Rudyard Kipling

Not only is this a great bit of poetry, but Rudyard Kipling’s ‘IF’ is also sort of a recipe for success and happiness. I like it a lot and hope you do too.

“If” By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The first idea presented in the third stanza “If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss” initially gave me pause because my first-blush interpretation was that Kipling was saying high risk is a good thing.

But I came to realize that everything in life is high risk, and Kipling simply used gambling as metaphor. We all experience failure in some way, sometimes daily. The point, at least to me, is that regardless of what ’skeletons’ you have in your closet, what significant failures (or accumulation of many small ones) you have in your past, they do NOT, unless you allow them, dictate your future.

IF…this poem’s message resonates with you, please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Thanks,
Eric

Evolution Accelerator Is Open!

We have a very limited number of spots in each Evolution Accelerator Profit Path still available:

Studio/Facility – 17 spots left (33 taken)

Boot Camp/Group Training – 14 spots left (36 taken)

Independent Personal Trainer – 22 spots left (28 taken)

All spots will likely be claimed today, so NOW is the time to grab yours here.

We look forward to working with you and showing you the PROVEN path to the fitness business you always wanted.

Here’s how to radically and rapidly improve your fitness business (and, frankly…your life).

To your success,
Eric

P.S. If you haven’t watched the Evolution Accelerator video yet, you can do that here.

Just a quick head’s up to let you know we’ll be opening up Evolution Accelerator tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. eastern time.

The video here explains the program.

We let the early bird’s in through a back door today, and if any spots remain, we’ll open up registration to everyone else tomorrow.

By the looks of things so far, it’s going to be a close call.

So if you have an interest in what is certainly the most revolutionary fitness business success training program in the history of this industry…at less than seven bucks a day…without any commitment or contract…

…BE READY when we open the doors tomorrow at 10am!

We’ll send you a reminder email tomorrow morning and let you know the status of available spots.

No gimmicks or “false scarcity” here.

As you may already know, Evolution Accelerator has an implementation/accountability one-on-one coaching component. That requires a time commitment from us, which is why we have to limit the number of spots.

Okay, that’s all for now.

More coming tomorrow morning.

Be a marketing maniac,
Eric

P.S. Have you read/watched the Secrets To Their Success 2.0 Special Report yet? If not, check it out. 12 proven principles that put you on the profit path, all supported by case studies from your peers.

Thanks very much to all of you who participated in the Evolution Accelerator scholarship contest.

The answer I was looking for is “Self-Discipline.”

Variations of that, such as “conquer self” “self mastery” and just plain old “discipline” are acceptable and were included in the drawing.

Here’s my thinking about self-discipline, and why I believe it is the single most valuable success quality or characteristic we can have:

If you distill life down to it’s most basic level, you get CHOICE.

Virtually everything we do or have is based on our choices. (Obviously, there are some things outside of our ‘choice control’ – like where and to whom we are born, genetics, acts of God, etc.)

In just about everything we do, we can choose the path of least resistance, or we can make the hard choice (almost always the right choice) and bring self-discipline to bear to see it through.

The fundamental difference – again, at the most basic level – between high achievers and everyone else, is the willingness to discipline themselves to do what they know they should do, even when they don’t feel like doing it.

Exercise, eat right, abide by moral and ethical contraints, study, work, implement, face fears, donate time/effort/money to those in need, take full responsibility for our lives…the list goes on and on.

9 times out of 10, the harder choice is the right one. Some sacrifice almost always must be made. And only those with self-discipline have the strength to make that choice to sacrifice time and again.

And the road to accomplishment and abundance is paved with sacrifice. That’s why victory tastes so sweet.

The great news for all of you, and the reason I used it as a clue, is that anyone who’s achieved and maintained a high level of fitness…has self discipline in spades. So you’ve already proven you have the the most important success characteristic, and that should give you serious confidence, particularly when the chips are down.

If you want to achieve more, all that needs to be done now, regardless of what stage you’re at in business, is channel that self-discipline in the right direction.

I firmly believe the right direction is Evolution Accelerator.

Because it is the most revolutionary fitness business success training program ever developed.

Okay, that’s my two cents. Now onto the winner of the Evolution Accelerator full-ride scholarship…

We had a total of 70 posts to the blog.

60 of them were legitimate entries (and some of the most impressive and inspiring stories I’ve ever read – I made the comment in one of my posts, but want to restate it here…KEEP WRITING…almost every story I read was full of passion and emotion…and therefore a riveting read…please, all of you…keep writing…it will serve you so well in your business)

41 of you got the answer I was looking for correct. Nice job!

And the randomly selected winner is (chosen by associating a number to each correct post, then my best friend who’s in town staying with me for a few days chose a number between 1 and 41)…

Drumroll…

CYNTHIA KARUBE!

Congratulations Cynthia!

You’ll be receiving an email from one of the girls in our office within 48 hours with your registration details.

Thanks very much to all of you for participating. I hope you found this fun, educational and inspiring.

I know I did.

All the best,
Eric Ruth

P.S. I highly encourage all of you to look into Evolution Accelerator. It is truly a game changer.

You can win a FULL RIDE SCHOLARSHIP valued at $11,150

You’ve got a great chance to win a full-ride scholarship to Evolution Accelerator.  That’s a REAL value of up to $11,150.

But way more than the monetary value is the fully systemized fitness business you end up with when you graduate from Evolution Accelerator.

And the certainty and financial security that gives you.  If you’re not familiar with Evolution Accelerator, watch this video here.

Here’s how this challenge works – how you can win the scholarship:

I’ve got a question for you below. It’s not a riddle.  There’s no strange “twist” to it.

It’s a very straight forward question.  And with a little thought, you’ll be able noodle it through. Or it might be nose-on-your-face obvious to you right off the bat.

Here’s the question:

There is a particular personal quality that every high achiever possesses.

What is this personal quality I’m referring to?

Here’s another hint…

Men and women of the military definitely have it.

All other things being equal…why does a former military man or woman have a definite edge over “civilians” in the job hunt?  Why are former military personnel so prized by private sector employers? (Remember…all other things being equal.)

One final hint…

The Greek philosopher, Plato said something incredibly profound about this quality being “the first and best victory.” And the first American to summit Mount Everest, Jim Whittaker, used mountain climbing as metaphor to describe it.

Okay, lots of clues for you there.   So now, here’s how you can win you a full-ride scholarship to Evolution Accelerator Profit Path Training Program valued at up to $11,150 (just depending on which Profit Path you choose).

INSTRUCTIONS:

In your blog comment below, write out…

1. What personal quality am I describing above?
2. Share one way this quality has impacted your life in a profound way.
3. Give one reason why you want Evolution Accelerator.

That’s all there is to it. Pretty simple.

Jim Whittaker used it to conquer Mount Everest

…which is like getting your “fitness business MBA”…but even more valuable.

But you need to enter to win right away, we’re going to shut this contest down by the end of the day tomorrow.

Let’s see what you’ve got…answer away below in the comments section…

Since we announced the EVOLUTION ACCELERATOR Profit Path Training Program would be opening up shortly we’ve gotten a ton of questions to our support email and phone.

So I thought the best way to address them all would be to record a short video which I’ve posted online this morning here.

This video explains exactly what EVOLUTION ACCELERATOR is, who it’s for, what’s included, and answers to all the questions we’ve received from folks calling and writing in.

If you’re interested in learning what this is all about (and why we’re transitioning all our best-selling programs like AUTO-CLOSER, DUPLICATOR, and DEEP CORE into this new model) then make sure you take a few minutes to watch the video today.

On that page you can also register for early bird notification 24 hours before we go live sometime this week (still ironing out a couple details before we announce which day we’re opening up).

To your success,
Sean

P.S. In this video I address the PRIMARY reason why the fact is most fitness business owners just don’t succeed in the long run. And also the reason why so many folks that experience ’short term success’ end up imploding or fizzling out before long.

This is VERY important stuff… so regardless if you have any interest in EVOLUTION ACCELERATOR or not, I strongly encourage you to watch the video while it’s online (it’ll be taken down later this week after we sell out the 50 available spots and shut down the launch).

VIP Members and Long Island’s best personal trainers Rahz Slaughter and Greg Kalafatic were first out of the gate with their Pushups For Charity event, and it was a big winner.

Greg tells me they raised over $8,250 for charity – a HUGE number from one small event.

Watch this great video of their event (and see Rahz bang out 100 pushups!):

For all of you who are participating in Pushups for Charity, Greg and Rahz have thrown down the challenge…$8,250 is now the mark to beat.

For those of you who aren’t participating, you can see what you’re missing out on.

I think it’s pretty close to a sure thing we’re going to hit our $500,000 donation goal this year. We’ve got a great team of almost 100 PUC partners who are locked and loaded for March and April events.

Thanks for leading the way Rahz and Greg, and BIG, BIG congratulations to you on your success with your first PUC event.

I’m really happy to be able to share your story, the first Pushups for Charity success story, and I know it’s the first of many more to come.

Well done guys!
Eric

P.S. Pushups for Charity is a perfect illustration of Fitness Business Success Principle #6: “NORM!” If you haven’t seen The Profit Path Special Report containing all 12 success principles yet, then do yourself a favor and grab it now here.

I shared something very personal in the power of choice blog post I made yesterday.

That wasn’t easy for me to do, but I thought it was worth opening up about me if it could help anyone experiencing the same frustrations I was years ago.

Because a lot of folks struggle with figuring out how to turn their passion into profit.

Since my junior year in college 22 years ago, I’ve been incredibly passionate about marketing.

But despite massive study of all the marketing masters from Claude Hopkins, John Caples, Robert Collier, David Ogilvy, Drayton Bird, Rosser Reeves, Richard Benson, Victor Schwab, Gary Halbert, Ted Nicholas, John Carlton and Dan Kennedy to name a few…

…and the consistent application of strategies and tactics I learned from them…

…I only got marginal results with the things I was doing until I made the decision to focus on core success principles.

If you are struggling to take your fitness business to the next level, more likely than not it’s because you’re either unaware of, or aren’t adhering to one or more of the core principles explained in the new Secrets To Their Success 2.0 Special Report we’ve just released.

What you’ll find in that report will give you a clear path forward towards achieving your goals.

And you’ll see and hear from some of the most successful fitness professionals in the U.S. and internationally. Men and women who are living their dream because of the consistent application of these principles.

I really hope you’ll give it a long, hard look. I promise you it’ll be worth your time.

Sincerely,
Eric Ruth

Click the image to get the report and watch the video

P.S. There are quite a few great videos included in the report, but there’s one in particular I think you’ll find very inspirational.  It’s in Principle #11: A Gift From The Orient. This video reveals one of the most potent keys to personal and professional growth you may ever discover.  And it’s taken directly from a movie I’m sure you’ll recognize.

Watch it now at http://www.FitnessProfitPath.com

What’s different about growing your fitness business and reaching the top in 2010?

Well, quite a bit.

And that’s why we’re updated and re-released our Secrets To Their Success report here.

Over the last 2 years, it’s been downloaded over 18,000 times by fit-pros and fit biz owners around the world.

Now we’ve updated it with 12 PROVEN PRINCIPLES for radical and rapid fitness business success… and backed them up with brand new case studies and videos from your peers to back them up.

Grab your copy of Secrets To Their Success 2.0 here.

To your success,
Sean

P.S. At the end of the report, you’ll also learn more about the EVOLUTION ACCELERATOR. I won’t spoil the surprise here, but be sure to read all about it at the end of the report.

A few weeks ago I did a post and shared some pictures our members have sent in of their offices.

Really good stuff with list a quarterly goals and objectives, core values, process maps, and goal tracking graphs.

If you missed it, that post is here.

Anyway, there was reply to that post with someone asking me to share some pictures of my office.

So I thought, “OK, you’ve shown me yours… so why not show you mine?”

I left town Wednesday and didn’t get a chance to take photos before heading out the door.

But I thought I would at least get things started by sharing a list of my personal favorite items that make up my office, why I love them so, and how they help me work.

I think that’s the most important thing about setting up your office.

Find what you like, what helps you stay organized, focused, and work more efficiently… and have fun and be comfortable while you’re doing it.

Ok so here’s a list to get things started:

1. IKEA office furniture (Galant and Effektiv Systems)

A great office starts with great furniture. But I’m not a fan of blowing a ton of money on some gaudy looking desk made for an attorney. I like my office to be simple, clean, and functional. IKEA’s professional office furniture is, I think, perfect.

I’ve got a Galant corner desk, with a couple add on pieces to extend it on both sides.

As well as a small rectangle desk that sits up against the wall behind me… kinda like a credenza.

Then I’ve got a couple bookcases made up of their Effektiv system which you can configure however you like and add on to or modify over time. My personal set up is hard grey plastic bottom, 5 add-on lows, and I’ve got the bottom 2 in each book case with file drawers and door fronts.

2. Herman Miller Aeron chair

The chair IS the most important piece of furniture. Because your interfacing with it all the time.

I used to not care about the chair I sat in, and blew through a few cheap ones that kinda broke down over time.

No more.

Last time my chair died (literally had screws falling out) I vowed to make a change. Eric  was actually down to visit for our monthly meeting and encouraged me to go for it, so I sprung for the best chair you can buy… the Herman Miller Aeron with the add on lumbar support. It’s about $900, but when you consider I probably spend more time in my chair then I ever will in my car… the investment is well worth it.

In fact, I loved this chair so much that a few weeks after getting it I ordered up another one for my home office too.

As a side note, most everything I’ve got in my work office I’ve also got a duplicate of in my home office. I like wherever I “plug into” to be the same and ready to rock with the set of tools I like to work with.

I invested a few bucks in completing this “duplication” of my office just over the holidays and man does it feel great.

I’m working at least 2-3 days a week from home now and everything is so squared away in my home office… with no interruptions … that I’ve been to bang out a ton of great work there lately.

3. MacBook Pro laptop-

For years I would buy the best Dell laptop you could buy in December, run it all out for 1 year, then replace it the following December.

In December 2008 I bought my last Dell, a Latitude (always invested a little more for Dell’s corporate grade stuff  because it’s tougher), and the thing ended up being $3,000 lemon.

Total junk.

I toughed it out for 8 months with this thing and finally ditched it after Dick and I got back from Australia.

I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I’ve heard nothing but great things about the Mac laptops, Consumer Reports rates them as the best laptop you can buy, and even my PC based programmer friends have Mac laptops.

So I spent a little time researching it, looking what impacts the transition would have, then dove it full force.

Worked out a couple kinks getting everything moved over, but now I can confidently say the MacBook Pro IS the best laptop… or computer overall… I’ve ever owned.

Totally rocks.

I’ve got the 13″ one loaded.

Only thing I wished I had done upfront was go for the 500 GB harddrive. I thought 320 GB would be fine, but now it’s full and I’ve got to transfer some things off it to an external drive to keep going.

But it’s great. Extremely portable. Great for travel. Very functional.

Several people have asked me lately if I’d recommend the Mac laptop to them, and I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told each of them:

“Hell yeah!”

4. Matrox external graphics card-

As awesome a portable device as the MacBook Pro laptop is, when I’m in one of my offices I want to easily plug into some big monitors. And 2 of them.

About 2-3 years ago I was always just a regular 1 monitor guy. Have some friends that use 3 and 4 screens for trading, but I was just never interested in it.

Then I was on a trip to the Infusion offices in Phoenix and everyone there had 2 monitors.

I asked why and someone told me about productivity increases, how great it was, etc.

So I bought another monitor like the one I had, and have never looked back since.

Having 2 screens is more than just double the productivity… it’s at least triple.

I routinely have 2 documents open at once, and use it to work back and forth between them both efficiently.

In fact, I found it to be such an amazing increase in productivity, that I read some more studies about it (Microsoft has done a few about 2 monitors in the workplace) and we made the investment to purchase 2 screens for all staff.

It’s been a great investment.

Anwyway, back to the Matrox external graphic card. The MacBook Pro has some limitations on the internal graphics card that comes with it. But you can plug into this thing with the display port adaptor and a USB cable.. and then BAM… you’ve got 2 screens up and running (3 if you count the little laptop screen, but I don’t use that, just the big ones when I’m in the office).

Just a note.. if you pick one of these up.. go for the DP edition.

I got the DVI edition for the first one I purchased for the office. Then got the DP edition for my home office. It’s supports a higher definition resolution… which if you’ve got some great monitors really looks nice and you can squeeze more stuff on the display all at once… like viewing more of an entire webpage without having to scroll down the page.

5. Dell UltraSharp 24″ monitors (X2)-

These are the bad boys I’ve got at work. Have a couple different ones at home. It’s a good screen and resolution, but I don’t think it’s that special.

When Apple comes out with some new displays, I probably upgrade to those. But Apple’s displays aren’t cheap… and these work great, so I’m cool with it.

At home I’ve got 2 X 22″, at the office 2 X 24″. Either is probably fine, but the 24″ are a little bit nicer.

6. Logitech wireless Nuveo keyboard-

This is a great full size keyboard that is very smooth. And you plug it into a charging stand, then don’t have to recharge for at least a couple months.

But 10 min of charge will load you up for a day if you run down the battery.

Plus it’s got some great short cut keys.

One thing about the Macs is they have 2-3 different keys than a PC keyboard. Took me about a week or so to get used to it and the new shortcuts, but it’s actually pretty good.

Now when I get on one of the PC’s in the office (like the media station where we record all the webinars) it feels almost kinda foreign to me.

7. Apple Magic Mouse-

This is a sic mouse. Very smooth, function. And with just a finger swipe you can scroll up and down a page or document. And you can also configure a tap of the second finger to act like a right click function… which makes jumping around the web and other applications very fast and smooth.

8. Neat high speed scanner-

Over the past few months I’ve been moving to more and more of a paperless life.

This thing helps me keep up with it.

And now when I do a weekly review, I unload my paper inbox and scan down anything I want to keep… then shred the rest.

This product will scan recipts, business cards, and papers. And then OCR recognize numbers and data.

One of the things I like best about it is you can take out some plastic guides at the top and open it up to accept 50 pages at a time for scanning.

And it goes to work VERY fast… scanning both sides of all documents at the same time.

9. Bad Ass Paper Shredder-

Don’t know why I love this so, but I do.

Nothing like grinding up all the junk you don’t want to keep… and knowing it’s been shredded for security and privacy sake.

This big daddy one I’ve got even takes CD’s, old credit cards or ID’s, whatever you want.. it eats it.

Apparently I’m not the only one who loves shredding, because Dick and Vickie in our office have revealed they really enjoy it too.

So I’m not alone.

Who knows, maybe you’ll learn to have fun with this too.

10. Brother Label Maker-

For the paper files I do keep (which are mostly current projects that make sense to have out and easy to grab and dump notes and papers into) I use this to keep everything clearly marked and organized.

Funny to think that through our COMMANDER course, I’ve inspired a whole bunch of our clients to be label making fools with me.

Tony Maslan said to me on a call that his wife Chrissy commented to him how organized he had gotten after the course, and that when you “give a man a tool and it’s amazing what he can do.”

Tony shared that he’s labeled every box in his garage, and even sent us a video of him putting labels on each of the kids heads so he knew which one was which.

11. Wall Mounted Whiteboard-

Nothing like the good lo’ whiteboard.

I often draft out things in my head, priorities, projects, or things we’re discussing in a meeting here.

I was visiting the Attask offices in Salt Lake City on another trip and while talking with one of the founders he shared a story about how they invested a small fortune with a company who does research about how to set up offices, encourage creativity and development with software teams, and the like.

And after a ton of research, they came back and told them the best thing to do was to give everyone a whiteboard.

You just can’t beat em’.

Everyone should have one in their office.

12. Large Quarterly Dry Erase Calendar-

Right below my whiteboard, is a large oversized (I think the whiteboard and this are both 4 feet white) quarterly dry erase calendar.

I often map out our marketing calendar and promotions schedule here to keep me straight.

Especially when we’re got so many things moving simultaneously.

Good thing it’s dry erase, because it often gets a lot of adjustment with all the moving parts and timetables.

13. Some good art, posters-

I have a Getting Things Done poster I purchased from the David Allen Company on the wall in front of my desk.

This is a great book and philosophy I incorporated into my own life and systems several years ago.

The poster looks good and reminds me of it, so I purchased it and hung it up.

Also have a great Da Vinci print on another wall that Eric bought me framed for my 30th birthday 2 years ago.

14. A good oversized coffee mug-

I love coffee. Best cup you can get in the world as far as I’m concerned is Dunkin Donuts.

I don’t care what anyone says. Starbucks is shit.

Dunkin Donuts kicks ass.

I had been hitting a few cups a day for the last few years, but came off all caffeine a couple months ago.

Now my oversized cup holds caffeine free Green Tea and water which I drink throughout the day.

Eliminating caffeine from my diet has helped me not be so wired and sleep better at night.

I’m pretty high energy to begin with, so don’t need the extra jolt and over time caffeine can (and has) negatively affected my sleep and adrenals.

So as much as I love it… I’ve kicked it to to curb and taking it easy with the Green Tea for now.

15. Patriots Welcome Doormat-

Eric, Dick, and I are all Bill O’Reilly fans. Their is a reason the guy has had the number 1 cable news program in the world for over 100 months now… most of the time beating out all the other cable news shows combined.

He’s dead on.

His talking points articulate EXACTLY how I feel about all the crazy stuff going on in the world today.

And Bill is sharp as a whip.

I’m also a big patriot and supporter of the military.

So I proudly have the Patriots Welcome doormat outside our office door.

During the holidays we had the “we say merry christmas” sticker on the door too.

16. Good light, windows, and sunshine (it’s good to be back in FL).

One of the best parts of being back in Orlando is that FL is the sunshine state. Just about always good weather… or at least better than what other parts of the country are experiencing.

I’ve got 3 giant windows in my office that have great sun and light coming in all day long. Makes for a nice natural lighting in my workspace which definitely makes you feel good and energized.

I grew up in the cold, grey, dark of New England winters and being in the sunshine during the winter with palm trees outside your door instead of snow is just a whole lot more enjoyable to me.

17. Targus global traveler briefcase-

With all the traveling I do, I’ve looked into finding the perfect laptop/briefcase for years. Have tried several.

Got this one about 2-3 years ago and now I’m on my third one of the same model.

It’s very solid, travels well, and hold up under a ton of abuse.

Protects everything I travel with, not too heavy, and has a good strap that hooks onto my rolling suitcase in the airport.

If it weren’t for my dogs chewing the strap or handles off the first 2 ones I had… who knows I might still have the original.

——————

I could keep going.

But think that’s enough for now.

Hope this gives you some ideas, by sharing what’s working for me.

Have you got a favorite office tool or piece of equipment you love that makes your work easier and more productive?

If so please share, I’ll always on the lookout for some new tool to add to my toolbox.

Sean

P.S. If you haven’t tried the machine yet, then it’s time you got over and just signed up for I-AM RAINMAKER. Everyone is doing it and you’re missing out by not making the leap.

We’re even offering a 30-day risk-free trial, so the burden of proof is on us to show you just how much this thing can change your fitness marketing forever.