Acrofit Power

When I first began training in the circus, I thought I had a strong physical background. I was 18 years old, had already run a marathon, practiced martial arts for 9 years, lifted weights, ate well, and was flexible. I thought that I would adapt easily to the circus training and excel.

I did do well – but only after putting in ten times as much effort as I thought I would need. Circus training is about taking all known physical limits and then radically blowing those limits out of proportion. When I entered the circus school, I thought that doing a handstand was a sizable achievement. I quickly learned that it was only a basic movement for the rest of my training, much like the letter “a” is to an entire paragraph. It was only the beginning.

Circus training is by far the most intense and effective exercise form I have ever encountered. It sculpts and shapes your body, drastically improves your ability to balance in any position, increases your power, flexibility and coordination – all without the use of weights, machines, or fancy equipment. Your movement becomes efficient and effective. You don’t develop extra muscles just to look good – you develop them because they help you achieve a specific move. Everything serves a purpose.

A few years ago, I was inspired by the idea of combining two complementary movement disciplines: acrobatics and yoga. In acrobatics, you develop power, speed, coordination and balance. In yoga, you develop flexibility, calmness, and awareness of breathing. The genesis of the two forms became “Acrofit Power” – a class that combines explosive plyometric exercises with the calming and meditative spirit of yoga. Since 2009, I’ve had multiple teacher certifications and hundreds of students experience Acrofit.

AWAKENING
The Acrofit Power class begins with a centering breathing exercise called “Ying Yang Centering”. Students empty their minds of daily distractions and focus on drawing in full, deep inhalations since the ability to control and expand breath capacity is key for any aerobic activity. The next few sequences warm up the arms, neck, shoulders, and legs in preparation for the first of the acrobatic movements.

SUNRISE
The first acrobatic exercise is called “Candle Series”. From a seated position, you roll backwards, extending legs vertically into the air, drop and roll forward, and hop into a mini-handstand. It’s a move that teaches you how to use existing momentum and gravity to facilitate the move. It’s a typical example of what Acrofit training is all about – using existing forces like body momentum, gravity, or counterbalances to make your movement more efficient and effortless. Acrofit is not about blindly pushing or muscling through a move. In advanced acrobatics, that generally results in injury, because coordination, body awareness and appropriate power, not ballistic power, is required. Correct power levels, timing, and speed are more valued attributes.

POWER
The Power sequence focus primarily on basic acrobatic moves and core strengthening exercises, like cartwheels, forward rolls, and a deceptively simple, but challenging core training routine called “Breakdance Basics”. It’s the piece de resistance of the class with five separate movements that combined, radically increase your aerobic and plyometric capacity.

We also practice a concept called “Active Resting”. Active resting is the practice of gaining maximum recovery while maintaining a posture of readiness. Typically, athletes will collapse in exhaustion after a demanding exercise. You’ll see the tired pose: hands on knees, body hunched over, heaving gasps for air. In active resting, you kneel, sit, stand, or even go into a headstand and manage your recovery in that position. You deny yourself the tendency to show fatigue and in doing so, strengthen your psychological will to continue. Acrofit, despite its unique physical demands, is a practice more for the mind, than for the body.

SUNSET
Headstands and child’s poses follow to bring down the pace of the class. Headstands allow you to develop balance, and internal awareness of core positioning – is your body straight, curved, piked? Highly oxygenated blood comes rushing to your head, rejuvenating, refreshing, and invigorating your brain. After another core training exercise, the class re-centers with a adapted deep breathing exercise and wrist and forearm strengthening sequence.

MEDITATION
Following in the structure of a yoga class, you return to a state of savasana or lying down position. By lying down after a workout and intentionally calming your mind and breath, you allow the accumulated lessons of the training to integrate into your body. It’s allowing your unconscious mind to assimilate the movements by relaxing the controlling aspect of the conscious mind, and removing it from the learning process. Ultimately, movement becomes natural, spontaneous and most efficient when it becomes unconscious and instinctive.

Meditation is one of the most overlooked components of a well-rounded, effective training routine. By relaxing your body and mind before completing your practice, you are associating relaxation with training. The state in which you leave your training is the state in which you’ll enter your next one. Maximum learning, progress and physiological efficiency is best achieved in relaxed states. Acrofit Power, which demands high levels of coordination, balance, and induces increased levels of stress because of the acrobatic exercises, is best approached from a calm, focused and relaxed mind and body.

***
Acrofit Power is a combination of the best acrobatic exercises I learned through the National Circus School of Canada, Cirque du Soleil and the many other tours, projects, and workshops I participated in throughout my career. It’s designed to be tough enough for the seasoned athlete, but accessible for the complete beginner. It’s also not a watered-down version of acrobatic training for the general public – they are exact exercises that I practiced amongst professional acrobats to prepare for our routines. With Acrofit Power, you can expect a fun, challenging, authentic and highly unique practice.

Principle Training Versus Technique Training

When I train my students, my number one goal is not to help them lose weight, show them different exercises, or improve their endurance. My main goal is to cultivate in them a mindset of principle based training. Training from principle is understanding how the body works, versus how to physically copy and execute a movement.

Many exercise forms focus on technique. Yoga focuses on postures, bootcamp runs you through circuit drills, and swimming makes you do laps. In most classes, you follow the instructor move for move, copying as closely as you can the form of the exercise. You imitate the placement of the toes, the fingers, the arch of the back, and depth of the squat. Unfortunately in many classes, it resembles a factory production line where student after student forces herself into a carbon copy of the instructor.

Learning technique is important but only if it is accompanied by principle training. Learning the principle of a movement frees your mind from training by rote and teaches you to develop self-awareness and creativity. Here are a few examples of the principles behind the technique:

Technique            Principle
Handstand            Placing your center of gravity over your foundation
Tree Pose (yoga)        Placing your center of gravity over your foundation
Warrior Pose            Placing your center of gravity over your foundation
Punch                Generating power by rotating your center of gravity
Kick                Generating power by rotating your center of gravity
Running            Off balancing your center of gravity
Squats                Compressing and expanding the body
Crunches            Compressing and expanding the body
Back flip            Compressing and expanding the body

There are thousands and thousands of movement techniques but only a few principles. Once you begin to understand how the body moves, you can begin to apply the principles across multiple exercise forms. For example, my two main movement specialty areas are acrobatics and martial arts. How do principles cross over between the two?

Martial arts is based on two primary principles: generating power by rotating your center of gravity and compressing and expanding the body. The speed and power behind any punch, kick, knee, or elbow comes from rapidly torquing your waist – your center of gravity – and extending a limb. As you extend your punch, kick, knee or elbow, you expand your body, then quickly compress it again.

Acrobatics is based on two primary principles: generating movement by off balancing your center of gravity and compressing and expanding your body. A back handspring requires you to fall off balance first, then rapidly expand your body backwards in an arch, while firing your legs. You expand to your maximum range and then return to a normal range, standing.

Other exercise forms may have only one main principle. Running is the act of constantly falling off balance and catching yourself.  You move your center of gravity, the waist, forward and wait for your feet to catch up. Then you repeat over and over again – and suddenly you’re running. Your speed is not determined by how quickly you move your feet, but by the degree to which you’re willing to be imbalanced.

Benefits of Principle Training

When you begin to actively seek to understand the principle behind all your movements, you increase your body awareness. Instead of being distracted by techniques, you become much more in tune with what you are doing and if you are overdoing a movement, or if you can go further with it. You learn faster because you see the similarities across multiple moves and you become more creative as an athlete because you can make up exercise routines instead of following rigid programs that lead to boredom and chronic injury.

Once you understand movement based on principle, you also learn faster. Instead of dissecting a technique, you seek automatically to understand the physics and dynamics of the movement. The technique happens to be the specific requirements of that sport or exercise form, so your learning accelerates because you already understand what 90% of your body has to do.

Spiritual Parallel
On a spiritual parallel, principle training is like having a clear set of values versus a rulebook to dictate your actions. For example, you might value kindness, courage, and community contribution. All your actions stem from these simple values. You’ll choose to help people instead of hindering them, encourage others in need, and volunteer your time, money, or expertise to your community.

On the other hand, if you haven’t identified your values, you’ll struggle with your daily choices because you won’t have an internal compass to guide your actions. You’ll rely instead on a rulebook, which by its very nature is inflexible and can’t adjust to new circumstances. For every new situation or variable, you’ll need a new rule. That’s why life gets laborious when you don’t have clear values – there are too many rules to remember and some of them will end up contradicting each other!

For example, I used to have a strict rule that I should never drink alcohol. It was a belief I inherited from my upbringing, and I applied it dogmatically to my life without question. I thought I valued health but I was really locked into a rule that I had never thought to ask it if served me.

My non-drinking rule probably saved me from a lot of heartache, nights of regret and an overtaxed liver. On the other hand I missed out on a lot of fun as well. If I had defined my value as enjoying life through healthy moderation, then I would have made choices that allowed me to drink when I wanted to, but not overdo it to cause long term damage. I finally replaced this rule with a value at the age of 33, when I finally had my first hangover.

So any rule, when not backed by a value you truly care about, results in rigid, robotic behavior. You end up enforcing your rule with aggression because you don’t really have options, unless you write more rules to accommodate a changing situation. Then you end up with a personal rule book thousands of metaphoric pages long, and, instead of aggression, you experience exhaustion.

***

Physical training is the same. When your mind is flooded with thousands of techniques without principles, you become overwhelmed with the choices and you simply shut down. Perhaps you stop training, or resort to the boring forms of training, like watching the same video over and over again because your entire program is dictated to you and no thinking is required. Without principle-based training, the attrition rate on an exercise program is high because you don’t have variations – you can’t slow down on a long day, or speed up on an energetic day. With principle-based training, you have the knowledge to show you how to make a movement easier or more challenging, apply it to another form of movement or another sport, and even create your own form of exercise.

My Subjective Reality Experiment: The Ultimate Realization

It’s been nearly 6 weeks since I began my subjective reality experiment. To be honest, I haven’t been fully submersing myself in the moment to moment question of “if everyone and everything around me is a reflection of me, what does it say about me?”. It’s a hard shift for my mind to make and to keep there, but I have come up with quite a few interesting reality checks, the most interesting of all is the last life changing event to occur in my life: the birth of my wife’s and my first child, a baby son!

A month and half ago, I decided to venture into the mindset of seeing the world through a subjective reality lens after being inspired by the experiments of a popular personal development blogger, Steve Pavlina (www.stevepavlina.com). Subjective reality is assuming that everything around you is a creation of your consciousness. There is no exception, not the good nor the bad. You create everything, everyone and every single interaction you have. Objective reality is seeing the world as separate from you: you are an independent being moving through a world of unrelated events, people, circumstances. You are a lone ranger-scientist manipulating a world of uncontrolled variables.

In my last blog to you I mentioned that I was approaching two problems with the subjective reality mindset: the vindictive neighbor and the invading ants (reread the article here). Here’s what happened:

THE VINDICTIVE NEIGHBOR

After an angry neighbor tore down our yoga class signs that we posted around our community, I decided to see her as an extension of my consciousness rather than through an objective lens: a conniving, separate-from-me, human being whose purpose was to make my life miserable by thwarting my yoga advertising efforts. Instead I focused on seeing what her actions represented in me, if she was indeed a part of me. I began to see that her pettiness was my pettiness, her vindictiveness was my vindictiveness, and her unruly self-righteousness was my unruly self-righteousness. None of this was flattering, but I decided to heal the situation, not by confronting her or by posting more signs, but by sending thoughts of “I love you” to her, which in a subjective world, is really me sending thoughts of love to myself.

The result was that I never saw her face again in the neighborhood until just last week, despite the fact that I walk the dog twice a day and I know that she gets out for her morning walk every day also. It was almost as if her existence simply vanished from my consciousness. There’s been no further conflict, and our yoga classes continue to fill up.

THE CASE OF THE INVADING ANTS

After waking one morning to discover that ants had taken over our kitchen counters and sinks, I decided to solve the invasion with a subjective reality approach, instead of with a can of Raid. My wife Jaime and I talked about how the ants represented our lack of accountability. The ants came supposedly because we didn’t always do the dishes right away, or put the food away on the counter, but they came also because we didn’t always pay the bills on time, or that we procrastinated with some of business efforts, like finding distributors for our instructional DVDs. We then created a concrete plan to make sure we were more accountable in all areas of our lives, like doing the dishes more frequently, and starting an application for a potential DVD distributor.

The result was amazing. I didn’t see another ant in our kitchen for three weeks. Previously, even if we had kept the counters and sink clean, there would always be one or two ants roaming about. We didn’t see any ants until one day we mistakenly left out the maple syrup. They came back in droves for a day or two and then disappeared again.

THE REBEL IN THE YOGA CLASS

I’ve had a few other epiphanies along the way. During the month of August I was taking quite a few hot yoga classes, the type of yoga you do in a heated room to increase your flexibility and sweat out toxins. It’s a greatly beneficial form of yoga and exercise but the one thing that I don’t like about it is the fact that the class is highly regimented and that there’s really no deviation allowed from the established routine or positions. Since I like to create movement and am an independent thinker, showing up at class became increasingly more difficult.

As I took more classes, I found myself becoming increasingly irritable with the rigid system. I would find myself resisting the teachers’ instructions or would feel rebellious. Imagine that – a rebel at a yoga class! How funny yet misplaced.

The part of the class that I didn’t like was the rigidity, the formality, the unbending systemized sequence of movements, speech, and breath. It was becoming a tight, unforgiving experience, where I would be lightly reprimanded for not straightening my knee enough, turning my head to the wrong side, or – God forbid – yawning. It was beginning to drive me bonkers.

That’s when my subjective reality filter kicked in. If the yoga class was really me, then what part of me did it represent?

It represented the part of me that was unyielding, unforgiving, systematic, and rigid. And though nobody likes to lay claim to undesirable attributes, my subjective reality filter was telling me that I was all of these characteristics and had probably subjected others to actions of non-forgiveness or rigidity in the past.

These realization lay the foundation for me to exercise flexibility, calmness, and patience for my next epiphany, and the ultimate realization in subjective reality: the birth of my son.

THE ULTIMATE REALIZATION: THE BIRTH OF OUR SON

Our son, Satori Tiger Tam, arrived on August 31, weighing in 6 pounds, 5 ounces. There’s no joy like seeing his face illuminate with satisfaction after a feeding, and there’s no anguish like hearing him cry at night because he has gas in his tummy. The range of emotion is off the charts. I am overwhelmed by the powerful instinct to love, protect and serve, and humbled by the miracle of birth and life. We posted pictures and videos for you and a section for you to leave a comment if you’d like at www.satoritam.com.

Through the days of pre-contraction labor and childbirth, my world became suspended in a bubble of doctors, baby, bottles, and diapers. Was it normal for the baby to spit up? Did we need the vitamin K shot for blood clotting? How do we breast feed? How often do we change his diaper? It was a learning curve like no other.

When the dust settled (somewhat) and we were back at home away from the blinking hospital lights, nurses, and exams, I finally asked myself the question: what part of me does Satori represent? I was astounded by the answer.

He doesn’t represent me. He is me. He is from both of his parents in every way – biologically, genetically, psychologically, spiritually. He is me… and I am him.

Suddenly, I had found an example where I could not deny its validity from either a subjective reality or an objective reality viewpoint. Objectively, he is me. He carries my DNA, adopts my behavioral patterns, and even looks like me. Subjectively, he doesn’t just represent a part of me anymore, he is me. When I see the frustration on his face from hunger, I see my own frustration. When I see his content eyes gaze up at me, I see  my eyes peering forth with love. He is a living, breathing mirror of me.

Objectively, from my wife’s standpoint, he is even more of her than me. She birthed him; he came from her physically. The lines between objective and subjective reality become blurred. Through both reality filters our son does not only represent a part of us, but is us.

So the final realization is that since we are all born of our mothers, and that, despite the fact that we are billions of human beings on the planet, we can trace our roots back to a small group of early ancestors. In that sense, we all come from the same common pool of genetic and biological material. From an objective standpoint, we are each other, and science and logic can prove it so.

From a subjective reality filter, we say that everything is a representation of our consciousness. But with my child in hand, I realize that representation is still a term too distant. It’s important to ask what part of me is this circumstance, person, or thing? My child is me, and I am him. There is no separation or symbolism. The liaison is concrete, factual, real.

I can begin to deepen my understanding now of living life through a filter of subjective reality by asking how everything around me is me, not how everything represents a part of me. It’s a subtle but important shift in mindset, a minor angle change of the paradigm, but so incredibly more accurate, rewarding, and eye-opening. There is greater power and depth in living in a world of “is” rather than a world of “represents”.

I don’t know if I’ll always be able to stay in a world of subjective viewpoint with Satori. In the middle of the night, when I’m changing his diaper for the third time, I find myself slipping into a world of me separated from him. How can you poo so many times in three hours? How can you be so hungry, we just fed you!? The test of mind shift comes not when there is joy, contentment, and relaxation in his face, for those are easy qualities to claim as parts of me. It’s when he’s fussy or frustrated that I need to ask myself how is he being me, and remind myself that he, like everything around me, is a creation of my consciousness.

Since the adventure of raising a child has only just begun for us, I am sure that I’ll be waffling back and forth between objective and subjective reality with him for a long time, until perhaps it will become a fully integrated behavior and I will stop living life in the objective world. It will be important for me to never forget the obvious truth – that he is me – and apply that simple maxim to trying times ahead, as well as of course the beautiful, loving, and rewarding moments also. He is me, I am him, you are me, and I am you. Simple, so challenging, and yet so ever rewarding.

- Alvin.

How to Overcome Fear

Fear grows like an insidious virus, first scratching the surface of the polished veneer of your confidence like an innocent itch, then nestling deeper and deeper into your well of courage, until finally, it violently throttles your entire being, restlessly taunting you with nightmares of trainwrecks, snakes, and ghosts.

Or not.

Stopping the spread of fear happens in minute, small increments. Occasionally, you might be able to crack the glass ceiling by hurdling yourself upwards through adversity in one Herculean leap of faith – but more commonly, you’ll take it one step at a time. The changes will be small, barely noticeable, but will create long-lasting results.

The trick to stopping the spread of fear is to recognize the subtle masks that fear wears. Fear in our daily lives does not usually manifest itself as hooded terrorists with machine guns, rapists wielding machetes, or killer viruses that annihilate entire cities in a day. Fear makes its stealthy appearance through the back door with comments disguised as cynicism, sarcasm, and anger.
Perhaps you’ve been told on your birthday that “you’re only a few years from being over the hill.” Or the day after you were married, you were warned that “the honeymoon is now over.” Maybe you have kids now and recall your friends predicting the demise of your romantic life. The tone of cynicism and sarcasm is thick and pervading, and you probably waived off their nauseous comments with a polite smile or even a forced laugh.

Don’t let their heedless jeers sink in though. The moment you are bombarded with petty cynicism and sarcasm, you have a choice: accept the profanity or reject it. Societal standards make it permissable to be victims of thoughtless jokes without realizing that the actual force behind this low-level commentary is fear. It could be fear about growing old, losing physical capabilities, or never being able to experience again the glory days of youth. It could be fear about not being able to sustain a long term relationship, ending in divorce, or defiling your commitment with your wanderlust ways of bachelorhood. Regardless of what the fear is about, recognize that others may attempt to project their unspoken shadows unto you, subtlely taking you down with their sinking ship. Misery likes company.

You can stop fear when you are able to recognize the mask. Cynicism and sarcasm almost always reflect a deeper, hidden anxiety that spews out in random, uncontrolled bursts, like a scalding geyser blowing out  of a narrow fissure. The dramatic eruptions on the surface distract us from the mounting friction below.

Your course of action is non-action. To not react, respond, or partake in the game of cynicism and saracasm is to effectively reject it and reinforce your ability to safeguard your beliefs, your intentions, and your dreams. You become stronger, more confident, and courageous. These qualities do not call forth massive effort, but require you to develop greater awareness so that you can be non-reactive. Where do you encounter cynicism and sarcasm? Perhaps your workplace has a self-appointed comedian whose mission is to slay his colleagues with senseless verbal jabs. The media is also inundated with false alarms, phony pundits, and bogus claims. Look around you with your radar set for cynicism and sarcasm, and you’ll see that this seemingly benign and normal behavior is everywhere.

Anger is a step up in intensity from sarcasm and cynicism but still functions most of the time to hide a deeper fear. This is not the kind of anger that spontaneously erupts in self-preservation – a car swerving toward you, a threatening gesture made against your children, or a stalking figure following you in dark, deserted alley. This is the brewing, simmering kind, the type of anger that maliciously oozes out to incinerate happiness, optimism, and well-being.

Anger begets anger, and the angered becomes the perpetrator. The vengeful cycle is closed and the flames of battle spark while both parties completely miss the point. What is the point? Neither one has realized that the fuel for their anger is fear.

When you recognize that your anger, or another’s anger draws its strength from fear, you diminish the intensity of your rage. Sometimes your anger even  completely disappears. The key to transforming anger is understanding the underlying source of its fiery façade. Beneath the tantrum lies a smaller, frightened, and humbled inner kid, one who might have been picked last in gym class to be on the team, or saw the agonizing collapse of her parents’ marriage. Maybe it was the time she was told that she would amount to nothing, or her first kiss that ended in stony rejection.
Anger is a mask that fear wears. The next time you are faced with a belligerent imbecile, indignant and lewd, stop to wonder what he might be afraid of, not what he’s angry about. Wonder if he was hurt in some way, if his partner left him, if he just lost his job. Wonder if he had alcoholic parents, if he was abused as a child, if he grew up in a tough neighborhood. It doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong in your hunches; what matters is that you wonder. The more you wonder, the more you develop compassion. The more you embody compassion, the easier it is to accept fear. As you begin to accept fear, it transmutes all by itself and becomes courage. The transmutation of fear begins with understanding, and finishes with courage.

When you are able to do this with someone else, try it on yourself. While it is easy to point fingers, the conclusive test is whether or not you can see your own fear through your anger.
So stopping the spread of fear is not really about stopping anything. It’s about developing awareness of the different masks that fear wears, and then choosing non-action or compassion. Either way both paths are more efficient, use less energy, and transmute fear.

Find Alignment, Not Balance

My wife and I own and operate a yoga-fitness studio called Barefoot Sanctuary that operates out of the largest Whole Foods Market in Las Vegas. We are very lucky to partner and create a community studio space with them because we also have the opportunity to introduce very unique courses into the schedule that we wouldn’t be able to do at other studios. One of those classes is my Handstand Class.

You wouldn’t think that spending an hour on your hands would be an enticing fitness offering, but it’s become quite popular. I’ve had people from all walks, none of them acrobats, come and learn the art of inversion and staying on your hands.

Perhaps the growing success of the class is due to the benefit of getting blood to your head, or the feeling of increasing strength in your shoulders and back but I think the real draw is because it teaches you the actual meaning of finding balance in your life.

Finding balance is a common goal for anyone who is too stressed, too overworked, too tired, and too busy. There are many books and speakers who talk about how to find balance in your life and offer a multitude of tools to do so. Some work and some don’t, but the one commonality of all these tools is that they are all metaphors. They are ideas that you apply to your life by using analogies, symbols, and concepts.

When you learn to do a handstand, however, you don’t deal in concepts or metaphors. You either achieve a balanced state or you don’t. And when you don’t, you fall over. The feedback loop is instantaneous.

When I begin teaching handstands to someone who has never tried it before, I explain that learning to do handstands is not about finding balance, which kind of surprises most people. Learning to do handstands is actually about creating proper alignment.

Think of your body as being divided into three blocks. Imagine that the first block runs from your fingers to your shoulders, the second from your shoulders to your hips, and the last block from your hips to your toes. When you’re inverted in a handstand, your job is to align the blocks on top of each other.

Pretend you are five again and you are playing with a set of Lego blocks. If you put one block on top of the other but put it on the corner, then set the third block on top, again skewed on the corner, your structure might hold only if you secure it with rubber bands and nails. In other words, you’re able to build a tower but it requires additional energy and resources to make it stay.

Another note about balance – you can balance anything, regardless of its shape. Finding balance is really about finding the center of gravity of an object and manoeuvering it so that you place its center of gravity directly over its contact point on the ground. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, try to recall images of acrobats at a circus balancing spinning plates, chairs, or even other people. They are able to balance the object even if it is shaped unusually. (I’ve balanced an unfolded six-foot step ladder, a bicycle, chairs, and people on my chin.)

The lesson is that you can find balance in anything, but that doesn’t mean you want to. What you want to do, especially in proper handstand technique, is to align the body so that balance comes naturally and almost without effort. Then you are using your structure and alignment to maintain your position while using very little energy. You are strong and efficient.

In other words, learning to do a proper handstand is about aligning the three blocks by making sure that your legs are directly over your hips, your hips directly over your chest, your chest directly over your shoulders and your shoulders directly over your hands. It sounds simplistic and it is. It’s simple, but not easy.

It’s not easy at first because aligning all these body parts requires subtle contractions of muscles that you rarely use and stretching of other ligaments that you hardly ever stretch. Most people come into the class with enough strength to hold themselves upside down, but lack the subtle strength and flexibility to position their body in a straight vertical line.

When you finally achieve proper alignment, then finding balance is not really an issue. Since gravity works only in one direction, and if your body blocks are directly on top of each other, then your handstand will be balanced. It can’t and won’t go anywhere. For example, try to balance three wooden blocks when they’re stacked exactly on top of each other. There’s nothing to balance because the alignment makes it balanced.

So, back to the metaphor of life and the issue of finding balance. My suggestion is to stop finding balance in your life and to begin creating alignment instead. Just like the crazy circus acrobats, you can find balance even if your life is a whirlwind with areas that are well over-extended and others that are completely ignored. You can find balance in an out-of-balance lifestyle – it’s just that you’re going to have a work a lot harder to keep it there.

When you create alignment in your life, you begin by identifying your values. Once you know what your values are, you line up three things, just like your body: your thoughts, your actions, and your words.

Having a set of defined values is like gravity to the handstand – you have to know how to position your body relative to the force of gravity. Once you have identified your values, you now also know how to think, act, and speak to align with those values.

Again, the process is simple, but not easy. If you have a life that is chaotic and out of control, then evaluate your ability to follow through with what you say, do, or think. Maybe you don’t fulfill commitments, which breaks your alignment, and forces you to be out of balance. Maybe you smile outwardly at people and cuss inwardly at their incompetence.

Perhaps you do act with integrity but your life is still out of balance. Then consider if your values are yours truly, and if they are reflective of who you are now. Contemplate whether or not you are still living a life based on borrowed values from parents, social circles, or religion.
For example, one of my values is to help people. I remember writing this down on a piece of paper in grade four when we were asked what we wanted to do when we grew up. Since this is one of my core values, I make sure that my thoughts, actions, and words reflect this mission, which is why we have a yoga-fitness studio and I write on personal growth.
So you might not ever come to my handstand class or even try one on your own. I do recommend that you meditate on your values and evaluate your follow through. If you are aligned, then you end up being able to take on more and more work without exhausting yourself or working inefficiently. You experience abundant energy, daily passion for your life – and a sense of balance.

We Live In A World Of Trust

After 15 years of professional performing in the circus, I realize that we live in a world of trust. When I perform a high flying act, supported only by cables and carabiners, I trust that the equipment will work. When I tumble across the stage in a rapid succession of back handsprings, I trust that other artists on stage will move on time, and clear the space for me. Others trust me to catch them when I throw them into the air for a double back flip, or to correctly attach their safety lines to their harnesses 60 feet in the air. I trust myself when I light my poi on fire and spin it in rapid arcs around my body. Trust is as palpable and real as the show itself, the glue that holds together a thinly fabricated illusion of seamless choreography, characters, and story line. I am fascinated by how much we trust each other, how much we trust the machines and systems that run our lives, and how horribly denying it is to our spirit to not be able to see the bountiful sea of trust that surrounds us, bathes us, and carries us.

You don’t have to be an acrobat in a dangerous circus show to recognize that trust is everywhere. Consider, and be amazed by, the many and varied acts of trust you perform when you drive to work. First, you trust that your car will start the way it was designed – you expect that the technology inside your vehicle will work correctly, and not detonate in a massive fireball on your driveway. You calmly turn the key despite the fact that you are sitting only a few feet from a bathtub full of gasoline, and that this highly explosive fuel is forcefully funneled through a super heated engine block and deliberately ignited with an electric spark.

As you drive down the road, listening to the radio, observing the weather, reading billboards, checking voicemail, and sipping your morning coffee, be astonished it is not a regular occurrence that no one has yet jumped the yellow line, careening wildly into you in a head-on collision. Be joyful that your fellow comrades on their way to work also acknowledge that they each command a multi-ton weapon of encased metal and rubber, capable of snuffing out the life of any pedestrian nonchalantly meandering across the street – but most of the time, don’t.

And speaking of pedestrians, rejoice in the knowledge that you can cross the street because we all made an implicit agreement that red means stop, and green means go. After all, they are just random colors of the rainbow and don’t have any real meaning, except for the ones we give them.

So your successful arrival at work, or wherever you are going, depends on two things: first, that we give meaning to meaningless things, and second, that we agree to continuously agree to the meaning. What greater daily demonstration of trust is there than to see millions of people consciously stopping their vehicles of mass destruction when they see the color red? Think of the millions of lives that are saved every year by this collective nod.

And this is only the drive to work. Now look inwards and consider what happens within your body on a second-to-second basis. The miracle of life is the miracle of total, complete, and binding trust. Your lungs are expanding and contracting, your heart is beating and pumping, and your eyes are absorbing light patterns while your brain is expeditiously processing trillions of bytes of information. These occurrences happen thousands, if not millions of times a day under the veil of the autonomic nervous system, completely unconscious to your waking thoughts, dutifully performing their life supporting functions without so much of a complaint or gripe. You trust that when you wake in the morning, your blood will still be flowing through your arteries, and your intestinal tract will have processed enough of the late night cheesecake to provide energy for the start of your day. It’s a miracle to think that, at any point, this intricate fabric of interdependent systems can be so easily interrupted, and life as we know it will end.

Living is trusting and is the greatest testament that the values of trust are alive and well. The next time you hear someone, or perhaps yourself say, “I can’t trust…”, contemplate the millions of examples that occur every moment that are life supporting and not life taking. Then contemplate how simple it is to cut the thinly attached chords of trust with a benign act, like driving down the wrong side of the road, or throwing bags of trash out the window of your 10th story apartment. And why wouldn’t you? It’s faster than bringing garbage down the stairs, but you don’t because we’ve all agreed to the value of life, which is the value of trust.

You might be silently screaming that mistrust does exist and that horrible trespasses against our collective agreements do occur. People do get run over by cars, murders and wars happen, and hearts cease their vital beating. There is no doubt that the execution of the trust act is not total and all-pervading. Not everyone, or every system functions perfectly.

You may have been lied to, manipulated by, or transgressed upon somehow in the past. The sensation of boundaries crossed and opportunities stolen is weighty and sobering. It is not helpful to simply say that the past is the past because your thoughts happen in the present.

What is helpful then is to remark that your present moment is replete with miraculous illustrations of trust. The question, how to trust again, is also the question of how to live again. And living by being, not thinking, strategizing, doing, or analyzing, is the answer to living again.

Living by being is a daily practice of conscious observation. What are you observing? You are rediscovering that ordinary events that normally occur without so much of a thought are in fact stupendous examples of trust. Begin observing simple, routine acts with an open and curious mind.

When I am on stage and a fellow artist is quick enough to catch me from an accidental fall, or remembers to correctly attach my safety line to my harness, I know that we live in a world of trust. When I drive through an intersection and see all the cars stopped at their red light, or get to work without trying to dodge an oncoming truck, I know that we live in a world of trust. And when I wake in the morning and open my eyes to the sunrise or take a deep breath in, I know that we live in a world of trust.

I Went Homeless So You Don’t Have To

Every now and then I will do strange experiments to push my  boundaries of comfort further. Being an acrobat in the circus means that I attempt flips, handstands, and high falls to challenge my physical skills and grow as an athlete. Being an acrobat of the soul means that I challenge my values, belief systems, and automatic behaviors so that I grow as a human being.

(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

Last December, on a chilly winter day, I decided to challenge a deeply rooted fear I had by spending 24 hours on the street homeless. I carried no credit cards, cash, I.D., cell phone, house keys, extra jackets, tissue papers, chapstick, iPod (what else do you usually leave the house with?)

I set off in the direction of downtown, carried by my own two feet, dressed in a tattered sweats, to challenge a fear (read: belief) that my failure as a businessman would lead to me being homeless.

I believed the equation: financial failure = homelessness. Do you believe this too?

I did and I needed to confront it. I chose to experience homelessness for 24 hours. Here are the highlights:
•    you can’t thumb a ride in Las Vegas if you look like a bum
•    panhandling is one of the most difficult things to do
•    I’m not a good panhandler; I made $2 in 24 hours
•    nothing costs less than a dollar, except for bananas at 7-11
•    it gets cold at night, even in Las Vegas
•    misery likes company – I never realized how many homeless people there are
•    people look at you with hate in their eyes when you beg
I literally walked for 12 of the 24 hours because no one would pick me up and I had no money for the bus. I also got kicked out of a public library, so sitting down in a quiet, warm place was not an option.

I ended up walking to the worst part of Las Vegas, the hidden, swept-under-the-rug part called “Tent Village” because of all the bums living in tents on the side of the road.

(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

There I encountered hundreds of homeless men milling about, exchanging words about where to get the next meal, who’s handing out free socks, how many nights the local shelter lets you stay, and the best places to bum for money.

When I bumped into another group of men, the conversation was the same. Another group, same conversation.

That’s when it struck me.

I can never be homeless.

I don’t say that with an arrogant or pretentious intention. I say it because I simply don’t talk like a homeless person which is to say I don’t think like a homeless person.

And that was the kernel of wisdom of my exploration into my fear of financial failure. I realized that though I could fail in business, I could never become homeless. I just don’t have the belief that I would end up on the streets.

I do speak like a professional acrobat. While others are scared about heights, rapidly moving vehicles, and fire, I get enthused and excited.

I do speak like a professional marketer. While others are lamenting about the economy, I talk about new online marketing techniques, social networking, blogging, and computer technology.

But…

I don’t speak like a millionaire entrepreneur. While millionaires are busy talking about their next deal, strategizing on new partnerships, and planning an investment, I talk about covering my mortgage, putting gas in my car, and the 3 for 1 special on avocados at the store. I spend too much time talking like an average income producer.

What do you talk about?

Here are the 3 things you can do to benefit from my experience on the streets:

1. Write down everything you say in 1 day.
2. Listen to the conversations or language of someone you want to emulate (a business person, a great athlete, a professional speaker)
3. Have a conversation with a homeless person and listen to his dialogue.

If you notice, all these activities are simply about building awareness, since awareness is the main catalyst for change.
(Watch the video interview about my experience by the Las Vegas Weekly now.)

***
I would love to hear from you. I always respond to every email I receive personally, so this is what I want to learn from you:

What is one fear you’ve overcome and HOW did you do it?

No Shoes For A Stranger

This is once of my favorite excerpts from my book, The Art of Impossible. It’s a lesson on staying humble, changing perceptions, and being open to miracles in the most unexpected places. Enjoy!

No Shoes For A Stranger

1996. I am in beautiful Brazil. 40 degrees Celsius. I am sweating my entire body weight. 20 kids. I am teaching circus to a group of underprivileged youth under a makeshift big top. I thought I was there to share my enlightened wisdom of a North American professional performer. Actually I was there to have one of the most humbling learning experiences of my life.

Round-off, back handspring, back tuck. Again. And again. This is the routine that the kids are practicing. There is a dilapidated stretch of foam, 15 feet long, 3 feet wide, that separates the thudding impact of the kids’ bare feet from the packed concrete floor. It is hardly worth calling a tumbling mat, but the kids don’t seem to mind. The environment is enthusiastic. They are laughing, joking with each other, challenging one another to flip a little higher, a little faster, with a little more style.

I am teaching with my whole heart. There is nothing more inspiring than watching youth absorb themselves in the passion of creating a world of athletic artistry, with nothing more than a round concrete slab for the circus ring and pieces of wood and tape for juggling clubs. Here, under the tarnished blue and white chapiteau, dreams gather momentum, hardships forgotten, and kinships tightened. We are the circus of no time, no place, with no cares in the world except to let our hearts sing with the challenge of pushing ourselves joyfully to the edge.

I am fully absorbed in spotting a teenager execute a back flip when the head coach tells us that he needs the space for a new class and that we have to vacate the big top. Where to, I ask? We had the choice between hard concrete (at least it was shaded) and the dusty, gravel-filled grounds of the surrounding park (not shaded). The head coach shrugs. I’m on my own.

We file out from the cool protection of the chapiteau into the blazing Brazilian sun. The ground is littered with tiny rocks, broken glass, and pointy acorns that have fallen from surrounding trees. This is no runway for acrobats, let alone kids without shoes.

No sooner do I complete a hopeless evaluation of the new training grounds when I see the kids catapulting themselves into flips and handsprings. Not glass, rocks, or dust could stop them. There was no lack of enthusiasm either. It was as if any place could be their kingdom, their empire.
One of the kids calls to me. He asks me to show them that flip I do, the one that everyone wants to learn. It’s my favorite move, maybe because it’s the one I learned without almost trying, and the one that I’ve done in every show. I do a cartwheel and spring up sideways, rotate grabbing my knees and land like a cat. They want me to show them. I say yes.

That’s when I realize that I am the only one with shoes on. Not just any kind of sneaker – I am wearing the specialized athletic shoe that you get in North America at elite training stores for eighty bucks a pop. They’re worn-in and dusty, but light as a feather with that cool, flighty bounce that fires me skyward. I look down at my sleek Asics. I look over at their bare feet. A wave of embarrassment washes over me.

I am lucky to be born in North America. I have had the best in every respect – never been homeless, never been without clothes on my back, never been faced with begging for my next meal. It is a precious reality that is fabricated like a delicate veil that covers our daily perceptions of life. It is also a veil that can be easily pierced to reveal the deep, wounded scars of humanity. And at that moment, the full pain of countless suppressed societies floods my senses and moves me in inexplicable ways. At that moment, I realize that my good fortune in life is not a treasure to be stowed away, but to be shared and given away at every opportunity.

The kids are calling on me still. They are relentless, the way teenagers are. I look down again at my comfortable trainers, then over to their hardened, bare soles. In a robotic, dreamy way, I reach down and remove my shoes. I don’t know how the rocks are going to feel against my tender, fleshy under-pads, spoiled by years of cushioned air shocks and lycra-enhanced athletic socks. All I can do is to save my dignity and hope that I land on my feet without showing too much pain.

I ready myself for the flip. I don’t think that even the pressure of performing in a show has ever made me this nervous for a routine. I take a breath. I look for patches without rocks, glass, or acorns. There aren’t any. It doesn’t matter – I am this far, naked without my classy Asics. I throw myself into my tumbling sequence.

Five seconds later it is over. The kids cheer, happy to see the cool side-flip. I look down a last time, wondering if I will need tetanus shots to counter the gaping wounds on the bottom of my feet. But there is no blood, no trail of red along the dirt. Only a few scratches grace my skin, with the sting of landing just a little too hard on the packed gravel. I am okay, but my concept of reality has taken a beating.

I learn that day that I am not there to teach them. That day I am there to learn from them. I learn that their passion is boundless and not restricted by a few rocks or broken beer bottles. Their love for life is not held back by the symbols of poverty – being shoeless and shirtless – but exists without consideration for what they have or what they do. They simply exude generosity, even when we might think they have nothing to be grateful for. That day I learn that gratitude has nothing to do with what you have, and everything to do with what you give.

Personal Development and Law of Attraction Carnival 2nd Edition

Thank you to all the bloggers for your amazing submissions. I’ve learned so much from reading about your stories, absorbing your wisdom, and connecting with the blogging community on inspiring others to better and more fulfilling lifestyles. For my regular readers, you’ll find a wealth of information to catapult you to your next step.

-Alvin

Luciano Easley presents 7 Essential Free Web Apps for Student Athletes posted at sports management colleges.

MoneyNing presents How to Succeed by Failing Fast posted at Money Ning.

Tod presents Strive for More or Be Satisfied Where You Are? posted at A Blog by Tod.

Wally Bock presents The Bad Boyfriend/Girlfriend Job posted at Momentor.

Steven Handel presents How To Think Less And Do More: Turning Life Into Flow posted at The Emotion Machine.

Wendy Blue presents Open.edu: Top 50 University Open Courseware Collections posted at online university rankings 2010.

Dawneright presents A New Kind of Strong – Discipline posted at Bashing Perfect.

Gordon Rosado presents What Exactly Is a BSN and Why pick it As a Degree Choice? posted at RN To BSN Program.

Jennifer Meyer presents Top 50 Biblical History Blogs posted at Accredited Online Bible

Eadwine Walter presents How to: Get a Massage for Cheap (or Even Free) posted at Masters in Physical Therapy.

Faizal Nisar presents What is Positive Thinking? posted at Be Truly Happy.

RagsToRich presents Becoming intensely driven – 3 traps to avoid when fuelling your goals posted at The Real Mind.

Wallet Blogger presents 5 Free Online Calendars and Personal Planners To Organize Your Life posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Basil Hager presents 7 Web Apps to Find a Better Hotel Deal posted at Hospitality Management Colleges.

Richard Shelmerdine presents 7 Tips To Deal With Someones Ego posted at Richard Shelmerdine.

Digerati Life presents Stop Worrying About How You Got Into Debt and Start Focusing On How To Get Out posted at The Digerati Life.

Alan Crosby presents 7 Essential Free Web Apps for Career Management posted at Online Career Schools.

Dan Stelter presents Creating a Purpose Driven Life posted at Anxiety Support Network.

Vincent presents Do You Make This Mistake? – Learn The Art Of Eliminating Negative Self Talk posted at HealthMoneySuccess.com.

Frank Goley presents BUSINESS SUCCESS STRATEGIES » Blog Archive » Why a Business Plan is so Important to your Business Success posted at BUSINESS SUCCESS STRATEGIES.

Aparna presents Kapalabhati Pranayam posted at Beauty and Personal Grooming.

Aparna presents Kapalabhati Pranayam posted at Beauty and Personal Grooming.

Baily Hayden presents 10 Tips to Help You Choose the Right Forensic Science Career posted at Masters in Forensic Science.

Mike presents Is Law School Worth The Cost? posted at The Frugal Law Student.

Lisa Taylor presents 101 Blog Posts Every New Nurse Should Read posted at Nurse Practitioner Schools.

Kurama Chick presents The Secret To Reaping More Rewards From Life | Kurama Magazine posted at Kurama Magazine.

Chris presents Online Masters Classes posted at Distance Learning Education Degree.

Sonia Gallagher presents Work Life Balance Results in a Fulfilled Life | Time for Life, LLC posted at Time for Life, LLC.

Danea Horn presents Affirmations That Work posted at Affirmation Blog.

Neil Uttamsingh presents Robert Kiyosaki — Friend or Foe? posted at We provide knowledge and confidence to those individuals looking to buy their first rental property.

nissim ziv presents Career Transitions: What Are Your Mental Resources? posted at Job Interview & Career Guide.

Mike King presents 100 Ways to Serve Others posted at Learn This.

Covert Hypnotist presents What Hypnosis is NOT! posted at Conversational and Covert Hypnosis Blog.

amdin presents How to Shape your Life by Habit Creation posted at Personal Development for Serious Achievers.

michaelweaver4 presents What is Your Art? The Real You. posted at Find Inspiration Today l� Find Inspiration & Personal Development Today.

Maureen Fitzsimmons presents Top 50 Ecumenical Blogs posted at bible college.

Myles presents The friend who doesn’t want to try new things. posted at Abunai means Dangerous..

Steven presents Review: 100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life posted at The Emotion Machine.

Richard Shelmerdine presents Lessons From a Month of Meditation posted at

Dan Stelter presents What Are Boundaries? posted at Anxiety Support Network.

Frank Goley presents Small Business Finance: Equity, Debt, Cash Flow and IPO posted at Business Success Strategies by ABC Business Consulting.

Faizal Nisar presents 10 Benefits of Positive Thinking posted at Be Truly Happy – Self Improvement.

MoneyNing presents No One Became Wealthy Worrying for Others posted at Money Ning.

Anya presents Cold Calling Blues? posted at Gavin Ingham.

Jackie Powell presents Honest Fear posted at eskyoo.

Anmol Mehta presents Best Yoga for Weight Loss – Complete with Illustrated Yoga Poses and Exercises posted at Free Online Yoga and Meditation Center.

Katie Freeman presents 25 Free iPhone Applications to Help You Stay Healthy posted at Masters in Health Care.

Vincent presents 5 Personal Finance Lessons I Had Picked Up From Warren Buffett That Can Help You Grow Your Wealth and Be Rich posted at HealthMoneySuccess.com.

Joy Sears presents 10 Famous Managers Who Changed the World posted at Master in Management.

Thailand Breeze presents Learning To Trust posted at axel g.

Stephen Martile presents Feeling Overwhelmed? Try This! | Learn the Power of Your Subconscious Mind posted at FreedomEducation.ca by Stephen Martile.

Bert Meert presents The Past Inside Your Present posted at Life, Blogging and The Pursuit of Personal Growth.

Frank Goley presents Strategic Planning for Business Success posted at Business Success Strategies.

Kristie Lewis presents Beyond CliffsNotes: 100 Free & Useful Tools for When Time’s Running Out posted at Online Colleges.org.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents A Valiant Guy’s Guide To Valentine’s Day posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Kenrick Chatman presents How to Identify Your Targeted Companies’ Challenges posted at Career Catalyst.

terrence jackson presents HGH supplements posted at HGH supplements.

Byteful Travel presents Create with Passion or DIE posted at Byteful Travel.

Alan H. Wayler, PhD presents Can We Force People to Be Healthy? posted at A WeightLifted.

Beth Bargis presents Creating a Check In Jar posted at My Simpler Life – Simple Living.

Marnie Doyle presents How to Find Your Life’s Passion posted at S.O.S. Your Life–Simplify. Organize. Streamline..

Kristin Conroy presents It’s Affirmative…Affirmations Are Powerful! posted at Words Are Food.

Best Way to Keep Commitments (the Jackie Chan Story)

If you lose focus easily or are not able to fulfill your commitments, there is no shortage of products or systems you can buy to help you stay on track. There are fancy organizers, elaborate goal setting worksheets, and complex computer software. I think they’re mostly junk. Here is what I consider the cheapest, most effective way to stay on track, or in other words, to stay accountable.

3 Motivators

When I am performing on stage, I am motivated by three things: one, to deliver my best performance as an artist, two, to avoid getting injured both physically and emotionally, and three, to impress and wow the audience.

Of the three, the most powerful motivator is to impress the audience. Why?

If I deliver a great performance and no one is there to see it, the performance is self-defeating. No one gets a chance to enjoy it.

If I execute a move and get injured, but no one is there to witness it – the injury is just another injury. There’s less motivation in avoiding injury when no one’s around. That’s why you trip on the sidewalk walking by yourself and fumble on the stairs alone at home.

However, when there’s an audience watching your every step, you want to give a great show, and avoid injuries. Injuries also hurt emotionally when there’s a crowd because of the feeling of humiliation.

Jackie Chan Was Here (Sort Of)

There’s one other factor that influences your ability to be accountable, or to deliver on your commitments. It’s how much the audience means to you. My level of commitment wavers (even though you think it shouldn’t) depending on who’s in the seats. If it’s a crowd of free-loaders who got cheap tickets at the discount kiosque, I perform at a slightly reduced level. If it’s somebody famous or meaningful to me, I’ll put on my best.

One evening, when I was performing in Cirque du Soleil’s KA, a cast member backstage said that Jackie Chan was in the house. If you know Jackie Chan from his movies, you’ll also know that he is one of the biggest stunt-martial artists in history, with films spanning three decades. His name is off the charts.

When I heard he was said to be in the audience, I went crazy with my performance, as did half the cast. We added extra twists, jumped a little higher, and played our characters just a little meaner. We were on fire.

Then we found out it was just a rumor and Jackie Chan was never actually there. The powerful realization is that just the mere thought of Jackie Chan in the audience solicited one of my best performances ever. If only he were in the house…

How to Keep Any Commitment

Here are the 3 best rules to keep your commitments:

1. Choose only the people you would never want to admit your failure or laziness to.
2. Choose at least 10 people to be your Accountability Masters – I’ve never felt terribly motivated to perform for groups of less than 10. You can run from one, two, or even five people, but you can’t hide from ten.
3. Choose the people who will be as strict and as demanding as a paying audience would. Don’t choose a soft friend who will forgive you at every turn.

My Real Life Application

Although I learned the value of accountability from my performing career, I discovered the power of selecting Accountability Masters from my mentor, Raymond Aaron. Raymond is my mentor and my metaphoric “audience” in business and finance. He keeps me on my goals. He’s also someone I highly admire, respect, and honor in his wisdom and lessons. Not only does he teach well, but he walks his talk.

When I finished performing in KA several years ago, my life switched very quickly from being a full time (and paid bi-weekly) circus artist to being an entrepreneur. I was faced with the question of how to pay my bills, pay my rent, and then also pay for an upcoming wedding.

As a new entrepreneur, I made many mistakes, such as investing in useless Internet gimmicks, so-called expert resources, and spent too much money on frivolous things like eating at restaurants and signing up for monthly services which I never used. (How many of those do you have?)

I quickly found myself in debt. After getting married and stumbling through my first year as an entrepreneur, I was $16,000 in debt.

To some it may be nothing. To others it may be the end of the world. For me, it was somewhere in between. I was drained by the idea of debt, deflated that my first year as a businessman didn’t produce pots of gold, and clueless as to how to eradicate the debt and move on.

Raymond Aaron’s (My Mentor) Advice

It was then that I followed Raymond’s advice and applied the power of accountability to pay off my debt.

The first step was to choose my Accountability Masters, who I called “Debt Masters”. You can call them anything you want that is appropriate for your goals. I have a new set of masters who I now call “Wealth Masters”.

The second step was to make sure I found 10 masters.

And the third step was to make sure they had the power over me to keep me accountable, so I chose people I would never have wanted to admit my debt to.

Like my in-laws.

And my parents.

And my best friends.

And… my mentor. Ouch, this was hard. I knew Raymond was going to keep me in line.

These people were all difficult choices. I squirmed in humiliation and embarrassment when I called each one of them to ask them to perform this duty for me. I expected rebuttals, stern consternation, and an “I-told-you-so” response.

In fact what I discovered is that every single one of my Debt Masters was receptive and encouraging of my goals. No one belittled me, tried to embarrass me, or thought less of me. It was a liberating act to tell the ones I love the most that I was in trouble financially, and it was ever so empowering to discover that the courage of being vulnerable was rewarded with love.

As soon as I followed Raymond’s program called “The Debt Crusher”, my debt began to decrease monthly. Not a month went by after I started that my debt increased, and most months it dropped significantly. Now, I live absolutely debt free. The most significant part is that I developed the skills to 1) make money when I need to and 2) reduce and eliminate debt quickly.

None of these results would have happened without my Accountability Masters. I followed Raymond’s Debt Crusher to the letter, and the results were solid.

What Next?

I followed a very specific protocol of steps with Raymond’s Debt Crusher, which I will see if I am at liberty to pass on to you in the next blog. Stay tuned.

-Alvin.

Next Page »