Do you ever have a week where everything goes wrong…and I mean EVERYTHING? …Yeah, that is this week.

Saturday, I am supposed to meet up with a friend, but we were meeting at an unfamiliar location for me and I needed to buy a gps anyway, so I went to Best Buy.  Best Buy was out of the $300 gps that was perfect for me, but they had 6 in Martinsburg, WV for $75.  So, I lug myself up to Martinsburg with my mom to get the gps and an extra one too.  We were going to buy 4, but once the staff heard about the discount, they were gone before we even left Germantown.  I never did meet up with my friend.

She and I make plans to meet up yesterday, Tuesday.  I leave work to go out to the bus, leaving a few minutes early as a precaution in case the bus is early.  The bus never showed.  The bus after it never showed.  Me, along with 5 other people, waited an hour for the bus to take us to the metro station.  By the time I got to DC to meet my friend, she had 10 minutes before she had to leave for a meeting.

I get home late last night, pack my gym bag for tomorrow, wake up and go to the gym.  I had a good workout, but when I finish my workout I realize that I forgot a towel…and if you have ever seen me work out you know that I NEED to shower.  Ugh…

So I shower, use my shirt and paper towels to dry off and walk out to the bus stop 5 minutes before it is supposed to come.  …That bus never came.  The bus yesterday is the 74 route and the bus this morning is the 90 route.  I transfer buses at the metro station.  Just my luck, huh?

Marana is speaking to several hundred people tonight at the Army-Navy Countryclub, a mile from the Pentagon City metro station.  She is speaking about personal brand management through social media.  The event is tonight starting at 6 pm.  There will be more speakers than just her, but this is a great opportunity to show how Determination is expanding and branching out into other mainstream avenues!

Mar and I are working through the final details of the expanded company and I promise that everything will be revealed by the end of the month.  She and I are very excited, so get ready for the wave of determination, motivation and refinement that is to come VERY SOON!

Everyone is skilled at something and everyone is developed to excel in some way.  Some people can run 2 hour 10 minute marathons and others have rapid hand eye coordination or can tap a button on a joystick 5 times before I could even push the same button once.  Each person is different and, even though others are revered for their talents, it doesn’t mean they are better than anyone else.  All it means is that they just had the right breaks and opportunities arise for their talent to develop and flourish.

I ran the Boston Marathon in 2008 with Lance Armstrong.  He ran a marathon in 2:40 or some crazy time like that.  Everyone reveres Michael Phelps for his same ability to dominate.  These public figures are paid to do what they do.  A lot of people run and a lot of people play music.  Being able to do something doesn’t mean you’ll run a 2 hour 15 minute marathon or get a record deal.  Unfortunately, reality dictates how far our talent is recognized by other people, and it is that recognition that even determines how far our talents can grow.

Imagine how much you could do and how much you could gain if you were paid to pursue the thing you are talented at most.  If all you had to do with your daily routine is train and push yourself to get better, without worrying about working 40-hour weeks, paying for the bills, budgeting for a family vacation and more.  There are a lot of stresses and inconveniences that fame alleviates.  I’m not saying it’s perfect living, but exposure is key to truly developing yourself to the point that you can at least make a profit from something you are passionate about doing.

A lot of it, if not all of it, stems from a series of lucky breaks or, honestly, just knowing the right person who can work you into the right position.  Knowledge and leveraging yourself are huge components, but it does not guarantee you anything unless there is a way to get yourself into a major part of the public eye.  It can happen.  Don’t discredit yourself; all that does is guarantee it won’t happen.  Just keep pushing and developing given your situation knowing that, whatever your talent may be, you have developed it to the utmost potential for the life and reality you are living.

It’s important to change up your routine every month or so in order to continue stimulating your body and maintain the results that you are used to seeing from your strength training and conditioning workouts.

There are a lot of ways to continually drop weight, which I did for 6 months by simply running endlessly 6 days a week.  It’s always important to change up your routine, but when your body is at the point where you are trying to define yourself while building strength, the need for “body shock” becomes all the more crucial.

Part of this cross-training has been a monthly bootcamp-style cardio workout.  At this month’s bootcamp the leader had us go around to different workout stations.  At one station we had a partner wrap a towel around our waist and we had to run with the intention of dragging our partner as far as we could in a minute.  I nearly pulled Joseph to the parking lot.  At another station we had to hold a plank while our partner jumped over us.

A few months prior to that workout session, I had tried to do a plank and really struggled within the first 30 seconds.  However, at the workout session, I really had no problem holding a minute-long plank.  Interesting, I thought…

I went home and across the next week began working planks into my ab routines.  Minute planks were fine, 90 second ones started to burn and 2-minute planks started to make me shake, but I was able to do any and all of these successfully.

Thursday I decided to test my stamina, found a song that was 3 minutes in length and began holding my position once the song began.  My legs were shaking by the 2 minute mark again and continued through 2:30.  I wanted to drop, but I have been through so much worse that this fatigue didn’t even register as pain.  I pushed through until the end of the song and collapsed my body on the ground.

Three months ago, I could barely hold a plank for 30 seconds and now I pushed myself to hold a plank for 3:15 over the weekend (mainly because I didn’t hear the next song start playing and wound up trembling for an additional 15 seconds accidentally.)  It’s just such a relief that I’m finally getting myself where I had envisioned being 4 years ago when I initially lost my weight.  I have put on muscle, kept my body fat down and now have figured out how to keep my body off-balance.  Not only is this maximizing my results, but now I am learning so much more about helping everyone else attain the results they envision for themselves.

Do you ever feel like you have too much to do and you don't know how you will ever get all of it done?  Yeah...I'm having one of those weekends.

I'm dropping by here to post today's blog because I just finished a couple to-do's for Determination and wanted a short break before jumping into FINALLY finding these literary agents in DC and seeing what I need to do in order to submit a package to them for review.

The ultimate goal right now is to get An Uncharted Life published.  The only way that is going to happen is by having an agent submit a package to the top publishers, who I sent my unsolicited packages to a few weeks ago.

Two things you can always count on:  There's always a lot to do and there will always be a lot to do.  I just have to keep plugging along and constantly pushing to cross these to-do's off of my list to make room for the new ones coming tomorrow and the day after.

The truth is everybody enjoys to be busy.  It's just a matter of maximizing your time so that you can get through a large portion of what is running through your head so that you can reward yourself with short breaks for getting through your own list and hopefully doing a good job as well.  Writing this blog post is my break, but I love updating this page and sharing little tidbits with everybody.  Hopefully they are doing good for people, and they seem to be reaching out and hitting home from what I have been hearing from people.  That is such a good feeling and I love being able to give back and help others for the better.  There is nothing more I want to do or plan to do with my life.  Just one step at a time at this point until it reaches as much potential as I imagine in my mind.  It'll get there once I can cross these constantly re-emerging to do tasks.  (I better get back to those soon...)

A lot of us enjoy taking our breaks as a form of procrastination, which is why so many people get stressed and complain...a lot usually.  Just keep plugging along because the best reward is seriously crossing that task off your piece of paper or erasing it out of your mind completely.