This weekend I had the great pleasure of being able to learn directly from Bob Safford Snr. Mr Safford is an amazing man. He’s insightful, witty, made his first million by age 28, and has coached and mentored thousands of people.

“Wait, did you say made his first million by 28?”

Why yes I did!

I also had the privilege to learn from Bob Safford Jnr and Jeff Lestz.

Despite all that, this post isn’t about money! I’d love to tell you how to make your first million, but I’ll leave that to the experts. I’m here to lose your love handles, blitz your belly flab, and lean out your legs, hips and thighs.

The thing that struck me the most from hearing Mr Safford lay out what every very wealthy and successful person lives by step by step was how every little bit of what he said will get you to your fitness goals.

So here’s what I’m going to call the “Seven Success Secrets” (I loves me some alliteration!) to blitzing the lard and sculpting a lean athletic physique once and for all.

Millionaire Success Secret #1
“Change your life by changing your habits”

If you’ve spent any amount of time around me either socially, or through my Worthing Personal Training, then you’ll have heard me bang on about this repeatedly. Everything we do is habitual. It’s routine.

The way we get ready in the morning right down to the way we eat.

Psychologists reckon it takes approximately 21 days to change a habit. That means we need to consciously do something for around 3 weeks before it becomes automatic.

So be a bit “Neurotic” about it in the early stages. Set alarms to remind you when to eat. Plan meticulously and schedule your workouts.

Yes, it’s hard work at first, and yes it’s a pain in the arse, but nothing worth doing is easy. The first 21 days is where you tend to separate the people who are serious from everyone else. That’s why I offer an unconditional 30 day money-back guarantee. It gives people who aren’t serious a way to dip their toe in the water, and realise they’re not ready yet without any risk to themselves.

If you are serious, after that first 21 days it becomes easy. Like cleaning your teeth.

“A successful life is the sum total of several successful years. A successful year is the sum total of 12 successful months. A successful month is the sum total of 4-5 successful weeks. A successful week is the sum total of 7 successful days. A successful day is the sum total of 24 successful hours.”

Millionaire Success Secret #2
“Build a Clear Concise Mental Picture (CCMP) of where you want to be”

 

You need to know exactly where you’re going. Don’t set a goal of “I want to lose some weight”, set specific goals and then write them down.

 

Then find pictures of how you want to look.

If you want a body like Cameron Diaz, great!

If you want a body like Ryan Reynolds, fantastic!

It doesn’t matter what your goal is, find pictures and print them out or cut them out of magazines.

A lot of people I’ve worked with have even been able to go a step further and go through old photo albums and produce pictures of themselves in their best shape.

Wedding photos, for example.

It doesn’t matter what it is, what matters is that you define exactly what you want and render it in a form you can see clearly.

And when someone asks why you have bikini clad women or half naked men stuck to your fridge, just tell them your trainer told you to do it!

“You gotta sees it before you can seize it!”

Millionaire Success Secret #3
“Break it down”

This is what I like to refer to as “Eating an elephant”.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

If you want to look like Angelina Jolie but currently weigh over 200lbs, that will seem like an eternity away from where you stand right now. So set a shorter goal.

Set your first goal, but make it (as Mr Safford eloquently put it) “Stretchingly realistic”. It should be achievable, but it should be challenging to get there. Like getting something down from a high shelf. It should be doable, but you’ll need to stretch a bit (push yourself) to reach it!

See, although goals need to be achievable, if we consider them to be easy, or something we can coast to, then we tend to slack off and instead of easily coasting in, we actually get nowhere.

So set your first goal to lose 7-10lbs in your first month. Suddenly it’s not so far away! But because you made that smaller goal you’ll be probably 10-15% (possibly more) of the way there.

And somewhere there’ll be an elephant limping…

Millionaire Success Secret #4
“Set a deadline”

What’s the quickest way to get nothing done? Have an open deadline.

It’s human nature. If we can do something tomorrow, we’ll do it tomorrow. If we can wait until next week, we’ll wait until next week.

What gets us off our arse quicker than a couch fire?

“Oh my God, I’ve only got 6 weeks until I’m supposed to be walking down the isle…”

“Son of a… I’m leaving for Turkey in 3 months…”

Deadlines make us focus. Deadlines give us something to work towards.

Notice above I used the example of “Lose 7-10lbs in the first month” – Not “Lose 7-10lbs”

My tip here is if you don’t have something to work towards, create something. Book a holiday. Book a photo shoot. Hell, just tell your Facebook friends you’re going to reach this weight at this time! It doesn’t need to be complicated.

Millionaire Success Secret #5
“Get a coach”

One of the most often ignored pieces of advice that was given out this weekend was get a mentor. Ignored by those who aren’t successful anyway!

It seems obvious, right? If you want to get somewhere, you don’t fumble around in the dark, you find someone who knows how to get there and have them pass on that knowledge or system.

Millionaires don’t just grow up with this built in ability to make money. They’re taught how to. Behind pretty much every wealthy person, there’s someone who coached them how to get there.

Every top level sports person has a coach.

Professional actors and singers all have coaches and mentors.

So don’t go it alone and throw away money and time hand over fist fumbling around in the dark. Get it right from the beginning…

Turn the light on.

Millionaire Success Secret #6
“Start today”

“I’m going to start Monday…”

Sound familiar?

The war cry of the Monday dieter!

A massive thing that separates successful people from the tire kickers is they start now… Not tomorrow, not after their holiday, not after they’ve eaten all the junk they bought in last week’s grocery shop, NOW!

There’s a great saying that goes, “Nothing fails like success”. What it means is that we learn from our mistakes more-so than our successes. If success constantly comes easy, then you never learn anything.

The fact is, you can plan as much as you like, you’re still going to make mistakes.

Great! Mistakes are learning experiences.

Even if you’re the most knowledgeable person on the subject of getting in shape, you still need to constantly adjust and adapt as you go along. With all the experience in the world it’s not going to be a perfectly smooth ride!

So don’t wait until the planets have aligned or whatever, do it now. Chuck the junk out of your kitchen cupboards (if you’re worried about ‘wasting’ it, donate it to someone who’ll be grateful of any food, like local homeless charity Turning Tides), schedule your first workout, and start moving forward.

• Waiting until tomorrow just adds another day of looking at that ‘extra layer’.
• Another day of being paranoid about other people looking at you.
• Another day of feeling the uncomfortable bulge on your waistband while you sit in front of your computer screen.

Don’t put it off for another day. Do it now!

Millionaire Success Secret #7
“Never, never, never, never, never, never give up”

Understand, it’ll never go right 100% of the time. Some weeks you’ll not lose any weight at all. Some you’ll even maybe gain a pound or two. And it’s not always through any fault of your own.

Your body has a tonne of survival mechanisms in place, and it regularly needs to reset the homeostasis, so to speak. To set a baseline.

But as my former colleague at Men’s Health, Food Editor Jools puts it, there’s one thing guaranteed NOT to work, and that’s giving up.

And I’m going to leave you with this final thought from Mr Safford:

“To go from good to great requires disciplined people with disciplined thinking and disciplined use of their time.”