Articles

Earlier this month, I found myself thinking - how did I get here?
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​I studied to become a personal trainer in 2008. I started working in a gym the following year.
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Back then, social media was nowhere as prevalent as it is today, and my intention was to simply do something I was interested in, that seemed to pay a little better than the $20 hourly rate that pulling beers at a pub would, while I studied something that I considered to be 'more substantial' at university.
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While I'd always taken an interest in fitness and training at the gym - I thoroughly enjoyed PDHPE during my final years of high school - it was never something that really took centre stage in my life.
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That was, until it did.
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Over the following two to three years, as my business grew and my interest in training increased, my priorities began to change.
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My interest in university & the commerce degree I was pursuing declined rapidly as I began to throw more and more of myself into the gym and understanding how to better help my clients.
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The childhood dream of playing cricket for Australia began to melt away as I made decisions that would better allow me to utilise my time for things that were lighting me up at the time.
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Before I knew it, I was training for my first physique show, spending my nights scouring the internet for the 'secret' to getting super lean and how to go about building even more muscle, using the knowledge I was gaining to train my clients and grow my business.
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One show turned into two, and then into three.
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Social media started to become more important, and I was able to use my platform to blog about my experience of getting to that third show whilst eating ice-cream every day.
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When flexible dieting wasn't really a thing, that approach turned more than a few heads.
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Shortly after that show, I signed on as an Optimum Nutrition sponsored athlete - the same company that had been synonymous with the fitness industry for as long as I could remember, and the brand of the very first tub of protein I ever purchased.
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While in hindsight this didn't do a great deal for my self-worth as I very quickly began to attach it to my success on social media & the number of followers I was accumulating (which fortunately I have since worked through), what it did do was open a number of doors for me.
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I've been extremely fortunate to travel to Melbourne, Ohio, LA, Las Vegas, Chicago & London - all with Optimum Nutrition.
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I've managed to connect with people I would never have had the opportunity to meet, or talk to. I've visited places I wouldn't think to visit, met some incredible human beings, experienced new things, and trained in some of the coolest gyms in the world.
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And then, in early Feb of 2022, I found myself in Eugene Teo's personal gym, smoke machine cranking, with a half-million dollar robotic camera doing its thing while I lift weights.
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If you'd told me that this is something I'd be doing some 13 years down the track, I'd have laughed in your face & told you there was no way that would happen, even if I badly wanted it to at the time.
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Eugene's gym, by the way, is phenomenal. He's done a spectacular job, and is an incredible human being. If you don't already follow him, I'd highly recommend doing so, because the way he present himself on social media, is exactly how he is in real life.
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I love seeing guys like that seeing the success they are - he's one of the really, really good ones.
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​How. Did. I. Get. Here?
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To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this email is, but what I do know is that you never really know what may come of the decisions you make.
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You can never really know just how much joy, how much excitement or how much positivity a decision you make could bring into your life.
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You can never really know just how much a single decision, or a single opportunity could enhance your life.
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If there's one thing I'd love to encourage you to do, it's to take a chance.
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Do the thing, take the chance, make the move.
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Approach the girl/ guy, interview for that job, and stop thinking about whether or not it's the right thing to do.
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When it comes to big life decisions - and I'm certainly not talking about training or dieting any more - we often tend to be super 'glass half-empty'.
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​What if things go badly? What if it doesn't work out? What if I hate it?
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​But what if things go exceptionally well? What if it works out better than you'd ever imagined? What if you absolutely love it?
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​By not making a decision, or by putting off making a decision - you are still making a decision.
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​You don't have to commit yourself to a fitness competition or a powerlifting meet, or even make this in any way remotely related to fitness or the way that you look.
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You have the power to make incredible decisions that could be extremely impactful on your own life.
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Wouldn't it be cool to one day think to yourself - how did I get here?
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If you've made a decision in your life that led to something positive, I'd love to hear about it.
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Hell, I'll even throw the responses together and post it as a blog on my site underneath the contents of this email, so we can all share in the positivity that life has to offer.
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If you're willing to share, just send me a reply, I'd love to hear from you.
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Something I tell my clients often, is that they always have control of the next decision they make.
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Go into this week with that in mind, and you'll be unstoppable.
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Happy Valentines Day 
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- N