Thank You

As Thanksgiving Day comes to a close I think a lot about all the people in this country and beyond who have made a commitment to change for the better. Change is hard. It requires letting go of the past and of the habits you've grown accustomed to over the years. Staying in a rut is easy. Getting out of one requires work. Life is hard enough for most folks and adding food discipline and 6 days a week of hard core exercise is a massive commitment. It's hard for me and I do it for a living. Some are getting up before the crack of dawn to do Plyometrics, followed by feeding a family then heading to work. This is incredible to me. It goes to show you that the feeling you get from doing the right thing is worth the effort.

I wanted to take a moment on this Thanksgiving day to thank you all for choosing perseverance over laziness, discipline over impatience, self-reliance over self-pity and hard work over quick fixes. The road is often bumpy and the journey long, but the outcome from commitment and dedication is life altering. If you're one of these people then don't let the holidays become a time to put your hard earned results on hold. People will often use this time between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve to ease up on healthy eating and regular exercise because they think they've earned a little time off. Why would you throw in the towel after you've won the fight? I don't get that at all. When life is hardest you must narrow your focus and keep going. Let people who don't know better start again on New Year's Day.
Not you!

Thank you,

Tony Horton

Vulcan Robot Yoga

Last Saturday I found myself in a very bad way. I've been having some repair work done on my house to fix sketchy construction by the original builder. The problem is, my beautiful home leaked like an old fishing boat. A company repaired this issue 3 years ago, but this past winter, water found it's way back in. Nothing like spending thousands of dollars on something that didn't work. This time around I was going to get the best guy in the city. Turns out the water proofer was a rock star (the place is as tight as a drum) but the construction company hired to put the place back together again was pathetic. Shoddy work, lame sub contractors, overcharging me at every turn, and turning a 3 month job into 8. This project has been the bane of my existence... again!

Last Saturday the frustration cup runneth over. After endless delays and screw-ups I exploded all over the owner of this construction company. I haven't been that angry or yelled that loud in 20 years. In that moment I understood crimes of passion. Luckily my outburst was over the phone, because if this guy had been standing in front of me, I surely would have driven my fist through his brain. Even as I write this I feel my cortisol levels rise. Anger IS one letter short of danger. When I hung up (slammed down) the phone after my verbal combustion, I was shaking. The other thing I couldn't shake was this toxic feeling I had coursing throughout my entire body. In that moment I completely understood how anger can make you sick.

This hate outburst occurred at approximately 3:15 last Saturday afternoon and I was planning to go to my yoga class at 4:00 PM. If my friends Brain and Shawna hadn't joining me I would have certainly blown it off. Yoga was the very last thing I wanted to do after that confrontation. Hitting a heavy bag for an hour seemed like the only logical release for what I was suffering from. The verbal shrapnel was still flying on our way to yoga and prior to class the heat coming off of me was so intense that the girl next to me got up and moved to the back of the room. I'm not kidding. I was about to turn a simple sweet Hatha Yoga class into Kill And Destroy Yoga.

For the first 45 minutes of class every pose, every asana was executed like a Vulcan Robot. Perfect emotionless linear intensity. I didn't even break a sweat for the first 45 minutes. Between minute 45 and 50 everything changed. The anger was gone and the sweat started pouring out of me in buckets. The first thing I did after class was call the guy (I screamed at) and apologize. Even with the wrong intentions the physical movements of yoga helped me find balance again. I was transformed. A miraculous thing really. It's possible that any physical movement could have helped me, but it was Vulcan Robot Yoga that made everything right again.

Thanks Ryan

While I was away last week I received a letter and check in the mail from a Mr. Ryan Windeler from Ontario Canada. Ryan wrote about how excited he is that P90X got him in the best shape of his life at the age 37. He also wrote that P90X is becoming as popular as hockey up in Canada.

The second half of the letter was an apology for pirating his copy of P90X off the Internet. He writes, "I can't in good conscience continue to push play knowing that I didn't come by my P90X discs honestly. Honor is a man's gift to himself and today I hope to restore a little of mine by enclosing a money order to you in the amount of USD $120.00." He concludes by saying, "I wanted you to know that P90X has the power to transform more than just a person's body."

I was floored by this letter and check. I know sometimes we might buy movies or workout DVDs that aren't originals (manufactured by the companies that worked hard to create, market and distribute them) and think, "What's the big deal?" The "big deal" is that purchasing these products can and have ruined the legitimate companies that make them. When you buy counterfeit and/or pirated copies of anything you're doing much more than chipping away at a company's profit margin.

First of all you're stealing. You're also hurting a company's ability to develop new products, spend money on media to advertise, preventing companies from hiring new people, and forcing companies to cut corners (that hurts you) to make up for the loses.

Ryan Windeler is a hero because he admitted doing wrong and apologized for it. Sending the check was just a bonus.

Thank You Ryan