Teammates – Today’s topic is about limitations – it’s about understanding the difference between limitations that are discovered versus limitations that are self-imposed. Understanding this distinction is critically important to you – to me – to all of us!

Everyone has limitations: I know for a fact that I will not be running a 4 minute mile in my lifetime. I know for a fact, because I’ve tried – vomited – tried again, and again and again (threw-up all along way). I now realize that 5 min and 20 secs is the best I’m going to do…and I’m absolutely comfortable with that. I discovered my running limitations over years of trying and winning such prestigious high school cross country awards as: “Swifter than the Continental Drift Award” or “Faster than a Growing Hickory Tree Award” (actual awards I received at my cross country awards dinner in high school). I can sleep at night knowing that I’ll never run a 4 min mile because I know in my heart that I have given everything that I WAS WILLING to give it to try to conquer this limitation. I discovered this limitation on my own – I didn’t take the word of my coach or my friends (they said I’d never break 6 mins).

However, there’s another kind of limitation that is much – much – more insidious, and if you’re not careful and cognizant of it, you may commit one of the great travesties in life, that is, living a life with self imposed limitations. I call it “one of the great travesties” – hell you can call it a great sin – for no one should accept someone else’s limitation as their own. Ask Lance Armstrong if he’d be happier right now if he had accepted the first doctor’s recommendation to give up cycling!

I use the word “insidious” because self-imposed limitations creep up on you – they come from credible sources such as doctors or friends or even fathers. They’re not trying to intentionally sabotage your chances of success – they are (in most cases, unless we’re dealing with the jealous and insecure types) usually trying to protect you from “failing” or perhaps from injury either mentally or physically (from failing). They’re passing along limitations that they’ve either discovered or have chosen to accept as true because they heard it from someone they trusted. The trick is to identify the self-imposed limitations from the ones you’ve discovered and accepted as fact.

We all have limitations, after all there’s only so much time each of us has to pursue goals in our lives (and in my 4 min mile quest, I was unwilling to move to Kenya, lose a 100lbs and be chased by lions in an attempt to break my 5 min and 20 sec mile limitation!). The key is living the life we want by determining which limitations we are willing accept versus the ones we willingly commit to crushing. When you identify the limitations in your life that are holding you back from living the life you want – well then – CONGRATULATIONS!!!, because you, my friend, have just discovered your path to freedom!

What are you waiting for? Go find some limitations worth crushing! And let your teammates know the joy you’ve encountered from conquering them! HOOYAH!!

CHARLIE MIKE – ALDEN

Blue plaque recording the first ever sub-4-minute mile run by Roger Bannister on 6 May, 1954 at Oxford University’s Iffley Road Track.

CM UK Teammates — great news: you can now order the Perfect Dip Bar, the Perfect Pushup V2, in addition to Deluxe Ab Straps and the Perfect Pulllup. Choose the Perfect Bundle of products for you and you’ll save big and get ripped.

Here’s what I had to say last April when we launched the Perfect Dip Bar stateside. Drum roll please or perhaps a 21 gun salute (Okay – that’s a bit much) – but after months of prototyping (and many, many broken prototypes) it’s time to let you know about our latest product launch: the PERFECT DIP BAR. Why is it Perfect? Good question: first, it mounts onto your existing Perfect Pullup without tools (however, we do suggest you swap out your bottom bracket of your Perfect Pullup with the included Perfect Dip Bar bracket). It attaches/removes within 7 seconds (yes – we’ve timed it) – but the best part is: it’s the first adjustable bar that adjusts to your Perfect shoulder/elbow width to ensure you get the maximum tricep engagement while maintaining PERFECT shoulder – elbow – wrist alignment.

We’re Fired Up about it and we’re looking forward to hearing from you about it – first ten comments (success stories – positive – negative – whatever) posted to me on CHARLIE MIKE get a free t-shirt! UK Teammates, that means you! The first ten UK Teammates who post on CHARLIE MIKE about the new Perfect Dip Bar will get a Perfect Fitness t-shirt.

CHARLIE MIKE – ALDEN

Teammates, have you seen the November 2009 SHAPE magazine cover? The cover girl is The Office’s Jenna Fischer, wearing a bikini and a big confident smile! According to Ms. Fischer, “I ditched the trainer and got THIS body on my own.” Here at Perfect Fitness we’re fired up that the Perfect Pushup is part of her workout. Every two or three days, Jenna does Macho Jacks, Pendulum Rows and finishes off with Triceps Pushups, from the knees, using Perfect Pushup handles. The November SHAPE magazine is on newstands now.

Now according to Tom Rancich, my SEAL Team swim buddy, all it takes is six weeks to get into bikini shape. Yeah sure you’re thinking, but Tom knows why it takes the average 35 year-old woman so long to put on that bikini. Keep in mind that Tom Rancich has spent the last six months at the beach, leading a group of Navy veterans who were tasked to remove potentially lethal practice munitions dropped decades ago at former target ranges along South Beach in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The secret: confidence. Says Tom, “I have spent the entire summer at the beach and you have no idea how many 30-somethings I talked to who were wearing ass blankets or frumpy one pieces with skirts no less! They would have been fine in bikinis…except they lost their confidence.” You all know the famous SEAL motto, “the body obeys the brain.” It’s not enough to work the body — you have to unlock your body’s potential so that you can get more out of life — and that starts inside your head. Check out my Right to Bare Arms workout and start making changes from the inside out.

CHARLIE MIKE — ALDEN

Teammates, it’s easy for me to say: “follow your heart” – or “go after your dreams”, but it’s a totally different ballgame when you try to apply it to YOUR reality. However, you CAN do it – it’s a matter of how badly you want to make the change and understanding WHY you want to make the change in your life. This principle goes for anything in life you’re after – a new body or a new life. Understanding the “WHY?” will become the definition of your mission – this understanding will lead to your purpose, and consequently to your passion.

Like a fire triangle: heat + fuel + oxygen = fire;
The success triangle is: passion + purpose + persistent action = success.

Define your passions, identify a purpose that truly Fires You Up, and I promise you (along with staying fit!), you’ll have the power to perform persistent action. After all, you are defined in life by your actions – whatever they are – your actions DEFINE YOU. And that’s why I’m so motivated about helping folks get fit – because your level of health directly correlates to your ability to TAKE ACTION AGAIN AND AGAIN – i.e. PERSISTENT ACTION…and persistence is the NAME OF GAME!!

Get your game on and CHARLIE MIKE!!

ALDEN

Picture of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the Moon courtesy of wikipedia

Teammates, on the last blog I defined what a mission is, on this blog I want to define YOUR mission. Let me be clear – I have no intention of defining your specific mission because I can’t – only you can. My hope is to challenge you with some questions – and your ability to honestly seek the answers will directly help you define YOUR mission.

First, a quick recap on the definition of mission:
• a mission is a purpose-driven goal
• a goal is a dream with a deadline

So how do you sort through the goals that are worth “dying-for” and the goals that are “nice to have”? There’s no right answer here, but I can tell you from experience that there are two kinds of goals out there – there are the nice-to-have superficial ones and then there are the ones that will define you and your character – they’re big, scary and hairy and will leave you doubting yourself until you start to try. My question to you is:

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Answer this one slowly – take some serious time to dream – look inside yourself and ask honestly, what would I do if I knew I wouldn’t fail at whatever I tried…then ask yourself that again…and then again and again. The true answer won’t come immediately – you’ll have to sort through the superficial ones first – like having a billion dollar bank account or a private jet, but the ones that will start to percolate to the surface are ones that have a deeper meaning to you – they’re the ones that have a purpose. Sometimes, actually most times, that purpose doesn’t immediately connect with you.

You’ll have to journey a bit down the planning path of a couple of your dreams, but the sooner you learn to connect a purpose to your goal, the sooner you’ll stop viewing work as a “9 to 5” job and start seeing work as an opportunity to excel beyond what is currently possible or even what some may consider acceptable.

Huh?

Stay with me here – you see most folks get caught up very early in life in the game of earning money as the ultimate reward. No doubt, having money opens doors to new possibilities, but for most, we end up chasing a never ending rainbow of superficial stuff – cars, boats, houses, jewelry, etcetera and get stuck in a vicious cycle of: “I work because I owe, and owe because I work” (and btw I’m as guilty as the next guy for coveting different “superficial things”), but the trick is to earn these things doing what you love, not doing what you “have” to do to continue make payments on the things you’ve wanted. Once you get ‘stuck’ on the car, house, credit card payment treadmill it becomes increasingly more difficult over time to get off the vicious cycle.

Part 2: how to follow YOUR dream

CHARLIE MIKE — ALDEN

Picture of Buzz Aldrin’s footprint on the Moon courtesy of wikipedia

CHARLIE MIKE Teammates – I just wanted to provide all of you with an October update on the status of Fire in the Gut – Innovative Performance Shirts for Athletes with a Warrior Attitude (www.fireinthegut.com). We were supposed to go live last month in September. As I mentioned previously, not everything always executes as planned. We have had some unforeseen productions issues that caused a slight delay.

The formal launch of the company will be in the next few weeks. A newsletter for all of you is forthcoming – you can sign up at my website. I recently activated a Twitter Account (www.twitter.com/timgrizzell) where you can track live updates on the launch.

Also, here is a sneak peek of the men’s crew neck short sleeve shirt. I am fired up and I look forward to sharing the new products with you soon.

Tim Grizzell

P.S. Alden–Congratulations on CHARLIE MIKE reaching the 2-year mark–you are truly helping others unlock their potential! Fired up for you brother! Tim

It’s CHARLIE MIKE’s Two Year Anniversary! Get ready for a week of Defining a Mission, updates from the CM SEAL Team bloggers and a few surprises!

Teammates – probably one of the more over-used terms today is “on a mission” but what does it really mean? Does it stand for getting a couple of cold beers at an over-crowded bar or perhaps finding a coveted toy before it disappears off the shelves mid-December? I want to define the true term, because once you appreciate it, you’ll think about it in a whole new light.

In the military, On a Mission literally means in harm’s way, and in SEAL Team on a mission meant doing whatever it takes to get it done – including if absolutely unavoidable, the ultimate sacrifice … so why are there men and women out there willing to die to complete a mission? Because they have linked to a purpose so strong – so powerful – so much bigger than themselves, that they are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.

Now imagine if you pursued your goals with similar purpose – imagine if you linked a purpose so powerful to your goal that you’d take on overwhelming odds to accomplish it – what would you accomplish?

It’s been often said that a goal is a dream with a deadline attached to it – but a mission – well that’s a goal with a purpose welded to it!

As you decide your next goals in life – first start by deciding their purpose – when you recognize a purpose worth giving it everything you got, then you’ve found your mission.

Go after it and never quit!

CHARLIE MIKE – ALDEN

How will you grow, fight off imitators and keep your competitive edge? In a phrase: Passion Driven Purpose. Huh? It’s about linking your company – your values – your mission statement – to a purpose. If the sole focus of your company is to profiteer, then your goals will be aligned for the short-term “get-rich” schemes and it won’t deliver long-term value.

If your company’s goals are directly aligned with a higher purpose – in our case, helping people unlock their body’s potential (and our number one core value is WE CARE about the health of our customers), then some powerful forces with start to align with you.

* First, you’ll take a long-term and creative approach to bringing true value and success to your customers. The more you help your customers succeed, the more they will help you succeed. If it’s all about “taking” from your customers, then they have no incentive to “give” to you.

* Secondly, the true super-stars of talent out there work for much more than a paycheck – money itself isn’t enough. There’s a much more important value element that a profiteer company can’t deliver, that’s providing people with the value of delivering on a higher purpose – of giving back to society, to communities around us, and the environment.

When you start with goals that have a purpose, and build a team of like-minded teammates, then no competitor becomes a long term threat. And if a competitor chooses to truly bring purpose into their mission – then it raises the bar on all of us. And one final note – when a company knows its purpose, it Fires UP the passion in all the people it attracts, and when this occurs, work is no longer work and creates an unstoppable work ethic and crucible for creativity!

If you’re thinking of taking the leap to chart your own entrepreneurial path whether inside an existing company or out on your own, trust me when I tell you, you’ll never regret the journey – it won’t be easy, but in the words of a military recruiter: “It’ll be the hardest thing you’ll ever love.”

CHARLIE MIKE – ALDEN

Yes…unfortunately sevens is not rugby…it is a game invented by backs (backs get all the glory, the pack gets all the blame) so they can prance around and not have to worry about being spanked by a 220+ ogre who is both fleet of feet and powerful and irritable by nature (not to mention suave and debonair). I mean if the pack invented its own game we would have shortened the field and added people so there was more opportunity to kick ass not run free.

But other than that I think it is great that rugby …sorta … is in the Olympics but I am thankful of one thing and hopeful of another…I am hopeful that this leads to 15s in the Olympics and I am thankful that it isn’t that league rule crap. Oh and if you noticed I said both but named three things…you are such a back

Tom Rancich, CM SEAL Team blogger

Scrum picture courtesy of wikipedia. Here’s a link to a wikipedia article about the Rugby Unionand the picture of the black eye above is courtesy of Guam Motleys vs Australian SAS—Guam Motleys 6, Australian SAS 0.
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Lt. Commander Thomas Rancich, US Navy SEAL (Ret.) is the co-founder of VRHabilis, a disabled veteran-owned small business that seeks to employ the highly trained and motivated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for work in construction and related fields. Rancich and co-founder Elliott Adler are pioneering the concept of using adaptive technology to bridge the gap between industrial and medical technology. Their company contributes proceeds to two worthy causes: a fund for the development of adaptive technology that will allow disabled veterans to pursue their desired career path and the EOD Wounded Warrior Fund.

Teammates, here’s Cal coach Jack Clark’s reaction to the great news that Rugby is once again an Olympic sport! “I got the word at about 4am Friday morning from pals who were in Copenhagen for the IOC’s decision. I thought about opening some champagne but it was early even for a rugger.

I’ve been telling everybody they’ll have to excuse our pride for a few days, all of us in the rugby community are over-the-top with rugby’s inclusion back into the Olympic Games. We’ve been working towards this for quite some time and now that’s its happened it almost seems surreal. Olympic status is a great boost for our sport, especially in countries like ours in America where rugby is played as a minor sport. Olympic acceptance is important for the sports credibility on university and high school campuses. There is no denying the power of those five rings, and the USOC will be a tremendous partner to help take U.S. rugby to the next level.

Unfortunately, the IOC cut baseball and softball from the Games, two strong U.S. sports, but those ball-diamond sports aren’t world sports to the extent of the replacement sports of rugby and golf. I believe rugby ’sevens’ will become among the most popular of Olympic participation sports.

Also, rugby reentering the Olympics has special meaning to us at Cal. Partly because six of our students won rugby Olympic Gold in the 1920 and 1924 Games. It’s now my job to increase our number of rugby Olympians and I confident we’ll do so.”

Jack Clark
Team Perfect Athlete Ambassador

A special HOOYAH to Marketing Coordinator Julie Erickson, who reached out to Coach Clark as soon as the decision was announced! Thanks Jules!

CHARLIE MIKE — ALDEN

Stay tuned for Tom Rancich’s reaction to this — as always, my SEAL Team swim buddy (and rugby player) Tom has a unique perspective!