Contest negativity

Hey, One Shot Universe. How you doing? Just want to give you some quick reflections on something that happened today before it moves. I had some run-in with some negativity and it's had a profound impact. I'm sitting here eating dark chocolate M&Ms and a coffee. Trying to dig my way out of it. When we started the process, I told you to be honest. On Friday, I had a great conversation with a guy. He walked up out of nowhere and said, man, thank you. I've been following your journey. What I loved was your honesty and how you've talked about how you've overcome things. I really liked that because that's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to just track my bodybuilding attempt. I wanted to try and track some of the difficulties and challenges that you have when you're pursuing a dream. And that was the whole aim of the project, was to try and do that. So I went up there, did 4 classes, which is a phenomenal amount. People, the organizers, people don't do 4 classes. They do 1, at the most 2. They were surprised. I just was on stage, off stage, on stage, off stage, on stage, off stage, 15 minutes, boom, on stage again. They were astounded I had the stamina for it. But I got off, finished my last one. I don't know how I went. I think I probably did well in 2 out of the 4, but I got off the stage and someone that I know, it was just very negative about how it'd gone. I don't mind honesty. Honesty's good, but honesty's good if it's constructive and it's feedback to grow. But, so, you know, I'm on an absolute downer. So, you know, 2 years of training, particularly 9 months of getting ready for this particular date, overcoming major health issues, seeing health reversals, 2 strained hamstrings, torn lat muscles, Torn hip flexors. I mean, one thing after another, major financial catastrophes. I've overcome a bunch of stuff and to walk off stage and not see it coming, it just caught me off guard and it really took a toll. If you allow someone else to define your world for you, they'll always make it too small and you've got to be very careful. when you're in a position of going for a goal to limit the exposure to the voices that speak into your life. Now, sometimes, like I did today, I didn't account for it. Now, please don't write comments about sucking it up and going again because that'll just piss me off and I'll just delete them. I understand the psychology of it all, but it doesn't matter who you are. These things catch you off guard and they throw you and you've got to bounce back up. It's not that you're impervious to them. It's that you choose to rise above them. That's where the key to overcoming lies because in our humanity, we are always going to be caught aback and have to take a swing. So how do you overcome those things? Well, I'll talk about some of that a little bit later on today. But I don't know what the results are today, but I do know I'm sitting here struggling emotionally, mentally because of comments that were said. So even regardless of what the results are, if the results are really negative, then I've got a whole different thing to deal with. If they're really positive, then I'll instantly not remember this, if you know what I mean. That's why I wanted to capture it because I'm really battling. And you just have to be careful. I had a friend call me from Texas. She's done a lot of work and she was just really encouraging. So, you know, that sort of balanced it out a little bit, but it doesn't. See, what's surprising is once it gets in you, you can't get the thing out. It's just in your head because that emotion, especially if you're on the back end of having worked so hard. So Dark chocolate M&M peanuts. Brand new. Probably the greatest invention in the history of candy. Probably in the world. Nobel Peace Prize stuff, you know what I mean? Up there with all the greats like Al Gore. Oh, that's right. Cheers.