Creating Your Mindset: Interview with Alwyn Cosgrove

This past weekend I attended the Results Fitness Biz Seminar.  It’s the second time I’ve been to this seminar.  The one thing that never changes no matter what I do or where I’m at is the need for a better mindset.  That’s why the underlying theme to almost all of my posts is mindset.  And it just so happens the first topic Alwyn covered in the seminar was mindset.  Mindset.  Mindset.  Mindset.  Hammer it home.  Why?  Because it is the foundation.  You can’t build a solid house on top of a shaky foundation.  And you can’t build a successful life without the right foundation of your mindset.

I had the chance to sit down with Alwyn at the end of the seminar to pick his brain about what a good mindset is, why is it important and what is the first step to developing your mindset.

Enjoy…

WWC: The first thing you talk about in your business seminars is mindset?  What are characteristics of a good mindset?

AC: It’s really about being positive.  It’s about the basketball story or the soccer story.  And is that the movie that runs.  I remember talking to a lady when I was having chemo and I told her we’re not Superman, we’re Batman, we don’t have super powers.  And you gotta fucking work.  She didn’t realize Batman didn’t have super powers.  This was in ’04 around the time when Batman Begins was coming out.  So I told her, “when we get out of here I’ll go and see it with you.”  And she said, “yeah if I make it that long.”  And honestly, Chad, that never crossed my mind.  I never thought I wasn’t going to make it.  That’s the way you have to think.  And you have to train that.  You have to train it every day.  If you catch yourself saying, I’d take the 3-point shot then you gotta slap yourself and cancel that.  You’re a winner.  It sounds like positive thinking but it’s more than that.  It’s an absolute real belief system in what you’re doing.

WWC: How does mindset play a role in someone’s success?

AC: Because without it everything else that I teach and everything else that you do in your life is built off this negative base.  And we can’t really build anything off of that.

WWC: What is the first step someone should take to changing their mindset?

AC: Plant something positive when your subconscious is the most fertile and the most ready for programming.  The first 15 minutes when you wake up in the morning and the last 15 minutes before you go to sleep.  You’ll understand if you hear a song on the radio first thing in the morning and then it’s stuck in your head all day that’s because your brain was ready to be programmed.  And in the evening before you go to bed, if you watch CSI or Law and Order, you put these negative images in your head.  The last image that goes into your head is that there’s a killer on the loose.  And then you don’t sleep as well.  But if you listen to a personal development CD or read a personal development book you’re planting good things in your brain.  It’s like a garden, so when you plant good things that’s what grows.

WWC: How often do you work on your mindset?

AC: It needs constant training.  It’s like taking a shower.  It doesn’t stay with you.  You have to do it every day.

WWC: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

AC: Keep your fucking hands up!  That was before I went into a fight.  Will that work?  But honestly, I don’t know who said this first – the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary.  That was an important one for me to understand.  The other one is that sometimes you gotta jump and the net will appear. You gotta have an absolute positive belief to take action because you’re never gonna be 100% sure.  But the best advice is still probably step in and cover.

You can follow Alwyn on his Facebook page Alwyn Cosgrove Fan Page or learn more about Alwyn at AlwynCosgrove.com, his gym’s site Results Fitness, or through his new book The New Rules of Lifting for Abs.

Happy Wednesday!

(Chad)

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