California Love

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What’s up guys? Sorry for the lack of posts the last week or so. Jen and I left Renegade in the trusty hands of my brother and good friend, Mark Crook and rented a place on the beach in Santa Monica, CA for five weeks. To say we’ve been super busy since we got here would be a bit of an understatement. The first day we went to Six Man in Manhattan Beach which is basically the biggest beach party in all of Los Angeles County and was a great time.

Since then I’ve met with a few clients, had dinner a few times with Chad Waterbury, met up with Valerie Waters another night, Dr. Chris Mohr and his wife Kara another and we spent last night with Tyler and Rob English who were in town for the Perform Better. On Saturday night we ventured up to the Hollywood area (man do I hate the 405) to watch the UFC at my friend Laura Prepon’s house where I had the pleasure of getting massaged during the fights, by her sister, Dani who I grew up with. Massage, food and UFC all at once. It was the trifecta that George Costanza would have killed for.

Dani is an awesome massage therapist with an in depth knowledge of the human body so even during a night of watching the fights I was still able to talk shop and trade ideas; which I always love doing. I’m definitely going to meet up with her again to get some more work done while I’m in town since I’ve grown accustomed to my weekly massages back home which have made a huge difference in my recovery.

On Monday I was at Muscle Beach in Venice, overseeing a photo shoot for a workout I wrote for Men’s Fitness. We were there for over four hours, during which time a short dude in blue briefs trained quads. Just quads. When I was leaving he was getting started on hamstrings with the lying leg curl. So by my guesstimation, if he was still planning on training calves, he was looking at a six and half to seven hour leg workout. Sounds awesome.

Aside from that we’ve been training at a variety of gyms (the best of which has been Iron) and at the original Muscle Beach in Santa Monica where they have climbing ropes, rings, dip bars, etc. We’ve also been running sprints on the beach, walking several miles per day and swimming in the ice cold Pacific (although I haven’t gotten on a board yet, but that will change this week). The lifestyle out here is incredibly active and fitness oriented and there are more healthy restaurants than anywhere I’ve ever been. Juliano’s Planet Raw (which, as the name implies, is all raw food) is definitely my favorite but there are countless other great options and tons of places that offer local, organic produce, grass fed meat and free range poultry.

There’s even one place just down the street from us that shows every single Yankees and Giants game. Our first time in there was kinda funny because we had been stopping in several places along Main Street where everyone was incredibly nice and super friendly. When we got to the Giants/Yanks spot it was the first time we encountered anyone with an attitude since we’d landed. Turns out it was the owner who was from Jersey. I laughed. He loosened up when he found out we were from Jersey as well. But he still had the attitude, and I felt somewhat comforted by that familiar feeling of a guy giving you the “go fuck yourself” look while he talks to you about A-Rod’s 600^th home run. Feels like home.

Santa Monica also has the best farmers market I’ve ever seen, which we’ve been stocking up at every few days.

Of all the places I’ve been this is definitely the place I would like living in the most and have been wanting to move out here for years.

For the rest of our trip I have a couple more meetings booked and some opportunities to look into, and we’ll be connecting a few times with my buddies Robert Dos Remedios and Alwyn Cosgrove to exchange some training ideas and have quite a few laughs, I’m sure.

One thing I have been blessed to have in my life is a good number of friends with the most incredible, keen, quick witted senses of humor. Cosgrove is one. I chalk that up to his being Scottish like my mom. Mike DeSanti, Todd Coker and Mike Schwalb are three of the other funniest people I know and they are all coming out to visit over the next few weeks. So there will be a ton of hilarity to come. And in case it needs turned up a notch I made a visit to the doc for my card only legal here in the wild, wild, west. I have a “chronic” condition that requires it.

So aside from a few more meetings and some training sessions with clients, I’m gonna chill as much as possible and enjoy my vacation time here.

I spent all of last summer in a hospital room with my step dad, Ed, watching him die and losing part of myself in the process. From that experience and also watching Cosgrove fight through Stage IV cancer several times I’ve learned enough to know when to relax and enjoy life. I know that working 24 hours a day like I used to isn’t healthy and isn’t worth it. As clichéd as it is, you never really know when your time is up.

I had dinner with a very motivated young entrepreneur recently and was almost overwhelmed by his intensity and passion. He reminded me of myself five years ago. I’ve mellowed out substantially since then and have been enjoying life even more. Of course, last summers experience was life changing but there have been other moments along the way as well.

When I read Tim Ferris’s book, The 4 Hour Work Week, something really hit home. Tim said to figure out exactly what your ideal lifestyle is; what you want your life to be like. For example- what kind of car do you want to drive, where do you want to live, what do you want to do on a daily basis, how many vacations do you want to take, etc. Then figure out how much money that will take. It’s usually less than you think. In your case it could be $75,000 a year. Or it could be $450,000 a year. We’re all different. But whatever it is, set that number as your goal. Then do whatever it takes to make that amount of money, but not necessarily much more than that. Too many people just work for works sake. There’s no goal. With training or sports there’s always a goal. But if your ideal lifestyle requires only $200k a year why are you working overtime to make $220? It’s something worth stopping to think about. Tim explains it better than I can so I recommend reading the book.

The point is it got my head in the right place and made me reassess what’s important in life. I’ll always be relentless and will outwork anyone to get what I want, but I won’t let it control my life and I won’t work just for works sake. I know what I want in life and what it will take to get there. When I set goals I always achieve them. But I don’t just work for more money anymore. That’s not a healthy way to live.

Well, I gotta wrap this update up and get over to the gym for some deadlifts. And then maybe cancel my flight home ;)

Renegade West, perhaps…