Hi everyone, its Pat here. Happy Tuesday. It’s a beautiful, sunny day where I am, and I trust you’re enjoying the day, no matter what’s going on where you are.

I have some really important tips to share with you today, based on my experiences from last week, and I’m just going to chat for a bit because this is really important. I’m going to talk to you about the travel challenges from last week. I’m going to link that into the lifestyle commitment that many people talk about in the month of January and February, and then I’m going to wrap that all up with talking about your goals for the year and why today is such a significant day in all of that.

I want to talk about, first of all, the travel challenges of last week. For any of you, it doesn’t matter if you’re like me, traveling from Canada in the middle of winter where, quite honestly, we know enough to expect some travel challenges. The weather is unpredictable. Actually, it’s quite predictable that there are going to be challenges with that, and so it was. Let me start with that and a few of my survival tips because I became one of the most popular persons on the airplane last week.

My alarm went off at 3:30 in the morning last Wednesday morning, and I was up and at ’em on a flight at the “crack of stupid,” as my friend Evelyn calls it. The flight was at 6 o’clock here, out of London, Ontario. Everything was going just fine and we got on the plane, and then before you know it came the message, “Ladies and gentlemen.” It was snowing and it was kind of miserable out, but nothing out of the ordinary, and so we found out that, in fact, we were going to be delayed an hour. That’s fine. Sit there. I had had my tea before I left. I was good. So that’s one part of it. That caused the string of activities.

We left London and landed in Toronto. Now, my connection time got even tighter and, if you’ve been through any airport these days, you know that from one end of domestic—and I was flying to the States, which meant I had to go all the way to the other side of the terminal for international, because flying to the US is considered international, and so I got my little legs just a going, and it’s like, all right, out of my way people. I’m heading through.

I hit security. Some of the tips I’m going to weave into the story here. The first one is to be prepared. As I mentioned, when you’re traveling anywhere in North America, in the winter, whether you are leaving from a winter-based location or your connection is coming through a place like Chicago, for example, which is the horrors for me, you have to be prepared for this kind of thing. Those of you who might not be regular travelers may not know some of these things. Based on my experience last week, I want to share some of them with you.

One is to be prepared. I’m known for being prepared. I always have my baggie of my IsaDelight chocolates. I always have plenty with me. I always travel with protein bars because you just never know how long you’re going to be stuck on the tarmac, and I never predict it, but better to be prepared. Half a bar is a snack, a whole bar is a meal replacement. So, you see, I’m good for a day. And of course, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Always.

Here’s the interesting thing. When you hit security, traveling across the border, things like fruit and nuts, which typically are great snacks to have with you, are not allowed across the border. They will take them away from you. If it’s an apple without an FDA approved sticker on it, they will take you into a little room to talk to you about your snacks and clear out your whole bag, and they don’t care if you’re going to miss your connection. My point on that is be prepared, and know the rules and regulations. Skip the fruit. Go with the stuff, like the prepackaged stuff, and have that in your bag with you.

All right, so I’m racing through and I get to my connection. I get on the plane; all is well, sitting there. Take me to Phoenix, people. And then it starts. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first delay.” It was snowing pretty heavy. We couldn’t pull away from the gate because the plane behind us was stuck in the snow. All right, get that guy out of there, and the pilot was so entertaining. He said, “We’re not sure if they’re short-staffed because of the weather or because people just rolled over and looked out, and decided they weren’t coming to work today.” In any event, they were short-staffed, so we had to wait for that plane to get hauled out of our way so we could back up and be on our way.

All right, so when you board a flight at 9:00 in the morning, I know most people expect coffee service when you get on the plane, and a little snack or two. Well that wasn’t the case last Wednesday morning because, when we finally did pull away and then we had to get in the line to be de-iced, because the weather was pretty crappy, and we waited and we waited, and the pilot came on again, “Ladies and gentlemen.” Yes, sure enough. The wait for de-icing was an hour-and-a-half to two hours.

Long story short, we ended up on the tarmac for three-and-a-half hours. You can imagine the cranky people around me, and so here are my tips for you so you don’t become one of them.

First and foremost, as I mentioned, have your snacks. You just never know and, more importantly, be hydrated. What happened was it was a full flight and, in my row, I’m in the window always. The gal in the aisle seat, she was obviously pregnant, and I would say six or seven months, if not more, and when I opened my snack and went to have half of it, she leaned over and she looked at me, and she said, “Do you have more of that?” I said, “Yes, I do. Would you like some?” “Absolutely.” So I gave her the other half of my protein bar. Her friend sitting behind her tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Could I have half of that half?”

Before you know it, I’m doing my Isagenix promo and saying, “Hey, for those of you who could use a snack right now, these little chocolates will fill you up for a short period of time.” So I was handing all of those out, and I had a happy crew around me. There were screaming kids on some of the other aisles.

My point to you is stay calm. This is going to happen. When you’re going to travel, don’t expect perfection. I’m going to share that and move it on into a business perspective here. Don’t expect perfection. It doesn’t exist anywhere and weather is beyond their control.

The first tip is be prepared. The second one is be nice. Be nice to people. Those poor airline attendants, they took a lot of crap and a lot of flack on that morning. It wasn’t their fault, and then when the pilot said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been waiting so long it looks like we have to go back to the gate to refuel,” oh boy, you should have heard the crowds. Really, the pilot was just sharing information in our best interest. So be nice when you’re traveling and the circumstances are beyond your control.

The other part of the be prepared is to make sure that you have your phone fully charged, you have all your cords with you, and your charger is charged. I was on a flight that had no power outlet, so, in the course of all of this adventure, my phone died. No big deal because, the other part is, I know how to meditate. I meditate twice a day, so that’s my third tip to you. When all else fails and there’s chaos all around you, and it’s going to happen in travel, it’s going to happen in business, it’s going to happen in life, just stop for a minute and meditate. Learn how. There are plenty of free apps to do that. I highly recommend meditation.

The next part of it, I wanted to share with you how my workouts fit in with all of this. First of all, I was very comfortable and very hydrated, so I could sit there comfortably. Also, it’s not an excuse to dive into a state of despair, and so on, so that when you get to your destination or you go back to the gate, that you fill your face out of stress with stuff that’s not going to serve you well. I’ll speak about workouts in a minute too.

The other part of it is, my clients know this, I always travel with index cards. More importantly, the index cards with my goals on them. Why is that important when you’re in a stressful travel situation? Because it keeps you calm and it keeps you focused on what’s important.

Share some of your tips with me of what works when you have travel challenges. That’s the travel part of it.

I got to my destination, and it’s easy to feel frazzled, to be frazzled. I had no power in my phone. I had to go find an outlet, which was in the ladies washroom in the Phoenix Airport, and sit there and wait until I got a green bar so I could get my Uber, and that was fine too.

The first thing I do when I typically get to my hotel is to dump my bags, change my clothes, and go work out. That’s really important. For those of you who have set health and wellness goals for the year, as I mentioned at the start of this, today is a very important day. Today, February 13th, is the date by which – and research shows this – that most people ditch their goals: their money goals, their health and wellness goals, their fitness goals, their relationship goals. The goals go out the window. Why does that happen? Let me give you my insights around that. One is I believe it happens because your “why” is not clear enough. When you’re clear on your “why,” and my friend Darren Jacklin just mentioned that on his live stream last night, when the “why” is clear, the “how” is easy. So your “why” is not clear enough. You have to work on that.

The second reason I believe that the goals go out the window, and that instead of going to the fitness center you’ll go to the bar, would be that perhaps you have too many goals. I see that happen all the time, and many of those goals feel like a have-to, and stress-filled and they’re not fun, so ease up on that. Ease up on yourself when it comes to setting your goals. For me, they have to be enjoyable or I’m not doing them. I’m too old for that mess. Just as importantly, one of the reasons the goals go out the window is because there’s no accountability. We, as human beings, need to be accountable to get things done. One, to identify and measure progress, but two, to celebrate the progress along the way, through the goals and to the vision, to your “why.”

Those are some of the reasons, and I watched the people around me last week. Whether it was in the travel situation and/or whether it was in the business situation that I was in, when I saw, felt, and experienced the stress around me, I could easily pinpoint that. Or as my friend, Erica, would say, “Put a pin in it.” I learned some good English expressions last week.

Those are some of the key tips I wanted to share with you. One, in the travel situation, be prepared. Secondly, be nice. Thirdly, stay focused on your own goals, and keep yourself centered and hydrated, and all of those things I shared.

Moving that on into your business, the way you do anything is the way you do everything, so pay attention to how you’re acting on that plane, on the tarmac, and how are you acting in a potentially stressful situation in your business? Probably pretty similar. Then what I invite you to do is take a look at your goals, because there’s no need for our goals to be self-imposed stress, absolutely not.

For those of you who are feeling, right here, right now, that you have thrown your goals out the window, too much, too hard, too complicated, and/or you’re not clear on how to keep the connection and make progress, I want to invite you to private message me because some of you might have missed, and this is my words, the phenomenal training I did last week on transform your body, to transform your life, to transform your business. We recorded it, so if anything I’ve said here today strikes a chord with you, then private message me and I will gift you the link to that Zoom training that I did. It was two hours of training, two hours of solid content, and I’d be happy today, as a happy Valentine’s gift, to share that link with you, but private message me.

Yes, the index card, oh my gosh Sharon, I’m telling you, the index card with three things on it is the way to go. I have pink for Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

All right, those are my tips today. Thanks for joining me. Pay attention to what I shared. Pull out one thing and go do it because she who implements wins. See you next time.