Many go about their lives telling themselves and others, ‘you’re okay the way you are’. When I decided to stop Strength of Saad nearly 2 years ago I came to the painful realisation that ‘I’m NOT okay the way I am’. I no longer felt I was living with integrity and virtue. Who I was being was in contradiction with my words. I couldn’t allow myself to continue to maintain a public authoritarian presence as a health professional/coach. So I stopped everything. I had to go dark, go inwards, enter a decent of katabasis, self reflect and break myself apart so I could rebuild myself into someone I deemed worthy – someone who stood for excellence. Because if you say you stand for excellence then it necessities you must embody and exude excellence and someone that is aspirational. Otherwise, your character is in disharmony and contradiction with your Being and you’re living a lie. That is how I felt and what I had to face.
I realised that many of us (no matter your field) dedicate our lives to unlocking the maximum potential of others all while neglecting our own potential. People like me were trying to change others when they hadn’t sufficiently changed themselves. I needed to ‘get my own house in order’ by going down a path I had never gone down and tap into a version of myself I had never unlocked. This was the ‘right of passage’ I created for myself in order to come back and speak to the world again…it took nearly 2 years, thousands of dollars, thousands of hours, litres of sweat and an abyss full of voluntarily pain and suffering.
I realised what really moves and inspires one’s soul is who you’re being. Your body is your mind – if you look and act weak, you’re reflecting a weakness of character. If you’re unhealthy internally – you’re weak. Bodily vigor, health, vitality and strength is a reflection of one’s character. So much so that “what you are speaks so loud that the world can’t hear a word your saying”. Now that I’ve killed my old self and emerged from the abyss I can re-enter the world standing tall and feeling worthy for embodying a standard of excellence I have never reached before.
You Have To BE The Product – Appearances Mattes
People say looks and appearances don’t matter? Well ask yourself this, which coach out of these two would you rather work with? The left was the end of 2017 and my state of health was un-fucking acceptable. And guess what, no one was telling me that truth. When I looked in the mirror I had to face the truth of my insignificance myself!
Internally I was unhealthy. My gut health was a mess and my GI symptoms were aggravating and affecting me mentally on a daily basis. You can see patches eczema on my face which was rooted in a cascade of underlying gut dysbiosis/SIBO which built up over the years and then hit me like a ton of bricks.
Then you see my lack of physical stature which for the average person may be acceptable. But for a COACH who literally dedicates his profession/life to understanding how to optimise human health/performance to help others achieve that for themselves, who I was being was UNACCEPTABLE. I can’t respect myself as a professional/person if I don’t embody the integrity and excellence within my physical and mental health that I preach and revere so highly.
I relied on my lean skinny athletic build and athleticism to justify my insecurities and weaknesses about myself. The quote, “what you are speaks so loud that the world can’t hear a word your saying” forced me to self reflect on who I was and do what was necessary to break myself and change myself.
If you look weak, you are reflecting a weakness of character. If you’re unhealthy internally – you’re weak. I was weak, I don’t mean literally weak I mean my physical presence and internal health represented a deep internal weakness and insecurity within me. I realise people do not want to say this about themselves. They don’t want to admit thing’s like they’re fat, lazy and cowardly. Well I used to be a weak, insecure, timid scrawny kid who hid from his weaknesses so he could avoid feeling bad about himself. I accepted mediocrity and my weaknesses as I lent on my strengths allowing them to hide me from the truth of my insignificance…until…I didn’t. Until, I forced myself to face myself and do something about it all, break myself down and kill my old self.
Who Could You Be? ‘WHAT IF?’ & ‘WHY NOT?’
Some people can be great at the technical skills of their craft and getting results but below average in practising what they preach. Instead,they focus on building others and refining their craft. There’s benefit in that, but to me, it represents a contradiction of professional and personal competency like an overweight Doctor. You may be one of the smartest GP’s but I just don’t trust you as much to give me advice if you’re living in-congruently with your professional expertise. This used to be me for years (see my last post). Then I said to myself, I should and can do BOTH – I can help others find their own excellence AND I can find it for myself. I dare you to hold yourself to that standard if you are a coach and hold your coach to that standard if you are a client.
Training – Nutrition – Mental Health – Habits – Sleep – Stress – Gut. We preach the importance of these foundational pillars of health yet contradict them. Then we do all types of ‘mental gymnastics’ to justify our own mediocrity so we can avoid facing ourselves and our insignificance. I’m not saying you have to be as athletic, big, strong or lean as your best athletes/clients. That’s okay, that’s literally they’re job and main mission in life. Phil Jackson wasn’t as good as half the players he coached, but he was still an NBA player, he still understood the game to their level. So why shouldn’t we understand the game of optimising total human health and performance onto ourselves?
Who could you be if you really tried to push your body and mind to levels of excellence you’ve never felt? What if you can look the part, be the part, be a great practitioner who is educated and get’s great results? Why not? Why accept the bare minimum of ourselves? Why accept comfort? Why not hold ourselves to a high standard of excellence? Who could you be if you just asked ‘WHAT IF?’ and ‘WHY NOT?’
I’d be doing everyone I worked with a disservice if I didn’t change myself. I needed to be better for them and me. So if you were like me and sick of who you were/are, this is your opportunity to break yourself down, put yourself together and actualise your potential.
Investing In Yourself & Paying It Forward
There is no way I would’ve made the dramatic changes that I made to my internal/external health to now feel amazing inside and out without these three men I invested in: Ben Cant @bennylifts , Dave O’Brien @dave.o.brien and Aaron Scarborough @aaronstrongaz
Collectively over the last 2 years they have all played A MAJOR role in forging and untapping my potential and I could not be here embodying the person I am without their guidance and wisdom they passed onto me.
But I was only able to get here once I pushed past the self-limiting belief of thinking I could do it on my own. Men especially tend to pride themselves on thinking they don’t need others or shouldn’t be reliant on anyone. I think I did this to protect my self-worth, capability and independence. This ultimately set me back and slowed my progress. People need people. I had to realise my self-worth was not undermined by admitting ignorance and asking for help and guidance.
To address this insecurity all I did was simply look around me at more successful people who were doing what I admired and represented characteristics I wanted to embody and I asked myself:
‘How am I limiting my potential in a way that these people I admire have addressed?’
and
”What traits do the most successful people I admire have in common?’
One of the biggest commonalities that I saw in the most ‘successful’, fulfilled and free is that they all invested large amounts of money, time and energy into others who knew something they didn’t and possessed something they desired.
Once I recognised that and invested in others the wind was in my back, momentum was on my side and I started running downhill instead of uphill. Then the rate of my growth and development dramatically increased. All because I was willing to take a short term hit of discomfort and pain for a long-term gain. This is the power of investing in yourself. You move faster and go further. I owe tremendous gratitude and thanks to Ben, Dave and Aaron because I am not me, without them.
