When I was a kid, more often than not on a weekend morning I would jump in the truck with my dad and head to an early breakfast with ‘the guys’. I used to love going along to breakfast with him and my grandpa, my uncles, and any of the other buddies that might frequently visit. To this day, my favorite breakfast joints are mom and pop hole in the wall spots where the local old guys get together each morning and try to solve the world’s problems. 

These breakfasts with my dad were no different. They’d talk about the local guys running for office, what new road construction was happening, who had a health issue that week, and then of course, the typical back and forth banter of guys being guys. I understood very little, but listened anyways.

One line that I heard consistently though was the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink”. Back then, I had no clue what this meant because none of the guys at the table were walking around with horses, but it was just recently that I really started to think about that saying.

You see, in my gym, we have troughs and troughs of water. We have a trough filled with water that will teach you about eating right. Another that will show you how to get a bigger back squat or run a faster 5k. And another that will show you how to have more energy and feel better to run around with your kids. And even another that can teach you about improving your mobility and movement for better function. We have gallons and gallons of water.

We also have a lot of horses. But what I find more and more is that some of those horses don’t want to drink. Or even more often, they don’t want to drink from all the troughs. They only like the water in one or two of the troughs…not all of them.

And the most frustrating thing to me is when a horse has all these answers (whoops, I mean water) in front of them, but they don’t want to take advantage (whoops, I mean drink). And then, they’re upset that they’re still not seeing results (i mean, they’re still thirsty). 

Here’s my call to action this week. If you’re a horse and you’re thirsty, come take a drink. If you’ve been drinking only out of one trough, come taste the water in one of the other ones. 

And if you still have no clue how I’m relating this to the humans we work with…let me be blunt.

We have tons and tons of answers on how to help you feel better, get stronger, lose weight, and see results, BUT you have to want them and you have to DO the work. We can’t do it for you.