Today’s story is about such a person. It is about none other than Chris Henry of the Cincinnati Bengals. He is a guy who finally turned his life around, only to die on Wednesday falling out the back of a pickup truck during a domestic dispute.

Apparently he and his fiance were arguing. She jumped into the pickup. He ran after her, jumped in, fell out the side and died. He was just 26 years old, and just starting his life over again.

We read stories like this, and realize how easily it could have been us. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t likely have been any one of us falling off the back of a pickup truck, but it could have been our lives cut short in any number of other ways.

It seems like we never learn from things like this. We read these kind of stories. We feel badly about what happened. We reflect on it, but them we go right back to the “same old same old.”

There are two strong lessons to be learned here.

The first lesson is that when you’re fighting in a relationship and the other person wants to leave or be alone, respect that. So many times, people will continue a conversation and say even more hurtful things.

When we fight with our partners, it’s circular. So it’s really better to let them walk away and cool off. Nothing ever gets accomplished in the heat of an argument, except the creation of more arguments.

The second lesson is to answer the question, “What is your wakeup call?”

New Year’s Day is coming. Is that your wakeup call? Are you going to make another bullshit New Year’s resolution that you don’t have the self-discipline to implement in your life?

The only thing constant in our life is change. So why do we always fight it? Why do we always resist what is natural in evolution of life?

Why do we fight so hard when someone asks us to change our ways for the good? Why as humans are we content to sit around mired in things that don’t make us happy, and waiting for rainy days that don’t make us want to do anything?

Chris Henry was turning his life around when it was cut short. So today, think about Chris Henry and do something that takes you out of your comfort zone.

Ask out that person you’ve had a crush on for ages. Walk up to a stranger and wish them Merry Christmas (Oops, I mean Seasons Greetings).

Whatever pulls you out of your comfort zone, only you can do. Think about what would happen if you did one thing outside your comfort zone every day for thirty days.

If you did that, pretty soon those things would no longer be outside your comfort zone. They would be well inside it.

You won’t have to rely on bullshit New Year’s resolutions. You won’t even have to make any this year. It’s never too late to turn your life around and make it everything you want it to be.

So how are you going to pull yourself out of YOUR comfort zone. I want to know.

This week I predict the Texans will win over the Bills. The Bears will beat the Browns. The Lions will win over the Rams. The Jets will defeat the Dolphins. The Chargers will win over the Raiders. The Cardinals will beat the Panthers.

The Saint and the Colts will remain unbeaten, but the Broncos will fall to the Ravens. As for the two “big games” today, I am predicting the Giants will win over the Eagles and Favre will gome home crying in defeat.

Have a great Sunday, and let’s get to today’s blog!

At a recent Bootcamp, I had a conversation with the guys about what I call window shopping your life. I had a conversation about challenging yourself. (This, by the way, is a great example of what we work on during my Bootcamp weekends!)

Most of us window shop in our own lives. Many of us have had tragedies in our lives. As humans, it’s natural to want to change our lives after we survive a catastrophe, but it’s also human that we rarely stick with that plan to change.

We always sweep things under the rug. We all do this. It’s just the way things work. We get shocked into doing something or making a change, but we can’t help continuing to window shop.

So what do I mean when I say that we window shop our lives? It means that we fail to take action and really lead the kind of life we map out for ourselves. We go back to not being fully alive, and just wishing and wanting for the life we want to live.

The term window shopping is a good description, because it is as if we have a glass barrier between our life and the life we want. We can see it, but there is something in our way from actually living it.

A lot of people see this barrier as something that keeps them from having the life they want. In reality, though, we are capable of having that life right now if we take the steps to get it.

Why do we think we can’t have this life? We buy into false limitations. We don’t want to face that we need to take more action.

I often call people who just wait for things to happen in life “waiters.” They want things to change, and they keep hoping things will change on their own without them having to take any action on their part.

Once you begin to stop window shopping and to stop waiting, you will see how much time you’ve been wasting kicking back that you could have been spending living the life you want.

Life is too short, and you only get one! If you don’t take the opportunities now, when are you going to take them? So stop window shopping. Stop waiting. Take action today and start to really live the life you want.

I grew up in a family of suppressors; a family that would sweep everything under the carpet instead of talking about it. When you’d walk into the Wygant household, you’d trip on everything that was under the doormat. I realized yesterday through one of our powerful conversations, that in my own personal life I do some suppressing of things when something bothers me.

When something bothers me, I’ll either make a joke or be sarcastic about it. Then I’ll hide it in the bowels of my subconscious, and walk around with a feeling of irritability inside me for several days. Now I know the warning signs and have to take action so I no longer sweep things under the Wygant rug.

We all are constantly working on ourselves. We all are constantly challenging ourselves. If you ever think the job is done, you’re so wrong. If you feel you’re done everything you need to do, then your life is full of people who do not challenge you to be a better, stronger and more dynamic person.

A nice, quiet and really amazing Indian man named Ajay is in the Bootcamp this weekend. He said to me “It’s nice to see David Wygant real, and that you actually have problems too.”

We all have problems. What makes me able to teach, coach and write about all this is that I’m still working through things in my own life as well. Everyone is. We’re all flawed.

So enjoy a nice little flawed Sunday (See, a little sarcastic remark has to come out!)

Oh…and one last thing. Daphne is flawed as well. She has low self-esteem issues at times. If you want to know more about Daphne’s occasional self-esteem issues, however, we’ll have to do a whole other blog on that!