Three Standards to Hold Yourself To

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and this is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. Man, today is May 14, Friday, 05/14/2021. And on Tuesday, if I make it to Tuesday, God will have blessed me with being 42 years of age.

And I gotta tell you, when I was younger, and I I think this is common amongst our community, but when I was younger, I never really planned to get this old. It's not like I thought I was gonna die or anything like that, but I didn't really plan to live past the age of, like, 25 to 28. And so when I reached those ages, there was kind of a there's kind of a lot of confusion on my part as to where I needed to go, what I needed to do, and how to continue life after military service. And I always wonder, you know, why we do that, why so many people in our community fail to plan. Alright?

Because, you know, sure, we we all had a dangerous job. We all were were doing something where we could potentially be killed. But if you actually, like, look at the statistics, the statistics normally show that that, you know, we weren't gonna be killed, that we were going to have to live. And, you know, it's a blessing to to be this age. It's a blessing to have the wisdom that I've gained over the years.

It's a blessing to to be where I am right now. But there were times throughout my years where I thought it was a curse. Right? I I wished and hoped with all my heart that I could be, you know, 18, 19 again, going through boot camp, being in the Marine Corps, being around my friends, being able to be young. And it's kinda like a Peter Pan syndrome.

Right? You don't ever wanna grow up. And I think that, one, having a youthful mentality is a good thing. Right? It's not a curse.

It's not it's not anything that should hold you back. If you think like a young person, possibility. You believe in the ability to move forward. But if you fail to plan for getting older, then what happens is you end up never actually growing up, and you end up never actually becoming the person you should be at any point in life. Right?

And my goal in life is, you know, when I the day I die, I want to be the person that God's plan had for me. Right? I wanna fulfill every potential that God had laid out for me as as I reached the age that he wanted me to reach that potential at. Right? And what I discovered as I got older is that, you know, there's never an age where you don't have possibilities.

Right? You know, I'm sure that that when I'm 80, 90 years old, I'm I'm I'm going to not be doing a lot of the things I'm doing now. But at 42, there's still a whole lot ahead. And I wanna talk to you guys about some of the things that that I found that I needed to continue to work on that I might have neglected as I was younger. And and the first one is this, finances.

Right? Everybody I talk a lot about fitness, and fitness is, I think, more important. You need to take care of your body because the only two assets that you carry on throughout life truly are your body and your mind. But finances are something that that I neglected, and I think a lot of people neglect because it's confusing at times. It seems like it's hard.

It's money is a very painful thing for a lot of people. And when you don't look after your finances, you know, when you're in the Marine Corps, fresh in the Marine Corps or the Army or any other service and you're, you know, taking out loans to buy cars, or you're you're using your credit card at the bar, and you're racking up debt, debt that is gonna carry an extremely higher interest rate, then you're setting yourself up to have a really difficult time when you meet when you reach your mid twenties, late twenties, early thirties. Right? When you're finally out, you're trying to set up your life, that's when that stuff's really gonna come crashing down on you. Because while you're in the Marine Corps, I mean, you don't have to worry about a whole lot of things.

You don't have to worry a whole lot about rent. You don't have to worry a whole lot about bills if you if you don't have tons of tons of bills already when you get in. But if you start racking up that debt, you're gonna have bills. You're gonna have financial pressure, and it's all gonna come crashing down as soon as you get out. So one of the things I would be working on if I were a younger person is is my finances.

I would be figuring out ways to save money. I would be building up a retirement plan. I'd be maxing out my contributions not only to my through a savings plan, but to an IRA. I'd be planning to buy real estate. I'd be sticking my money into things that are gonna make me more money rather than, you know, putting it into my alcohol tab at the bar or, you know, putting it into things that are gonna rust, rot, and depreciate.

And you have so much more ability and freedom to do that as a young person. You know, if you're 18 and you're earning a private salary, well, guess what? That's awesome. That's awesome because you don't have a heck of a lot of bills. You could take most of that money, you could save it.

And as long as you're not spending it on trash, then you could have something really great by the time you get out when you're 22, 23. Right? You could be way ahead of everybody else. All your friends who went to college, you'd be so far ahead of them because they weren't doing nothing to earn money. Right?

They were they were in their bubble. Right? So always remember that. You have an advantage there. So stack your money, take care of your finances, don't take on needless debt, try to buy real estate, try to invest in real estate, and try to learn as much about money saving and investing as you can.

The second thing is what I alluded to before I got into finance, and that is taking care of your body. You know, I'm 42. I roll jiu-jitsu. I lift weights. I run three times a week.

I am constantly looking after what I put in my body, but it wasn't always that way. I was in worse shape when I was 28 years old than I am now at 42. I had a lot of issues. I was smoking cigarettes. I was drinking every day.

I was eating crap. I was never fat. I just don't have that type of metabolism. But asked me to to run or to to fight or to, you know, run up and down stairs or anything like that, asked me to go play around with a few kids, and I would have been heaving up along. I think that far too many of us, we let ourselves go when we get out.

And that's a a really big problem because, you know, when you're in the military, you have people who are holding you to a standard of fitness. Right? Holding you to a standard of how fast you can run three miles, how many pull ups you could do. Right? They're holding you to that standard, so you look out for it.

Right? But when you get out, you don't have anybody outside of yourself to hold you to that standard. So you gotta hold your own. You gotta tell yourself, hey, do I wanna become a shell of the man that I once was, or do I wanna become even better every year? Alright?

And that's what I'm after. I'm after becoming even better. I wanna be in better shape at 50 than I am right now at 42. I wanna keep rolling jiu-jitsu for the rest of my life. I wanna keep lifting weights for the rest of my life.

And those are because of choices that I made to invest in this. Right? And I'll tell you right now, I've been through a lot of other types of stress, financial stress, family stress, you know, health problems not related to not taking care of myself, but genetic health problems. And being in shape is what helped me through all that. Being able to go for a three mile run to reduce my stress, being able to to go hit the gym and lift some weights to reduce my stress, You know, having a strong body so that this horrible disease that I have doesn't completely waste me away.

Right? Making sure I'm putting good food in about into my body so I could think clearly about how to get myself out of the trouble that I was in. Right? All that led to me being able to do that. So you guys really do need to take care of those most valuable assets, your mind and your body.

Third thing is this, get good people in your life. Right? Far too many of us, we get out or or even while we're in, we surround ourselves with toxic people. We surround ourselves with people who don't contribute to our lives. They take away from our lives.

We surround ourselves with people who aren't going anywhere. Right? You need to find people who are going out and doing things, people who you might even be a little bit uncomfortable around because they're so accomplished. And I'll tell you right now, if I didn't know the people I know, if I didn't have the friends that I have, I would be nowhere right now. I wouldn't have this job I'm in.

I would not have ever been involved in the fitness industry. I would never have been able to purchase my house. I would not be anywhere if I didn't have valuable people in my life. And prior to to being able to to think this way, I was surrounding myself with some really bad people. I married a person who who, frankly, I did not mesh well with.

Right? I was I was surrounding myself with people who who were, you know, kinda tearing me down. And I didn't figure that out till way later in life, that it's the people you surround yourself with that that truly make up who you are. So get out there, find good people. Right?

Find mentors. Find people who are who are where you where you wanna be in two or three years. Right? Think about that. Think about how your life would change.

Alright? And if you do these three things that I'm talking about here, I'll tell you right now, five years from now, you're gonna be in an amazing position. I don't care what age you are. I don't care if you're in your forties. I don't care if you're in your teens, twenties.

Five years from now, you'll be in an amazing position if you do these three things. So that's all I got for you guys this week. I'm gonna go hit the weekend. I'm gonna go celebrate my birthday with a massive run and a workout and some jiu-jitsu sessions, And then I'll be back at you next week with some more awesome content. This is Chris Albert with Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.