play games on the computer.” I’d get a lot of odd looks as I’m probably getting right now, but fortunately this is audio, so I can’t see what you’re saying or what you’re thinking, but think about it for a minute. I would say: “Think of it this way, you’ve got Solitaire. Okay, you played Solitaire yesterday. How many games did you win or lose?” They have no idea. “How many games did you play?” They have no idea. It was a mindless exercise of some random occurrence of cards and trying to put them in the right place. What happened? Nothing. You got nothing out of it.

Instead, these are people that are there on the computer to learn. By the way, this involves everybody today. There are things on the computer that you need or should know. That could be anything as simple as learning Excel or Word better. For them it was every single object on the computer.

You notice when you right click something, you see all these things, all these choices and actions, etc. You can set things. As a programmer, you actually develop those and write the code for those items. You write the code to decide that when you click on “Open,” it opens it and maybe opens up a new thing with certain colors, certain properties, what size it is, etc. All of those things are done. Even the idea of clicking on the icon or double clicking on the icon has different events, and those events cause different actions. Those are all things they need to learn.

So, what the hell are they doing playing Solitaire?

What if instead of sitting there, waiting, playing Solitaire, they went to figure one of those things out or two of those things out? I asked them: “What happens if you figure it out? You’ve won. What happens if you don’t figure it out? You get to play the game again tomorrow. No big deal, and you’ve learned something along the way which is what you were supposed to do in the first place, but by making it a game, a challenge.”

By the way, that’s the definition or part of the idea of a game. A game, basically you have some sort of goal, you have rules, you have challenges, and you have interaction. I just described what they’re supposed to be doing. The same thing.

The goal was to figure it out, the goal was to maybe how to set the properties, or figure out how to cause it to do something.

The same thing goes for most of everything you’re doing. You’re sitting there in front of your computer.

The Game of Life, a real challenge for everybody, the idea of the topic is game. What is a game? We often hear and think in terms of a game. I looked up all kinds of definitions of it. I want to refer to and bring in the idea of The Game of Life.

Make projects a game yields a positive Attitude

A game, something that is structured, has rules or whatever, you use it for play or enjoyment, but it can also be educational. Gee, if a game can be educational, that brings up other topics and other ideas. There are some definitions that say the difference between game and work is that a game you’re not paid for, whereas work you’re paid. But wait a minute, there’s golf, tennis, baseball, football, and lots of games that people are paid for once they learn how to do it well. Even the video games, there are things out there that people make money competing in a video game. The difference between game and work is really blurred, so what I want to do is get back down into it really deep and talk about how YOU can make life a game.

First let me start by telling you what I used to do when I would train some of the programmers, developers, database administrators, etc. across the country. Very often I would go in there and they were at their computers already, etc. or I was standing up front as they entered. After we got everybody there and we got started, I would usually say something on this topic because I already noticed many of them playing things like Solitaire.

Most of them were playing Solitaire. I would say: “I can’t understand why people play games on the computer.” I’d get a lot of odd looks as I’m probably getting right now, but fortunately this is audio, so I can’t see what you’re saying or what you’re thinking, but think about it for a minute. I would say: “Think of it this way, you’ve got Solitaire. Okay, you played Solitaire yesterday. How many games did you win or lose?” They have no idea. “How many games did you play?” They have no idea. It was a mindless exercise of some random occurrence of cards and trying to put them in the right place. What happened? Nothing. You got nothing out of it.

Instead, these are people that are there on the computer to learn. By the way, this involves everybody today. There are things on the computer that you need or should know. That could be anything as simple as learning Excel or Word better. For them it was every single object on the computer.

You notice when you right click something, you see all these things, all these choices and actions, etc. You can set things. As a programmer, you actually develop those and write the code for those items. You write the code to decide that when you click on “Open,” it opens it and maybe opens up a new thing with certain colors, certain properties, what size it is, etc. All of those things are done. Even the idea of clicking on the icon or double clicking on the icon has different events, and those events cause different actions. Those are all things they need to learn.

So, what the hell are they doing playing Solitaire?

What if instead of sitting there, waiting, playing Solitaire, they went to figure one of those things out or two of those things out? I asked them: “What happens if you figure it out? You’ve won. What happens if you don’t figure it out? You get to play the game again tomorrow. No big deal, and you’ve learned something along the way which is what you were supposed to do in the first place, but by making it a game, a challenge.”

By the way, that’s the definition or part of the idea of a game. A game, basically you have some sort of goal, you have rules, you have challenges, and you have interaction. I just described what they’re supposed to be doing. The same thing.

The goal was to figure it out, the goal was to maybe how to set the properties, or figure out how to cause it to do something.

Dress for Success, that is, appearance and perception is extremely important. This is a time for taking a look at what we’re doing in public or online, which is basically public. You’ve all probably heard about a book a long time ago called Dress for Success. If you haven’t, you’ve heard references to it or something. What it’s about is what kind of impression you make or have to the general public, to other people. They’re really talking about job interviews and while you’re at work, trying to move up or be exposed to a better audience.

The same thing goes if you’re in business for yourself. Remember and keep in mind that first impressions are crucial. You’ve all heard how important first impressions are. I’m actually kind of surprised that people sometimes can’t relate A to B, or B to D, or whatever. They know this, they hear it, but then I hear people turning around and saying: “Oh, just go ahead and do it, and learn on the way.” You learn on the way, and what do you do? People hear your first attempts, and those are their first impressions. I hear so often people recommending to people who are going into podcasting: “Oh, don’t worry about it. Just do it for a while and you’ll fix it up. You’ll learn, then get better skills, and you’ll start doing better and you’ll sound better.”

I heard that, but I also remembered and related the idea of first impressions and success. Make sure your sound is good. Low and behold, now more and more you hear that the most important thing is the sound. It’s even true in video. The video is not as important as the audio that’s in the video. People can put up with a little bit of static or a little bit of interference that just affects the video so it’s not quite right, but they really want to be able to hear the sound. So, you must make sure that it sounds well.

What I’m getting to with first impressions is also some of the things that we see out there today that are going kind of crazy. I’ll use an example. Colin Kaepernick. Everybody’s heard, it’s been all over the news, guy makes a dumb statement, turns around, and he decides to sit during the national anthem. So, what happens there? First of all, let me clear up one thing. Everybody’s turning around, running around, saying: “Oh, he’s got freedom of speech and there’s free speech.” First of all, let me share a big surprise to everyone: No, he doesn’t. That’s right, he doesn’t. Why? He’s at work and he’s representing the company, which is his football team. You try to do something like that in your job, and you can find yourself kicked out if it’s something that the company thinks doesn’t represent them well or doesn’t perform properly.

Let’s push that aside. The other part is: What’s he doing? First of all, he was sat down for the last five games of last year. Why? Because he wasn’t performing, he lost his starting job. So here he is trying for a starting job, fighting for it, and he becomes controversial to a brand new coach who happened be at Philadelphia the last few years and got fired from the team. Everybody on that team who was controversial or not toeing the line and not being part of the team, they were kicked off. So maybe it’s not such a good idea. It may not be bright, unless he’s taking a look at the 11 million dollar guarantee he has and saying: “I don’t really care. Maybe they’ll kick me out and I’ll just go home with my 11 million dollars.” I have no idea, but it doesn’t make sense if he’s looking at a future.

Then there’s a guy at Philadelphia, Myke Tavarres, he turns around and says: “I’m sticking with Colin Kaepernick. I’m not going to stand for the national anthem either.” What a dummy! This is an undrafted rookie who’s hoping to get on the roster. Keep in mind it starts out with like 90 players at the beginning of training camp, it’s going down to 53. Probably 40 to 45, someplace in there are already set in stone to be rehired. You’re not going to bump them off.

Dress for Success, that is, appearance and perception is extremely important. This is a time for taking a look at what we’re doing in public or online, which is basically public. You’ve all probably heard about a book a long time ago called Dress for Success. If you haven’t, you’ve heard references to it or something. What it’s about is what kind of impression you make or have to the general public, to other people. They’re really talking about job interviews and while you’re at work, trying to move up or be exposed to a better audience.

The same thing goes if you’re in business for yourself. Remember and keep in mind that first impressions are crucial. You’ve all heard how important first impressions are. I’m actually kind of surprised that people sometimes can’t relate A to B, or B to D, or whatever. They know this, they hear it, but then I hear people turning around and saying: “Oh, just go ahead and do it, and learn on the way.” You learn on the way, and what do you do? People hear your first attempts, and those are their first impressions. I hear so often people recommending to people who are going into podcasting: “Oh, don’t worry about it. Just do it for a while and you’ll fix it up. You’ll learn, then get better skills, and you’ll start doing better and you’ll sound better.”

I heard that, but I also remembered and related the idea of first impressions and success. Make sure your sound is good. Low and behold, now more and more you hear that the most important thing is the sound. It’s even true in video. The video is not as important as the audio that’s in the video. People can put up with a little bit of static or a little bit of interference that just affects the video so it’s not quite right, but they really want to be able to hear the sound. So, you must make sure that it sounds well.

What I’m getting to with first impressions is also some of the things that we see out there today that are going kind of crazy. I’ll use an example. Colin Kaepernick. Everybody’s heard, it’s been all over the news, guy makes a dumb statement, turns around, and he decides to sit during the national anthem. So, what happens there? First of all, let me clear up one thing. Everybody’s turning around, running around, saying: “Oh, he’s got freedom of speech and there’s free speech.” First of all, let me share a big surprise to everyone: No, he doesn’t. That’s right, he doesn’t. Why? He’s at work and he’s representing the company, which is his football team. You try to do something like that in your job, and you can find yourself kicked out if it’s something that the company thinks doesn’t represent them well or doesn’t perform properly.

Let’s push that aside. The other part is: What’s he doing? First of all, he was sat down for the last five games of last year. Why? Because he wasn’t performing, he lost his starting job. So here he is trying for a starting job, fighting for it, and he becomes controversial to a brand new coach who happened be at Philadelphia the last few years and got fired from the team. Everybody on that team who was controversial or not toeing the line and not being part of the team, they were kicked off. So maybe it’s not such a good idea. It may not be bright, unless he’s taking a look at the 11 million dollar guarantee he has and saying: “I don’t really care. Maybe they’ll kick me out and I’ll just go home with my 11 million dollars.” I have no idea, but it doesn’t make sense if he’s looking at a future.

Then there’s a guy at Philadelphia, Myke Tavarres, he turns around and says: “I’m sticking with Colin Kaepernick. I’m not going to stand for the national anthem either.” What a dummy! This is an undrafted rookie who’s hoping to get on the roster. Keep in mind it starts out with like 90 players at the beginning of training camp,

How often do you get sales calls or marketing calls, and how do they go? Damn. Some of these salespeople, actually an awful lot of them are lazy sacks of excrement. It’s often somebody calls me, partially from personal connection, and they basically know a bit about me. We had a lot of conversations, we’ve been on things together, etc. and all of a sudden they call and it sounds like they think I’m from outer space and have just landed. It’s like they don’t remember or don’t know anything. How hard is it to find out about somebody? Do your prep!

This episode was actually originally motivated by somebody who was talking with me about being on my podcast. I’ll explain that a little bit later. What happened was I stopped because somebody else that I had an appointment with, a salesperson, called and this is the scenario. Some just do this and are supposed to be in sales and marketing. Think of it. They’re going to webinars and seminars, and talking to others about how to do sales well. What to do. How you’re supposed to do it. What you’re supposed to say. They’re teaching people how to use X, Y, Z software so that you have a real personal connection with the person, and to develop that personal connection.

What happens? This person called from a major software company. Actually they were hired away from another company where they were supposedly a cracker-jack salesman, and they approach me in an absolutely inept way, annoying the heck at me. They start up with things, like asking me about myself. Heck, he already had the links in the email that we exchanged. I had already been talked to by somebody else that supposedly gathered some information so that he’d have it in front of him. So I just leaned back, took a nice deep breath, tried to hint to him as to what he should do while I’m on the phone. He couldn’t even take the hints. He still didn’t get it. He said things like: “What do you do?” Really? I just freaking gave you my information, my link, and told you what I was. I even said: “Didn’t you see my bio on…?” and I gave him the link for that. No. I had sent him things and he had the links to my bio in there. You would think, if nothing else, he would be pulling it up as he talks to me.

Folks, if you’re in sales, do a little bit of prep ahead of time. Make sure that you’re able to get on the phone and as best as possible seem like you’re interested in the person, know a little bit about them, and make sure you’ve thought of things that relate to you and them and your company, and what your company can do for them. Don’t brag about your company. They don’t give a dang about your company. What can the company do for them? Then you can get into all the testimonials and the support material.

I think from now on and I recommend you do the same, when I get a call from one of these folks I’m going to refer them to this episode. This will be episode number 81. I’m going to say: “Go to www.LifeUnsettled.com/81,” tell them to listen to it and call back. If they don’t have my information together then, I’m just hanging up. I suggest you do the same thing. I wasted like 40 minutes on the phone. I needed some things from this particular person, so I did. Otherwise, I would have hung up right at the beginning. But I and I imagine you may, too, get calls from these lazy salespeople on a regular basis. I’ll just ask them to call back after they’ve listened.

The process of some of the sales call was really crazy, too. He was asking me things as if he was talking to a person who had just started out doing certain things, someone who had never been in business. There are all kinds of things that he could have just said, like: “Are you familiar with X, Y? Should I go on to this?” There was lots of ways he could have skipped on it or been complementary in the way that he asked, instead of trying to tell me how to tie my shoes. That’s basically what it was. “How to turn on a light switch.

How often do you get sales calls or marketing calls, and how do they go? Damn. Some of these salespeople, actually an awful lot of them are lazy sacks of excrement. It’s often somebody calls me, partially from personal connection, and they basically know a bit about me. We had a lot of conversations, we’ve been on things together, etc. and all of a sudden they call and it sounds like they think I’m from outer space and have just landed. It’s like they don’t remember or don’t know anything. How hard is it to find out about somebody? Do your prep!

This episode was actually originally motivated by somebody who was talking with me about being on my podcast. I’ll explain that a little bit later. What happened was I stopped because somebody else that I had an appointment with, a salesperson, called and this is the scenario. Some just do this and are supposed to be in sales and marketing. Think of it. They’re going to webinars and seminars, and talking to others about how to do sales well. What to do. How you’re supposed to do it. What you’re supposed to say. They’re teaching people how to use X, Y, Z software so that you have a real personal connection with the person, and to develop that personal connection.

What happens? This person called from a major software company. Actually they were hired away from another company where they were supposedly a cracker-jack salesman, and they approach me in an absolutely inept way, annoying the heck at me. They start up with things, like asking me about myself. Heck, he already had the links in the email that we exchanged. I had already been talked to by somebody else that supposedly gathered some information so that he’d have it in front of him. So I just leaned back, took a nice deep breath, tried to hint to him as to what he should do while I’m on the phone. He couldn’t even take the hints. He still didn’t get it. He said things like: “What do you do?” Really? I just freaking gave you my information, my link, and told you what I was. I even said: “Didn’t you see my bio on…?” and I gave him the link for that. No. I had sent him things and he had the links to my bio in there. You would think, if nothing else, he would be pulling it up as he talks to me.

Folks, if you’re in sales, do a little bit of prep ahead of time. Make sure that you’re able to get on the phone and as best as possible seem like you’re interested in the person, know a little bit about them, and make sure you’ve thought of things that relate to you and them and your company, and what your company can do for them. Don’t brag about your company. They don’t give a dang about your company. What can the company do for them? Then you can get into all the testimonials and the support material.

I think from now on and I recommend you do the same, when I get a call from one of these folks I’m going to refer them to this episode. This will be episode number 81. I’m going to say: “Go to www.LifeUnsettled.com/81,” tell them to listen to it and call back. If they don’t have my information together then, I’m just hanging up. I suggest you do the same thing. I wasted like 40 minutes on the phone. I needed some things from this particular person, so I did. Otherwise, I would have hung up right at the beginning. But I and I imagine you may, too, get calls from these lazy salespeople on a regular basis. I’ll just ask them to call back after they’ve listened.

The process of some of the sales call was really crazy, too. He was asking me things as if he was talking to a person who had just started out doing certain things, someone who had never been in business. There are all kinds of things that he could have just said, like: “Are you familiar with X, Y? Should I go on to this?” There was lots of ways he could have skipped on it or been complementary in the...

What happens at the Olympics and what we get out of it(what do we learn for our own success)? You may or may not get the same things I get out of it, but I really was taken by some comments during interviews by a couple of the gymnasts that really sung home.

It’s frequently thought that a person who has done as well as Simone Biles or Aly Raisman are somehow destined, that they’re just built that way and it works. They may have some special abilities beyond somebody else, but you have to know and acknowledge what it really takes. Simone Biles was asked that question and she said: “Yes, most people have no understanding how much it really took.” The fact that she was not able to go to homecomings, prom dances, all of the football games, all of the parties. She missed all of them. She was always in the gym all day long. A lot of hard work. It was definitely not easy and it was definitely not always fun.

I partly want to refer to some of the other episodes where I talked about passion. You could say: “Well, she must have had this tremendous passion.” When she didn’t like it, probably hated the hard work at times, at that point did she have passion? Probably not. She was able to work her way through it. Why? Because she had committed to her goal of being the best she could be in her sport in the gymnasium. Aly Raisman made the same kind of comments, a lot of sacrifices, personal things that she’d love to do that she basically had to give up in order to spend all that time and energy in the gym. When she came back from 2012 and said she wanted to compete again for 2016, at first her coach just pushed her off to the side until he saw that she really wanted it badly. Of course, she says: “All of the hard work and dedication is worth it,” but that’s not the way you necessarily feel during the process. Most people lose the fact or the idea as to how much hard work and effort goes into getting to be like them.

Okay, you’re not going to be competing in the Olympics, winning gold medals or silver medals even, but whatever you’re doing, are you working hard enough, are you making the sacrifices? I have a sacrifice episode you can go look at. Are you involved? Do you understand passion is not just something like: “Gee, I’d love to be a dancer so I’d love to be an actor”? It has to be available, it has to be a big enough market you can fit into, and you have to compete so heavily for it. Most of all, you have to know how to do it.

For example, I never was able to gain any muscle, any weight at all, and I was having trouble with my knees. My best friend at the time in the military was a champion powerlifter. He won the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico Tristate Heavyweight Division, so he truly was a champ. He took me aside and he coached me. I exercised and I followed him. He coached me through three months and one week, and I just did everything he told me to do, exactly as he told me to do it (see episode #7). If I started to look to the side, he’d say: “Hey, back down here.” I ate with him. I did everything with him. People at the end of that time or actually a little bit before that time were walking up to me. There was so much progress, such a tremendous difference that people were walking up to me, saying: “Gee, what’d you do? Would you mind showing me?” Of course I’d say: “Sure, I’d be glad to,” but of course they weren’t willing to put in the effort.

When I went to graduate school at Berkeley, there was a lot of stress involved by the time I got into the end of my second year, beginning of my third year, and I realized: “Gee, maybe I better get back into exercising.” I did nothing new, nothing different. I followed exactly what Joe taught me to do, and I got to be the second biggest at a big California gym all by just following exactly what it was, and putting in the effort and the hard work (but never more than 3x/week and less than 45 min/day), which then of course aided my graduate studies as well because I had more energy and...

What happens at the Olympics and what we get out of it(what do we learn for our own success)? You may or may not get the same things I get out of it, but I really was taken by some comments during interviews by a couple of the gymnasts that really sung home.

It’s frequently thought that a person who has done as well as Simone Biles or Aly Raisman are somehow destined, that they’re just built that way and it works. They may have some special abilities beyond somebody else, but you have to know and acknowledge what it really takes. Simone Biles was asked that question and she said: “Yes, most people have no understanding how much it really took.” The fact that she was not able to go to homecomings, prom dances, all of the football games, all of the parties. She missed all of them. She was always in the gym all day long. A lot of hard work. It was definitely not easy and it was definitely not always fun.

I partly want to refer to some of the other episodes where I talked about passion. You could say: “Well, she must have had this tremendous passion.” When she didn’t like it, probably hated the hard work at times, at that point did she have passion? Probably not. She was able to work her way through it. Why? Because she had committed to her goal of being the best she could be in her sport in the gymnasium. Aly Raisman made the same kind of comments, a lot of sacrifices, personal things that she’d love to do that she basically had to give up in order to spend all that time and energy in the gym. When she came back from 2012 and said she wanted to compete again for 2016, at first her coach just pushed her off to the side until he saw that she really wanted it badly. Of course, she says: “All of the hard work and dedication is worth it,” but that’s not the way you necessarily feel during the process. Most people lose the fact or the idea as to how much hard work and effort goes into getting to be like them.

Okay, you’re not going to be competing in the Olympics, winning gold medals or silver medals even, but whatever you’re doing, are you working hard enough, are you making the sacrifices? I have a sacrifice episode you can go look at. Are you involved? Do you understand passion is not just something like: “Gee, I’d love to be a dancer so I’d love to be an actor”? It has to be available, it has to be a big enough market you can fit into, and you have to compete so heavily for it. Most of all, you have to know how to do it.

For example, I never was able to gain any muscle, any weight at all, and I was having trouble with my knees. My best friend at the time in the military was a champion powerlifter. He won the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico Tristate Heavyweight Division, so he truly was a champ. He took me aside and he coached me. I exercised and I followed him. He coached me through three months and one week, and I just did everything he told me to do, exactly as he told me to do it (see episode #7). If I started to look to the side, he’d say: “Hey, back down here.” I ate with him. I did everything with him. People at the end of that time or actually a little bit before that time were walking up to me. There was so much progress, such a tremendous difference that people were walking up to me, saying: “Gee, what’d you do? Would you mind showing me?” Of course I’d say: “Sure, I’d be glad to,” but of course they weren’t willing to put in the effort.

When I went to graduate school at Berkeley, there was a lot of stress involved by the time I got into the end of my second year, beginning of my third year, and I realized: “Gee,