Fit Rich Life

Newsletter #34

Weekly Tips, Tools & Strategies to Alchemize your Fitness, Money & Life
Newsletter Archive

“I don't believe that you are what you attract; I believe you are what you entertain. And you can change that at any moment.”
—Margret Nasra Wilson, Mind-Body Connection Coach

Greetings Fit Rich Fam!

In the latest episode of the Fit Rich Life Podcast (episode 63), I sit down with long-time friend Margret Nasra Wilson to chat through her entrepreneurial coaching career & personal transformation healing journey.

We dive deep into all things personal development including: "why you are NOT what you attract."

The aphorism "you are what you attract" is one of those personal development phrases that gets thrown around a lot & is rarely questioned.

Margret gives us a mindset reframe that is much more powerful (and true).

This is a great episode to tune into if you've ever wanted to become a coach, want to level up your mindset, are wondering how to approach fitness in your 40s, or if you are still working on your money & self-worth.

Without further ado, let's proactively build your Fit Rich Life—FRL! Your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to alchemize your Fitness, Money & Life to the Next Level.

FITNESS: Sobriety is a superpower for personal growth.

Labor Day 2023 marks 9 years of Sobriety for me.

In short, this has been one of the best most game-changing decisions of my life.

It likely would have never happened if my wife Carly (then girlfriend) hadn’t asked if I wanted to join her in one month of sobriety.

At the time of her ask, I hadn’t taken a month off from drinking since I began at the age of 20.

Labor Day 9-years ago I ended up drinking way too much whiskey during some day-time partying in Half Moon Bay, California & on the way back to our home in Menlo Parking I was literally vomiting out the window & had to ask to pull over several times to purge.

The following day I felt like absolute shit & when Carly asked if I wanted to go sober with her for 1-month it sounded like a great idea as I figured I’d been drinking for 12 years straight and I could forego at least one full month to give my body a break.

One month of sobriety turned into two months.

At the end of 2-months, my wife asked me if I wanted to do one full year of sobriety.

Committing to a full year of sobriety actually scared the fuck out of me. 

Up until that point in the last 12 years all of my fun & social interactions revolved around drinking and I had no idea how to live a fun life without alcohol.

Fortunately, I mustered up the courage and said yes to one year of sobriety figuring worst case scenario I could find fun sober activities to do with my wife even if all my other drinking friends were not interested.

This lifestyle change would go on to fundamentally transform the life I lived.

Where previously my free playtime was dominated by activities that revolved around drinking, my new sober lifestyle forced me to recognize what I really love to do & then build my lifestyle around that.

I've always been passionate about fitness, personal development, money & entrepreneurship. 

When I removed drinking from the equation I suddenly had no interest in spending my time doing anything with anyone that involved drinking.

This naturally elevated both the type of people I spent my energy with & leveled up what I did in my free time.

Sobriety led me to use my free time to take my fitness & personal growth to the next level. 

Instead of drinking with friends, I'd go workout, hike, walk, or rollerblade with friends & mentors and we would do deep dives into personal development, entrepreneurship, wealth-building & living a truly rich life.

It's no wonder to me now that I got in the best shape of my life after I got sober and that I became a multimillionaire after I stopped drinking.

I haven't woken up with a hangover in over 9-years and that alone is a superpower.

For the record: I have no problem or hold any judgment around people drinking or partaking in some recreational fun, I just know that I have a very addictive personality and ultimately, abstinence is easier than moderation for me. I now consciously & proactively reflect on a weekly basis on how I am applying my addictive nature to ensure I'm leveraging this personality trait to my advantage. This ensures that I'm applying it towards fitness, personal growth, entrepreneurship, wealth-building & living my Fit Rich Life.

MONEY: Use money as a freedom tool.

This one comes from Margret Nasra Wilson at the end of the Fit Rich Life Podcast (episode 63) & I think it's brilliant.

I believe that most people have a relationship with money that is based on scarcity & they unknowingly misuse it as a tool to dig themself deeper into a life filled with fear & feelings of imprisonment.

For most of my life, this is how I operated when it came to money.

I spent most of my life treating my money like shit--I didn't pay any attention to it, I was always upset with it, it was never enough, etc.

I'm sure you can imagine what kind of relationship you'd have with another person if you treated them that way.

Eventually, in my mid-30s I really started to work on my relationship with money with the help of professionals, coaches, mastermind groups & daily study. 

I started paying deep attention to my money and proactively worked to take care of it & grow it.

As I began to take care of my money it began to take care of me.

As my money relationship evolved from fear & scarcity to love & care an incredible thing happened.

It began to seriously grow.

In the past, I always felt imprisoned by money through my poor habit of accumulating increasing levels of debt which led me to always feel like I was just barely getting by & that I had no options in life as I had bills to pay & debt to service.

Then as my money grew through regular care & attention it led to me paying off all the debt and then going on to build up greater & greater levels of wealth through saving & investing.

As my savings & investments grew, I experienced greater & greater levels of freedom as I knew that I no longer would have to do work I didn't love just to pay the bills.

That relief alone was worth all the time, energy & money I spent learning about how to care for my money.

I'm now at the point where all paid work is optional and this is one of the deepest levels of freedom I've experienced and it's all because I decided to take care of my money.

I now use money as a tool to proactively build greater levels of freedom in my own life while being of service to others in ways that bring me deep satisfaction.

In your own life, do you use money as a tool to create more freedom OR are you unknowingly misusing it to dig yourself deeper into a life where you feel unhappy & trapped?

LIFE: Focus on one big goal at a time.
My younger self wanted to do so many things and I was always trying to do all of them simultaneously.

This led me to split my focus in so many different ways that little to nothing happened. 

Later in life, I learned how to focus on one Big Goal at a time and put ALL OF MY ENERGY/ATTENTION towards it.

This led me to create massive success in achieving that one big goal. 

When you are constantly jumping from one big goal to another you waste massive amounts of energy in the form of “switching costs.”

Each time you switch from working on one big goal to another you expend serious amounts of mental energy going from one mental realm of endeavor to another.

It’s like if you decided to go on a road trip and instead of picking one location & heading directly there you decided that you were going to go to Los Angeles, New York & Austin Texas but instead of heading directly towards one of them you would do this instead:

On Day 1 you are in Seattle and decide to start heading towards New York (which means you are driving across the entire US). 

Then 3 days into the Road Trip you are in the middle of nowhere in the flyover states and instead of going to NYC, you decide that you actually want to go to LA so you shift trajectory to head towards LA.

Then another 3 days into your road trip you decide that you actually now want to go to Miami (even though you just got to Utah and you’re not too far from LA). 

So now you’re heading back across the US towards Miami and maybe you almost get to Texas (only several hours away from Austin) and then you decide you actually now want to go to Toronto, Canada so you change course again.

So far, you haven’t reached a single city that was part a part of your original goal and you’ve already put in well over a week’s worth of driving but you’ve basically gotten nowhere.

This was me for most of my life up until my mid-thirties when I finally started working with a coach and they basically forced me to choose One Big Goal. 

Then they held me accountable to staying on track and taking small actions every day/week towards my Top Goal and faster than ever before I started achieving really Big Goals. 

First I got my dream body.

Then I got the money.

Then I started doing the work I really wanted to do.

Then I was living my Fit Rich Life.

P.S. Later in life I would go on to learn that you could achieve 2-3 Big Goals simultaneously if (and only if) you had the right support in place which for me included having one or more coaches and being in a mastermind group that supported the 2-3 big goals I was pursuing.

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I am sending you all lots of Energy & plenty of Dragon Magic!

Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,

Justin David Carl

P.S. Below is the YouTube version of Fit Rich Life Podcast Episode 63. Also available on Spotify, Apple & wherever you enjoy your podcast entertainment.

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. I run a custom-tailored 1-1 & group mastermind coaching program that will empower you to achieve your dream body, master your money & live your best life. Yup, it's a proven Fitness, Money and Life Coaching Program unlike anything else out there. You can book a free consultation with me here or just drop me a note on Instagram to find a time to connect.

2. If you work in an office introduce me to whoever handles your office snacks, catering & employee experience to take your work wellbeing to the next level. I'm a founding member of Garten, a tech-empowered employee experience & wellbeing platform that top companies utilize to power their most important asset (their people). Email me at >>justin@garten.co<< to set up a meeting.