I have found that my why-power is not only stronger than motivation and dedication, it replaces them.

To me, why-power is a deep and personal discussion where you explore not only what you want, but why you want it. When you reach the point of understanding why you want something, the what and how become less difficult to accomplish.

I’ve known for many years that I wanted to lose weight and get into better shape but I never really stopped to consider why I wanted to lose weight. As I had this deeply personal discussion with myself, I realized that while I have at least a few reasons why I wanted to lose weight, like being healthy, and being around when my boys are grown, one of them bubbled to the top.

Here is my why -

Over the course of my adult life, I have worked hard to engage in self-study, introspection, and the improvement of my core character. I do believe leopards can change their spots, but it is not easy to do.

My self-study has helped me overcome things like smoking, chewing my fingernails, cracking my knuckles, using profanity in front of my children, chewing smokeless tobacco, not being a good listener, converting my cockiness into confidence, and drinking upwards of one gallon of soft drinks per day.

None of these changes were easy and each took their own method to finally overcome. Each change brought with it an increase in my confidence that it was actually possible to change. I almost consider myself an expert in breaking bad habits.

At 240 pounds, weight loss represented my biggest and longest running challenge and behavior to change. Losing weight became the final exam. Why I wanted to lose weight was primarily because it served as my biggest test of my ability to change.

What I wasn’t prepared for when I lost 65+ pounds was the tidal wave of change that would wash over my life, affecting everyone in my life. I think this is caused by something Darren Hardy refers to as the compound effect.

At this point, my new challenge has been to communicate my message to others in the hopes that I can lessen the learning curve for others seeking to enable change in their lives.

This is also proving to be very difficult. For those who know me, you will agree instantly that I am an incredibly personal and inward facing person. Opening up and talking about my experiences is just NOT something I do.

I believe in quantum theory and quantum mechanics which is to say that I do believe that my life is a relationship between what I do now, and the possibilities my actions may manifest in the next second, the second after that, and so on. According to quantum mechanics, my tomorrow is directly related to the actions I take today. The possibilities of my tomorrow are architected by what I do today.

I’ve often wondered why certain people I know always have a dark cloud over them while other people I know seem to stumble onto happiness, success, and harmony all the time. I think this is primarily because every second of our future is directly related to the actions we take today.

If I can find the voice, the message, and the courage to share it with others, my actions today might just result in architecting different futures for those I reach. That is a challenge I never prepared for nor considered, but is one that I will take head-on.

I hope this note has touched you in some way and that whatever you are chasing in your life becomes attainable once you have your own deeply personal discussion about why you are chasing it.

Cale Dansbee

TOPSTONE – Have you reached your TOPSTONE?

I’ve been getting these two questions recently, and thought I would provide an answer –

Question 1 – What does TOPSTONE mean?

TOPSTONE is the name of our business for very specific reasons.  In the literal sense, TOPSTONE means ‘the final stone, placed on top’. What TOPSTONE means to me runs much deeper. TOPSTONE or CAPSTONE is usually a term used to imply completion. In my case, TOPSTONE represents not just achievement, but the ultimate achievement; the kind of achievement that transcends and changes your life forever.

Those who know me now and even when I was 65 pounds heavier know that I think fast on my feet, act decisively, and move fast. They also know I accept nothing less than the very best from those around me. I’ve never settled, nor will I. Until recently, I’d accomplished all but one thing I’d ever set out to accomplish. For me, this one thing was my weight.

The only thing in the universe ever holding me back from truly realizing that I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to has now been removed. If you’ve seen our company logo, you’ll know the TOPSTONE is purple. While I have not yet placed my hand onto that purple stone, it is in sight, and I am climbing higher and higher every single day.

That surging break-through feeling, the release of my spirit, and the renewal of enthusiasm that has been infused into me with my recent whole body transformation is an incredible feeling and I want you to have a similar experience in your life.

Reaching your TOPSTONE isn’t just about losing weight; it isn’t just about personal development, improving relationships, or even reaching fitness goals. It is about introspection, self-study, honesty, and the total realization of your true potential.

Once you have the purple stone in sight, you will be driven to share your experience with others and that is the duplication I am counting on. My good friend Rich Dafter recently said, “If you were leading a cross country race, you wouldn’t drop back to see how the rest of the team is doing. You would keep pushing the pace and pulling them along with you.”

The front is always where I’ve led from and like I always do, I will continue to assess my goals, increase expectations when necessary, make adjustments, and just keep pushing until I reach my TOPSTONE.

Question 2 – Why did you become a Beachbody Coach?

Based on my response to question 1, the answer may be partially revealed. However, there are nuances here that warrant further explanation.

First, and perhaps most importantly, I did NOT become a coach for the money. I already have a great job and I’m already successful in the IT industry. If you are having computer problems, I’m here to help as long as you are one of my coaches!

Second, Beachbody gets a super-sized portion of the credit with helping my transformation. I’ve been an advocate and consumer of Beachbody products for the last three years. However, my whole-body transformation is less than a year old!

Does this mean Beachbody products don’t work? Heck no, it means Cale wasn’t working!

To answer the question specifically and directly, I became a Beachbody coach after doing my research into how I could reach the most people with my message of transformation and transcendent achievement.

Yes, Beachbody is a multi-level marketing based company, but with a twist that happens to interlock with my mission at TOPSTONE. For those who dig in deeply, fight off their inner demons; push through their emotional, personal, and physical comfort barriers following the Beachbody fitness model; that purple stone is waiting for them on the other side.

From a health and wellness perspective, Beachbody absolutely embodies the concepts behind TOPSTONE. Our goals to pursue transcendental achievement are twin spires pushing through the clouds.

Do I enjoy the money I get as a coach? Heck yes! It’s a fun side effect to doing what I’m most passionate about anyway.

If you’ve considered becoming a coach, are interested in helping others, or need a job where you can be your own boss and find success, please consider this –

If you enjoy helping others and you don’t need the money, become a coach and start sharing your experience with others. Often that is all the motivation they need to begin reaching for their own TOPSTONE.

If you are looking for a great, multi-beneficial way to improve your own life, from both a financial and health and wellness perspective, become a coach. Even if you don’t make a dime, which won’t be the case, you will have begun your own transformation and will begin reaching for your own purple stone.

I believe whole-heartedly in what I’m doing with Beachbody and if my message is appealing to you, then please join our team and make today the day you set your sites on that purple stone.

Maybe you’ve seen the infomercials for P90X, LES MILLS PUMP, or TurboFire and you were impressed. And then, you thought to yourself – There is no way I can do that. Those people are already super fit.

Well, there is no denying that those folks are super fit, but there is so much more to the story that you should know. There are many advantages to owning any or all of the fitness videos sold by Beachbody. I hate admitting this, but I know a few people who have pirated copies of P90X. I wave my finger at them every time the topic comes up because I strongly disagree with anyone who pirates media for any reason.

What I’ve told my friends about that they were surprised to learn is this – There are several components to each of these fitness DVDs and most pirated copies are not complete.

Did you know that in the original P90X and many other Beachbody DVDs that you have several options for how to interact with the DVD? One of the things I like best about my Beachbody DVD collection is the ability to turn features of the DVD on or off.

For example, after you’ve completed the same workout a few times, maybe you would like to listen to your own music but still hear the narration of the exercises. With P90X and others, this is simple. As an added benefit, you can also turn off the audio for the narrative. Now here’s where it gets really cool as far as I’m concerned. P90X and many other Beachbody series have a graphical interface on the screen that displays relevant information. How many reps are left, how much time is left in an exercise, or even how much time is left in the entire workout.

When I’m using my Power90 DVDs (one of my favorite workouts), I like that the graphical display shows me a series of bubbles representing the entire workout. As I complete a particular section of the workout, that bubble gets colored in. These bubbles are also color coded starting with green, then yellow, then red. These colors represent the warm-up, the easier part of the workout, and the harder part.

These indications are an invaluable tool for me in the actual execution of each workout. Some days I wake up feeling just ok and don’t really want to work very hard. Other days, I’m bummed when the workout ends and I have to clean up the sweat.

Like most Beachbody DVDs, P90X is designed to be adjustable. I started P90X when I was 65 pounds overweight. I was unable to perform most of the exercises in the series. What I was able to do is this – I was able to use the indicators on-screen, and my own music for motivation to start moving. If you are like I was and you are overweight, this is the first and biggest step you need to take. You need to start moving.

I found that some of the DVDs were too advanced for me while others were exactly what I needed. X Stretch for example is like Tai Chi for me. It is very calming and slow-moving, yet I sweat like crazy every time I perform it. The real value of these DVDs for me is that I’ve been able to use them as a starting tool. As I progressed, I was able to put the same DVD in the player, push play, and have a more intense workout. Now in my third round of the Beachbody Challenge, I am able to put the same DVD in the player and get the most challenging workouts of my life. Please let me share one last tip with you in the article – We all like to admire things and we typically admire things that we would like for ourselves. When you watch the infomercials on TV and you admire the fitness trainers you see, please know that you too can have that same look. Take a look at this video and see if you can relate to the people at the end of the video.

With almost any subject, you can use the analogy of driving a car. The left shoulder of the roadway represents one extreme, the right shoulder, the other extreme. The stripe in the center of the roadway represents the balance and harmony.

Whether we are talking about drinking, smoking, gambling, relationships, financial investing, or even being fit, either shoulder is a bad place to be. Matthew McConaughey, someone I admire greatly once said in a book that achieving the ultimate fitness was great, but at a cost. He found that celebrations like New Years were less enjoyable because he was unable to partake in the same ways as his friends. Being super fit was not enough; he had to find balance and harmony in order to really find happiness.

I found that eating was another way to find the shoulder of the road and if I was to find balance and harmony, I’d have to drive the car away from the drive up window and back into the middle of the road.
Here’s a key element from my story – I had to realize that my thinking was completely backwards and now that I have started to find the success I’ve been chasing for years, I will spend the rest of my life supporting this realization. You see, I always thought that if I hit the gym and worked hard, that I could eat whatever I wanted. I was burning it off right? WRONG! I found the exact opposite to be the case. By changing what I ate, I have finally started to transform my life.

Now you have to keep reading! I’m not saying that just eating the right stuff is all it takes. Let me use another analogy – Finding fitness and health success is a lot like going to school. Tony Horton and others like him are the MIT grads and if you want to be like them, you have to get all the schooling they did before you can join them. I spent the first 42 years of my life skipping school and then all of the sudden thought I could hang out with the MIT grads. Not even!

To take my body back to school meant resetting some things and my nutritionist helped me learn how and that is one of the things I want to teach others. It’s elegantly simple and will be the subject of many other blogs.
I had to take my body back to grade school so to speak. Back to learning some fundamental things, such as -

• Zero calorie soft drinks are no good for you – water is
• ALL diets fail because they are designed to put you on one shoulder of the road or another for a period of time in order to cause rapid changes to your body – These are reckless and should be avoided at all costs.
• Don’t think you can drink the protein powder and look like the guy on the label because you can’t
• Sugar is potentially the most addictive and harmful substance you will ever ingest and it permeates your entire life. It is everywhere and if I was to get to middle school, I’d have to find a way to live without it for a while.
• Nothing happens overnight – if it does, it won’t last. If I could somehow leap and turn my 1000 mile journey into two steps, doing so would significantly impact the value I place on that journey. Here’s an expression that is all my own – Life is one quarter, one ride! Enjoy every second and make them all count.
• Now that I am in the high school equivalent of learning to change my life, I can look back at my grade school days and realize that now I have some wisdom and experience. What is experience you may ask? It’s information you get about 15 seconds AFTER you needed it J. Wisdom is the ability to use that experience when it is needed
• In keeping with the analogy of school, as I look forward to college, I think I agree with what many successful entrepreneur’s say today. The best education is a diverse one. If I study only chemistry, I will know a great many things about one topic. However, if I learn about art, history, science, math, dance, music, photography, and others, I will have a base of knowledge with which I can learn and do anything! That is where I am now with my fitness and nutrition

In going back to school so to speak, I’ve taken my beaten and broken body and spirit, and started a brilliant transformation process. I told my nutritionist that I had always wanted to build a sports car (my physique), but couldn’t really figure out how to get it out of the garage (because of all my fat)!

The beauty and simplicity of lighting the ballistic missile that would be my transformation came with the spark of watching Tony Horton work out at the same time that my allergist said I needed to take better care of my body or die a young man, and meeting my nutritionist, who helped me go back to school and retrain my body.

Remember earlier when I said that fixing a couple of things in my body caused other things to fix themselves? Here’s what I meant –
Through the advice of my nutritionist and with the help of pharmaceutical grade supplements like the P90X recovery drink and other Beachbody products and the breaking of yet another bad habit, my addiction to food, here is what I have accomplished in the last 16 weeks. (I haven’t had my blood work done again but will post that as soon as I have it for comparison)
• Body Mass Index (BMI) – From the red zone (obese), to the green zone (normal)
• Blood pressure – 180/100 to 120/80
• Dress pant waist size – 40” to 32”
• Blue jeans waist size – 42” loose fit to 32” slim
• Casual t-shirts – XXL to Medium
• Gym shorts – XXL to Small
• Bodyweight – 240 to 177 pounds
• Waist measurement (around the navel) 49” to 34”
• Bodyfat 35% to 21% (not sure this is accurate enough. I don’t like the handheld method my nutritionist uses)
• Chronic Idiopathic Urticaria and that horrible steroid Prednisone I wrote of earlier – GONE! I’m currently managing my outbreaks with over the counter anti-histamines and LOVING IT!
• Number of times I’ve been mistaken for a new hire at my office – twice!
• Number of co-workers now following in my footsteps and following my advice and meeting with my nutritionist – 1 – The owner of the company. I’m really proud of him!
• Number of times I’ve been on TV because of my weight loss – onceJ. It was SO COOL! My wife and I were interviewed with my nutritionist on a local San Diego TV channel. The interview was about my transformation

Where am I going from here you may ask? I plan to listen to some very elegantly simple and effective advice from someone you might know. I’m going to bring my best and forget the rest!

Stay tuned to my blogs and hit me up anytime you need advice, wanna chat, or just wanna brag about a new achievement you’ve made. I’m always here for you and I’ve always got something to say.

Train Hard – Train Safely, and we’ll see you in the gym

Cale Dansbee

TOPSTONE – Have you reached your TOPSTONE?

In my bio, I mentioned writing a book someday and titling it “How I Mastered Breaking Bad Habits”. Well, in order to find any progress with my health and fitness, it had to start with breaking the habit of thinking I knew more than others about how to lose weight and get healthy. I knew a little something about proteins, carbs, and fats, and I knew a little something about 1 rep maxes and drop sets. What else is there right? I had to come to grips with the reality that I needed someone to help me succeed.

I found that success in two people, my nutritionist, and that amazing woman I mentioned in my bio, my wife. Anyone who has tried to lose weight and get healthy knows firsthand that there are more negative issues to deal with than simply being overweight. Self-doubt, confidence problems, depression, and even worse feelings can really drive you into the ground. But like I said in my bio, this isn’t a sad tale, so let’s move on Everyone needs a little luck and I think my luck came with timing.

As I was watching the P90X videos and getting excited just to watch Tony and crew work out, I was dealing with some fairly annoying health issues. Nothing serious, but certainly annoying. I’d being going to my doctor regularly for these massive rashes I was breaking out in. My doctor looked everywhere he could and ran lots of tests, but came up empty. He couldn’t find anything specific wrong with me. At that point, he suggested I see a dermatologist to see if something was up with my skin. He came up empty too and suggested I see an allergist. Yep, you guessed it, he couldn’t find anything either, but he did know how to handle the rashes. Prescription medication in the form of prednisone If you’ve seen the docu-drama, called Fat Sick and Nearly Dead and notice some similarities, that’s because Joe Cross and I have the same thing – Chronic Idiopathic Urticharia! Chronic What??? – It’s just a fancy way to say “we don’t know why you are breaking out in rashes.

Nice, another dead end. Well, as it turns out, if you can fix a few things in your life, other things start fixing themselves, and that is exactly what happened to me. My allergist mentioned that he thought I might be suffering from some deeper issue inside my body that wasn’t easily detectable and that it could be associated with my obesity. He asked if I had ever met with a nutritionist and that is how I met my nutritionist. As soon as I walked into my nutritionist’s office, he immediately looked at me with a different look than all of my medical doctors. That’s when the break through’s started happening, that’s when my life started changing, that’s when my amazing wife rescued me through her support and compassion!

It was time to break another bad habit, maybe even my worst habit ever… My addiction to food. Yes, I said addiction and I’m absolutely convinced that food is as much a drug as tobacco and alcohol (two of the many other bad habits I’ve broken). In my next and final entry, My Story – Part III – I’ll explain what my wife did, what changes happened and why, and I will bring this story to current day and will share my success story.

Then we can talk about where I’m going next and what I can do to help you reach the TOPSTONE!

Until then, please train hard, train safely, and know that there are those out there, even complete strangers like my nutritionist and me that want to see you succeed and flourish!

Currently, I am the Director of IT for a Department of Defense contracting company in San Diego. Outside of work, I’m a dad to 4 amazing young men and husband to 1 amazing woman! None of the boys are fully grown yet and I’m in no rush to see them grow up anyway. We all enjoy snowboarding, playing football and basketball, and playing World of Warcraft (WOW) together.

Until recently, I wasn’t much fun on the basketball court or football field, or even the snow covered mountains for that reason. I was just too fat to be of any use in those capacities. I made a heck of a basement dwelling WOW player though! And I had the body to show for it!

Someday, I’ll write a book and title it “how I mastered breaking bad habits”, because that is what I’ve spent my adult life figuring out how to do.

That project will have to wait a bit for two reasons:

1. I’m close to figuring it out, but don’t have all the answers yet on how to teach someone else to break bad habits.

2. I still have some fitness/nutrition/health goals I’d like to hit before my 44th birthday in May.

You see, somewhere around 1992, when I was stationed at the Keflavik Naval Air Station, in Keflavik Iceland (yep, I lived there and absolutely loved it for two amazing years), I started to put on weight. Slowly at first — so slowly in fact, that I didn’t really notice that I had already put on enough weight that part of my welcome package to Iceland, was a ‘Welcome to the Fat-Boy Program’ letter from the Air Force.

I look back at pictures of me from 1992 and think “what I wouldn’t give to look like that guy again”, even though that guy was fat by Air Force standards!

I tried to lose some weight while in Iceland, but upon arriving at my new duty station in Las Vegas, Nevada, I was again welcomed by the gloomy letter The Air Force keeps really good records and that isn’t always a good thing

I’d like to say my life was hard, that I worked long hours, and bla bla bla, and didn’t have the time to eat right and exercise, but that would be crap and we all know that.

Instead, I’ll just be straight up and say I worked the night shift and discovered that when you left the flight line at 11:00PM, you could still find beer and hot wings in Vegas!

Yep, you guessed it, the weight just kept creeping on. When I left Iceland in 1994, I was 10 pounds overweight according to standards. By the time I got home from Iraq, and after being injured in the terrorist bombing of the military base called Khobar Towers in June 1996, I felt I’d had enough and I left Las Vegas and the Air Force in 1997. I was 20 pounds overweight according to standards when I left.

Let’s fast forward through the next handful of years when I moved to southern California, transitioned out of the military, found a job, went through a pretty rough divorce, got laid off, found another job, worked full time while getting a bachelor’s degree in technology, tried to be the best dad I could even though my boys were moved out of state, and so the sad story moves on.

This isn’t a sad tale however; it’s quite the opposite in fact!

Sometime in mid-2009, and at a whopping 240 pounds (I’m only 5’5″ tall with an ideal body weight of 140-150), I decided it was time to change. I had applied for a life insurance policy to provide for my family should something happen to me, and I’m pretty sure the lab tech got ‘iced caramel macchiato’ when he drew my blood. The only numbers higher than my blood sugar, lipids, and cholesterol, were the rates for the insurance. Something had to change.

I make a pretty good living and live in a pretty nice house with plenty of room. One of those rooms was my billiard room. When I knew something had to change, I decided to lose the pool table and turn the room into a gym. It’s not great, but exactly what I needed. While I waited for pieces of gym equipment to arrive, I ordered P90X — Go with the big dogs or stay on the porch I always say, and stay on the porch is exactly where this basset hound of a dog stayed. My wife has a picture of me pathetically lying on the floor in the middle of my gym, my body in the shape of an X…I wonder if that is why they called it that?

I was down, but not out. I wasn’t injured, at least on the outside. My pride took a beating and I knew that even the weight loss method of P90X was going to be harder than I ever imagined. I had to start smaller and work my way up. I knew that reaching my goals was going to be far harder than I had ever imagined. If you are reading my profile bio, this is an important message that I want you to get. If you are like me (the old me) and morbidly obese, it won’t be easy. I carry around at least 100 pounds of respect for guys like Tony Horton and others in the BeachBody community. I had experienced just a little of what it would take to be like them and I failed! Those guys and girls deserve every single ounce of respect I can carry around for what they have achieved.

I had to find a way to turn all of that disappointment and those depressing feelings into something else or it would be the end of me. I spent hours watching the P90X videos while I sat on my couch. It’s funny, the music is great, and the workouts they do are absolutely amazing. As I watched, I noticed that their excitement was crawling out of my TV and into me. I could feel it and I liked it.

A 1000 mile journey begins with a single step and for me, watching those videos were that first step. I visited my doctor, got a thorough checkup, including a full lab work-up, and I met with a nutritionist, where I began to study and learn about changing my eating habits.

This is where the ‘breaking bad habits’ part comes in again

Click the picture to learn more about Shakeology

I’ve always been skeptical of the newest health product I could find but somewhere deep inside myself, I always thought this one would be it. This one would be the product that would transform my life.

If you think this story is about a single magic bullet solution, prepare to be disappointed. Proper health and wellness takes a few things.

• Education – you really need to learn about nutrition and develop a basic understanding of how your body works
• Consistency – Good habits are just as hard to form as bad ones are to break. Seems like cruel irony, but true nonetheless
• Nutrition – Whatever you put into your body will manifest itself in the outward actions of your body. Junk food in — lethargy out | High performance, foundational nutrition in — high performance out!
• Exercise – Did you know your body has more lymphatic fluid than blood? Did you know that unlike your blood, your lymphatic system has no pump (like the heart) to move the lymphatic fluid through the various filters to cleanse and leech out toxins? When your body encounters heavy minerals and toxins, they are transferred from your bloodstream into the lymph system. From there, muscular contraction causes the lymphatic fluid to pulse through a series of glands. The glands capture the toxins and go to work breaking them down. This is just one of the many reasons why you simply must move! Any movement at all — slow walks, sprints, weightlifting, P90X, PUMP, gymnastics, golf, basketball, or tennis. Whatever gets you moving helps keep you healthy

Nutrition is almost always the most abused and neglected aspect of the overall picture I painted above. One of the reasons for this is that we have so many opportunities to fail. Did you know that you make at least 20 decisions each day about what foods to put into your mouth? Each decision is an easy opportunity to make the wrong decision. Make enough of these bad decisions and the results could be weight gain, disease, or other harmful side affect.

Getting to the point of the title of this article — Why you should experience Shakeology today

When you decide to drink Shakeology, it is the equivalent of deciding to put over 40 incredibly healthy foods into your mouth at one meal. I like to think of this as “cheating the eating trap”. I was hesitant to try Shakeology originally because I had tried every miracle product on the market and they all failed me.

That is why it is so important for you to realize that Shakeology is NOT a miracle product — it is simply an opportunity to “cheat the eating trap” and make 40 rock solid eating decisions in one meal. Don’t take my word for it. Do what I mentioned above and go research the product on your own. Develop a foundational understanding of what your body needs and where you can get it. You’ll be back to buy Shakeology   I’m that sure of it.

Using Shakeology only one time per day, I found that by day 4, I knew something was happening. Being morbidly obese for many years, I’ve suffered from irritable bowl syndrome, stretched bowls, upper and lower GI problems, and so forth. I hadn’t been regular in years.

By day 5, I was really surprised at how normal my digestive system felt. Most people take normal for granted or simply think normal is a setting on the washing machine. Take it from me when I tell you that normal is what we obese people would give anything to feel!

Normal is that strange feeling when nothing feels out of place, broken, swollen, irritable, or otherwise not working right.

Working to restore order to my broken and defeated body had to start from within, and that is exactly what Shakeology helps me with each and every day. Now it’s not the only thing I do, but I will tell you with conviction that if you don’t have the time, wherewithal, or dedication to do more to promote your health and wellness; using Shakeology is over 40 decisions in the right direction.

Just one Shakeology a day – that’s all you need to start planting footsteps in the direction of better health and wellness

Take care friends, and be kind to your body; it’s the only one you’re ever gonna get!

• Experience – Looking behind you and seeing a fresh footprint in the sand
• Learning – Watching the ocean gently dust that footprint out of existence
• Insight – Knowing the ocean will dust them all out of existence, whether you watch them or not
• Wisdom – Understanding the combined value of all the footsteps
• Sharing Wisdom – Determines the width of your smile when you reflect on your time here

Sharing will leave an imprint that cannot be dusted out of existence

I realized how much I enjoy helping people about two years ago. I was driving home from work and past a homeless man. It was winter and raining, and he was sitting on the curb, no sign, no plea, just sitting there looking miserable. I’d seen this particular homeless man before and while I don’t like admitting this, I nicknamed him “hot-dog man”. I had seen him sitting outside a grocery store eating hot dogs. No buns, chips, soft drinks, or party. Only plain, raw hot dogs. As I drove passed him on this cold and wet winter evening, I wasn’t sure what I could do to help him, but I knew I wanted to do something, so I just did what felt natural.

I drove home and grabbed my gortex parka that had been issued to me when I was stationed in Iceland and headed back out to find him. I parked my car and joined him curbside. I didn’t really know what to say, so I just said “hi”. He had a bright smile and piercing blue eyes. I told him that I had no idea what to do to best help him, but that when I was cold in Iceland, this jacket fixed that. When I handed him the jacket, it became clear that I would need to leave quickly or risk completely breaking down and weeping in front of a stranger. When I offered him the jacket, his piercing blue eyes welled up as he said “Thank you”. I know that my gesture meant more to him than just a jacket. For just that moment, he was a person again and not invisible.

Not every story of rescue has a happy ending and my homeless friend is still homeless – but he isn’t cold. I still see my homeless friend from time to time, and he always has that jacket. One message I hope you take from this story can be summed up in one word. Act. I was reluctant to give away my military treasures because of the value they hold for me. Who knew that giving this jacket to someone else would not only increase the personal value of the jacket many times over, but would also imprint that jacket into my memories and years later, would cause this story to spill onto these pages, thus sharing itself with you. When I reach the point of reflection in my life and I look back, this jacket will have widened my smile.

Footprints come in many shapes and sizes, as do the conditions that cause them to fade from view. Sharing helps our experiences become timeless and that is why I built this site.

The 1,000 mile journey behind me has many footsteps. My life story reads more like one of Huck Finn’s adventures more than anything else. Had you asked me a year ago if could change any part of my life, I would have said “yes, I would never have been so fat”. Ask me now and I’ll tell you that I wouldn’t change one single thing. Had I never walked the journey of a man struggling with weight, I would be unable to share with you how I managed to transform my life.

I truly believe that it is not what you say or who you are that defines you; but what you do that defines you. If you are like me and you struggle with being overweight and your footprints press a little too deeply into the sand; trust me, I can relate. I know how hard it can be to pull your way out of that deep footprint. I can help you.

My 2012 resolution is straight-forward and simple. I plan to help you find success in fitness, in nutrition, and in health. In support of that resolution, here is what I will do in 2012. I’ve already taken the enormous step of setting up this site and posting my before pictures so you know I’m real. In the last 15 years, only doctors and my immediate family had seen me without a shirt. Posting those pictures was a very difficult step for me, but one that I felt was necessary before I could move on.

I found that over the years I’ve been faced with the struggle of needing to kick a bad habit or two. Some who know me would tell you that I have made a hobby out of breaking bad habits. Of course, forming good habits can be just as hard as breaking bad ones. It seems I have suffered with some form of addiction my entire life. From smokeless tobacco and cigarettes to alcohol. Even cracking my knuckles and biting my fingernails to the point they bled. Those all seemed easy to kick compared to my addiction to food. Those are things I can help you with.

I’ve partnered with the amazing people at Team Beachbody, not only because I use and believe in their products, but also because they lead by example. These are critical elements for me. As someone who likes to lead by example, I’ve decided to enter the Beachbody Challenge and continue my personal journey to better fitness, nutrition, and health. While I am participating in the Beachbody challenge, I will be blogging about my experience both in the Beachbody Message Boards and on my website. Because I view the Beachbody Challenge as an internal challenge of my ability to change, I have no intentions of hiding my secrets – quite the opposite in fact.

I will be sharing what is working, what isn’t, and each week will post my progress including pictures, measurements, etc. If you are a club member at Team Beachbody, you will be able to easily see my workouts, know when I’m in the gym, what I’m doing, what I’m eating, and so forth. In P90X, I’ve heard, “Bring your best and forget the rest.” My best tells me I can do this challenge and more. Here is the more.

I’ve become an independent Beachbody Coach. I’m very serious about wanting to help you succeed and you will need a coach for many reasons. If you are overweight like I was, you’ll be carrying even more weight in the form of feelings of doubt, poor self-image, and more. Part of my success and transformation to date is because I made myself accountable to someone else until I could find a way to make myself accountable to me. I can help you with that. Be accountable to me. Lean on me. There are so many options out there that it can make you dizzy trying to determine what works, what doesn’t, what you should try next, what website you should sign up for. Let me be your guide and I’ll be there for you every step of the way.

In everyone’s life, there is something that represents completion, satisfaction, and total accomplishment. I like to refer to this as the top stone, which is why I called my business TOPSTONE. I get great satisfaction from helping others, sharing experiences, and continuing my journey to reach my TOPSTONE. Now it’s time for you to be defined by what you do. Join me, workout with me, cry with me, learn with me, and together we will reach our TOPSTONE!

Cale Dansbee

Cale Dansbee