Joe’s BodyBlog

I posted this a while ago but wanted to share it again here at bb.com.

Aside from all of the great friends that I have made here a bb.com, sometimes you can unexpectedly run into someone who truly changes the way that you think about yourself, inspires you and puts your thinking into a better perspective. Last week on my chest day, a guy hobbled into the weight room.  He had on a walking cast and he was shorter than me but was really cut and built.  One of my goals is to be cut and built like that. Within 5 minutes of entering the room people started asking him how he broke his foot.  By the time the 4^th and 5^th person asked him I could see the tired look on his face from answering the same question over and over. He told all of them that he didn’t know how he broke it.

Anyway, 4 days later, I was doing pull ups and he hobbled over, sat down and started working out on one of the back machines.  I looked over at his foot and told him that I wasn’t going to ask him about it because I heard everyone else ask him about it and we both laughed.It is amazing what you can learn about people and how they handle and deal with everything that life throws at them. He told me his story.  Aside from the broken foot, he survived a kidney transplant and his heart had stopped twice. He is also dealing with lupus and told me HE DECIDED that these obstacles are not going to get him down and are not going to make him quit. Hearing what he went through and seeing how far he achieved in bodybuilding, made my old back problem seem completely insignificant. Aside from that, the thing that inspired and motivated me the most was his ATTITUDE and DRIVE.  It was completely positive in spite of all the obstacles.  That kind of attitude is an awesome paradox, challenging and conquering the obstacles, not giving in and not getting down about it.  How cool is that?  So the next time I start feeling down about myself, the next time when I catch myself sweating over the small stuff, I am going to remember that there are others who have it a lot worse who made the choice to tackle the problems and adversity head on and succeed.