Just a Friendly Conversation At The Gym

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Something really cool happened to me this morning while I was at my gym.

OK, a little background. I have not been shy about telling people that I am overweight and that I am trying to get into shape, lose weight, take care of myself better, etc…. It is all part of my vision and a bunch of my personal goals. I have been overweight since I was a teenager and, well enough was enough. I am going to the gym every day, I gave up drinking sodas, no more late night snacks (other than carrot sticks or other yummy veggies). I have been able to lose some weight in the past but it always came back, or better said…I gave up and let myself go again and used one of the many excuses that I have used forever.

So anyway, back to this morning. I was on the bike and I noticed this guy looking at me, I had seen him there pretty much every morning since I started back a couple weeks ago, but he was watching me for some reason. Oh well, just kept going. Moved to the treadmill as I usually do and then to the elliptical (?) as I am doing as much cardio as I can for now and then will get back into the weights soon. Anyway, as I was finishing up and getting ready to head to the locker room I saw him again, smiling at me.

He said “Good morning, how ya doing?”

“Good, how ’bout you?” in one of those usual manly responses trying to figure out why this dude has been watching me

“How long you been doing this?” he asked pointing around the room

“Just came back a couple weeks ago”

“Cool, keep it up man. You are doing great. Just keep at it and you’ll achieve whatever goal you want to achieve. Just be consistent. Just last July I weighed 395 pounds” he told me. Looking at him it looked as if he had been a regular for a while, he looked slim and trim, maybe 220 pounds or so.

All I could get out was a “Really?” while trying not to make it obvious that I was checking him out, but not in any weird kind of way

“Yup. I’ve been seeing you here and it looks like you are really working at it. Keep it up….Good Job!”

That was it, that was the entire conversation. But as I grabbed my keys from the desk and headed for my car, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. This stranger who I had never met before had just made my day, I couldn’t wait to get home and tell Michelle about it.

I took two lessons out of this brief one minute conversation from this morning.

1) Persistence is the key to everything. Sticking with something that you started and just progressing more and more each day, even if it is a little bit, will give us unbelievable results. This can be applied to anything, but especially my new online business. That even though we don’t think that we are getting the results that we are expecting in the time frame that we pick out for ourselves, as long as we keep trying, we will achieve our goals. One of my favorite quotes that I have heard lately is that “People do not fail online, They just give up.” The internet is so huge that you cannot fail, as long as you keep trying. It is those that stop trying, that do not succeed.

2) Say something nice to someone today, anyone. It can be someone you know or someone you don’t, but you never know when something you have said, might just brighten somebody’s day. Pay it forward. If someone brightens your day today, then by all means do your best to brighten someone else’s day. If everyone did this, this world would be a MUCH MUCH MUCH better place to live in.

Hope you all are making it an AWESOME day!……I AM!

Mark

Mark and Michelle Eaves