The career of the typical rock star is extremely short. Unless stars produce a lot of hits fast they disappear into obscurity. If a musician is lucky he or she may have five or six good years. Groups like U2, Bon Jovi and The Rolling Stones have had lucrative careers in the music industry but they are the exception. Making a career out of personal training can be just as challenging as becoming (and staying) a rock star. It takes a lot of time, dedication and perseverance to make it happen and then stamina, business acumen and planning to maintain it. Many trainers struggle with one or more of these, and as a result have short careers.
Personal training burst onto the world stage in the early 1990s and some industry analysts say it peaked around 1995. Since then, growth in the industry has been steady but not strong enough to keep up with the number of trainers being pumped through the certification process. Trainers used to seek employment at fitness facilities, recreation centers or private studios, but many of them are now starting their own businesses just to be able to work.
The appeal of making $60 to $100 an hour lures many people into the industry. While there are trainers making this hourly rate they are typically more seasoned, possess a higher level of education or focus on a specialty market. They may be considered an expert or have celebrity status. Most trainers earn far less.
Unlike in regular jobs, trainers don’t work a typical forty-hour week but average twenty to twenty-five hours a week. This is usually because working with people one-on-one or even in groups can be extremely draining. Every client requires a trainer’s full attention and focus. Most personal trainers find it difficult to be on top of their game for forty hours a week. Any seasoned professional will tell you that packing your schedule with clients will lead to certain burn-out.
Another issue that arises for trainers is the ebb and flow of work, which has a definite impact on income. Hours can fluctuate from week to week due to client cancellations, illness or holidays. It’s not uncommon to have five or sometimes even ten cancellations out of twenty or thirty sessions booked. There are also two significant down periods, in August and December. Income can drop to almost zero during these months—a savvy and experienced personal trainer knows how to budget for these times of business famine.
Independent trainers often find it difficult to build a clientele, as well. Friends of friends or family members are typically among their first clients. They rely strongly on word of mouth to build their businesses. For a short time this strategy seems to work. However, referrals dry up quickly and unless trainers have some marketing experience they often struggle to find new clients. Without a supply of new prospects any existing clients who leave have a tremendous impact on a trainer’s finances, especially if the client had been a regular.
Long hours spent training and unpaid time applied to building the business add to the stress of income fluctuations and the difficulty in building a clientele. Self-employment features no benefits package, so getting sick or injured could be costly. Some trainers don’t take vacations because they can’t afford to lose the income. Unless the trainer contributes to a retirement savings plan there won’t be any money put aside to retire on.
To get a successful personal training business off the ground takes effort. Even with a plan in place, it’s been my observation that the typical career of a personal trainer lasts roughly five years. Some only make it to three and then succumb to the pressure of trying to make enough money to keep themselves going. They realize it’s harder than they thought and decide to do it part-time—or simply leave the industry.
This is the reality of the personal training business, and it isn’t communicated to you in school or when you take your certifications. You are given no real direction about how to be successful and little if any support once you’re done. Like a rock star you are left to your own talents to make it work.
But what if I told you there was a way to increase your chances of being successful? It’s not a guarantee of success but it can increase your odds, give you a shot at the stage and an opportunity to rock. Successful rock stars have great managers: someone who knows the music business, is well connected and believes enough in the musicians’ ability to help them succeed in the competitive environment of music. A good manager is familiar with the pitfalls of the industry and helps stars avoid situations that could lead to disaster. If a star’s enthusiasm or direction start to waver, the manager swiftly gets them back on track.
If you want to attain (and keep!) rock star status as a personal trainer it might be wise to consider the services of a business coach. Clients hire you as a personal trainer for the same reasons you should consider a coach. Your clients could learn to become fit by themselves but they are more likely to be successful with a trainer coaching them. You help your clients avoid unsafe exercises, demonstrate correct technique and provide results-oriented programs. Business coaches do the same for your business.
Business coaches have served other industries with great success for a long time. It’s only in the past year or two that a handful of fitness professionals has moved into business coaching. These business coaches know the industry and are helping trainers based on their own experience.
While hiring a business coach can’t guarantee success—you still have to do the work—it certainly will prevent you from making costly mistakes or heading down the wrong path. If you are looking for a career as a personal trainer, the right business coach will understand all the challenges you face and help you think about ways to get around each one.
The right business coach…
- Knows where the untapped markets are in the industry and how you can penetrate niche markets that other trainers don’t know about.
- Shortens your learning curve so you don’t fall victim to common mistakes, like writing content for your website that actually drives business away.
- Shares tips and strategies that let you make the most of every marketing opportunity, in print, in person and online. For instance, there are trigger words you can use in your marketing that actually stimulate people to buy.
- Helps you understand the personal training business cycle and how to keep your income consistent.
- Shows you ways to earn more money per hour. Instead of earning $65 an hour, you can earn $75, $125 or even $250 an hour.
- Teaches you how to manage your schedule to create a demand for your services and avoid burn-out at the same time.
- Gives you the organizational tools you need to plan for your financial future, take holidays and weather the occasional illness.
The investment you make in hiring a business coach can be one of the best decisions you make for your business. Why not use all the advantages you can get to earn rock star status? And the best part is that what you learn from a business coach will ensure you stay a personal training rock star for years to come.
Before I reveal the answer here’s a question I want you to answer first. Why did you open this email? What compelled you to click and read further? Did you feel like you had to because you needed to know the answer on what these three seemingly unrelated items have in common? The brain is a powerful and complex tool and you’ve just experienced one of its many greatest mysteries.
When the brain is faced with a question it works overtime to find an answer. It’s an involuntary, spontaneous reaction. It instantly goes to work in search of an answer. I know many of you have experienced this effect when you couldn’t remember the name of a movie and then suddenly, hours or even days later you remember it. What you are experiencing is the profound effect questions have on the subconscious of the brain. The brain will just keep working away at the question until it comes up with an answer. Whether the answer is right or wrong doesn’t matter, the brain won’t rest until it finds a resolution.
Is the question still burning in your brain about what Dr. Oz, Dr. Zeus and climbing Mount Everest has in common? Your brain will have to stew a little longer before I tell you.
If you blog, email or create newsletters for your personal training business you always include a title in the subject line. The more effective those titles are the greater the likelihood that people will read your content. I’m sure you spend a lot of time creating your information so getting people to read it is important. Attention-grabbing headlines are even more significant to your readers then the body of your emails, blog or newsletters. Asking a question in your headline will cause the brain to start the thinking process. It’s like having a brain itch which won’t be satisfied until the question has been answered. This is why people will click on your email to read further. They can’t help themselves. They have to scratch the itch.
Here’s an exercise I want you to do right now to see if we can get your brain to itch. Go to your inbox and scan the subjects. I know you receive a ton of email every day. You probably sort through them like this;
- You open emails from people you know first.
- Then you open emails from potential customers.
- Finally you open emails that catch your interest or attention.
Now go to your inbox and look at all the subject headings particularly the ones that ask a question. Notice which ones cause your brain to itch and which don’t. Be conscious of which ones you can’t wait to open to find out the answer to the question. Also notice in the body of the content when the question gets answered. If it’s in the first paragraph and the brain is satisfied you might not read the whole article. This is a good clue as to where you should and should not be placing the answer to the question. Avoid putting it at the beginning of your article.
According to David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency and author of Confessions of an Advertising Man (rev. ed., Atheneum ,1988) and Ogilvy on Advertising (Wiley, 1983), “On average five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. Unless your headline sells your services in a meaningful way 90% of your time will be wasted because people won’t even bother to read your email or newsletter. Isn’t that incredible? All that time and effort wasted because people don’t find your headlines interesting enough to click and read further.
Here’s a plan for you to follow when writing headlines.
Step 1. Write a lot of headlines. Thirty to fifty and then decide which one you are going to use.
Step 2. Leave it for a day or two and then come back to it. See your headlines with fresh eyes. Ask others to take a look at your headlines and give you feedback on which ones grab their attention. Send the headlines to yourself in an email and notice which ones you would have clicked on.
Step 3. Never be satisfied. Always look for ways to keep improving on the headline. Tweak it constantly keeping your objective in mind and your target audience. Be especially sensitive to how the headline helps to sell your service.
BONUS: When you receive a good headline in your inbox, create a separate folder and keep those headlines handy. You can always make them your own by changing some of the wording as long as they are relevant to your target audience.
Now back to the headline that started this whole article. What do you think Dr. Oz, Dr. Zeus and climbing Mount Everest have in common? If you guessed that it was a question that caused your brain to itch you would be right. Keep in mind that the headline of your article should relate to the content. Otherwise people will feel duped and not read any further communications from you. If you go for shock value without substance you will lose your audience. Hopefully I’ve made my point on how powerful an attention-grabbing, brain itching, headline can be.
Here’s your home work assignment should you choose to do it. Send me your headlines and I will critique their effectiveness. You can send me up to ten headlines preferably in one email and I will let you know which ones I would have opened.
Just to relieve your brains tension and just in case you didn’t catch it. Dr. Oz, Dr. Zeus and climbing Mount Everest don’t really have anything in common. I just used this as an example on how to catch people’s attention so your brain can rest easy now. Send me your homework.
Donna Hutchinson
Owner On The Edge Fitness
Author of the “HowtoGuide- Starting a Personal Training Business”. Business and marketing coach for fitness industry professionals. To buy your copy now www.edgefit.ca
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For a F.R.E.E. report on 25 words to avoid using on you website, send a blank email to edgefit@shaw.ca and write in the subject line “send me your F.R.E.E. report on the 25 words to avoid using when writing web copy.”
What do the three little pigs, three blind mice and the three musketeers all have in common? What about The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe? When you watch waves do you ever notice how they come in cycles of three? Or how about when something goes wrong, don’t we say that things always happen in threes’. The universe seems centered around the power of three. Here’s another one for you, the good, the bad and the ugly. Once you see the pattern it’s hard to stop noticing it. There are certain laws of the universe that are too strong to ignore, like the power of three.
Why is a series of three so powerful?
It might be because three is the most abbreviated way to convey a spectrum—such as in the threesomes of good, better, best; morning, noon, night; thoughts, words, actions; minimum, maximum, optimum; birth, life, death. The spectrum, which also delineates a continuum, then affords us a sense of completion, and anything more would be superfluous. We get the whole picture already, albeit in shorthand.
Another reason might be because three is the minimum number that human perception considers a pattern. If something happens once, it’s merely a fluke. If it happens twice, it’s a coincidence. But if it happens three times, people begin to draw conclusions.
Our brains are wired to respond to threes because three represents a digestible bite. It’s also easy to remember a sequence of three. This may be due to the oral tradition by which information was handed down long before the age of the written word. We can remember the joke about the rabbi, the priest, and the minister walking into a bar, but if we add a fourth guy, he may fall just outside the parameters of our memory and tends to weaken the impact of the triad altogether.
Create a compelling argument
When selling your personal training services present three irrefutable arguments and in this way you cause a subtle shift in the brain of your prospect. Create an emotional experience since people buy on emotion and justify their purchases with logic. When your prospects are prompted to give a reason why they bought your personal training services it would be easy for them to declare, “I had three good reasons,” and then recite them quite effortlessly. When they recite their three good reasons to others it also alleviates any tension the prospect may have had about purchasing personal training and affirms that they made a correct decision.
It’s powerful stuff and now that you are aware of the power of three you can start to create copy where you provide three benefits for people who are contemplating purchasing your personal training services. Use the power of three anywhere you market your personal training business and you will surely discover how effective it is.
The Web Copy Mastery Program that I’ve developed has a complete section on creating your own power of three. It’s a three step (are you surprised there are three steps?) formula that I share with you. Each step triggers the brain on a different level. When you present your concept in three specific ways, each one appealing to a different sensibility or intelligence, you make your concept stick in the minds of your prospects. They will be more likely to embrace and relate to your offering. It’s, tricky stuff but once you master the simple formula it’s much easier to understand the process and then duplicate it.
- The power of three is the most powerful tool you can use when writing your marketing material for grabbing people’s attention and stopping them dead in their tracks.
- 83% of people who started using the power of three formula in their marketing saw results within days because it was easy-to-use and effortless to implement.
- In less than 15 minutes and with the greatest of ease you can create your own powerful three copy and instantly compel people to take action but you must know the formula to make it work.
It’s so exciting to discover new ways to speak to your prospects and in a language they can relate to. The power of three is just one of those ways. Not only that but it makes selling your personal training services to much easier because it sells itself. Imagine that!
Earlier this week I shared with you some words to avoid using in your web copy and in your marketing. This article is an extension of that. My hope is that you see the value in what I’m sharing with you and come and join me for the full deal which is the Web Copy Mastery Program.
If you have a website, put out flyers, brochures or even write a regular newsletter, the value of being able to write copy that attracts more business is priceless. After all, why do you go to the expense, time and bother to produce these materials if you aren’t looking to attract more business? You don’t have to be frustrated that your marketing material gets you little to any results.
Have you ever created a direct-mail campaign or placed an ad in the paper? What kind of results did you see? The typical response rate for direct-mail is less than 1%. Placing an ad in the paper isn’t much better. How much money did you spend? Your lack of response was likely due to ineffective copy. You no longer have to suffer this fate in your marketing or lose any more money.
Your easily digestible remedy is simple. The investment you will make on registering for the Web Copy Mastery Program is less than $.80 a day. You can’t even get a decent cup of coffee for $.80 but you can get a great education. Think about what your business would be like if you wrote a flyer or changed your website and started immediately attracting more business. What would you do with the extra money you will earn?
I know what I would do and I’m doing it. I’m spending a month on holidays in El Salvador all because of how I changed a few words in my web copy. Do you see why I’m so eager to share it with you? I’ve seen the results first hand.
Those of you who have been following my articles know me pretty well. When I get passionate about something I become consumed by it and take it to the extreme. That’s what I’ve done here by learning more about the internet and writing web copy. I’ve dedicated my life to helping others achieve health and wellness and to serving the fitness professionals in our community. I want you to learn what I can teach you so you can start making some real money. I’ve heard too many stories from personal trainers and other health professionals who struggled to make a decent living in this industry and it doesn’t have to be that way.
Get in on this great offer now before it’s too late. Remember I’ve sent it to my VIP list only because we have a connection but time is running short. If you don’t send me your interest by February 1st I’m going to open it to the public. Because of the hands on nature of the workshop I have to limit seating to 30 people. Be the one of first people to get in on the Web Copy Mastery Program and your investment will only be a fraction of the cost others are going to pay.
The results are unmistakable;
- Website traffic keeps going up on my website and continues to rise daily. This is vital in any business and something you need to see happen in order to keep your business from slowing down. Especially in the slow periods of personal training which cause a lot of trainers stress because of lower earnings.
- Conversion rates have increased and are continuing to see steady growth. It doesn’t matter how great your website is if all people do is look and leave. Stop them from leaving by stopping them in their tracks. You created a website for a reason and it wasn’t just to be a static brochure. It’s supposed to bring clients to you and that’s what great copy does.
- Customer inquiries have risen and I’m having trouble keeping up to the demand. You can have this problem too. Some of you offer boot camp programs, are they all full? Do you want to run more? Then you have to get people to communicate with you. Your web copy helps you do that but only if done right.
- I’ve had to turn some business away because I’ve been overwhelmed by the response. Another good problem to have and one that you can create for yourself by being smart and getting a web copy education.
The clock is ticking. You have until February 1st to make up your mind and give yourself an education on how to write web copy and marketing copy. All you have to do to get in on the Web Copy Mastery Program is simply send me an email and in the subject line put “Register me for the Web Copy Mastery Program”. I will send you the details including the date, time and location.
Remember your investment for the program is a fraction of the cost because you’re on my VIP list. It’s a one-time offer.
When you register you will also get these incredible bonuses;
For no extra charge you will receive the complete audio package of the workshop. I’m only offering this to my VIP. Others will pay $65.00 for the Audio Edition of the Web Copy Mastery Program.
- FREE report on 25 words that have impact when writing web copy to share with you when you register. I will send you the report after you register and you can start to use them right away.
- FREE web copy consultation after the course. This is a $225 value just for you because I want you to experience the same great results on your website. You will have an opportunity to ask questions about your own web copy and website after the workshop. I will help you perfect the technique of writing web copy for your website and spend time helping you so it comes out perfect.
- Register by Friday, January 29th and receive an additional one hour of FREE business coaching which is a $225 value.
Send me an email now and start an education that will start putting money in your bank account and ease your financial situation now. Email “Register me for the Web Copy Mastery Program” and I will send you the details and all your FREE goodies.
I thought I was immune and not someone who had unproductive habits but yesterday I finally faced the truth. I’ve been chasing my “email” tail for a long time and it’s time to put a stop to it. I’m in El Salvador on a little business and a lot of pleasure. The particular house where I’m staying has very limited internet access. As a matter of fact I can only get onto my Shaw email account from 5:00-7:00 in the morning. The rest of the day when I attempt to log on I get ceremoniously booted off. I get up at 5:00 am every morning just to check my email. I’ve been here for fifteen days and every day I follow the same routine. After 9:00 am I attempt to log on to my Shaw account and then again at 10:00am and so on and so on. Yesterday I spent an hour trying to log on and got know where. Are you thinking this is insane behavior? Well it is but how many of you do the same?
I know I’m obsessed about email. I’m hooked on pressing send/receive and checking email every two minutes if I can. This is not an exaggeration but a confession. Being away from home and with limited access, I can’t hide my obsessive behavior any longer. I’m faced with the fact that checking email every few minutes is an unproductive habit and one that can easily stall any progress. Without the distraction email my productivity for writing has increased exponentially. I’ve written ten articles in fifteen days. At home and with the distraction of email it would have taken two months to generate this kind of content.
I’ve been contemplating why and how the obsession first began. I can only surmise that it probably started off very innocently and then the habit crept up over time. I work from home which can be very isolating as I’m sure many of you can relate. I guess I just needed to connect with the outside world and every time an email came through I felt like I was in touch with someone.
I pride myself on how responsive I am and I’ve often been complimented on how fast I get back to people. This positive reinforcement has been great and it’s helped me build a successful business. Let’s face it most businesses don’t even have the courtesy of returning phone calls in a timely manner let alone emails. This has been a point of differentiation for my business as I value responsiveness so I deliver it. The sticky situation here is that this responsiveness has also led to feeding the habit. I will have to find a way to be both responsive and productive. I’m pretty resourceful so I’m sure I will figure it out.
I know I’m not alone in my habits. I’m sure there are some of you that spend your time chasing your tail. You may have one or two or maybe even more habits that cause you to be unproductive like multi-tasking for example. Many people pride themselves on being able to do multiple tasks at once. This is probably one of the most unproductive ways to work. When you divide your focus like, talking on your cell phone, responding to emails on your blackberry while driving your car drinking your Starbucks you split your attention. I don’t want to be the driver on that highway when you are busy “getting things done” and attempting to “be productive”.
It would be fun to create a support group for those of us that have a habit of chasing our tail. We would have to come up with a cute name. I’m sure some of you probably have just hearing the name. I implore you to look at your own habits and be honest about how productive or unproductive they are. If you need support just email me.
The first time you try something new chances are you won’t be any good at it. That’s just the way it is. I remember the first time I rode my bike without training wheels. I fell off and skinned my knee. The first time I learned how to drive a stick I almost crashed into the only pole in an empty shopping mall parking lot. During my first aerobics class my nerves were so bad that I felt like I was going to vomit the whole time. We all have stories of firsts and some of them aren’t pretty. But in order to succeed at anything we have to fail a lot, persevere and eventually we master it or learn a lesson from it.
My most memorable first has stuck with me for over ten years because I learned about perseverance. It was the first adventure race I ever did and it was with my husband Brian. The race took place in Invermere, BC and was a three day, two hundred and twenty five kilometer staged event of paddling, mountain biking and hiking with a few mystery events thrown in for fun. It was the middle of summer and a scorching thirty two degrees. It was day two of the race and up until that point I remember wanting to quit at least five times but it’s the sixth time of wanting to call it quits that stands out the most for me. We had already been on the course for seven hours after finishing the paddle and bike stage. We were now into the twelve kilometer hiking section.
We were walking along a logging road in full sunlight at two in the afternoon. My knuckles dragging on the road like an ape because I was hot, tired and grumpy. We trudged along for about an hour when the course veered and took us through a meadow. Standing there, nibbling on the green grass were black and white milk cows. It was a peaceful scene and I was taking a moment to enjoy it when all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere a bull cow the size of a Buick with large pointy horns turned and started chasing us. We stood stunned like a deer in headlights and then started to run for the gate at the end of the meadow with a crazy bull cow grunting and chasing us. Gasping for air from the sprint I turned to Brian and wheezed, “That’s it, I’m done, I can’t go any further, I quit, I don’t want to do it anymore.” I expected him to talk me out of it and I was prepared to defend my decision but he just said, “Okay”. No arguments, no guilt trip, just okay.
An hour after cow experience, we arrived at a check point and I was relieved to be done. Just as I was about to tell the official I wanted to quit another couple came walking up. The girls’ clothes were covered in dirt, she had scrapes on her arms and legs and blood dripping from her chin. I was sure they would be ending their adventure there too and I felt a sense of relief that it wasn’t just me having a tough time of it. I watched as they checked in and then set off again. She never said a word. I secretly hated her for not quitting. How could I quit now. I wasn’t bleeding. There wasn’t anything physically wrong with me except that I was tired. I never said a word to the official or to Brian. I mumbled a few choice words under my breath, checked in and trekked on and finished the day.
I had thoughts of quitting a few more times on day three but I never gave into them. The race was hard and it didn’t get any easier but I never gave up even though a little voice inside me kept telling me that I should. I felt such a sense of accomplishment completing the race because of the mental challenge that it posed. To be honest, I wasn’t really satisfied with my first attempt at adventure racing so I trained hard and the following year entered the race again in the solo women’s division. To my absolute amazement I finished in third place. If I had quit the race on day two and not persevered I know I never would have attempted it again the following year. I never would have stood on the podium and felt what it was like to earn a third place finish. I would have never completed more races and most importantly the only thing I would have learned was that when the going got tough, I quit. Instead, I learned the success and perseverance are closely connected and it’s a lesson that to this day I have never forgotten.
I truly believe that the more you fail at something the greater chance you have for success. It’s not when we are successful that we grow as individuals but through our failures. If you look closely at people who you believe to be successful they will tell you about the many failures they’ve had. Your next great success lies in your next monumental failure. So if at first you don’t succeed, persevere and try again because your next great achievement is only a few failures away.
When things don’t go exactly as you might have planned, how do you typically react? Do you get stressed out? Are you someone who is always optimistic and sees the bright side of life or do you go over to the dark side of worry and negativity? Let’s face it, no matter how much planning you do there’s always a chance that things can go wrong, very wrong. It’s how we react to a situation that dictates which side you get sucked into.
Three days ago I visited the dark side and it wasn’t a very pleasant place to be. My husband, Brian and I left Vancouver for El Salvador. El Salvador is a Central American country sandwiched between Guatemala and Honduras. It’s a charming country which has little to any tourism so it’s pristine. We’re gone for a month so being me I over-packed everything including a library of thirty books.
Our flight from Vancouver on Air Canada, (those of you that have flown Air Canada probably know where this story is going) left an hour late. We had a connecting flight in Los Angeles then off to San Salvador. With the recent bombing attempt we checked the various airlines to confirm what carry-on items we could bring with us. Of course the website was incorrect. So there we were in the airport with our small carry-on bag trying to decide what to stuff into our suitcase and what we could literally carry in our arms on the plane. I ended up having to check three bags. This apparently was a big no no because when we got to LA, Taca airlines informed us that I was only allowed two bags and that they would have to pull all five pieces of our luggage so that they could hand me my carry on so I would only be checking two bags, if this sounds nuts to you, good because it was.
After waiting about an hour for them to find our luggage from Air Canada, Taca finally agreed to just let it go so that we wouldn’t miss our flight. We boarded at 12:10am already tired, dirty and somewhat miffed. Upon arriving in San Salvador we waited patiently for our bags and then waited some more. No bags. We were informed that the bags weren’t transferred from the Air Canada flight and that we should check back the next day. So with the clothes on our back and all our carry-on items in our arms we took our rental car and drove to the house we rented.
After settling in we went to the local shop and bought another set of clothes so that we could at least change out of our dirty airplane clothes. The next day we met one of our neighbors. He lives in San Francisco and comes down to El Salvador for the winter. We told him our sad story and he said, “Yeah you probably won’t have your luggage for four or five days”. At which time I went completely over to the dark side and instantaneously allowed my stress level to sky rocket. I began imagining that our luggage would be lost forever and our perfect vacation ruined. I was thinking about all the books I packed and our laptops which we had to stash into our suitcase because of the carry-on restrictions. In the space of thirty seconds I had worked myself into such a state that my Brian had to calm me down.
Two minutes after our happy neighbors’ prediction the phone rang and we were informed that our luggage had arrived. Yipee! I actually did jump for joy. I was relieved and we immediately dashed to the airport to claim our prize.
If you’re wondering where this little tale is headed then here it is. I went to the dark side. I didn’t even consider the possibility that the luggage was just late but thought immediately of all the bad things that could happen. Stressful things happen in life. You can plan all you want but plans fall through or don’t work out as expected. There will be people who will feed into this fear and make it worse ie the neighbor. The less you listen to them and the more you start to look on the bright side the easier life will be for you. So when things look like they are starting to go sideways look on the bright side of life it’s a whole lot better than the dark side, trust me.
