First quarter checkin..or What do you need to do better to have that big year

Hello Heroes!

Hope all is well with you in all things professional and personal. Its late March which means 2 things 1. The NCAA tourney is in full swing and. most importantly, 2 We are nearing the end of the first quarter of the year.

 Some of you don't like to look at the year this way..that's totally fine. For others, it may help to divide the year up like this to keep you on track. Said another way, if you look at the first quarter and you aren't quite living up to your own expectations you can refocus and still have an amazing rest of the year. One of my big points this year is no more wasted time..so in the spirit of that lets talk about how to maximize the rest of the year

Take a look at your current self

I'm big on the idea that the best version of you is all you need to be. You cant likely achieve that in 3 months but if this is the year you want to commit to that process, you need to check yourself and your habits to see that they are synced up. Write down some of the most important best self items and see how your doing

You want to learn a language                 How many language lessons have you completed so far?

Be the fittest version of you                   How many workouts per week?

Smartest Version                                    How many books so far this year?

Best romantic partner                             What new things are you doing for them?

These are some of my items that I'm working on. When I grade myself on those items the results are mixed. Ive read 6 new books this year and I'm averaging 4-5 workouts a week which is good. I haven't been consistent on the other two items which is not so good. The point of this simple exercise is that I can now look at my schedule and say "Ok self..i need to allocate more time to these items"

After doing this, the only goal is to make sure that my next 3 months match the goals that I have with the corresponding ACTIONS to help me be that best self. Take a look at what you have done to improve yourself this year...if you haven't done enough, recognize that, own that and DO MORE

Its hard work guys but you will never regret time and effort spent on improving yourself and your life. 

Keep grinding guys!

Ahmad

@MoviestarAhmad on IG, Twitter and the semi defunct BidChat

Fall in love with YOUR process..Love YOUR life all the time

Greeting heroes,

It has been some time since I have spoken via this medium. Part of it has been by design as my focus is figuring out things about myself and finding out what I need to do differently to improve my life, my career, my everything. Part of it has been losing focus on the blog and all the good it helps me with. As you can tell, this is not a moneymaking blog. Not that there is anything wrong with that but my main idea here was to give me a forum to grind out some pages and keep track of this crazy journey. On some level I keep thinking that you guys don't want to hear about the mundane stuff but in reality..that's all a part of it. All that said, let me get to the point of today..

Success is about loving your process....

Seems like I hear all the time some famous athlete or billionaire saying "Trust the process". I tried to do some looking into this to find out how it could apply to my own goals. Your goals by themselves are not the thing you are working towards. The real thing is who and what you become on the journey to those goals. The habits and things you do every day. The good choices you make on a regular basis for the sake of your career, health, fitness, love...that's YOUR process. Its going to be a lot of stuff and some of it will be frankly very boring. The way to get through is you have to fall in love with YOUR process. Fall in love with eating healthy to fuel your body. Fall in love with meticulous study and practice on your desired craft. Fall in love with the repetitive choices that will take you from where you are to the person and situation that you are destined for. For the longest time I have been guilty of being exclusively goal oriented. That takes you away from the here and now and enjoying every second of this one time we get around this world.  Time you spend not embracing and enjoying the now is time wasted. It may take you 10 years to reach your goal...that doesn't mean you should spend 10 years hating your life because you are not as rich, famous or fit as you desire to be.

If you love YOUR process..daily, weekly and monthly..you will love yourself and love your journey the whole way.

How's the movie stardom going?

This year has seen auditions pick up again. That makes me happy although I am not booking as much as I would like. Ill just keep grinding. I recently got an Iographer and filmic pro so that I can make short films with my IPhone. So far it looks like it can be a new avenue for me to take control of my career. I'm half way through my first feature length script but ill let you know when i have 100 pages. 

I wish you all well and i will talk to you again soon. No more 12 month layoffs. I had to go through that time of introspection but you guys deserve to see it all. 

"Fall in love with the process"

Cheers!

Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad on IG and Twitter
www.ahmadruss.com

The Different ME so far in 2016

Hello Everyone!

Geez it has been a minute since I had a chance to speak with you guys! Certainly I hope all is well. I have been busy which is the main reason for my absence. Largely been busy restarting and reworking me. Ive talked before about you being your most important project. So going into 16 I thought about the things I either need to do differently or the things I need to get back to in order to be my best self. Its always a combination of those two ideas. Looking at where ever you are in life, there are some things you do that have helped you get there. The other side of that coin is there are things that you are doing (or not doing) that are holding you back from being the best and getting to your dream. So here are some of the adjustments I am making

-Getting up early
Ive adopted the 5AM concept into my life. Simply put my first alarm Monday through Saturday is always at 4:45AM. The idea being that even if I snooze once, I am on my feet at 5AM. This is such a basic one and when you look at biographies of successful people in various fields they all talk about this with some getting up even earlier. I may graduate to that point but for now getting up that early gives me more day to get more stuff done.

-Morning rituals
Your habits are who you are to a large extent. At the least, they can be key to you getting where you want to go. I have to thank good ole Tony Robbins for getting me to focus on this one. For me they get me in the right mindset to start my day. Mine is simple so far. Get up, Pray and be thankful for a few minutes. A guided meditation from you tube, review my most pressing goals. It does not take long

-Read more
For the last few years I haven't had a book goal per se, just read as I like. I need to get more new knowledge in so my goal for this year is 3 new books per month. Ill likely mix in a few re reads of books but people who do big things constantly invest in their minds as well as their bodies..which leads me to...

-Going back to real running, Muay Thai, BJJ as fitness
Weight rooms are nice and I feel they should be a part of a full fitness. At the same time, the best shape of my life has always been when martial arts was my core workout. If you run marathons, pilates or yoga..props to you. For me, being in fight shape at whatever age you are is the highest form of fitness


If I can do these things and take even more risk this year, my belief is that I can get somewhere. When I get there ill sure thank you guys who stayed with me on this crazy journey.

Also, I'm probably going to move to wordpress soon.

Be your best...every day all the time and get a little better each day


Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad on IG and Twitter

The power of quiet early morning prayer...

Hello everyone

Hope all is going well for you guys! For me its Ramadan which is to say I fast from food and water from sunrise to sunset every day for about 30 days. If you have never done it, it seems daunting but for me its the best time of the year for two reasons....1 The discipline and submission of it all brings you closer to god and 2 you would be surprised how clear your mind is when you don't have anything in your stomach.

The clarity always helps me move on and work through the obstacles that might be happening in my life. I have them just like you do..so today isn't about complaining its about moving past the right now

Your right now exists..it is real. For you to deny your immediate term reality is the pinnacle of unhealthy delusion. (yes, I think some delusion is healthy) For you to wallow in the negative parts of your reality makes you a prisoner which is also no good.

Accept your right now and know that it has no bearing on what you can become..what you can be in 6 months or a year or 5 years. Don't get down on yourself and don't give up hope. While you're at it....don't give up actually putting in the work necessary

Other Ramadan thoughts....

Pick your thing and go at it. Ive learned now, the hard way, that you just have to keep working on your craft and keep improving

Your mind is your window of opportunity in this world. It can be your demise or your salvation depending on how you use it

Be excited about yourself and your life at all times

Its your dream! live it every day. We all have those days were we get bogged down by the bad stuff..just don't let it last for extended periods

I know in my heart that I was put here to do something epic :)


Talk to you again soon guys,


Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad
on Twitter and Instagram

Less and more...or defeating your main opponent

Happy Cinco de Mayo guys,

Since I haven't put anything out in a while I don't have a lot of lead up..just thoughts that go through my head as I'm trying to get to the next level of things. Most of this is stuff I say to myself as I'm working to improve me and my situation..


Less whining...more working
Less excuses...more accountability
Less stress...more focus
Less tears..more blood and sweat
Less prove em wrong...more prove YOU right
Less complaining...more enthusiasm
Less defeats...more training and prep
Less sizzle...more steak
Less of the bad you..more of the best you
Less thinking...MORE ACTION
Less limits...more unlimited belief
Less reminiscing...more of you in this moment

The battle is always with yourself guys. I can certainly attest to that. There are no shortcuts to mastering you or your universe but you can do it so long as you do less of the self destructive stuff and more of the dynasty building stuff


Quote for today "Stop whining about the career, body, family or money you don't have and DO SOMETHING about it...everyday"


Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad on instagram and twitter :)

My Dark Phoenix Moment

Happy holidays gang!

Usually when I go stream of consciousness it goes a bit south. At the same time the honesty is always a good feeling and I always promised to those that read this I would be totally honest..

When you get down to the bottom of it, I really think I am special. I don't think I'm better than anyone else, or worse for that matter, but I know I'm special. My parents always told me so. Like every one's parents did. Rough times and situations have happened and I didn't always connect to my inner belief of being extraordinary. When I did fully connect to it..boy did my whole world change. I started walking with my head higher than ever. The world started to open up to me and opportunity came from all directions. I always knew that I was destined for big things even when I had no idea what I wanted to do. Well that lack of focus did lead to a little bit of drifting..but when you drift with a strong belief in your own epic destiny..you end up having adventures all over the world. On some level I got to the place that I think most people wish to reach at some point in their lives..i really believed that I could accomplish ANYTHING. Didn't matter what it was. When Barack Obama was elected president I called my father and didn't talk about this moment in history or anything like that. I told him "You know dad, I kinda thought I would be the first" He had a good laugh but I was dead fucking serious. If that's what I wanted I believe I could have done it. So I thought a more worthy thing to do with my considerable special-ness and power cosmic was to become a moviestar..

The downside to this epic belief is that when you aren't quite at the lofty levels that you expected to be, it hits you hard. Ill say it till the day I die but if you show me a happy loser ill show you a long time loser. Ive now passed my Hollywood birthday and since college, I've been doing this as long as I was working a "real job" as in a real job with no serious thought of a different pursuit as opposed to the day jobs I work now. I didn't expect to be at the same level but I still feel like I am in the open wilderness. I'm alive, I've got all my fingers and toes but I don't have a compass and no compass would work anyway. I cant navigate by the stars although they are nice to look at. There are people who can help but they cant all the way help as each path is unique through this wilderness. A lot of times I reject their help as I am hard headed. I would hope that by this time I would have maybe gotten on top of a rock and seen the way out no matter how far away it must be. It definitely takes a toll on how special you think you are. :)  The fact is that I wanted this wilderness. I chose it on the idea that I can do anything and I cannot wane in my self belief now.

I see friends that stayed on the path I left doing very well in all the traditional sense. That makes me very happy! Ive seen some old enemies that are house shopping in the south of France. That made me frustrated in the moment I heard it whereas now I have had time to process it. Truthfully I must thank them for the re-focus and motivation. So here I am..approaching a birthday and now with a severely injured knee that recently punctuated how much of a wilderness I'm in. Trust me, having a knee injury in college with a full professional physical training staff at your disposal was no fun..it certainly isn't fun as an under insured starving actor. This is about as un-fun as my life has been for a while. But it is always darkest before dawn.. Whats the point of all this??

I promise to myself and my family and everyone who loves and supports me that I will get through to the other side. Im prepared to burn myself in my entirety down right now and be reborn as the person I know that I am inside. I promise that you will not know of a person who works harder than me going forward to make the most of himself in all things. This isnt about acting, money, business, finance or even a big house on the hill. Its that ive finally come to the point where I understand that when I live the life I imagine in my head and go after it..it works out for me. 

So with that said..its time for me to start physically rehabbing to get my body strong. Training in all the skills i need to move forward and make my talent strong. Feed my mind more knowledge to make my mind strong and really hone in and move my life towards MY VISION


There is no quote here..but thanks for reading!


Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad on instagram and twitter
www.ahmadruss.com

Either the right place or the right track..which is YOU?

Greetings everyone!


Happy couple days after labor day. Its always bitter sweet as it signals the calendar end of summer. Here in southern cal the sun is still as bright as ever. As hot as its been..its still home for me.

A few weeks ago I sent out a tweet that got an old friend to call me out of the blue. They asked me what was up and I told them that the tweet said it all. I wasn't in physical danger then and i'm not in danger right now as I write this. What I was feeling at the time was pretty direct but did sum up the last few months I spent away from this blog. The realization I basically came to went like this..

Its ok to not be in the position you want to be in life..and its ok to not be on the right track but it is NEVER ok for both to be true simultaneously.

Its pretty sobering to think about that. At that moment I looked at myself and my situation and honestly acknowledged that both of those things were true of me and my reality. It can creep up on you while your focus is on your temporary job or when you allow yourself to become a captive to your current situation or the current obstacles in your face. I will never allow that to happen again.

Part of my struggle came as I turned away from this blog. I forgot that it was very therapeutic and  that people read it and asked about what I had to say next :) to those people I give you eternal thanks! I wont turn away again.

So what do I do now...very simple...I am not in the place I want to be. I don't own a home, or have a family nor am I established in my career to where I have earned the right to take a break to reflect. Thats OK..so long as EVERY DAY going forward is spent working on and being on the right track to get there. I know the work I need to do and its simply time to apply the consistent effort in all aspects of my life. My perma-positive outlook has long been a major strength to lean on at all times. I got bogged down and forgot that for a while.

Sometimes you have to call yourself out in order to move forward. :)


Quote of this post

"Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a take-off. Don't just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won't happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you'll love it up here."


Thanks for reading guys. Hit me up on twitter and instagram

Ahmad
@MoviestarAhmad on both