I learned quickly how to use the kettle bell drawing on my previous experience in Olympic lifting. Ropes were pretty easy to pick up, not much to them but Zumba, that was a different story. I did find some familiar patters from my group fitness days such as grapevine, mambo and pivot turn but the rest was completely foreign to my body. Although I was having fun it was a challenge keeping up to the fast beat of the music and the pace. The instructors did not verbally cue so you had to rely strictly on the visuals and watch their feet closely.

Within the first five minutes it was obvious that to get good at Zumba I would have to take more classes. One class was not going to make me a Zumba expert. If I wanted to learn how to shake my booty and shimmy my shoulders it was clearly going to take a lot of practice to master.

That’s when I began thinking about mastery and how long it takes to really get good at something. As a teacher, I am always telling my personal training students that learning how to become a personal trainer takes time. We can teach the theory and science behind exercise and provide practical experience through the course but the real mastery comes with practice and lots of it.

You may have heard that it takes ten thousand hours or ten years to become a master at anything. Think about how much practice takes place during that time. A basketball player doesn’t get good by throwing ten free throws. They throw thousands. Tiger Woods didn’t get good at golf overnight. He started young and practiced every day. Lance Armstrong didn’t just win the Tour de France he dominated the tour because he was out training in the worst weather when most other guys were sipping lattes.

To master anything takes time, patience and persistence. You do something every day to move yourself forward in your pursuit of mastery. You practice daily and become fanatic about it and before you know it you actually start to get good.

There is one thing about the pursuit of mastery you should probably know. You will never actually attain it. Like the pursuit of happiness, you will have moments of happiness but you will never truly be in a permanent state of happiness your whole life. It will always be something you will strive for but not something you will ever truly finish.

Mastery is the same. You will get better and better with time but will always continue to learn and thus mastery is a lifelong pursuit with a distinctive start but no end. As the old adage goes, “the more you know the more you don’t know” and this is the case with mastery.

I’ve been in the fitness industry for over twenty years and as the IDEA conference taught me, I will continue to learn new things. My learning over this twenty year period has never stopped. I seek opportunities daily to continue to grow my knowledge just one step further in the pursuit of mastery. I am patient with myself in that I am not attempting to be perfect or know it all. I don’t get upset with myself when I can’t remember things or have difficulty learning a new subject. I am patient with myself and I understand that daily learning is a gift I give to myself and one I share with others. I forgive myself for mistakes I make and find the lesson in everything.

Right now I’m reading a book called, Drive – The Surprising Trust About What Motivates Us written by Daniel H. Pink. I am fascinated by human behaviour and this book is about motivation which is a perfect topic for fitness. In his book Daniel shares his five steps to mastery and it’s those I wish to share with you as well.

Step one:
Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance.

Step two:
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Repetition matters.

Step three:
Seek constant, critical feedback. If you don’t know how you’re doing, you won’t know what to improve.

Step four:
Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we’re already good at, those who get better work on their weaknesses.

Step five:
Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why so few people commit to it, but that’s why it works.

Put these five steps somewhere you can see them every day. The steps will remind you what it takes to become a master and serve as a guide. Share the steps with your clients because many of them are on their own road to mastery and will find comfort in understanding that it is a life long journey with many ups and downs along the way.

I leave you with one final thought and a question to ponder. The answer may help you uncover your true passion in life and perhaps lead you down the road to a new level of mastery.

“If you didn’t have to work what would you do with your time?”

Feel free to share the answer to this question with me and I would be happy to respond with mine. academyofpersonaltrainers@gmail.com

But then disaster strikes. You get into a major car accident, you become very ill or you injure your back while spotting a client in the gym. It doesn’t matter what the cause of the disaster it’s the result of the incident that’s going to bring your perfect world to a crashing halt. Suddenly you can’t train your clients anymore. You start dipping into your savings but since you only just begun putting any money aside you find you only have two months of savings to carry you through. After that, the money is gone and you have no idea where your source of income will come from.

You don’t have any insurance because you never thought about paying into a plan. You aren’t married so you don’t have the safety net of a partner to help you out. Your once viable business starts to crumble as clients look for another trainer to keep them going.  You ask yourself, “What happened? How did things get so bad so fast?” That’s a good question to be asking, it’s just too bad the question came too late when the tragedy has already happened. Now you’re scrambling to figure out what you are going to do next.

Hopefully this hasn’t happened to you yet which means there’s still time to plan and prevent this disaster from occurring in the first place. While I can’t guarantee you won’t get into a car accident, suffer a major illness or get injured on the job, what I can tell you is that you should start planning for any emergency from day one of your business.

Since you only make money when you work you need to keep working to make money. As soon as something prevents you from doing so, you may find yourself in financial distress very quickly. As a business coach I see this all the time with new and veteran trainers in the personal training industry. They live very much for today and do not plan for their future or prepare for issues that could arise. It’s like gambling with house insurance. Sure your house may never burn down but what if it does? Paying the premium necessary for insurance will allow you start over without the financial hardship. So with personal training you need to create your own safety net especially when you don’t have someone else to rely on in case of an emergency. And even if you have someone to lean on, it’s unfair to allow them bear your financial burden just because you didn’t do a better job of planning in case of an emergency.

As soon as you decide you are going to be an entrepreneur and run your own personal training business you need to start thinking about how to protect yourself against hard times. Most trainers operate as a sole proprietorship and work alone. They haven’t hired other trainers to help them out so they truly have created a job for themselves and not so much a business. I think it’s this mind-set that is the beginning of the issue as to why trainers don’t fortify themselves in case of hard times. We don’t like to think about the what-ifs of getting sick or injured. We keep ourselves healthy so not being able to train doesn’t really enter our reality until it becomes reality and all too often it’s too late.

So what can you do about it and how can you protect yourself? Good questions. Here are five things you should do the minute you decide to be your own boss.

1. 1.       Save 10% of your revenue right away
2. 2.       Pay into an insurance plan
3. 3.       Do not overspend
4. 4.       Pay off any credit card debt
5. 5.       Cash flow is king

Let me first start by saying, if your personal finances are a mess your business finances will be too. If this is the case then get some help right away. Hire an accountant to set-up your books and create a business and personal budget. Stick to your budgets like your life depends on it because it just might. I’m not kidding this is very important.

I learned this lesson the hard way and it took me three tries to get it right and cost me a lot of money because I didn’t follow these five steps. But once I did, my business was solid and I stopped worrying about slow months or if something should happen to me.

Save 10% of your revenue right away

Whenever a client pays you, take ten percent and put it into a savings account right away. Then forget about it. When the amount in your savings account gets up to $5000 then contact an investment advisor and start investing your money. You might be tempted to dip into this savings account when a nice pair of shoes catches your eye or a much needed vacation pops up. Don’t do it. Save and forget about it. This is your future and your safety net. Think long-term otherwise you will turn into the eighty year old personal trainer who has to train instead of wants to train.

Pay into an insurance plan

There are many insurance plans available for entrepreneurs to pay into which provides medical, dental and insurance against loss of work due to illness. Look into purchasing a plan right away. The premiums you pay will be worth it should anything happen.

Do not overspend

It’s easy to overspend especially if that’s your tendency. If you have a budget you will know where every dime you earn should go. If you aren’t particularly skilled in creating a budget then hire some help to get you started. If you aren’t particularly skilled in following a budget then grow up. You’re running a business and you need to get serious about ensuring you have enough cash flow to keep you afloat. Or if you prefer to worry about money all the time then please don’t follow a budget and by all means overspend.

Pay off any credit card debt

How many credit cards do you have? How many of those cards are at or near their limit? How much interest are you paying on those cards every month? Why did you get into debt with your credit cards in the first place? I do not have a great relationship with credit cards. I love to shop and spend money. At one point I had over $15,000 in credit card debt and paid that off using my home equity. Then I ran up the card again and once again had to dip into my home equity. I guess I was a slow learner because after the third time and a serious talking by my husband I had to face the fact that I had a spending problem.

So once we paid off all the cards for a third time I cancelled all but two of the cards. One card was for business and had a $1000 limit and the other card had a $7000 limit. I called the credit card company and asked them to reduce the limit to $2500. This keeps things in control and I pay my card off as soon as I use it. If I don’t have the money then I don’t buy. It’s that simple. Well now it’s that simple but it took me a while to learn this lesson.

So now I’m passing this lesson onto you. Pay off your credit card debt. If you can’t be responsible with your credit cards then I suggest you cut them up, lower your limit and only have one. It’s no laughing matter and certainly won’t help your business.

Cash flow is king

Just recently, I attended a conference where Kevin O’Leary from the Dragons’ Den was speaking. His statement, “Cash flow is king” hit me like a ton of bricks. He said, “Without cash flow your business is dead”. DEAD! I kept thinking, “Kevin is right”. If your business does not have adequate and consistent cash flow you are dead in the water.

The best way to ensure the cash flows like an endless river is to attract, retain and service your clients like they are royalty. Your clients are your life blood and without them you have no business so do whatever you can to show your appreciation and when they do reward you with their money become a miser and save it, hoard it and protect it because it’s the life of your business.

I really want you to start thinking about what you would do if something were to happen to you and you were not able to work. How would you survive financially and for how long? What are you doing right now to put a plan into action to protect yourself? Hey, if nothing happens then that’s great. You might just be able to someday afford that studio you’ve always wanted. And guess what? You’ll have the capital to invest because you’ve taken the time to save your money.

As Kevin says, “You’re in business for one reason and one reason only and that’s to make money”. Yes as trainers we want to help people but are you doing it for free? I didn’t think so. It’s not a bad thing to make money. It’s only bad when you squander it away without thinking about the consequences if something should happen.

After waiting another five minutes Steve finally arrives, coffee in-hand and chastises Doug for not starting his workout. Doug likes Steve so he ignores the comment. Steve gets Doug to do a circuit program stating that Doug doesn’t really need a full hour for circuit training because it’s high intensity and really thirty minutes is good enough. Doug wonders why he’s paying for an hour if thirty minutes is enough but he trusts Steve and doesn’t say anything.

Doug notes how popular Steve has become because his cell phone keeps ringing and from the conversations he’s having he seems to be booking a lot of new clients. Doug doesn’t mind Steve taking calls during his session. After all, he feels lucky that Steve is training him. After about twenty minutes into the circuit and three phone calls later, Steve tells Doug that he has to leave a few minutes early to get to an important client who has just bought a package of fifty. He comments that he doesn’t want to be late to their first session.  He tells Doug to finish the circuit and prances off to talk to the receptionist who is applying her lip gloss. He waves to Doug from the door and says, “See you next week” and heads out to meet his next client. This was their first session of the week and Doug wonders if they will have their second session that week because of his comment.

Demotivated and angry Doug makes an attempt to finish the circuit but calls it quits. Just as he’s heading for the change room he notices another trainer, Brenda working with his wife’s friend Tammy. They’re doing a medicine ball partner training exercise and Doug thinks to himself. “That looks like fun. I wonder why Steve doesn’t do that with me”. Then he overhears Brenda mention that she’s going to spend five minutes stretching Tammy to really get into her tight spots. Irritated Doug mumbles under his breath, “Maybe I should hire Brenda.” Doug considers asking for Brenda’s card but would feel bad about leaving Steve. Besides it would be awkward hiring Brenda while Steve still trained other clients there.

On his way home Doug starts to think that maybe he won’t renew his sessions with Steve and just take a break. He knows the routine because it hasn’t changed much since they started and he feels confident to be on his own. Maybe after some time has passed he can ask Brenda to train him. Maybe she trains somewhere else so he doesn’t have to run into Steve. 

So what do you think? Is this story real? I guess that depends how long you’ve been in the personal training industry and how much you’ve seen. It would seem incredible that a story like this would be true and it isn’t. Well not entirely anyway. But that doesn’t mean there’s no truth to the story. Let me ask you these questions.

1)      Have you ever seen a trainer coffee in-hand training a client?

2)      Have you ever seen a trainer taking calls or texting while with a client?

3)      Do you know any trainers that can’t seem to make it to their appointments on time or finish early?

4)      Have you ever seen a trainer idly standing by while their clients do the exercises?

5)      Have you ever seen a trainer leaning or sitting down while a client is exercising?

6)      Have you ever seen a trainer allow a client to execute an exercise and not correct their form or technique?

I could go on but if you answered yes to any of these questions then I have to ask, are personal trainers becoming glorified baby-sitters? Where they stand over clients dis-engaged, dis-interested and looking bored? I hope not but honestly I can’t say that this isn’t happening in our industry. Trainers who behave in this manner will have short lived careers and bring down the professionalism. Not to mention dangerously perpetuating the negative stereotypes associated with personal trainers.  

Perhaps you think since you don’t participate in any of these behaviours there’s no impact to you. Well, first let me say congratulations. I’m glad you have higher standards, but what about others who don’t? What message do you think this sends to the public looking to hire trainers? Do you realize how much harder it makes it for all of us to do our jobs? If the perception from the public starts to become that trainers are just overpaid baby-sitters then this will affect everyone in the industry. It will be more difficult to attract clients or get them to see the value in paying $60, $70 or $80 an hour.

What can we do about this? It’s not a fictitious problem. It’s real and must be addressed. Since it’s impossible to make anyone behave the way you want you must first start with yourself. If you do any of the things highlighted above make the commitment to stop right now. Show respect for your client, yourself as a fitness professional and the industry by eliminating bad training habits such as these. When you model good habits and behaviour your clients’ will notice. They will refer more people and other trainers will start to notice and wonder what you are doing differently.

If you already have great habits but you see other trainers acting in a less professional manner this can be tricky to deal with. First, do not approach a trainer during a session to chastise them about drinking coffee. This will only embarrass them, their client and leave a bad impression of you. Approaching the trainer after their session can be dicey if you don’t have a good relationship with that trainer. They may view your feedback as overly critical, none-of-your-business or worse, meddlesome.

If you work in an organization you can provide feedback to your supervisor or manager about some of the things you see going. Because you may feel like you are rating someone out, you can offer the feedback anonymously. The names are less important. The ability for the supervisor or manager to address the issue in a team meeting is more important than singling people out. Granted this is a tough situation because we want to do what’s best for the client and not point fingers at our colleagues. However, new trainers might think these behaviours are acceptable because they see veteran trainers modeling it. They may think, “Hey this must be normal so it’s okay.” Or if they have a client like Doug they may assume because he doesn’t say anything that he’s okay with it.

If we hold ourselves and each other accountable for upholding professional standards the value for hiring a personal trainer increases. Let’s not allow the perception of gloried baby-sitter to enter the conscious mind of consumers for if we do we may find ourselves out of a job.

I try and fly later in the morning so I have time to exercise before the flight. I pack plenty of snacks for travel day to avoid being tempted by all the goodies at the airport. (Right now I’m sitting at the airport and the biggest chocolate chunk brownie I’ve ever seen is staring at me as I write this.) I pack bars, nuts, homemade cookies and a salad or sandwich for the plane. I avoid eating airplane food. It gives me gas anyway, wonder why that is? If it’s a long trip I pre-order the kosher, vegetarian, low-sodium meal. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes, well it taste like sawdust. Once clearing security my first mission is to fill my stainless steel water bottle to stay hydrated. Mission two begins with a hunt for fresh fruit; there are always plenty of bananas, apples and freshly cut fruit to buy.

When I arrive at the hotel my first priority is to hit a supermarket where I can load up on fruit and vegetables. Then back at the hotel I cut everything up and place it in my small containers so I always have healthy snacks for a few days. I freeze some of the fruit for my protein shake in the morning. Or if there is no freezer then I use ice and fresh fruit.

For long trips it takes a lot of resolve to stay on track. Especially when it’s a business trip and I have to work all day. It’s easy to let the exercise go or the nutrition slide. Especially if lunches are brought into the meeting or there is dinner out afterwards.   This is all the more reason to eat healthy throughout the day then you can be a bit more flexible in the evening.

As I write this I am in Colorado Springs, Colorado for a business meeting. Last night I walked around for an hour trying to find a healthy restaurant for dinner but all I could find was Wendy’s, McDonalds, Taco Bell and KFC. I was eyeing up the all you can eat Chinese Buffet restaurant but decided I didn’t want the calories, fat and salt from the all you can troth. So I headed back to the grocery store and found some lovely salad fixings and had a perfectly satisfying meal.  

Looking around the grocery store it was obvious other people were not trying to make the same healthy choices. While standing at the deli counter trying to decide how old a shrivelled up baked chicken breast actually was, an older man with a significant amount of belly fat wobbled up to the counter. He ordered 24 double fried chicken wings. I guess frying them twice makes them extra crispy. I’m making a mental calculation on the amount of calories, fat and salt are probably in those wings and looked at his belly and just felt sad. When I looked around the grocery store I didn’t see anyone who was a healthy body weight. The store was full of processed, sugary, high fat foods and I think if I lived here I might have a hard time to stay on track.

Later that evening as I sat in my hotel room flipping through the boob tube I landed on the new Ophra Winfrey network. Since I don’t get the channel at home I decided to watch. The show was called The Heaviest Teens. I was transfixed. Billy was only 19 and he weighed 800 pounds! 800 pounds! What the @$#! 800 pounds. He doesn’t sleep in a bed but sleeps in a large reclining chair. His mother brings him junk food and hand feeds it to him.  I don’t understand why she would do that. Why would she continue to feed her son these bad foods which were killing him? I’m no psychologist and certainly no expert, but isn’t that child abuse? I watched in fascinated horror as Billy was admitted to a special weight loss clinic for treatment. His first surgery was to cut a large section of his abdominal fat in preparation for gastric by-pass surgery later down the road. They weighed this grotesque flap of skin and fat at just over 90 pounds. I weigh 120 pounds so they removed 75% of what I weigh just from his abdomen. Doctors’ report over 200,000 Americans are home-bound because they are too large to leave their houses. Plus the incidence of kids weighing over 200 pounds is on the rise. When they refer to kids they are talking about eight, nine and ten year olds.  In all likelihood, unless these children change their behaviour they will die before their parents from complications of their disease. I watched a double episode and my heart was so heavy by the end of it.

There are many choices you have to make when you choose to lead a healthy lifestyle especially away from home and it’s not easy. It would have been far easier if I didn’t care about what I ate or if I got any exercise. I could just eat whatever was at the airport, the food on the plane and at restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Perhaps if I could find healthier restaurants and be sure of how they are preparing their food, the caloric and nutritional content I would. But the sad fact of the matter is when it comes to eating out it’s a gamble and one I’m not willing to risk with my life.

It’s all a matter of choice. You can choose to eat an apple or have a doughnut. You can choose to go for a walk or sit on your butt in front of the TV. You can choose the foods you feed your children because you are the parents and in control. We all have the power to choose and if we want to stay on-track then we better make choices that allow us to do just that. The consequences of leading an off-track lifestyle can no longer be ignored.

I figure if I can make those choices while on the road then being home should be a piece of cake, rice cake that is.

That’s right when I take the time out of my day to stand in line to do a transaction with a teller the Royal Bank of Canada charges me for that priviledge. When the account representative told me about this fee I actually laughed and said, “you’re kidding, right?” She looked at me and it was obvious she wasn’t kidding. I turned to her and said, “does this make any sense to you as a human being that when you stand in line and wait to work with an actual person that we should pay for that?”  She was about to explain the banks’ policy and defend their decision to DING their customers for their time when I stopped her and said, “I know you didn’t makde up this policy but seriously this one makes no sense.”

I’m not thrilled about being DINGED by the bank for every transaction I do. Especially automated ones where no actual human being is doing the work. But to get charged for seeing a teller who is usually painfully slow, and to wait in line for long periods of time, just doesn’t make sense to me. You would think the bank would like their customers to come in and interact with the staff. To create a connection with people and be able to offer other services.

So what do you think. If I wait 30 minutes in line to speak with a teller should they charge me less because they wasted my time?Maybe the charge should work on a sliding scale. The faster they serve me the more they get. That certainly would make paying a fee worth my while.

I am seriously sad to see customer service eroding to such a level. I understand that businesses need to make money and fees and charges are part of that process. However, from a customer service stand-point sometimes businesses can just push too far and in this case I have to say that for me, this fee is pushing it. What do you think?

So what’s this new sport creating quite a stir? First, let me say that you probably won’t believe it when you read it. The new Olympic sport being considered as a demonstration sport for the next 2012 Olympics is…. weight loss! That’s right you read that correctly. In order to raise awareness and fight the “war on obesity” a group of prominent doctors, nutritionists, psychologist along with the Biggest Losers’ personal trainers have banned together and have been working to get this sport into the Olympics.   

Interest to join teams from weight loss athletes around the world has ballooned up to “unprecedented numbers”. In the US alone, as of this writing, over 100,000 people have applied for ten spots on the U.S. team and over 50,000 for spots on the Canadian team. The news about the sport has been spreading throughout Facebook and there have been over 200,000 Tweets discussing the value of adding this sport to the Olympic Games. What’s still unclear is how the sport will run and judged but those details haven’t been released yet. No doubt there will be some reality show spin-off from following these athletes on their quest to get to the Olympics.

While on the surface this new sport seems like a good idea there are groups that are protesting strongly against its inclusion. The weight loss/fad-diet industries are up-in-arms and are raising concerns that pushing obese clients to perform like Olympic athletes could result in injury and even death. Top representatives and CEOs from some of the largest corporations held a press conference voicing their concerns. They cite, “we are just looking out for our customers and their best interest”. One has to wonder if they are really so concerned about their customers or more concerned about saving their bottom lines and maintaining their healthy profits. After all they count on weight loss clients being unsuccessful in their bid to lose weight and continue to spend their money on useless products supporting this billion dollar industry.

Another group who are voicing their concerns is the fast food industry. They have petitioned the highest level of government to ensure that weight loss does not become an Olympic sport. Their main argument is that it would disrupt their business so much that people would start demanding better quality food or worse, a complete closure of many popular fast food chains as athletes avoid eating at these calorie- laden establishments. Even main-stream restaurants owners are worried because they are already being asked to provide nutritional information on their menus as athletes prepare for competition.

The soft drink industry has made numerous attempts to lobby against the proposed weight loss sport citing that coaches, doctors and nutritionists are warning weight loss athletes not to drink their product. They have sought legal counsel and are threatening to sue the Olympic committee if they allow the sport of weight loss into the Olympics. It has been reported but not substantiated that the soft drink industry has spent over a billion dollars to lobby against the sport. Suffice it to say, Government officials and Olympic committee members are feeling the pinch from all sides but to their credit, are not being swayed.

The controversy that’s been stirred by including weight loss into the Olympics is unprecedented. But it’s the sign of the times as peoples’ waist lines continue to grow at an alarming rate. With the rise of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and morbidity it was only a matter of time before someone took some initiative to think outside-the-box and come up with a possible solution the obesity epidemic. Let’s cross our fingers and hope we will see athletes from all countries competing in this new and exciting sport.

Well hopefully by now you’ve realized that what I’ve written is a fable and not based on fact or reality. But maybe it could be real. Perhaps someday those of us in the health/fitness community will ban together and come up with creative solutions to help people get back to a healthy size. I feel confident we can turn the tides of the obesity epidemic and if we use our imaginations, someday, together we will find a solution.  Who knows maybe weight loss being an Olympic sport is not such a big idea in the end.

It’s not really a country most people think to travel to, probably because of its past history. A brutal civil war raged there for many years and only ended in 1992. When I tell people I’m going to El Salvador I usually get asked two questions. Is it safe, and why would you go there? Well, if you’ve never visited the country, met its people and dipped your toe into the warm waters lining the miles of pristine coastline you wouldn’t know the charm and beauty of the place.

That’s not to say that El Salvador doesn’t have its share of problems. There are two classes here: the very rich and the very, very poor, and there’s really no middle class to speak of. As with any developing nation, the country has a pollution problem, you can’t drink the tap water and most buildings are either in a state of disrepair or half finished.

Cows, chickens and horses roam the streets along with stray dogs that people don’t treat like man’s best friend. People walk, bike and pile into the backs of pick-up trucks by the dozens to get where they need to go. An eighty-kilometre journey on the local school bus, which serves as public transportation, can take anywhere from two to three hours depending on how many people are standing by the road waiting to be picked up.

With all its problems and challenges you might think that El Salvador’s people would be bitter and angry about their circumstances. But that’s not what I see here. Recently Brian and I were at a food festival in a small town called Jayua. As we sat in the town square eating our frozen chocolate-covered bananas all I saw were happy, smiling faces. Three orphan boys sat staring at us while we ate our lunch. They didn’t ask us for money but when we were done they asked if they could have the leftovers. We gave them our half-eaten food and they thanked us.

The house we rent is in a wealthy El Salvadorian neighbourhood on the cliffs overlooking the sea, behind a security gate staffed by armed guards. The house is far beyond the means of most people who live in this densely-populated country of six million. Most people live in small brick shacks with metal roofs and sleep in hammocks. Houses are dotted along the highway and in the evening the road becomes the social hub of each area. Because the houses are built along the highway people hang out there in the evenings to talk to their neighbours. This makes for some insane driving conditions. There are very few street lights, lots of people and animals crossing the road and crazy drivers dodging in and out of traffic. Needless to say, fatalities sometimes occur.

Shopping in the outdoor market is the best experience. It’s crowded, noisy and hot with people yelling and buses honking. We walk up to the fruit and veggie stand and spend ten dollars. We feast on pineapple, papaya, melons, strawberries, bananas and a whole selection of vegetables. It’s ridiculous that at home we spend $12.00 for a pineapple and in El Salvador we get two pineapples the size of your head for 75 cents.

We also travel to the outdoor fish market, where the local fishermen pull the biggest shrimp you’ve ever seen out of the ocean and charge us next to nothing for them. We dine on red snapper, crab and other assorted seafood for just pennies a pound.

I look around and see only abundance, and yet the truth is that only the well-off or tourists can afford to eat like this. Most of the locals are barely scraping by.

For staples, Brian and I go to the local Super Selectos, which is like a Safeway. We spend just over two hundred US dollars for the month. Most El Salvadorians only make $100 to $400 a month and on our last trip we spent that in less than twenty minutes. I’m not sure if you fully understood the implications of the last sentence so let me repeat it: the average wage in this country ranges from $100 to $400 a month. A firefighter makes $400 a month. How would you survive if you only made $400 a month?

Granted, the cost of living here is far less than what we experience in the comfort and security of our own country but still, that’s not a lot of money for one person, let alone a family.

While I’m in the kitchen doing some work, Jessie (who comes to clean the house three times a week) sits down to talk to me. Jessie is twenty-six years old, has two children and another one on the way. Her husband works on and off in construction and she cleans this house when it’s rented. When it’s not rented she has no work. She makes $100 a month coming three times a week and spends about ten hours a day working.

Jessie speaks no English and my Spanish is not that great. I have Internet access so I go on Babel Fish, which helps me translate our conversation. I seem to understand what she says for the most part but holding a fluid conversation is a challenge. She asks me about my computer and how much it costs. I tell her $800 and her eyes widen. She would have to work for three years to save up enough money to buy it.

I quickly start to realize that although we are both women we come from such different cultures. Milk is too expensive for her. Buying fruits and vegetables is too expensive. I feel guilty because our fridge and cupboards are stuffed with food. I feel embarrassed and ashamed at the abundance we have. To know that this girl is raising two children, has a third on the way and lives on so few dollars makes me want to give her everything I have.

Jessie tells me that her husband is thinking of going to the United States to find work—illegally, of course. Remittances are a common theme in this country. Family members go somewhere else (typically the US where they can make more money) and send it back to their families in hope of providing a better life for them. I ask her how long he may be gone and she says, “Up to five years.” I hold back tears as I think about Brian being away from me for that long. I ask Jessie if she would visit him and then realize she could never afford the plane ticket.

Our brief conversation ends as we run out of things to say. We are worlds apart but there is an unspoken understanding between the two of us. She doesn’t think less of me because I have more material things in my life and I don’t think less of her for not having more. We are simply just two people sitting in a kitchen, learning about each other and our different lives. We share many smiles and a few laughs as we fumble our way around, trying to communicate. I leave the table feeling humbled by the experience with Jessie and the experience I’m having here in El Salvador.

This is my third trip to the country and the longest I’ve stayed. I feel like I’m living here and I’ve been able to absorb more of the culture and learn more about its history. I visited the site of the El Mozote massacre, which took place in the village of El Mozote in Morazán on December 11, 1981. There, Salvadoran armed forces trained by the United States military killed more than 200 and possibly as many as 1000 civilians during the Salvadoran civil war. A memorial was set up and the names of all the children killed were written on a wall. The whole place had a terrible vibe, which I felt in the pit of my stomach. You could still see the bullet holes in the ground.

The driver who took us to the memorial site, Francisco, had only read about the massacre in books. He could not afford the gas to travel the four hours it took to get to the memorial so he had never been there. This fifty-two-year-old man remembers those times very well. Seeing his reaction to the memorial was very powerful. I don’t think any of us had a dry eye when we left the site.

Brian, Francisco and I stayed overnight in a Comfort Inn hotel on the way there. It might have been a modest hotel by our Western standards but this was the first time Francisco had ever been in a hotel. He had never ridden in an elevator before, and we had to show him how to use his electronic key card to get into his room. At the full buffet breakfast in the morning we could just tell that Francisco was overwhelmed by the whole experience.

As I write this, I am halfway through my time here in El Salvador. I came here to relax, do some work and enjoy the sunshine and hospitality of the country. I will leave here with the memories of the people and experiences, counting down the days until I can return again next year. I’m not sure why this country has such an effect on me but it seems to have found a spot in my heart.

Let’s all take a moment to be grateful for the abundance we have in our lives, to acknowledge the people who choose to share their lives with us and to respect different cultures and situations. If there is one lesson I will take away from this experience it will be the lesson of kindness. No matter what the circumstance or situation, if we can treat each other with kindness then we will all be better off.

Dan is racing to his meeting and phones his assistant Carole to tell her he’s on his way. His cell phone battery is critically low but Dan doesn’t notice. Carole has been stalling the meeting all morning and she’s not sure how much longer she can keep Brian and his team in the boardroom but she agrees to try.

As Dan turns onto the highway traffic is at a standstill. He sits for five, ten and then twenty minutes drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He hasn’t moved an inch in twenty minutes. His frustration, anger and impatience rises with each passing minute as does his heart rate and blood pressure. With clenched teeth he shouts to himself “can this day getting any @!$# worse?” He fumbles with the radio to try and find out what’s happening. Apparently there was a major accident that happened thirty minutes before he left the house and the road will be closed for at least another hour. He’s trapped on the highway with no way to get off.  Had he been on time he would have missed the accident completely. He’s screwed. He will never make it.

Dan calls the office hoping that Carole can smooth things over with Brian and reschedule the meeting. He’s desperate to save the contract.  Just as he begins to dial his cell phone goes dead. He can’t make the call and has no way to let anyone know he won’t be able to make it. He envisions everyone sitting in the boardroom, steaming with anger and pissed off at the tremendous waste of time this was in their already overbooked schedule. Dan sees his multi-million dollar contract disappearing before his eyes and prepares himself for what will surely be an even worse day when he finally gets to the office.

How many of you would like to be in Dans’ shoes right now? What kind of attitude will Dan have when he arrives at the office? Do you think he will be happy and positive? How do you think he might treat Carole and others that work for him?  Do you think the rest of his day will go any better? Probably not.

Have you woken up and as soon as your feet hit the floor you knew it was going to be a bad day. Your attitude stunk all day which kept re-affirming the fact that you were going to have a bad day. And didn’t it seem like everything in your day was designed to keep you in that bad mood? Well, welcome to your attitude. Good, bad or indifferent we all have one and we all have the power to control it. Author John C. Maxwell wrote an inspiring book called The Difference Maker – making your attitude your greatest asset. In it he shares his insights on the power of attitude and how you can use to control your perceptions of situations. Your attitude and the attitude you have towards yourself, life, business and others shapes your circumstance and your future.

Your attitude colors every aspect of your life. It’s like the mind’s paintbrush, says Maxwell. There is not a single part of your current life that is not affected by your attitude. And your future will definitely be influenced by the attitude you carry with you from today forward.

When things in your life are going well it’s easy to have a positive attitude but when problems arise or you are going through change, your attitude is tested. It becomes more challenging to think positively and sometimes you get swept into the pit of despair, negative self-talk, self-doubt and a negative attitude. You may get stuck in this pit and find it harder and harder to climb out. What you may not realize is that you already have a ladder that you can use to climb out. The ladder is your attitude and at any time you can use to ascend. If you change your attitude and change your perception of the situation you will start climbing.

In Dan’s case he screwed up. He didn’t set his alarm, charge his phone and make sure he planned to be at the meeting on time. It was an important meeting to him and the future of his company but the damage is done. It’s what he does to fix the situation and his attitude in the face of adversity that will be his reward. He may have lost the contract but then again maybe he hasn’t. What could Dan do to change the situation? He must first make up his mind to change his attitude. Change his mind-set from, “shit I lost the contract” to “okay I have to do whatever it takes to show the CEO that this situation was not indicative of how I do business but just one of those days”. He has to get hungry to win over the CEO and his first step is his attitude.

This isn’t the time for Dan to wallow in negative self-talk or inward negative feelings of what a screw-up he his. Dan needs to accept the situation but it will be hard for him to do that if all he sees is the negative and starts to berate himself for the mistake. By labeling himself as a screw-up he will undoubtedly thwart any attempt at repairing the situation. Labels are very damaging and we should be extremely careful how we label ourselves.

Dr. Dwayne Dyer advises, “Examine the label you apply to yourself. Every label is a boundary or limit you will not let yourself cross.” If you are having trouble getting where you want to go, the problem may be inside you. If you don’t change your inward feelings about yourself, you will be unable to change your outward actions toward others.

I think you should read that paragraph a few times to really absorb its’ meaning for you and how this applies to you in your life. Are you putting labels on yourself? Do you tell yourself you’re not good in business while trying to run your business? Do you hate selling because it makes you uncomfortable and you don’t think you are any good at it? Do you avoid crowds because you’re too shy to talk to people? Not good in business, hate selling, too shy. These are the labels you may be wearing and if this is your attitude then this is your reality. Until you change your attitude your reality will never be different.

What can you do to change? Simply thinking positive isn’t going to do it. Maxwell outlines six steps to changing your attitude.

1)      Take responsibility for your attitude

2)      Evaluate your present attitude

3)      Develop the desire to change

4)      Change your attitude by changing your thoughts

5)      Develop good habits

6)      Manage your attitude daily

Let’s leave Dan and his bad day for a moment and let me introduce you to Caitlyn. Caitlyn has a very familiar problem. She is thirty pounds overweight and knows she needs to exercise and eat better in order to lose the weight but can’t seem to find the motivation to change. Her attitude towards exercise and eating healthy has always been indifferent. She doesn’t care that she never does any exercise and likes to eat out all the time. Her self-esteem is non-existent. Her desire to make changes in her life is less than zero. Her family sees her destructive eating pattern and the weight she continues to gain and they are concerned. They voice their concern almost daily and Caitlyn ignores their comments. She knows she is fat. She doesn’t think there’s anything she can do about it. She thinks it’s too hard to change and feels like she already has bad habits and it’s too late. She thinks about her weight daily but still eats whatever she wants.

Before Caitlyn can ever make any changes in her life she needs to apply the six steps Maxwell outlines. Otherwise it is a losing battle even before the war begins. But there are obstacle to overcome here aren’t there? Maxwell outlines what he calls the big five attitude obstacles. As you read them think about Caitlyn and how they apply to her.

1)      Discouragement

2)      Change

3)      Problems

4)      Fear

5)      Failure

Each of these obstacles applies to Caitlyn. If she decided to start exercising and eating better will she be discouraged if she doesn’t lose weight right away? Could this cause her to stop trying and adopt a “see I told you this was a waste of time attitude?”

Is change easy or hard? Most people would say change is hard. We become entrenched in the sameness of our life. We live a life of status quo. We get comfortable and we adopt an attitude that change is hard. Sure it is at first but then with time and practice it becomes our new reality and it’s not so hard. Caitlyn will experience a whole new life when she begins to change her unhealthy ways and there will be problems along the way making change seem hard.

With any change comes challenge. That’s a given. It’s how we face the challenge that makes the difference. Do we take them head on and come up with solutions or do we quit? It’s inevitable that with change comes fear. We don’t know what we are doing so we may feel incompetent, uncomfortable and unsettled. We fear failure, looking stupid and sometimes we even fear success. It’s normal to feel some fear when making changes, taking a chance or trying something new. As the old expression goes, feel the fear and do it anyway. It’s really our attitude towards the fear that makes or breaks us. Will Caitlyn feel fear sometimes as she tries to change? Of course she will. Will she have set-backs? Yes of course she will but that’s all part of moving forward.

Failure is part of the journey. The first time I tried to do a hand stand in yoga I fell over. The second time I tried a hand stand I almost sprained my finger. The third time I tried a hand stand I used a wall. If I gave up then I would never have thought of using the wall to practice and gotten better at it. You only get better at something when you fail and sometimes you need to fail a lot before you perfect it. I’m not suggesting you go out and fail at everything but I am suggesting that if you never try you are guaranteed not to succeed. Why not give yourself a chance to succeed and allow yourself to fail forward.

With Dan and Caitlyn it’s easy to see how their attitudes can shape their day or their life. You can choose to walk through life as a victim or victor. You can carry the weight of a bad attitude or lighten your load by choosing a positive attitude. The decision will always be yours because while you may not be able to control the circumstance of life, the people around or the situation you will always have the power to choose your attitude. Choose wisely and you will flourish. Choose unwisely and you will flounder. The choice is yours.