The Journey of Success (The Common Denominators in Good Business, Health, and Lifestyle)

In a world where television, news cycles, and social media rule the world, one who is not completely dialed in may feel as though they stand no chance of keeping up and being relevant in the connections between where they are and where they want to be.  The irony in all of this is that it is exactly the opposite.  These things are all just distractions from the focus that needs to be had to be a successful person with goals related to health, happiness, or professional gain.  In fact, they are all tied together.

Despite what you may be told by a medical commercial, a marketing expert, a group centered in nutrition, or your manager, (who are pushing quick fixes) people who achieve success in any personal arena all have two common thing: Discipline and an Open Mind.

Go and speak to any small business owner.  No matter the industry or the sector, if they are selling something, they will declare to you that it is getting tougher every year to make money.  They fall back on common stories from other people in their industry through tradeshows and conventions and find solace in the idea that there is nothing to be done and they are on this sinking ship together.  The idea of being par for the course is their comfort. 

I don’t know about you, but most people I speak with are not pumped up to be average.  The successful small business owners today are on a long term adventure, working harder and smiling more, and creating bigger incentive to give their base a recognizable reason to be part of what they are doing.  They are creating community within their business and allowing people to feel like an intricate part of their thread.  However you shake it, successful people are constantly finding new ways to get better, diversify, and recognize that sometimes the long way has the greatest reward.

You can go into that last paragraph and change the words “Customer” or “people” or “base” or “community” into the word “body,” and change the word “business” into “self,” and that’s what people who are healthy and happy are doing.  It’s a long road at times to feel stronger physically or mentally, but it is a sustained and worthwhile journey.

It is so much easier to be rude or to be unhealthy just like it is so much easier to be an average business person.  When you are in a hurry to go eat your burger and French fries, it is so much easier to not hold the door for someone, or not smile at someone, or not ask someone how they are doing.  It is so much easier to take it personally when a person in the airport bumps into you by mistake.  It is so much easier to be like everybody else and just blend in.  Be the success in your own life.  Work harder to educate yourself on nutrition because healthy people have all around advantages in life.  Realize that you only have one body.  Practice the art of being optimistic.  Realize that life is short and that you might not get tomorrow.  Think more critically about the power you possess personally and turn your ambitions, goals, and passions into your realistic quality of life.  It will all eventually become a habit and mediocrity will find itself on the endangered species list.  You are not too old, too slow, too big, too poor, too shy, or too new.  

You ARE worth your journey but you better keep moving! 

Be disciplined and keep an open mind.       

WAYS TO MAKE FITNESS EASIER

WAYS TO MAKE FITNESS EASIER

The time of the year is upon us when most people in America spend the least amount of time thinking about their fitness potential.  This is the time of the year when we all start to consider putting our bathing suits away, getting caught up in the hustle of “back to school,” and deciding to pack on that 20 extra pounds by disregarding ourselves.  When we realize what we have done, we blame it on the holidays and have to find a resolution for it in January.  What if you did not have to start thinking “beach” and “bathing suit” in January as your New Year’s Resolution because you’ve just made a commitment to yourself and your “work in progress?”  We’ve put together ways to make fitness easier and more achievable as the Fall looms around the corner. 

FIND THINGS YOU ENJOY DOING

Every year around this time, the gyms get packed with people again after everyone has decided to come back in off the beach or their poolside.  Before you make a monetary commitment to going anywhere for your fitness, make sure that place has something that will sustain you.  Remember, fitness is not just something that you can get in a place full of treadmills, ellipticals, and weights.  Have you always wanted to learn to dance? You can do Zumba if it is offered or you could go to a dance studio and enroll in a class where you will actually have to work to keep up.  Do you love to run but don’t like cold winter weather?  Treadmills are ok, but you will likely get sick of that.  You should look for a facility with an indoor track.  Do you love to bike but snow prevents you from getting out?  Find a gym with a great spinning program.   Do you miss summer months because you start your day in your pool swimming laps?  Find a gym that offers a pool and your ability to use it whenever you want.  Do you love your outdoor bootcamp?  Get a few friends together because PLYOGA is not scared of the cold.  If you enjoy your fitness experience, it will not feel like a chore.

SET YOURSELF UP WITH AN EFFECTIVE HOME BASED WORKOUT

Almost everyone has a couple days per week where they don’t feel like leaving their home.  You have to go to work, but you don’t have to go to the gym, so that’s how you begin to slide on your commitment to yourself.  Have a place in your home where you can maintain your commitment on these days.  It is so easy for me to go out in my garage on these days.  I am met with my dumb bells, pull-up bar, perfect push-up, bands, yoga mat, fitness balls, punching mitts, and rope.  When I don’t want to leave my house, I can still find a way to get it done! 

WAKE UP EARLIER

You don’t have time?  Wake up earlier.  You all know the mom and dad with 4 kids and 2 businesses that are fit.  They make a priority to be fit.  No one has any time for anything.  Get up at 5am, before your kids need you to ready them for school.  You think you need that extra hour of sleep, but you actually have more energy for your day if you work out.

EAT FITNESS FRIENDLY

We can all make as many commitments to our body and the gym that we want to, but if we do not eat accordingly, we will not achieve what we are setting out for.  Did you know you can build lean muscle just by eating certain ways and not even working out.  Your body needs good nutritious food more than it needs exercise, although both are terrific.  If you are new to this journey, we can help.  Email us at PLYOGAFitness@gmail.com. 

FIND SOMEONE TO HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE

When you don’t feel like staying the course, using the buddy system will keep you on track.  You might not want to get to the gym at 6am today because your bed just feels so nice and it is cold out….. BUT.. Lucy is probably already on her way there.  She would be soooo pissed.. YUP.  GET UP! 

SET GOALS

Whether you are in business, managing money, or developing a personal vision, you cannot remain dedicated unless you set goals to hold yourself accountable.  When you set these goals, let other people who you trust know about them.  Very few of us can make promises to ourselves and keep it.  It’s time to proclaim, “I am going to fit back into these jeans by Halloween,” or “I am going to lose this baby weight by Christmas,” or “This arm fat is soooo not me, and it is going to be gone by Thanksgiving.”  You deserve it.  Find your target and hit it. 

RECAP

o   FIND THINGS YOU ENJOY

o   FIND WAYS TO WORKOUT AT HOME

o   WAKE UP EARLIER

o   EAT FITNESS FRIENDLY

o   FIND A RELIABLE WORKOUT BUDDY

o   SET GOALS

The Profound Benefits of Hiring a Personal Trainer

Many years ago, I heard someone speaking about how they were highly offended when a personal trainer who I know proclaimed to them that, “If you get disciplined and train with me, I will assure you that you will become physically better, mentally better, become a better wife, a better mother, a gracious friend, and an overall more satisfied person.”  They thought that this trainer just had such nerve as to assume such a specific and personal transition.  I thought this prospective client had a point.

As I reflect back on overhearing this woman tell this story many years ago, the position I have has changed.  That was a bold reflection of reality to paint for another person, but as a person now dedicated to understanding the sciences and integration of fitness, I know that this trainer was absolutely right.  Your body is a phenomenal work of art.  It provides itself a system of alarms and defenses that enable you survival when conditions are not optimal.  These defenses, that many people live within regularly are not particularly good, but they beat being dead. 

We are a culture with exceptional obstacles.  We are too busy to eat healthy, while our environmental conditions have bankrupted the nutrition in even that which we consider healthy.  There is such a demand in technology that we have become more sedentary than ever, disabling ourselves from the movement and energy creation that we need to start our journey toward being more active and fit.  Often we need that extra push, that teammate, that trainer, that workout buddy, that likeminded, goal oriented individual to get us there.

 

That teammate can miss practice when you need it the most.  That workout buddy might be staying late on Thursday to finish up a deposition.  Your counterpart might have PTA tonight.  Your personal trainer depends on you for their livelihood and there is where you have found a mutual companion.  They will show up because it is their job and you will show up because you are paying them.  You need each other to flourish and to live better. 

The science of it all takes hold when you make a commitment to fitness or hire someone to force you to when you do not want to.  Exercise lowers your cortisol levels, increases your metabolism, secretes various chemicals in your brain that make you happier, supports and enables dense and strong bones, gives you better circulation and cardiovascular health, and enables your body to naturally trigger greater energy levels.  Exercise helps you wake up earlier regularly and make that commitment to a healthy life. 

People who are happier, radiating energy, losing weight, standing up taller, breathing deeper, and walking stronger are people with greater self-worth and self-esteem.  People with greater self-worth and greater self-esteem believe in themselves and believe in others.  They are encouraging, they enjoy better clarity, reach further, relish in more success, are more extroverted, more loving, and enjoy their body. 

Did you know that over 90% of Fortune 500 CEO’s are not overweight and are generally health conscious people?  In short, this trainer that I referenced in the beginning was absolutely correct.  If she can keep you be dedicated to working out regularly and getting ample results, you will be a better person in every aspect of life because of it.  When someone achieves physical results that they otherwise once thought were impossible, it opens their mind to the possibilities that are out there for them professionally, mentally, and emotionally. 

Nourish your body, because “Your Body is Power.” 

Visit PLYOGA Fitness for Upcoming Events    

    

Being Healthy is Patriotic!

 

Today is the anniversary of The United States of America.  Americans will lay claim that we are the strongest, most innovative, and superior country on earth.  Other nations would elude to this on some levels as well.

As a nation, we look at the 4^th of July as a holiday to relax and honor our soldiers.  I think honoring our military men and women should be something we do every day, but when it comes to reflecting on this date, we as Americans should know what it really stands for (since citizen armies fought the revolution)

As various colonial communities popped up mostly in the eastern hemisphere of the current United States, the people of these communities recognized certain freedoms that were allowed to them in their new world that would not be manageable had they have been back home.  Whether or not the movement for a revolution truly spawned from a desire to not be taxed without representation, or to have religious freedom, or just so these new expatriates could have power, one thing was evident. 

The journey to revolution and to create the United States of America was something that was much more inconvenient, challenging, costly, and time consuming than just going along with the status quo.  How does this tie into your body and health?

People today spend their whole life eating wrong, exercising less, and failing to make a priority to value their person.  It’s easier, more accepting, and convenient to blend in.  Many people start their health journey and then realize that whatever they are doing has not given them all of the results they wanted in 4 weeks so they quit.  IMAGINE THAT!  You spend your whole life caring less and then expect 1 month of going in the right direction to catch you up.  What if our founders did that?

Change is difficult.  The one big difference between your body and creating America is that if you change for the better, it is healthy, whereas the revolutionists encountered a fairly deadly predicament fighting that battle.  The huge and perfect similarity is that by sticking it out, you can create greatness.  Don’t give up on getting better.  YOUR BODY IS POWER!  Make it a SUPERPOWER!     

EXERCISE YOUR MIND FOR SUCCESS!

 

Exercising Your Mind FOR SUCCESS

 

People often ask me, “What do you do when you come across people who don’t believe that they can come and work out and do plyoga because they are too old, too big, too limited, too tired?”

The answer is simple.  I remind them that these reasons are the chains that have held them back from being the best that they can be.  It’s tough because excuses are relatable.  People tend to find others who will validate their concerns and share in their concept, enabling their fear or obstruction to now become sensible. 

We all give ourselves a lot of credit when we become adults.  We believe that we no longer have the shortcomings that we once had as a teenager, and we are all way too dignified now to have the blatant insecurities that are all so prevalent during adolescents.

As a young person, someone may be shy or broke or overweight, but now as an adult, that person has reassuringly entitled them self as a lower middle class introvert and figures they probably have a “thyroid Disorder” because “Joe down the street eats McDonalds all the time too and he isn’t obese like me.”  

Reality is that high school never ends.  As empowering as an excuse might be, you are still that person with an inert desire to change and be better, but you are sheltered by your reasons.  Choose to be successful.  Embrace the fact that it is going to be tough and require sacrifice.  When it gets tough and you want to crawl back to yourself (whether physically, mentally, or financially), remaining strong, resolute, and Disciplined will save the day.

radiating positivity and keeping your focus on the doorstep of your limits will ease your journey.

THere is nothing more addicting and gratifying than helping someone realize how strong and how powerful they truly are.  You have the ability to be healthier, to reach further, to pave a new reality.  You have the work ethic engrained in you to take an idea and embrace it so strongly that you can make an empire from nothing.  Live outside of yourself and captivate a new mood.  That which you envision for your self can be achieved.

EXERCISE YOUR MIND FOR SUCCESS! 

    

REACH FOR YOUR BEST SELF

 

REACH FOR YOUR BEST SELF

 

Talent is the beginning of greatness.  Talent is the recognition of an ability that, when nourished, can be grown into something truly special.  It’s weird because most people do not come recognized for their talent as adults unless they are a professional athlete or a fantastic musician.       

Boys and girls who can do something much better than their peers are often labeled “talented.”  Most adults have jobs and responsibilities while children have talent and enthusiasm.  There is often a correlation between a passion for life and those who are in touch with their talents. 

You may often hear people every now and then who say, “I love my job and work does not feel like work.”  Most of us do not say that because we do not even know what we would “love” to do for work, let alone how to go after that goal once we figured it out.  It is all too overwhelming to ponder.  Not only that, but deep inside, these people annoy the hell out of you because you wonder why your life couldn’t be filled with work you love to do. 

Allow this to be simplified.  Most people in the world have a sense of selfishness about being personally successful, but most people also do not realize that what they can contribute to the world is important.  It is sort of an oxymoron because you need to make the most of life but you do not connect with what life wants for you. 

Kids are not the only people with talent.  Whatever it is that you do well when you are young, you can make a passion of as an adult.  If you like to make things, it is not too far-fetched to be a builder of something.  If you are an excellent football player, it may be a pipe-dream to make the NFL for most people, but training athletes to go beyond where you were able to go is always a possibility. 

Maybe you like to draw, and only an isolated amount of artists can actually make a living out of selling their art.  Well what else is something that inspires you?  There are businesses that need logo design every day.  If you have a knack for drawing and could understand branding, or clothing, or interior design etc., you could make a happy life of it.

People have a way of labeling their life direction as “my calling,” but then never listen for their calling.  People ignore the signs, or their talents, or their passions, and they give their reasons/excuses authority over their future.  It is never too late to find a way to start listening to what life wants you to do.  Our fitness system has a motto, “YOUR BODY IS POWER.”  Well folks, your brain is part of your body and happens to be where everything begins.  PLUG IN!  “YOUR MIND IS POWER” and it is time to follow your dreams.  Life is only going to allow you taxes and death.  You are going to have to TAKE everything else!  How can you start to “TAKE” everything life has in store for you?  Find a way to “GIVE” everything you can of yourself to what you love! 



Life in Balance

 

LIVING A BALANCED LIFE

 

What does it mean to live a balanced life?  Let me start out by what it mostly doesn't mean.  It does not particularly mean that you can stand on one foot with arms outreached and your other foot in your hand.  (Although that is pretty cool and does make for some outstanding flexibility, balance, and a real fancy photo!)

 

Living a balanced life means something different to everybody.  I think what it really boils down to is this: You live a balanced life when your passions motivate or become part of everything you do.  You live a balanced life when your career is what you love and then nothing ever seems like work.  Balance in life could be considered the measure of when happiness integrates itself regularly into your day to day routine.  

 

Balance will be found by those who seek it.  Finding balance in your life entails asking yourself tough questions about what is important to you and how hard you are willing to work to achieve your dream.  Work does not necessarily prelude to hours of tedious annoyingness, but rather a desire to believe in your own dreams and run them down in spite of everything telling you that these walls in your way cannot be scaled.  What are you willing to not have in order to have a clear vision of balance? 

 

Streamline your needs and depend less on everything that the world tells you to possess and that will make it easier to pursue your goals.  

 

Beyond the deeper meanings of life and the obvious underlying desires that each of us have to do something that we consider great, there are also topical ways to have balance.  Release things in life that do not have use, that you don't need, or that may be holding you back.  Here is one superficial beginning step to empowering yourself on this journey:

 

- Go in your drawers and your closets and take every single thing out that you have not worn in the last 24 months.  Throw it in a bag, and donate it to charity.  If you have not worn it in 2 years, you are not going to wear it anymore. 

 

You will find that you just got rid of probably 25-30% of your clothing and belongings. 

You didn't need them, they were weighing you down, and they would be better served if someone else was using them who did need it.  NOW.. look at the last sentence and apply that to everything in your life, perhaps even a job you don't like. 

 

Live the life you were meant to live.  Make your mark.  Second chances are not a guarantee.

  



 



AGING MADE EASIER - Identifying Ways to Get and Stay Healthy

 

AGING MADE EASIER

Identifying Your Ways to Get and Stay Healthy

            When there is a major hill to climb in life, some people turn to solutions and other people turn to excuses.  One of the things that always entertain me is when people believe that they are way too far past the time in life that would allow them to do a particular thing.  I find it hysterical when a girl who is in her mid-30’s talks to us about how she has had a few kids and could not possibly handle or become good at formatted interval training like PLYOGA.  I think at that very moment about the 74 and 75 year old women at the Ocean Club in Manahawkin, NJ who came in and smashed a PLYOGA workout while a handful of younger girls walked out as if they were vindicated.

            Aging is truly a matter of the mind but it is also a conscious agreement you make with your body.  When I first met my wife, I was 26.  I knew she was amazingly passionate in a big way about fitness.  I worked out 5 days per week and would swim and run occasionally and would always tell Stephanie that I worked out hard and was just past my time in life to be really cut and have abs.  6 years, Insanity, all of the P90X’s, clean eating, Isagenix, and months of PLYOGA later, I am getting leaner and stronger than I have ever been.  I would have a 6 pack already if we had the deep food knowledge we have now, just a bit earlier.  I am on my way to an elite core and always tell Stephanie about 57 year old fitness guru Tony Horton’s banner quotes, “Aging is for idiots” or “Aging is for those who do not know any better.”

            I laugh at the first quote but I prefer to highlight the latter quote because it is the closest to the truth.  Things have become so complicated in nutrition (with the wake of artificial everything, GMO’s etc.) that you literally either have to be a certified food expert, or have years and years of practice and diligence in finding your way through the static.  You have to be steadfast in your conviction to find nutritious outlets, shop in stores that promote healthy growth of food, and find the nutrient rich products that are so essential for health.  You have to ask tough questions about why certain things are able to be sold in stores, and then track those answers back to the fact that the same company that makes that toxic food also makes the medication to combat the problems their food causes.

            It always puzzles me how people view all fats as the enemy and would rather derive the rich taste in their food from artificial sweeteners, which are like taking a dose of cancer stimulation every day.  Coffee creamers are all of the rage today with their hidden element of trans-fats that does not need to be disclosed because it is below a certain threshold.  I’m sure 1 chip of lead paint never killed anybody either, but I challenge you to eat 1 every day (don’t do it).  Mono & Poly-saturated fats are the good ones, but should still be consumed in moderation.  Saturated fats should be very limited and you should never eat a trans-fat item. 

            When you look on a label and it says 1 gram of fat, and then the breakdown underneath says, (0 saturated, 0 mono, 0 poly, 0 trans), look at the ingredients.  When partially hydrogenated soybean oil is there it means you are about to eat the ticket to the NUMBER 1 killer of women in America.  It has been proven that trans-fats are a direct cause of heart disease.  This then begs another question to be answered.  Why does everyone just care about breast cancer and mammograms when heart disease kills more women?  You dig deeper and you find that metals in the form of antiperspirants in lady’s deodorant have also been found countless times harvesting inside the defective cancerous breast tissue of breast cancer patients. 

            You go to the grocery store and search the entire women’s section of deodorant and you find out that you either need to buy men’s deodorant or go to a health food store to buy deodorant without antiperspirant because it does not exist in the store for women.  Why?  I would assume most people would say, “you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure all of this out,” or “YOLO” or “whatever,” but the reality is that there comes a day when you have nearly unraveled the puzzle and then it is not so difficult to live (like us). 

            Definition 2 of Idiot; a person who acts in a self-defeating or counter-productive way.  It is easier to embrace Tony’s slogan, “Aging is for idiots” if you see it this way.  There are fantastic cheat sheets to healthy eating in the form of things like Isagenix (which we use) and Shakeology, but knowledge is a power that is ridiculously undefeatable.  Becoming an aging superstar goes miles past food as well.  Once you get through certain food barricades, you learn facts like 5 drops of Eucalyptus oil in your cool mist humidifier or boiling it in water on your stove releases into the air and eliminates 80% of staph bacteria in a room.  You learn that natural oils like Tea tree oil as a conditioner can strengthen and regrow hair, whereas your chemical conditioner that you currently use is damaging the long term health of your scalp and causing your hair to fall out.  There is bleach in most people’s face wash while natural fruits and oil mixtures will give you the best skin you ever had.

            To cater to the naysayers, I will observe the notion that you can truly drive yourself crazy, or you can tackle each area of your life one step at a time.  You can ask people who know already and they can share the information with you.  It’s like being in serious financial debt.  You can theoretically live your life that way, but it is far more healthy and less stressful to develop a plan and take down those bills one at a time until you are free of recklessness.

Here are some other simple plans to take with you to the store:

ü  Health food items that have more sugar or artificial sweeteners than protein are not health foods

ü  Your skin is your largest organ.  If you are going to eat healthy for your smaller organs, nourish your largest organ with completely natural based soaps rather than soaps made in a lab. 

ü  You have vital blood pipelines and glands in your neck.  If you are going to wear perfume, spray it on your wrist instead. 

ü  Diet soda is more toxic and more unhealthy than regular soda.  Both are terrible because the high fructose corn syrup and sugar cripples and destroys your metabolism.  Buy naturally flavored seltzer.

ü  Cows are injected with steroids to grow faster and produce milk in greater abundance.  Buy organic milk or unsweetened almond milk.

ü  Beware of brands that tout all natural sugars and then disguise their added sugar as evaporated cane juice.  That’s like calling sea salt, evaporated ocean water.

ü  Be courageous about trying new healthy options.  You just might like it. Release the 2 year old in you.

We would be happy to try and direct you to more sources for knowledge if you have other questions that pop up.  Message us at any of the following:

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/PLYOGAFitness

Email: PLYOGAFitness@gmail.com

Twitter:@PLYOGAFitness 

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! YOUR BODY IS POWER!

-thomasascough