Skip La Cour’s BodyBlog

The majority of the people you surround yourself with must have the courage to live life at your level or higher.  If you don’t this type of individuals, you’ll find yourself working hard just to stay where you are-instead of taking your life to the next level. And, you’ll be able to stay where you are only if you’re lucky!

Making things easier doesn’t necessarily make your life better. You might inadvertently rob yourself from earning a sense of satisfaction in the process. Becoming more effective and efficient at what you do will make things better and keep you working toward the never-ending journey of self-fulfillment.

What’s “easy” will never become fulfilling.     

Never complain about how other people treat you. They see you the way they see you. You’ll never “convince” them that they should think any higher of you than they already do. If the world isn’t treating you the way you feel you should be treated, put the pressure on yourself-not the rest of the world. 

Longevity is a very important factor in your ultimate success. If you can “simply hang in there” long enough, the chances are great that you’ll eventually become very good at what you do. 

Everyone lives with angst. Successful people manage their angst better than most.

Angst is an important ingredient of your mental psyche. You absolutely must have some degree of continual angst in your life to remain productive, happy, and fulfilled.

Focus your attention on managing your angst-not completely avoiding it. Manufacture enough to keep you mentally sharp and hungry for improvement-but not so much that it totally overwhelms and disempowers you.

Satisfaction (and frustration, for that matter) is all a matter of perspective.

Try not to predict the quality of the workout you’ll have based on your initial "feelings." Feelings are not a reliable indicator of what you can and cannot achieve.

Why? Your feelings can change every 10 minutes. They can be up one minute and down the next. Hasn’t this happened to you many times before in different aspects of life?

Relying on your feelings can severely limit what you are truly able to accomplish during a weight training workout, cardiovascular training session, and even a work day. Conversely, your feelings can be overly optimistic and cause you to underestimate the task at hand.

Instead of relying on your initial feelings, objectively survey the situation you are presented. Will you feel the same way about the situation 30 minutes from now? Have there been times like these in the past when you outperformed what you initially felt you could? Have there been times in the past when something you were doing was much more difficult than you initially felt it would be and caught you off-guard? 

You are the sum of actions. You are no more-and no less.

You are not the sum of what you can potentially do. Potential unrealized is a waste of ability and time. Good intentions are okay but they really don’t amount to squat.

The best way to feel good about yourself is to do something so well that it even impresses the heck out of even you. If you can do something like that every few days, then there’s no doubt that you are going to feel awesome!

You can’t just tell people who you are and what you’re all about. Unless you start actually being the person you claim to be, you’ll have no credibility. Sooner or later, you’ll either need to stand up and deliver or-or accept the fact that you’ll never be the person you hoped you become. The responsibility is in your hands-not in the hands of others 

If you don’t consider yourself a leader now, work on becoming one. You can acquire the skills of a leader. What doesn’t come naturally to you now will come naturally with practice.

What you focus on in your life will expand. You can change or improve any area of your life with enough concentrated effort and time. The more you practice, the more effective of a leader you’ll become. The more you are aware of what a leader does, the more of a leader you’ll become.

Make the decision on where your group of friends will meet. You be the person who designates the time you’ll meet. When you are with your group of friends, do you walk in the front of the pack, bring up the rear, or are you somewhere in between? Walk in front of the pack—literally. If for no other reason, just do so to strengthen your leadership skills.

Leaders take control over their environment. If they are seated in a restaurant and they’d prefer a different table, they’ll politely ask for the one they want. Why not? If that’s not possible, that’s okay. Leaders don’t just sit back and wish they would have asked. When you go out to dinner with a group, you be the person who takes the bill and instructs the others how much they need to contribute.

Go first any chance you get—especially when you’ll need to take your turn anyway. Be the first person to volunteer an opinion. Be the first person to raise your hand. Take the time to explain your area of expertise to someone who is hungry for knowledge in that area. Organize something. Organize anything—even if it’s just for the leadership practice.

When you arrive at a doorway at the same time as someone else, you be the person who walks through the door first. Or, make the decision to direct them to go first. Just don’t stand there or do a little tap dance with the other person. Take charge of the situation.   

Leadership is an acquired skill–it’s not genetic. I challenge the notion that some people are "natural born leaders." At some point in every person’s life, they either started stepping up or stepping back. Leaders choose to step up. Years and years of stepping up can give you the impression that this person is a natural born leader. In reality, they have made being a leader just a part of their personality–one decision at a time.

Most people don’t have an opinion about most things. It’s not that they can’t formulate an opinion, they just haven’t taken the time or effort to do so. You don’t want to be one of these people.

Who guides these people who don’t invest the time or effort to form opinions? Who influences these people? Who tells these people what to do and when to do it? The leaders do.

Who you are in one area of your life is oftentimes who you are in every area of your life. Practice will strengthen your leadership skills. Practice your leadership skills at work, play, and everywhere else in your life. Practice your leadership skills every chance you can.

Of the small percentage of the people in this world who are truly happy and fulfilled, the majority of them are the leaders in their family, group of friends, community, business, or special interest group. Leaders take charge of their own lives. They take responsibility for how well their lives go. Leaders control their own destiny.

Leaders create extraordinary lives with every decision they make throughout the entire day.   

I once heard someone say, “You are either a leader or a follower. There’s no in between.”

How about you? Are you a leader? Or, are you a follower?

Now, I realize that just about everyone wants to believe they are a leader. Leaders exemplify strength. Leaders are admired. Leaders control not only their own destiny; they control other people’s destinies too.

Whether you are already an effective leader, tend to be a follower, or truly believe you are somewhere in between, you can always strengthen your leadership skills.

One of the secrets to an extraordinary life is continual growth in every area. You must always work on strengthening your leadership skills—no matter how effective they are now. If you want to take your life to the next level, strengthening your leadership skills will help you do so.

Having leadership skills is like having a healthy and fit body. You must exercise your leadership skills regularly to maintain your current level—just like you must exercise your body regularly to keep it at its current level of health and fitness.

To strengthen your leadership skills, you must push yourself past what you normally do. To take your body to a higher level of health and fitness, you must exercise more often than you normally do or with more intensity. What you did in the past will not get you to a new and higher level.