It's 9AM

Are You Ready to Get After It?

Chris Lowry

Jun 22, 2023

If you are chasing a vision, you don’t have time to be depressed.

Arnold said it.

I’ve heard it before too.

A clear cut goal built through hours of visualization becomes concrete reality through relentless focus.

He called being depressed “bullshit” but I wouldn’t go that far.

I would say that when I’m chasing the dream, building the business, going for the goal, it’s tough to focus on anything else.

Which fits.

I watched ARNOLD on Netflix last night after four hours of mowing, weeding, hedging and tacking down landscape fabric.

It was 90+ and my day “off” when I usually work on stuff that is supposed to take me away from the JOB.

But my Do This Today list was written on Sunday, so I know it was important for it to be done.

Not to me.

Yard work is busy work, and not something I enjoy.

Except for the rabbits and pissing off the neighbors.

I am sometimes an accidental environmentalist, and spraying chemicals and treatments all over the grass went by the wayside when we moved in.

The green carpet of grass that looked like almost everyone elses on the block slowly got replaced with what happened here naturally before it became a subdivision.

Some weeds. Some berries. Some clover.

Lots of clover.

And that more natural lawn brought in the rabbits.

Which I like to watch nibbling away on the clover.

Or berries.

No carrots though.

I did suggest we put a pool in the front yard, which is three times the size of the back.

No one else went for that idea.

I mean, the way our back yard is set up, the neighbors can look down into it anyway, which gives us zero privacy.

Swimming in the front yard would almost be the same.

(Except for insurance, which would sky rocket because of liability of randoms jumping in the pool)

So I did yard work, and showered and sat down to hydrate with a gallon of water and a show.

Arnold.

Which I recommend if you are a fan of the man.

If you are not, the things that you don’t like about him are front and center in this piece, so do something else.

But I liked how calculated his trajectory was.

Even if a lot of it was the myth of becoming “Arnold.”

Worked out, worked his ass off and saved until he could buy an apartment building to live in one, rent out the other.

Leverage that and his contest winnings into more real estate until he was a millionaire, all while making bodybuilding the norm in a decade where skinny dudes were the rage.

Turn to acting where he wanted to be “The Star” and not just a guy who acted, and had the money to wait.

Which got me thinking about advice Papaw gave me when I was very young, and very dumb.

Even as they advised the paper mill route, or a teaching degree at college, he said to get my first rental as fast as I could.

Buy it before a house.

He suggested a duplex.

Which I should have done.

But I picked a different path.

I try not to spend too much time second guessing the choices that led to this exact moment, because some of those choses have given me skills and experiences most people only dream about.

Or have nightmares, depending on your perspective.

I look at it like this.

I am alive.

Mostly mobile, though the aches and pains of early decisions sometimes like to catch up with me as reminders.

I am of sound mind.

Which is debatable.

And I have a big hairy audacious goal.

More than one.

And a realization.

I’ve got time.

Time to do all of it, time to make it happen, because I’ve got another three decades or more to Get After It.

A few new books each year, a few movies made as indies, some real estate and urban development in a town I still call home.

A long list of ideas I can envision as goals, I can visualize how to make happen and time to get it done.

Just eat beef to stay healthy.

Run every day to stay fit.

Sauna to decrease stroke and heart disease risk, and a gallon of water every day to keep everything flushed and running.

9AM

It's 9AM

Are You Ready to Get After It?

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