Good morning! Today, I'm going to share three quotes that I've had front and centre at my desk in my home office for the last little while. They serve as good reminders of how I want to live, and who I would like to try to be.

"He has the power to render us happy, or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil... The happiness he gives us is quite as great as if it cost a fortune" - Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (Scrooge talking about his old boss Fezziwig)

"The proper function of man is not to exist, but to live. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." - Jack London

"My future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there's a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does." - LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

Happy Wednesday! I wanted to share my notes directly from Ben Horowitz's book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Building A Business When There Are No Easy Answers.

The book has been a tremendous resource so far, and I wish I had found it earlier. His chapter titled, "How to Lead?", I found particularly enlightening.

So What makes me people want to follow a leader?

3 Key Traits:

1. The ability to articulate the vision
2. The right kind of ambition
3. The ability to achieve the vision

1) The Ability to Articulate the Vision

• Can the leader articulate a vision that’s interesting, dynamic, and compelling?
• More important, can the leader do this when things fall apart?
• IE: Steve Jobs got the employees of Apple to buy into his vision when the company was weeks away from bankruptcy.

2) The Right Kind of Ambition

• For some reason there’s a huge misperception in our society that a prerequisite for becoming a CEO is to be selfish, ruthless, and callous.
• In fact the opposite is true.
• The first thing any good CEO must do is get really great people to work for her or him.
• Truly great leaders create an environment where the employees feel that the CEO cares more about the employees than she cares about herself.
• In this kind of environment, an amazing thing happens:
  o A large number of employees believe it’s their company and behave accordingly!
• A truly great CEO would happily sacrifice his own economics, fame, glory, and rewards for his employees

3) The Ability to Achieve The Vision

• The third leg of the leadership stool is competence.
• If I buy into the vision, and believe that the leader cares about me, do I think she can actually achieve the vision?
• “Will I follow her into the jungle with no map forward or back and trust that she will get me out of there”

Happy (Masters Sunday)!

Today, I have a top 10 countdown of my favourite quotes to inspire you to persevere!

10. "What is to give light must endure burning." - Viktor Frankl

9. "Life will throw everything at you but the kitchen sink. And then it'll throw the kitchen sink." - Andre Agassi

8. "Outrun those who stop from despair." - Muhammad Ali

7. "Don't give up. Don't ever give up." - Jimmy Valvano

6. "The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that can survive all hurt." - Max Lerner

5. "The greatest victory is the victory over ourselves. Remember, it's always too soon to quit." - Gary Mack (Mind Gym)

4. "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." - Sir Winston Churchill

3. "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." - John Lennon

2. "Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. Despite its  sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it's still a beautiful world." - Max Ehrmann (Desiderata poem)

1. "I do believe there is something within all of us, as illusory and ephemeral as it may be, that gives us the strength and courage to withstand all that life throws your way, even my loss." - Lynne Burns

Happy Thursday!

Here are three quotes that have particularly resonated with me lately.

"The cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that you will still be alright. It comes from being more independent - not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on your own inner resources for stability." - Timothey Galley (The Inner Game of Tennis)

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." - Michelangelo

"Endure, o heart. At other times you have endured worse." - Homer (Odyssey)

I’ll never forget my mom’s response. She was like, “Ernie…. let’s be honest. You could be done playing baseball tomorrow. I mean, I hope not. It could happen, though, right?? So why not enjoy it??? Like, why spend this time being stressed? Spend it having fun.”

Hi Everyone,

Happy Tuesday!

The Blue Jays World Series game 7 loss hit me especially hard. And that's saying something, because as a lifelong Oilers fan, I had endured back to back game 7 losses in Stanley Cup finals.

The Blue Jays loss was worse. Why? My favourite team just happened to play the game of baseball how I love it being played: hard and fast - and with respect to the game in every facet. Let's put it this way, I would have been all in on that bandwagon last October whatever jersey that team was wearing because of how they played.

In a lot of ways, Ernie Clement embodied the team's identity: valuing the importance of putting the ball in play with two strikes, playing high-level defense, running the bases hard and right, and putting the team first.

I was really moved by his Player's Tribune article, and wanted to pass it along. There's a lof of wisdom and insight any athlete can gain from it.

Dear Jays Fans | By Ernie Clement

Baseball is my favorite thing in the world, man. And I’m so honored I get to play it with the Jays and in Toronto.

The Players' TribuneErnie Clement

"What better place than here? What better time now than now? All hell, can't stop us now!" - Rage Against the Machine

In the 1999 movie, For Love of the Game, Kevin Costner plays an aging, once superstar pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. It is the end of a long, lousy season, and he’s pitching one last game - on the road in Yankee stadium.

There’s an awesome scene when he takes the mound to start the game. The crowd is loud and full of jeers and personal insults being hurled his way. He looks around for a while, sort of chuckles, and remarks to himself, “I can always tell when I’m in New York.”

Then, he utters the words, “Clear the mechanism”. The crowd goes silent. Everything goes blurry except home plate.

A little cheesy? Maybe. But it illustrates an ability the best athletes all possess. They are superior at blocking out all outside noise, (and inside noise too, for that matter) to heighten their focus and concentration to execute in the present moment.

The first main objective of the mental game is to play the game with supreme confidence and belief in ourselves and our abilities.

The second primary goal then, is to play the game fully present: this shot; this pitch; this shift; this play.

Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism, stated, “If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace your living in the present.”

We want to play the game calm and in control. This is only possible when we are fully present – not thinking about past mistakes, or getting ahead of ourselves.

Renowned, mental skills coach, Brian Cain, talks about ‘the next 200 feet.’ When driving, our headlights show about 200 feet ahead. It’s a powerful metaphor to only focus on what is directly in front of us.

In-game it’s simply: this pitch, this shot, this shift, this play. Happy Sunday!!

"It's up to you to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it and then find the courage to carry it through."

Ray Dalio advises to: “Think of yourself as a machine operating within a machine and know that you have the ability to alter your machines to produce better outcomes."

You need to be BOTH the designer and the worker of your machine.

Most people get stuck just being the worker. It's much more important to be a good designer/manager than worker. To be successful, the designer needs to be completely objective about what the worker you is actually like. Don't put him in jobs he shouldn't be in.

Additionally, the worker doesn't get a say. The manager decides what the worker needs to do, and the worker needs to go to work - regardless of mood. This is how you can choose the path of discipline: to sacrifice what you may want in the moment (often moments of weakness) for what you really want in the long-term.

Dalio states, "Most people don't spend enough time as the designer, and as a result, they operate emotionally and in the moment. Consequently, their lives are a series of undirected emotional experiences, going from one thing to the next."

"By deeply contemplating higher aims, we energize ourselves to pursue them!"

Ray Dalio is a hedgefund billionaire. His book, Principles, has been a tremendous resource as a business owner that I continue to review consistently. I'm grateful I found it right around the time I opened my gym back in 2017 because it truly helped me in a significant way. In this post, I'd like to share two of the biggest lessons I have gleaned from it.

1. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life

You must strive to be a hyperrealist. Most people fight seeing what's true when it's not what they want it to be.

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Savour Life                                                                       Make An Impact

Most people think you have to choose one or the other, but you can have both, and they're actually mutually reinforcing!

"Life is not about plodding along at some kind of mediocre standard, it is about working like hell to achieve a standard that is extraordinarily high, and then getting the satisfaction that comes with that kind of super achievement."

"Love and work are the cornerstone of our humanities." - Freud

2. Pain + Reflection = Progress

"If you can develop a reflexive reaction to psychic pain that causes you to reflect rather than avoid it, it will lead to your rapid learning/evolving."

Would you rather have the opportunity to choose healthy and painful truth, or unhealthy but comfortable delusion?

Go to the pain, rather than avoid it. It’s a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful.

If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing your limits, and if you’re not pushing your limits, you’re not maximizing your potential.

Embrace tough love!!

• If you can be open w/ your weaknesses it will make you freer and help you deal w/them better
• Bringing them to the surface will help you break your bad habits and develop good ones

The quality of your life will depend on the choices you make at those painful moments.

I hope you found this helpful, happy Sunday!

There are many lies we tell ourselves - and worse, believe.

Lately, I've been having a hard time remembering that happiness and fulfillment can only happen in the present. This notion that 'once I get through this obstacle (whatever it may be)', or 'once I achieve this', then I will be content and satisfied. The reality is, you will never be there.

If you've ever had the great fortune of achieving a long sought after goal, a true pinnacle that you wished for and worked for with every fibre of your being, you can probably relate to one of life's sad realities: success, no matter how grand is not everlasting - in fact, it's incredibly fleeting.

However, this needn't be sad at all! The key is understanding happiness and fulfillment lie not in attainment - but in the striving and struggling of a worthwhile goal and purpose!

Vince Lombardi did have it correct, so long as we remain present along the path, and understand that our achievement won't act as an immortal shield to future hardship and despair.

This way, when the inevitable feeling of "Okay, what next?" hits you after you accomplishment, won't bring along with it melancholy. On the contrary, it will bring excitement at the prospect of finding joy in the next bouts of adversity and conquest.

Recently, I read Brad Stulberg's book: The Way of Excellence, and he hit the nail on the head: "There is no greater trap than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your inner life. What will change your inner life is the person who you become in the process of going for it."

Of course, perhaps no one put it better than Tolkien:

"Beyond mountains, there are mountains", is an old Haitain proverb that has helped me often over the years, and one I'm trying to lean on more lately in order to do a better job of being present. If you struggle with this at times, I hope it helps you as well.

"It's not always easy to follow the subtle, energetic information the universe broadcasts, especially when your friends, family, and coworkers, or those with a business interest in your creativity are offering seemingly rational advice that challenges your intuitive knowing.

To the best of my ability, I've followed my intuition to make career turns and been recommended against doing so every time.

It helps to realize that it's better to follow the universe, than those around you.

The path is not for everyone.

Adversity is part of the process."

If you're on Twitter, you've probably seen this penguin a lot. I have some thoughts.

Is this penguin an admirable example to follow? Should we go off the beaten track, and follow the road less traveled by more often in Robert Frost's famous yellow wood?

Or did the penguin take him too literally? Is he marching to a painfully lonely end? Or perhaps he is trailblazing a path others will end up following and benefitting from?

Nietszche famously stated, "I know of no better life purpose than to perish attempting the great and impossible."  

While I do love this quote, I think legendary Rick Rubin said something (the italicized quote at the start of this post) that, at least for me, is even more resounding and applicable - a perfect metaphor for this penguin's decision to go off on his own.

If you haven't, you can watch the original video below, for some context.

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A post shared by Flagster (@flagster.in)

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who feels afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela

If you're an athlete and you're reading this, we’re going to perform a little exercise here. I want you to think of your best three performances this season (or last). How did you feel? What was the little voice inside your head saying? I want you to spend a few minutes reliving those experiences and moments.

Now, and I hate to do this to you, I want you to think of your three worst performances. How did that feel? What was the little voice inside your head saying? Spend a little time back in those moments.

When you compare your best performances to your worst, I’m willing to bet the greatest variable that changed (drastically) was confidence.

Playing the game confidently: with full force of being, trust in yourself, and complete and total belief in your ability to execute is the primary goal of the mental game.

Now, everyone and their dog knows they need to have confidence, but how can we be more confident? How can we have it more consistently? Perhaps most importantly, when we lose it, how can we regain it? How can we build a more resilient belief in ourselves?

First off, and this is very important: we must normalize fear of failure. Everyone, yes everyone, is afraid to fail - even the best of the best. They deal with self-doubt, indecision, and entire periods of time where they lack confidence. (Find even one of the greatest athletes of all time who didn't encounter a slump or two).

Understanding this is crucial. Fear of failure is not something to overcome once and for all. No. It's a completely normal aspect of being a living, breathing human being. Your fear of failing is always going to be there. The sooner you acknowledge this reality, the sooner you can begin to develop effective strategies to attack your fears head on.

It's up to you to turn that nervous pre-game energy into positive effect once the competition begins. You can either let those pre-game butterflies get the best of you - playing timid, tentative, and afraid to fail. Or, you can convert them into excitement and use that energy to propel you to perform at your best, with conviction and trust.

Pressure, after all, is a privilege! Any time you're feeling pressure, remember you've earned that feeling. You've put in a lot of work to get to this moment. It can be really helpful to remind yourself of where you started. Chances are the daunting pressure of an upcoming competition is something you once dreamt of having the opportunity of facing.

Confidence comes from two places: 1) preparation 2) past success

Reggie Jackson, the New York Yankees, and Oakland Athletics Hall of Fame outfielder who was nicknamed Mr. October, was quoted as stating, “Leave nothing undone. No detail is too small.”

Confidence is essentially just trust. When game time comes, you know in your heart of heart’s if you’re ready.

Past success is the second pillar of confidence. Remember, if you’ve done it before, chances are you can summon the skill and mental strength to do it again! The best athletes utilize visualization and imagery as a key component of their preparation. Put yourself back in your own personal highlight reels in order to feel those positive experiences and outcomes!

In the movie Bull Durham, the veteran minor league catcher Crash Davis imparts one last piece of advice to Nuke before he leaves to the major leagues. He tells him, “You be cocky and arrogant even when you’re getting beat. That’s the secret.”

This, of course, is a lot easier said than done. If you lack confidence, or tend to lose it at the first sign of trouble, the answer is always going to be in the work. Work harder and smarter to build trust in yourself to execute when it matters most.

Practice like you've never won in order to compete like you've never lost.

I hope you're having a great week, and if you live here in Edmonton, you're staying warm! Here are three quotes that have particularly resonated with me lately.

"Lots of people want to be the noun without doing the verb. They want the job title without the work. Let go of the thing you're trying to be (the noun), and focus on the actual work you need to be doing (the verb). Doing the verb will take you someplace further and far more interesting." - Austin Kleon

"For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more, remembering my own sins and follies, and realize that men's hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words." - Tolkien

"You must forget your limits. You must forget your doubts, your pain, your past." - Phil Knight (Nike Founder)

Happy Thursday!

I got asked the other day, "how did you keep going?". I wasn't really sure how to answer.

I won't pretend to have an answer. I will, however, share something that works for me.

There have been plenty of times when I've felt like Sisyphus. Why am I doing this? What's the point? Am I just endlessly pushing this boulder up the mountain?

In these times I've actually leaned on recalling how fleeting and short-lived the pinnacle of success has ended up being.

This isn't cynical. It's just reality. The joy of winning and achievement doesn't last forever.

So we must find joy in today. In the struggle.

When I think even of the deepest valleys and darkest times of my life, I now smile. I feel oddly nostalgic about those periods of time. In retrospect, there was beauty in the struggle.

Keep pushing the boulder. Even if it seems pointless, it's not. You're developing skills and resilience you'll be able to lean on and be proud of later.

As Sir Winston Churchill said, "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

Yesterday, it hit me that it was eight years ago that I opened AHP. I'm a very reflective person by nature, so it was strange that it snuck up on me.

In the beginning, AHP was simply a 500 square foot weight room inside of a batting cage facility. I had no other staff. I remember being overwhelmed with having to figure out how to incorporate the company, how to invoice customers, and even how to set my prices.

I started with only four athletes and two teams. It was a daunting task to make sure I generated the $2,500 monthly rent I owed. I always made it. But just barely. I wasn't paying myself yet. I also had a TON of debt and the CRA was breathing down my neck for unpaid taxes.

(In defense of myself, my financial situation was due to a year earlier deciding to move to Missouri and go back to play my senior year of college baseball and finish my degree). That's a story for a different time, though.

When my rebooted baseball career ended (in truly heartbreaking, kind of soul-shattering fashion, but I digress), I had 25 hours on my long drive back north to ponder my next steps.

I recall just having this feeling that maybe a baseball career was never in fact my fate. Perhaps, my true calling was to impact the next generation: to simply be who I needed when I as younger.

So with a ton of debt hanging over my head, and no real clue what I was doing, I decided to start a business - with the goal of mentorship and being more than just a gym as my guiding light.

Now, here I sit, eight years later. AHP is a 17,000 square foot facility with nearly a dozen staff. We have nearly two hundred athletes. I get to train professionals; young kids falling in love with their sport and training; and everyone in between.

I get to go to work every day with two of my best friends, and I think (I hope) have built a fun work culture for my staff. I think (I hope) AHP is a special place to a lot of people.

It's a true privilege to have the opportunity to continue to impact young people.

So, after a far too-long winded intro, here are my eight reflections after eight years of business ownership.

1. It's on you. No one is coming to save you.

This might sound negative, but to me there's a power in this understanding. It doesn't mean no one cares about you - it just means no one is going to care as much as you do.

You must develop a core belief within you that you have the ability to solve problems and overcome obstacles as they inevitably appear. If you wait for the "perfect time" to take a leap you'll be waiting forever.

I've definitely taken on WAY more risk (and personal debt) than I would ever recommend anyone doing in order to start, and then on two separate occasions grow the business.

I remember telling a couple of my close friends three years ago that I knew I was insane for expanding the gym by nearly six times the size (and monthly rent). I just knew it would take a subsequently insane amount of resolve and work to make it successful.

2. Get the right people on the bus!

This has been the key for AHP's growth. I have hired the right people, tried my best to mentor and guide them and put them in the right spots on the bus.

People are not your most important asset. The right people are!

3. "You can only take with you that which you have given away."

Give more. Give what you didn't get. Love more.

I have tried my best to live by these words, and will continue to. As a coach, I'm a servant leader. As a boss, I am as well.

4. Adapt or Die!

"Life is growth. Business is growth. You grow or you die." - Phil Knight

You must maintain your growth mindset; forever learning; forever challenging your own biases and way of doing things;  and striving to seek improvement in all areas.

Recently, I've hired a coach and it's been extremely helpful so far.

Courses, seminars, books, podcasts, etc. all are readily available for you. Seek education and create your own curriculum. Prioritize it in order to separate yourself.

5. Have a Big Focal

With my athletes I talk about establishing a 'big focal point' that you can look at in-game when you need it. The big focal point needs to both: remind you why you play, and remind you of all the work you've put in to get to where you are today.

In my pocket at all times I have my goal sheet folded up, but I can pull it out and see the phrase, "Scrooge was better than his word." It's my focal point to act and live in a way that's consistent with how I want to.

6. When you feel lost, behind, and overwhelmed, get up at 4 am.

I do this often. Sometimes there isn't enough time in the day/week. When my to do list continues to grow instead of shrink I simply buy myself more time in the day by getting up this early. I've grown to love it.

7. Lift hard. Train hard.

"Stay in top physical shape - physical stamina is the root of mental toughness." - Major Dick Winters

When I am dialled in with my training, I find it bleeds into every other area of my life. I'm a better coach. I study more. I am in a better mood and more energized. Do hard things!

8. "Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations." - John Wooden

It was Freud who is quoted as saying, "In retrospect, the times of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."

Fall in love with the work. Be where your feet are. Some of my favourite memories were the early days of trying to build up the business.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Sunday!

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Arnold Schwarzenegger had a dream; then a goal; and finally - a fully believed in vision of himself standing on the stage one day, winning Mr. Olympia – a title given to the world’s greatest professional bodybuilder annually.

Growing up in Austria, bodybuilding wasn’t popular but that didn’t stop Arnold. He began lifting weights at the age of fifteen and won his first Mr. Universe title just five years later, at 20 – the first of six consecutive victories, and seven in total.

Arnold believed in creating a vision of the future – painting a vivid picture of what he wanted to achieve, in order to answer the question of why? Why was he pushing his body to the limits? Why was he going to suffer the pain of extremely disciplined dieting? To fulfill his vision!

He explained his process simply. At the end of his workout, why would he do 200 extra sit ups? He reframed it in a positive, and inspiring way. “These 200 sit ups will help me become Mr. Olympia.”

Athletes of any sport can learn a lot from Arnold’s mindset (and certainly not just athletes, as well!). You have to live your life backwards. Who do you want to become? What do you want to achieve? What do you want your life to look like?

Have the courage to dream big! Set audacious, lofty goals. It’s vital to create a vision that’s truly going to inspire you. Why? Motivation is fleeting.

You need a vision that will get you out of bed in the morning when you don’t feel like it. You need a vision that will reign you in when you feel like taking shortcuts. You need a vision that will keep you on the path of discipline.

It’s very easy to work hard and do all the things you know you’re supposed to be doing when the stars are aligned, and you’re motivated and feeling good. However, life isn’t always easy. It can, and will be unpredictable, harsh, and at times unrelenting and merciless.

You must strive to build a work ethic and a resilience within yourself where your daily habits and actions are not dictated by your mood. They’re not dictated by external circumstances. You’re able to stay on the hard path, the path that’s far less trodden – because you’ve identified what it is you truly want.

As a result, you don’t have a choice in terms of how hard you’re going to work today because you’ve connected the dots between what you do right now, today (and even more importantly how you do it) and your vision of the future.

Ken Ravizza, a world-renowned sports psychologist stated:

TODAY + TODAY + … + TODAY = YOUR CAREER

Driven athletes are driven by their why; their mission; and not how they feel in a particular moment. This vision of your future self can be your guiding light, your North Star – and it alone dictates your choices and habits on a daily basis.

Want to achieve what only 0.0000000001 % of the population does? Work harder than 99.999999999%.

Do it today.