When I was growing up I really wanted a pair of Jordan’s.

I was in love with basketball and everyone who was anyone had a pair of J’s.

I wanted the black ones with the reflective tongue on them (the V’s).  Nobody had ever seen shoes like that.

I asked my dad if I could get a pair for my upcoming season.

He asked me how much they cost, which I knew wouldn’t go well.

I danced around the $130 price tag by explaining how they would make me faster and jump higher before finally telling him.

He snickered and said “You better get a job then!”………..I was 10.

Then he gave me a proposal.  He said “I’ll pay you $5 to cut the grass”

I have no doubt it killed him to offer such a high price for my labor and he felt he was getting a raw deal.

I took it immediately, then I did the math on how much grass I was going to have to cut…….

That is a lot of grass, I even tried to figure out if I could cut the grass multiple times a week.

Bottom line, I was going to have to wait.

I cut that grass and when I had the money my dad took me to Champs and I tried those bad boys on and said “I’ll take em!”

As we were checking out they rang me up.  I took out my $130 in cold hard cash and slapped it on the counter like I was a baller.

The young guy behind the register said “It’ll be $139.10″

I didn’t know what to say, but my dad did. He said that’s called tax, welcome to the real world”

I think he could see my devastation so he spotted me the difference to get the shoes (but I definitely had to pay him back)

I took care of those shoes, like you wouldn’t believe.  I wouldn’t even lace them up too tight because I didn’t want to shoe laces to snap!

We tend to take care of things we have to earn.

More importantly we generally don’t value things that are given to us as handouts.

When I get frustrated with the business not moving as fast as I would like,

     Or my training isn’t panning out the way I wanted,

     Or the nutrition plan is proving more difficult than expected,

I remind myself about cutting the grass.

I remind myself of how awesome it was to finally purchase those Air Jordan’s

I remind myself how much I took care of those shoes.

I had to earn them, it wasn’t easy, and it didn’t come quickly

But it was worth it.

Stick to your plan as the year closes out.

Start formulating your new plan.

Be ok with it taking time.

It will be worth it!

Fern