Forced Recovery, Southwest Companion Pass, & Not Taking Anything Personally (Fit Rich Life Newsletter #40)

"Don't take anything personally. Nothing that others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their reality." —Don Miguel Ruiz, Mexican author of Toltec spiritual and neo-shamanistic texts

Greetings Fit Rich Fam & welcome to the 40th Edition of the Fit Rich Life Newsletter!

>>read this edition on my website if you'd like to bookmark it for later or read older editions from the archive<<

The wife & I ended up contracting COVID during our travel, but we’re mostly better now.

Nothing like experiencing illness to make one incredibly grateful for one’s health when you regain it.

Without further ado let's dig into this issue.

This is your weekly dose of actionable tips, tools & strategies to take your Fitness, Money, and Life to the Next Level.

FITNESS: Treat illness like forced recovery.

I am one of those people who likes to workout 6-7 days a week with 1-2 of the days being Active Recovery where I do easy cardio like walking on a treadmill along with some stretching, yoga, foam rolling and self-massage while the other 5-6 days are focused on strength training and building my physique.

Exercising daily plays a big role in my Mental Health so when I occasionally get sick, not exercising tends to be mentally & emotionally challenging for me.

Especially since being Super Fit is part of my core identity.

However, as I’ve gotten older (and possibly wiser) I treat illness as a sign from the Universe (and my body) that it is time for a deeper focus on Recovery knowing that it is during rest that all the gains are harnessed.

This mindset shift around my Fitness has empowered me to deal with the occasional illness with much more grace & equanimity.

It also empowers me to lean into the Recovery Period and deeply listen to my body knowing that the more connected I am to my body and the more I listen to what it needs the sooner my strength and stamina will return.

Like most humans, during illness, I go in and out of feeling like a victim of circumstances.

Instead of fighting these feelings of victimhood when I get sick, I will let myself feel them for a bit, then move back to being the Author of my life knowing that even something like illness and its forced recovery time can, in the long run, be good for me.

I visualize my body building up all the antibodies it needs to be even more robust, see my muscles building to new levels of size/strength, and choose to believe that all the extra sleep I am getting is just my body, mind & spirit charging up for another period of significant growth in multiple areas of life.

Humans are meaning-making machines and the truth is that we can consciously & proactively assign just about any meaning we want to anything that happens to us.

Key Takeaway: The next time you get sick lean into the forced recovery & consciously choose a meaningful reason for why you are going through the illness in a way that will empower you to reach new levels of life.

MONEY: November is the best time to start working on getting the Southwest Companion Pass (a staple in my Travel Hacking Toolbelt).

The Southwest Companion Pass allows you to designate one person as your “companion” and they get to fly with you free on any Southwest flight you book.

One of the best things about the Southwest Companion Pass is that if you time it right you can have it for almost 2-years.

Timing it right is why November is the best time to start working towards getting it.

If you get the required amount of miles within the first part of any year you will then have it until the end of the following year.

To illustrate this let’s say you get the Southwest Companion Pass in March 2024. It will then be good until the very end of 2025 (specifically December 31st, 2025).

That’s 22-months of being able to travel with your companion at no additional cost (in money or points).

Plus, by working towards the Southwest Companion Pass you will rack up the 135,000 points required to be eligible for the companion pass as that is the number of points you must accumulate to qualify for it.

You can then use these points to book your flights to destinations like Mexico (or anywhere Southwest flies) while your Companion gets to fly with you virtually for free.

You still have to pay a small amount in fees (about $11 per person) but that sure as heck beats paying hundreds of dollars for each person's flight.

My wife and I just flew to Washington to visit my family for a whopping $22, but our Companion Pass is expiring at the end of this year so we're starting to work on getting it again.

Here is how I am going about getting my Southwest Companion Pass for the next two years:

(1) In November I will apply for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card and get close to the $3K spend requirement by the end of December to receive the signup bonus. But I will NOT hit the spend requirement until January 2024 as I need all the points to be awarded in 2024. This card provides a 75,000 sign-up bonus after you hit the $3K spend within 3 months.

(2) I will then sign up for the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Business Credit Card which provides a 60,000 bonus after you spend $3,000 within 3 months of opening the card.

With just these two cards I will have hit the 135K points needed to be awarded the Southwest Companion Pass.

If you time your spending right to hit the $3K spend on each card in January 2024 you will have the Southwest Companion pass for nearly 2 years

The neat thing about combining a personal card & a business card is that you do not need to wait in between applying for the cards, though you might need to call Chase to push through the second application if you do it back to back. Nothing to sweat though, as I've done this numerous times.

We’ve been doing this since 2018 and have used it to take a number of trips to Mexico as well as visiting Washington State to spend time with my family.

Every two years we switch off who is getting the Companion Pass.

The full truth is that I am the one who does it all as my wife focuses on other aspects of our team's money strategy.

I just open the cards up in her name (with her permission of course) and ensure we hit the spend minimums to get the signup bonuses.

Please note that if you use my links to sign up for the cards I will receive additional points which is an easy way to support this Newsletter so I can keep bringing you free empowering tips, tools & strategies to master your fitness, money & life.

P.S. After you apply and get accepted for your Southwest Credit Cards you can call & get the card rushed to have it just in time to rack up your spend to quickly hit the sign-up bonus with Black Friday & Christmas Shopping.

LIFE: Assume positive intent & don’t take it personally.

The truth is most people are doing the best they can with what they know and the experiences they’ve had in life thus far so don’t take anything anyone does personally.

This mindset is incredibly powerful and something I learned many years ago from the book "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.

When you adopt this mindset you avoid needless suffering.

Ultimately, this mindset is a practice as it is very easy to take things personally.

What I've found in my own experience is that my initial gut reaction is to take it personally, but then I remind myself of this frame of mind and work towards proactively and consciously building compassion and understanding for the other person no matter the circumstances.

The full truth is that I often have no idea what experiences they have gone through that are causing them to behave in a way towards me that doesn't feel good.

Maybe something terrible happened to them during an earlier part of their life that is causing this reality for them and they in turn are just projecting this reality towards me.

This leads to forgiveness for whatever the other person did towards me and forgiveness is one of the main pathways to release oneself from emotional & mental suffering.

As I move towards compassion I then ask myself how I can be an empowering force in their life regardless of how they are behaving knowing that this frame will at least allow me to show up in a positive way and I might even be able to be a catalyst for learning, healing, growth & transformation for the other person.

This then leads me back to my personal mission of empowering people to proactively design & truly live a life worth living.

We're all in this thing called "life" together and I'd rather be a force for good than get caught up playing the victim by taking anything personally.

Some food for the thought the next time someone rubs you the wrong way.

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I am sending you all lots of Energy & plenty of Dragon Magic!

Your Fitness, Money & Life Coach,

Justin David Carl

P.S. I'm doing Free Coaching Consultations for Black Friday so if you'd like to level up your Fitness, Money or Life don't be shy about booking a free coaching session with me.