60 days of GYM (Day 5)

Lately I've been finding myself working ridiculous hours both on my company and in my role as being a lifestyle support worker. I've pretty much devoted my life to making change in the lives of people with disabilities. I found that if I work myself too hard I only end up becoming less and less effective because I don't have the brain power left to make the right decisions any more.

Long story short, I've decided that I need to make more of an effort to look after myself. I set myself the goal to go to the gym as much as possible (within reason) over the next two months. I started on the 1st of this month, and I was surprised to see how much change it made straight away. I hadn't slept properly for about 4 days and after just 1 hour 30mins in the gym, I slept like a log for 12 hours straight. I woke up feeling so good the next morning I felt like going to the gym again the next day (until I tried to get up and realised how sore my whole body was).

My second gym session was on Wednesday 3rd, I was testing out my limit on the bench press when a friend of mine from the gym started pushing me. Turns out my limit is 1 rep at 60kg. I'm 105kg so I've got a while to go to be able to bench press my own body weight. I started to give myself a little pep talk in my head and thought if I can lose 15-20kg (how much I've put on in the last few years) I would only need to bench press about another 25kg and I'd be pressing my bodyweight. I am not sure if I will ever get there but I figure why not aim high.

My 3rd session was this morning and I felt like I was really crushing it but had to shoot of after an hour to get some jobs done.

I figured I'd start posting on here about how I'm going with this so that my #GAS buddies can harass me if I don't keep it up. My starting stats are as follows:

Weight: 105kg
Waist: 42 inches
Bench press: 60kg

These are what I want to focus on.

Now to work on the diet, any suggestions? I'm aiming to lose about 10kg in 2 months. With 3 days gym a week.

If we've never met before, make sure to say hi to me on twitter @rhyscooper

Rhys Cooper's goals for January 2010

Tonight was the first official GAS (goal accountability session) of the year and it was off to a great start. I'd fill you in on everyone's goals, but some things in life a private, and "what is discussed at GAS stays in GAS".

I can however fill you in on what I personally set for myself as my main goal to achieve by the end of next month. As you might know, I have been making some progress on the Doo Phone deal which should secure the release of the Doo Phone software within the next couple of months. This is a huge thing for me personally and I have set myself the goal of making sure that I make sure that everything continues to move along according to plan. When there is so much to get done I feel that I need to make sure that I don't get caught up on any of the small details and keep my eye on the bigger picture which is getting the solution into the hands of the people who need it the most. This is not to say that I should move forward at all costs, I still have to make sure that I negotiate a good deal that is going to ensure the future of the project.

Tonight also got me thinking of a couple of other things that I need to make some moves on. I've been sitting on a couple of ideas that I really want to try that are based around generating a passive income with an ultimate aim of limiting the amount of risk and capital investment to as close to zero as possible. I'll talk more about this concept after I've tested it more, but basically it involves re-working the delivery of product A to consumer B by changing the point of purchase and trying to secure an ongoing distribution contract with a parent company (That sort of thing). It's my first proper idea on generating an automated passive income, not sure how it's going to go.

The second thing I have been paying more attention to lately is getting over my fear of trying to build my own personal brand through www.rhyscooper.com and starting to think about possible video blogging and an idea I have for reviewing household products from a disability usability perspective.

Still need to work on remembering to take more photos for this blog also. Word on the street is that a couple of people have looked at my site but I haven't had much love with Google Analytics, I think I'll go work on that again now.

New Zealand winter 2010

My New Years resolution of making positive change in my disability clients lives no matter what is already looking to be starting to make it's way into the way I am planning out my year.

I started thinking about the things that make day to day life really good and I realised that I am always more energetic and positive when I've got something to look forward to (particularly holidays). And I realised that whenever I have clients who are going to be going on a holiday they are super excited and upbeat from the point of planning until the time comes and they fly off. Then when I looked at how long it's been since some of the guys I work with had been on a holiday, I figured it was time to make something happen.

I've put together a plan and submitted a proposal to my managers, but I've still got a long way to go. I'm planning a 10 day holiday to New Zealand's north island in the second half of June. My itinerary has us moving around nearly every day to see everything around the upper north island. I am thinking it might be a better idea to try to stay in the one place maybe near Rotorua and then we can drive out to all the attractions each day and not have to worry about luggage etc.

Either way, progress is being made and I've got a massive list of wants from the guys I'm planning to take so I'd best get back to the drawing board and start inserting some more numbers into this budget.

If you've got any good ideas on things to do on New Zealand's north island, feel free to let me know.

Crushing it in 2010

"Going for the impossible" - Rhys Cooper

Boom! the fireworks are over, you've probably gotten over your hangover by now and are back at work sitting in your cubicle again doing exactly what you were doing last month. But is this really what you want? Did you sit down and have a look over the last year to see if you would have done anything differently?.... I did and this is what I came up with.

My year 2009 in point form.

The good:

• I won and international award
• I raised startup capital investment for my company Orange Dot
• I started to crush my goals by sitting down with likeminded awesome people through our "Goal Accountability Sessions"
  
• I went to some places I've never been before (New Zealand, Brunei, Malayisa Borneo, Thailand & London)
• My relationship with *shewhomustnotbenamedontheinternet* grew in leaps and bounds

The Not So Good

• I let myself get too stressed out over things that didn't matter
  
• I could have managed my time better
• I failed to build my website & blog

On the whole, I'm pretty proud of my acheivements in 2009. But I think I can do even better in 2010.

I've decided that I am going to take a new tactic this year with more focus on wholistic planning. I find that if I have great things to look forward to in my personal life it makes it much easier to acheive my entrepreneurial goals.

In 2010 I will:

• Make the Doo Phone publicly available
  
• Be completely debt free by the end of the financial year (June 30)
• Travel Europe for at least 4 weeks (October-November)
  
• Make positive change in my clients lives (through the disability support work I do)
  
• Expand my contribution to the disability support community through new projects
• Build my own brand & internet presence through www.rhyscooper.com