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What I learned from Mr. USA

Yesterday I ran a half marathon and it was my first race (or run rather) that I didn’t listen to music and instead I listened to my favorite podcast, Trainers Talking Truths.  One of the episodes was focused on the challenges of bodybuilding training.  Personally, I am not interested in the bodybuilding area of fitness but instead of skipping the episode I figured I would just listen to it.  And I am so glad that I did!  Let me just start out by saying I enjoyed this episode so much I listened to it again on the drive home after the run and played parts of it for my husband today.  This is a perfect example of why one should not judge a book by its cover (or a podcast by it’s episode title).  


John DeFendis

John DeFendis was the guest cohost for this episode. He entered the bodybuilding arena with a dream to achieve the Mr. USA title back in 1978.  After 10 years of determination, he claimed the Mr. USA title in 1988.  After only listening to him for a few minutes I knew that he was someone I was going to learn a lot from. He admits multiple times in the episode that not many people like him because of his philosophy and grit but I think maybe that is exactly why I like him so much. Here are a few things I quoted him saying during the episode:


“If you want to be a winner you gotta actually be a winner.  Second place is not the victory.  Third place is not the victory.  If you tried hard I’ll give you a pat on the back but you’re not the winner.  We’ve got work to do.”


“If you are happy with second you’ll never strive for first.”


He goes on to say that when he was 10 years old he was a scrawny little kid and told his mom that he was going to be Mr. USA one day and she patted him on the head and said, “Sure kid. Sure you are.”  He said it was probably her response that made him even more determined to show her he could do it.  He goes on to say how that’s so different from today’s parents.


“Todays parents are like, oh my god, you’re the best, you’re the greatest.  They over reward.  Parents keep telling their kids how incredible they are and they go into the workplace and when their boss says I need you to be better, they crumble.  The bar has dropped so low.  We need to pick up that bar.  Not only for ourselves but we need to be the example to show - look the bar is higher than that.”


He mentions a client who said they had a piece of cheesecake after dinner the night before and he said, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the third place trophy.  You think you’re getting away with something.  But it will show.” 


John has a high standard and a lot of people don’t like that.  “If someone doesn’t care to be at that standard, that’s on them.”


I am sure there are some people who look at those quotes and are completely turned off.  I, on the other hand, have written them down to use as motivation to build my business, set my mission and align my practice and methods towards that mission.  For the last few weeks I’ve been thinking long and hard about how to make Van Family Fit successful.  I kept thinking about the type of clients I want to take on, how to charge and what services I will provide and I am even transforming (with the help of my husband) a client-focused gym in our second building with a professional look that includes our logo on the wall.  So when I heard John speak I knew where my passion lies and that is working with people who are willing to put in the work.  And I need to be OK with knowing I am not the right fit for everyone.  Just like John, I have a high standard.  I recently worked with a client who didn’t want to put in the work on the nutrition side of things and rather than continue working with them on it - we did it for 6 weeks - I had to say I wasn’t going to put in the effort anymore if they weren’t willing to do their part.  So we agreed to just focus on the workouts - which is totally fine.  Now that did require their goal to change.  I couldn’t, in good conscience, let this client think they could still lose the weight they wanted without the nutrition piece.  And they were OK with it.  But like John said, if you are are happy with second, you will never strive for first.”  And the only person who can change that way of thinking is the client.


That was only a small part of what I learned from Mr. USA and I know that as I follow him on social media and continue learning via online courses and podcasts through ISSA I am going to create something amazing with Van Family Fit.  And I’ve set a pretty high standard.  


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