Picasso, Fortune, and the Invisible Reps
Pablo Picasso was once painting in a park when a woman recognised him, approached, and begged him for a sketch. He obliged. In no time at all, he had produced the sketch. It was breathtaking. She was over the moon. When she asked for the price, and he quoted her 5,000 Francs, she fell back to earth.
“5,000 Francs? But, Monsieur Picasso, it only took you 5 minutes.”
Picasso replied, “No, madam. It took me my whole life.”
Now, I don’t know if the story is true, but that is irrelevant.
At his death, Picasso left behind 45,000 unsold works of art. His family fought over an estate worth $240 million in 1976. By any yardstick, he had one of the most impressive careers of all the artistic greats. Who knows how many works he sold during his lifetime? With a career spanning 76 years — or about 28,000 days — I leave you to calculate Picasso’s average daily work rate. So, indeed, it took him his entire life to create a breathtaking sketch in 5 minutes: the deceptiveness of effortlessness.
This story popped up in my head when I visited my friend, Fortune, some weeks ago. Fortune is a gym bro. Not the extreme kind, but the healthy, consistent “your body will thank you in 20 years” kind. Some people strike gold and keep it a secret. Not Fortune. Not only does he have the physical results to show for it — he used to be lanky — he also preaches the mental and psychological benefits with the enthusiasm of a man who has found something worth selling. He tried to drag me along. But I had enough excuses to counter his attempts. Honestly, though, aside from the lack of motivation, I just could not fit it into my schedule. I was also poorer at the time. Hello!!! Gym membership ain’t free, you know. And as the gym bros like to say, a good body is sculpted in the kitchen, not in the gym. No shit. Did you know chicken breasts cost 10 Euros per kg? Now you do.
Anyway, some months ago, I foolishly decided to bite the bullet. I rang FitX to schedule a trial workout session. The sweet talker assigned to my case is called Erk. Erk is a fitness trainer who is worth his salt.
“What are your fitness goals?” he asked me.
My goals? Or did you mean my goal? Singular, not plural. Oh, please, Erk, let’s not pretend we don’t know the reason why most men hit the gym. Wink, wink. But I didn’t want to come off as vain, so I made sure to add, “of course, I want the mental health benefits as well.”
With the smoothness of someone who had done this a thousand times, Erk pulled out his fancy iPad, made me a training plan, schooled me about diet, consistency, sleep…the entire nine yards. He oozed passion, as people often do when they speak about things they genuinely believe in. Was he a fitness instructor or a salesman? The lines were blurred. When he dropped the mic, I swear, I wanted to spend the next 24 hours chopping iron* in the gym.
We did the rounds: one piece of equipment after the other, Erk showed me how to push, press and lift with proper form, how to avoid injury. And then, snap, my trial appointment was over.
What a shame, Erk said. We didn’t have enough time to go through all the exercises in my workout plan.
“Aber, kein Problem. I will save your plan. Once you register with us, we can continue from where we left off. We have created a great plan, and we are motivated. I believe we can achieve great results.”
We? Alas, there is no we in fitness. Wouldn’t it be great if Erk did the lifting and eating while I got the results? Physical. Oh, and the mental too.
I like to consider myself someone who’s not swayed by smooth talk and clandestine marketing tactics. On this day, however, I took the bait. Behold, ladies and gentlemen, Damen und Herren, I left the gym that night with an annual contract, payable monthly, and a truckload of motivation.
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For two weeks, I was consistent. Gym. Stretch. Chicken breasts. Eggs…Eba. But I never quite got the sleep part right. I never seem to get the sleep part right.
One day, out of nowhere, FitX announced a one-week closure for some renovation work. If you’ve ever taken a break halfway into a marathon, you’ll come to appreciate the value of momentum. After the gym reopened, it took me almost two weeks to return. Painfully, I rebuilt my rhythm, and then I went on a 4-day vacation to Prague.
I’ve been back from Prague for a week. Not a single bicep curl; not a single leg press. Yet FitX continues to debit my account monthly, maybe Erk even earns a small commission. What an unfair world.
I mentioned my struggles to Fortune during that last visit. “Guy, this gym lifestyle is not for the weak, abeg. I just can’t crack the consistency code.”
He laughed. “But it’s not even been 3 months since you started. Of course, you will struggle at the start. And I expect the struggle to continue for a few more months.”
Ehn?
“But you have been consistent”, I protested. “Why can’t I be consistent, too?”
And dearest gentle reader, this was when the truth was revealed. I knew that Fortune had gone through a fitness phase in early 2023, but I thought it had lasted only two months. What I did not know was that this dude resumed the journey in the latter part of 2023 into 2024.
I felt defrauded.
We used to live in the same building, I on the first floor, he on the third. And we saw each other regularly. How did I not know he’d been going to the gym all this time, even if only on and off?
For Fortune, the obvious physical results came in 2025, and I’d naively assumed the work started at the end of 2024. Like Picasso, the results and the apparent effortless consistency had taken him his whole life. Well, of course, in this case, his whole life is just 2 years. But you get my point, don’t you?
Then came a sobering realisation: if my progress mirrors Fortune’s, I will only begin to see results in 2028. Oh no, God Forbid. Two years of the shareholders of FitX laughing all the way to the bank while Erk earns a commission, enough to buy a diamond ring to propose to his girlfriend. I refuse to fund Erk’s love life without getting any results for myself. If I put all that money in the stock market, would I not earn enough in 2 years to buy a Ferrari? Or a vacation home in the Greek islands. No, I wouldn’t, but still…
I am reminded of a post I once saw on Twitter (I refuse to call it the 24th letter of the English alphabet). A young woman graduated with a biology degree, but she continued to nurse the dream of becoming a medical doctor — did you see what I did there? Her father then challenged her to do a second degree in medicine if it really was her dream.
“That would take me another 6 years, Daddy. By then, I would be 30 years old,” she said.
And daddy replied, “In 6 years, you will be 30 years old, anyway. You can either be a 30-year-old with a medical degree or a 30-year-old without one.”
Whatever I decide to do, in the end, 2028 will roll by anyway.
*In Nigerian pidgin English, “chopping iron” is a vivid, playful way of saying you’re putting in serious work with the weights, as if you’re eating the iron, devouring the workout. “Chopping”, in this context, does not mean to cut up. Rather, it means to eat or consume.
