Just Keep Moving
This brings back memories. Okay, so, when I was living in New York City, some people know me as the ‘Good Squats’ guy from Insanity and they’re like, “Jimmy, how did you get in Insanity?”
Shaun T: I’m going back here to Jimmy. ‘Cause he has that good squat. Jimmy has a good squat. Butt down. He’s exhaling. Tightening up the core. How you feeling Jimmy?
Jimmy: Strong.
Shaun T: Come on, push.
“What did you do to get into Insanity?”
Well, I’ll tell you what I did first. I signed up to be a Beachbody Coach, flew from New York City all the way to LA to go to the very first Beachbody Coach Summit. I didn’t know a soul, but I knew I wanted to get there because I wanted to meet Tony Horton, Shaun T, Chalene Johnson, and Beachbody CEO Carl Daikeler.
I was a young pup.
I hadn’t done anything with my business.
I probably sat in the back. I talked to a few people, but I got back here to New York City and a buddy of mine said, “Hey, your company…that company you work with, Beachbody, they’re doing a search for a test group for a new workout program,” and I saw Beachbody and I saw Shaun T’s name on there and I’m gonna be real honest.
All I ever knew Shaun T for was Hip Hop Abs and by this point I had lost a hundred pounds. I was probably like a six-time grad of P90X. I was pretty cocky and I was like, “Shoot, I can do something that Shaun T’s put together. I can tilt, tuck, and tighten,” and I sent Carl Daikeler a Myspace message.
Anybody remember Myspace?
And he answered. And I just said, “Hey, I’m a Coach in New York City. I’m one of the only Diamond Coaches that I know of in Manhattan, I see you guys are doing something. I would love to be a part of it.”
And he told me, he’s like, “Man, we already have our test group done.” And he goes, “Well, let me see what I can do.”
About a week later, I get a message from Tania, Tania the Machine, sends me an email and says, “Hey. So…Shaun is teaching at Rockefeller Center at this gym. Why don’t you see if you can come keep up?”
I remember that like it was yesterday. “See if you can keep up.” So I showed up in a P90X tank top this gym, thinking, “Oh, Shaun would love that! It’s ‘Yay company!'” Little did I know that all these celebrity trainers have a very healthy ego against one another. They’re friends, but there’s some ego involved and me wearing a P90X t-shirt put a big target on my chest.
Like Shaun T told me later, when I walked in, all he was gonna do is kill this little white kid.
So I walked in and this test group had already been going on for 30 days so they all knew what was coming. So I walked in thinking we were going to tilt, tuck, and tighten and to this day, that first live Insanity workout, while Shaun was still putting the program together, is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I just kept telling myself, “Just keep moving. You’re doing…” I knew I sucked and I was awful. All these people were doing better than me and I was like, “Just keep moving. Just keep moving.”
I got to the end of the work out, could barely talk, I went up to Shaun and he looked at me and he said, “Okay. Thank you.” As an actor at the time in New York City, I knew exactly what “Thank you,” meant.
That meant, “No thank you.”
So I left here dejected, ate a huge meal, got back on the train, by the time I got to my apartment in Queens, I had an email from Tania that said, “Shaun likes you. Why don’t you show up tomorrow and do the cardio portion?” I was like, “What did I just do?!” Showed up the next day, did another crazy workout that I completely sucked at, didn’t think that I did very well, and a few months later, I get an email saying, “Hey Jimmy, we would love for you to be a part of the Insanity cast.”
Just goes to show you man, be ready, show up, fail forward, and you’ll never know what’s coming next.
Dig Deeper.