The main reason for the hiatus is my move coming up (Dec 16th- woot!) into a big ol’ house with two friends of mine. Amidst the stress has emerged a little ray of sunshine: I was asked to inform you all about the Myspace/Walmart holiday guide widget, for which I will get a $100 gift card to Walmart. Woot!

As you know, I normally don’t do this stuff on here, but I am moving, which is expensive, so cut me some slack. At least I’m telling you up front- that should earn me some karma points back.

So here it is: Myspace teamed up with Walmart and produced The Holiday Wishlist- a widget where you can choose some of your greedy little wants for Christmas, and add them to a list which is then added to your profile, so all your Myspace friends can see what you want for Christmas or whatever you happen to celebrate.

To be honest, I haven’t used my Myspace in literally about a year, but when I signed in to add the widget to my profile, I was pretty surprised how many people still use it on the regular. I have been missing out, apparently.

Not surprisingly, my wishlist is mostly all electronics, but its a wishlist, right? If someone who loved me very much happened to stumble upon it and buy me something shiny and metal, it would be fine, because I didn’t technically ask them for something so expensive. And Walmart’s about the cheapest you can find of that stuff, so its really like I’m doing them a favor.

In reality, the actual gift card I get for all this hard work I’m putting in right now this will go towards necessities, like toilet paper, dishwasher soap (I’m going to have a dishwasher!) and a chew toy to keep Porkchop from eating the little Chihuahua that will also be living with us. For their prices, though, I’m sure I can find something fun to toss into the mix for me, too.

Hope everyone had a great holiday, and I’ll be back after things calm down a bit to answer the back log of questions you guys are waiting on. Thanks for being patient! It’s a virtue!

Im 23 today, so Im taking the day off! Back tomorrow with more Q and A’s!

Also, Im an idiot and accidentally deleted all the comments from the previous post. Sorry

I liked The Skinny on Willpower and gave it a good review. I LOVED The Skinny on Success, though, for two huge reasons: it gave me validation and it gave me an epiphany.

The book follows a couple, Billy and Beth, both on their route to success. Billy, a cocky stick figure, hates his accounting job and wants to be a comedian. He is over confident and convinced he has the talent, and that his success will just come- with no work. Jim Randel, his new neighbor, pops up to talk some sense into him. Jim tries to get it through to him that success is about 5% talent and 95% persistence, dedication and practice. Beth, the other half of the couple, is the opposite. She runs for a seat in local politics, and loses. She is under confident and scared to run again. Jim tries to get it through to her that you have to fail in order to reach success and that many of the people that seem to be overnight successes have actually been working and failing for years. It offers real-life examples, including President Obama, Steve Martin, Jay Leno, and gives your real strategies to use on your own journey.

So here are where my 2 huge take aways come in.

There is one section of the book that talks about actually deciding what you want to do with your life, and asks a few questions:

What are you doing when you lose track of time during the day?
What are you doing when you feel energized?
What are you doing when you can focus for long periods of time?

These questions solidified that I am indeed doing what I love in life for a living. I lose track of time at work and can focus and feel energized when I write and when I work out. Fitness, writing (and fitness writing) are my career, and its what I love doing. It just validated for me that I am on the right track and that I am indeed happy, as well as lucky that I was able to figure it out so young. I hear people all day long complain about having to go to work, or how slow the clock moves- most of the time I run over during sessions because I lose track or will be at home plugging away on some articles, look up and its 3 hours later. Sometimes when I have a good article idea, I can’t wait to get home and get started on it. I love what I do.

The second takeaway is the biggest one, and I’m not even sure if I am going to be able to explain it properly. I am 22 (23 at the end of the month) and have already achieved so many things in my career. I’ve been published in magazines, write for successful websites, have an AMAZING opportunity to work with a fitness company that is going to send me all over the world (yeah, I haven’t told you about that yet, but I will when the ink is dry- you might even be able to come with me!) but I’m never satisfied. Whenever I land a huge contract, I am content for maybe, 5 minutes, and then want more. I continue to send out letters, use my contacts, search craigslist, etc- I always want something bigger and better. I’ve always been torn between whether or not this is a bad thing. I could never figure out if this is me being selfish, or ungrateful, or if this is me being motivated and driven. I go back and forth. I always wonder if I ever will be comfortable, or content, or ever be able to just relax and work within what I have and be thankful for it, or if I will always be…restless. This doesn’t mean I take jobs and then soon move on, I am a very loyal worker, but I always want something bigger and better to work towards, and am always pushing for it.

There was a certain section in the book that talks about personality traits of the biggest success stories, and this one stuck out to me:

“Are you someone with a “rage to master?” Do you have a burning desire to succeed? Do you want to be the best of the best at what you do? Some people are quite happy stepping off the ladder of success after just a few rungs. Others won’t be happy until they reach the top.”

This is me. I’m not ungrateful or dissatisfied with my work, I just love it and want to do more of it on a bigger greater scale. I have a rage to master. Everyone knows the internet, and especially blogging and writing, is an avenue for people to get “famous” and gather a cult-like following for doing barely anything of value, but I don’t want that. I just want to share what I know, and if it can help people, I’m happy. The bigger of an audience I reach, the better my chances of helping, and that’s why I am restless.

This book is one I’m going to check back to often. Its already dog-eared and written in, and I’ve only read it once. I want my own little Jim Randel to follow me around and give me helpful tidbits of info when I’m in a bad spot, or help me rationalize things instead of just reacting. Who knows, maybe one day if I keep plugging away, he’ll ask me to help him write a Skinny on Fitness book. But if not, no worries, I’ll take the rejection and move on, because that is what success is all about.

GIVEAWAYS!

Leapfrog Tag Reading System
Three Custom Color Makeup

I refuse to put up with them anymore and I’m starting with this one.

I LOVE when people disagree with me, but accusing me of having sex with animals is probably a liiiiiittle out of line. For a product review!

Most bloggers keep quiet, which is probably the best policy, but I’ve never been good at that.

Well, more like Doomsweek.

My knee has been hurting, ya’ll know that. My ankle stared hurting a few days ago, too. I ignored it, because I thought I slept with it wrapped up in my blanket or something, but now its all tight like i sprained it (but I dont remember doing anything to it at all.) Now, my back is killing me.

Last night, Jerome, while expertly dodging my guilt tripping tactics to try and weasle a back rub out of him (I really did need it though) suggested I should take some time of lifting. I considered it for half a second, and then brushed it off.

Today I did upper body, and as I was driving home, my back ceased up on me. I can barely move, and Im super pissed, so it looks like no lifting for me, for 7 days. No strength training whatsoever, which is going to be really hard.

I will still cardio, but only light stuff: walking and the bike.

Bright side, I will use this as an opportunity to work on flexibility.

I give it 3 days before I start ripping people’s heads off. Place your bets, folks.

This is my own personal hell.