Just a straight forward quote that in my eyes asks and tells so much in so little words. And because I ever since (except some 6 months-trial-let-me-see-how-corporate-world-looks-like) had my own business(es) and was doing my own „shit” – this quote of course resonates very well with me.
But not only that, I believe that next to contributing your part to society, everyone should ask oneself the question on how balanced out those daily 24 hours, those weeks, those months and years of yours actually are. As an answer to myself it’s crystal clear to me that the majority of time can not be spent just working and grinding with the purpose to keep “the machinery” going and to accumulate more physical possessions.
I am in a lucky position of being my own boss – which allows me to pretty much choose when to work and when to rest. And even though I am my own boss – my „shit was broken“ for quiet some time, and I am still digging and adjusting things to get things right again. As an entrepreneur with enough drive it is just too easy to spread yourself thin and loose focus by going at too many things at the same time, which is what happened to me over a period of some years… and it felt great in the beginning to be able to push so many things at the same time forward. But then, all I did was I was just looking forward to some rest time / weekends / time away from work … So I had a hard look and thought to myself, damn “my shit is broken!“
So, right now, work in progress, change in progress, I am a process and progress … leveling out again to good levels! Sooo looking forward to the changes I am working on!
For some of those that know me, this quote coming from an unknown source and used here by me (after hearing it the other day on a Tim Ferris podcast), might come as a surprise.
More often then not I usually embrace going with the flow, taking life as it comes, making the best of things – and often enough that includes an amount of flexibility and "freestyle planning" which can be scary, confusing, uncomfortable to some folks around me. As much as I like this "go with the flow" attitude, this is only because I know I got my inner goings under control – at least thats what I think most of times. Dealing with the madness of this world and taking things I can´t control as they are to make the best out of them on every each day for me only works because there are certain routines paired with the right mindset that give me the peace of mind. For those really interested, I did post a blog on www.actionville.de/blog a while ago about my daily routines and what they do for me, see the post here – including some of the best books I read about figuring out which routines work for me (google translate might be your best friend here).
It has been a while now that I have figured out which routines are the ones that work for me and it is usually that I have my best days – on productivity level, physical feeling, mental state, relationship wise and energy in total – when I keep up my routines, or at least a part of them. Even though almost all of the things I need to get done on a day to day base, even long term goals, don’t have any obvious direct connection to what I am doing in my routines, I do feel that when I am good with my routines that I can get pretty much everything done. And when I heard this quote (and then the rest) on this podcast of Tim Ferris this just re-confirmed the feeling my routines create for me, and the results I get from my life in return.
Do you have ambitions to achieve goals of some sort? Then – apart from figuring out your action plan to get to your destination – get your routines going. Having (the right) routines going will be a strong asset for you along the journey to get where you want to be!
This quote: I did not come up with it, you can find it in this or many altered versions in most "self help" books / guidelines, and it probably comes across your IG Feed multiple times every week from the next best coach in your friends list.
The reason I am posting this quote is simple: it works for me! In fact it works for me so much that I have several diaries from years back in which I can read back which kind of goals – at that time objectively judging almost absurd looking goals – I set for myself. And much surprising most of these thoughts / goals, I wrote down at an age at which I had absolutely nothing to do with any structured life approach, these things I wrote down, came true, they became reality.
Currently working towards a major "change of life set up" (which I will post more about another time) this is as much a reminder to myself to keep this approach going and stay ambitious as much as I hope that others looking for a change to a better can also benefit from this approach.
The last few months have been a blast! Several months since my last post here… crazy how life sometimes fuels you – sometimes consumes you – sometimes punishes – uplifts – tests – rewards you. I got so much going on right now that time literally flies by, and honestly it is a period of my life that I see as a big test more then anything else I have experienced so far! Working heavy towards a big change and some of the things are too big of a development to share here yet, but its a non stop process at the moment and its for a major change – I honestly can not wait to share more here at a later point.
Even though this is by far not enough show what I was up to at least here are some slides about the last few months:
South Africa: getting some sun light during the European winter months has always been super important to me, so this time off to South Africa for a few days and playing golf, having a great time with my buddy Pille and “diving” with great white sharks. Berlin: I felt like skating… and so I went to Berlin where my old buddy Jürgen Horrwarth was hosting a vert competition which I joined for the fun of it. Ist was a blast and some skating that felt really good!
Ireland: off time in between busy times, head rest and quality time at a wedding as Irish as it could be.
Portugal Golf: another “movement, head game – competition – passion of mine” -> playing golf. What better then buzzing off for some days to Portugal and taking my new DJI Mavic out for a first few rides.
Portugal Surf: after golf I stayed another few days to really get some rest, do nothing… silence, enjoy the sea, be alone, surf! Sagres, Pure Surf Camp – thanx for having me!
Belgium: second year in a row teaching at Aspria (high end privat member health club), and again it was an Animal Flow course! I love the place, Aspria is such a cool place and I will be back!
Spain: off time, surfing, quality time, handstands-threesome!
Turkey: teaching my to date biggest Animal Flow Level 1 Workshop in Istanbul, which was all together a total mind blowing experience and nothing like what I expected. I can’t wait to be back in September, if the politicians don’t mess things up!
Spain: never stop learning … a concept and mindset that has been with me for a long time and I am not even sure when exactly this manifested, but anyways – this was a Animal Flow mentorship, meaning 3 days of non stop moving and learning new content and more details with some of my favorite people in the fitness world. Thankful for having a great mentor and good friend in Mike Fitch and being on board as an Animal Flow Master Instructor.
XPZ – Kettlebell Workshop in Münster: Aaaaaaand Finally, we did our first own workshop with my other project “XPZ Actionville“. Such a good feeling to have a concept such as this at my fingertips that has derived from years of experience with Kettlebell Training! I can not wait to be doing more workshops and seminars with my buddy Pille and XPZ! Follow us on Instagram – XPZ Mindset – IG
Even though this blog should not have the intention to solely notify about new uploads to my Vimeo On Demand channel where one could buy real time workouts – it is a queit cool project that we got going there, and then I am simply setting my priorities currently in a way that doesnt allow me to post much other things here. Sorry about that, so this post is just another advertisement for our latest upload 🙂
The next round of TRX Training and Kettlebell Training – Fusion Workout is online: 50 Minutes of intense fun!
Should you be interested, check the link to see more infos!
This weeks workout has certainly a focus on “pressing patterns”… so be prepared for some burning boulder shoulders 😉
YESSS – round 3 is online, and ready to be downladed! If your up for 55 minutes for TRX & Kettlebell Fusion Training this is something for you. The workout now comes along with a complete pdf file to print so you can follow along even easier!
I am very much stoked on our second shooting and production of our “Workout On Demand” workouts!
If you are a fan of TRX Training & Kettlebell Training then this is possibily some great inspiration either for your own training or for your classes / clients.
Its a full 59 minutes real time workout showing many regressions and variations.
For Lennart and myself this is certainly a work in progress and learning process, figuring out how to do this best, and we can already say there is quiet a difference to the first one we filmed.
A nice little side project that just recently grew as an offspring of some other work I did for my personal tarining studio MT Fitness in Amsterdam.
Like the name suggests, we are all about personal training, 1 on 1 training. At two evenings during the week we still host some group trainings: TRX & Kettlebell Fusion, and Functional Training Circuit.
Even though the focus is nit really on these classes, it turns out that we receive a ton of great feedback about these classes, which are never the same, no standard Zumba or Les Mills shit that wr are doing there.
Because the feedback is so great we felt inspired to reach out to a bigger audience with these exact workouts.
So as of this week we (Lennart & Zosch) will try to record each weeks TRX & Kettlebell class. For those that ate visiting our trainings in Amsterdam, this is a great chance to re-visit these workouts and have them for a later time, and hopefuly there are plenty of other people as enthusiastic about these kind of training programs as we are!
I am looking forward to hear everyones comments and to do more of these!
Ever since I can remember – movement, sports and fitness had a big role in my life!
When I turned towards the fitness scene I guess I can call myself lucky that this was at a time when “functional training” just arrived in european gyms and in that way provided me an opportunity to workout without actually jacking up and being all about them “gainz”…
Who knows what would have happened if my change of profession would have been 20 years earlier… me ending up running after more gainz in the gym on a daily base, being hardly able to move in more then one direction at a time and in pain half the time because my joints can´t handle it… please not!
Even though this might sound like a general statement contra a classic gym set up and classic exercise/fitness regim, its not. I just found what works and feels best for me (which is different for everyone), and in my case moving around with a little portion of “classic sets” and some iron has the biggest “time investemt to feel good ratio”. But again, just like nutrition, or your sleeping cycles, every each individual ticks differently, and I believe that the true quality in a good coach lies in finding out what suits each client best.
Having found tools such as the TRX Suspension Trainer, and programs such as Animal Flow has opened so many doors to a variety of movement apporoaches and opportunities to workout in a sustainable and creative way, I couldnt have asked for more! I am truely thankful for the creative minds behind the modalities and programs that drive me and allow me to feel the way I feel these days!
I got 38 years under my belt with two and a half decades of thrashing my body during my time as a skateboarder.
But still I am feeling physicaly better right now then I have ever before – which I attribute to the versatility of training and movement programs I have learned to love over the last years.
Here are two examples of what drives me these days in terms of fitness and movement. This first clip is just me moving around within movement patterns of the Animal Flow program without a plan in mind, this was completely freestyle while going along to the feeling of the song:
This second clip is myself and Mike Fitch who just recently spent a few days in Amsterdam with me after teaching an Animal Flow Level 2 workshop at my gym MT Fitness. We were both kind of just doing our own thing and started of with some hand balancing practice – later then I got stuck in trying one specific combo which I had tried few times before but never nailed it:
This scene with Mike very much reminded me of being in the US (Encinitas) back in 1998 for my first Skateboarding trip to the famous San Diego area, so here is a little throwback.
Up until that trip I was already very dedicated to skate vert and become as good as possible. But it was that trip, when I surrounded myself with many of my childhood skateboard-heros going to the same ramps as they were on a daily base, that really changed the way I looked at skateboarding back then and the amount of effort I was able and wanted to put into something I wanted to achieve! It were scenes like Tony Hawk trying the 900 over and over again, same with Tas Pappas, Danny Way and Colin McCay doing their thing, Matthias Ringström being the absolut tech wizzard, Bucky Lasek, Rune Glifberg my absolut style hero, Bob Burnquist … Seeing them on a daliy base, pushing a sport, pushing beyond their limits, these were scenes that inspired me and activated my drive to this day to achieve whatever I set my mind to. And if you dont get to achieve the actual goal, well then there were at least 10 things you learned along the way which were a useful extension of my skill repertoire.
This very much translates into life in general and you will always gain from going after your goals in some way. So either way, you reach your goal or not, its a winning scenario.
So for me to workout / train / move with Mike in this case, its inspiring and certainly an extra motivation to go after something – thanx Mike and I hope to have you back in Amsterdam soon!
