Better today than I was yesterday

This has been my motto for years but I just recently formed it into a sentence. A lot of you probably don't know much about my background and that's a good thing. If you did you probably wouldn't want to be my friend. Let's just say I have had somewhat of a checkered past. I had every opportunity to succeed growing up. I came from a loving middle class family, both of my parents were  present and are still married today. I have two brothers that were both supportive and tried to help me along the way. But like so many others I had to learn the hard way. Thank goodness I'm one of the most stubborn sons of bithches on the planet and I refuse to accept failure. I made a lot of bad choices. I really believe that I can pin my success in life on one decision I made in 2001.

I had decided to move to Colorado to be with my family who had come out here in 1998. I had stayed in MO to finish high school and then had begun working odd jobs. First as a hardwood flooring installer then as a mechanic. I had a girlfriend at the time and had my "friends". I was partying like a rock star and didn't really give a shit about anything else. I smoked like a chimney and ate whatever I wanted. Consequently my weight ballooned to 235 lbs. and I couldn't even do a sit up.

On the day I was suppose to move to Colorado, on my way out of town I got pulled over for expired plates. Plates which I had bounced a check to purchase. The cop took my plates and told me I had to go to the license bureau to pay the fee and then I could come and find him and he would return my plates. The license bureau was about an hours drive from where I was pulled over and by the time I got there it was close to closing time. I paid the fine and thought well now to find that cop. Whom I caught as he was leaving his station at the end of his shift. Luckily he went back into the station got my plates and returned them. By this time it was well into the evening but I had told myself if I don't leave tonight I'm not going to Colorado. So I drove through the night almost wrecking my truck multiple times because I fell asleep and arrived in Ft. Collins to start my new life.

My point in all of this is that at that exact moment I could have decided to stay in MO and essentially given up and resigned myself to be a fat loser for the rest of my life. But I didn't I made the decision to leave that old fat loser behind and become somebody new. I started going to college. I wanted to be a teacher and coach football until I realized that teachers get shit on every single day and I found the fire department. Side note anytime a vote comes up to give teachers, cops, or fireman more money you're damn right I vote YES! And anytime they ask me to take money away from those people I wish I could tell them to go fuck themselves. Anyhooo, I started working out but after failing my first physical agility test for the fire department it became clear that I needed to work out harder. I didn't stop and say well I'm just not cut out to be a firefighter, I put my nose to the grindstone and started training the Olympic lifts seriously. I got myself to where I could pass the physical agility tests but failed interviews, psych tests, and writtens. Again I didn't give up I kept pushing and finally landed a job. Today I've been a firefighter for 9 years. I've been hired by professional departments 3 different times but I've been rejected a hell of a lot more. But I never ever quit.

In April 2011 I had the opportunity to raise some money for a friend in need by taking part in an MMA fight. I fought for the Factory X fight team and that camp was the hardest thing I've ever done. I could have easily walked away and said I can't do this but I didn't I fought. I lost that fight but I raised $1500  to help my friend with medical bills, so yeah I count that as a win. I take this same approach to my training. I won't ever give up and neither should you guys. I know the olympic lifts are hard but keep at them and they will pay huge dividends. "It's easy to lay on a bench and bench press every day and squatting is hard and makes me sore". I get it but the hard stuff is what will make you a better athlete and consequently a better person. But we will get into that in a later post. If you take nothing else away from this post remember this, don't ever give up just because you can't do something right away. It doesn't mean you won't ever be able to do it. This life is a marathon not a sprint (believe me, I realize the irony of that statement coming from me) but it's true so keep plugging away at whatever you do and remind yourself to be.............

Better today than I was yesterday.