After a day of work that stretched into late night, something came up that ruined EVERYTHING.
All of the hard work was for NOTHING.
I turned my office light off and walked outside into the darkness.
I hadn’t packed food for the day and my blood sugar was extremely low.
I grabbed a protein bar and told myself that going to the gym was absolutely pointless.
Somehow, I still managed to make it there.
I rolled into the parking lot, grabbed my ticket from the machine, and headed inside.
When I went to hand the front desk person my ticket to validate, I realized that I had very suddenly, lost it.
I walked to get yet another parking ticket and was told that a new one would cost $7.50.
“But I just got here,” I explained.
“It doesn’t matter,” she told me,
“A lost ticket is a lost ticket. That will be $7.50 please.”
I got into state.
“Let’s make a game out of this,” I hyped myself up.
“Find a way to talk the woman into giving you a replacement ticket, WITHOUT paying the fee.”
It wasn’t an argument, because arguing with mindless customer service people is generally absolutely pointless.
“Rules are rules,” as the VERY dumb useless drones ALWAYS like to say.
It wasn’t going to be a fight.
It was going to be a game, something FUN that I would play with.
In sales, they teach: He who speaks FIRST loses. Silence is absolutely uncomfortable.
The OTHER person will often say SOMETHING against her interest… just to break the awkwardness of the dead silence.
I stood there , just like a man with some VERY dominant body language.
I made eye contact, kept my chin up, and I did NOT ever let my shoulders slouch.
“Where are you headed to,” she finally asked.
“To the gym.”
“Well, just get a note or something from the gym saying you’re a member and I’ll let you out without a ticket.”
It was a small victory as the MONEY was absolutely NOTHING to me.
But it was a victory that I absolutely downright needed.
It fed my soul and my workout ended up being totally incredible.
Every day you have a chance to win – or to lose.
You can build an amazing blog or a REALLY REALLY crappy one.
You can have a Mickey Mouse workout at the gym or a high intensity training session.
Seek victory… on the small things… and you will eventually find victory… on the absolutely GREAT things.
Winning isn’t just something that merely happens.
It’s something that YOU choose to do, every single day.
As Vince Lombardi once noted:
“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all of the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.”
What are you going to do today?
Are you going to be a loser or a winner?
Are you going to sit down on the couch in your khakis and open up some brewskis to forget how much that your life currently sucks?
Or are you going to change your life, starting RIGHT NOW?
Winning is a habit and also a choice.
What’s YOUR choice?
Today is the day, a completely NEW beginning, a NEW opportunity for YOU to win.
What are you going to win at?
Until next time.
Your man,
-Elijah “The Realist
