Mindset

The past month living in Maryland has been some of the busiest/stressful days of my life mostly due to weather conditions, buying a new house and not selling current house, a growing chiropractic practice, coaching the most wonderful athletes I know, three active daughters, a wife who pushes the limits of success which has led to more travels recently, building a kids triathlon team and trying to train for endurance sports at a high level.  Some days I will be honest that I wish I could just hit the pause button, take a deep breath and live a simple life. These thoughts are always followed by the truth, which is I thrive on being busy and really wouldn't know what to do with myself without a daily, monthly, yearly and multi-year plan of attack. This has been my mindset for most of my life...the drive to attack things both increase your exposure to the world but also great reminder of how great life can be. I could easily just give in and let the stress overwhelm me but I choose not to as I have been blessed with the opportunity to leave my lasting impression on this world.

I want to share a story of inspiration, motivation, unfortunate events, success, never giving up, thinking life isn't fair, family always comes first, life is short so live in the moment, why not quit but most importantly a MINDSET of believing this isn't the end.

A few years ago a really good friend of ours, sister was dying of liver failure. She had been on multiple medications and thought that life was going to be a life of pills. As time progressed she had worsened to the point of being placed on the liver transplant list. The day came and the new liver was successfully transplanted with dreams of life going back to normal and world travels. Well a year went by with minor details until some blood work came back abnormal. After further investigation it was determined that the the new liver was transplanted with small cell carcinoma which was missed when the new liver was biopsied. At this point, I could tell you that after going through what she had already been through and to now hear the word you have cancer I probably would have crawled into that corner and stayed. She however with true amazing character accepted the new challenge and asked the doctors what the next step was. Now instead of the occasional check-up she was going for regular chemotherapy as not only had the liver had cancer but it had spread to other spots in her body. All this time family and friends shed tears of sadness but also tears of what potentially could come out of her weakened state. Not Leigh Ann!!! She told the world she was to strong for this and that this would not be the end for her. As time went on the chemo was successful in treating the cancer and within 8 months she was in remission. Once again the fighter had won the fight and was moving on to the next round of her life. I wish I could say this was the end of my story but the story continues. Within a short period of time spots returned on her new liver and the doctors at this point stated a transplant was not available and without more chemo this could be the new road. So once again more chemo was given until the beginning of this year when doctors gave her the blessing of she had been placed back on the transplant list. After 2 trips to the hospital with a liver ready she left with the liver going to someone who needed it more. All of us around her thought how unfair this was and the physical and emotional exhaustion she had to be going through must be taking its toll. Not Leigh Ann...she responds her coined motto- Think Happy Shit (THS)....she was grateful that someone was going to live a better life now and how happy she was for them. Well this past week she got the third call and this time the relativity of how incredible life can be came to fruition. Leigh Ann was blessed with a new clean liver and I can say as of writing this that she has once again been smiling non-stop.

Her MINDSET through this time was one of life is an amazing gift. We can choose to live a life of why me, why me or we can stand up in the face of difficult times and let them know how strong you are. She could have been weak minded after anyone of what seemed like a life just isn't fair but instead she got stronger and stronger and I know it has motivated me 100% to live my life more in the moment and accept everything that comes in touch with me as something that will make me stronger.  She always reminds people around her to THS and to live live HAPPY!  She challenges everyone to face anything with a Thumbs up mentality!

The following is one of the first pictures of her coming out of surgery. This picture is a perfect example of how positive she is...

During Leigh Ann's journey I believe one reason her MINDSET was so strong was from the power and support of her incredible sister Heather. I consider Heather one of the Oergel's very close friends and what I have seen in Heather over the years is how strong and supportive individual she is. She will never put herself first but will always take time out of her life to support her family and friends close to her. She has worked with my wife for years and I believe one of the reasons she has been so successful professionally is that she reaches a personal connection with individuals much deeper than anyone I have come across in my life. She has been a great supporter of my children and I am very grateful for her because of that. I know Heather's MINDSET through all of Leigh Ann's journey was: "I will be there for her 24/7 for her and give her the foundation needed in case she has moments of weakness". Keep up the good work Heather as this world is a much better place with you in it.  THS

So tomorrow when you wake up and you encounter events that may push you to the breaking point I want you to know that you have the power to challenge the stress and come out a better person. Start building a MINDSET of success and you are in charge of your future.

Make It Count and THS!!!!

Helthy! Helthy! Helthy! Helthy!

My daughter was given the task recently from an amazing women named Roseann who is in charge of Team Inspiration (www.teaminspiration.org). The two of them I will admit are two peas in a pod and hit it off immediately challenging each other with their goals in life, things that make them smile and just the simple satisfaction of making each other smile. Roseann was explaining the concept of developing a vision board in life of all the things that have meaning to us as individuals. One can then look back at the vision board during difficult times or when motivation is low and the hope it will help you focus and bring power for accomplishment. So Avery being Avery quickly developed her vision board but also spent about 20 minutes writing another blog entry that she told me I had to display for everyone. Here is her Blog titled Helthy (aka Healthy) and inside she recorded the following...

You should eat helthy because if you don't eat helthy you can get sick and you don't want to be sick trust me. But you do want to be helthy because you will never get sick. Hear are some thing you should eat, any meats, fruits, bacon, veges and any thing helthy. A LOT OF WATER! You should drink and eat A lot of this stuff. Being sick IS bad so you want to be helthy. Starting NOW. From Avery

I am extremely proud of her for understanding at a very young age and especially in today's society that a lot of what you put in your mouth can either have a negative or positive effect on your life. I hope she continues to want to understand what helth I mean health means and keep pushing the limit of her goals, her personality, her love for helping people and not change because someone else told her something different. 

Without getting into detail I was reminded more this week how the daily need to Make It Count!!! Our time is not guaranteed so don't waste your time worrying about the little things in life. Keep pushing forward so that when your time comes hopefully you leave a lasting impression of greatness.

Process

I have noticed more and more lately that most of our culture is not willing to go through the appropriate process that is needed for growth and success. We are always trying to look for the easy way out...i.e...diet fads, get rich quick schemes, run your first marathon in 3 weeks or hard work is no longer the norm for our graduates. There is a process to everything in this world no matter the situation or scenario. When one starts with level A and skips B through Y hoping for Z they may experience success at times but I can guarantee that the success will not last and they will have missed the growth phase of the journey needed to reach Z.

The picture above is the one and only way to take a nap. There is something very comforting about having a little one all snuggled into you with nothing else in her mind other than how much her dad loves her. Raising little ones is the epitome of following the process and letting it take its time to develop into something special. From breast feeding to bottle feeding to eating solid foods...from laying still to crawling to walking/running...from blank stairs to baby talk to saying her favorite word "DA DA"...from diapers to potty training to taking her to the store for big girl undies...all of these are a process that can't be interrupted at any point in time or else the growth process is altered (except for some reasons my girls try to skip crawling and go straight to walking).

The PROCESS surrounds us in everything we do 24 hours a day 7 days a week. From our physiology constantly trying to maintain a state of homeostasis, to your daily routines to developing goals in a macro/micro strategy. b

I can think of a couple examples of process that are exhibited in my day to day life. In the world of distance running and triathlon success is defined by following the process of consistent/smart training over years. Yeah you may have incredible results early but to truly tap into success in the sport its a process of waking up each and every day realizing that every workout you do has an impact on tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. As a coach I typically try and educate my athletes that each workout or training session is a stepping stone towards success later on. Its best to follow the process now and understand the effort your giving will help you down the line. I know lots of athletes that become January/February champions in that they push the process to far or jump out of line to early in the season and pay for it come June, July and August when those of us that followed the process are passing them on the race course.

 Another process that I deal with daily is in the form of helping my patients get better. Being a health care practitioner I have tried over the years to not get emotionally involved into my patients injuries but I have come to the conclusion that its impossible. If a patient doesn't improve after one visit I typically will go home to my wife in frustration only for her to remind me of the process. The way I have practiced chiropractic over the years has evolved with both the knowledge I was taught and the knowledge that I learn via treating patients every day. I will rarely start treating the immediate area of pain on a patient. Dealing with a very athletic population I know deep down that the individual is more than likely routed in functional dysfunction. This is typically when I have to tell the patient that it was a process over a course of time in which they became injured. It is then up to me to focus on providing them with direction, guidance and the tools to heal not the main complaint but the dysfunction that has developed over time. If I jumped around in my diagnostic process and didn't put all the pieces in place then I can almost guarantee I would be out of a job as its usually a practitioner with a solid process that gets patients better.

What I challenge you to do is think through your day to day activities and identify what your process is. What do you do daily that supports your goals and efforts. Do you have a process of setting yourself up to succeed or does your process support defeat and constant below average results.

Make It Count!!!