By: Jerry Trubman, Owner & Founder
This has to be the cheesiest title to a blog I think I’ve ever come up with. I even went all-out and found this wonderful little feel-good photo to attach. If you clicked on this hoping for a warm and cuddly read about living life to the fullest, I must warn you that this is a bit of a dark post. Proceed with caution…
With that said, let’s get that whole ‘one simple trick’ thing out of the way so those with a short attention span can leave and let us get to the good stuff. Here it is... in my opinion, the one simple trick to living your best life is:
The ability to suffer and persevere.
Did I lose you yet? No? Good. Let’s continue.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that the very best things in my life came from hard lessons learned from falling flat on my face. My life, business, marriage, and even my training/eating habits, are where they are today because I’ve previously failed in all those things in the past.
I had to figure out how to get up, dust myself off, and move forward in a better way; armed with this newly acquired knowledge. Also, I’m fairly certain that if you’re over the age of 30 and/or have been on your own for a while, you would come to this same conclusion. 30-year-olds still living in their parents basement need not apply. Parents allowing them to live there… stop! The only bird that never flies away from the nest is a turkey.
“The first step to reaching your goals is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
Mark Reifkind
“Success leaves clues… failure leaves step-by-step detailed instructions.”
Dan John
I couldn’t agree with both of these quotes more. Everything beautiful in our lives seems to emerge from a certain level of discomfort… a certain ‘tension’ if you will. After all, a piano is just a wooden box full of strings and hammers. It isn’t until you tighten those strings down super tight and then pound on them with the hammers that the beauty of music comes out.
I’ve gotten to a point in my life where this certain degree of tension and suffering actually makes me happy because I know I’m in on the verge of conquering the ‘next big thing’.
There is no true pleasure in comfort. Comfort is an illusion.
As a matter of fact, I’m looking forward to my next big failure and all the lessons it will teach to get me to the next place I need to be in life (except my marriage… that would really suck).
Robert Kiyosaki, author of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” says there are three things people can strive for financially: Being secure, being comfortable, or being wealthy. Most prioritize those things in the order they were just listed, “Right now I just want to be financially secure. I don’t want to have to worry where my next meal is going to come from. Once I get there, I’ll focus on attaining financial comfort. Once I’m secure and comfortable, I’ll think about becoming wealthy.” Robert says that it is very unlikely this type of thinking will ever get one to wealth. In order to become wealthy, you often have to kick security and comfort to the curb!
I want to be clear that I don’t think there is absolutely anything wrong with financial security and comfort. I’m just using this as an illustration to show that the enemy of ‘great’ is ‘good enough’. If all I ever wanted in my career was to be secure, I’d still be working for someone at a gym… and almost none of you (especially those outside of my hometown) would know me. If I wanted to turn to comfort, I would definitely close my business. Being a business owner is super uncomfortable…
But I didn’t. I chose discomfort. I’m not gonna lie, things have been pretty crazy busy around here lately… but I’m certainly not complaining. I signed up for this.
I’m also at a point, like most experienced coaches, where I’ve been training many of the same people for many years, so whenever the opportunity comes up to work with new people, I tend to go into ‘hyper-observation’ mode. It’s interesting to see a group of beginners struggle through the task of being a beginner.
Some enjoy it.
Others? Not so much.
I feel like I can almost tell who will be a good long-term student, versus someone who will get frustrated and burn out quickly, by how they treat the ‘white belt’ phase of the process.
Being a beginner is hard.
Dragging yourself to the gym is hard.
Making eating choices based on what gets you to your goals, instead of what tastes good, is hard.
But then, one day, it’s not hard anymore. It just becomes the new normal, and then you go find the next discomfort to conquer.
“Easy choices, hard life.
Hard choices, easy life.”
Jerzy Gregorek
With that said, I hope your life gives you lots of discomfort! I hope you get a chance to suffer a little every now and again. The view on the other side is often beautiful.
Until next time,
Jerry Trubman is a coach, clinician, author, blogger, and powerlifting state champion. With over two decades of lifting experience, he has devoted himself to seeking out better answers, and distilling them into practical programs that produce great results. Jerry has coached "Team Protocol" to 4 National Powerlifting Championships in the 100% Raw federation. He writes the internationally-read blog, “The Healthy Addiction” and lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife Marie and dog Sadie. To subscribe to his blog, click here.
Click Here To See What Others Are Saying About Us On Google…
