If your energy took a dive in the last few months, here’s a quick way to get your mojo back (passing kidney stones not essential!).

• What is the 75 Hard Challenge
• How to revive your energy and get your mojo back
• Do this and it will help grow your martial arts business 
• And more

*Need help growing your martial arts school? Learn More Here.

TRANSCRIPTION

As a martial artist, for me, it was always I train a lot and I'm doing what I can so I'm doing okay, but reality is, I was not, and I really needed to do a couple of things to uplift my energy and get back on track and feel alive. 

Hey, it's George Fourie, hope you're well. So, if you've been feeling a little sluggish, or your energy's down, just the last couple of months of craziness has really gotten down to you, then hopefully, this episode will help. 

So, a slightly different podcast episode, we normally talk about marketing, business, or interview people. This one is about health and being at your optimal state. And I know, as a martial artist, for me, it was always I trained a lot. And I'm doing what I can. So, I'm doing okay, but reality is, I was not. And I really needed to do a couple of things to uplift my energy and get back on track and feel alive. 

So, I've done just that. In the last couple of weeks I've been part of this challenge. It's called the 75 Hard Challenge, you can look it up at 75hard.com. In fact, I'll link to a podcast in this episode, which gives all the details. You can access that at martialartsmedia.com/105. 

So, I'll give you a bit of a background about how the challenge works. Now, it's not a weight loss challenge. It's a mental toughness challenge. And I'm not normally one to jump on board challenges. And, let's be honest, if I had to be honest with myself, every time I've jumped into a challenge as well, I probably didn't follow through the way I should have. 

So, a bunch of people in a coaching group that I belong to jumped into this. And I thought, I'm gonna do this, and I'm just gonna give it a go. And I'll tell you what, it's been pretty amazing. It's been tough. I expected it to be tougher, but it's been pretty amazing. And a couple of crazy things that happened, which I'm going to be sharing in this episode. 

So, I'll quickly pull it up on the app, actually, and just show you the details. So, it's basically an app that keeps track of your progress. Now, every day, you've got to do two 45-minute workouts. I believe they've got to be two hours apart. One must be outside. 

Follow a diet, that can be any type of diet, obviously not Krispy Kremes, or something crazy, but an actual diet. No alcohol and cheat meals. That catches a lot of people. Right? That one is a killer for most people, especially the time of year when I'm recording this now, leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Drink a gallon of water. So, a gallon of water is about 3.7 liters. Read 10 pages of a non-fiction book and take a progress pic. That's basically it. Well, it's not basically it, right, because it's quite a bit to do. 

So, for me, I just decided well, okay, let me see if I can shuffle my routine, I need to do two 45-minute workouts. I'm just going to up my jujitsu game. And, so, I've done that, and out of the 17 days, I've trained 14 days. I've been on the mats, I train at lunchtime, so it's super easy for me. 

So, I've been on the mats, 14 days out of the 17. And I must admit the three that I did, were probably the hardest because I had to find exercises to do that weren't in my routine. My other exercise would be, I'll do yoga, or I've got a rebounder where I do some jumping. Or I'll just actually, just, fast brisk walk at the beach with the family and that will add to the exercise time. 

The drinking water, now, I'll actually see what's happened because of the drinking the water. That's actually been pretty simple. As long as I get two of these in before 10 AM. That's 1.2 liters, it's 40 ounces. That makes it a lot simpler. And no alcohol. Now, I know no alcohol can be a tough one. I stopped drinking a little over a year ago. Got pancreatitis, it was super painful. I was told to stop drinking for six months. And I just didn't start since. 

Now, I have nothing against drinking. It's always funny when I go out, or you know, to a barbecue or hang out with people and I say I'm not drinking and the only people that feel weird are the people that are drinking in front of me. And they're like, “oh, do we have to, do we have to stop drinking?” And I've just got to confirm, hey, totally cool with you drinking, I'm just not drinking, and I've had a good run. So, I'm okay with that.

So, yep. If you're gonna take something like this challenge, obviously consider, you know, the festivities coming along, which time of year you are doing it. Reading 10 pages a day has been great. As a habit, I do read a lot. I do listen to a lot of audiobooks. But this is actually got to be a physical book, right? You can't fake it. You got to actually pick up a real book and read it. That changed a lot, no cheat meals, so all these things are pretty okay for me. 

So, here's a couple of crazy things that have happened, well, call them crazy. Well, first up, weight loss: I've lost, I think about four kilograms, that's about eight pounds. I passed a kidney stone. Now, a little bit of background, I've struggled with kidney stones since my 20s. I've had past kidney stones every year, pretty much for the last 10 years. The last time was about two years ago. And it was the worst, the worst as in, I've always passed kidney stones. I know that sounds gross and painful, especially for guys, the thought of it. But, funny enough, passing a kidney stone is not hard. A kidney stone moving through your insides, all the way down, that is pain. 

So, two years ago, I had a stent in my kidney. And that was really uncomfortable, because I had a piece of wire in my kidney. I couldn't walk fast, I had a lot of internal bleeding, and couldn't train. The doctors just kept on feeding me painkillers. It was not a great time. And after all that, they operated, they couldn't get the kidney stone out. So, I know I've had a kidney stone up here for a while. And every time somebody knee rides me, I feel the pain for a couple of days. 

Anyway, I was doing yoga on day eight or nine, and as I got up, I was like, “whoa, that's really sore, here in my bladder area.” And my wife said, I should probably take it easy. She's been saying that through the whole challenge. Anyway, I passed a kidney stone, probably almost as big as a pea, like a green pea. Anyway, I know that sounds horrific, but, I was just celebrating because that's the least amount of pain I've ever experienced for a kidney stone and I passed it. That alone is feeling great. 

Anyway, my jiu jitsu has really improved. Just over the last couple of days, I did start feeling a bit sluggish. Feeling like, whoa, my body's starting to pain, it's getting a bit sore. But, the last few days on the mats have been great. Two days ago, I got sick. Well, at night, I started getting cold shivers and felt a bit weird. But in the morning, I slept 10 hours, that's probably just what my body needed. Slept 10 hours, woke up, I was 100 percent. 

And yesterday on the mats, I spent an hour, I went flat out. Although I was tired, and it's pretty hot here in Perth, where we are. It was really strange. I felt tired, but I didn't feel exhausted. Like, I felt like I had a workout, but I just had so much more left in the tank. It's been great. It's been great in the sense of I feel clear, I've been thinking clearly. 

And here's, if I had to tie this back into business, we started this discussion in our Partners group. Well, okay, if that's what you would do in a challenge, are there things that you can do in your business as day-to-day activities that would grow your business faster? 

That's one thing I've got from just logging into an app, because routinely, the longer I do the challenge, the more I'm addicted to the habit of not doing it, and the higher the stake is of letting it go right? Because, I'm looking at this, and I can see, well I've done 17 days, and the stakes of dropping it and starting again, is just too much. So, I forced myself to do it. Now, there's been some awkward days. My wife was at a work conference over the weekend. And so, my last workout was at about quarter to 10. 

The funny thing is, I've set my day end on the app at 10 PM and I log my results at quarter to 11. And, I've got this disaster, you know, big guy, and he was standing there and saying, “hey, you know, did you miss it?” And I thought, “oh, hang on, I don't have a chance to recuperate.” And it says, it gave you the option to continue if you, honestly, of course, finished your day's activities. Yeah, so I'm back on track. 

But anyway, one of the things that you could do, if you had to set yourself high stakes and be in a group, like we do in our Partners group, be together and have somebody be accountable for you, that you can just go that extra mile. 

I noticed this in the last couple of weeks, we ran a six week challenge, we called it the ‘Relaunch and Restore Challenge' for our Partners group. And, a bunch of the guys jumped in, they started running the numbers, right? So, the goal was, the person who grows, increases their revenue and student base, by the biggest margin over six weeks, will get a title belt. Let me see if I can pull it up. Here we go, a slight cheesy picture of me holding the title belt. 

So, we created a title belt called ‘Partners Challenge Champion'. And so the person, Phil Cassidy, won this. Two of the top guys increased their revenue by 213%. Obviously, they had to be motivated. And obviously, they're to do.

But doing that, it just showed me the power of a challenge, when you have a set deadline that you've got to achieve a certain thing, and you've got group accountability, and you've got a few people that are really pushing you, it kind of makes a difference of picking up that one extra phone call or sending that one extra follow up inquiry, or running that extra ad campaign, or just pushing that much harder to get the result that you want. 

That's something we've been really focusing on in our Partners group. And really, how do we push people further? I hope this was helpful. I just wanted to share this. And I know, for someone, it could be good. 

Now, if 75 days just sounds too crazy, and you're looking at it, and you know, Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the festivities, New Year is around the corner, have a look at it, download the app, check it out, and see what you can get from it. 

And when you really give it a shot, it will transform your life. Well, hey, I'm only on day 17. So, I'll record another podcast when I hit some solid numbers, as in, complete the challenge. Alright, hope you're well, hope you're doing great. I'll speak to you soon. Cheers. 

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