This past weekend I added a new line item to my “Bad Ass” List and crossed another experience off of my bucket list. I competed in my first ever men’s physique bodybuilding show. As you can imagine, a person can learn a lot about themselves putting themselves through something like that. This was a big motivator for me to do this so that I could bring the lessons back and teach others.
Here are the top 10 things I learned:
1. I didn’t forget to have fun-
Being backstage yesterday I could feel the stress and anxiety of the other competitors. This was months and in some cases years of hard work for these athletes and this was the big moment. Originally, upon arriving, I was going to avoid going backstage much because I didn’t want to psyche myself out. But my coach Dustin Pederson had given me some good advice. “The work is done. You are simply handing in a postcard for the last 3 months' work. Go have a blast today!” So I did! I can honestly say it was one of the most fun days I’ve had in a long time. Minutes before I was supposed to take the stage for finals, they informed us that we were being pushed back several hours to give the pros the priority in the show. Hangry and already thinking about my post show meal, this could have gotten me down. But I chose instead to mingle with some friends that had come to watch me and hung out with some of my favorite people. We got so lost in the conversation that I almost missed my shot when the show returned and barely made it backstage with minutes before I had to go back on.
LESSON 1: What is the point of doing anything if you aren’t having fun?
2. I trusted the process of my coaches-
This was harder than expected. This whole process isn’t a linear one. There are days where you feel amazing and then you will wake up one day and your body is like, “We are gonna retain an extra 5 lbs today just to mess with you!” Thankfully I’m a coach and so I understand the concept of trusting the person that has been down the road you are blindly traveling. I had seen plenty of times guys that get frustrated when going through transformations and they give up right before the big breakthrough. Yesterday morning my coach told me to go eat a big breakfast at a restaurant. Eggs, French toast, steak and potatoes. I thought he was joking. Keep in mind I had been living off of tilapia and vegetables for the past few days and hadn’t even thought about French toast in the past few weeks. He informed me that I was “flat” and needed this to shoot the glycogen into my muscles and puff them up. I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to eat this cheat meal so I did it. And an hour later my body had quite literally never looked better in my life. The nice part about having Dustin coach my bodybuilding was that he is truly an expert. I showed him what I wanted to look like and I can honestly say that between his workouts and playing with the macros, it was 100% spot on in the moment it mattered.
LESSON 2: Hire the person that has been there and then actually listen to them and do what they say.
3. I gave myself permission to not be perfect-
This one might sound counterintuitive to the point I just made but it really isn’t. When you are doing a 100 day blitz to get into the best shape of your life you have to give yourself permission some days to not be your best. The key for me was to let a bad meal be a bad meal, not a bad week. The days I went over my calories I didn’t beat myself up or call myself a fat ass. I didn’t shame myself because I needed to add the tortilla with my burrito bowl every now and then. When I needed to cheat, I ate extra fruit and protein bars. I had watched a good friend of mine compete back in November and I remember seeing him a few weeks out and he looked miserable. Don’t get me wrong, he looked like a Greek God that was miserable (he won first place and absolutely crushed it even being his first time) but he paid the price in his home life and at work. This friend was cool enough to fly in yesterday for my show to support me and so we went to lunch on our break yesterday. He told me how strict he was and we laughed about how hard he had been on himself. I’m not supposed to disclose this but he even told me, still carrying guilt over it even though he won his contest, that he was so miserable a few weeks from the finish line that he cheated a meal and ate a big burger and a double sized ice cream shake. He told me not to say anything so that Dustin, who also coached him, won’t know. But I think it’s time for him to let that guilt go and give himself permission to be human in his experience.
LESSON 3: Done is better than perfect.
4. I only had to commit once-
With some things in life it is best to just throw your hat over the fence and commit one time. If you are going to marry someone, just commit once and go all in for the rest of your life. If you are going to do something difficult like a bodybuilding show you better commit once and go for it because the alternative is pretty nasty. I learned this climbing Mt Kilimanjaro a few years back. I was well aware that it was going to be brutal at some point and I didn’t want to have to negotiate with my body in a moment of weakness. So I committed once and told myself, “they will have to drag my dead ass off this mountain before I don’t reach the top!” Thankfully they didn’t have to. I never once questioned if I would make it to the summit. This show was the same for me. I told just enough people I was doing it so that they could hold me accountable, I spent just enough money on food and coaches so that it would hurt, and I committed one time that this was happening. It doesn’t hurt to have over 200 men in my coaching program that were watching me along the way to see if I was going to honor my word!
LESSON 4: For the things that truly matter, we only have to commit one time.
5. I focused first on the inner work before working on the outer shell-
In full disclosure I tried to do a fitness show in the fall and I failed. It’s true. I never fully committed and I knew it. Yes I signed up for it, paid for my pro card for 2025 and paid to enter the competition. I was supposed to do it with my friend Blake but it never happened. I wasn’t all in. I was invited to host a charity event for the military the same weekend as the show and I was supposed to MC together with Martha Stewart. The opportunity of a lifetime and the perfect excuse to back out of the show. If I’m being fully transparent, I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t ready. I was white knuckling the diet, still drinking alcohol on the weekends and I couldn’t overcome my sweet tooth. Realizing I needed some help, I really tried to dial in “why” I kept drinking and “why” I was numbing my feelings through my food choices and sweets. I decided I needed to go all in on myself emotionally and spiritually just as much as physically. I made a plan and went to work. When the clock rolled over at midnight on Dec 31st I had already set myself up to win. I started 75 Hard that day. I signed myself up for a series of programs and events that could help me learn to sit with myself and dig into the parts of me I was avoiding. Each month I decided to do a week-long event to do the inner work. In January I went to the Hoffman Process in California. This is a full week with no phone where you dig into your childhood and all of your self-sabotaging behaviors you picked up from your youth. It was life changing. From the first day I did that event I haven’t had a single piece of candy or anything that is full of sugar. In February I went to Costa Rica and did a week-long wellness retreat at a place called Rythmia. It was very cleansing, confronting, and nourishing. In March I spent 2 weeks in the Pacific touring 5 different countries and in April I did a week long Joe Dispenza meditation Retreat. I don’t want to get too much into the specifics of each, I’m covering each one in a different podcast episode on The Jimmy Rex Show if you want to learn more, but I did the work. And I can truly say that I was able to heal the parts of me that craved the candy and junk food to mask whatever emotion was trying to come through. For me it was a deep sense of unworthiness and not belonging that I was able to rewire in a beautiful way.
LESSON 5: If we heal the inner wounds, the outer shell will reflect it.
6. I asked, “how can I do this?”-
Instead of looking at reasons I couldn’t. Most people never would have done a fitness show with the amount of things I have going on in my life. Since January 1 I have been out of the state of Utah about 65% of the time. I also run a mens coaching program with over 200 active members and I run a 3 day retreat every third weekend. I also had my annual event at the end of February and was gone most of March out of the country on our yearly adventure trip with We Are The They. I easily could have blamed not doing it on my travels. Instead I asked, “How can I still make this work?” And the truth is, I just had to make it the priority. One day while I was traveling in the Solomon Islands I needed to get my workout in and I didn’t know if there was even a gym on the whole main island. I decided to just put my gym clothes on and start walking. It was pouring rain but it was still relatively warm out so I just kept going. Eventually I ran into another high-end resort and they let me pay $100 to use the gym for 24 hours. Boom! I was covered for that day and the next morning. Too often we look for the reason we can’t do something. I truly believe that when we fully commit the universe will conspire in our favor to move mountains for us to achieve our goals. It’s the moment that we are all in that the how takes care of itself.
LESSON 6: When we fully commit, the universe will conspire in our favor.
7. I didn’t compare myself to others-
There have been very few things in my life I have competed in and didn’t care if I win. I like to be the best, I am driven by excellence and I love to win. This was different. When I showed up for my event on Saturday morning I knew that I had already won. I had given everything I had and I was laughing with my buddies about this but I sincerely looked better than I thought I was going to. I thought I was going to be intimidated backstage with all the other guys, but I was just taking it all in and enjoying being around so many other men that had pushed themselves at this level. Met a few guys that I can see myself becoming good friends with in the future. Too often we don’t appreciate what we have accomplished because we are comparing it against others. I remember a time when I would compare my body to Steve Cook, my travel adventures to the Bucket List Family and my real estate career to Ryan Serhant. Damn you Instagram! This contest was so much fun because it truly was me against me and I won! I was only fighting the previous versions of myself and I knew my best was enough.
LESSON 7: Your best, even if it isn’t perfect, is enough.
8. I didn’t compromise on the things that truly mattered-
Doing a fitness competition for the first time can feel a little bit overwhelming. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t overdo it because I know myself and if at any point I started to feel like that I would have a hard time finishing what I started. I knew I was still going to want to go to lunch every day, eat out 4-5 times per week and travel during the prep. I had to figure out how to do those things in a way that worked. I also knew that I couldn’t budge on a few things. Alcohol and sugar. Those are the two things that would wreck my progress and ultimately keep me from getting the body I was wanting. It has been over 100 days now with no alcohol and I haven’t had any sugar since Jan 20th. I’m not someone that can handle those empty calories and still hit my macro goals, so I went cold turkey. This really is the secret to most things. Know yourself well enough to never compromise on the things that matter most. Gary Keller wrote an amazing book on this topic called, “The One Thing” and it is all about focusing each day and doing the thing that is going to move the needle the most in your business or life.
LESSON 8: Decide what is most important and put in those big rocks first.
9. I loved myself-
Every day I would look myself in the mirror and give love to my body. When you do a contest like this it is so easy to get body dysmorphia and start to pick apart the things that aren’t exactly where you want them to be. It requires a lot of self-love to overcome this and just allow yourself to be ok not being where you want to be. The week before my final show I did a week long meditation retreat with Joe Dispenza in Denver and a big piece of that is tapping into your heart and living in the higher frequencies. I’m not sure how much that did for my overall performance but I am confident all that time in meditation working on the heart/brain cohesion helped me to heal and prepped me for the week to come.
LESSON 9: Love your body and it will love you back.
10. I showed up-
If you follow me on Instagram you will see that I took 5th place in the novice category and first in the 40+ category. I won’t tell you how many people were in the 40+ category but I won because I showed up and sometimes that is all you have to do. How often do we miss out on amazing experiences because we don’t think we belong or because we don’t think we have a chance to win? How often do we forget that it’s the man in the arena that wins every time? I’ve never seen a single boxing match where they raised the right arm of someone sitting in the stands. You gotta get in the arena. My mentor Ed Mylett says often, “The only difference between the people on the stage getting all the success and those that are in the stands is that those on the stage are willing to take action not needing to know if they are going to win!” I love that.
LESSON 10: Show up.
There are another dozen lessons I could write about from this experience but if you are still reading all the way to this point, I will spare you the rest.
I am going to be releasing a podcast later this week on The Jimmy Rex Show to share more of my thoughts and details about my prep. I am so grateful I put myself out there for this experience. I am committed to remaining off sugar, to loving my body, and to making health a #1 priority in my life forever going forward.
If anyone has any questions about my journey or about doing a show yourself you can always message me on my Instagram @MrJimmyRex and I will for sure get back to you! I’d love to help you on your health success.
Much love.
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