Alive In The Time Of Coronavirus With Angelo Ennis

by | Apr 1, 2020 | Podcasts | 0 comments

GCM 107 | The Time Of Coronavirus

 

Whether you’re extremely at risk or not, it’s undeniable that the time of coronavirus has left the world shaken and seemingly on pause, but that’s never an excuse. If anything, the time of coronavirus is the best time to figure out what’s next for you and begin acting on those goals. Personal trainer Angelo Ennis is the Founder, CEO, and Master Trainer at FOCUS Performance. Rodney Flowers talks to Angelo about keeping yourself alive, active, and ready to rise in the time of coronavirus. Don’t let coronavirus limit your world. Only you have the right to decide where your limits lie.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Alive In The Time Of Coronavirus With Angelo Ennis

This is going to be a little bit different than the normal blog. I wanted to come on and create a blog around the topic of the coronavirus. I’m not fearful. I’m not afraid. I’m not in a place of uncertainty. Although I know that there’s a lot of that going around, which is the reason why I wanted to do this. I want to talk about how I’m responding to this situation and offer some advice on how to thrive in a situation like this. I want to provide some benefits because there are some benefits too in the situation that we’re going through. I have seven benefits that I want to share about this issue, this challenge, this situation that is plaguing the nation. I believe that when challenges and opportunities present themselves, we have a decision to either view them as challenges, as debilitating effects on our lives, and perhaps our goals, dreams, objectives and missions in life. We can utilize these things as launching pads, as tools, or vehicles to help us advance towards those goals, those objectives.

Sometimes, new objectives and bigger visions could come up because of these things. You have to have an open mind. You have to be able to see. You have to have the vision beyond the resistance, which allows you to look past the challenge, the situation and the obstacle. I wanted to talk about that and I’m going to offer up two major benefits to this situation. I have seven but we’re only going to talk about two. I’m going to give you some details on how if you want it to be a part of a webinar that I’m going to be conducting about this issue and get all seven steps. I’m going to give you some details about how to be a part of that so you want to read through the entire blog. I’m going to do something very special as well. I’m going to have someone join me. Someone from the local area where I’m stationed out of, and I’m going to let you learn how this person is responding to the coronavirus.

This is a business owner in the local area and I’ll give you some more details about this person in a little bit. Before that, I want to dive into some things that we can do, some benefits of the situation that we’re in. I want to shed some light on how this could be a benefit to us all, your world, your situation, where you are right now in life. This is not something that you should feel uncertain about. I know there’s a lot of uncertainty around this situation. There’s a lot of fear that this situation is causing, but I want to give you two benefits of this situation and I want you to focus on the benefits. I’m going to give you two and I have five more, which we’re going to talk about in the webinar, but before I even give you my benefits from this, I want you to think about what could be some potential benefits for you as a result of this situation. It takes discrediting or ignoring a lot of the media, a lot of the things that people are saying about this, maybe some of the negative things that are happening. It takes opening your mind to some possibilities that could come out of this because there are a lot of them.

If you do some research, you’ll find that whenever difficult times have occurred in this country, they’re often followed by something very positive, some major advancement. It’s been seen in real estate. It’s been seen in the stock market. It’s been seen in other areas. It’s been seen personally in my own life. I’m going to share some of that with you, with these two benefits, but I want you to open your mind to what are some of the positive effects, what are some of the good things that can come out of this? Doing that will allow your vision to widen. It would open up your perspective towards what’s going on. It’s important to do that because the media and people in your environment can become fearful that all they think about is all of the negative connotations that come out of this, the negative effects and the negative impacts.

All of the things that are happening that don’t serve you, don’t support your goal, don’t support your mission, don’t support who you want to be in the world, how you desire to show up in the world. It doesn’t support your goal and that’s what I call a distraction. That’s the distraction in the game. Anything that is not supporting where you’re trying to go, whether it’s, self-talk, talk among your team, talk this on in your environment, talk this through the media. It could be all of the things that are happening that are negative.

Those things are distractions and they put doubt and fear in you. You start doubting some of the things that you want to do, places that you want to improve within yourself. Those things are affected. You have to be careful and guard yourself about what’s going in because you have to stay positive, you have to stay focused on the things that are going to support your goals and your visions. It is the time where that outside information can become a threat to your support system. It can become a threat to your psyche, how you’re feeling about yourself, about what you’re doing, and where you want to go. We don’t want to damage the support systems that we have by allowing that negative information to come in and taint the foundation that we already have. We have to be careful what we’re allowing to come in, at the same time, we want to understand how the installation or the situation that’s going on would cause us to advance. That’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the benefits of the coronavirus because we can focus on the benefits.

Once we begin to focus on those things, we can use the situation to take us further down the field to advance. That’s what I want you to focus on. I want you to focus on advancing. I want you to focus on how is something like this, which can seem so bad could cause me to advance. Having that mindset, that’s the Game Changer Mentality. I want to offer up two major benefits of this and I’m going to bring someone who is a business owner in the local area. We’re going to find out what this person is doing because businesses are being impacted by this. We’re going to find out what that person is doing to advance and continue their business to keep their mind in the right place, to stay in the game, keep their head right, what are they doing in their environment. What are they doing, in general, to deal with the situation?

The first benefit is the opportunity of possibility. You may say, “Rodney, what do you mean by the opportunity of possibility?” When something like this happens, it’s very important to keep your eyes open on what are some possible things. What are some things that within this situation can cause you to advance? That may not be evident at the beginning. This may require you to get creative and that’s the beauty of this. If you’re distracted by everything that’s going on, you’re not going to take the time to be creative. You’re not going to put yourself in a position where you can identify what are some opportunities? What are some innovative ways that you can keep moving? I was talking to my mentor not long ago and he was telling me about Zoom. I don’t know if you know about Zoom. It is a video teleconferencing software that’s been out for years. I’ve been using it for years and he was telling me how Zoom went public. The reason why they went public is because of the situation.

A lot of people started jumping on Zoom to continue to connect and engage with each other. As a result, they felt that this was the best time for them to go public. The stock was at $1 before all of this happened. Soon as this hit, they went public stocks at $8. I didn’t know about it. No one knew about it, but Zoom took advantage of this situation and this is going to have a lasting effect on the economy and businesses. They’re going to continue to use Zoom. You’ve got to ask yourself, “What are some innovative ways that I can keep moving forward as a business and as an individual?” You’ve probably heard a lot of motivational speakers. They always talk about the why. You’ve got to have the why. You know that’s going to drag you forward and that is true. Always got to have a reason for doing what you’re doing, but with all of this that’s going on, you’ve got to start asking yourself, “How?” That is the question. How can I continue to advance my business? How can I continue to serve my people? How can I continue to make a profit? How can I continue to keep going? How can I continue to reach my milestones?

When challenges present themselves, you have to utilize those as launching pads to help you advance to your goals. Click To Tweet

This situation exists. There’s a major obstacle in front of you, but how can I get around it? The reason why I say that this is a benefit is because if nothing ever challenged the status quo, if there was nothing that ever disrupted the status quo, things would never change. The thing I love about resistance is it requires change. This is an opportunity to seek new innovative ways. This is not going to last forever. This will blow over. You will be able to go back to some degree to the way that you have been doing business to normal operations and you can still benefit from that way. What is something different that you can do? Maybe a different revenue stream, maybe a different way of serving your people, maybe a different way of reaching your goals that you haven’t thought about. This is the perfect opportunity for that new thing, new vision, new ideas. Take advantage of this opportunity. Seek new ways.

I remember after I got hurt, lying on the bed, doctors telling me my life was going to be over. You’re going to be a vegetable for the rest of your life. There’s no way you’re going to be successful. At least, in my mind, after hearing something like that. All I want it to do is play ball. Even after playing, even after getting hurt, I knew I wasn’t dead, but I didn’t have the ability. I felt like, “What am I going to do? How am I going to be successful?” I had dreams as a ballplayer that I was going to accomplish this and that and all of that. My fallback was I’ll still have a degree. I’m going to go and get my degree. I’m going to finish school. After that, I can get some job. I can do something. That’s how I felt, but I felt like after I got hurt, all of that was over. There was no possible way for me to have that opportunity to be successful. Lying on that bed, I’m realizing that I was in that type of situation, what could I do to advance? What could I do to still bring those dreams forward? What can I do to still have the lifestyle that I wanted, the dream, the vision of being a star football player? What would that look like?

I realized that I had the perfect opportunity because if you could overcome this, think about all the people that you will inspire. Think about the bridge that you would create for those that build it whenever a challenge or a situation comes up in their life that knocks them off and they feel like they can’t get back up from that. You can be the guy that teaches people, that helps people how to overcome major adversities in their life and their business. I decided that I’m going to be that guy. That’s the guy I’m going to be and that became a driving force. Without that opportunity or being able to see that opportunity, that would’ve never existed. I would’ve never become the best-selling author. I would’ve never had this blog. I would’ve never been able to do the things that I’m doing. Being able to understand where I was in that situation and take advantage of the opportunity, I was able to pivot. I was able to change directions, see the opportunity, and go towards that particular thing. That changed everything. This is what we’ve got to do in this situation.

This may cause us to change direction, but that’s okay. Sometimes a change in direction or pivot is a good thing. There’s maybe something good over there that we didn’t even know about. If it wasn’t for this thing, you would never get to experience that good thing over there. That’s the opportunity that we have. You have to see it for what it is as an opportunity and seek ways, be creative on how to bring that opportunity forward. The second thing is isolation. A lot of places are shut down. We’re quarantined, mandated to stay inside. For some people, that’s terrifying. You can’t come out. You have to stay inside and for some of you, you may feel that that’s going to be lonely. You may feel, “What am I going to do with all of this time of isolation?” I believe that one of the most beautiful things about this because there’s so much that can come out of isolation. Sometimes we’re busy doing and going.

Isolation can be a gift because it causes you to slow down and we need to slow down sometimes. We need to take a step back. I love games. If you ever watch a very competitive game, when something challenging comes up to that game, the opposition does something that offense wasn’t prepared for, they didn’t even see it coming. We didn’t see it coming and it happens. What did they do? They called a time out. They don’t quit. It’s like, “We didn’t see this coming and we got hit. Let’s take a time out. Let’s redo. Let’s rethink.” During that time-out, they go in assess, they evaluate, “How are we doing? What do we do? What did we do wrong? Why didn’t we see this coming?” All kinds of questions are raised about what happened. How do we respond? They don’t react to it. They take a time out. Sometimes you’ve got to take a time out.

This is not a vacation. The game is not over. What are you going to do in this isolation? You want to think about how can you take advantage of this time? You can take a class. You can read a book. You hear people talk about it all the time, “I don’t have time to do this. I don’t ever have time for that. I would love to do this, but I don’t have time. I would love to do that, but I don’t have time.” What are you going to do this time? There are a lot of sites out there where you can go. Take a course at Coursera.org or Udemy.com. You can go on and do it. I always wanted to write a book. Maybe you want to write a book. Now is a good time to start writing that book. Maybe you start listening to some podcasts. This is a good one to start with, Game Changer Mentality. It can teach you how to change the game in your life, how to change your mind so you can change the game. There are many things that you could be doing during this time. You can use this as a wake-up call.

Look at how you’ve been going after your goals and objectives in life. How have you been performing? Were you satisfied with that? Are there ways that we can improve? Evaluate yourself. Evaluate how you’ve been being, your identity towards that. I believe that whatever you want to be, whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, you’ve got to have the identity to match that goal, to match that objective. What is your identity towards that? Have you been being the person that would accomplish that goal and that vision? Is that you? Have you been doing those types of things? When you’re in isolation, this is an opportunity for you to cross-check all of those things. You can understand what needs to change because when you’re looking at where you want to go, who you’ve been, who you are being, those things aren’t matching up.

The person you’ve been is not matching up with the person that you want to be or where you want to go, or the type of person that can get you there, that’s where you need to change. That’s where the change is coming from. You can identify your strengths and your weaknesses, then you can put yourself together a plan or how you’re going to strip those weaknesses. All kinds of things that you could be doing during this time, you have to use this time wisely. I have a story about playing ball. I had a whole bunch of friends all around me all the time. When I got hurt, there were no friends. People came around in the beginning, but after a while, it was just me and family. Most times, you’re by yourself because your family still has lives. They still have things that have to get done. Life goes on and you are stuck in this position. What do you do? That was the opportunity that I used. I got very comfortable with me, understanding who I am and the gift that I had. The gift of determination, that no-quit attitude, that game changer mentality. It’s an opportunity for you to get caught.

Some people don’t even want to be by themselves. They don’t feel comfortable being by themselves. It’s an opportunity for you to face why is that. It is an opportunity for you to understand what it is you need to do about you. What do you need to change about you moving forward? A lot of people say, “The coronavirus this and the coronavirus that.” I was on a podcast and I was talking to a guy, we were discussing the effects and the impacts of the coronavirus. We started talking about how to respond and we talked about a game, a Super Bowl or championship game, and the difference between the champions and regular players is how they navigate the things that they can’t control. If you’re in this type of situation, it’s about how you respond. It’s not so much about what the defense or offense is doing or the climate of the game. It’s not about what’s going on out there. It’s not about the coronavirus. This is about you. It’s about what are you going to do? How are you going to respond?

GCM 107 | The Time Of Coronavirus

The Time Of Coronavirus: The person who understands how to respond in the right way is the one that comes out on top.

 

You can respond like everyone else or you can decide to be different, to rise to the occasion, to respond like a champion. The person who understands how to respond in this the right way, in a way that’s going to serve them, they’re the ones that are going to come out on top. They’re the ones that are going to win this game. If you want to win this game, if you want to win like a champion, this is about you. Are you going to blame the coronavirus for not being successful? That’s your game. I imagine you are a player and you come out with, “Coach, they did this and they did that, that’s why we can’t win.” You are the star player of your own life. How are you going to respond? If I’m your coach and you come to me and say, “Coach, these are some potential solutions. This is what they’re doing. This is what I think we need to do. What do you think?” That’s how you need to respond to this. It’s still about you. This doesn’t change your responsibility. You have a responsibility in this and this is to respond in a manner that’s going to serve your goals and objectives. That’s what you have to do.

Take on that responsibility. While you are sitting there in this isolation, realize that’s your responsibility. What’s your game plan here? This is an opportunity for you to regroup, to come up with something that you feel is going to take you even farther. This isn’t the final blow. A lot of you had sat down in January and you said, “2020 is going to be my year.” Everyone’s talking about 2020 vision here and 2020 vision that. That’s all you’ve seen on social media. The first quarter is not even over then we got hit with coronavirus. Are you ready to give up? We still got three quarters of the year to play. This is not over. We just got hit. How are we going to regroup and get back to this game? We’ve got a game to play. What kind of player are you going to be in this game? You’re going to play, “Coach, we got coronavirus. I’m done. We got coronavirus, which I wasn’t expecting the coronavirus. No one told me in 2020 we were going to get the coronavirus.”

That’s not how we play this game. That’s not Game Changer Mentality, but I get it. Time-out. We’re going to take this twenty-second or two-minute timeout and we’re going to regroup. Use this isolation as the time for you to figure out how you’re going to come back and still get down the field in the midst of coronavirus. Whether it leaves or not, whether it’s another 30 days or 60 days or 90 days, it doesn’t matter. Let it go. It doesn’t matter how long it’s going to be here, it’s how you’re going to respond. If it does last 60 days, you need to be ready. What are you going to do? Start thinking about that. You have the opportunity to think about how you’re going to advance your business. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the second quarter. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the third quarter. If you respond to this in the right way, you use this time wisely. It can set you up to be in a good position no matter what happens. That’s what I’m saying here. Use this time.

I’m a business person, things have slowed down for me. I’ve lost money. I don’t have this some of the big time speaking gigs that I was going to go on. I’m talking Blue Cross Blue Shield all way up in Manhattan, New York. I had so many gigs lined up, but they canceled because of the coronavirus. Do you know what I’m doing? I’ll regroup and I’m like, “That’s what we’re going to do.” I’m figuring out how I can create more revenue streams in my business and position my business in a way that if something like this happens again, we are still going to be good. That’s right. Maybe I’ll do some keynotes on Zoom. I’ll do more training. I’ll set up some more online courses. I’ll create some more training. Since I’m not going and preparing for those keynotes that I was going to do, I have to do something else with that time that can still make me profitable because we still have a game to win and that’s just opposition.

I love working out because when you work out, that resistance is what makes you stronger. If you work out and you’re not doing any resistance training, you can’t expect to get stronger. You need resistance to get stronger. This is what you need because I want to make a lot of money. If you’re going to look at the billionaires and the millionaires, talk to Michael Jordan. Let him tell you about all types of resistance that has allowed him to get stronger. Kobe said that he wanted to play like Michael Jordan because he knew if he can play at that level, it would make him better. If you’re playing against somebody like Mike, if you tried to be like Mike, that’s a heavy challenge. Most people don’t want a heavy challenge, but they want to get stronger. That’s what I call insanity. If you want to get stronger, you’ve got to deal with things that make you uncomfortable, that don’t feel good, that may seemingly take you out and cause you to quit.

When you say no and you rise to the challenge, it means whenever there’s the opposition, you are going to figure out a way to beat it. You’re going to figure out a way to get over it. You’ve got to figure out a way to get around it and that’s what your strength is. Having the time to do that, that’s the difference a lot of times between people that make it and people that don’t. People that make it, they take that time to do it. This is a gift. You have the time, you have isolation. What are you going to do with that? Make this isolation the most valuable time in the game. It’s not what you’re executed because you’re executing on time already spent practicing, getting the game, but you can take this time to get the game right. When this is over, you’re executing on a high level. This is what we are talking about.

Two things, opportunity and isolation. I’m going to be teaching all seven of these benefits in a webinar. I’m going to give you some details if you want to be a part of the webinar. You can get all seven of the benefits of the coronavirus. I’m going to give you some details on how you would do that. For now, I have a gentleman I want to bring on because I want to hear about what’s going on in the community. It’s people that have been affected by this in the community. I want to hear, how they are responding. There are some things that we can learn from other people that are going through the same thing that are deciding, “This is not going to take me out.” This is a no-quit brother and he’s going to share with us about how he’s responding to this.

There’s something that we can learn. There are some takeaways that we can apply. If you don’t have a business, that’s okay. It doesn’t mean that you can’t learn something from someone else. It does. There are things that you can use in your individual life and your professional life. If you’re in the corporate, maybe you want to get promoted. Maybe you are feeling like, “How am I going to keep my job?” I don’t know how you are feeling, but I know there’s a lot of uncertainty. I don’t know specifically how you may be feeling about it, but I know there’s this fear and we still have a game to play and we’re going to win. That’s all we’re focused on. We’re focused on winning this game and overcoming the state.

I’m going to introduce someone whom I know personally, a business owner in the local area. His name is Angelo Ennis. He’s the Owner and Founder of Focus Performance, which is a gym. He’s a trainer for athletic kids. They’re athletes and they have goals and dreams of performing at a high level in the athletic field, whether it’s baseball, football, whatever it is that you’re into. If you’re looking to perform at a high level, if you want to show your game, this is the guy that you want to talk to. This is the guy that can take you to that next level. He’s my personal trainer. I’ve been working with Angelo for some time.

If nothing ever challenged or disrupted the status quo, things would never change. Click To Tweet

We’ve been grinding it out every day. One of the things that I love about this guy, you can’t find people that get up at 5:00 AM. He has to be at my spot around 5:00 since I’m getting up before 5:00. When you can do that, I can ride you with this brother. You can get up out of your bed to meet your goals and objectives in life and then you can get at your bed to support someone else’s goals and dreams. That says a lot about you. Without further ado, I’m going to bring this gentleman and we have chopped it up a little bit. Mr. Angelo Ennis, welcome to the Game Changer Mentality.

It’s a pleasure to be on.

I’m glad to have you here. Thank you for taking the time to join us. We’re talking about the coronavirus. I’ve spent time giving my view on the situation from a positive perspective and I wanted to provide a couple of the benefits that I see with the situation. I know there’s a lot of negativity out there and this blog is not about that by any means, but I’m looking at the positive side of things. That’s what we’ve been talking about, but how are things doing out there in the economy where you are? How are you responding to this? What’s going on with you in your world?

It’s a change, but not to sound cliché, change is good. It makes you uncomfortable and that uncomfortability, you’ve got two choices, you need to sink or swim. Honestly, I’ve been shut down. Governor Hogan came out and said, “All gyms have to be shut down or $5,000 fine or one year in jail minimum if you are operating.”

That’s nothing to play with and we don’t want to see you in stripes. That’s not your thing.

Outside of that, it’s a different climate. To be honest with you, I’ve found so much beauty in this moment that we’re in. I was talking to my dad and I said, “One of the things that I’ve noticed that’s happening within this time frame is seen kids outside playing.” I found that to be one of the coolest things ever. Typically, you drive through a neighborhood, you don’t see kids playing at all. You might see them playing with themselves. This virus has shaken everybody up. In my world especially, I am shut down.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. I told people that you were a personal trainer and that you owned the gym and maybe more specifics and details to that. Give us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

I’m the master trainer at Focus Performance, as they like to call me, but I’m a little bit more than a personal trainer. I’m a performance enhancement specialist. That’s my main certification. That’s what separates me from the masses. I’m not saying that personal trainer, they’re great. Some of them I still learn from any and everybody. What a performance enhancement specialist does is he or she can assess an athlete. We can look at their movements. We can assess it and it doesn’t matter the sport. I trained golfers or boxers. Any sport, volleyball, lacrosse, to name a few. I can look at an athlete and assess their movement, give them the counter-movements to make them better, and that helps me as far as the rehabilitation side as well. I can look at movements from all planes, sagittal, frontal, transverse planes of movement, and I can assess and build programs to make you more explosive or get you back into shape or whatever your goals are. I can do such a thing.

That’s a skillset that you have that is unique. You don’t hear a lot about that. At the professional level, there’s a lot of that in that climate. Do you work with professional athletes as well?

GCM 107 | The Time Of Coronavirus

The Time Of Coronavirus: Attack what you need to do, and go at it at full steam. This is not the time to get lazy, and it’s definitely not a vacation by any means.

 

I have worked with professional athletes. I’ve worked with some semi-pro athletes as well, division one athletes. I worked with the whole spectrum of athletes. The bulk of it is the youth, which is where my passion is. That’s something I always wanted to do. I find so much joy in it every day to train kids from sixth grade and then to be in the newspaper with him as he signs that letter of intent to go to the next level. I enjoy it, but I try pro athletes and semi-pro athletes as well.

With the situation that we are going on, you’re a performance guy and a lot of people are feeling like they don’t know how to perform in a climate like this. I can imagine, you work with your athletes and your clients not only on a physical level, but at a mental level as well because it requires mental agility and mental ability to enhance your game. What are some of the thoughts from you as a performance enhancement specialist on how we should respond to something like this?

Attack it. Don’t get lazy. Go at it full steam. This is echoing what you were saying. This was not the time to be lazy. It’s not a vacation, by no means. I have been telling my athletes, especially the ones that had been with me the longest, “You guys know essentially what to do. I give you guys different things to do. You’ve been with me long enough. I’ve instilled enough knowledge in you that you know how to keep yourself in shape without needing to be at my gym.” I have been telling the kids to attack it mentally. Find that space in your brain and your atmosphere and in your environment to not get lazy. This is not the time to sit down, especially for my senior athletes or my college athletes. This is the time for you to be creative. This is the time for you to find ways for you to stay in shape, whether it’s filling up water jugs with water, using all those dumbbells. I’ve been telling kids to fill up water jugs. I’ve been telling some of the parents that I work with that have fitness goals, “If you have a baby, strap him on you and do your squats that way. Find different ways to implement a way for you to get fitter or at least, stay consistent where you’re at.”

As a business owner, what are some of the innovative ways that you are executing?

If you’re in a business and you’re not trying to do something digitally, going online, you are crazy. Find a way to make your business digital. Some business where you just can’t. I understand that, but if you could find a way to reach the masses digitally in some way, shape, form or fashion, I feel sorry for you and I’m all praise to you. For example, if you make desserts, it’s pretty hard for you to be digital with that. People have to consume it. From a training standpoint, I’m almost excited about it. The only thing this is going to do is propel you to be in a better position than what you were before it happened. If you can get 500 people to follow you from anywhere on this planet digitally, once you can get back to the normal flow of things, you have that passive income plus what you’re doing within your gym. I’m in a position, at least for Focus, to where I can stretch and duplicate myself in a million places at once because I’m going digital. I have people from Minnesota. I have my college kids in North Carolina and South Carolina that like my way of training, that believe in me. I can still reach them going digital and still have people come to the gym. I’m a little excited about this change and resistance that we’re going through.

You mentioned something that I want to key in on. You said duplicate yourself. We’ve been telling people to be creative, look for the opportunities and I want to add to that. Look for opportunities to duplicate yourself because you’re so right. If you have a storefront type of business where it’s stationary, you can only be in that spot and you’re dependent upon people coming into your location. It’s based on the number of people that can come into that particular store or location. That affects how well your business performs or the operation of your business. If you can think about ways to duplicate yourself during this time this situation exists, how can I still duplicate myself? That’s worth meditating. That thought alone is worth meditating on. What are some other things that you were maybe doing or some other thoughts about the situation that the country is facing?

This kind of tag on to the duplicate and then I’ll get into it. As I was meditating, which is one of the things that I have a lot of time to do. The goal was to get in ten minutes, in the house, it is like 20 to 30 minutes of sitting down and ponder and meditate. One of the most important things as I was sitting down, meditating and duplication came to my thought process was I need to be able to duplicate myself in this time because I have many kids whose dreams are dependent on Focus Performance. I may train over 100 kids in a week and all of these kids are depending on some training to propel them to get to a college, so a parent doesn’t have to pay. Some of them have aspirations of being a professional athlete. If I shut down, how many kid’s dreams shut down with it?

You think bigger than yourself at this point, bigger than you. The Focus business is the kids that are latched to this dream and I’m helping them carry it through. If I shut down for the next 60 days, whoever knows how long this, it’s potentially 60 days’ worth of dreams that have been stagnant and that would kill me not to help these kids get to the next. That’s why duplicating was very important. Other things that I’ve been doing, to echo what you’ve been saying, I’ve been using this time to read. It’s one of the most inexpensive hobbies you can have. You can get a 500-page book for $12. I’ve been reading. I’ve been studying my craft and I had been building six-week programs with speed, twelve-week programs for speed, six-week programs to get big and mass gain. I’ve created so many programs at this time. A mentor of mine once told me, “You’ve got to write everything down.” I’ve been utilizing that to write all my ideas as far as training to help out. It’s not going to do any good up here. I write it down and then do something digitally. Outside of reading, meditation, studying our craft and building programs, that’s pretty much it.

You mentioned that having an idea in your mind, it’s not going to do any good to have it there, but when you write it down, it takes on a different form, for one. It goes from a nonphysical form to a physical form, one that you can see. In addition to that, one of the things I love about writing things down is it opens up the flow. When something is on your mind and it’s always in your mind, you haven’t written it down, it’s taking up space. When you can write it down, it’s out of that space into a physical form and opens up the space for some other ideas to come up. When you get into the process of doing this regularly, you find that ideas and stuff to continuously flow to you. Circling back to the whole idea of isolation, which is one of the benefits that I was talking about. When you’re in a place where you can take the time to sit down and write things down and create that flow within yourself for ideas to flow, that can be a beautiful, innovative thing. A creative process.

If you think bigger than yourself then you actually become bigger than yourself. Click To Tweet

You’ll find that the birth of change, the birth of ideas, systems, ways of doing business, ways of duplicating yourself, ways of supporting other people’s dream or hoping to advance those dreams and maybe solving a particular problem, that can happen as a result of that. That’s why I love situations like this. I don’t wish challenges and obstacles on anyone, but I thrive in them because I understand what can come out of these types of situations. I’m happy to know that you are excited. I want to talk about that as well because the fact that you’re in that state says a lot. It’s meaningful because there’s a lot of people that are not in that state. They wake up every day and they’re hating life because of the situation. They don’t have coronavirus, but the effects of the virus are making them sad. What would you say to that individual who has a different perspective as you and maybe emotionally drained by all and sad and hurt by what’s going on?

I don’t know if I’m as good at words as you, but I’ve texted a couple of people and I’ve told them to change your mind. Once you change your mind, that’s where the magic happens. The circumstances are what they are. These are the cards that I’ve been dealt with. Play your hand. You don’t have any choice in the matter. This is what it is. These are the circumstances that you have. You’ve got to have 1 or 2 options in this. When you think about it, it makes life a little simpler. You have two options. You’re not bombarded with a whole lot of distractions at this point in your life. That’s only one distraction, coronavirus and the effects of it. You are either going to play a victim to it or you’re going to attack it, whatever ways you came.

You travel a lot. You don’t get to spend a lot of time with your family. Capitalize on that. You get to spend time with your family. If you haven’t seen your wife for more than a week because you’ve got to travel, you’re deployed, whatever the situation may be, change your mind. Don’t look at it as, “I’m stuck in the house.” Say, “It’s a wonderful time. This is a good time.” I’ve told a couple of my athletes, “This is a good time to practice self-affirmation and positive thinking. Tell yourself, “This is good. I get to spend more time with my mom, my dad, my grandma who this virus is very deadly for them from what I gathered.” That’s what I’ve been telling people. It’s simple and plain. I copied and pasted it to change your mind.

Perception is everything and I believe that perception is reality. I can look at something and I have a perception about it. It will be hard for you to change my perception because that’s my perception. If I believe that in the deep-rooted, that’s my reality. Yours could be completely different. Here we are with coronavirus and the way you perceive this, it’s preparing for a game. If you’re getting ready to go into a game, and maybe you’ve shared this with your athletes, you can’t go into the game feeling defeated. You already lost if you go into the game defeated. You have to go into the game with the confidence that you can win. If coronavirus has you feeling defeated, we’ve got to do a good check.

I get passionate about this stuff sometimes. I’m going to have to think about, who am I in the face of coronavirus? If I’m in a game and I’m one of the players that’s on the field and they’ve done whatever the opposition has done, I’m thinking, “That’s what they’ve done. Hold up, we’ve got something cool as well.” If my perception has me feeling defeated, I’ve got to look in myself and say, “Why am I feeling that way? Am I not enough to handle coronavirus? I know it’s new. It came abruptly, but I’ve got something too. I’m bigger than coronavirus.”

It’s gut-check time. That’s all it is. It was cool for the first couple of days, I was like, “I’ll play the victim.” I did it. I think we all had that moment in 2 to 3 days. By day three, I was like, “This is not who I am to sit around this house and not do anything.” You never go into something defeated. I tell them, “I know I can’t win everything, but every time I lose, I was shocked.”

To me, that’s what the Game Changer Mentality is all about. Not to say you won’t take a hit. Everyone takes a hit sometimes in their life, but it’s what you’re going to do when your face is stuck to the canvas and they’re counting to ten. Are you going to get back up? What’s going on in your mind? If I get hit and I get knocked down, I’m thinking, “I’m getting back up,” but beyond getting back up, I’m trying to figure out how to knock this dude out, how I’m going to knock the situation, how I’m going to overcome the situation. I’m thankful for the opportunity to sit down and realize that this is real. I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to step it up or else, this is going to be life for me right here on this canvas. I can’t accept it. What are you going to do?

Thank you for your time. I wanted to hear from someone in the community who is facing this real-life situation and how they were responding to it. How are you emotionally with this? What’s your emotional climate? It seems to me that you’re deciding to fight. You’re deciding to punch back. You’re deciding to use this as an opportunity, which I think is a big highlight. We can use situations of resistance and challenges that occur in our life. If you can use all of them as opportunities, we have the mindset to use them as opportunities. We can advance. We can come up with creative ways to overcome and be better people. Thank you for your time and sharing with us where you are.

It was a pleasure. We have to do it again. This coronavirus is probably going to shake the world up for quite some time. I think it’s going to create a new climate, a new atmosphere. I think it’d be best that you try to find a way to get in with this new wave of whatever’s coming. It’s going to change a lot of things. Try to stay ahead of the game and ahead of the curve.

GCM 107 | The Time Of Coronavirus

The Time Of Coronavirus: Coronavirus is going to create a new climate, a new atmosphere. You have to do your best to get in with the new wave of whatever comes after.

 

One of the things that you said that I want to highlight is that change is good. It’s going to change a lot of things. Some people are sad and disheartened by change, but that’s okay. We’re not going to run this offense. We were winning with that offense coaching. I don’t want to change. Change is good. You’ve got to figure out new ways to win. Thanks for coming and before we depart, maybe you can offer some Game Changer Mentality message you would like to leave with us during this time.

Imagination is key. It always starts up here first, then that’s where the infinite possibilities are up here. From your brain, manifest it. Push yourself. Never quit and never stop. It came a long way from a simple seed that I planted in my head that I could run my own gym. Keep imagining and keep pushing. Never stop, never quit.

Thanks, Angelo, for coming.

This was fun. This is my first time doing this. It’s pretty cool.

That’s a result of the coronavirus. It’s not an opportunity or time to quit. It is not a time to give up. It’s just a hit. It’s just a challenge. It’s just opposition making some statement to let you know that it still exists and it’s okay. Change is good. Go with the flow. Identify the change and execute. That’s how you get through it. Until next time.

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For those of you who would like to get all seven of the benefits of the coronavirus, I’m going to be teaching one of the seven benefits in a webinar. If you would like to be a part of that and see all seven benefits, if you want to be a part of that training, send me an email at Rodney@RodneyFlowers.com and say, “I want to be a part of the seven benefits of the coronavirus.” Send me a message. Let me know that you want to be a part of the seven benefits of COVID-19 and I will email you the details on how you can be a part of that training. I’m excited about it because the information that we have on how to respond to something like this is very critical. If you have multiple tools, multiple things, little tricks in your mind that you could use, you can refer to and utilize to stay focused and keep your head in the game, that makes all the difference in the world.

That’s what I want to give you with these seven benefits. I gave you two, which is taking a look at the opportunity of possibility, isolation. I have five more that are as powerful, if not more, that can help you overcome the coronavirus in a very powerful, game-changing way. I’m excited about it. Send me an email at Rodney@RodneyFlowers.com. It’s going to be a community of people. It’s going to be very interactive and something that you don’t want to miss. Send me an email and I’ll give you the details and how you can be a part of that. Stay safe out there and keep your head in the game. Let’s overcome this thing in a very powerful way and let it make us better. Until next time, peace and love.

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About Angelo Ennis

GCM 107 | The Time Of CoronavirusCoach Angelo Ennis, also known as ‘Coach E’, the master trainer here at “FOCUS” , established focus in 2014. In this time he has developed many athletes. In his tenure seeing over a dozen high school athletes get scholarships to play in the NCAA. He is a 2006 graduate of Great Mills High school where Ennis won the 400-meter dash in a record-setting time of 48.3 seconds (47.7 his personal best high school 400m) and clinched his spot as the 2006 SMAC Champion. That along with his performances in the 100, 200, 300, and 500-meter dash helped seal the deal on his NCAA Scholarship for college, and had him ranked nationally with Nike. Thereafter, he attended the university of Louisville under an athletic scholarship, and finished his career in 2011 as a scholar athlete graduate of Bowie State.

He is a NASM Certified Performance Enhancement Specialist, Weightlifting and Speed & Agility coach with NSPA. Certified in EXOS 0.10 difference that specializes in acceleration, raw speed, speed maintenance , 40yard dash training, and EXOS nutrition
Coach E established Focus Performance because of his passion for sports through his studies and experience he believes that here at FOCUS “we really can build athletes the way we want: teach them proper fundamentals, bio-mechanics,and the science of speed.”

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