Last night my wife and I rented the movie, ‘The Bucket List’ from DirecTV. It hit me hard, REALLY hard, and of course, had me thinking like crazy about a lot of things. The list is on now

But, it reminded me of a person near and dear to my heart, someone who made the biggest difference in my business, and, if it were not for him, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be writing this. I would likely still be satisified doing what I used to do, and only training athletes here and there on the side, as opposed to actually being in the thick of it, doing what I love day in and day out.

Watch the preview below and then read on….

I started feeling the pain of “what if….” as the movie came to an end.

It reminded me specifically of when I was a featured presenter at Ryan Lee’s first ever boot camp, and the night before, the day of and all freaking day, Alwyn Cosgrove kept telling me, “You better light up that f**ing stage brother or I’m gonna kick your ass!”

That motivated me! HA!

I co-presented that night with my close friends Jason C. Brown and Josh Henkin, both of whom have been HUGE influences on my training methods.

As we presented, every time I was demonstrating and speaking, I saw Alwyn in the waaaaaaay back of the room, staring right at me, with his fist clenched and his head shaking with a big grin on his face, he kept pumping his fist as if to say two things:

1) “You’re killing it brother, keep killing it!!”

2) “You better kill it more or I’m gonan kick your ass!!”

I get goosebumps thinking about that day…..

Alwyn was likely remembering all the hours he spent on the phone and the computer with me, coaching me with how to run my business and, in a subtle way, how to live life.

If you don’t know Alwyn Cosgrove, he is to fitness what Lance Armstrong is to bicycling. He is probably the most respected fitness professional out there, and, by far, the toughest mother f**er in the field, no doubt.

These times of coaching were 3 or 4 years ago, and man, does time fly… where the heck does it go?

When I look at some of my athletes, those who are 18 or 19, I am in shock, because I remember being that age like it was yesterday, tearing it up in the gym. Now, 32, it’s almost half my life time ago…. another 18 years, and I’ll be 50.

Time goes fast whether you’re having fun or not (guess who told me that one :), so you might as well follow your passion, go full steam ahead like a run away freight train, and start doing what you love.

If you do not take action and begin doing what you love and begin doing things you’ve always wanted to do, you are doing a disservice to the world, somehow, someway, you’re not only cheating yourself but cheating others as well.

Time to take some action!

Dedicated to your success,

–Zach–

P.S. - Here’s the foundation Alwyn organized to help benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, along with countless other fitness professionals. Time for some action

A little story about what we did, with the full story to come soon.

Click Here for details.

In Strength,

–Z–

As the world becomes a busier and busier place for so many of us, it seems that rather than think for ourselves, and do what is best for us, too many people blindly copy other materials.

I’m talking about copying someone else’s workout, rather than take bits and pieces of what works for you.

I’m also talking about the endless information on the web. Watch me write about a topic and rather than a fellow strength coach create his own idea, he takes the words right from my pages without his own heart written words.

I talk about both of these scnearios because if you want your training to truly be meaningful, you must create a style of training that works for you, not your friend or others, and, it must create an emotion that allows you to lose yourself and find yourself.

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First off, thanks to all who responded to my “personal blog post” late last night.

The responses have been very motivating to me. As you can see, I am very emotionally driven when it comes to training and life in general. If you personally know me, you cna attest to this
I also know that not everyone will be on the same page as I am, and I don’t expect them to.

It does remind me of some very funny instances though, where I was told by a friend and colleague of mine how a big name strength coach was bad mouthing me.

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