When I was in grade school, I remember some of the crazy perceptions I had.  One of these was that only people born with innate special talents in something were successful in it.  For instance, if I played basketball and did not have some immediate success, I figured I was not meant for the game.  Based on what I was taught, mistakes were not a good thing.  They meant you were not good at something.  They were a sign of failure.

This is just another form of the crap they used to teach us in school.

Mistakes are a great thing and everyone makes them.  It is part of our nature. We are not perfect beings.  We are beings capable of making decisions toward becoming perfect.  This brings up the other major fallacy I had: the thought that people are born special.  They are not.  Don’t be upset.  You, I, or the next person are not anymore special than anyone else.  Some people are born with better abilities for certain things then others, but this is just a starting point.   Think about it.  Not every 7 foot tall person is a basketball star.

People are not special.  Some of them just do special things.

Determination always triumphs talent.  Think of the greatest athletes or out time.  Would you say Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong or Tiger Woods were the most talented in their respective sports?  Maybe.  But I bet you would have no doubt that their ruthless determination to win is unmatched by any of their competitors.

When you see a Tiger Woods commercial, does it show how far he can hit the ball?  Not the ones I have seen. However, I have seen one where Tiger practices every day no matter what, even in the rain.  And plenty of ones where he triumphs through all sorts of distractions with his signature mental toughness.

The point is that these men may be very talented, but they do special things because of their determination.  We all have different talents, but they are just that, talents.  They are undeveloped.  In order to take your talent to the next level, you must develop it.  You must work hard, practice hard, research everything, and become a sponge of knowledge on your goal.  You must do everything in your power to get there.  I will repeat it again:

People are not special.  Some of them just do special things.

Remember this the next time you think to yourself, ‘I can’t do this.’  What you are saying is that you can not do it as well as others, yet.  But the key word is…YET.  If you were determined enough, I bet you could do anything.  Just look at the videos on this blog from previous Fridays if you have any doubt about the power of determination.

The greatest thing about being human is our ability to control our own destiny.  Do not take it for granted.  It is a power like nothing else on this earth.  If we set our mind on something, anything, it is only a matter of time and effort before we achieve it.  So, for the last time, please remember…

People are not special.  Some of them just do special things.

When I went to college in the mid 90s, I had a very good friend I met in my freshman dorm.  He was an Armenian young man, strong as an ox with an unmatched resolve.  He was also incredibly smart at anything he put his mind to.  However, the one thing I learned from him more than anything else is how to read people.

My friend had a gift for it.  He seemed to know things before they happened.  He was like Vito Corleone telling his Consigliore Tom exactly what every gangster would do before they did it.  He opened up my mind to a whole other world of communication I had no idea existed.  It consisted of reading others body language, responses, and actions. It was honestly the single most important thing I learned in my two years at the University of Maryland.  It is a skill I have been developing ever since.

All it requires is that you pay attention more to what people do and what they say.  Then you simply remove all your expectations, judgments, and innate feelings.  If you are able to do this, you will observe all of the expectations, judgments, and innate feelings in others.  You will begin to see who acts the part and who is the part.

Over my experience, I have come up with a few lessons to help you better read people.  I can’t say it is a fact with proven results.  I can only say, that they are lessons I believe with every ounce of my mind to be true.

People always make the most ‘noise’ about what they fear the most.

For example, picture a guy with cut off sleeves, jacked biceps, tattoos, & a goat tee walking around with tight clothes, clenched fists, & an angry look on his face.  This guy’s entire demeanor reads ‘don’t mess with me!‘  To me, if his demeanor is screaming ‘don’t mess with me,’  than that is what he fears the most.  He does not like to be messed with, simple as that.

He has learned, that if he walks and acts like this, he will avoid the average person messing with him.  This is his defense to the world.  He also gets the ‘tough guy’ attention he loves.  He probably promotes himself to girls as a guy ‘no one should mess with.’  Chances are that is not the case.  This guy simply wants nobody to mess with him.  He likes to play the ‘tough guy’, cause chances are, he is not tough at all.

In Jiu Jitsu and MMA, we get a lot of guys like this. They come into the gym with their new ‘Tapout’ gear on, goat tees, tatoos, and dirty looks for everyone.  Some have even fought before.  It is these guys that usually get wrecked.  They have a problem with their ego they have not worked out yet, therefore they need to look the part, in order to feel the part.  It stunts their training growth, because they believe they are tougher than everyone else, and not that they have more to learn.

However, we also get some people who are exactly the opposite.  They come in, are friendly, knowledgeable, and completely humble.  It is these people that are the scariest.

A great example of this is the last pro fight I cornered in Atlantic City, NJ.  My friend and training partner Ricardo, who is 5-0 in pro MMA and the light heavyweight champ of Louis Neglia’s Ring of Combat, was 4-0 at the time.  He had walked through every opponent.  None had made it past the first round.  None had even challenged Ricardo.  He is that good.

Fighters always arrive at the fights a day early for medical stuff and the weigh ins.  You always run into the guy you are going to fight because you are all eating and staying at the same hotel.  It is very common to have the elevator door open, and have to get in next to your opponent and his entourage.  Every fighter deals with this differently.  Many try to look tough, and stay silent.

Ricardo’s opponent was named Constantinos.  He was a pro boxer from Greece.  He had never fought in an MMA fight before, but had been training with a top school for awhile.  Each time Ricardo ran into him, he was nice, smiling, and genuinely kind.  He was not the slight bit nervous at all.  In fact, he was almost as calm as Ricardo.

I said to my fellow cornerman that I thought this was going to be a tough fight.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  And for good reason.  Ricardo is almost inhuman.  He destroyed some of the top fighters in the Northeast in under a round.  He was a division 1 wrestler who was ranked 10th in the country at one time.  He is one of the calmest people I have ever been around.  You would never know he was fighting if you hung out with him that day.  He is so mentally strong, that he is completely relaxed.

I noticed this trait about the other fighter though, too.  My fellow corner man, Chris, thought logically that this was Constantinos’s first fight and it was against a champ.  I thought differently.  This guy was too calm to be scared.  And if he is not scared of facing the champ in his first fight, than he must be tough.  Chris and I made a gentleman’s bet on it.

In the first round, Constantinos knocked down Ricardo, but then Ricardo took him down, mounted and controlled him for the majority of the round.  In the 2nd round, Constantinos nearly knocked out Ricardo.  The ref was a half step away from jumping in, when again, Ricardo took him down and controlled him.  In the 3rd round, Ricardo took him down and maintained control the rest of the fight.  It was, by far, the toughest fight Ricardo has ever had, and he was a second away from losing in the 2nd round.  I didn’t even have to tell Chris “I told you so.’  His body language said it all.

The bottom line is, it is important to read people’s body language, and not just use logic.  Logic said Ricardo would dominate, but logic only goes so far.  By reading this fighter’s body language, I was able to tell he was mentally ready.   And anyone mentally prepared for a pro fight is going to be a tough match for anyone.

Reading people’s body language, their statements, and their traits, is a great way to get an edge in life.  Sometimes logic is not enough because every situation is unique in some way.  The best way to prepare is to learn to pay attention to how other people work. It opens up the door to a whole new world of communication you may have never realized existed.  It is a language much more truthful than any language we speak.

I guess my early college days were good for something.  Tune in tomorrow for part two.

Yesterday, after a frantic last few weeks, my company, Reimagine, finally finished our first commercial. It took about a month or so to complete, from concept to final cut. Over that time period, I had to scramble for money, find odd jobs to pay some bills, sell off any assets I had, cut my expenses, and deal with all the doubt that comes with it. Yet, after yesterday, I can tell you it is all worth it.

There is nothing like the gratification you get from setting a goal and accomplishing it. No one can take it away from you. You set out to do it, you said you would do it, and then you actually come through. Accomplish enough of these small goals, and before you know it, you will turn around one day and realized you just accomplished your big one.

However, during the journey, it is not all peace, love, and happiness. There were countless worries, fears, arguments, doubts, and hecklers from all over. Up until the very last day, there were doubts about whether we would be able to finish on time. Looking back on it, I realized that all the worrying is simply a waste.

When setting out to reach a goal, it is not possible to see every time you inch closer. There are days when you get closer to that goal, and days where you fall back. It is not always a linear journey. The important thing is to understand this. That way, the days you slip back don’t affect the days you move forward. Some days are tougher than others. Some days can seem hopeless. But they are just a day.

Every day, new hope, new challenges, and new opportunities await us. However, sometimes on a bad day, we can feel like all is hopeless. We want to call it quits. We question the worth & the possibility of everything we ever dreamed of. We wonder if we should give up right there.

But then, on the next day, a phone call, or an email, or something rejuvenates us. We are back on track, ready to keep going. We forget about the last day and move forward. We don’t look back because everything seems all right again.

That’s because it is. The one constant is change. Things can’t stay bad forever, just like they can’t be good all the time. However, during the tough days, we can get emotionally caught up in the stress. Sometimes we don’t know how to handle it any other way then to worry. But there is another way. It just takes visualization.

Visualize yourself on the journey. You have a starting point, and a finish line which is your goal. Picture a line of roller coaster track between them. As a matter of fact, turn that line of track into a gigantic roller coaster with HUGE twists, turns, apexes, drops, and all sorts of scary loops. Now, I want you to visualize zooming in to a point on the track where you think you are on your journey. Zoom ALL the way in to that point so that both the starting point and finish line have long since disappeared.

Are you at the top of a drop, or in the middle of a loop? Where are you on the track? If you can’t see the finish line, or even the point where you started, do you even know?

Now, zoom all the way back out for a second and look at this as a roller coaster we created. It’s not so scary when you can see the beginning and the end, now is it? Our journeys toward our goals are very similar to this.

When we start out, we start slow, prodding our way along the track. The tough days are like the moments heading into that first huge drop about to spiral down at a speed humans should not be traveling. It’s those moments that make us forget for a second, hey, don’t worry, everything is going to be okay at the end. During them, though, it feels like the world is going to end. Our stomach drops, our fears rush through our body. This is just the way we freak out. It’s why at the end when we know it is safe, that we want to do it again.

Reaching your goal is like that ending. You pull into the track. The safety bar/belt pops open, and you realize you have made it back. ‘I survived!’ You hop off the track, and reminisce about the moments you were scared out of your mind. The same is true for your journey.

Enjoy all the twists and turns, but always remember the journey is just a roller coaster ride. Nobody gets on a roller coaster and expects a simple, easy ride around the track. They know it is going to scare them with loops, drops, curves, peaks and valleys, so they don’t try to get off during each one. They simply trust they are probably going to be all right in the end.

That’s why when their stomach drops and they feel like they are about to die, they smile and keep going. It’s just a roller coaster. If that’s what we are on, we might as well enjoy it. The same holds true for our tough times. Enjoy them, because just around the track is the ending we’ve been waiting for.