The Big Picture

The 11 Laws. Good stuff!

The book is all about unpacking those 11 Laws and addressing the physical, mental and emotional components of each.

As one of the world’s leading health and fitness gurus, Tony leans into the physical and makes his clear and compelling case for why that *needs* to be the engine that drives everything else.

Let’s take a quick look at some of my favorite Big Ideas!

This is great. I had no idea Tony’s trademark phrase was inspired by Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements. Very cool.

For those curious souls, here are Ruiz’s Four Agreements (check out the Notes on that classic book for more):

“The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word
The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally
The Third Agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions
The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best”

Here’s how don Miguel describes the Fourth Agreement: “There is just one more agreement, but it’s the one that allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits. The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: Always do your best.”

He continues: “Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next. Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other times it will not be as good.”

Powerful stuff. We always want to do our best. And… We want to remember that our “best” will vary all the time. Sometimes it’ll be off the chart awesome and sometimes it’ll be a little less splendid than that. We just show up and do that moment’s version of our best.

AND… As Tony tells us, we forget the rest!

Let everything else go. All the old static in your brain shouting at you. All the fear. (Tony is wonderfully transparent about how much fear he used to live with.) All the attachment to the results. Let it go. All of it.

Just do your best and forget the rest!

That’s Law #1.

P.S. Tony tells some hilarious stories throughout the book and one of the funniest is about one of his “odd” jobs as a mime. Yes, a mime. Laughing. In his pre-crushing it days, he dropped out of college, took his $400 and headed West to California with his buddy. He ran out of money by Colorado. So, he busted out a black jacket, black pants, black vest and white face paint and *mimed* for some cash. So good.

Law #2 is to Find Your Purpose.

Tony gives us a bunch of helpful ways to help us clarify our purpose. And, I LOVE how he distinguishes what psychologists would call intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

As a guy who’s created some of Beachbody’s most successful fitness programs, it’s great to see him so clearly state that the core of his Big Picture philosophy is about so much more than just looking great in a bathing suit.

As nice as having a bunch of money, fame, hotness and other material stuff is, if we’re predominantly focused on attaining that extrinsic stuff, we’re going to be less happy than if we went after intrinsic stuff like deepening our relationships, becoming a better person, and making a positive contribution to our families and communities.

Here’s how Edward Deci, one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of motivation, puts it in his classic book Why We Do What We Do (see Notes): “The researchers found that if any of the three extrinsic aspirations—for money, fame, or beauty—was very high for an individual relative to the three intrinsic aspirations, the individual was also more likely to display poorer mental health. For example, having an unusually strong aspiration for material success was associated with narcissism, anxiety, depression, and poorer social functioning as rated by a trained clinical psychologist…

In contrast, strong aspirations for any of the intrinsic goals—meaningful relationships, personal growth, and community contributions—were positively associated with well-being. People who strongly desired to contribute to their community, for example, had more vitality and higher self-esteem. When people organize their behavior in terms of intrinsic strivings (relative to extrinsic strivings) they seem more content—they feel better about who they are and display more evidence of psychological health.”

That’s REALLY powerful.

—> “When people organize their behavior in terms of intrinsic strivings (relative to extrinsic strivings) they seem more content—they feel better about who they are and display more evidence of psychological health.”

Deci also tells us that even if we think we’re going to crush our extrinsic goals, our psychological health is going to be more wobbly than those focused on the intrinsic stuff. Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t want to aspire to have a certain level of financial and material success to live comfortably, we just want to make sure we don’t go nuts obsessing about that stuff.

Let’s put our primary focus on becoming a better person, being present for our friends and family and giving ourselves to our communities. That’s the source of a powerful purpose.

Back to you: You have a sense of your purpose?

How would you articulate it? Let’s take a moment to reflect on that.

My purpose is ___________________________________________________.

(Tony’s purpose? He tells us it’s: “to help other people find their purpose.” (<— Awesome.)

My purpose? To help you optimize your life and actualize your potential.)

Failure. It has such a bad brand. :)

Time for a new name! As Tony says, “failure” should be renamed “awesome.”

(<—Funny. And true!)

Leading thinkers (and do-ers) agree!

Tal Ben-Shahar (see Notes on The Pursuit of Perfect) tells us: “Those who understand that failure is inextricably linked with achievement are the ones who learn, grow, and ultimately do well. Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”

John W. Gardner tells us: “We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure – all your life.”

While Teddy Roosevelt tells us: “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

How’s your relationship with failure?!

How can you re-frame some “failures” from the past that may niggle at you into “awesomes!” that have been keys to your growth and optimization? :)

Tony was vegan for 15 or so years till it just didn’t work any more for him. (I was vegan for nearly a decade and had the same experience.)

Now, Tony is a Flexitarian. (Being flexible is Law #10.)

In the book, he shares some great wisdom on nutrition. Key Ideas: Eat a variety of whole foods and less refined foods. (Not complicated, eh?!)

Reminds me of what Joe De Sena shared in Spartan Up! (see Notes) where he says: “Here’s the one Spartan rule you must live by: “If your great grandparents didn’t eat it, you probably shouldn’t eat it.”

Quick spotlight on you: How can you optimize your nutrition a bit?

(Remember: Let’s not make this complicated. Fact is, it’s not whether or not you know what’s good for you. It’s whether or not you’ll actually do what you know is best, eh? :)

Consistency. It’s Law #5

Tony tells us that consistency reigns supreme. (He also tells us that there are no “cons” to consistency. Therefore, it should be called “prosistency.” :)

He also shares a dirty little secret that, most days, he doesn’t really feel like exercising. What?! How is that possible? It’s true. Yet, somehow he musters the mojo to rock it 6 days a week.

How?! The voices in his head make him do it! :)

Tony walks us thru a super funny look at the three voices in his head. The angelic Tony. The devil Tony. And the consistent Tony. We’ve heard of the angel and devil on our shoulders. It’s the third character: the CONSISTENT Tony that makes this Idea so Big.

So, angel Tony is all about working out. “YAH!!! Let’s *crush* this!!” That voice is present about 21.35% of the time.

Then there’s devil Tony. Devil Tony says, “Are you kidding me? Can’t believe we have to do this right now.” He’s yelling in Tony’s ear 35.4% of the time. (Hah!)

Finally, there’s the voice of consistency. This guy is, as Tony says, “about as exciting as a wet dish rag.” But he gets the job done. He’s all matter-of-fact about it and says stuff like, “All right, here we go, time to train.” Nothing flashy. Just helping him do what needs to get done. He’s talking 43.25% of the time.

Put Mr. Angel + Mr. Consistent together and you have 64.7% on the side of the good guys—enough to outmuscle Mr. Devil and get the job done.

I LOVE the idea of not needing a pom-pom waving angel all.the.time. It’s all about the middle-path voice of Consistency to keep us going whether we feel like it or not!

Key point here: Don’t try to make every single thing you do (whether it’s a workout, a meditation, a meal, or a project at work) perfect but DO show up. Consistently.

Do your best. And forget the rest!

We have Functional Training. Functional Medicine. And, now, Functional Optimism.

We don’t just think everything can work out and have a kinda optimism-light. We are confident everything WILL work out because we’re going to do whatever we need to do to make it happen.

Positive Belief + Positive Doing = Functional Optimism.

(Let’s do this!)

Amen to that!