Like a lot of Americans yesterday (as well as much of the world), I spent the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 doing a little reflecting and offering my thoughts and prayers to everyone who was and has been affected by that horrendous day.
I remember I was back in New York, in school, actually (at SUNY Cortland), maybe an hour or so into my microbiology lab class – learning about cell mediated immunity or something along those lines. I don’t know, it was all Greek to me.
I remember my professor leaving to go into his office only to walk out several minutes later with a stricken look on his face, saying something to the effect of “one of the Twin Towers has been hit by a plane.” Perplexed, most of the students in the class – myself included – just looked at him and said, “what? You’re kidding, right?”
With a straight face, he said, “no,” and went on to say that he turned on his television and the reports were saying that one of the towers had been hit. Things were a bit murky at that point, but something was going down.
My lab partner, Connie, put her hands to her mouth, yelled, “oh my god!” and bee lined it to the exit. Her brother worked at the World Trade Center. As it happened, he ended up being okay.
Anyways, my professor let all of us go, and I walked to my “then” girlfriend’s house to turn on the tv. My walk from class to her house was less than ten minutes, but in that time, the second plane hit, and that’s when all hell broke lose.
Much like everyone else, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared, confused, panicked, saddened, and angry in my life. I was glued to the television for 2-3 days, watching, in horror, as the buildings collapsed and as the details of both Flights 11 (the one that struck the Pentagon) and 93 (the one that was prevented from reaching its destination by the brave passengers who took matters into their own hands) unfolded.
To that end, I want to send my heartfelt condolences to anyone reading who was directly affected by the events of 9/11. Of course, in a way, we were ALL affected… we all lost “something” that day, but I just wanted to say a little something in passing to do my part in recognizing that, even though it’s been ten years, it still feels like it happened yesterday.
It’s something that I’ll never forget.
Motivation
Turning the page to something a little less somber, a few weeks ago, strength coach, martial artist, and guy who could kick my ass in 2.7 seconds, Dave Hedges, contacted me via Facebook and asked if I’d be willing to partake in a little project he was doing on motivation.
In short, he had a few of his athletes ask him if he’d be willing to write about motivation and how to stay motivated to train. Not surprisingly, motivation can be such a personal issue and can revolve around so many different components that Dave reached out to quite a few other professionals in the industry to sound off on the topic. He even asked me, as crazy as that sounds.
I humbly agreed, sent in my response, and thought that was that.
Well, Dave was kind enough to send me the finished product earlier last week, and lets just say that it is pretty epic. In all, it’s 61 pages of some really smart dudes (and dudettes) – 41 coaches total – giving you the low down on how to stay on point with your training. The kicker? There is none – it’s FREE!!!!
Just go HERE and Dave will take care of the rest.
That’s all I have for today.
Actually, I lied. A HYYYYYYYYYOGE congratulations goes out to one of my online coaching clients, Laura, who became an official RKC instructor this past weekend. Some of you may remember Laura when she penned THIS piece of awesomeness last year. This is a woman who, when she hired me as her coach, was pregnant – yes, I had her deadlift and squat the entire time – and for shits and giggles, afterwards, she decided to go for her RKC. You could say that she pisses excellence all over the place.
Again, congrats Laura. You’re an inspiration.
