FreeYouNow.com

Time For a New Car

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At the beginning of this year I wrote a blog post titled “Free Car From Blogging“, where I described my plans to use my Blog to help me generate enough income to cover the monthly cost of a car payment so that I could essentially get a new car for “free”.

Of course it’s not really “free”, but I just mean that if I could get my blog income to cover my car payment (or more), it would be like getting a free car from blogging.

One of the reasons I wanted to do that is because I really don’t like having a monthly car payment each month.

I don’t know why, but I have never really liked having a monthly car payment.

I have no problem having a monthly mortgage, or a monthly cell phone payment or any number of other monthly payments, but for some reason I’ve always avoided having a monthly car payment.

It’s probably some sort of limiting belief or engram I picked up growing up or something.

In fact over the last 10 years, my wife and I have driven two Mazda 3’s, both of which I paid for in cash so that I wouldn’t have a car payment. 🙂

Both of those cars actually serves us very well, and for the most part we had nothing but a great experience with them over the last 10 years or so.

A few months back, my wife’s Mazda 3 started to have some mechanical issues and we decided that instead of dumping money into trying to fix a car that was starting to break down, we ended up getting a new car for her.

I wrote a short blog post and shot a quick video showing the new car she got a few months ago.  You can check it out by clicking here if you’d like.

After she got her new car I started thinking about what kind of car I would want to upgrade to once I got my blogging income to the point where it would pay for a car payment.

I actually got my blogging income past that point months ago, but I wasn’t 100% sure yet whether I wanted to commit to getting something new or of I should just keep driving my old car for now.

Then, a few months ago I decided to invest in getting a personal trainer to help me get in better shape.

My personal trainer actually comes to my house once a week and trains with me for an hour making sure I’m doing all my workouts properly, with proper form etc.

Of course, this type of 1-on-1 training at home costs money, so THAT has been where I’ve been investing a portion of my blogging income in.

In essence, instead of investing into upgrading my car, I started investing in upgrading my body / fitness / strength level.

At the same time I have been keeping an eye on the car market, looking around to see if there were any cars coming out that I liked and that would fit into my lifestyle.

A few days ago, however, something happened which is now going to accelerate me getting a new car.

I was driving my Mazda 3 and all of a sudden I started hearing a really loud clunking noise when turning and driving around a corner in a parking lot.

I drove the car a little bit more, to see what was going on and the clunking persisted.

When I would drive straight, it was fine, just when I was turning it would make a noise, so I started thinking that perhaps one of my CV joints broke or something.

I managed to drive it home, and then over to my brother’s house for us to take a look at it.

My older brother is basically a self-taught mechanic, so I brought it over to his place for us to take a look.

We parked it over-night, and then yesterday we took the CV joint out but then discovered that it actually wasn’t the CV joint, but rather my transmission / differential.

What that basically means is that the car is pretty much useless now,as the cost to fix a transmission / differential on that car would cost more than the entire car is worth, so there’s really no point in me fixing it.

So what does this mean?

Well, what it means is that I manifested a situation which has lit a fire under my butt forcing me to stop procrastinating and to start looking for a new car.

It’s kind of interesting that I just wrote a blog article not too long ago where I talked about one of my friends wanting a new car and manifesting a similar situations as well.

I’m a little bit sad to see the car I’ve had for over 10 years finally packing it in, but I’m also excited about the new car I’ll be getting soon.

I’m still looking at different options as to which car I want to get, but I’ll keep you guys posted with new developments on this front.

What is exciting though is that with my blog helping me to generate some extra income each month, my car payment will be more than covered, so I’m excited about that.

If you’d like to learn how to start a blog and what it takes to make money blogging, check out this video here.

 

Blog Income Report – July 2015

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It’s time again for another Blog Income Report.

This one is for July 2015.

This month’s report is going to be a bit different from previous ones because this month I launched a second Blog that I’m going to be building out.

Unlike this blog, which is more or less my personal blog where I blog about all kinds of different topics, my second blog is a highly focused niche blog in the tabletop gaming niche.

What I’ve decided to do is to continue blogging on a daily basis, but now my blog posts are going to be spread out over the two different blogs.

I’m trying this out in response to watching my open rates and traffic stats and seeing a trend that perhaps publishing one blog post every single day, 7 days a week, is a bit too much for my readership to consume every single day.

So by splitting my content up across two blogs, I think my readership on each blog will find it easier to keep up with my updates.

Here’s a combined listing of blog posts I’ve written this month on my FreeYouNow.com blog and my TabletopGamer.com blog:

FreeYouNow.com Blog Content Report – July 2015

Here is a recap of all the blog posts I wrote this month:

That adds up to 19 blog posts written for this FreeYouNow.com blog.

TabletopGamer.com Blog Content Report – July 2015

Now here’s a listing of blog posts from my TabletopGamer.com blog:

That adds up to 13 blog posts written for my niche blog.

That’s a total of 32 blog posts this month between the two blogs, which is a bit more than one blog post per day average between the two blogs. 🙂

Blog Traffic Report – July 2015

For my traffic reports I’ve decided to really simply things and just report overall traffic to my Blogs on a monthly basis.

Here’s the traffic reports for my two blogs:

FreeYouNow.com Traffic Jan 2015 – July 2015

My traffic from Jan – July 2015 totaled 22,080 Sessions from 15,936 users, which is an average of 3,154 Sessions per month.

I had a total of 1,994 Sessions in July, which is about 37% less Sessions than my average, which is to be expected since I’ve written about 40% less blog posts this month compared to the previous months.

TabletopGamer.com Traffic Jan 2015 – July 2015

My traffic from Jan –  July 2015 totaled 1,144 Sessions from 867 users, which is an average of 163 Sessions per month.

As you can see I did have some traffic to this old Blog in January and February, and that was mostly from traffic to really old blog posts I wrote way back in 2011.  Then in March / April / May of this year I moved all my content from that Blog to my FreeYouNow.com blog, but then decided to run TabletopGamer.com as a separate blog again at the end of June which is why you see the stats pick up again in June / July.

In July I had 522 Sessions, which is about 320% more traffic compared to the 163 session average, but it’s a bit hard to compare things to an average, since in March/April / May the stats were not counted.

In either case, my combined Sessions from the two blogs in July was 2,516 sessions.

Blog Income Report – July 2015

Okay, so let’s get to the actual blog income report part of this post.

Before I start talking numbers though, just a quick income disclaimer.  My results are not typical, not guaranteed in any way, and you should check out my income disclaimer if that sort of thing floats your boat.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way, here are my stats:

Total Gross Income – $2,996.95

Total Expenses – $706.94

Net Income: $2,290.01

Alright, now that we’ve gotten the stats and numbers out of the way, let’s dive into what’s actually been happening in more detail.

Affiliate Income

My affiliate income dropped for this month as I put a lot of my focus into getting TabletopGamer.com re-launched and setup.

I’ve also been building a team website for my Empower Network team to help my team members make more money blogging faster which has been occupying more of my time.

In the short term this has resulted in me personally producing a bit less in sales this past month, but I know that in the long term this will work in my favor as I get more of my team members making more money with their blogs.

The reason why it works that way is because the way the compensation structure works in Empower Network is that the more money I help my team mates make with their blogs, the more money I make as well.  It’s a win/win type of situation.

If you’d like to learn more about Empower Network and how I make money with it, click on this link here to learn more.

Mentoring / Consulting Income

Not much has changed with my consulting income this month.

I’m continuing on with the contracts I’ve got in place, but I haven’t decided whether or not I want to take on any more consulting clients in the future as I want to primarily focus my time and energy on growing my Empower Network team and my TabletopGamer.com niche blog.

Expenses

I was able to cut down on some of my expenses this month, saving myself around $240 as compared to last month.

This was nice because even though my gross income dropped by around $330, with my expenses dropping by $240 or so, my NET income only dropped by around $110.

My Blogging Goals for July

Here were some of my main goals for June:

  • Re-Launch My TabletopGamer.com Blog – Check!
  • Continue bloggin daily across the my two Blogs – Check!
  • Keep my diet & fitness plan on track – Check!
  • Complete the first 6 lessons for my Empower Network Team site – Check!
  • Re-Launch the TabletopGamer YouTube Channel and Start Publishing Videos – Check!

Summary

To summarize, I’ve been making some changes to my blogging plan this past month or so, re-launching my TabletopGamer.com Blog, and getting my Empower Network team training portal setup with more content.

Both of these things are long term projects which will help to fuel the growth of my business in the future.

My net income dropped slightly this month, but the drop in income is negligible as compared to the value I’ll be creating in the market place with my new blog setup, and the membership site I’m building, so I know this will pay off in the long run.

If you’d like to join my Empower Network team and get mentored by me on how to make money by blogging, click here to learn more.

3 Powerful Things I Learned From Six and Seven Figure Bloggers This Weekend

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This weekend I watched Empower Network’s RISE event which took place in Las Vegas, on a live stream from my living room.

During the event, they brought to the stage about a dozen different speakers who are six and seven figure bloggers in Empower Network.

In the past, when Empower Network has offered a live stream of their live event, I would tune in and take notes like crazy as there’s always so much cool stuff you can learn about blogging from their leaders.

This time around I did something different.

I didn’t take any notes at all.

Instead, I tuned in and watched and listened to each of the speakers that they brought up on stage and I just focused my attention on the following questions:

#1 – What is this person REALLY doing differently from what I’m doing?

#2 – How is this person BEHAVING / ACTING differently from me?

#3 – What is this person FOCUSING on that is different from what I’m focusing on?

#4 – What is this person’s ENERGY / VIBRATION like?

In other words, I didn’t really care what strategies and technical “know how” they were sharing… because honestly I already knew pretty much everything they shared…

However, what I was paying attention to instead was their attitude, their patterns of behavior, their focus (based on what they were talking about), and the energy they were projecting.

After all, there MUST be some kind of difference between someone like me who is currently making a few thousand dollars a month with my blogging efforts and these people who have made six and seven figure incomes from their blogs.

(Please note, their results are not typical, see our income disclosure for average earnings.)

The cool thing about being a part of Empower Network is that you get access to and get exposed to a large number of such people all in one place, so it’s much easier to start spotting the patterns and similarities which they exhibit.

After all, as Tony Robbins says “Success Leaves Clues.”

🙂

Here are THREE of the differences that I spotted from these six and seven figure earners in Empower Network:

#1 – They Have Focused on Destroying a Few Specific Mental Limitations

The first thing I noticed is that these ultra successful bloggers have targeted very specific mental limits that the majority of bloggers self-impose on themselves and then they DESTROYED them.

I’ll give you an example.

During the event one topics that was discussed was video blogging…

… and a group of panelists talked about how they set a goal for themselves in terms of how many videos they want to make in a certain period of time and they hit that goal.

Now, I have to admit that when I heard them say that, I immediately thought about implementing the idea into my blogging regime.

I thought about how I’ve published maybe 30-40 videos in the last 6-7 months, and I thought about what kind of target I could set for myself.

The number that popped up in my head was to create 50-60 more videos within the next 5 months so that I could finish off the year having published about 100 videos.

So the number in my mind was about 50-60 videos in 5 months.

I figured since I’ve already done 30-40 videos in 7 months, it shouldn’t be too unrealistic to do another 50-60 videos in the next 5 months.

Now, before moving onto the next topic, the panel of bloggers was asked how many videos THEY did in a certain period of time and the answers they gave were SHOCKING to me!

What they revealed is that they each have set this completely RIDICULOUS goal that any “normal” or “sane” person would instantly think is impossible, and then they accomplished it!

For example, when three of the panelists were asked this question – two of them revealed that they made 50 videos in under 48 hours, and one of the panelists revealed that she made 90 videos in under 72 hours.

I was shocked!

90 VIDEOS IN 3 DAYS!!!!?????

Now, I’m sure these videos are completely different and much shorter than the ones that I make, but the point is that clearly *MY* mind had this limitation built into it from hanging out with “normal” people who find it hard to shoot even ONE video, let alone 50 in 6 months.  And a “normal” person wouldn’t even consider something like 90 videos in 72 hours.

What these six and seven figure blog earners do, however, is they pick a target like the one I just mentioned in this example and they FOCUS on destroying any and all limitations they find in their minds.

After that, it becomes WAY easier to create 1 video per day on a consistent basis I’m sure…since it completely resets the brain’s wiring to believe that if 90 videos in 72 hours is possible then surely making 1 video per day should be super easy!

I’m definitely going to put my focus on destroying some of these types of beliefs.

#2 – They Focus on Sharing Their Lifestyle With Others WAY More Than I Do

Another huge difference in the belief structures of these six and sever figure bloggers that I found was that they have a totally different perception of what it means to share their lifestyle with others on their blogs.

Meaning, when they get to make money working from the comfort of their own home, instead of having to go to a job – they blog about it and they show pictures of that freedom / lifestyle extensively.

When they purchase a new toy (ie. a new car, new furniture etc.)  or some kind of cool thing they’re excited about, they blog about it extensively.

When they go out to a nice restaurant or some exclusive event, they blog about it extensively.

Now, I do share SOME of that kind of stuff on my blog, but compared to these other bloggers I’m EXTREMELY modest and I hold back a lot.

Unconsciously I’ve realized that I had this belief that by sharing my lifestyle with others on my blog I thought it was a little bit like bragging and showing off what I have and what I’ve accomplished.

What I realized about all these six and sever figure bloggers is that their belief on the exact same subject is TOTALLY different.

They share these lifestyle pictures and blog posts ALL THE TIME because their belief is that when they do this, the message they’re communicating is not “Look what I’ve accomplished and look what I have” but rather “Look what is possible for YOU to accomplish and for YOU to have.”

In other words, I’ve been holding back in sharing a lot of my lifestyle content because I’ve been worried that people might think I’m bragging or they might feel bad about not being able to do some of the things that I’m able to do because of my entrepreneurial lifestyle.

But what I realized today is that by sharing my lifestyle, the right people will become INSPIRED as they see those things I share because the energy behind my posts will always be “Look what’s possible for YOU.”

This was another HUGE difference in focus between what these six and sever figure income earners are doing and what the majority of bloggers who aren’t as successful are doing.

So it’s definitely time to turn up the INSPIRATION level on my future blog posts and to start sharing more of my lifestyle with you guys to help inspire more of you into pursuing YOUR dreams.

#3 – They Push The Limits and Break The Rules

The other thing I noticed about these six and seven figure earners is that they are not afraid to push the limits and to break rules.

They don’t do anything illegal or unethical, but they aren’t bound by “social norms” and what the majority would consider “reasonable”.

For example, the average person is afraid to test the limits of doing certain things, because they’re worried about getting into “trouble” with certain companies or systems.

For example, here’s the profile of one person from today’s event.

This person pushed the limits of what YouTube allows, and while still staying within what is legal and ethical they pushed the limits and they got banned on YouTube for pushing those limits.

In fact they got banned multiple times on multiple accounts.  And now they know what is allowed and what you can get away with and what you can’t on that platform.

This person also did the same thing and pushed the limits on Instagram and got banned on there.  Now they know what they can do on there and they do it.

They also pushed the limits on Pinterest and got banned on there.  Now they know what they can do on there and they do it.

They also pushed the limits on Facebook and got banned on there.  Now they know what they can do on there and they do it.

They also pushed the limits on various autoresponder services and they got banned on almost all of them.  Now they know what they can do on there and they do it.

And this person went on to make over a million dollars as a blogger.

(Results not typical, see our income disclosure for average earnings.)

Why?  Because they’re not afraid to test any self-imposed limits that don’t serve them, as long as they stay within what’s “legal and ethical”.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that everyone should go out there and do stuff and get banned on all these different platforms out there.

What I’m saying though is that there is a difference between “legal and ethical” and “socially acceptable / normal”.

As an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to sometimes push the limits of what’s possible and just blast past what’s “socially acceptable / normal”.

As an example, this one time I walked into a bank with one of my multi-millionaire mentors…

… and he was on the phone with an architect who was working on some floor plans for one of the buildings he was building…

… and that architect needed to fax him some blueprints to take a look at…

… now, the “normal” thing would be to give the architect your office fax number and to get him to fax the blueprints there and then to call him back when you get back to the office after the bank appointment, right?

Well guess what this multi-millionaire did?

He walked up to the nearest bank teller and asked her “Hey, what’s your fax number here real quick?” and she told him the fax number…

… he then proceeded to tell the number to the architect who then faxed over the floor plans…

… then the guy turned back to the teller and asked her if she could please run over to the fax machine and grab the fax with the floor plans…

…which she was happy to do because HE didn’t think it was a weird request at all, and so she didn’t either.

I was there and I couldn’t believe it.

It’s such a small and simple thing, but for some stupid reason I would have never thought to ask a bank teller what the bank’s fax number is and to then proceed to use their fax machine to conduct my business while I’m there – LOL.

This is what I’m referring to.  We all have these STUPID limitations where we limit ourselves with things that are not real limitations – just limitations in our minds.

I mean think about it… is it illegal to get a fax sent over to a bank while you’re there for an appointment?  Of course not!

Is it unethical?  Nope.

Is it “socially normal”?  NO!  Who the heck does that?  Who walks into a bank and borrows their fax machine – LOL.

Well, millionaires do that. 🙂

If you think of ultra successful entrepreneurs like the late Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Bill Gates, they are ALL constantly pushing the limits of what’s possible.

They test limits and they break them.

Sometimes they push too hard and they get in trouble for certain things, but in most cases they are not afraid to push the limits as long as things are LEGAL and ETHICAL.

Now this doesn’t mean that I recommend people go out there and start acting like idiots and doing stupid things and taking uncalculated risks that are not necessary.

But what I am saying is that one of the traits I noticed with these six and seven figure bloggers is that they weren’t afraid to go beyond what is “socially acceptable” as “normal” behavior.

Like if they recorded 90 videos on the topic of personal development in 72 hours they weren’t afraid to post those 90 videos on their facebook wall in less than 3 days, and they didn’t worry about the fact that their friends might find it annoying. 🙂

The “normal” person might think…“Oh, I can’t post 90 videos in less than 72 hours… my friends on Facebook might think I’m weird.”

These six and seven figure bloggers don’t think that way.

Other Things I’ve Learned

There were many other things I learned from observing these six and seven figure bloggers, and perhaps I’ll share some of these things in future blog posts, but I will share one final thing that I noticed that was different about them, as compared to most “normal” people.

The one behavior that they exhibited that most people shy away from is that they weren’t afraid to invest time, money and energy into themselves and their business and to jump on the opportunity to do so when they were offered such an opportunity.

In other words, they made the decision to just get started RIGHT AWAY, without overthinking it, without having to ask permission from others, without allowing doubt to stop them, and they weren’t afraid to take certain risks to go after their dreams and to MAKE things happen.

They didn’t sit around waiting for something to happen.

They MADE it happen.

This was one thing that they ALL had in common.

If you’d like to see a short video from some of these seven figure earners in Empower Network, where they reveal more of their secrets, check out this video by clicking here.

How to Deal With a Very Negative Person

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Nothing destroys creativity and your ability to manifest your dreams faster than putting yourself in the presence of ultra negative people who refuse to take 100% responsibility for their lives and instead just prefer to spew negativity and victim mentality outwards into the world.

I once had an sales rep employee that was SO NEGATIVE and no matter what I tried to say to try to inspire him and to show him the positive side of the coin, he just got more and more negative. He would come into my office and be so negative, and 15mins later he would leave and I would be totally drained. HE would feel awesome though, as I just propped HIS energy up, while he sucked me dry.

After a few weeks of this torture I really didn’t know what to do. I don’t like giving up and firing people, especially since he was actually generating some sales for us, but his negativity was just draining me!

Every time he would come into my office and then leave, I’d be left with this black cloud in my office and my energy would be all fuzzy and depressed for like an hour afterwards unless I left on a break or did some meditating to bring myself back to center.

Then one day I read this article online where the author said that some negative people are like vampires and they just latch onto anyone who is positive and they throw negativity at them and then they wait for the person to try to cheer them up. They suck up that positive energy like a vampire. And the only way to stop it is to STOP trying to make them feel better.

It sounds counter intuitive, especially for people healer-type personalities like myself who always want to help people!

So the advice this author gave was that next time that person comes into your space, and starts spewing negative crap at you, to just mirror it right back to them and even amplify the negativity a bit just for fun!  Don’t go overboard, but just amplify the negativity by like 10% or 20%. 🙂

So that is what I did. This person came into my office and started off with their usual rant about how crappy things are, and I just let him vent and talk, and when he was done, I agreed with him that things do definitely sound horrible and suggested that maybe things are even worse than he described.

He was shocked!

I wasn’t giving him positive energy anymore. He tried a few different angles and threw some more negative things at me based on different topics, and I just continued to mirror the negativity right back and make it even a little bit more negative.

He was shocked and then he got this look on his face.  It was this little smirk almost as if he was thinking “Crap… this guy is onto me.  He figured out that all this time I’ve just been coming in here to drain his positive energy and to suck him dry. Dammit.  He’s onto me!”

Still a little bit shocked, he didn’t know what to do next, so he just got up and left my office disappointed that he didn’t get what he came for.

I felt great!  For the first time my energy didn’t feel drained when he left my office!!!

He didn’t get what he wanted. I didn’t give him my positive energy. So he left. LOL.

Shortly after that he quit. I didn’t even have to fire him. He realized he wasn’t going to get that positivity from me anymore so he just left.

So if you’re struggling with someone like that in your life… whether it’s a relative, or a co-worker or even a customer, and no matter what you’ve tried to do to cheer them up, this person just insists on being negative and you find their presence draining, try this out!

You’ll soon realize that the “relationship” this person has with you is that when they feel drained a little bit, they come to you to suck YOUR energy dry, just as if you were a wall outlet that they plug into in order to recharge their battery.

You’re not doing yourself any favors by allowing that relationship to continue that way, and you’re not doing THEM any favors either.

What they really need to do is to build a connection to Source, to their True Self and to gain access to Universal energy directly, not by sucking it dry from others.

Try it out, and you’ll see what I mean.

As soon as you stop being that positive energy “wall outlet” for these types of people, they’ll just disappear from your life, or at the very least they’ll stop being so negative.

I’m not saying these people are bad people either.  I just think they’ve become disconnected from who they really are, and they found this other way of tapping into that energy by draining it from other people.

Don’t allow it.  Help them by setting a clear energetic boundary to not allow that type of “energy vampire” behavior to continue.

Have you ever had to deal with a person like this?  Or are you dealing with one of these people right now?

Leave a comment below and let me know if you try this very effective method out, and what kind of results you get.

Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 103

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Today I wanted to do a quick update on my diet and fitness plan, and more specifically to share my updated stats from my Aim Skulpt device.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Skulpt Aim device, it’s basically a device that allows you to measure each one of your major muscle groups and test individual “MQ” scores for them.

Here’s a quick chart which explains what “MQ” is.

As you can see from the chart above, an MQ of 80 falls under the “Needs Work” category and looking at the silhouette of the person at 80 MQ we can tell they are obese, and on the other side of the spectrum we have an MQ of 160 which is someone who is completely skulpted, with an MQ of 100 being an average person.

The main benefit of using a device like this is that it allows you to see changes in your body composition which are more accurate and more specific than just weighing yourself on a scale.

I’ve taken two full body measurements so far with the Skulpt Aim.

The first measurement was taken on Day 1 of starting this plan, and the second measurement I took a few days ago on Day 100 of the plan.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two reports for the muscle groups on the front of my body.

Skulpt Aim

 

As you can see I’ve had improvements in my “MQ” all across the board.

The MQ of my shoulders was 97 (right) and 99 (left) on Day 1, and now it’s at 100 for both.

The MQ for my chest (pecs) was 98 (right) and 100 (left) on Day 1, and now it’s at 101 (right) and 102 (left).

As you can see in the chart, pretty much every one of the numbers went up.

This makes sense to me because the biggest part of my plan so far has been focused around strength training with my personal trainer Sam.

Now, let’s look at the stats from the back of my body:

From the muscle groups in the back of my body, the biggest improvement showed up in my glutes as well as my calves.

You can see the exact numbers in the graphic above.

Now, the final chart I’ll share is just the total body average snapshot between the two days.

 

As you can see form the chart above, my average MQ for all the muscle groups was MQ 90 on Day 1, and as of Day 100 I was at MQ 96.

Now, some people may think to themselves “Yeah, but so what?  This device showed you that you had an MQ of 90 and now you’re at 96… what does that tell you?”

Well, depending on what your goals are, to some people these numbers may seem insignificant.

For example, if someone was just looking to lose weight and wasn’t doing any strength training, then tracking their MQ wouldn’t probably be a useful measure.

You could simply just step on a scale and measure your weight and see how much weight you lost.

However, since I’m mainly focusing on strength training with my program right now, psychologically I need to track some sort of measure of progress BEYOND just my weight.

The reason for this is because building muscle kind of works against you in the beginning of a fitness program if all you’re looking at is your weight.

Meaning, by doing strength training I’m actually building muscle tissue which is actually pretty heavy as compared to fat for example.

Therefore, let’s say that I lose 3lbs of fat and gain 3lbs of muscle in a certain period of time, if all I looked at was the scale then my weight wouldn’t even change.  There would be no difference.

And when we don’t see any difference on the scale, we get demotivated!

However, if we could somehow measure that we’ve gained lean body mass, in addition to losing fat, then it becomes more motivating.

Now, technically we can measure total lean body mass by using body fat percentages, but with the Aim Skulpt device it just gives me that extra level of detail and tracking so that I can see how each individual muscle group is responding to my strength training program.

For a gadget geek like myself, this is uber cool stuff.

I love tracking stats and seeing graphs and sleek looking graphics, and if that’s what I need to do in order to get myself motivated to work out, then that’s what I’ll do.

Based on the stats above I have to say I’m very pleasantly surprised.

During my first 100 days of strength training I’ve only done 14 one hour work out sessions with my trainer or on my own so far, which comes out to – on average – about one workout per week.

In addition to that I’ve also done quite a bit of yard work and landscaping outside as well, so I’m sure that contributed to this as well, but in terms of actual strength training workouts, I’ve only done 14 so far!

I definitely still have a long way to go, but I have already lost about 10lbs of fat, my clothes fit better and I’m feeling WAY stronger than I was when I started this journey.

If I can increase my average number of workouts to 1.25 or 1.5 or 2 or 3 workouts per week I’m sure I’ll start seeing results coming in even faster.

But, even if I just keep doing what I’ve been doing so far, I’ll still see results, it’s just that they will take longer to achieve.

For the first time in my life though I’ve been CONSISTENTLY working out for more than 3 months in a row, which is super awesome, and I have to thank my trainer Sam from Ivanco Fitness for that. 🙂