Izhar Livny

AL HARAMAIN Amber Oud Private Edition- My fragrance. My scent. My pick. My everywhere.

. Are you a storyteller? ——————————————————————- . Nothing will hold you back more than always thinking but never doing. Always planning but never acting. Always aiming but never shooting. Always dreaming but never chasing. Goals don`t get achieved in your mind, but through ruthless actions in reality. Your business won`t build itself, your physique won`t carve itself and your goals won`t be achieved by planning. Planning is useless if its not coupled with ruthless action. Planning is the map. Your goal, the destination. But you will never get to the destination if you don`t start walking. If you don`t get out and start following the damn path. So yes, plan. But understand that progress is a result of value creation. And yes, it will be tough. You`re creating something valuable, it will require sacrifice and discomfort and pain – But what did you expect? Did you expect it to be easy? Did you expect there to be signposts along the way and rest stops evenly spread along the road? Or did you know it would be tough? Did you know that the signposts were never put up and at some points you`ll feel lost? Did you know that there`s no designated place to stop? Did you know the road isn`t a road but a trail through the forest and up the mountain? Here`s the thing… If you respect yourself, if you have an ambition to build something great, it doesn`t matter what you thought you knew. All that matters is what you do with the circumstances reality throws as you – Whether you like those circumstances or not. At some point you have to realise there’s no greater shame than to waste your potential by thinking everything, but doing…nothing. At some point, you have to respect yourself. So stop the storytelling. Get out there, take action. Ruthless, relentless action and enter the damn arena! . .

. Fall in love with the hard path. -————————————————————————— Always choose the harder path. The path that forces you to improve. The path that forces you to respect yourself enough to give it nothing but your best. Yes, you`ll feel uncomfortable, you might even doubt yourself at times and wonder if it’s all worth it. But if it was easy, it wouldn`t be worth doing, right? All the trial and error, sweat, effort and patience that comes with the harder path is what turns you into the person capable of achieving the things you want to achieve. Sure, you could go down the easier path, but doing easy things create hard life whilst doing hard things creates an easy life. Stop trying to avoid the hard. Stop thinking there must be an easy way. THERE IS NOT. If there was, the thing you`re seeking wouldn`t be worth having, because everything worth having must be earned. You need to put cause into effect. You need input for output. FALL IN LOVE WITH THE DIFFICULTY. Because difficulty is good. It sperate the wheat from the chaff. It separates those willing to commit and build competency and those not. It makes you feel proud and fulfilled. It makes you feel productive and useful. Difficulty shows you are putting effort into something that is valuable. It shows you are creating progress. DIFFICULTY IS GOOD. This constant search for an easier path does nothing but distract you and pull you away from the one you are on – Diluting your efforts and your results. So learn to fall In love with the challenge. Learn to fall in love with the difficulty. Learn to fall in love with the sacrifices and the discomfort. And use it all to your advantage. . . .

. Ethic, Work and Effort. ——————————————————————— . Don’t judge yourself by the quality of your work, but by the quality of your EFFORT. Quality is largely uncontrollable in the moment - if your skill, knowledge or understanding of your craft isn’t at the level to produce world-class work, there’s nothing you can do to change that today but to try your damn best and recognize that quality is lagging indicator of commitment, time and repetition. Instead judge the quality of your EFFORT. Did you give it all you could? Did you half-ass it or quit? Did you scratch your head in frustration but commit to the promise and standards you set for yourself? The quality of your work shows nothing but your time in the game. The quality of your effort shows everything about you. It shows commitment to progress. Your dedication to mastery and your willingness to try - no matter how the cards stacked against you. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an excuse to be satisfied with poor results, but a reason to keep going. When you judge the quality of your effort, you commit to practicing, putting in the reps building your skills, gaining experience and learning from your mistakes - you commit to progress. When you judge the quality of your effort, you ensure the quality of your work will improve with time. You can try to find shortcut, you can try to find an easier path but the work ethic will always cut you down where you stand. Just to send you back to where you started… You either repeat this cycle and eventually quit or you figure out that the path in front of you, the path of the ethic, the path of the damn hard work, the path of the effort, is the only path. You can cheat the work, not your work ethic…your labour are your labour and there’s no way around them if you want to become the person you need to be. . .

. Its about… 2124 . -———————————————————————————— . Bear with me… In 100 years, in 2124, we will all be buried with our relatives and friends. Strangers will live on our homes, which we fought so hard to build. And they will own everything we have today. Including that car you spent a fortune on. Our descendants will hardly know who we were. Think about it… how many of us know our grandfather`s father? After our death, we will be remembered for a few years. And a few years later our history, our photos, our deeds go into the dustbin of oblivion. We won’t even be memories. Maybe if one day, we stop to analyse these questions we would understand how ignorant and weak the dream of obtaining everything was. Always having more and more. Always strive for more and more and more… without having time to the things that are really worthwhile in this life. I`d change all that to live and enjoy those walks I`ve never taken, those ungiven hugs and kisses to our children, and our loves. That is what life as all about, isn’t so? YESTERDAY is history, TOMORROW is a mystery, but TODAY is a gift. Maybe that`s the reason why its called the… PRESENT. Maybe. Think about it. . .

. My intimate relationship with REALITY. —————————————————————————— One of the biggest delusions of the human experience that leaves us in a place of suffering is… time. Most of us are going through a sort of a process, right? We under the impression that we are trying to become someone. And hopefully better. It’s not wrong, even true but it’s inaccurate. Think about it…What you are looking for is already there - abundance is there, belonging is there, love is there, value is there. So it’s about sinking into the being of that versus thinking “ i have to become that.. “ that we are telling to ourselves. As soon as you think you have to become something, you create time. As soon as you create time, you create suffering because there’s an aberration between where you are and where you think you should be, right? That delta in time, this deferential is… suffering. Don’t get me wrong, we can still be committed to wanting things, to be more obsessed, more loving, more efficient, more healthy. More and more and… that’s fine. I use to call it “ i have an intimate relationship with reality”. Meaning, i have intimacy with the way things are, with the process, with the ups & downs, with what hurts, with being vulnerable, with soreness and pain. And i am not asking myself, others or life to be different or to have it differently. And it is. The way it is. For me, this process, this delta in time, this suffering… is my FREEDOM. . .

. Decisions decisions. —————————————————————————————— . Decisions decisions… isn’t that what it ultimately comes down to? Is that a dead end or a new beginning? An obligation or an opportunity? Because today can be whatever you want it to be, whatever you decide It is. And when you lay your head on the pillow at night that’s what makes all the difference. Bear with me and Imagine for a second being on a beach… you are dragging your foot and creating an indented pathway in the sand and when you finish taking a bucket of water and pouring it into that very same channel, you just sculpted. The water is gonna follow the path that you laid out. It will flow within the confines of the channel that you just made. In the way I see it, life is just like that water. It flows within the boundaries placed before it. And how you decide to see the world, creates that channel that contains the water. It’s the driving force behind everything in your life. Guiding every single thing that comes through. Have you ever thought about how small the details are, that sway our perception of reality? How different people interpret the exact same event in a different ways? Why do some people rise when criticized than others crumble? Why does some see fear in hardship when others see opportunity? Why do some aspire to build and others to tear down? Everyone has the same clay. People just decide to sculpt, to mold it differently. Your external world is the reflection of the internal decisions you make. Decisions that dictate everything. Decisions that take what the world throws your way and transforms them according to your viewpoint. Life runs right through your moat. Every day that channel on the sand that you created, that you direct. You control how events unfold because you decide how they will be handled and harnessed. You choose the map that will take you to your final destination. So decide what you want and let it transform your perspective - Own it - Becoming - Accept nothing less ! . .

. Words… doing is all that matters. ———————————————————————————— In life, on social media, it’s so easy to talk. To say, to post what you’re going to do. Who you’re going to be. How you’re going to change. But bodybuilding is quite simple. There’s nothing fake about it. Anything you say is irrelevant. What you do is all that counts. You lift, or you don’t lift. You train, or you don’t train. You push - Through soreness, through fatigue, past the voice in your head that tells you to stop. Or you don’t. It can’t be faked. Intense workout - a time is worth more than a 1,000 words. And it’s a great analogy for life… In life, like workouts, eventually it will be obvious what you’ve done. You’ve reached your goals or you haven’t. You fulfilled your potential or you’ve given up. Words can hypnotize you - with excuses, with procrastination and life passes by while the words you say distract you. YOU CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP TALKING ABOUT CHANGING. Because you’re too busy actually doing something new. Then, things become simple. You stop preaching, announcing, discussing, over analyzing. And you just do the thing. I love writing. I’m in love with words. My life changed because of them… but it’s not because of the words. It’s because i wrote. Doing the thing. Get the sh*t done. Is all that matters. Take your shot, then shut up and do the work. Don’t let the dopamine of words and support make you feel like you’ve done anything. Because doing the things is all that counts. At the gym like life - get the sh*t done ! .

. It’s about NOW. And PROCRASTINATION. ————————————————————————- . What is your life? it’s even a vapor that appeared for a little time and then vanishes away. If someone had told me when I was 20 years old that life was very short and would pass just like that, I wouldn’t have believed it. And if I tell you that you don’t believe it either I cannot get young people to understand how brief life it is, how quickly it passes. Every one of us here has been given the same amount of time in a day. 1,440 minutes a day, 168 hours per week. Every morning, we have 86,400 seconds to spend and to invest. It allows no balances in and no overdrafts. If you fail to use the days deposits the loss is yours. The world average age of death is a few years lower at 68.9 for men and 73.9 years for women. And it’s interesting to me with all our medical science, we’ve never passed that magic mark. Now its about the things we ought to do. The classes we ought to take, the books we ought to read. Do it NOW. The people that you need to spend more time with, do it NOW. Write that letter that you’ve been meaning to write, NOW. Money you ought to give, give NOW. Time for study? do it NOW. Every time the clock ticks, it seems to say “now”. There may not be a tomorrow for you and for me. Procrastination… it`s a killer. AVOID IT. Procrastination. It kills plans, it kills goals, it kills ideas and dreams. Time is running out for all of us. Time is too short for indecision and vacillation.Do not halt between two opinions. Fools say that time is long. So all you have to do is fight against procrastination. You must do it with violence of action. Start doing what you were supposed to do. With no hesitation. Just do. NOW. It’s the quality of your life. Not the length. It doesn’t matter whether you live another year or two years or five years. Don`t stop from asking yourself - Will my work be finished? Is there a quality to it? Procrastination. It kills. Almost everything

. Are you wolf or a sheep? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - They said I’d never get to this point, but here I stand. They warned that success is unlikely. That victory is improbable and maybe so but if this was for everyone I wouldn’t want it. They pointed to their own limitations and proclaimed them to be mine. But that’s the thing about limits, they’ll exist wherever you place them. And I have placed mine behind me. See, human beings make things unnecessarily complicated, instead of drawing a direct line from point A to point B, we create 100 reasons why it’s too hard, too tough. We construct distractions. There is no hard, there is no easy. There is a goal, the price that must be paid and the eyes observing from a distance wondering just maybe if they can do the same. The saying goes that a wolf need not concern himself with the opinions of sheep. That those who watch and admire are often the first to throw stones, to criticize, to condemn but listening to them contradicts the very thing that gives the wolf its power, its strength - his assent is threatening. Not because he is like everyone else but because he dares to be different. There will be a point when the mountains tower over you, the oceans obstruct your way and the masses tell you NO - perfect! I’m fighting for separation. Walking into it most avoid in pursuit of a return that most can only dream up and as far as I’m concerned you can either do the same or spend your life criticizing and wishing that you did. Sheep stay within the confines of what they know, angry at those who left, who wanted more, yet angrier at themselves for staying right where they are. This is all we get. One rodeo, one opportunity. So before you make your next move look hard at your reflection and ask yourself are you a wolf or a sheep? And live accordingly.

. The voice. ——————————————————————————- When you workout alone, you are never actually alone. First, there’s a voice that tells you to stop. That tells you “ you are slow “ or “ you are weak today “. That voice reminds you that you’re sore. That you don’t need to be out there. That you should curl up on the couch, with a blanket and warm cookies. That voice comes to test you. Always. Because eventually, an another voice comes. You’ve never heard it before. But it tells you to go. Just. Go. Without stress. Without hesitation. Without restraint. You lift heavy. Even heavier. Deeper into the dark place than you’ve ever been. But somehow that dark place feels like the most beautiful place in the world. Long workouts are your sanctuary. Heavy lifts is where you feel most alive. Sweat and solitude become your soulmate. And slowly, that voice becomes a part of you. First, for a few seconds. But then for more. And more. Until it’s always there - pushing you outside of bodybuilding. To be more relentless, to be more extreme, to be more true to you. To live free - without holding anything back. Freedom without purpose is a prison. You can have all the money. All the time. But without mission, life feels meaningless. That feeling is what bodybuilding is all about. When you just start, it’s a torture. When you don’t stop, it’s freedom. And that voice is the one you were always meant to have. It is you - with no compromise. No insecurity. No bullshit. No fakeness. The bars, the dumbbells, the iron tells the truth. And the truth worth working out for !

. Why to limit? ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ One of the greatest things about life is that how you perceive it. The lens through which you look at the world, roadmaps your success. All we are is a compilation of the things we see. And the beliefs we hold which raises a question: WHY ARE HUMAN BEINGS SO INCLINED TO LIMIT THEMSELVES AND THEIR ABILITIES ? WHY DO WE BRING LIFE TO STOPPING POINTS, TO BARRIERS THAT SIMPLY ARE NOT THERE ? In the world we know, every day of our lives is consumed by rules, laws, limitations. If I throw a rock into the air it’s going to hit a certain point, come to a stop and fall back down to earth... That’s science that can be mathematically proven. The most tragic issue, is when this exact certainty, that limitation is applied to potential. Because potential is not a thing, potential is an idea. Visualize someone who just completed 6 minutes mile. It’s a pretty good time, right? The question tho is what tangible evidence, what proof does that individual have that they couldn’t have run O5:50? 05:30?... SO OFTEN WE STOP BECAUSE WE BELIEVE WE’VE DONE ENOUGH, we’re comfortable right where we are, we know what the standards is and we act accordingly. Imagine a life without these false pretenses. IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES THAT EXIST FOR THOSE WHO SET THEIR OWN STANDARDS... It truly is the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. THER’S NO DEFINED STOPPING POINT FOR YOU OTHER THAN THE ONE YOU GIVE YOURSELF, so take that stopping point and make it disappear. Have the courage to do the things that most people wouldn’t. BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE CONFINED TO THOSE SELF INDUCED LIMITATIONS but they don’t need to be. There are two ways to look at any situation: 1. To simply exist through it 2. To have an impact... to do something memorable - EVERY DAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME THAT STANDARD. But you have to believe that your capabilities and talents stretch far beyond what’s right in front of you. Believe that possibilities are limitless and you’ll see the world transform right in front of you and... it will be an incredible sight to see.