Inspired by George Couros

This morning, I watched George Couros’ recent video from two weeks ago, How I Lost 120 Pounds & Changed My Life: Health, Confidence & Lessons in Self-Leadership. It’s about 20 minutes long, and I definitely recommend it:

I watched this for several reasons. First, I’m continuing my own health journey alongside my spouse, and we’ve reached a point where we’re ready to not just alter our diet and lose weight, but also focus on building healthier, long-term habits. Three years ago—before moving to North Carolina—we both lost 50 pounds using the Optavia diet. Shelly was a coach for Optavia, and we learned a lot from that journey.

However, as George emphasizes in his video, it’s essential to develop habits we can sustain over the long term. I’m inspired by the fact that he has maintained his 120-pound weight loss for over four years—that’s a huge achievement. I’d like to lose about 50 pounds myself, but more importantly, I want to sustain that level of health and well-being.

Like George, my kids are “my why.” Shelly was my Optavia coach, and in that community, they often ask, What is your why? It’s all about motivation. If we’re not motivated, we won’t make meaningful changes—and we definitely won’t sustain them.

I’m also excited to reconnect with George’s work, especially because both of his books are favorites of our new department chair at school, Jennifer Pieratt. Jen has encouraged me and others in our department to read George’s books as we consider how we can continue fostering innovation—not just within our classrooms and department, but across our broader school community and online networks as well.

I’ve also decided to start sharing more media from my iPad. Since iPads are the primary devices our students use at school, I want to become more fluent with iPad-based media production. Over the past few years, I’ve mostly relied on laptops and desktops during class. So, here’s another blog post shared directly from my iPad—with a little proofreading help from ChatGPT!

Have a great day—and keep working on developing healthy habits for life.

Thank you, George Couros!

georgecouros.com