Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (15 page)

A much more powerful example is the show itself. I can’t tell you how many people from around the world e-mail, write letters, write on my Facebook wall, and even come up to me on the street to tell me how much weight they have lost and how their lives have changed “because of the show.” Now, you and I both know the show didn’t lose the weight or change their lives. By watching the show, however, and identifying with the contestants, they went along for the ride as well. They felt the struggles and shared in the successes. If the contestants could do it, so could they. See how this works?

Knowing how someone else’s shoes feel can help you get in step with your own. Let’s use it to your advantage. Pick a person who has walked before you, and observe closely. If it’s someone well known, read everything you can about them. If it’s not, find out as much as you can through whatever means you can (no stalking, just pay attention). Study their path and their process, and imagine yourself in the same scenarios. Try to do so as vividly as possible
.

This study will help you build a frame of reference for the unknown, so at some level it will become familiar terrain. By living it through someone else’s experience, you will have practiced it mentally, and so when your time comes, you will be less afraid. You’ll have a sense of guidance, almost an internal GPS. No two paths are exactly the same, but having a rudimentary map gives us confidence to forge ahead on our own
.

COME ON, BUDDY

Pick someone in your life you admire. Your grandfather, an old college professor, a friend—it doesn’t matter who, as long as you have total respect for them and you admire their life or accomplishments. Then when you’re about to take a leap, visualize this person at your side, rooting for you, telling you how much they
believe in you. Try it when you ask for a raise, or ask someone on a date, or go for a bank loan to start your small business, or do anything scary that takes you outside your comfort zone. We all need a little encouragement and support sometimes. I’m not saying this should be your sole source of motivation, or that you should be doing anything for other people’s approval, but a little mental backup can go a long way.

And it really works. Whenever I’m going into a tough situation, I imagine my grandmother watching over me. I feel her with me. I hear her tell me how impressed she is with my courage, and that she loves me no matter what. This helps me push through whatever has me in the grip of fear, because I feel unconditionally loved and supported no matter what the outcome.

Managing your fear and conquering its crippling effects are going to be a part of your life’s work—you can’t do it all overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that. Remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s words, and get in there and do something that scares you.

By taking small, courageous steps, you stretch your emotional fabric and gradually push yourself out of your comfort zone. This will help you accept and get comfortable with the reality that life is unpredictable, change is constant, and risk is necessary if we’re going to live up to our potential.

And yes, at times, you’re going to fail. We all do it, and we all hate it—me included. But there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. And we’ve all heard it, though we don’t often like it: failure is a far better teacher than success, and for that reason it is a necessary part of your journey. So next let’s take a good hard look at failure.

PICK YOURSELF UP, DUST YOURSELF OFF …

Many people (maybe you’re one of them) know they need to make a change, either personal or professional, but they don’t
because they’re terrified that if it doesn’t work out, it will somehow mean the end of the world. Or they’re afraid that if they fail, it will confirm every dark thought they’ve ever had about themselves—they’ll finally have
proof
that they’re not good enough. Some of us worry that if we fail, our friends and loved ones will think less of us, be disappointed in us, even withdraw from us. I
know
some of you feel this way. Every single person I have ever worked with feels this way. Hell, sometimes I feel this way, and I’m the one writing the book!

Often we don’t try because then we can’t fail. This choice lets us continue to believe in the possibility that we
might be
capable. It at least lets us think that we have successfully hidden our weaknesses from others.

For example, many people who are overweight don’t bother trying to lose weight. They act as if they don’t mind being heavy and pretend they are happy with the way they are. In their heads, they hang on to the belief that they could change if they really wanted to. In truth, their greatest fear is that they will try and fail, sending a message to others that they are weak and lazy and confirming to themselves that they are incapable of change. If they try to lose weight for health as well as happiness but fail, they will be crushed and fear that they will be relegated to a life of unhappiness and unhealthiness. For these reasons, most people don’t risk it—they live in a place I call the “comfortably numb.” I ripped off that phrase from a Pink Floyd song, and I find it utterly appropriate. I use it all the time when describing the emotional and psychological state of many people I work with, heavy or not.

But you can’t selectively shut down your feelings. When you numb out, the whole limbic system (the main area of the brain responsible for emotions) goes down. You feel nothing. Not happiness, not sadness, not elation, not devastation—nothing!

In season six of
Biggest Loser
I met a beautiful young woman called Coleen. As the result of one of the show’s challenges, she had backed herself into a corner—she and her dad
had
to lose a collective fourteen pounds over the course of the week, or they
would face possible elimination. In our workouts that week I was pushing her and pushing her. At a certain point every time, she would just start crying and give up. So I got in her face. I asked her
why
, at the very moment when she needed to be trying the hardest, she was giving up. She broke down and said that it was because she’d never tried so hard for anything before. Again I asked her why, and she said the idea of failing was too terrifying. At that particular moment she realized how much she had to lose if she didn’t give her
all
, so she was able to push through, and she went on to great success and triumph on the show.

Look, there are no two ways about it—failure SUCKS. It’s hurtful, embarrassing, time-consuming, and soul-crushing; it makes you want to crawl into a hole and die. No wonder so many people think the smart option is to play it safe.
If I don’t try, I can’t get hurt
—sound familiar?

When you are contemplating taking a risk that could result in failure, the first thing you need to remember is that
you will have value whether you fail or succeed
. No one is judging you based solely on one failure. And if they are, thank them for showing you who they are, and then show them the door; you can now steer clear of them and keep their negative influence out of your life. Remember that we’re all mirrors, and they’re probably just projecting their own feelings of inadequacy onto you anyway. Bottom line, you don’t have to let it in. Like a mirror, you can deflect it. And as for the judgment you put on yourself if you fail, that’s also bullshit. In truth, by taking a risk you are stronger and braver than most. The only true failure is in not trying.

There’s nothing fun about falling on your ass, but it’s an essential part of your ascendance, both personally and professionally. You
will
fail. At least I hope so, because it will mean you are really living, really reaching. Failure teaches you how to succeed. When you learn what you’ve done wrong, you can take steps in the future to get it right. The key to overcoming failure is to use it as an entry point for learning, a way into wisdom. With the right attitude, you can transform any setback into a guide for growth.

Here’s another story for you. About a year before I auditioned for
Biggest Loser
, I was up for a VH1 show called
Flab to Fab
. I desperately wanted the job. I went to the interview and killed it. I talked diet, fitness, psychology. I gave them everything they wanted to hear. I thought I was a shoo-in. All my celebrity clients called on my behalf to put in a good word. My clients knew I was the front-runner for the job, and so did all the other trainers in town. I’ll cut to the chase and tell you what you’ve probably already figured out: I didn’t get the job. I was
totally
humiliated. I thought my peers would revel in my failure. I thought my clients would see me as a loser and reconsider training with me. But neither of those things happened. Not even a little. Obviously, I had been projecting a deep insecurity inside myself onto others.

I took a week or so to nurse my bruised ego, then did a little nosing around to try to find out why I hadn’t gotten the job. I had reservations at first; I didn’t know what I was going to learn. I’d already been rejected, and to ask why was almost like rubbing salt into the wound. But I did it anyway because it was about more than my ego. It was about finding out where I had gone wrong and learning from my mistakes and excelling in future opportunities. And here’s what I discovered: I didn’t get the job because they thought my celebrity clientele would make me seem inaccessible to the public. As soon as I found that out, big bells went off—this was my lesson.

Have you ever seen me do an article or a TV segment about celebrity fitness? No, and you never will, because I figured out at that moment that it
does
send the wrong message to people. What I do isn’t about getting you to look like a celebrity. It’s about getting you to have
your
best body, not J-Lo’s or Jennifer Aniston’s, and it’s about living
your
best life.

Then a year later
Loser
came up. I incorporated the lesson from my failure the year before and lined up testimonials from all my soccer moms, baby boomers, and average Joes. We all know how this story ends.
Flab to Fab
was on for only one season. Had I gotten that job, I would have been under contract and wouldn’t have
been free to audition for
Biggest Loser
, which has turned into an international platform for me to get my message of healthy and fulfilled living out to millions of viewers. To sum it up: I failed, I looked at why, and I made improvements so that the next time opportunity showed up, I was smarter and more prepared. And look where it got me.

With courage and honesty, you can and will turn failures into tools for success and vehicles for personal growth. The following exercises will guide you through the process. Some of these questions can be painful and horribly uncomfortable to answer—but you know by now that that’s just a sign that you’re doing it right.

WORKING IT OUT

Did you lose that job because you were late so often? Do you need to work on your communication skills? Did you mess up a work presentation because you left it till the last minute? Examining what went wrong will guide you specifically to what you need to work on. Don’t be scared. This stuff can really hit the ego, hard. But you will grow stronger and smarter, and you will be ready for something better when it comes along
.

HOW MUCH OF YOUR FEAR OF FAILURE IS IRRATIONAL?

Are the people in your life
really
going to think less of you if you fail or are you just projecting your insecurities onto those around you? If some of them really would judge you for trying and failing, are they really people you want in your life? I certainly hope not. Now, if this person is someone who’s with you for the long haul, like a family member or in-law, you need to think about ways to protect yourself from their negativity and criticism. Try setting boundaries by limiting the access they have to you and the information you give them
.

HAVE YOU FAILED IN THE PAST? DID YOU SURVIVE?

As much as we find the idea of failure impossible to stomach, the reality is we have all failed before—and we’re still here. You
will
survive it. Often on the show I will make the contestants tell me how they’ve failed and survived it in the past. I get them to see that they’ve
already
been to hell and back, and then I force them to call upon the resilience they’ve already built. If you survived in the past, you’ll survive again—only this time you’ll know how to swing failure to your advantage
.

Another reason we fall into the vortex of the comfortably numb is to avoid pain and suffering, so that’s the point we’re hitting next
.

BREAK THROUGH THE PAIN

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.”

—
ERNEST HEMINGWAY