Fitness isa great communicator, a charismatic force that puts you in touch withyour inner self. It builds bridges within you that heal and seal theyawning emptiness mentioned earlier in this chapter. And it followsthat when you feel great about yourself, complete in yourself, can yourelate better to other people that you are in touch with.

Fitnessis a three-way process. Firstly, it sparks off a communicative currentwithin you. In turn, you - in an entirely natural manner - transferthis spark to the people you deal with. And here comes the interestingpart. So irresistible is this special spark that the people you dealwith respond in kind. There is an explanation for this phenomenon.

Bybeing fit you are in your natural element. Which means you haveawakened the inner you a special entity. When you feel thatspecialness, you communicate it unconsciously to the next person. Andequally unconsciously, the next person responds to your specialness.

Lookat the other side of the coin. If you are not fit, you are notconfident, you slouch a little, perhaps you mumble. Unconsciously, youare beaming out a negative message to the other person. A message thatmurmurs timidly, "I am not confident, I am not special" And, likewise,the other person responds - turning your opinion about yourself back onyou.

But fitness makes you stand upright with your spine straightand firm. Your eyes are clear, there is a glow about you. You may notsay much, but your bearing, the way you hold yourself says, "I amspecial" And the other person absorbs this and gives a mentalappreciative nod.

In short, fitness restructures the grammar ofyour body language. It infuses it with positive adjectives and beamsthem out to everybody. Fitness enhances your solo performance on thestage of life.

If you have watched - even as you have listened to- a solo performance of an artiste singing, you may have observed a fewthings. At first, the singer may look as ordinary as the boy or girlnext door. But as the notes spiral upwards and the night deepens,there's a flush on his face. The features seem transformed by an inneremotion giving him a strange glow, an extraordinary beauty. Theaudience feels not only the magic of the music but also vibrates to thepersonality of the performer.

Why is it that we come away from amusical performance feeling uplifted? The genius of the singer isundisputed. But has it ever struck you that there is also somethingspecial inside you that responds so wholeheartedly to the magic?

Ifyou examine yourself in this new light, you will get a freshperspective on yourself. That you, too, are no run-of-the-millindividual, but a tremendous entity in yourself. For some reason ourculture does not teach us anything positive about our individualselves. It's sad because we lose so much by going through life feelinginferior. Yet, if every one of us were to be analysed objectively, we'dfind greatness residing in every single being.

You may feel thatthose who've reached the top of the corporate ladder, for example, mustbe feeling they're the greatest - the achievers. Surprisingly, it isnot sp. We've met a few who don't. They still feel they lack something.Which is why they set out to impress you by dropping names, informingyou directly or indirectly about their assets. They even go to extremelengths to prove they are creative, broad-minded, have a vision.

Inall probability, if you too are tuned only to your negative self, youcome away feeling patronized, abused, put down. This is where we mournthe loss of communication. Two warm, lovely people can vibe poorly dueto a total lack of communication within themselves.

But supposeyou are positive about yourself, know deep within you that yourexistence in this world is as justified as the next person's, thatthough you are only a small part of the dynamic human race there isnobody like you, that you may not be a top dog in a corporation but arean extremely important member of the world, you would reactdifferently. You would recognise the fact that the other guy is onlytrying to impress you by trotting out his acquaintances and assets.That he wants you to feel he is as intelligent as you, as creative asyou. In other words, he feels he is only , as important as the peoplehe knows, the things he possesses.

The problem with the personyou've met is that he is not in harmony with himself. But you needn'tfeel pulled down to his level if you believe and know that you are aphysical phenomenon created by Nature with a mind, a spirit, suffusedby something special- the inner song.

It is the inner song - thatgreat harmonious element within you - that has responded to the almostdivine spell cast by the singer'. You feel uplifted because duringthose precious hours all the components inside you were in harmony, astate of equilibrium -like a perfectly composed song.

In thiscondition, you can be quietly content or joyously vibrant. And for daysafterwards, the memory of that wonderful experience tingles within you.This is so because of a simple law of nature. The singer hascommunicated through his art and you have absorbed it and responded toit. And you have been able to react so 'positively because it hastouched the positive self inside you. It means you have the ability tobe positive. Just like say, a piano when played gives off music. Whenthe keys inside you were 'pressed' by the singer's melody, you toovibrated and 'gave off music.'

But, you may ask, how do I keepthose keys pressed constantly, how do I hold on to that special tingle?The answer is simple. Keep fit. Fitness opens the doors to self-belief.It keeps you in a perpetual state of inner harmony. Wasn't it WilliamShakespeare, that great literary king, who wrote, "To thine own self betrue, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then befalse to any man." To that, we'd add, "and no man can be false to you,"because with your inner confidence, with the inner song humming throughyou, you need never feel that somebody is putting you down orpatronizing you - because you are an extraordinary creation of nature,a gift to humankind. In simple words: because you are you.