Anyone who’s truly innovative in this world will be at least 20 years ahead of their peers. In fact, scratch that, they’ll be peerless, probably unemployable, and most certainly unpopular!
In my late teens my Martial Arts Coach, Steve Morris, pictured left, was using High-Intensity Interval Training, Isometrics, Intermittent Fasting, and the 16/8 or Warrior diet, as part of his own personal protocol.
But get this; that was in 1980!!!
Of course, there were no such names back then, for what are two of today’s biggest buzz phrases of the exercise world, and three from today’s diet and nutrition industry.
Think of how advanced this guy’s Martial Arts training must have been back then, or is today for that matter!
I’ll tell you. It was and still is; off the fucking chart!
If he was 20 years ahead of his time 35 years ago and is still improving in 2015 at 72 years young, then what the fuck are you doing throwing your Dollars, Yen, Euro or Pounds, at these cartwheeling, animal crawling, special forces wankers that infest today’s martial arts culture?
Ok, so maybe you’re not into martial arts, fair enough, but you maybe know people who are, and this all relates to your future success in life and Life Coaching from me for sure, so please read on.
Let me tell you why these people you know ‘Can’t find’ an outstanding coach like mine, or why they ‘Can’t get along’ with someone like him, (or me) when they do find us, and it’s not what you may want to hear.
You see, they don’t want to learn ‘real’ martial arts from the likes of Steve, and they don’t want any ‘real, permanent’ personal change in their lives from the likes of me!
It’s all lip service in other words, and more for everyone else’s benefit who’ll be watching them ‘make an effort’, from the sidelines.
You’re calling bullshit on that one, aren’t you?
I don’t blame you; I’ve had enough smoke blown up my arse over the past 40 years, from every so-called expert, from Bruce Lee and Joe Weider to Tony Robbins and a dozen others, all of whom were, or still are, experts in dishing out exactly what lazy bastards want to swallow.
So I’m with you, but look, maybe it’s time to explain another fact of life at this point.
Human Beings are designed to conserve energy!
You knew that, right?
Our genes are programmed to exert just enough energy to Survive, Eat and Make Babies (see I could have said fuck!).
So as a species we are all inherently lazy, consider it a superb survival instinct.
No caveman ever went for a jog, or picked up rocks for his biceps!
If you didn’t know how long it was till your next meal was coming, then how many wanky CrossFit wods would you do this week?
For our ancestors though, an over expenditure of energy might be classed as suicidal.
You see, our intuitive intelligence tells us that to affect any lasting change, be it to our finances, our health, longevity, fitness, or general satisfaction in life, it’s not gonna be easy.
If you’re a wimp right now and want to change that by becoming a so-called ‘Alpha’, surely some part of your mind is telling you it’ll be no walk in the park.
Likely as not it won’t be fun, and you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t happen quickly.
But our instincts, driven by the overwhelming urge to conserve energy, force our minds to constantly search for the line of least resistance or the easy way out.
Because of this fact of human evolution, we become prey for a more modern predator who tells us how we can; “become a Black Belt Killer in 90 days.” Or “order your copy of the Secret to personal growth, wealth and happiness, and experience the fast, fun process, that’s so easy, everyone’s talking about it.”
Any of that bullshit sound familiar?
To make matters worse still, our new brain (neocortex), justifies the logic in those statements, and since most people lack a frame of reference, or someone like me to tell it like it is in Life Coaching, or Steve Morris in MMA, while everyone else on the bookshelf or the Internet mirrors the above, quick, easy, fun and cheap philosophy, then what is in fact total bullshit, becomes fact by sheer repetition, media attention, and volume of sales.
So maybe I’ve left it a bit late in the day to come along and say to my public, as I often do; “hey, it’s taken you 30 years to get this fucked up, give me a year to get you sorted out.”
And, “unless you enjoy discovering how you been fucked in the arse by every guru you’ve signed up to in the last 25 years, this won’t be much fun either.”
Finally, and this one goes down like a fart in a Volkswagen, “and since we’re designed to conserve energy, maintain the status quo, and what didn’t kill us yesterday is the easiest thing to repeat today, then I think it’s fair to say the journey won’t be fucking easy either.”
It makes you wonder if there’s even a place for my favourite coach, or my own talents and methods, in a marketplace that’s stacked up, not to keep the strong from winning, but to keep the weak from losing.
Let me share another personal story with you;
Again it’s 1980, and my Sales Manager, Glynn Garfield, calls me into his office with one hand whilst covering his lips with his index finger of the other, so as to say ‘quietly’.
I’m thinking ‘fuck, what have I done now’?
He asked me how I enjoyed the Body Language course I’d completed, under the great Australian, Alan Pease (photo left).
Everyone else in the office thought the £400 live 3-day course was a waste of money, in fact, in the UK, all personal development was seen as ‘American bullshit’ in 1980.
But not by Glynn. This was no typical sales manager and no typical 40 yr. old either.
Glynn ran 3 miles each morning, played soccer on the weekends, and was a keen golfer.
He was lean, sharp, and at the top of his game.
He also had a big secret!
Hidden in a locked 7ft long cabinet behind his desk, he had a shit ton of personal development cassette tapes.
All people I’d never heard of including Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rhone, Jack and Gary Kinder etc.
He’d called me into his office because he knew full well that whilst I’d hit quota each month, I’d seldom work more than 2 days a week to achieve it, and I certainly wouldn’t go out on any leads on a Mon, Wed or Friday evening, because that’s when I taught Karate, and on Tuesdays I was having private lessons with my own coach in London’s West End.
Glynn knew I was easily the most talented salesman in the branch, but couldn’t find a way to motivate me to work 6 or 7 days a week, as did most life insurance salesmen back then.
Fuck that, I already earnt a full-time wage from coaching, another as a 2 days a week salesman, and my missis was a full-time bank clerk.
As far as sales went back then, if you’d let me into your house or office, you were buying something.
You may as well have invited every legendary sales name on the list above into your house because I’d listened or read everything they’d ever said or written, at least 5 times over.
If I thought a cassette tape was particularly brilliant, it would play over and over in my car for weeks on end.
I simply kept getting better and better each time I learnt and applied any of the above genius’s techniques, and the body language course was the icing on the cake.
I could now read and interpret the non-verbal conversations of my prospects, simply from paying attention.
I’d made back the £400 the course cost me on the first pitch I made, two days after completing it.
No one else in the office thought ‘Body Language’ was important, since Alan Pease had appeared on British TV, but as if he was a novelty act, or a bit of a joke, which I thought was tragic.
On Alan’s course I discovered he was also a huge advocate of the same material that Glynn had hidden away in his office cupboard, and I remember him commenting on how strange it was to find someone as young as me (21) taking an interest in such products, as all the dudes attending were then in their 30’s and 40’s.
Dear reader.
Whatever it is you want to move ahead on in this world, whatever your goals, ambitions or passions, never let ‘common knowledge’ or social stigma keep you away from ‘Innovative and Creative’ people, who can truly help you.
Most people in this world are ‘Learners and Repeaters’, they accept whatever bullshit is in a textbook, or university psychology course, and simply regurgitate the information to their trainees, or clients.
Which is why they all sound the same and say the same crap.
Everyone in the personal development, or sales training industry these days, tows the party line.
“If your any different, you’ll starve Andy”, I’ve been told on numerous occasions.
So as long as anything someone sells as a product or service falls in line with what Tony Robbins is more or less saying and selling, only a bit cheaper, they can be assured of a good trade.
Same with sales training, diet, exercise, you name it, anywhere you look their all sucking each other’s dicks and drinking from the same cool aid.
I was simply ahead of my time at 21 because I had the good sense not to give a shit what anyone else thought, and I had a key to Glynn’s secret Personal Development cupboard.
Imagine that; at 21 I had arguably the best, most innovative and creative martial arts coach alive, a groundbreaking sales manager who actually cared about his staff, and I also had access to the minds of the sales and leadership worlds absolute giants.
Boy oh boy was my view of the world different, from sitting on those men’s legendary shoulders.
Although I’d been training in martial arts since I was 18, and in sales from 15, it wasn’t until around 21 when I realized just how unbelievably fortunate I was, to have such superb mentors.
In fact, I despised Steve Morris for the first 3 years with him, until the penny dropped, but that’s a different article.
Once the penny did drop though, I became able to spot ‘the frogs from the princes’, and for the rest of my life will always still be able to differentiate between the learners and repeaters, copycats and wannabe’s, who talk intellectual vomit, and the innovative and creatives, who are so few and far between you can’t imagine.
In any trade I’ve ever been in, I always looked for, sought out, travelled far, studied, suffered under, paid to be near, and damn well paid heed to, exclusively; ‘Innovators and Creators’.
Real people, who tell it like it is, cut to the chase and are at the top of their respective game.
And not at the top because they teach other people how to get to the top, oh no, fuck that, any idiot can sell an online course or seminar on how to be a millionaire, or defeat 4 larger opponents in an alleyway, how to succeed in sales or whatever, but without ever having done it themselves!
The exception usually being the financial whizz kid, or Law of Attraction guru, who has, in fact, made a fortune, but by using ‘the law of attracting, a bunch of get rich quick morons’, each with £29.99 to spend.
No, my mentors were, and still are at the top of their game, because they rose, and continue to rise above their competition, by playing the fucking game, and winning it at its highest level!
By practical, painful participation, in careers, sports or arts, that mere mortals can’t get near them in.
These are the people I’ve been inspired to ‘attempt’ to model myself on for the past 40 years, not the cretins who populate the status quo in every field of endeavour today.
The public deserves better than it’s got, been given, and are continuing to get, from these insincere, misinformed, and often delusional coaches, trainers, leaders and gurus.
Train yourself to understand the difference between ‘Innovators and Creators’, and ‘Learners and Repeaters’, and then teach that distinction to your own kids and grandkids.
Invest in yourself as I did with Alan Pease back in 1980, which caught my sales managers attention, to the point where he invited me to share a treasure trove of wisdom, unbeknown to anyone else in that office.
“I’d keep this quiet if I were you, Andy, not everyone thinks much of this material” he cautioned, and that was fine by me.
I was super excited at anything that gave me the edge or made up for the shortfall of my shitty education, so my lips were sealed.
But not anymore, thankfully.
And that’s the true way forward for a better world for all of us.
Thanks for stopping by,
Blunt Coach Andy.
