I received this amazing comment the other day.

It was a girl I know writing to me to tell me how much she loved my writing and that she sat down and read all of my posts.

I was stunned. I have had a few people write me over the past year, but this was way different.

One of the greatest things in this message is that she quoted something I said a long time ago.

I said “We must remember that the sun always will go down at the end of the day. Sometimes in our lives we try to stop the sun from going away for as long as possible. But the darkness always comes. However, never to forget, that the sun will shine again.”

When she put that in her letter, it brought me right back to the place where I was a year ago. Pain. But now, I look at myself, and I see tons of happiness. There is nothing that can stop me now.

The interesting thing about my life right now is that the sun does go down every day, but I expect that to happen. When you expect things to be perfect, you will be faced with all sorts of bad situations. Its just a fact. The world is made out of opposites. Happiness and sadness. Gain and loss. It is a natural cycle.

You can’t expect to keep everyone in your life and you also have to keep yourself open to new people coming in. I wanted to acknowledge the girl who wrote me because it meant so much to me.

I don’t know at all how many people are reading this, but I know that I have one big fan rooting for me and is influenced by the way I think about things…or at least it gives her some good perspective.

This is what the whole project is about for me. The journey to become a better person every day. And through my experiences, other people may be able to relate to what I am feeling. So H.G. I am writing for you tonight.

Keep striving for your dreams. Never say someday…always say today. You can do it

I listened to this awesome speech with Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning and was motivated an unbelievable amount.

In fact, I will listen to this every single morning when I wake up. What was also important to me is that he actually lives his life through a life that I found when I came out of Landmark.

I wanted to write to these rules.

1. Trust yourself and Dig Deep Down: Who do you want to be? Not what do you want to be, but who. What makes you happy? I know who I am inside and I constantly face situations where I really have to dig deep and find that inner strength to not cave in. It’s amazing when you really focus on keeping your integrity, how many situations a day come up that challenge your integrity. It even comes down to what you want to eat. Trust yourself because if you don’t trust yourself, you can never accomplish great things. There this awesome quote I have memorized. “Determination is a measure of how much you believe in yourself.” If you don’t believe in yourself, your determination is going to suffer. Big goals take lots of determination and sweat.

2. Break the rules: It is impossible to be original if you can’t think outside the box and try to be liked by everyone. When you break the rules though, you are going to face heavy opposition. It isn’t going to work the first time most of the time, but if you refer back to rule one, you are going to achieve great things. Some times you have to step back from what you are doing and take some time to think outside the box. Never conform to the status quo.

3. Don’t be afraid to fail: Anything you attempt you should be willing to fail. Push yourself because you believe in yourself and you believe in your vision. When you workout…lift till you fail. When you are working on something…work as hard as you can and if you fail, thats okay, because you are putting the work in necessary to succeed one day. Don’t be afraid to go to bed at 4am if you are doing something that you are super passionate about. I know that I have been staying up really late to get my project going and working on creating, but because I love what I am doing, I am happy even though I am tired. I had been taking it easy in the gym until I realized it wasn’t my body that leveled off…it was my mind that weakened. You can always work harder, lift harder, run faster. I am lifting till I can’t take lift anymore. This is also a great mind builder. If you can go through this physical and mental anguish…you can go through anything.

4. Don’t believe in the naysayers. There really isn’t anything to say about this besides the fact that people will always tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t listen. If it is in your heart and you trust it then that is all you need.

5. Work your Butt off: Work as hard as you can and leave no stone unturned. Give everything 100%. Never try to do anything. Just do it.

6. Give Back: Give back to the community. Whatever helped you succeed you should share with other people. I think that is why I like writing in this blog so much. I want to tell everyone what I am learning on a daily basis. Then maybe people can relate to what I am saying.

I have to say today has been an unbelievable day. I could not ask for more. Life is amazing. Nothing less.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project