Saturday was a day filled with travel out to Kingston for a game against RMC (who we beat 5-0 last week).

However, this past Saturday’s game was one of the worst football (soccer) performances I’ve ever witnessed from our team.

We barely squeaked by with a 1-0 win.

And RMC is one of the weakest teams in the country!

Sunday we played Ryerson – one of our rivals from Toronto – and drew 1-1.

I had to miss the game because we had an opportunity to check out a potentially awesome house in Port Perry (about an hour outside of Toronto).

Both Amy and I are pretty much set on moving out of the big city. We think Port Perry would be a great place to raise a family. Plus, Toronto can get tiring after a while.

Anyways, this house was in need of some serious fixing up, which we were looking forward to. It’s always nice to fix up a house to your liking.

However, our offer wasn’t excepted and the seller chose a higher bid.

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that we didn’t get the house.

Here’s why….

There was a crack in the foundation which we would have had to repair (cost = $5k-$10).

PLUS…

There was potentially some urea formaldehyde residue from the insulation lingering in the house!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think raising a family in a house with potential cancer causing agents floating around is a good thing.

The cost for getting rid of all that could have been up to $20,000!

No thanks!

So the lesson I want to share with you today based on this experience is that you need to have the ability to just move on (especially in when looking to buy a house).

There’s no point in getting hung up on things that you can’t change.

Just move on.

So what if you didn’t workout last week.

So what if you ate like crap this weekend!

Just put it behind you and move forward.

Today is the start of a brand new week and that means you get a fresh start.

In fact, every single day you wake up is a fresh start and a new opportunity for you to start living the life of your dreams.

So don’t dwell on what did or didn’t happen yesterday.

Live now and put a smile on your face because life is pretty awesome!

Let’s make it a great day.

Your friend and coach,

Yuri

P.S. In case you aren’t yet aware, we’re less than 24 hours away from releasing a brand new beginner marathon training program.

If you want to cross “run a marathon” off your bucket list, then be sure to check your email first thing in the morning for the big release!

In that post, I also mentioned that Sunday was perhaps one of the craziest days of my life. And indeed it was!

The reason?

I was flying back from Orange County – only a 4-hour direct flight – but boy did things take several wrong turns.

So, in this post, I’m going to share with you how a 4-hour flight turned into 9 hours, as well as, some lessons we can all learn about dealing with the unexpected.

Sunday – 5:30am (Pacific time)

I get up bright and early after going to bed at 1am so I can get to the airport for my 8am flight. In retrospect, I would have been better off waking up at 6:30am and showing up 30 minutes before my flight because I had already checked (thank you iPhone!) and only had a carry-on bag. Plus, the airport was 5 minutes from the hotel. Oh well. I was awake and feeling good.

8am (pacific time)

I was thrilled, yet again, to get the best seat in the house! I had a window in the emergency exit row with no seat in front of me. I was literally lounging – it was great. I also had this seat on the way to the OC so I was thrilled to get it again. Actually, the guy beside told me that he had reserved it but then changed his seat and then it was “gone” when he tried switching back. I offered to trade him but he said it was all good.

Just before taxiing to take off, the flight attendant comes over and ensures that the passengers in the emergency exit rows are OK with dealing with an emergency procedure. I said, “No problem, I’ve done it several times!”

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut!

The flight then takes off, with the steepest climb I’ve ever experienced in my life – I thought we were going into space! Apparently, there’s some rule in the OC that planes have to “get out” as fast as possible. I can understand because it was pretty noisy down there due to all the air traffic – I wouldn’t be a happy resident in that area.

[Note: I'm now going to switch over to EDT to make things easier. It's 3 hours ahead of pacific time]

11am – 3pm (EDT)

Although I had a great seat, this one was of the consistently bumpy flights ever. Nothing crazy but just constant low-grade turbulence. Kind of like driving on the terribly maintained streets of Toronto!

3:30pm (EDT)

As we approach Pearson airport in Toronto, I’m thrilled to look at my watch and see that we’re about 20 minutes early. Yes – I might actually get to watch the end of the world cup final!

3:35pm (EDT)

Within about 2 minutes and just a few hundred feet short of landing, the plane, all of a sudden, revs the engine and climbs back into the clouds!

“What the heck is going on?” is what most of us were thinking. A few moments later the pilot comes on and says that we had to abort the landing because there was some very dangerous thunderstorm activity and unpredictable winds right over the airport.

Damn, I wasn’t going to get to watch the world cup final. But I guess it’s better to be alive!

Anyways, you could tell the pilot was in a hurry to get out of the area. And thankfully so. As we cleared a ridiculous t-storm, you could tell the clouds were “angry”. Dark grey cumulus clouds charged with tons of humidity and just waiting to pop!

So the plane circled ALL the way around the storm, which took about 45 minutes, and then decided to land in nearby Hamilton.

4:45pm (EDT)

We land in Hamilton – which is just 1 hour’s drive from Toronto. It’s pretty funny that we were pretty much the only airplane sitting on an empty tarmac surrounded by cow pastures. Nice change of scenario from the crazy Toronto airport.

6:00pm (EDT)

We get refueled and the pilots get a new flight plan to head back to Toronto now that the storm had passed. I’m thinking that this is going to be the quickest flight of all time – maybe 10 minutes at best!

6:20 (EDT)

Wow, we’re already on the landing pattern for Toronto. We get within a few hundred feet of landing when…

Once again…

The plane pulls up and climbs back up into the sky!

Now, everyone starting to get a bit worried. After all, the sky was completely clear and the sun was shining through.

The pilot comes and tells us…

“Well, as you can see, the weather is beautiful, but now we’re having a problem with the landing gear. We’re going to circle around and do some manual work to get everything in working order.”

Holy cow.  I had a friend who went through a similar situation in Texas and it didn’t sound like too much fun. But I had a feeling that everything was going to be fine.

6:45pm (EDT)

The pilot comes back on says that they’ve fixed the problem and that the landing gear is good to go. Finally, we approach the runway and…

This time we actually land! Hallelujah!!!

So I send Amy a text to pick me up at 7:15pm. But then…

The plane stops on the tarmac and just sits there. The pilot comes back on and tells us that due to the storm there are a ton of planes on the ground (aka. traffic jam) and that we don’t have a gate.

7:00pm (EDT)

After 15 minutes of not moving, I send Amy another text telling her to just come and pick me up at 7:45pm (we only live about 15 minutes from the airport). I realized that we weren’t going to be moving for a little while.

But then…

The planes starts rolling. Yes!

7:15pm (EDT)

Now, we’re right at the gate and still nothing. What’s going on?

The pilot comes on again and says that we’re just 100 feet from our gate but that there’s no ground crew to take us in!

We sit for another 20 minutes just feet from our final destination. Might as well hold a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie in front of me and tell me I can’t eat it!!!

7:40pm (EDT)

At last….

The plane arrives at the gate, the ground crew is there, and we finally deplane.

I walk my butt off to get to customs and out the door as fast as possible because I know that Amy’s waiting for me any second now!

7:50pm (EDT)

I’m out of the airport in just 10 minutes!

Oh how I love traveling with only carry-on and having no line up in customs. It’s the best.

All in all, what was supposed to be a routine 4-hour direct flight turned into one of the longest and most eventful flights I’ve been on.

Dealing with the Unexpected

Now, you might expect most of the passengers (including myself) to be pretty anxious to run off the plane or get pissed off for the 4.5 hour delay but…

The exact opposite happened!

It was absolutely amazing. No one complained. No one was pushing and shoving to get off the plane. It was awesome. Maybe because it was the weekend or maybe it was because everyone was just happy to have landed safe and sound? I know I was.

After all, is there really any point in getting frustrated? I didn’t have a connecting flight. Many people did but they didn’t lose their marbles.

In these kind of “uncontrollable” situations your best bet is to just CHILL. Because you have absolutely no control over the outcome it simply isn’t worth stressing yourself out. Save your adrenals!

Note: Mom, if you’re reading this…I learned a lot from those early morning drives with you. I’m just happy you weren’t on this flight. You would have lost it!

So the take home message here is that sometimes in life, there are situations that are beyond our control. And it’s how we deal with these situations that defines them (and us all). What would have been the benefit of freaking out?

None.

Would freaking out have made the plane land or made the thunderstorm go away or got the ground crew to our gate sooner? NO.

So what’s the point?

You might as well sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Heck, I got in an extra 4 hours of reading – that’s pretty good!

=> Have you ever been in a similar “uncontrollable” situation? What did you do? Let me know in the comments.

You might be asking yourself, “Yuri, what on earth are you talking about?”

Well, let me tell you.

What I plan on doing in this blog post is comparing two similar concepts that have nothing to do with each other – food and team sports.

The Individual vs. the Collective

I’ve played soccer my entire life. I love the game and I’m so happy now that I get to watch the World Cup every single day – talk about being blessed!

One thing I’ve realized in my years playing and coaching soccer is this…

No ONE player is greater than the team. I don’t care if your name is Lionel Messi or Christiano Ronaldo – no single player can ever have a great impact the synergy created by the collective unit called the team.

After all, don’t some people refer to the word TEAM as “Together Everyone Achieves More”?

Makes sense to me.

Let me show you what I mean…

To give you an example from my career let me quickly tell you about my last year playing at the University of Toronto in 2002.

On paper, this was the weakest team that we had fielded in 4 years. Our strongest team had been the year prior where despite not making the national championships (losing in a heartbreaking semi-final loss) 4 of our players, including myself, were nominated to the All-Canadian team!

However, we lost 6 key players from that year’s team and the team in my 4th year would need to get by on something other than individual talent.

Because it was my final year as a player, I decided to take matters into my own to give ourselves the best possible chance of kicking butt. So, in the summer, I rounded up the troops and we began running “informal” fitness sessions each Saturday morning. That was the beginning of the best season I ever had.

After going through some tough challenges during the season, we bounced back and triumphed to win the provincial championship and placed 4th at Nationals – the best showing by U of T soccer in almost 10 years!!!

So what was our secret?

Good old fashion teamwork, collective belief, and a never give up attitude.

No one player stood out but as a team we came together to beat teams who had some real individual talent.

Look now to this World Cup. Personally, I feel the Germans have played the most effective and beautiful soccer. And their star player – Michael Balack – isn’t even playing because of a busted ankle.

Each of the German players plays within their system. No one needs to do anything spectacular because if everyone just does their job, then collectively they will be unstoppable.

And these examples are just from soccer but they can be applied to any team setting on the world from families to businesses and everywhere in between.

Food vs. Diet – Which is More Important

Now, with the “single vs. the collective” in mind, let’s look at specific foods vs. your overall diet.

A lot of people ask me questions like…

“What’s the best food to eat for more energy?”

“Which foods will help me burn belly fat?”

And on and on.

My answer is always the same.

Are you ready?

Here it is…

There is NO single food that is more important or has more of an impact than your overall diet.

Please re-read this sentence and take it to heart because it’s very very important.

I have nothing against superfoods like goji berries, noni, acai berries, and many others but I think too many people get caught up on the latest “miracle” food and forget to focus on the basics – natural whole food nutrition.

Here’s the thing guys…

If you spent more of your energy (and money) on quality plant-based foods (and some organic meats and eggs if you like) you will reap far greater health and energy benefits than drinking one ounce of mangosteen (or other) juice each day.

Now don’t get me wrong, if your diet is already sound and want to include such superfoods into your diet, then by all means go ahead – I certainly have and continue to do so. I personally use green barley grass as my “drug” of choice.

I think you can now see where I intended to go with post.

Are you with me?

Whether we’re talking about food or sport or anything else, the collective will always outweigh the individual. But let’s not forget that the collective (the team, your overall diet) is made up of the individual components, which, in and of themselves, need to be of the best possible quality!

After all, you are an individual. So what can you bring to the table to better the outcome of your “team”?

=> What are your thoughts on this topic? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends by simply clicking on the appropriate icon below (ie. Twitter, Facebook, etc…). I really appreciate you taking the time to spread the word.

In the meantime, I put together a quick little video describing 2 amazingly simple, but very powerful, tactics to help you eat healthier.

Watch and learn:

Give these 2 healthy eating tips a shot and let me know if they’re helpful for you or not.

Have a great day!

Yuri