Less is more

Recognizing the Value of Knowing When to Back Off 

How do you deal with life’s inevitable twists and turns? 

You know what I’m talking about.

You’re trapped in the airport because your flight gets delayed five hours. Three days before the 10k you trained for all summer, you pull a calf muscle. Your kid goes all Will Smith on a bully and suddenly you’re spending the afternoon dealing with grade school administrators.  

Like John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

There’s no avoiding the occasional set back, but you can avoid letting setbacks get you down.

How, you ask?

Be flexible. 

Change is inevitable and our ability to be flexible when change happens will make a YUGE difference in our growth, not just in fitness, but with every aspect of our lives.

This week, I offer you four flexibility tips to help at home, in the gym, in the office, in the airport, or in the principal’s office. 

Flexibility Tip #1: 

Stretch! I can’t overemphasize the importance of warm-up stretches. Give careful attention to the specific muscle groups you will be emphasizing. It’s one of the best ways to avoid injury. For help with this, check out my Whole Body Stretch Routine.

Flexibility Tip #2: 

Stretch! Wait a minute! Isn’t that Tip #1? Yes, but I’m talking about a different application here. Next time life throws you a curveball, hit the pause button. Take a moment to stretch your shoulders, your back, or wherever you manifest stress. I promise you’ll come back to the situation with a clearer head.

Flexibility Tip #3: 

Don’t take life too seriously! Sometimes finding the humor in the change of plans gets our focus OFF of the inconvenience and ON to what we need to do to fix it. Flight delayed? Take a breath and smile at the airline customer service person who just gave you the bad news. They’ll be a lot more inclined to go the extra mile—and maybe a comp meal—for a friendly face.                                

Flexibility Tip #4: 

Have a back-up plan! We all have activities we swear we’ll do as soon as we have more time, like learning to juggle, reading a big novel, learning to juggle big novels—it’s up to you. The great thing about unexpected changes is that they sometimes free you up to do other things, so be ready with your contingency activity.

Stay Flexible my friend!

Tribe Effect

“My purpose is to help other people find their purpose.”

-The Big Picture 

When you think of fitness, what comes to your mind? 

Is fitness a state of mental balance or is it that ripped body-builder you saw in that magazine the other day? Maybe it’s both?

Our screens are constantly bombarded with social media ads guaranteeing results in 30 days. The problem with “quick fix” ads is they all have something in common; quick fixes don’t produce lifestyle changes. 

All of us want to see positive results; I totally get that! However, there is no quick fix to achieve lifelong fitness sustainability.

It’s no wonder so many resolutions are dead in the water before they even try to float.

There Goes My New Year’s Resolution!   

You start that diet. You join that gym. You watch Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk, in a matter of seconds. Our instant gratification culture wants it all RIGHT NOW. When “right now” doesn’t happen we are left with less money and more frustration. These get-fit-quick schemes are just gimmicks.

You, me, and our wallets hate gimmicks.

New Year’s resolution goals based on gimmicks are hardwired to fail so this leaves you discouraged wondering why you even made a New Year’s resolution in the first place. 

Why not just throw in the towel and quit altogether?

Is there any hope to achieve your fitness goals? Are we all just destined to spin around trying different fads, feeling defeated?

Keep reading, my friend...

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

If you constantly eat crap during the day and then you hit the gym at 5:30 pm you will feel like—you guessed it—crap. What goes into your body will have an affect on your mind, motivation, and habits. 

But Tony I really like that burger! That milkshake...That pizza...That (fill in the blank). 

You may like that guilty pleasure food, but that food could be one of the main factors knocking the legs out from under your goals before they even stand a fighting chance. 

The principle of “garbage in/garbage out” doesn’t apply to just food of course.

Sometimes we intake “garbage” through the voices around us. That coworker takes a jab at your health choices. Maybe your inner voice lies and tells you, “Why even try that fitness program, again? What’s the point?”

If I had caved to the voices around me years ago, there's no telling where I’d be today. 

People can be one of our greatest energizers along the road to wellness or they can be one of the biggest roadblocks. You have to remember garbage in equals garbage out. 

Lifestyle, Not Event!

“Okay, Tony I get it…if I am eating healthy, avoiding garbage and gimmicks, and crushing it in my workouts, I’ll get good results, right?”

If you know anything about me you know I am constantly singing the praises of a holistic approach to fitness that encompasses all of the key ingredients of the body and mind!.

You are not a gym machine programmed to perform to the max everyday. You are not a computer. You are a homosapien that needs rest, challenge, food, fitness, fun, and friends. 

Therefore, if we are going to see any sustainable change we need to stop confronting change as an isolated resolution, diet, friend group, ad, or workout routine—but rather a mindset change. 

Along with the four pillars of fitness, food, mindfulness, and supplementation I’ve added the important element of mindset, that encompasses the pillars, to help people tackle fitness choices in a holistic way. You may be thinking to yourself, "what's the difference between mindset and mindfulness?"

Mindset is all about changing your thinking and then your behavior, while mindfulness is just accepting how things are right now and being able to be present in the moment.

The Change You Need and Want

We have just looked at the problems we all face. We see fitness as a lifestyle, and avoid garbage, but what about those days when I am completely unmotivated?

The life you ultimately want needs key ingredients to help you achieve success. Although there are many components to achieving holistic wellness I am going to let you in on one of the key ingredients. You've probably already guessed my key component if you read the title.

A key ingredient that turns New Year's resolutions, good intentions, killer workout routines, and healthy diets into consistent change is—your TRIBE. 

The community you surround yourself with will positively impact your ongoing motivation, if you are unified in helping each other. I call this the Tribe Effect.

This key ingredient of a tribe, or community, continues to fuel the success stories we constantly see in the Power Nation™ community. The right fitness, food, mindfulness, and supplementation lifestyle choices fueled by your tribe sets you up to achieve true consistent wellness—of the mind and body. 

Instead of intaking the garbage of negative voices, your tribe will feed your mind with the healthy nutrients of positive reinforcement, encouragement, and challenges to help you level up and be the YOU that you have always dreamed of being.

So, What Now Tony?

In my book The Big Picture I said, “…formulating your plan is simply a matter of deciding what you want , then plotting a course to get there. Start with the simple things.” 

If you trip and fall along the way to your success that’s okay. Fall forward and learn!

The greatest successes have happened through finding out what doesn’t work and then doing something else. You just need a plan that allows for learning through failures AND successes. 

Don’t wait until next year to plot YOUR course to success—make the plan now.

The first step can seem like the hardest. I totally get that. Having the right people around you, as you plot your course, is that step that can make or break choices. So find your group. Find your tribe.

No one is an island. We need each other.

Power Nation helps remove the hard part of “getting started”. I have seen the impact of gathering individuals, like you, that don’t just want a quick workout fix, but a long-term sustainable community that enables group growth. 

I have been so encouraged by the ongoing results that have changed the lives of families. This passion for mutual success has been at the heart of why Power Nation exists. 

I hope I have given you a vision for life beyond the New Year’s resolution to a new lifestyle that will prove ongoing success. 

Let's get your plan, your steps, and your life on course for you to achieve consistency with your tribe!

Live the Tribe Effect.

-Tony

Your Go-To 2020 Playlist

Hey Boys and Girls,

2020 has arrived and here’s one more chance to figure it all out. Resolutions are kind of a joke, but the start of a new year, and in this case a new decade, gives us all a chance to clear the slate and get our act together again. I’ve done hundreds of interviews over the years and the number one question is always about getting and staying motivated. 

My last book The Big Picture has plenty of intel about motivation. Having a purpose, a plan, and accountability are at the foundation of motivation. If you don’t know why you want to be fit and healthy, if you don't have a plan in place in advance, and have surefire strategies and reliable accountability partners, then it's going to be harder to get and stay motivated.   

I’ve covered all of this before, so today I want to change gears a bit and talk about the music in the room while you’re getting after it. I have over 50 playlists on my phone, and I switch, remove, and add new songs all the time. I Shazam tunes anytime, anywhere, every time I hear new music or something I’ve missed from the past. 

One of my intentions (not resolutions) this year is to keep building new giddy-up workout playlists because when I do I get fired up to workout and train harder (and smarter) too. When a playlist starts to get stale I know it’s time to dig around and find new songs, or rearrange what I have.

With that said, here’s my first new playlist for 2020.

WARNING: Some of these songs have explicit and uncensored lyrics so be careful with kiddies in the house.

1. Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked ~ Cage the Elephant
2. It’s No Good ~ Depeche Mode
3. Dance or Die ~ Janelle Monae
4. Want It All ~ Layup
5. Rehumanise Yourself ~ The Police
6. In God’s Country ~ U2
7. The Real Me ~ The Who
8. The One Thing ~ INXS
9. Sure Shot ~ Beastie Boys
10. Truth Hurts ~ Lizzo
11. original me ~ YUNGBLUD
12. Born for This ~ The Score
13. Sabotage ~ Beastie Boys
14. Idealistic ~ Digitalism
15. Happy ~ Pharrell Williams
16. Brimful of Asha ~ Cornershop
17. Loner ~ YUNGBLUD
18. Butterfly ~ Crazy Town
19. Boulevard ~ Green Day
20. 11 Minutes ~ YUNGBLUD & Halsey
21. Walking On a Dream ~ Empire of the Sun
22. Feel Good Inc. ~ Gorillaz     

Check out the list above, and let me know if these songs help you get moving.

Rock On!

TH-

Nothing is a Thing

With 2020 around the corner many of us will start planning all the ways we’ll make this new year better than the last. The resolutions to eat better, train more consistently, and focus on being a better parent, co-worker and human being are announced, declared, and divulged to all.

This is it! Now is the time! 2020 will be special and different, because I’m fired up, ready to go, and willing to break new ground! I won’t lie, I’m personally starting to get it together in preparation of 2020 before the Christmas season. I don’t want to wait ‘till after the 1st; I want to build momentum going into the new year so that the transition from ho-um to supersonic won’t be too dramatic. 

Good intentions and preparations are awesome but follow through and consistency seem to be the problem for most of us. Ever wonder why, come February or March, most of your full-throttle enthusiasm is gone? Why the old habits creep right back in, and destroy all the positive, good vibrations? Why gym memberships, BOD subscriptions, and Next Level downloads go way up after December 26th, but wane by mid-spring? 

I’ve miscalculated my abilities to make a change, and I bet more than one or two of you have done it too. Long term, big change requires consistent passion, energy, and enthusiasm - three things most of us don’t have all the time. For a guy with Epstein Barr, finding the energy day-to-day can be even more difficult. I have to be stricter than ever with my health and mindfulness strategies.

I’ve learned along the way that staying in 5th or 6th gear all the time will certainly kill any and all momentum when it comes to fulfilling my purpose here on earth. The angst and intensity required to pursue my hopes and dreams can often times leave me exhausted and fried to the point where days and weeks go by, and I’ve fallen way behind with my important tasks and To-Dos. 

It was frustrating and even embarrassing at times when I found myself floundering around, not following through, and procrastinating like I was Tony Horton in 1989 all over again. What was missing? Why am I not sticking with the promises I made to myself? There had to be one more key ingredient to being consistent and successful long term.  

The one piece of advice you rarely hear about going into a new year is what NOT to do. Doing nothing at all sometimes will give you the juice you need to succeed. It’s always about networking, making plans, staying accountable, writing down your goals, cleaning the house, losing weight, quitting bad habits, joining the gym, and on it goes. 

What if I told you the best advice for accomplishing your goals and sticking to them throughout the year was to do nothing, every once in a while? Sit down, turn off, chill out, be quiet, breath and listen, and for goodness sakes put down your phones for a few minutes. The average person checks their phone every 12 minutes. What could possibly be that important besides a fire or flood?

Experts like John Ratey (author of Spark) often talk about the importance of meditation and mindfulness as a means to calm the mind so you can sustain the energy required to take on life’s daily challenges.

If you’re anything like me, you want to have the passion, energy, and enthusiasm to take on the projects, health challenges, and life-altering tasks at hand. The good news is you don’t have to be constantly banging your head against a wall to do it. There will be times when you need to hunker down, get out of your comfort zone, and do the hard work, but it’s the downtime, the quiet time, the introspective time in-between all that hard work that will keep you focused, centered, and successful in the long term.  

Your Pal, 

Tony 

Ready, Set, Stress

LET’S TALK ABOUT STRESS BABY… 

It was 3:00 am last Monday morning, and we awoke to emergency notifications on our cell phones, home phones, and email. There was a fire raging about a mile away and it was headed our direction. Having been through this a few times before, we already knew exactly what to pack and procedures to follow to ensure my wife and I, and the dogs, all got out safely, but that didn’t make it any less stressful.  

The threat of fire (and potential death) is definitely one of the more stressful things you can be faced with in life, but day to day stress is no joke either. I am still convinced that it was not properly dealing with my stress load which brought on Ramsey Hunt Syndrome (RHS) a couple of years back. Since then, I’ve taken stress very seriously, and I take de-stressing even more seriously.  In my last newsletter, I mentioned some of the different recovery methods I use for my body, and some of those same recovery methods are also great ways to help manage stress, such as baths, yoga, and infrared saunas. 

I’ve been speaking around the world about personal development for years, and I share my experience with personal development in my latest book The Big Picture as well. Last year at one of these speaking events, I had the pleasure of meeting singer and songwriter Jewel. We discussed her mindfulness and breathing practice, which she began when she was just a child; they were the survival tools she used to cope with chaotic family life, and later anxiety-filled teenage years. Since then I’ve been successfully using those techniques to help me cope with some of the lingering symptoms of my RHS, and it’s a great way to deal with stress as well.  

A little stress here and there isn’t something to be too concerned with, but ongoing, chronic stress can cause or exacerbate serious health problems, not the least of which is heart attack and stroke. I’m convinced it was stress in my life that brought on my RHS two years ago, and since then, I am constantly checking in with myself and taking more time to unwind, defrag, chill out, and just be…I even take naps now!  

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are very few things in life that YOU actually control, so stop being attached to the outcome. If you feel stress coming on, or find yourself in the throes of stress, there are a few things that you can control. 

Number 1. Stop what you’re doing. Seriously, just stop right where you are and try one or two of the techniques below that feels right for you.  

2. Breathe deeply.  I know, that’s not new or exciting, right? But it works! Why? Because deep breathing increases the supply of oxygen to your brain and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes a state of calmness.  

3. Next try yoga oms, meditation, or prayer with gratitude. Whatever you choose, try to clear your mind of anything that causes anxiety – be in the moment and be grateful.  

4. Try other practices that reduce stress and make them a regular part of your day or your week. My personal favorites are yoga, soaking in the tub, and deep breathing. The other stress management tools that no one should be living without are cutting the crap out of your diet and eating more clean and healthy meals, getting enough sleep every night, and you guessed it, regular exercise.  

A healthy diet can help counter the impact of stress by shoring up the immune system and lowering blood pressure. Conversely, a poor diet full of sugar, salt, fat, and processed foods causes inflammation and deprives your body of necessary nutrients that help combat stress, creating a vicious cycle. Getting enough sleep is crucial for your body to recover from stressful events, so don’t skimp on sleep! Lastly, if you’ve ever heard anything I’ve said, read my books, or followed me on social media, then you already know why regular exercise is crucial to every function of your body, especially those feel-good chemicals produced in your brain when your exercise.  I’m talking dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and brain-derived neurotropic factor Baby!  Chemicals that help you feel happy, sleep better and protect against stress-induced neuronal damage. BOOM! I think we just found the most important part of stress management. You’re welcome.  

I hope you will give these and try and report back to me on social media and share which techniques are your favorites. I want you to live a long, happy, joyous, healthy, stress-less life.  

Your Pal, 

Tony