3-minute read
A few years ago, I saw a crazy picture.
I was sure it was Photoshopped.
It was a crow literally riding on the back of a bald eagle.
Conscious Living for a Chaotic Crazy World
3-minute read
A few years ago, I saw a crazy picture.
I was sure it was Photoshopped.
It was a crow literally riding on the back of a bald eagle.
6-minute read
As the champagne fizz fades and the echoes of “Happy New Year!” die down, we’re often left with a fresh batch of resolutions, neatly wrapped in the optimism of a new beginning.
But what if, instead of simply hoping for the best, we prepared for the worst? That’s where the ancient Stoic practice of premeditatio malorum comes in.
[Read more…] about Life’s a Dojo: Train Like a Warrior, Think Like a Stoic – Conquer Every Challenge Before it Begins“Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”
George Addair
I hate Nike’s slogan, “Just Do It!”
It’s a crock of crap.
It’s a marketing slogan that doesn’t take reality into account.
They say it so that you feel bad about your life, then you’ll buy their stuff, hoping that you will feel better.
Pithy slogan, nothing more.
The fact of the matter is, you can’t just do it. And the research backs it up.
We are all affected by what is called willpower depletion.
Sure, you’re full of willpower, spunk, and gumption when you’re rested, having clarity on what you need to do, and you don’t have other priorities screaming for your attention.
But what happens when you’re not clear-headed, rested, and full of piss and vinegar?
What happens when the daily grind of life is dragging you down?
Just do it? Do what?
First thing to do is give yourself a break.
If you weren’t aware of the effect of willpower depletion, there’s a good chance you’ve been giving yourself a hard time about your lack of progress toward your goals.
The CDC states that almost 20% of people in the US have experienced some form of depression in the last 2 weeks. And globally, it’s better, but not by much at 10% worldwide.
Which means, wherever you go, you gather a dozen people and one to two of them is struggling just to be happy, let alone be successful. But what is less understood is how the energy around you affects your own energy.
Those one to two people affect the people around them, making success even more difficult.
Willpower is not enough.
Fear, on the other hand, is a powerful motivator.
Meg Jay, in her book, Supernormal: The Untold Story of Adversity and Resilience, writes about the research behind successful people. The research found that 75% of 400 successful people studied, 75% of them experienced a traumatic childhood.
But somehow, for these sad upbringings, they were able to build strength, resilience, and focus to become successful later in life.
The fear of an unsafe environment drove them to create safety, autonomy, and success for themselves.
Jocko Willink, former Navy SEAL commander, executive business coach, and popular podcaster, is famous for daily posting on Twitter of his watch at 4:30 in the morning as he begins his 2-hour morning workout.
What inspires a man after 20+ years of active service and is retired to still get up at 4 in the morning?
He’s already survived some of the deadliest combat in the most dangerous places in the world, what more does he have to prove?
Jocko talks about his secret for motivation that keeps him going, it’s his “man in the cave.” You can watch him talk about it in this short 7-minute clip.
Even a Navy SEAL veteran can still feel fear.
You are biologically wired to be lazy.
You had to be ready in case something jumped out at you.
We are around today because our ancestors survived, pure and simple. They were vigilant to pay attention to their surroundings and lazy enough to be well-rested, just in case a tiger jumped out from behind a bush or a neighboring tribe decided to raid them.
You can’t be at 100% all of the time, for every exertion, you need time to rest and recover.
That is why we love being in the comfort zone.
The comfort zone means we are safe, happy, and can feel secure to reproduce.
From a biological perspective, that’s the meaning of life.
The cards are stacked against you for success. And if you want to create some, you have to get in the Fear Zone, picture the man in the cave.
To be successful, you need to use fear to get you out of the comfort zone and into the learning and growth zones.
They say with a strong enough why, the how doesn’t matter.
If a bear is chasing me down a hill, it doesn’t matter whether or not I’m in shape, the fact that I have asthma, or that I’m in my 50s; I’m running down that hill until I’m either safe or dead.
Fear is a powerful motivator.
Fear gets you off your butt, but it’s resilience that keeps you going.
”We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
Success then, isn’t a place you arrive at, it’s a daily habit you engage in.
Building resilience is no different.
First, use fear to get you into action.
What are the consequences if you don’t make a positive permanent change in your life?
Paint the picture.
Make it ugly.
Make it scary.
Make it so bad, that you absolutely need to take action.
Then pin it up on the wall, so you can see it every day before you head out.
Who is your man in the cave that gets you off your butt at 4 am?
Then take one action every day that scares you. It doesn’t have to be a big scare, but at the very least, it needs to make you uncomfortable.
This is a picture of me in ’94, I was part of the team that built the LAX control tower.
Believe it or not, back then, I was afraid of heights. When the boss said he was looking for volunteers to work on the lightning-protection system which would involve months of hanging off the side of the building, I raised my hand.
I didn’t know if I could do it but I knew I had to give it a shot.
I knew that if I let the fear of heights stop me from being able to do my job, there may be many situations where I wouldn’t have a job. So I needed to overcome this fear.
For 6 months, me and my apprentice, basically traversed the whole exterior of that building installing conduit and wire to give an alternate route for lightning strikes to travel through, rather than the building steel which could cause electrical spikes to the sensitive air-traffic control equipment.
The next time you fly into LA, you can see the work I did. You see those stainless-steel metal bands in the picture, they’re supporting the painted-plastic PVC conduit we were installing.
After 6 months hanging in a little spider-basket, I got over my fear of heights.
The point being, put yourself in situations that create a bit of fear in you each and every day.
Also, have a support team to help you. Besides my apprentice, whom I trusted with my life, literally. We had a third guy on our crew, a carpenter. Only the three of us were allowed to touch any of our equipment, I wouldn’t even let our supervisor near our stuff.
We only trusted each other with our safety in that situation. And we all made it out on the other side of fear.
So, find a fear.
Build a support system.
Find someone who can help you to move past your fear.
And every day, take action that creates a bit of fear in you.
Soon, you’ll have more success than you ever imagined.
“You must be willing to do the things today others won’t do, in order to have the things tomorrow others won’t have.”
Les Brown
Michael Phelps is a champion, nobody can deny that.
But it might have never been.
When Bob Bowman saw Michael Phelps for the first time, he knew he had a potential winner on his hands.
Michael Phelps is 6’4″ tall, most successful swimmers are tall, so his height was to his advantage, but that’s not all. Phelps has an asymmetrical build, his legs are actually short for his height and his torso is unusually “long.”
Not only that, but his wingspan, the length tip to tip of his arms were long. Normally, your wingspan matches your height but Phelps’ wingspan was 3″ longer.
All in all, Bowman saw that Phelps had the physical attributes that could give him an advantage in the pool.
But, as any coach with years of experience will tell you, natural physical gifts aren’t enough. Bowman had seen too many other naturally-gifted swimmers who didn’t rise to their potential.
So Bowman asked Phelps a simple question, “Are you willing to work out on Saturdays also?”
And that made all the difference…
The latest neuro-biology is pointing to the value of deliberate iterations as the key to success.
How many reps can you get in to move the needle of excellent performance?
Phelps had all of the natural gifts but could he day after day train to be a champion?
Could he dig deep to reach into his depths to bring out his true greatness?
Maybe all it took was getting up one more day than his competition>
Mathematically, it’s simple.
And yes, I know life is not as simple as a spreadsheet but you can estimate a close approximation.
For example, for each day that you work out and give yourself enough time to recover, recuperate, and rest, your’ net increase in ability is a measly 1%.
That means between the intensity of your training, and giving yourself to eat the healthy food you need to repair body, and enough time for the mind and body to recover from the intensity.
After all that you gain just 1%
The beauty is how accountable are you to do that each day?
Michael Phelps did it for 6 days a week and earned 23 gold medals.
How much will you improve if you gain 1% every day for a year?
Unless you’re a math wizard, most people give the wrong answer.
1% compounded every day for 365 days will give you a 37x improvement!
It’s amazing really, if all you can do is 1 pull-up right now, and for the first 41 days all you do is one pull-up, by the end of the year, you’ll be able to do 37 of them!
Unfortunately, too many people can’t see that improvement, it’s too subtle. So they buy into the marketing of 10 Easy Lessons, or worse yet, sign up for a Boot Camp that kills you but doesn’t develop any long-term habits to carry you pass the finish line.
1% every day.
Back to Phelps and working out on Saturdays. The difference between working out 5 days a week and 6 days a week are just as astounding.
6 days per week, mathematically is a 22x improvement, compared to a 13x of 5 days a week.
It also needs to be taken into account that Olympic level athletes train for years, some for over a decade before they are even eligible, which would make training 7 days a week almost impossible.
But you’re not an Olympic athlete, you want to improve your life and get it to a threshold that allows you to be the best you can be in fullness.
For that you can invest 1% each and every day.
Read 1 hour from a good book.
Exercise to improve your health.
Hire a coach to help you build and grow your business.
Reach out into your community to contribute.
1% each and every day goes a long way.
Just ask Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman.
Recently in my men’s group, after I was sharing how important the Chinese Ideogram of “Do Shim” (Way of the Heart) was so pivotal for me and my life, a fellow member, a famous musician, shared the ideogram “Ting” with the group, Ting means “to listen”.
As you can see from the illustration, “to listen” requires five qualities;
– The ears of course to hear
– The eyes because the majority of communication is non-verbal and active listening requires you to look as much as to hear
– The mind because if you are not taking in what you are hearing, you’re not really listening
– The single bar of undivided attention, not distracted by what’s going on around but focused on the individual speaking
– And finally, but most importantly, the heart, listening to connect, not confront, criticize, or condemn but wholeheartedly with love and connection.
How many of us truly listen?
Stephen Covey wrote about it in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 5, “Seek first to understand, then be understood.”
Listening skills are key for developing healthy long-term relationships
Keynote speakers and self-development gurus all admonish us to, “listen to understand, and not listen to reply.” Waiting for the opening so that you can say what’s on your mind and not really take in what the other person was speaking about.
What’s the cost of not listening?
Miscommunication, misunderstanding, misperceptions, and damaging relationships are all the things that happen when we don’t listen, truly listen.
How many arguments and fights have you been in, only later to realize that the two of you were talking about the same thing, but using slightly different language or perspective and the misunderstanding led to a stupid argument?
How many missed opportunities, speedbumps turning into walls, and relationships, business or personal, forever damaged because you didn’t take the time to just be still and listen?
To listen requires an open heart and mind, the willingness to hold space for the other person so that you can hear and see what (s)he has to share, and it requires the two of you to become one with each other’s undivided attention and focus.
Anything less is not listening, it’s just taking up space.