Over the last few years I've become a new man. How? Well, I'm finally becoming congruent with my thoughts and my body. I've shed over one hundred and forty unwanted pounds of fat. A new lease on life and a new attitude toward the gym, as well as a drastically revised relationship with food have combined to achieve huge results for me.

At my biggest I was 425-diabetic, near death and certainly no where near being able to bench press anything or hop on a treadmill for sixty minutes. Now I spend at least an hour a day at the gym and I'm feeling incredible with the results improving every aspect of my life.

This might seem like I'm giving myself a big pat on the back. Well, sort of, I suppose. I'm proud of myself, for sure, but my interest in talking about this has more to do with wanting to discuss patience, perserverance and self persuasion. These are all muscles which can be built up (just like a bicep).

Learning persuasion is very similar to workout out body's muscles. One three hour workout once every other week is much less beneficial than short, frequent periods of study/exercise.

Even putting the research aside, how easy is it to section off ten or fifteen minutes a couple of times a day as opposed to carving out a huge chunk of time to "cram" the information in?

For some of us patience is a four letter word. We're movers, shakers, doers, persuaders. We get things done because we don't take no for an answer. And here comes the but. . . But, I implore you to be patient with yourself. Some things come easier to some people, some things come slower. Persuasion is so multidimensional, such a layered and rich body of knowledge that there's very little possibility of learning it and utilizing it all at once.

Despite persuasion being a somewhat dense subject, I'm constantly working to streamline the process of learning it (having made some significant advances). Learning it is ongoing. Research in the plasticity of the brain and the mind/body connection are showing us to be on the frontier of a very exciting body of knowledge.

That's a lot to digest. (Back to the food metaphors!)

With our intentions set, with our paths illuminated, we set out to add layer upon layer of persuasion muscle to our work lives, our personal lives and our public lives. Slowly, but surely we will build our persuasion arsenals into tight, toned, compact, (or bulky, depending on your taste), versatile, strong, and powerful tools. I can't tell you how much it thrills me to be your persuasion personal trainer.