I am grateful to have experienced some really cool accomplishments in my life. I have benched 600 or more raw in three different weight classes, I benched 900 equipped, held an all-time world record bench, and I have lost and kept off over 100 lbs. Do you know what they all had in common? Each accomplishment took me countless years.

In this world of instant gratification, it seems like a lot of people don't want to put in the time. Whenever I'm speaking to a group I love to explain how it took me three years to go from a 585 raw bench to 600. Yeah, I hit a point where my gains were only five pounds per year. However, that fifteen-pound grind over three years to finally hit an elusive 600-pound bench was f'n glorious.

Strength takes time. Sure, most people make fast gains as beginners and even intermediates. But after you have been pounding away for the better part of a decade or longer, those gains come slowly. You earn every ounce and that is crazy gratifying.

I can't begin to tell you how many people reach out to me regarding their weight loss journeys. Yet with all I have put out there, I'm shocked by how many people completely miss the point of mine. Most everyone wants to take off massive amounts of body weight in just a few months. At that point, I tell them I'm really not the person to talk to.

With having lost over 100 pounds, I get a lot of people telling me I'm lucky I don't have any loose skin, or that I was able to maintain so much muscle and a good deal of strength. Nope, luck had nothing to do with it, time did. I took eight years to lose that hundred plus pounds.

When you take time to do things and have to calculate and labor over them, you appreciate them more. You learn a great deal as a result. You also won't get so easily discouraged. I'm not telling anyone they can't do something more quickly and be successful, I can only tell people my tale with my successes.

Good luck to all and thanks for reading.