Sam Rifkin has been a personal trainer and now his passion is to be  a “person trainer.”

His mission is much deeper than getting men muscles and making them look jacked and juicy, shredded and sexy. His vitality is fuel. His passion is leveraging his body as an example for others to level up their lives too.

Vitality will impact all areas of your life. Your body is only as formidable as your mind. We are not talking about being a meat head, but to build M.I.N.D. muscle. These principles are universal and can be applied in any endeavor you set your focus to.

M.I.N.D. is the framework to get gains in your mental fortitude, to gear up to do hard things and live into your fullest mind-body connection.

Sam is a serial entrepreneur who believes we were all deposited on this earth to be examples. Not just in what we do, but in who we are. After all we are human beings, not just human doings. This mind body connection is exactly what you need to see farther, put the mind behind the muscle and gain confidence to choose your hard. We do difficult things and as a fellow Gamma Man Sam has an uncanny ability to do the work and he uncommonly cares.

M-Mastery I-Inspiration N-Non-Negotiable D-Discipline

M is for Mastery

Boredom is where mastery lives.
Mastery is the ability to live in the boredom of the basics—until inspiration emerges from consistent preparation. Masters have practiced the fundamentals so thoroughly, they’ve forgotten more than most will ever learn. Their wisdom is earned through experience and discipline—not by getting it right, but by making it impossible to get it wrong.
Practice makes permanent.
And perfect practice makes mastery possible.
Masters lead by example because they do the basics better. They stay focused on fundamentals. They train themselves to love the work—paying attention to nuance, repetition, and rhythm. They own their mindset and embrace every layer of who they are in their chosen craft.
Training yourself to love what seems boring is a defining trait of a master.

“Don’t get cute.” — Sam Rifkin

Sam warns against changing things up just to be clever. Flashy tweaks and shortcuts waste time—and can even cause harm. His advice? Know your basis. Know your ground. Know your foundation. Make a plan. Stick to it. Focus on meaningful progress, not pointless rigamarole. Mastery comes from paying your dues—doing the work, not chasing distractions. Mastery is built through reps, refined by form, sustained by discipline, and elevated by playfulness.

As Bruce Lee said:
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

Mastery is about perfection in the sense that you complete what you start.

Perfection—wánměi (完美) in Chinese and telios (τέλειος) in Greek—doesn’t mean flawlessness, but completion, wholeness, and reaching one's intended purpose.

I is for Inspiration

胜人者有力，自胜者强。
He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.”
Laozi (Lao Tzu)

From a young age, Sam has been known as the “resident hype man.” However, after joining The Final Percent, his role evolved from simply motivating others to truly inspiring them. Inspiration, unlike hype, is a daily choice. It’s found in the unseen work you do when no one is watching. That “shadow work” eventually comes to light as it compounds into real progress.
It’s taken Sam years to build the systems, organization, and processes that allow him to inspire others. But before he could do that, he had to learn to inspire himself—to take bold chances and choose to live with intention and visibility.

Why is inspiring others more impactful than hype?

Inspiration can be as simple as taking a moment to celebrate your progress, no matter how small. It requires acknowledging your wins. It’s about identifying the gap between where you are and where you want to be—and then choosing to surround yourself with people who have already crossed that gap. You fill your mind with examples, with proof that it’s possible—and protect your energy from those who diminish your dreams.

“I don't want to be friends with a ‘there's nothin’ I can do’ kind of guy.” — Sam Rifkin

This is key: Inspiration often happens through association. You must guard your mind and your time from people who say things like “It’s just the way it is.” Inspiration is the conscious decision to seek out role models, to live as an example out loud, and to create more examples and success stories for others to follow.

N is for Non-negotiables

"Show me your minimums and I'll show you your future." — Rob Sperry

Non-negotiables are the minimums, the floors, the things that you will do on your WORST day no matter what. Hugh Zaretsky is always speaking of Consistent Daily Actions or CDAs. Some will think of these as valleys or the pits are not where the growth is, but it is what you do when every fiber of your being wants to quit that determines your destiny.

Whatever you are willing to do on your worst day—that will determine your significance and impact on this world. When it’s cold, you’re sore, it is inconvenient and you don’t want to go. You do it anyway.

Do you start negotiating with yourself and justify why you don’t have to do it this time, you will make up for it later? BS! That is just your current Belief System. What were you thinking? Sam discussed how you have to develop a personal code of conduct.

I agree with him—we all need to have a code and live by it.

Just like Ancient Japanese Samurai lived by the Bushido code, or Boy Scouts lived by the Scout Oath, Motto, and a Scout Law. Whatever your organization is, does it have a moral compass? And when it comes to your approach to life and your profession, do you have standards established? Have you adopted a code and made it yours? Or is that code held at arm's length, still someone else’s? Ownership of the code doesn’t have anything to do with whether you wrote it. If you choose to live by it, you will gain value from it.

"The easy route eventually becomes the hard route. Face your challenges head-on or the detours will multiply." — Sam Rifkin

Again, Non-Negotiables become hard to recognize when there are people who do not resonate with your values. Stand up for yourself. If your association isn’t helping you live your non-negotiables, ask yourself: Do you want your vision or do you want your comfort?

"We all need to choose to do hard things"
Sam Rifkin

Hard things are the way to sacrifice and get your hardships out of the way on your terms.

Sam reminded me of a powerful story from The Art of Significance by Dan Clark. Dan visited professional football teams across the country and used a simple object lesson to challenge their perception of effort and expectations.

He’d take a broomstick, hold it out just a foot off the ground, and invite the fastest, most athletic player in the room to jump over it. The player would typically scoff, easily clear the bar with minimal effort—and only by a few inches.

Then came the real question:

“Why did you only jump that high?”
Without fail, the answer was:
“Because you didn’t ask me to jump higher.”
Everyone in the room—coaches, teammates—knew that player could easily leap three feet or more. But because the bar was set low, so was the effort.
The lesson?
People often rise—or fall—to the level of expectation. If you want greatness, set the bar high. Not just for others—but for yourself.
Who are you negotiating with? You are the best salesman for yourself. Just like Sam taught me,

"Stop trying to make weak deals with yourself!"

Living by your non-negotiables helps you learn yourself. All of us, to truly build MIND Muscle, need to know our body.

Sam shared a great example of not just blindly following but emulating the things that you want to accomplish from the people who have results you want. Then and only then, after modeling other successful people like that, can you create your own version of your routine.

D is for Discipline

“Discipline shares its root with ‘disciple’—so who or what are you following? Your future is forged by the righteous routines and daily disciplines you choose to be devoted to.” — Brigham Blackham

MIND Muscle is the mental framework that powers mastery—built through discipline, sustained by inspiration, and protected by non-negotiables. It’s the choice to love the basics, to find meaning in repetition, and to stay committed long after motivation fades. Mastery lives in the details, where form meets focus and preparation becomes power. Inspiration isn’t hype—it’s the quiet, daily decision to keep showing up, to do the work, and to become so consistent that excellence is no longer optional—it’s automatic.

Book a call with me:
thefinalpercent.com/BrighamBlackham