Why I started lifting weights to punish myself
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It was Christmas of 1999 in Los Angeles, California, just two days before my 21st birthday. I was home from UC Irvine, studying to be an engineer. The house phone rang in the middle of the night. (We had landlines in those days...) It was my uncle. Weird because my Tio Jose never called. "Is your brother home?" he asked in broken English. "No." "You need to get over as fast as you can." Uh-oh, I thought. My drug-dealing, gun-carrying uncle's in trouble again. As I drove over, I could hear Christmas carolers in the distance. I was scared and not sure what to do. I wished my brother was there to help, since he was the tough one in the family. So, I made do and grabbed a screwdriver from my car to protect my uncle. But as I pulled up to the house, I saw a police car parked in the driveway. Sh#t! My uncle's going to jail... But wait. He wasn't in handcuffs. And the officer was staring at me. He walked over, the sound of his boots piercing the silence of the night. "Are you Tony Arreola?" "Yes," I responded. "Is Richard Arreola your brother?" Then he said the words that would change my life forever: "You need to call the coroner's office." Losing my younger brother sent me into an uncontrollable tailspin. Alcohol. Rage. Anger. All wrapped up into one devastating package. My life, my purpose, and the electric circuits of my engineering degree instantly lost their meaning. I just didn't care anymore. I was broken. Then, as we were getting ready for my brother Richard's funeral, I stumbled upon his weight set. He loved to work out. I didn't... But I started lifting his weights anyway. I wanted to punish myself. I was grieving, and I wanted to hurt as much physically as I was hurting mentally. But then, something unexpected happened. The physical pain from the workouts actually felt good. It became an anchor. It was the only thing that allowed me to process the chaos and pull myself out of the dark place I was trapped in. I'm sharing this with you today because those weights didn't just save my life, it gave me the exact blueprint you need to survive the chaos of your own. Since that Christmas night, I gave up engineering to pursue my true calling. I took the exact physical anchor that pulled me out of the abyss and engineered it into a system for high-achievers called the 5 Daily Dominos. You might not be dealing with a devastating loss right now, but you're likely paying a massive Exhaustion Tax every day. I help professionals rebuild their physical foundations so they stop feeling like living ghosts. We don't just add workouts to your calendar; we literally rewire your biological alarm system so you run like a Swiss Watch. The path to growth is uncomfortable... But only giving your family the leftover scraps of your energy is much worse. If you keep your eye on your own true reason for changing, winning the Life Game becomes inevitable. We don't get any extra days in this life, so let's stop running on an empty tank...
PS: Finding that weight set gave me a physical anchor when my life was in chaos. To help you build your own anchor, I went into my private client vault and pulled out my 5-Minute Miracle Morning routine. It’s a simple, willpower-free system to clear the morning fog and physically prime your body for the day. [You can download it for free right here.] |