In Wednesday’s post, Meet The Grinders, you well..met the grinders. What I failed to mention is that next week I will be posting their stories Tuesdays through Friday. In their posts, you will get to learn a bit more about where they came from, what they are doing now, and what they hope to accomplish this coming year.

My hope is that you can identify with their stories, relate to their struggles, and learn from their successes. I don’t consider these “guest posts” as these are not my guests, they are my teammates for the year.

I’m Here To Learn..

You may have noticed the “Read These” tab in the header and if so, you have also probably noticed that the page is blank. The idea behind this page is to build a list of reader generated resources, mainly books, that have inspired you to take action, open your mind, or experience some form of personal growth.

I’m a huge advocate for continual learning and educating ourselves and books are the perfect way to do this. Think of all the time we waste watching television, surfing the Internet, or playing video games. What if we took that time to read instead? And I’m not talking about Clive Cussler’s latest espionage novel, I’m talking about something we can actually learn from.

Since my interview with Penelope, I’ve read at least a dozen books on topics ranging from Buddhism to existentialism and am dedicated to learning as much as I can about myself, history, personal growth, and the world we live in. Yep, the public library (and Amazon) have become my new best friends!

I will be adding my own suggestions as well as recommended books from my small group of Grinders and plan to create a top notch personal growth book list. There is just so much knowledge to be obtained and I’ve already found some real gems thanks to reader suggestions.

So please leave me a suggestion or two in the comment section here and I will begin to compile a “running list” of books which will be broken down by month/topic.

This months recommended reading will include books about commitment, action, and goal setting.

Got a good one in mind? Let me know!

And by the way, I will read all books prior to adding them to the master list. I’m doing this for two reasons:

  1. I don’t want to recommend a book without knowing if it’s going to be valuable to my readers (or if it flat out sucks).
  2. I will be using affiliate links and don’t want to capitalize off of a shitty book. Believe me, this is not money motivated here (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), because there is virtually no money to be made selling books via Amazon.

For example, here’s a snapshot of my earnings from Amazon for the last 3 months:

change your life

As you can see by the whopping grand total of exactly 2¢ earned in Q4 of 2011, my intention is not making money with this..but it doesn’t hurt because you never know when somebody is going to buy this right after the $6 book… Hey, it could happen!

The Value Of A Client

In an unrelated topic, I wanted to share something that happened a few nights ago. I’ve recently taken on two new personal training clients, a husband and wife, and met with them for the first time on Wednesday.

What I really love about training people is the personal interaction and hopefully (but not always) the personal connection I have with them.

It’s a pretty amazing thing when someone is totally committed to improving their health, and in turn their quality of life. It doesn’t happen as often as you would think, but it certainly does happen.

This couple for example is completely committed to doing whatever it takes to improve their overall health and to living longer and better lives. And they are doing it together and completely have each others backs. SO important!

Anyway, what I found most inspiring about our conversation was during the discussion of their health histories, the wife started talking about her sister who had passed away at age 43 from a health related illness. And as she shared this story, tears welled up in her eyes and I felt her pain. In that look, she communicated to me how important it is for her to live and live well.

In that moment, I remembered why I do this, what makes me who I am, and why I’m here. Moments like these that are shared are indescribable and capable of changing lives.

I’ve trained hundreds of people in the last 14 years and rarely have I felt this kind of connection to someone’s mortality.

I know this may sound a little nuts and I’m probably not articulating it very well, but it was a remarkable feeling and for a short time, I felt really alive.

And that’s certainly worth more than the hourly rate I’m being paid…

Next Week

As I mentioned, next week you will hear from The Grinders and get to know them better through their stories and I will also be posting about my goals on Monday.

After that I will be going to a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule (for all those keeping track 🙂

I’m also going to try to keep my posts under the usual 2,000 words and will try to keep it entertaining. And please tell me you got the Billy Madison reference here!!!

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