OK, maybe it’s not like that completely, but that is very much the point.  I gave him a SUPER lame answer: “Well, when you lose 35 pounds you start to hustle.”  I know, what does that even mean?

The truth is, and I thought about it much more, ever since I’ve made some great changes in my life, I’ve started to hustle more.  There is my waking up earlier in the mornings.  There is my making sure I get some things done on Friday so that I can have a good weekend.  There is my generally living life with more alacrity.  I’ve started to hustle.

And I’m starting to realize that hustling is a way of life.  When you hustle, you move with heart, soul, you don’t give up, you don’t say no, you just move and get your #$%^ done.  That’s who I am becoming.  A (in a very positively awesome way and in no way negative) Hustler.  I can’t wait until I’m there completely.

A lot of people have asked me about my weekend, and there’s so much to say.  I’ll put basic facts out there first (in terms of my life).  This was hands down one of the greatest weekends of my life.  Saturday, Shabbos, was one of the top 10 days of my life.  So we’re clearly talking about something awesome.

Often when things are that awesome, they defy explanation.  This is one of those things.  I feel like I can talk and talk about it, try to explain it, but it’s impossible.  It exceeded my expectations in almost every way and it was amazing.

All I have to say is if you have any interest, even slight, in going – Go.  Don’t think.  It’s expensive, yes, I know.  But you still must go.  It’s worth every penny if you go there with an attitude that you are going to play full out.  You will never be the same again.

THURSDAY

OK, to the weekend.  Thursday – I walked on coals!  I had so many realizations that night, I’m going to give them to you like I wrote them down.

In my mind, we learned the key thing on the first day and applied it on the firewalk.  What depends whether or not you are going to have the life you want to have is state.  You see we think that the states we feel like love, happiness, tiredness, depression, even sexual feelings, we think that they are just things that happen to us and we cannot exercise any control over them.  It’s not true.  We have control over our states (key word).  The way to start controlling them is to understand how we get there in the first place.

We get there based upon our focus, based upon our physiology, and based upon the meaning we give the things that happen to us.  Think about it this way.  There is no one in the world who has not gone through what it is you have gone through.  In fact, if you think about it, there are plenty of people who have gone through worse things than you have gone through. Some of those people are even super successful.

So what is the difference between people who experience crap and succeed, vs. those who don’t?  The difference is how those events are interpreted.  It’s not based upon genetics (sorry for those out there, but I believe genetics are more based upon habits and conditioning than actual genes trying to hurt you).

A person who is successful interprets those events that hurt and uses them as fuel to make him or her succeed.  A person who is not where they want to be interprets the event as the world is out to get him, or it’s not his or her fault.

And so, Tony’s idea is that three things control us more than anything: State (how you are physically), the stories you tell yourself about the world, and the strategies you use.  All three are important, but for me personally, state and story resonate most.

The point is that if you can set yourself up to create resourceful states and resourceful stories then you can live the life you want to.  You are programmed a certain way due to conditioning and other factors, and you can reprogram yourself.

Think about it.  The people who are happy, who are successful, they think differently.  They aren’t smarter than you, they don’t have more than you do, they don’t have anything over you other than the way you feel, think, and see the world.  If you can program yourself to be like them (you can) then you can have what they have.

One thing I love so much about him and what he does is that he truly believes in G-d.  He believes that G-d is good and he is out to help and gratitude is such a huge part of what he is and what he does.  I love that.

And so as the night progresses he gets you into such an intense state that you feel like you can do anything.  Of course when we all got downstairs shouting YES! As we were about to walk the goals, we were all scared.  But if you get yourself into a peak state then your body literally will not let you burn.

For me, a HUGE point when it came to the coals was how easy it was.  It was super easy.  I think that so many times in life we build these things up that block our paths to greatness but if we would only get ourselves certain, believing, and do it anyway, then we would see that it’s not hard at all.  This applies to anything.

FRIDAY

Friday was interesting in the sense that Tony was not there, he had his #2 do it for him with lots of Tony videos.  It was also a great day because there was a lot of nitty gritty thrown in (with some selling).  We learned the ultimate success formula: (1) Know your outcome, (2) Know your reasons why and make it a must (3) Take Massive Action (4) Know what you are getting – assess your progress (5) And if you are off course change your approach.

The funny thing is that it sounds so simple.  And the truth is, it is!  I’ve read all this stuff in many people’s books.  It’s all there.  But it’s not about reading it, this weekend is all about application, and we learn how to apply lots of these things.

The key learned on that day, is that our overriding principle in life is that we hate pain and love pleasure (although we hate pain more).  Right now, whether you realize it or not, you are wired.  Wired.  And not in the caffeine sense.

You are wired to love and hate certain things based upon how you’ve lived and things you’ve experienced.  If you can wire yourself to experience pain for the things you don’t want and to experience pleasure for the things you do want, then you can be happy and live the life you want.  It’s all about wiring.

For example – smoking.  If you associate more pain to smoking then the pleasure you get from it then you will stop doing it.  But smokers don’t want to stop because they associate too much pain in quitting.  You have to tip the balance, get leverage, stop the pattern, and replace it with something helpful.  This works for all things.

On this day I made two key decisions.

(1)    That I was going to wake up every morning with energy.

(2)    That I was going to do whatever I could to control my states.

One last Friday idea: TV is an electronic income reducer.  Love that thought because nothing could be more true.

OK, one more thing.  There were so many things that happened over the weekend that led me to feel like things were guiding me.  I met people who I was able to help, I spoke to others who might be able to help me.  Just a great thing, vibes and everything.  I made some friendships that I hope will last a long time.

Interestingly, this weekend made me feel an extraordinary amount of love for my family, especially wife and child.  I know I love them, but it’s a whole new level now and I’m grateful for that.

Shabbos/Saturday

Wow.  I’ll never be able to do this day justice, and I won’t try to.  It’s enough to say it was one of the greatest days of my life.

I stayed in a hotel the night before because of the Sabbath, and I walked to expo center.  The funny thing is that I could not write anything, I was just there listening.  Everyone was intently writing things down, I was just trying to make it part of me.

Tony was there that day and he was amazing.   On the stage from 9 until 2 am.  There were about 2 hours total of breaks.  Can you imagine?  Being on stage for that long?  He has an insane amount of energy.  Insanely awesome.  A place I’m going to get to someday.  (you read that right)

The short version is that he took our limiting beliefs, made them painful for us (with a lot of visualization techniques, but intense) and then programmed new powerful beliefs.

The key to everything is knowing your beliefs, if they don’t work getting enough leverage to get them out of you, and then replacing them with empowering ones.  Sounds simple, but what I said has literally 1/1000 of the power of what we actually did.

All this leads to these thoughts and I’m just going to let them flow.  I’m starting to see a difference in the world between those of us who have what we want and those of us who don’t.  We are so conditioned to do certain things, think certain things, it’s literally why 95% of us are miserable, sick, fat, just unhappy.  We have one of the richest cultures ever, yet we are more miserable than ever before.  And it’s simply conditioning, that’s all.  If we changed our conditioning, and we can, then we can be happy.  It’s going to take time (especially for me right now) but we can do it.  You can do it.  You don’t have to live a life of misery.  There have been and will always be people who have less than you do that are in a worse position.  You can rise up and make it happen!

One last thing on this day.  I met someone who is super awesome and this person did something that was extremely, amazing, nice, kind, and just awesome. This person allowed me to shake Tony’s hand and take a picture with him.  His hand is so big, so loving, I’ll always be grateful to this person for everything.  I hope that this person stays a friend, becomes super happy in career, family, and everything.  I’ll always be grateful.

SUNDAY

Sunday was about the body, and perhaps helped us leave with many concrete ideas.  There are many things that I’m going to do as a result but it’s a little dry and boring for here right now.  If you want to know then I’ll totally tell you.

REENTRY

It’s already Tuesday.  Tuesday.  I know that there are things going on internally with me and I’m trying to fight them, work with them.  This thing is not going to easy, not one bit.  I’m going to have to program myself now since he’s not there for me anymore.  I know that I can do it, it’s just going to take work.  Effort.  Persistence.  But it’s going to happen!  Now I am the voice!

I’m nervous because tomorrow is an exciting day, really awesome.  Tomorrow is the beginning of the Tony weekend.  It’s a huge deal.  But before I get there, let me update you on the past 10 days or so.

Last week, Friday, I gave an awesome workshop on how to get more clients.  It was awesome.  The people there really liked it.  On top of that, I heard that I might be giving the same workshop on April 25.  On top of that, I was published twice in Jewish publications.  There’s good traction.  I think it’s because I’m doing what I can to focus on positive energies.  I heard today and it’s so true, that if you are being positive and energetic and excited then good things happen.  I have to remember that.

Interestingly, last week, when I focused on completing the workshop (and materials), and then into the weekend, when I had to prepare for my fantasy baseball draft, and even into today, when I was working on a legal brief, I was not able to read any positive materials.  I was not able to take time out of the day, especially in the morning, and read something that would motivate me.  And it seriously affected my mood.  I have to be sure that I am constantly, and I mean constantly, feeding myself positive messages.  I’m not at the point yet where positivity is my baseline, and in order for me to be that way I have to keep on feeding myself positivity.  For some reason I do it, but I always stop.  There can be no stop.  This is for real.

Back to nervous. I’m excited, but I’m nervous about changing.  I don’t know what it’s going to mean.  I don’t know if it will even happen.  I hope it does, I’m ready for it too, but at the same time I don’t want to put too much pressure on this.

The key seems to be to focus on the excitement.  Don’t blow this out of proportion.  Be excited, no matter what happens this is what is supposed to happen and it’s going to be awesome.  OK, excited, happy, that’s what I’m going for.  Let’s get excited people!

I originally stopped the post here and was about to publish it when I decided I wanted to write a little more.  I want to write about what I want this weekend to be.

These are my goals for this weekend:

(1)    Take the current level I’m on say a 4 and get me to a 7.

(2)    Learn some amazing insights and techniques I can use as a coach

(3)    Lean some amazing insights and techniques I can use as a speaker, especially motivating and interacting with an audience

(4)    I want to see the world differently.  I want to see the world through different glasses.  Through confident glasses, and I want to be wearing those glasses always.  I want to have an indelible mark of positivity, inspiration, I want to be changed and well on my way to changing me forever

(5)    I also want to see the world like Neo in the Matrix.  I want to understand it in a way I’ve never done before.  I’ve had this experience in my life that there was something I wanted to do but I could not understand.  I tried and I tried and I tried and then at some point it just made sense. I want to see the world like that, definitely from a financial perspective but also from a people perspective.

(6)    I want this to be the catapult to where I meet interesting people and find a mentor (that would be super awesome)

(7)    I want to leave with many ideas for my business that are going to be game changers, and I want to leave with a plan to implement them

(8)    I don’t want my son to miss me too much where he’s upset with me.

I think that’s all.

On Wednesday someone hacked me, someone who was playing cheaply the whole game.  Then he smacks me on the face as I was driving into the lane and he said that I carried the ball – therefore he should get it.

WTF?  You hit me the whole game, now you hit me again, and you say that I basically traveled?  Seriously?

So a little bit of shouting ensued.

The next night.  Playing ball again.  Someone called foul (on me) on a play that no one calls – ever.  I got upset, I tried so hard to keep it in, but I couldn’t.  Errr.

You could say a little shouting ensued.

Then Sunday.  This guy, who is pretty cheap (trying to be nice) goes to shoot the ball and I fake as if I’m going to play defense on him (I’ve done this a million times and no one would even consider it…) and he calls me cheap.  Dirty.  Wow, was I pissed.  I tried letting it go, for the most part I did….although

You would definitely say a little shouting ensued.

This guy even got into a fight with someone else (it’s clearly him) but for some reason it gets to me, or it got to me.

3 games, 3 chances to let this go.  I have to learn to find a way to not get to this point.  I want to be zen on the basketball court, I can do it, I can do it.

But how?  The emotions boil in me so fast, by the time I realize I’m there I’ve been there for a bit.

I realized that this is based upon a rule of mine.  The rule is this: If someone says something, then it must be true, especially if it’s about me.  And so if someone says these basketball things to me (“you traveled” “you’re a dirty player”) then it must be true.  When really both people are just somewhat ridiculous.

Does that sound right to you?  Am I just putting all the blame on the other person?  Perhaps that’s what optimists do?  And I’m an optimist, or I’m an aspiring-almost there-working on it-getting close optimist.  It’s a work in progress.

Financially is another story.  Someone said to me this weekend that you have to walk before you can run and you have to crawl before you can walk.  It’s true.  I’m in the crawling phase right now, but I am so certain that this is going to help me in the future working with clients that I’m starting to get excited that I’m facing this.  Weird, but true.

All of this having been said, there’s a crucial point that I’d like to get ingrained in my head (and maybe yours too?).  My entire thinking throughout this process has been, that when I’m self-sufficient, that is when I can let myself relax and feel less pressure.  Meaning, nothing I do means anything until I’m doing the coaching/speaking thing full time.

It adds a lot of pressure to my every day because it’s the basic when this…then I can relax, be happy scenario which we know is not very successful.

And so today I’m going to make a commitment.  I’m going to commit myself to be happy now.  By being happy, cheerful, now, we’ll automatically achieve more.  You hear this idea everywhere, but do you live it?

Now of course, happiness isn’t something that happens all the time, be realistic.  But I’m going to say to myself anymore that when I get somewhere I’ll be happy.  NO.

Be happy now.  Make a commitment to do what you can, to do what I can, to make myself happy.  Be happy now.

Because I’m convinced (and trust me, you’ll know if I’m wrong on this) that the more I’m happy now, the more that I’m going to achieve.  I’m going to kick my gear up a notch, because I’m going to, I have the faith in myself and in G-d that he’s going to help me on my journey.  He’s going to help us all.

This weekend I went to Baltimore (which was why I could not get anything in before right now).  Going to Baltimore is a great experience because it’s nice to see my family there but this weekend was a celebration – for my cousin who is getting married.  In Judaism (religious, Orthodox Judaism) we don’t have bachelor parties before you get married.  There are weekends where family gets together (often with friends too) and they celebrate, have Sabbath meals, those kinds of things.

This is only for the more religious environments.  I had that weekend (called in Yiddish Aufruf, not to be confused with RufRuf which is my son’s name for a dog) too, but I also had a nice bachelor party in Vegas for the NBA all star game weekend, replete with gang shootings and all the gun or fun stuff that happened there.  I digress.

Anyway, I had a really terrific thought of what I’m going to do when I win the lottery or build up my business.   I’m going to set aside 5 million dollars, and I’m going to set up a charity (sorta) or a nonprofit where I will give micro loans (50K or less) to people to start up businesses (with business plans of course) interest free! but there’s a catch.

The Charity is going to take a piece of the business that is created.  That way, as long as the people are growing their businesses the charity grows too and can make even more loans to help even more people.  I love this idea!  I can’t wait until I win the lottery or build up my business so that I can do this!

One last thing, which I think is a crucial point.  Our behaviors determine whether or not we will accomplish…The thing that determines our behavior is our state.  Meaning, the state that you are in, tired, angry, sad, depressed, happy, is going to determine your behavior.  And your behaviors determine the things you do.  (This is an NLP/Tony idea).

And so, the more dominance or control you exercise over your state, the more you will control your life. The things that determine your state are – what you choose to focus on and your physiology.  When you’re sad, your shoulders are slumped, your face looks a certain way.  Try standing up, back straight, with a silly little grin on your face and stay sad – you cant.

The reason I’m relating this is that I’m trying to use this idea more and more in understanding myself and it’s having a profound impact.  There were certain times this weekend, when I was in a bad state, and a fight could have ensued.  But the first questions I asked myself:

(1)    What am I feeling right now?  Which led right in to –

(2)    What State am I in?

Once I realized where I was, then I was able to move it, change my state (which isn’t easy, but gets easier for me every day).  By changing my state there was no fight.  By there not being a fight there was no anger.  By not having anger, frustration, there was more happiness.

This is an idea I’ve started using with my clients to great impact.

Change your state, change your life.  I’m sure there’s going to be more on this as time goes on.

Now, what if instead of saying I’m depressed you said, “I’ve been happier.”  Would that make a difference?  (I think the answer is yes.)

For me, I say “I’m tired” a lot.  What if I said, “I’ve been more awake,” would that make a difference?  I’m not sure, but I’m going to start trying.

The point: The way we categorize and label our experience is based upon the (internal) words we use to describe those experiences.  And so if you have a choice to describe something in a way that would cause you pain vs. a way that wouldn’t, then why not do it in a less destructive way?

Think about words you use a lot, depressed, overwhelmed, angry.  Now for one week, try using another word, less harmless, maybe even funny.  Try it, tell me how it goes for you, tell us all!

It’s a great idea to think about.  I found out that there are (is?) more than twice the amount of words to explain negative concepts, feelings, emotions that there are for positive.  Why is our language even so negative?

Today was ok, it’s a holiday of Purim which is generally a joyous day.  Because I was with family there were a lot of questions about my business. I actually did a mini coaching session that I thought went well.  I’m just good at coaching.  It’s time for me to help more people.  That’s what this month is about.  Changing my perspective, letting things happen, and working with more people – all of this through positivity.  I’m so ready to break out, so very ready.