That pic is from this last weekend, Fitness Business Summit 2016.
In that picture there are some incredibly successful folks – people who are making 6 or 7 figures in their fitness businesses and still making time to hang out with their beautiful families.
But in that same picture, there are also people who are struggling. They’ve been running out of money before they run out of month. They’ve been on the edge of burning out. They’re worried that their passion for fitness has run away from them.
There’s something about seeing us all together in a group like that…it makes me think that the ones who are successful and the ones who are struggling aren’t ultimately that different.
Because really, we’re all made of the same basic materials. And I think there’s a real, practical, important lesson in that.
Carbon-Based Life Forms
*Cue UFO sounds*
On a very literal level, we are all carbon-based life forms. On a chemical level, we’re all pretty much the same in the grand scheme of things.
Now here’s the funny thing about carbon: if you take a piece of pure carbon, it’s either going to be a beautiful diamond or a dusty chunk of graphite (you know, that stuff in the tip of your pencil).
Diamond and graphite. In the most literal way possible, they are both made of the same thing: just a bunch of carbon atoms. The only difference between them is the arrangement of the atoms. Graphite has them all laid out in flat sheets, while diamond has them in crystal form.
What makes us different from graphite and diamonds is that we get to DECIDE how we arrange our insides – literally and figuratively. Literally, we can eat right and exercise our muscles to keep them in shape (you’re pretty good at that already, right?) 
Figuratively, we can rearrange our thoughts and feelings to create the best possible outcomes.
Unfortunately, we’ve been lied to by a lot of smart-sounding people who say that our personalities are stuck for life and we can’t ever change them.
REALITY CHECK: we can change our personalities whenever we want. It’s not that most people can’t. It’s just that they don’t.
The Part People Get Wrong
Over and over again, when I talk to people who are struggling to bump up to the next level of success in business, we end up talking about the things they are scared to lose.
“I can’t devote any time to marketing my business because I don’t want to stop paying attention to my current clients.”
“I don’t have time to track my sales numbers because I need to keep researching cutting-edge workouts.”
“I don’t want to shift my brand message because making that change will pull me away from my original vision for this business.”
Do you see what’s wrong here?
In each of these examples, the person is looking at the change that NEEDS to happen in their business as a loss. Not a priority shift (which is usually what I’m talking about) but a loss.
The truth is that the building blocks for either success or failure are already in your business and in YOURSELF from day 1. The only thing that matters is how you arrange those blocks.
It would be foolish to start taking blocks away…and I would never ask someone to do that.
The Personality Building Blocks
One of our speakers at FBS, Corey Enman, gave an awesome presentation about the Behavior Matrix. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s similar to the DISC personality test or the Myers-Briggs test. It breaks down people’s personalities into 4 major categories and then explains the major strengths and weaknesses of each one.
Naturally, people tend to have an easy time communicating with people in their same category, and they struggle more with people in the other ones. Each category even has an “opposite,” which is that one personality they almost never get along with.
However, Corey ended his presentation with an incredibly important insight…
The world’s greatest leaders are those who can effectively communicate with and even embody ALL FOUR of the personalities.
So really, the last thing you ever want to do is sacrifice the personality you already have. 
Same thing with your passions, skills, and experience.
The key to success is to add on to what you have. Learn. Expand. Build.
In business this can mean one of two things: educate yourself or find people who fill in for your weaknesses (and each other’s). Most often the second one is correct.
And the way you tie together all these vastly different personalities and skills is by establishing and WRITING DOWN a clear vision for the future.
This vision should include your business’s purpose and a massive, measurable goal.
AND YOUR BUSINESS’S PURPOSE STARTS WITH YOU. IT BEGINS WITH THE RAW HOPES AND DREAMS THAT YOU FEEL IN YOUR GUT.
Do you see how the path to greatness is not really a path of sacrifice? It’s really a path of abundance.
When people talk about “sacrifices” in their path to success, they almost always come to realize that those things they lose were never really important to begin with. Lousy friends and unfulfilling hobbies, mostly.
So don’t frame your path to success in terms of “sacrifice,” frame it in terms of ABUNDANCE! Abundance of ideas, abundance of good people, abundance of money, abundance of time, abundance of happiness…these things are not just the rewards of success – they are your way of getting there.
Unlocking Your Inner Entrepreneur
Now let’s tie it all together!
You don’t have to give yourself up to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to create some fake version of yourself to stand in your place.
You have to do something scarier, but much more rewarding:
You have to be honest.
You have to admit to yourself what you REALLY want out of life. Don’t hold back. Picture it. Close your eyes and touch it. Write down what you find.
Then work backwards from that vision to find the people you’ll need to get you there.
Focus on the big picture and be ready to take big risks.
Let yourself become obsessed with that vision, and don’t let anyone tell you that it’s “weird” or “uncool” or “unhealthy.”
YOU’VE GOT A GIFT TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD! GO OUT AND SHARE IT!
THAT is how you unlock your inner entrepreneur.
Committed to your success,
Bedros
P.S. If you’re curious about Corey’s FBS presentation that I mentioned earlier, keep an eye out on this blog. I’ve got my video guys editing the footage for the whole event and I’ll make sure to announce it here when it’s ready.