I am a personal trainer. I am responsible for my client's success and failures. I will never make false promises. I will prioritize my client's health above aesthetics. I will always meet my clients where they are, and I will always aim for sustainability over speed with my client's progress.  Ooh, I like those. Let's get into those. Well, look, it's not a secret that our favorite people in the space are personal trainers. We're all personal trainers. This is how we started in the industry. No bias there whatsoever. Right. We still identify this way. But look, here's a deal. Of everybody that works in the health and fitness space, personal trainers have the greatest capacity for meaningful impact, okay? Fact. That's a fact right there. Gym owners don't have this capability. We don't have this capability as having the leading fitness and health podcast of the world approaching close to a billion downloads, right? We cannot impact people the way a good personal trainer can. Like they are the lifeblood of the industry. We are the front, the true frontline of defense in the space because we have the opportunity to actually keep people from getting into doctors' offices. So not only can we help people that are already there and are trying to solve the root cause, not medicate or band-aid, you know, whatever it is that they have going on, but actually address the root cause or cut it off before it gets there. And who else is able to do that other than trainers? Now what you listed off is definitely something we've learned over the years through each one of our own experiences and just that wisdom that you acquire from all of those hours that we trained and spent time with people in terms of like, what are those simple things that we should focus on from the very beginning? I wish I could go back in time and then apply these principles. It would have made me much more effective. Well, look, here's why this is such a big deal and why we're saying this stuff is there isn't anything in your life, nothing in your life that won't improve if you don't improve or won't improve if you improve your health and fitness.   And health and fitness has profound impacts. So what's the challenge? The challenge is you're changing lifestyles, you're going counter to what's considered a normal life. I've said this before about living a regular life, the default is poor health. You have to counter all that. So as a personal trainer, you're not just prescriptive. This is why trainers are so effective or can be so effective, right? You go to a doctor or you read a book or you listen to the podcast and you get lots of information and advice. But the person who's going to walk with you along this journey, who's going to guide you along this journey is a good personal trainer. This is somebody that you would see one or two or three days a week.  I mean, I used to see clients two days a week for a full hour uninterrupted. They would see me more than they would see most of their family members aside from their immediate family. So I had this unique opportunity to have this incredible impact on people. And it is a journey. Like somebody who starts on this, it's a journey that never ends, right? The journey of improving yourself through health and fitness never ends. There's always something you can learn about yourself and about how you feel, your life changes. So now the information changes. So it's like, I'm going on this journey and I have a guide that can go with me along the way. And that guide has the most impact on me. They're the ones that can definitely make this happen for me in a way that lasts forever. Nobody else has this potential, no one else. So personal trainers, you got, and look, this is why personal trainers do this out of passion. Trainers don't become trainers because they want to make a lot of money. That's a fact. They do it because they have a tremendous amount of passion probably because they saw what it did for them. It's transformative. But also because they want to help other people. And so what I read off, and we'll go through each of them are like the commandments of what makes you successful both in your business, but also especially, you know, with your clients. Today's program giveaway is maps and a Bollock advanced. Here's how you can win. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it. Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications. If you do all those things and we like your comment, we'll let you know in the comment section that you won that program. Also three days left for our big sale this month. So map symmetry is half off and the RGB bundle of programs is half off, both 50% off. That will end in 72 hours. If you're interested, click on the link at the top of the description below. All right, back to the show. I don't know if you put much thought into the order of these, but I do agree that the first one you listed off should be the first one. I mean, it's the first law of leadership. 100%. And so, and also an area that I remember being challenged with with trainers. A lot of my trainers when I would be questioning the results of the client or if I'd be questioning about their attendance, their consistency, their adherence to the program, or even the resigning with them for a sale because I had to do their goals and budget every month, right? Always an excuse.  They would, yeah, they would default to what the client did to not be successful, to not show up or to not resign with them. And it used to just frustrate the shit out of me because they wouldn't lead with, I could have been better with the diet plan for some reason, I couldn't get them to one. And you got to reframe the way you think about these challenges and it should always come from you for you failed. I failed, okay? I failed the client, okay? I believe that everybody has the potential to reach their health and fitness goals and if they're unsuccessful and they hired me, no matter the excuses that they gave me, it falls back on me as a leader because I'm leading them. Yes, and this is a position of empowerment. You have to accept that you are responsible for their successes and their failures. Now that doesn't mean you have the answers. It could also and often mean that they're not doing this thing and I don't know how to get them to do this thing. But I do know that there is a way somewhere and I'm gonna keep trying.  No, no, no, it just means that there is a way to get them where they wanna go to get them to move forward and maybe you just haven't figured it out yet or maybe you're doing it the wrong way. If you have this attitude, by the way, that you are responsible for your client's successes and their failures, what it's gonna do is it's always gonna drive you to improve and get better. If you say to yourself, oh, well, they, you know, yeah, of course they didn't get results. They don't wanna do what I told them. Well, why didn't they wanna do what you told them? Or they didn't wanna show up to their workouts. Well, why? Oh, of course they didn't get in shape. They kept eating garbage. Okay, maybe there was something you could have done to help them move in the right way. Maybe you just haven't figured it out, but that doesn't matter. It's your responsibility. This is what good teachers and leaders adopt and this is what makes them effective and this is what drove me to continue to improve because I would always ask myself, okay, what am I doing wrong? I just can't get this through. It's just not working. What's happening? And little by little, I'd figure this out and I never became 100% successful my clients. I don't even know if that's possible, but I always got better every single year. It's the only way you get closer to success. Otherwise, if you can't be honest and have those conversations of how could I have done things better? How could I have presented it in a different way? And you're just dismissive of the fact that my client would do X. My client did this and so that's out of your, whatever is in your control is where we need to focus. And so that's what I'm presenting, what I'm bringing in. So now I have to reevaluate that whole system of what I've created of how I can present information and how I can get more buy-in and adherence from the way that I'm delivering information. I had a client for seven of the nine years that I was a personal trainer at 24 FITNESS. I won't mention her name because I'm not trying to put her on blast by any means but to highlight the point that we're making with this first point. And I trained her for that entire time even when I became a manager and I really, you know, I only would only keep three or four clients. Most FITNESS managers, when you get to that role you pick your three favorite. Or you train no one. Or you train no one, you train no one. You pick your three favorite or the three easiest people you could really help. I mean really, because your focus now is on the club, right? And so you don't want to be distracted by really challenging clients, just being straight up.  And I know Justin knows who she is with Merkin already because I've let my trainers train and they all would be like, I don't ever want to, don't you ever make me train her a few times.  She's rude. She doesn't listen to what I have to say. She was a brilliant executive at the Mercury News and she would, and I remember when I was younger, it would baffle me that she'd resign every time. She'd resign for more. You thought she hated you? Yeah, I thought she hated me, but yet she kept buying, training for me, buying and always this way, right? And so trainers would be like, I don't understand, why do you keep her? It's not like you need the money, you can get a client to reflect. I don't understand, why do you keep her? I said, you know why? Because I haven't figured it all out. Like it drives me to know that like I haven't, I haven't made this woman happy. I haven't got her all the results that she wants. And so it was this constant reminder for me to always be getting better and always taking responsibility for the lack of results that the client is getting. And I wouldn't give up. I wouldn't give up. And she was my ultimate challenge. And so I kept her forever. I have a similar story to that. I don't know if you remember this, but I was out on the floor training a client and I saw you were presenting personal training to a potential new client that was coming in. And she was our, you could just tell the signs of a difficult personality right away, just like, okay, what about this? And what about that? And first of all, we were doing a closeout so there's balloons everywhere. And she had an allergy to latex. So that was the start of this like whole debacle. And so Adam's kind of like trying to calm her down and present, you know, all the potential benefits of personal training and what the club has off for all this kind of stuff. And I see him looking around and he, you know, grabs me.  But that was, I was always up for that kind of a challenge. And it was a very challenging client who already started off the process on the wrong foot and was very like angry about, you know, so I had to diffuse that energy and then shuttle it in a more positive direction. But I learned so much from those opportunities to improve my ability to communicate better but also to be able to deal with people and their behaviors and their own quirks. Yeah, look, this is, it's chess and it's not checkers. You have to play the long game. So people might hear what we're saying and they're like, oh, okay, it's my responsibility always. I'm gonna hammer my client until they listen.  You lost the game, right? So I had clients for years, years. And then it changed a single thing about the nutrition.  So let me focus on what they're open to. And I'm gonna find ways to sprinkle these in conversations or open the door at the very least. And then, you know, I had one guy lose 35 pounds in three years. You know when he lost that weight? The last four months of that three year period up until he lost, he didn't lose a single pound because he didn't wanna touch anything. But it was this process of me being patient and doing what I could. And sometimes it was literally just me giving him a good experience. That's all. We're not gonna talk anything about health and fitness. You're just gonna come in and work out and we're gonna joke around and talk about your family and I'm gonna create this amazing experience for you so you always have this great relationship with exercise.  It's time. I think it's time we start looking at nutrition. And I said, okay, let's start with this one step. And it was this snowball effect. But you're also gonna get situations that you can't figure out. That's not the point.   That means the door is open. If you really wanna help people, then you gotta help them.  It doesn't mean you kick them out the door. It doesn't mean you try to preach to them when they're not open. It means you have to be effective. That's what it means. You have to be effective. But know that the answer is out there and you're responsible for it. That attitude will drive you to becoming the most effective trainer that you could possibly be.  And what they wanna see is if you're gonna give up on them. And- Well, a lot of people probably have given up on them. That's right. There's a bit of a self-selection bias with people that have struggled with weight their whole entire life. And a lot of other people have dismissed them, given up on them, and many times they've given up on themselves. And this person is hurt and broken inside. And there's a lot more going on that's causing all these other things. And they are going so hard the opposite direction or making your job so difficult because they just wanna see are you gonna be like everybody else? I had this one surgeon that I trained. He'll probably hear this, but it's all right. He knows. And he, I was warned by my other clients who worked with him.  Good luck. You're gonna have a tough time. Like whatever. And his wife even warned me. If he doesn't show up, you let me know and I'll make him come. She was a nurse. So I was like, okay. Well, anyway, I trained him and little by little the shell started to come off to the point where, this is true story now, the other doctors I trained would come in and go, what are you doing with so-and-so? And I'm like, why? I'm like, he's telling jokes in the OR. Like he's smiling. People like him now. What was happening was his health was improving and he was changing as a person. Anyway, he ended up becoming one of my most long-term clients and actually became somebody who referred to me most of my so many clients, more clients than almost anybody else. Really cool. All right, the next one, this one's a big one because it's so tempting to do the opposite.  Okay? The second one is I will never make false promises. Okay. Why is this one so hard? Because you're trying to get someone to hire you. You're trying to get someone excited. You wanna sell the dream. And you wanna sell them the dream. I wanna lose 30 pounds. We could totally do that. It's gonna take us 15 weeks, two pounds a week, 15 weeks you could lose 30 pounds. Or man, I just wanna, man, I really wanna feel a lot better. Oh yeah, you hire me.  Yeah, look at this person that looked just like you and looking and looked at this.  Do not make, one of the best things you could ever do as a personal trainer is under promise. That's right. And over deliver. Under promise. I remember when this first snap, this was like my first year of personal training when I figured this out. Because my first year, I'm just trying to get people to hire me. And I thought, well, that's how you got people hire. You sell the ultimate dream. And then I'd run into problems with people who wasn't meeting their expectations. Now, definitely was the fact that they weren't doing what I said and a lot of stuff. And I could have made excuses, right? I could have been like, well, they did what I said. They would have got what I told them. But I remember thinking like, most people aren't gonna do everything I say. Like, what am I doing here? I gotta start being super realistic with my recommendations. And so I used to say stuff like this after that. People would say, I wanna hire you because I wanna lose 30 pounds. Ooh, that's really tough. You know what? You might not lose 30 pounds. But here's what you're gonna experience and here's what it's gonna be like. Now, can you? You definitely can, but it's really tough. The statistics show that most people don't. And then when they do, they gain it back. But one thing that I specialize in is helping people get to the right way and helping them keep it off. And it not only did it not lose me sales, I got more sales because people were like, oh, he's honest. And then when I told them, don't expect to lose a single pound for the first 60 days because we're trying to build strength and muscle and I'm gonna try and boost your metabolism. And then they would lose four or five pounds on the scale. It was just incredible surprise. You know what is a classic example of this that our audience has to be very familiar with from us? Is how we undersell personal training. We tell people how difficult and hard it is to be a trainer, to be a trainer, to be successful, to scale, to make any sort of money doing it. Yet every day we have somebody message us saying that I quit my job to become a personal trainer because of you guys. So you absolutely could. And really what that is is people will appreciate the honesty. Hey, it's hard. It's hard to do that.  You know, there's a lot of people that might be able to lose 30 pounds. I mean, let's be honest. That's actually, that is a little simple.   You know, you might die along the way, but hey, there's a lot of people that push the needle in these extremes just to get to that number. But you know what? They all put it back on. They all put it back on and they put more of it back on.  That's the part that's really challenging. And there's a lot of missteps that the average person makes on the way there. Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's a lot of the temptation is because of what the client's coming in with their expectation. And a lot of them have been through the process before and will divulge into that. And tell you like how, you know, they applied all this, it didn't really work out that great. What are you gonna do that's any different? And you know, how am I gonna get to this very specific goal and lose all this body fat and lose all this weight in a quick amount of time? And so to be able to have that conversation in an honest fashion and tell them what is exactly sustainable and what's not sustainable is a hard conversation to have. I used to love statements like this. Do you want me to sell you or do you want me to be honest? Yeah, there you go. And everybody almost say, yeah, be honest, okay. Cause I could sell you and I could break down the math on how, you know, you can lose healthy anywhere from a pound to two pounds a week. And so in this many weeks with this, but what I know from my experience is it takes long on that. Why? Because it's not just simply X's and O's. There's behavioral stuff that's going on. We don't know where you're at metabolically yet. There's a lot of, there's a learning curve to getting good at movements. There's a consistency aspect to it. There's the undoubtedly what's going to happen is we're going to take five steps forward, take one step back eventually. But really this is, it's not about that. It's about once we get there, that I'm going to help you maintain this for yourself. So don't be afraid to be upfront about those things. It makes you more effective. For sure. For sure. It doesn't make you, that's the, I think the challenge is that people think that it makes them more effective to paint this crazy dream. But the reality is honesty is far more effective and it sets you up for success. False promises set you up for failure. If you did in fact convince that client that they're going to get these crazy results in 30 days or 60 days, now you're on the hook to deliver. And either A, you're going to do things that are not ideal for your client and they're going to just copy and follow exactly what you say, in which case they'll gain it back later anyway. Or what usually happens is it doesn't happen. And then you're going to have this conversation. Well, Mrs. Johnson, the reason why you didn't get those crazy results that I promised. You didn't do XYZ.  And that's like, oh, why am I even, why am I even here? Why am I doing this? Don't make false promises. By the way, this is why we do not use before and after. Or do 30 day challenges. Both those things are proven to be very successful in marketing and selling people. There's nothing more effective at selling. We sell workout programs, okay? The most effective way to sell a workout program is to show before and afters. By the way, we have thousands of before and afters that people have sent us. We've used zero of them to sell programs because yes, it's effective, but what it's really doing, whether we say it or not, because we can even say on the bottom, this is not the average client. Results may vary. Yeah, don't expect to get results like this. But the picture tells you something different and it's false promises. And we just don't want to, we don't want to promote that. We don't want to show people that this is how you build a business in the fitness space. If you do it, that's fine. You want to be honest about it and you want to tell people this is not normal results, but that's why we don't do it. And there is nothing, it's not that it's not possible that somebody can make radical change in 30 days or 72 days hard. You can make all kinds of changes in that time. We just think it's the opposite message of what we're trying to present to people. So we choose not to use that, even though it's extremely effective when it comes to marketing and making money.  That's right. All right, the next one is that I will, I as a trainer, will prioritize my client's health above aesthetics. Okay, here's why this one's so important because your client will not prioritize their health above aesthetics. They're going to prioritize aesthetics over health. Fine, that's okay. That's where you're going to go, no problem. I just have to find effective ways of communicating to get you to focus on health. And sometimes that means I trick you. Sometimes I mean I say, oh yeah, you really want that? No problem, we're going to move in that direction, but I'm going to do it in a healthy way. It's my job to do this and to help you do this the right way. Now why? Because it's the only way, okay? There is no, you know, chase aesthetics and you'll get healthy and you'll get aesthetic. It doesn't work that way.  The truth is the health leads to the aesthetics. By the way, that's how I used to sell it. It's a reflection of it. That's how I used to sell it to people. But you as a trainer, if my client comes in and says, I know you said Sally got to work out, but I just want to burn as many calories as possible. I want to be super sore. Just, I've had clients actually tell me this.  I'm like, I don't think you understand how our relationship works. It doesn't work that way. I'm not going to just do what you tell me because you pay me if I know that it's wrong and you may think it's right. Unfortunately, I'm the expert here. Well, we have to explain why this doesn't work. It doesn't work because when you come in and you're chasing aesthetics and that's your main priority while you hire your trainer, that most often than not, and when I say most often, I'm 99% of the time is rooted in insecurity and or vanity. And both of those are fleeting. And both of those will eventually lead to poor unhealthy decisions. Even if temporarily it gets you to a short-term goal, it will not be a long-term solution to the problem that you have. So we know that even if in the short-term it could work to sell that idea or be okay with that, we know that we're not really addressing the root cause of why this person got to being unhealthy. And if we truly want to help them, like we say we want to, we will focus on health. And of course, aesthetics follow. Yeah, also, I mean, it's very subjective. And so what's the problem with that? If we're basing how we're looking as we're going through the process, that opinion of that person's self is gonna change along the way and it might not be good enough even when results are happening. So the goalpost just is gonna keep moving and moving and to the point where we get into the unhealthy range where we're pursuing that looks at such a degree that all that's left is to really intensify everything that we have in front of us. Look, if health was good and aesthetics was evil, okay? Chasing aesthetics is literally going down the evil path. What do I mean by that? Well, let me use a great example. Data is very clear on this. The age at which people are the most satisfied and accepting of their bodies, okay? The age at which people look in the mirror and say, I accept this and I'm happy with this, okay? It's not 20 years old. It's in their 60s, huh, 60s? Like objectively 20 year olds have more beauty in youth, obviously, than some of the 60s. How is it that body acceptance reaches its peak? When you're probably in your worst shape. In your 60s, because it's subjective. This is based off of something you will never, ever accomplish. If you always chase aesthetics, you will always lose your health.  I'm tired, ignore it. My body hurts, ignore it. My digestion's off, ignore it. Just keep chasing this unattainable goal where you look in the mirror. It's like a fun mirror. What you see is not really what is happening. So you have to always focus on health. Now here's the beauty of it. Healthy looks good. Healthy looks good. So if you do this for your clients and you do this right and you convince them through intelligent, effective, slow, sometimes communication, then they will be pleasantly surprised with the aesthetic results. I used to love that. I used to love, you know, I'd get a female client and we'd have these battles back and forth over the scale and we would have these conversations and every time they'd leave, like I think I got to them and they come back and we'd have these struggles. And I understand because I had my own body image issues and so I get it and I'll never forget. I used to love this. They'd come see me and they'd be so happy and be like, what happened? They're like, well, I know the scale hasn't moved, but I just saw four people I hadn't run into in a long time. So I hadn't seen these people for like six months. Every single one of them asked me how much weight I lost. But I haven't lost any weight on the scale. I'm like, do you think maybe your view of yourself is a little distorted? They're like, yeah, like, all right, let's not trust that anymore. Let's just keep moving this direction because we're moving in the right direction. All right, here's the next one. This one's a big one because as trainers we get so excited, we have all the information, we have all the answers. This one can be really hard and this one is this. I will always meet my clients where they are, okay? That means that they're gonna take small steps sometimes when they could take bigger steps and you know they could take bigger steps, but that's okay, I'm gonna take every single little win that I can, I'm gonna meet them where they're at. Took me a long time to get this one. Ooh, this one took me the longest. Yes, took me a long time. I use this example all the time because this is just kind of a clear one, but I have probably a million examples, but it was like, you know, lady sits down with me and says, look, I can only work out once a week. I mean, I was very convincing and motivating and I can talk really well and sometimes I convince the person, no, no, you gotta come in three days a week and- Here's why. Here's why and it's gonna make you a better mom and I know you don't have time, but you actually get more energy so you can create more time and I'd paint this whole picture and sometimes I'd convince them, sometimes I would and then when I would convince them, of course, it was too much of a commitment for them at first, like they had told me and then they ended up falling off or I'd blow them out of the water because they're looking at me and they're like, what does this guy know? He doesn't know my life.  No, what reality would I used to do when I really figured this out is say I can only work out once a week, no problem. We're gonna start once a week. Sal, don't touch my nutrition. No problem, we won't talk about your diet. Sal, I don't wanna do that exercise. It's a good exercise, it's got benefits but if you don't wanna do it, that's fine. Let's try some alternatives and then my job was to find a way to get them to move somewhere else so I can meet them there. That was my job, but I always met them where they were. If you're here, well, that's the only way I'm gonna be effective is I'm gonna meet you exactly where you're at. Well, and this is especially difficult if you're a new trainer and you're basing most of how you think everything's gonna go off of how you've been able to tackle some of these issues and how you've been able to figure out how to exercise properly or be able to adjust your diet and create these types of disciplines. For me, this was very difficult because just seeing how the general population can even see me move as a trainer and try to then mirror what I just did. It was a complete opposite sort of version of what I was doing and for me to kind of step back and have to really reassess, okay, well, what do I present and how can I take smaller steps to get them to get to the desired outcome? It's that like across the board if you're asking them to change behavioral things and lifestyle things, this is a lot of times it's gonna take very, very small steps. Well, there's rules to negotiating like this and that's one of the rules. Like the worst thing you could do is to argue or debate somebody when they say something. There's a good, there's a really good book. I know Doug and I both have read it. It comes to mind right now in the title sub in me. So maybe Doug, you could, it was a negotiator who wrote the book. I know you read it this past. Never split the difference. Thank you. Never split the difference. I think it's a great read for this topic and that's like one of the first things that even when somebody says something that I disagree with or I know is wrong, yeah, I nod my head, yes. Okay, yeah, and then I explain to them, well, you know, here's what has happened. Sometimes people see that like the worst thing you could do is to go, no, or that's wrong or argue because even if you're right in that situation that automatically puts a wall up. And if your desired outcome is to convince this person that there's a better way to approach their health and fitness and maybe that's two days or three days a week or maybe that means doing that exercise that they don't like doing or maybe that means eating a certain way that they said they wouldn't do, you arguing with them or telling them how they're wrong is never going to get you there. So the first step of that is acknowledging and agreeing with their thought on it. Yeah, oh yeah, no, I see, I get where you're coming from. I have had clients before that, you know, refuse to do squatting and stuff like that no matter how beneficial it could be to them. So don't worry, we'll do something else. And then over time, while we're in this relationship where I'm seeing them for hours, I'm subtly dropping hints to the benefits of seeing it from a different perspective and you've got to pull them into thinking the same way that you do. So that's probably, Sal, one of the biggest mistakes, especially highly intelligent, well-read educated trainers do is they're so hung up on being right or having the answers and being smart that they're so quick to point out anything that someone says wrong and that yet they have no understanding of what that does psychologically to the person across from you that you just did that to. And if the desired outcome is get them to follow you, that is the worst thing that you could possibly do. I had a client that one of my doctor clients referred to me and she warned me. She said, I'm sending someone over and she's really reluctant, doesn't want to work out in a gym, doesn't want to work out with a trainer but I've been talking to her and she needs to see someone. So I said, okay. So then she walks this woman and literally the first things out of her mouth, okay.  And she said, all right, before we get going, before we tell me about what this is all about, I'm not going to touch my diet. I'm only going to come here once a week and I'm not doing any exercise on my own. List of demands, right? Okay, that's the first things out of her mouth. I said, no problem. Here's what we'll do with the one day a week that you're here and here's what we can affect positively with the one day a week. And then she said, literally, right after I said that, she goes, wait a minute. Why aren't you going to try and convince me to talk about nutrition? I said, well, no, it's all beneficial. I said, but I want to work with whatever you want to give me and you give me once a week and there's a lot we could do with once a week. We don't need to do all those other things to see some positive improvements. And she said, okay. And she hired me and I trained her once a week and the reason why I like using her as an example is because over time she went from once a week to twice a week to, hey, what exercises can I do my own to, you know what, I think I ate too much sugar. What do you think? You think I should cut sugar down on my diet to, wow, this is really cool. Are there any books on this kind of stuff I can read to? I'd like to become certified just for my own information. Here's what's awesome and sad about that story. Had that, this was towards the back half of my career. I'd already been a trainer for probably 12 or 13 years when this happened. Had she come to me, year two, three, four or five. Blown her out. Gone. And she would have gotten no help. She would have gotten no help. And maybe turned off forever. Forever. I know it. Because now I would have labeled you as the fitness space. I tried. Trainers in general, for sure. I would have blown her out and she would have never come back. You know, I'd shared on the show recently that this has been one of the biggest epiphanies or changes in my career as I've gotten older, like looking at the overall health journey for somebody. It's so much bigger than macros and lifting weights. Like there's so many things that are encompassed in the health sphere. Like everything from sleep to relationships with family to how you view yourself, to walking, to water, to, I mean, the list goes on and on. And if I'm leading this person to having a healthier life and I can't get them to follow my macros, I can't get them to do the exercises as many times or as many days a week. It doesn't mean that I can't impact them in 15 other ways that's gonna make them a healthier version than what they were when they met me. And so I'm far better off accepting that they're not willing to do X, Y, and Z yet and helping them where they are and starting to show them improvements because that's how you're gonna get buy in. And that story that you shared, that lady came to you for day two, came to you for day three.  Or like, okay, it's now it's time, no, you didn't have to.  And so now she was open to hearing what other ideas you might have. And then that leads you to getting them where you really ultimately wanna have them. And I have a lot of stories like that that I would have never, ever positively impacted had I not figured that out. Literally, I would have failed so many people had I not figured that one part out. All right, lastly, this one's also important. I will always aim for sustainability over speed with my clients' progress. Look, here's how you define your success with your clients. It's not the results they get, it's the results they keep. Period and a story. The data is clear on this. Every year, millions of Americans lose weight and every year, almost all of them gain it back. Fail, fail, fail, fail. When you have a client come up to you and say, ooh, I did this diet that really worked well for me before or I did this workout program that worked really well for me, it actually didn't work for you. Because here you are, again, we gotta figure out a way to make this work. Now, why is sustainability what we need to focus on? Because all they're gonna want is speed. Your job as a leader and a guide in this relationship is to help them do this in a way that's sustainable. And that means a lot. What it means is there's gonna be conversations, there's gonna be battles, there's gonna be where you're gonna have to give up a pawn so you can capture the queen later. Remember I said this is chess.  But your responsibility, all the way back to the first one, it's your responsibility. And you know this as a trainer. You know when you're watching your client, this isn't gonna, this is not sustainable. Like she just cut all carbs out of her diet and she went from not working out to now she's running every single day. This isn't gonna, there's no, like it's great losing weight, you feel better, but this is not sustainable. I need to work with this person to help them do this in a sustainable way. This is the most important thing you can focus on as a personal trainer. Because if you don't do this, you fail. It seems clear. But for people that achieve success in terms of their idea of reaching and achieving their goal, but there's no way they can stay there. You didn't succeed. You failed. And that's a hard pill to swallow because there's a lot of methods to get into that direction where you're gonna achieve a certain body fat percentage or you're gonna achieve a certain physique. And you can get there, you know, multitude of ways. There's only one right way to do it. The only way we can measure that is whether or not it was sustainable, what you got there. This commandment or rule is what radically changed the way I recommended diet and nutrition to a client. Totally, yep. You know, that has to be one of the most challenging things, right, of all the things that we teach and help people with getting consistency, adherence around making good food choices has to be the Achilles heel or the greatest hurdle that we ever had to do. If you were with me for an hour, I'm controlling your workout. And so that's easy, but I'm not with you for the other 23 hours of what you put in your mouth. And so that is really, really difficult. And when most people are struggling with weight, they've gone through the diets already. They've yo-yo'd up and down. And so how am I any different if I assess and then go right into the game of, okay, this is what you're eating. Here's, you know, 1,300 calories. We're gonna lose weight and just come and show up.  And that was when I began to look at it differently and go, what if I, when I assess their diet, instead of going, oh, this is not my total calories, they are, let's cut and restrict. What if I focused on adding things to their diet? What if I focused on giving them what they need versus taking away from them? What would that do to adherence? What would that do to building muscle, building their metabolism and how much more likely would they be to be able to sustain that and keep that weight off for the rest of life? It completely changed my success rate. It was like mind-blowing for clients. I, let me just to communicate how important this is. This is how I modeled my business towards the end of my career, okay? What'll end up happening as a trainer when you have clients that really like you is they're going to sometimes find ways to train with you more often. I know we work out twice a week, so I wanna hire you for four days a week. I wanna work out five days a week. And usually I would say no, no, no, no, no. Actually there's a lot we can do in the two days a week that we train. And I wanna focus on that before you add extra days. Now I could have had them buy more sessions and seen me more often, but I knew that that was an unsustainable approach for them. The way that it typically looked for me with new clients was they would start with me two or three days a week. Eventually I would have the conversation with them where I'd move them down to two or one day a week, then I'd move them down to once every other week, then I'd move them down to once a month. And I had a number of clients like this. What was my goal? Sustainability. What is sustainability? At some point you're not gonna be with me. At some point you have to do this on your own. And I did this and you know what's funny? People listening to that, it's dumb, you're making less money. No, my business exploded because of this approach. I hate the false, strange idea that if I get my clients results and then they can do it for the rest of the lives on their own, somehow I'm losing clients and I'm gonna lose my business.  If you really wanna help people, then help them. By the way, that's what's gonna make you successful. So clients would tell me I wanna train with you more often and I would say no, it's not necessary. In fact, we're gonna train less often and I'll give you some workouts you can do on your own. And I moved a lot of clients in this direction to where they were training less often with me but then able to maintain on their own. By the way, this is now, I don't know, I haven't trained people for a long, eight years maybe. I still am friends with some of these people. They all continue to work out on their own. They all continue to work out on their own. That's real success, that's real success. And look, if you're a trainer and you're listening to this, share this with your clients. Share it with your clients because it's gonna give them some insight. And your peers. Definitely with your peers, that's obvious. But share it with your clients and be like, man, this is why I became a trainer and I really enjoy working with you. And thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to potentially make a positive impact in your life.  Look, if you love the show, head over to mindpumpfree.com, check out all of our free fitness guides. We have a lot and they're free. You can also find all of us on Instagram. Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. I'm at Mind Pump DeStefano. And Adam is at Mind Pump Adam.


Section 20 of The Good Soldier, A Tale of Passion. My coming on the scene certainly calmed things down. For the whole fortnight that intervened between my arrival and the girl's departure. I don't mean to say that endless talking did not go on at night, or that Leonora did not send me out with the girl, and in the interval give Edward a hell of a time. Having discovered that he wanted, that the girl should go five thousand miles away and love him stud-fastly as people do in sentimental novels, she was determined to smash that aspiration, and she repeated to Edward in every possible tone that the girl did not love him, that the girl detested him for his brutality, his overbearingness, his drinking habits. She pointed out that Edward in the girl's eyes was already pledged three or four deep. He was pledged to Leonora herself, to Mrs. Basil, and to memories of Maisie Maiden and to Florence. Edward never said anything. Did the girl love Edward, or didn't she? I don't know. At that time I dare say she didn't, though she certainly had done so before Leonora had got to work upon his reputation. She certainly had loved him for what I will call the public side of his record, for his good soldiering, for his saving lives at sea, for the excellent landlord that he was and the good sportsman. But it is quite possible that all those sayings came to appear as nothing in her eyes when she discovered that he wasn't a good husband. For the woman as I see them have little or no feeling of responsibility towards a county, or country, or career, although they may be entirely lacking in any kind of communal solidarity, they have an immense and automatically working instinct that attaches them to the interest of womanhood. It is of course possible for any woman to cut out and to carry off another woman's husband or lover, but I rather think that a woman will only do this if she has reason to believe that the other woman has given her husband a bad time. I'm certain that if she thinks the man has been a brute to his wife she will with her instinctive feeling for suffering femininity put him back, as the saying is. I don't attach any particular importance to these generalizations of mine. They may be right, they may be wrong. I'm only an aging American with very little knowledge of life. You may take my generalizations or leave them, but I am pretty certain that I am right in the case of Nancy Ruford, that she had loved Edward Ashburn very deeply and tenderly. It is nothing to the point that she let him have it good and strong as soon as she discovered that he had been unfaithful to Leonora and that his public services had cost more than Leonora thought they ought to have cost. Nancy would be bound to let him have it good and strong then. She would owe that to feminine public opinion. She would be driven to it by the instinct for self-preservation, since she might well imagine that if Edward had been unfaithful to Leonora, to Mrs. Basil, and to the memories of the other two, he might be unfaithful to herself. And no doubt she had her share of the sex instinct that makes women be intolerably cruel to the beloved person. Anyhow, I don't know whether at this point Nancy Ruford loved Edward Ashburnam. I don't know whether she even loved him on getting at Aidan the news of his suicide she went mad, because that may just as well have been for the sake of Leonora as for the sake of Edward. Or it may have been for the sake of both of them. I don't know. I know nothing. I am very tired. Leonora held passionately the doctrine that the girl didn't love Edward. She wanted desperately to believe that. It was a doctrine as necessary to her existence as a belief in the personal immortality of the soul. She said that it was impossible that Nancy could have loved Edward after she had given the girl her view of Edward's career and character. Edward on the other hand believed, wanderingly, that some essential attractiveness in himself must have made the girl continue to go on loving him. To go on loving him as it were and underneath her official aspect of hatred. He thought she only pretended to hate him in order to save her face, and he thought that her quite atrocious telegram from Brindisi was only another attempt to do that, to prove that she had feelings credible to a member of the feminine common wheel. I don't know. I'd leave it to you. There is another point that worries me a good deal on the aspects of this sad affair. Leonore says that in desiring that the girl should go five thousand miles away and yet continue to love him, Edward was a monster of selfishness. He was desiring the ruin of a young life. Edward on the other hand put it to me that, supposing that the girl's love was a necessity to his existence, and if he did nothing by order by action to keep Nancy's love alive, he couldn't be called selfish. Leonore applied that showed he had an abominably selfish nature, even though his actions might be perfectly correct. I can't make out which of them was right. I leave it to you. It is at any rate certain that Edward's actions were perfectly, were monstrously, were cruelly correct.   I don't see what object there was in letting the girl think worse of him than was necessary. Still there it is. And there it is also that all those three presented to the world the spectacle of being the best of good people. I assure you that during my stay for that fortnight in that final house, I never so much as noticed a single thing that could have affected that good opinion. And even when I look back, knowing the circumstances, I can't remember a single thing that any of them said that could have betrayed them. I can't remember right up to the dinner when Leonore read out that telegram. Not the trim-riven eyelash, not the shaking of a hand. It was just a pleasant country house party. And Leonore kept it up jolly well, for even longer than that. She kept it up as far as I was concerned until eight days after Edward's funeral. Immediately after that particular dinner, the dinner at which I received the announcement that Nancy was going to leave for India on the following day, I asked Leonore to let me have a word with her. She took me into her little setting room, and I then said, I spare you the record of my emotions, that she was aware that I wished to marry Nancy, that she had seemed to favor my suit, and that it appeared to be rather a waste of money upon tickets, and rather a waste of time upon travel to let the girl go to India if Leonore thought that there was any chance of her marrying me. In Leonore, I assure you was the absolutely perfect British matron. She said that she quite favored my suit, that she could not desire for the girl a better husband, but that she considered that the girl ought to see a little more of life before taking such an important step. Yes, Leonore used the words, taking such an important step. She was perfect. Actually, I think she would have liked the girl to marry me enough. My program included the buying of the Kershaw's house about a mile away from the Fortingbridge Road, and settling down there with the girl. That didn't at all suit Leonore. She didn't want to have the girl in a mile and a half of Edward for the rest of their lives. Still I think she might have managed to let me know, in some paraphrasis or other, that I might have the girl if I would take her to Philadelphia or Timbuktu. I loved Nancy very much, and Leonore knew it. However, I left it at that. I left it with the understanding that Nancy was going away to India on probation. It seemed to me a perfectly reasonable arrangement, and I am a reasonable sort of man. I simply said that I should follow Nancy out to India after six months' time or so, or perhaps after a year. Well, you see, I did follow Nancy out to India after a year. I must confess to having felt a little angry with Leonore for not having warned me earlier that the girl would be going. I took it as one of the queer, not very straight methods that Roman Catholics seem to adopt in dealing with matters of this world. I took it that Leonore had been afraid I should propose to the girl, or at any rate have made considerably greater advances to her than I did, if I had known earlier that she was going away so soon. Perhaps Leonore was right. Perhaps Roman Catholics, with their queer, shifty ways, are always right. They are dealing with the queer, shifty thing that is human nature. For it is quite possible that if I had known Nancy was going away so soon, I would have tried making love to her, and that would have produced another complication. It may have been just as well. It is queer the fantastic things that quite good people do in order to keep up appearances of calm, po-co-currentism. For Edward-esh Burnham and his wife called me half the roll over in order to sit on the back seat of a dog cart, whilst Edward drove the girl to the railway station from which she was to take her departure to India. They wanted, I suppose, to have a witness of the calmness of that function. The girl's luggage had been already packed and sent off before. Her birth on the steamer had been taken. They had timed it also exactly that it went like clockwork. They had known the date upon which Colonel Ruford would get Edward's letter, and they had known almost exactly the hour at which they would receive his telegram asking his daughter to come to him. It had all been quite beautifully and quite mercilessly arranged by Edward himself. They gave Colonel Ruford as a reason for telegraphing, the fact that Mrs. Colonel somebody or rather would be traveling by that ship, and that she would serve as an efficient chaperone for the girl. It was the most amazing business, and I think it would have been better in the eyes of God if they had all attempted to gouge out each other's eyes with carving knives, but they were good people. After my interview with Leonora, I went to sultorily into Edward's gun room. I didn't know where the girl was, and I thought I might find her there. I suppose I had a vague idea of proposing to her in spite of Leonora. So I presume. I don't come of quite such good people as the Ashburnums. Edward was lounging in his chair, smoking a cigar, and he said nothing for quite five minutes. The candles glowed in the green shades, the reflections were green in the glasses of the bookcases that held guns and fishing rods. Over the mantelpiece was the brownish picture of the white horse. Those were the quietest moments that I have ever known. Then suddenly Edward looked me straight in the eyes and said, Look, here old man, I wish you would drive with Nancy and me to the station tomorrow. I said of course I would, I would drive with him and Nancy to the station on the morrow. He lay there for a long time, looking along the line of his knees at the fluttering fire. And then suddenly, in a perfectly calm voice, without lifting his eyes, he said, I am so desperately in love with Nancy Rufford that I am dying of it. Poor devil. He hadn't meant to speak of it. But I guess he just had to speak to somebody, and I appeared to be like a woman or a solicitor. He talked all night. Well he carried out the program through the last breath. It was a very clear winter morning with a good deal of frost in it. The sun was quite bright. The winding road between the heather and the bracken was very hard. I said on the backseat of the dog cart, Nancy was beside Edward. They talked about the way the cob went. Edward pointed out with a whip, a cluster of deer upon a comb three quarters of a mile away. We passed the hounds in the level bit of road beside the high trees going into Forting Bridge. And Edward pulled up the dog cart so that Nancy might say goodbye to the huntsman and cap him a last sovereign. She had ridden with those hounds ever since she had been thirteen. The train was five minutes late, and they imagined that that was because it was Market Day at Swindon, or wherever the train came from. That was the sort of thing they talked about. The train came in, Edward found her a first class carriage with an elderly woman in it. The girl entered the carriage, Edward closed the door, and then she put out her hand to shake mine. There was upon those people's faces no expression of any kind whatever. The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red. That is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene. She was not looking her best. She had on a cap of brown fur that did not very well match her hair. She said, so long to Edward, Edward answered so long. He swung around on his heel, enlarged slouching and walking with a heavy deliberate pace. He went out of the station. I followed him and got up beside him in the high dog cart.  And after that, a holy peace, like the peace of God which passes all understanding descended upon Branshaw Tellaraw. Leonora went about her daily duties with a sort of triumphant smile. A very faint smile, but quite triumphant. I guess she had so long since given up any idea of getting her man back that it was enough for her to have that girl out of the house and well cured of her infatuation. Once in the hall when Leonora was going out, Edward said beneath his breast that I just cut the words. Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean. It was like his sentimentality to quote Swinburne. But he was perfectly quiet and he'd given up drinking. The only thing that he ever said to me after that drive to the station was, It is very odd, I thank God to tell you, Thou, that I haven't any feelings at all about the girl.  Don't you worry about me. I'm alright. A long time afterwards he said, I guess it was only a flash in the pan. He began to look after the estates again. He took all that trouble over getting off the gardener's daughter who had murdered her baby. He shook hands smilingly with every farmer in the marketplace. He addressed two political meetings. He hunted twice. Leonora made a frightful scene about spending two hundred pounds on getting the gardener's daughter acquitted. Everything went on as if the girl had never existed. It was very still weather. Well that is the end of the story and when I come to look at it I see that it is a happy ending with wedding bells and all. The villains, for obviously Edward and the girl were villains, have been punished by suicide and madness. Their heroine, the perfectly normal, virtuous, and slightly deceitful heroine, has become the happy wife of a perfectly normal, virtuous, and slightly deceitful husband.  That is what it works out at. I cannot conceal for myself the fact that I now dislike Leonora.  In order to set her up in a modern mansion replete with every convenience and dominated by a quite respectable and eminently economical master of the house it was necessary that Edward and Nancy Ruford should become, for me at least, no more than tragic shades. I seem to see poor Edward naked in reclining in this darkness upon cold rocks like one of the ancient Greek dam in Tartarus or whoever it was. As for Nancy, well yesterday at lunch she said suddenly, shuttlecocks. And she repeated the word shuttlecocks three times. I know what was passing in her mind, if she can be said to have a mind, for Leonora has told me that once the poor girl said she felt like a shuttlecock being tossed backwards and forwards between the violent personalities of Edward and his wife. Leonora she said was always trying to deliver her over to Edward and Edward tacitly and silently forced her back again. And the odd thing was that Edward himself considered that these two women used him like a shuttlecock, whether he said that they sent him backwards and forwards like a blooming parcel that someone didn't want to pay the postage on. And Leonora also imagined that Edward and Nancy picked her up and threw her down as soon as they're purely vagrant moods. So there you have the pretty picture. Mind I'm not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I'm not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous and slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too truthful are condemned to suicide and to madness. But I guess that I myself in my fainter way come into the category of the passionate, of the headstrong and the too truthful, for I can't conceal for myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham, and I love him because he was just myself. If I'd had the courage and the virility, and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham, I should I fancy have done much what he did. He seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out on several excursions, and did many dashing things while I just watched him robbing the orchard from a distance, and you see, I'm just as much of a sentimentalist as he was. Yes, society must go on, it must breed like rabbits, that is what we are here for, but then I don't like society much. I'm that absurd figure, an American millionaire who is about one of the ancient haunts of English peace. I sit here in Edward's gun room all day and all night in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I visit no one. No one has interested me, for I have no interest. In twenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village beneath my own oaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse to get the American male. My tenants, the village boys, and the tradesmen's will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall return to dine, and Nancy will sit opposite me with the old nurse standing behind her.  Once perhaps twice during the male her knife and fork will be suspended in midair as if she were trying to think of something else that she had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an omnipotent deity, or she will utter the one word shuttlecocks, perhaps. It is very extraordinary to see the perfect flesh of health on her cheeks, to see the luster of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head up on the neck, the grace of the white hands, and to think that it all means nothing. That is a picture without a meeting. Yes it is queer. But at any rate there is always Leonora to cheer you up. I don't want to sadden you.  That is the great desideratum of life, and that is the end of my story. The child is to be brought up as a Romanist. It suddenly occurs to me that I forgot to say how Edward met his death. You remember that piece that descended upon the house, that Leonora was quietly triumphant, and that Edward said his love for the girl had been merely a passing phase. But one afternoon we were in the stables together, looking at a new kind of flooring that Edward was trying in a loose box. Edward was talking with a good deal of animation about the necessity of getting the numbers of the Hampshire Territorials up to the proper standard. He was quite sober, quite quiet, his skin was clear-colored, his hair was golden and perfectly brushed. The level brick-dust red of his complexion would clean up to the rims of his eyelids.  His face was perfectly expressionless, his voice deep and rough. He stood wool back upon his legs and said, We're up to get them up to two thousand three hundred and fifty. A stable boy brought him a telegram and went away. He opened it negligently, regarded it without a motion, and in complete silence handed it to me. On the pinkish paper and a sprawling handwriting I read, safe Brindisi having rathling good time Nancy. Well Edward was the English gentleman, but he was also the last sentimentalist, whose mind was compounded of indifferent poems and novels. He just looked up to the roof of the stable as if he were looking to heaven and whispered something that I did not catch. Then he put two fingers into a waistcoat pocket of his grey-free suit.  He said to me, You might just take that wire to Leonora. And he looked at me with a direct, challenging, brow-beating glare. I guess he could see in my eyes that I didn't intend to hinder him. Why should I hinder him? I didn't think he was wanted in the world, let his confounded tenets, his rifle associations, his drunkards, reclaimed and unreclaimed, get on as they liked. Not all the hundreds and hundreds of them deserved that that poor devil should go on suffering for their sakes. When he saw that I did not intend to interfere with him, his eyes became soft and almost affectionate, he remarked. So long, old man, I must have a bit of rest, you know. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to say, God bless you, or I'm also a sentimentalist. But I thought that perhaps that would not be quite English good form. So I trotted off with a telegram to Leonora. She was quite pleased with it. End of part four, section six. End of The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. Recording by Greg Higgins.


Running over to the dining room window, I called back over my shoulder. What is that, Dad? My father dropped the fork he was holding, spilling a glass of red wine onto his newest work shirt. He didn't even notice. Jesus Christ, he said, losing his cool for a brief moment. I don't know. He stood next to me as we watched the yellowish blur rapidly change directions above our town. It looked like some type of ship. Where'd it go? My dad whispered. There, I said. Our town was located along a six-mile long lake, and we watched in awe as the bright object zigzagged rapidly from one corner to the other at speeds that even a child could tell were impossible. My father took out his cell phone, more in a state of shock than calmness, and dialed. Having been a deputy up until last year, he had the number memorized. Sheriff, this is Doug Turner. My father paused. Look up. There was more silence than. My father hung up and looked back over at me. He's going to make some calls, says it's probably just someone testing out a new drone. The ominous yellow light turned dark then, a moment after looking to have landed near Williams Ranch at the east corner of town. Come on, you gotta get some rest for school, my father said. I think he tried to hide what he was really feeling. He forced a smile as the phone rang again. This is Doug. Yes, sir. Give me about 20 minutes. My father looked over at me, and for a second I thought I saw fear on his face. He pushed it aside.  He took me in and kissed me on the forehead. Before I could tell him to be careful, he tried his best to ease my worries. Don't worry, I'm sure it's nothing. Sheriff says he's bringing a few other men along as well. He winked. Whatever it is, I'll be careful. And then he was gone, leaving the light on near my bed and closing the front door with a click. I was home alone, but no one in the town ever worried about such things as burglars or worse, at least not yet. I don't know how I fell asleep, but all I can tell you is I woke up the next morning with a terrible headache. My father hadn't come home. Clutching my head tightly, I still managed to run into the kitchen and was surprised to see him waiting for me at the table. Good morning, son. I looked over at him with confusion as he made no attempt to go over the previous night. What was it, dad? His blank expression held. What was what, son? I became more confused. The yellow light, the thing in the sky, I think you must have had a nightmare, son, he replied firmly. And then he stood up from the table and smiled. It didn't ease my fear, only enhancing it as the smile turned into a grin far wider than I was accustomed to. Say, you know what? I've been thinking that maybe you can take the day off from school today. Maybe we can go for a little field trip. Yeah, sure, I replied uneasily. Do you mind if I rest a little bit first, though? I've got a really bad headache. His smile deflated a little at that, as he seemed to be thinking it over. A moment later, it came back in full force. Sure thing, get some rest and we'll head out around noon. I've got something I want to show you. He kissed me on the forehead as he had the night before, but this time it felt awkward. And it made me feel, well, scared.  How could he not remember last night? Was it actually possible that I had dreamt the whole thing? I stood up and looked out the window. And suddenly thoughts from the previous night rushed back. I remember details that I had somehow forgotten. I hadn't fallen asleep as my father had gone to check out the strange sighting with a sheriff. I had instead sat by the window and watched. I can't remember everything, but I know that I saw something. Twenty minutes or so after my father had left to meet the sheriff, there was a blinding flash of light, then emanated from where we had seen the object land. It flickered yellow, then red, then a silverish green that I can't even put into words. After that, the memories stop. I don't recall falling asleep, and I definitely don't remember my father returning that night. I don't know what's going on, but I'm scared. I trust my father, but this whole thing just doesn't seem right. My headache grew worse, perhaps due to my anxiety of what the rest of the day might hold. My mind thought of what my father planned to show me, and where we might go. I am ashamed to say that the most prevalent thought of all was, is he even still my father? I'm not sure how much time passed before the door creaked slowly open, and I opened my eyes to see him grinning over at me. It's time. My eyes met his, and before I could tell him about how my headache had gotten worse, he continued, Don't worry. Once we get there, you'll feel the whole lot better. I promise. I nodded. Perhaps a different day I would have had the willpower to argue, or to think over the events of the previous night with more clarity, but the pounding of my head was so intense now that I could barely even open my eyes, let alone argue. He helped me into his old pickup truck, gave me a pillow to press my head against, and close the door behind me. The engine started up easily, and I drifted in and out of sleep, as he put it in drive and made his way down the long road into town. Opening my eyes for a moment, a bright patch of pine trees could be seen out of my window. I saw a family of deer as well, their eyes seeming to focus on me as we made our way farther down the road. When we got to the town square, it was unlike anything I had ever seen in my life. My friends and some of my family were there, as if they had been waiting for me. Their eyes were happy and bright, and as we drove through the square, I noticed each one of them was grinning widely as we passed by. They all waved. They're happy to see you, my father said. Where are we going, dad? Before I had to close my eyes again from the pain, I saw him look over at me and wink for the second time that day. I must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing I knew I was standing in an open field that must have been William's ranch. The sun wasn't as bright as it had been while we had driven, and strangely enough my headache was almost completely gone now. You ready? My father asked, and I noticed that his eyes weren't the calm brown I had known before, but were some type of silver. Ready for what? Ready to see, he said, grinning widely and stepping aside. On the ground behind him sat a circular silver disc, maybe only a few feet wide. I found it almost unimaginable that such a small object could have been responsible for the blinding display we had seen the previous night. That's it, I asked. My father nodded. Go closer. I don't know why then, but I shuddered, the first time since awakening, feeling a surge of fear make its way through my body. I don't want to. Go closer, he said, his tone changing only slightly to anger, and perhaps impatience. I don't know where I could have gone, but maybe I would have run then, far away from this place and far away from the dream of it all. But the people around me suddenly came into view, every friend and family member I had stood in a circle around us and watched. They waited. I understood then that I was the last of them to come here. Don't be afraid, son, my father said then, you're going to understand everything very soon. I knew then that I didn't have much choice in the matter, and I unwillingly began to walk past my father and towards the small silver object ahead of me. The strange thing was, the closer I got, the less small it seemed. At first I had noted it to be roughly only a few feet in diameter. Now as I approached the object, it seemed to go on for miles.  The object wasn't just a craft or an alien ship, it was so much more. The thing began to show me what it would bring to our world. There would be no more fighting, no more war, there would be no more sickness and no more pain, there would be no more death. Still, there was something frightening I realized, something dark, and something, you're the last one in town, my father said. Go ahead son. His eyes were darker then, yet they somehow glowed, and it seemed like I was just an observer in a dream. I saw my hand reach out, crossing the bridge between worlds. I touched the silver object that seemed to go on forever, and then in the span of an instant. I understood everything. The little boy I had been just a second ago was dead. I began to grin as I understood that I would be on the winning side of what was coming.