Gratuitous photo of my dapper self. Why? Well, why the hell not?
Thursday AM this past week was a conditioning day and instead of my typical fun with the Prowler, I thought I would change things up and do some 50 yard sprints at the football field of my town’s high school.
On the drive over to the field, my mind gently wandered about a little bit and I began to think about this blog and the overall message of it. I think this was motivated by a book I am reading on blogging that advises bloggers to develop their “elevator pitch” to easily explain what their blog is all about.
Then I got to thinking about others I’ve seen who have motivational style posts… except… well… there was something about their message I couldn’t quite shake.
The solution?
Make a video about it. Put it on the YouTubes. Boom. Go time.
Let’s chat for a minute about improving yourself. Sure, that’s most of the theme of this blog in general, but let’s talk about it in a seemingly unique and obvious concept. Yes, unique does not often go with obvious, but damn it, tonight it will.
Suppose for a moment you wanted to improve your health, fitness, well-being or some other part of your physical being. Would you just sort of amble about through the day and hope that after a while, you were better off than when you started? Wait… you wouldn’t? Come on… seriously?
Seems pretty straightforward. You don’t tend to get better by accident. There is effort, focus, determination, planning and execution of that planning. It’s not even that complicated – it just takes actually putting into motion a half-decent plan. Not even a great plan necessarily – just something semi-good that you give strong effort to.
Everything you’ve read up to this point is the obvious part. Here is what is a little unique: Why is it so damn few people, including me, take that same approach when it comes to their “inner” development? It’s as if the path to being a better person lies in just saying one day, “Hey, I want to be get better…” at some positive personal quality (listener/thinker/more caring/more resilient/better empathy/stand up for themselves) and one day, BOOM! There it is! Glory, glory hallelujah! Sing unto the heavens for I have raised myself up to new heights! Can I get an amen? AYYYYYYY-MEN!
I am a bit taken aback by the extent to which I swing and miss on this very point. My approach to physical training is focused, planned and borderline obsessive (I prefer meticulous, but then again, I am powerful sweet and don’t see this as a bad thing). I know I need to do certain lifts to get stronger in particular areas and I need to work conditioning to stay in shape. I know if I just blow them off, nothing happens… well, nothing good at least. But what about wanting to be less distracted and more thoughtful/focused? Don’t I need to have a plan for that? Don’t I need to spend actual time on getting better at that?
It’s as I act like these things will just be taken care of because, hell, my mind is going all day long so… umm… it must be working on something. Maybe it’s working on my being more thoughtful too! WOO!
Horrible, horrible plan. And especially galling considering how perfectly clear it is to me that a lot of work goes into my physical development. It’s borderline silly I don’t have time set aside to think about my personal development.
Until now. Finally got that booked into my calendar on a daily basis and what now becomes important is this: Will I do it? Will I guard that time and treat it with the same level of care I do my training? If I do, good things will come. If I don’t… well… then I will just be back to knowing that a very good intention married to a non-existant plan is a sure bet for a looking utterly dopey.
And this blog is not about sheepishly sitting idle. It’s relentlessly pushing myself forward. May I not just write it, but live it.
I take a lot of pride in this here blog. Every post I write very much comes from the heart – what I write here, I mean and believe.
But here is something a little funny about the blog. Friends of mine who mention the blog to others who haven’t read it will turn to me and say, “Kev, tell them what your blog is about.” And you know what I inevitably do? I pause… like, for a while. Not the thoughtful pause of a man with great wisdom who is merely taking a moment to let the listener pull closer before he unveils the truth of the universe. Oh, how I wish.
No, it’s more like a pause of, “Sweet mother of God… how do I describe the shenanigans I write on this site? Think, think, think… umm… damn it all…”
So in the interest of having a more well-constructed answer than my typical response of “Well… it’s about a lot of things…” (a real crowd-pleaser, by the way), I will seek to answer in this post.
I am a very strong believer in the idea that every person must have core principles they hold very dear which guide them through life. This doesn’t need to be a massive list – in fact, it should be purposefully brief so as to avoid conflict, confusion and doubt. This blog is a reflection of a few of my core views of life: (1)we are each made up of equal parts mind, body and spirit; (2) a lot of life is thoughtfully developing these things over time; and (3) the development of each of these can have a hugely positive impact on the other parts.
The best example I can give is the meaning of weight training to me and the impact it has had on my life. Lifting weights, especially over the last 5-8 years as I’ve gotten a lot more thoughtful and focused in this effort, has certainly done quite a bit to develop my physical capabilities, but has probably had at least an equal positive impact on my mindset and confidence. There is an inherently amazing level of self-understanding you develop when you throw a few hundred pounds of weight on your back… especially a weight you have never handled in your life… and then see if you can lift it. You begin to wonder about things like:
Will I be able to handle it? What happens if I screw up? How will I handle that gnawing fear in my gut that this lift is going to go straight to hell and take me to the floor in the process? Will I be afraid to try again if I fail? If I succeed, how do I keep progressing?
Vasiliy Alekseyev – One powerful dude.
A great example is a story I’ve heard numerous times about Vasiliy Alekseyev, one of the greatest Olympic weightlifters of all time. He was stuck on one of his lifts at a particular weight – no matter how many times he tried it, he simply could not seem to complete the lift at the weight in question. So, when he went into a competition, his coach had him lift just below at what that weight was… except that’s only what he told Vasiliy. In reality, he had the bar set with the weight Vasiliy had never been able to lift. Up to the platform this giant of a man steps, grabs the weight… completes the lift.
Was he physically any different at that moment? Of course not. He was mentally stuck about what he could and couldn’t do, so it took a little trickery from his coach to get him past that seemingly insurmountable set point.
So what does all of this have to do with Fierce and Mighty? Oh, I have the answer for you (umm… which is most of the reason I asked the question – I don’t want to look like a complete maroon, ya know).
It can take the success of a physical act to get you to see new potential in yourself, not just in the weight room or the track or the pool or the field, but in your entire life. When you can demonstrate to yourself time and time again that you can break through your own preconceived ideas of what is possible, the carryover to other parts of your life is absolutely striking.
That’s what this blog is about more than anything else: my personal journey on the path to developing body/mind/spirit in equal parts, learning something in the process and sharing all of it with you in the hopes you may find benefit as well. I may give advice here, but it always comes from a place of my own steps to follow that advice too.
So that’s Fierce and Mighty, described as best I can. Now if I can just figure out how to explain that to someone in 10 seconds or less in a conversation, I might really be onto something.
A prayer that has become increasingly popular over the last several years is “The Serenity Prayer”. It’s been used by people recovering from addiction or just people looking for a little more peace in their lives. While it has a few different forms to it, this is the most common version:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
It’s simple, clear and readily accessible to just about anyone because all of us go through moments in our lives where we scrap, claw and battle… but damn, it sure would help to know if we could even make a change on that thing we war against so fervently. Knowing that line between the changeable and the impossibly fixed would be helpful.
My last post on thinking… well… got me thinking (funny how that works) about a different kind of line – the one dividing thoughtful consideration and pointed action. As I wrote previously, I am all for taking time to think, ponder, navel gaze and whatever else you want to call it… but sweet mother of God, there will come a time when all of that contemplation needs to be set aside and action must be taken. There is certainly value to thinking for the sake of thinking, but most of the time, you are thinking over some issue or question that you then need to do something about.
This is the precise reason why on my About page you will find one of my favorite General Patton quotes – “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.” Endless thinking becomes endless hand-wringing and worry over how things will turn out. You will need to reach a moment of putting into motion a plan because a good one now can take you someplace… and let’s be honest… the perfect one never comes.
So maybe that’s how I would have a new version of The Serenity Prayer. Something along the lines of:
God, grant me the discipline to think deeply,
The drive to commit fully to my actions,
And the wisdom to know the place for each.
It’s not perfect poetry, but you get the general flavor of it all. Or maybe you just scrap the whole notion and go with 4 simple words: Plan thoughtfully. Execute fiercely.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but mornings have become something I enjoy quite a bit. I was never truly a late night party machine to begin withm as any friend of mine reading this will laugh loudly while saying, “Whoooaaaa… big breaking news there…” I do enjoy quite a bit about the evening time, but for me it’s the winding down feeling I enjoy, not a time to getting buckwild crazy. For instance, one of my favorite memories is when I used to live along the Connecticut shoreline, I would head down to the beach on a clear night and sit up in one of the lifeguard chairs for a while. It was just incredibly peaceful to sit there in the darkness, maybe with some moonlight, and watch the waves lap the shore.
I think my fascination with mornings is due to the feeling that with a new day brings the chance for good, new things to happen. There is always something inherently positive about that in my mind. Are there mornings where I am decidedly unexcited about what lies in store for me that day? Oh, hell yes. Let’s not get ridiculous about this – I am not going to pretend I walk out the door each morning with the figurative bluebirds of happiness chirping upon each of my shoulders.
But there is just the fact that a new day is starting and I have the chance to make of it what I will. This is the same feeling I have when I sit down in front of a nice, clean sheet of paper. What will transpire with that paper is completely up to me. It could be a mundane shopping list or a series of to-do projects requiring my attention. It could also be a sketch or a frenetic set of ideas I am excited to get down on paper and organize for a blog post, a training program or just some insight that mysterious popped into my noggin.
It’s the promise of it all that fascinates me. I have talked about potential before here and here, so I think it’s clear that leaving potential unrealized or without effort to achieve is something to avoid… but it still fires my imagination overall.
So as I write this very morning and think more about the good things in life, I am upbeat and ready to get moving a little bit. OK, that could be the coffee, but it’s more likely the power of mornings.
Here’s to hoping for good things in store today for you. That big, clean sheet of paper is in front of us all. Give it something good.
After I did yesterday’s post, the topic of potential started knocking around a lot in my brain for the rest of the day. You see, I find potential to be one of the more interesting concepts to think about because it has a lot of nuances to it, both good and bad. I think this is why I have a little bit of a love/hate relationship with potential.
The positive side of potential is fairly obvious: it’s about having the chance to do much, be much and achieve much. It’s about that bright horizon of promise where so many good things await and you just want to sprint towards it with fervor. WOO! GET SOME!
On the other side of the ledger, I think about the quote from former NFL coach Brian Billick when he said, “Son, your potential is going to get me fired.” The darker side of potential is that it means someone has gifts, talents and abilities… but without the realization of those innate qualities. Hmm… that’s never good. This is when all the promise and hope bumps up against the passage of time and people begin to ask, “Umm… soooo… do you plan on actually doing anything with all of your gifts? Or are ya just gonna sit on them?” Oof. Not good.
Potential: cool and refreshing
It made me think about what analogy works best for potential. My initial thought was a glass of water. There sits a nice, cold, refreshing glass of water representing all of your potential. If it just sits there and is ignored, it’s just going to become room temperature and possibly taste a little funky after a while. Instead, you want to get into and drink deeply of it to gain all of its great benefits.
But what happens when you start to get near the bottom of the glass? When there is just sips left? Sure, you have nearly maximized everything of that crisp, satisfying potential… umm… but then what? It’s gone? Empty? Nothing left? What do you look forward to now? Is there some kind of problem with being incredibly efficient at bringing out the best of the glass of potential you have because one it’s all done… that’s it?
It was at this point I realized the problem was more with the structure of the analogy. Sure, there is something keenly appealing about the idea of the cold glass of water and making use of it instead of letting it become lukewarm and bleah… but it really hit me that our potential is never going to be a finite container. How could it be?
We can always develop and get a little better than before – mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically. There may be some outer boundaries at some point. For instance, the window of opportunity for me to fulfill my lifelong dream of playing running back for the Dallas Cowboys is quickly closing… and shut your filthy mouths, you naysayers who say it was never open! But you see what I mean – I probably will not develop 4.2 speed and the ability to hit an inside draw for a game winning touchdown in Dallas. That’s OK.
But a lot of my other physical development? I don’t see any outer limits right now. It may all take a while, but it’s there because… why the hell not? You and I are mostly limited by our own set boundaries in the end.
Or intellectual development – does anyone seriously believe they have capped out there? Who couldn’t learn more and open up their mind to new and exciting possibilities until they draw their very last breath? I will tell you who – those who decided it couldn’t be done and stunted their own growth in that area. Them and them alone.
I think that was the most eye-opening part of doing the Tough Mudder a few weeks back. In the middle of the race, several hours in and feeling tired and beaten all to hell, I realized one important thing – as banged up as I felt, I knew I would finish. I simply knew it as sure as I was drawing breath (which was probably more like wheezing at that moment, but still a form of oxygen intake regardless). If I could push through that, what else could I do?
Truthfully, all of my physical training since that time has been markedly improved because the 6 grueling hours of that race showed me where I had limited myself in the past. It took that grind to break down my self-created walls and open up some squeaky-clean and shiny-new potential.
Flex those boundaries a bit today, my friends. They will stretch more than you think… especially because you probably created 90% of them anyway.
My t-shirt inspired my blog post today. Even looking at those words after typing them looks and feels a little odd, but it doesn’t make the initial statement any less true. The t-shirt in question is here as Exhibit A:
Man that’s a lot of good-looking going on there. But I digress (per usual).
The t-shirt comes from Jim Wendler, the creator of the 5/3/1 system for weight training. I’m not sure the origins of the quote, but it’s always something that struck me a little bit in how it can be applicable in so many areas. From Jim’s perspective, it pertains primarily to how the fitness industry bombards people with such bad information, snake oil ripoffs and thick layers of hype, none of which will make you any stronger, faster, fitter or healthier (but will likely line the pockets of someone who cares little about you achieving any of those goals).
But today my thoughts on this shirt had less to do with strength training and more to a broader application of the statement. It’s fairly simple to me:
Every single day, in some way, shape or fashion, society is lying to you, me and everyone else you know. It’s constant. It’s pervasive.
Now, if you are thinking, “Who slipped the paranoia pills into your coffee this morning, wacko?” I’m not sure I would blame you. My assertion is a wee bit on the broad side, but stop for a second and think about it and you will likely come around to my vantage point on this issue.
How often do we hear about the negatives of the world? The restrictive ideas of who we can be or what we can achieve? The constant pigeon-holing of everyone into neatly categorized little boxes where we are defined by our jobs? Or defined by some narrow stereotype or title about how we should live our lives? Or think about problems big and small?
Let me see if I can illustrate by way of example: Does being a lawyer by training define who I am? I would never see it that way, although I probably did while in law school and for a while after graduating until one day it occurred to me that was such a confining way of living my life.
Or how about one’s age? A lot of people have been posting fond memories on Facebook of actress Kathryn Joosten who just passed away at the age of 72. She didn’t even start acting until she was 42 and only moved to Hollywood when she was 55 years old. What if she listened to the idea that no one can make a new start (let alone one in the age-obsessed film and TV industry) at such and age? She would have never had the chance to win 2 Emmy awards.
I could go on and on about this point, but hey, I’m a swell dude and will spare you a mind-numbing barrage of examples to prove the same point… and that point is this:
Today you will be exposed to a colleague, friend, family member, TV commercial, stranger in the street, billboard or God only knows what else that will try and tell you what your potential may or may not be. It may sound kindly and will almost assuredly be very well-intentioned… but it also may very well be a complete fabrication.
Don’t listen. Don’t give in. Be that which you long to be. And I will give all I can to do the same.
The video from my last post about being more active/proactive in my life has been rattling around in my head ever since I recorded it in Shanghai. For one, that concept of being proactive really locked into something I had been feeling for a while without expressing as well as I could – namely, that I had been letting life happen to me without taking an active stance on what I wanted out of life.
But the second reason it really hit me didn’t become clear until I was looking through my notes in Evernote on the flight back home. I came across a note from September 5, 2010 from when I was reading Stephen Covey’s classic book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. I couldn’t believe the serendipitous timing of recording that video and then seeing this exact note a few days later:
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of a proactive person. Reactive people are driven by circumstances, feelings, conditions , environment. Proactive people are driven by their values – carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.
As a person highly focused on my own values and trying to live them as best I can, it seems the concept Mr. Covey described in his book never really left me, but had decided to lurk for a while in the back of my mind, waiting for the most opportune moment to rise again… or at least to be kicked to the front of the line by some catalyst of thought.
So what’s the point of all of this? Simply this: My own personal level of happiness and satisfaction is highly correlated (and maybe even directly tied) to how active I am in living to my values. If I am reactive (or worse still… inactive) about all of this, I am far less happy.
Prowler pushes = 100% proactive.
I realize that there is much of this that isn’t earth-shattering news on the level of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian dating. I mean, that’s just important stuff for all people of the world to ponder deeply. Anyone could easily say, “Really Kev? You are a values-driven person and you aren’t happy when being focused on your values? How is that surprising in any sense to you?” And anyone who did say that would be pretty on point in asking those questions.
But here’s where I think it gets interesting and something I return to again and again – it’s very easy to let the daily buzz of life, work, busy-ness, family, friends, baseball games, hustle, bustle, goat farming, charity work, car maintenance, yard work, laundry, assimilation to the Borg and whatever else takes up your day to draw attention away from what is truly important. It doesn’t excuse losing sight of what’s important, but it does one hell of a job explaining why.
That’s my assignment going forward – the mindfulness on this. It’s actually something that is ascending to the level of a truism in the Pantheon in my head… that when I am being proactive and really mindful of expressing my values through my actions, I am 100X happier. When I don’t, I find myself flopping around like a fish on a dock. Not a pretty picture. Another truism is that if I get sick with a cold or any other nasty little bug, it’s almost always during a period of higher-than-usual stress. It’s uncanny. Hmm… the funny thing may even be that I have higher-than-usual stress when I am not proactive about my values… never even thought of that.
So there you have it, my friends! Be proactive in your values or catch colds. Irrefutable science… just without all of those pesky double-blind studies in peer-reviewed journals to muck up all my fun.
I’ve never seen the movie “Network“, but I’ve seen the pivotal scene from the film more than a few times and I was drawn to finding it today on YouTube. If you’ve never seen it, here it is:
But what was it that brought me to this?
This is seemingly the 3rd post that jumps to mind for me that deals with some kind of rage (see “Choking On Our Own Rage”) or being pissed off (see “Non-Stop, Full Tilt, Every Day Mayhem” with Ray Lewis’s speech on being “pissed off for greatness”) or today about being mad as hell. Am I just some kind of bitter angry person? One of those cranky old curmudgeons who shakes his fist on his front porch at the kids to gell off of his lawn? The guy who finds nothing to be happy about, but more than a little to complain about? Thankfully, no… I am none of these things… although who doesn’t enjoy a good moment of declaring how things were so much tougher/better when they were growing up and how kids have it SO easy these days? It’s damn therapeutic, I tell ya.
Determined to shake myself out of lethargy
However, the video came to mind for me as I thought about the power of never feeling too satisfied with the state of things. We all get incredibly busy with work, family, friends and rushing around at a hectic pace. I may be just imagining it and maybe its just my own life, but everything feels to be at an accelerated pace over the last year or so. More to do and less time to do it. Doing this for a few days or weeks is manageable, but over longer periods of time, it’s easy to forget about everything going on around you… because you haven’t really stopped to take a look.
And that’s why… every once in a while… we each need to feel truly dissatisfied and maybe get mad as hell. Not angry in the sense of being pissed off at your fellow man or mindlessly shouting to the heavens for some kind of ephemeral justice. No, it needs to be that dissatisfaction with our own lots, lives or situations where we get pissed and think, “No more senseless autopilot… there’s got to be something better out there…” Or in the words of on-the-edge news anchor Howard Beale in the video above, you need to say “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”
Because when you get to that point of being dissatisfied, you suddenly improve the opportunity for a change to really occur. Really and truly to happen. The alternative is to just feel that nothing will ever improve and whatever you are experiencing at this moment is just as good as it’s going to get. Is that what you want? I don’t want that for me and I certainly don’t want that for you.
So the next time you feel that gnawing sense in your gut that you should be able to have something better… there should be more than what is immediately in front of you… don’t stifle it out as a kneejerk reaction and don’t feed it as anger for the sake of anger. Both are senseless and can be destructive (or in Stars Wars, lead to the path of the dark side). Instead, let’s make it that extra push to shake us from our complacency and get a little more for ourselves, our families, our friends and anyone else we care about.
The present may be tough, but since the only constant in life is change… why not make that work for us? We’re human beings. Our lives have value. And settling belittles all of us a little bit at a time.
It’s probably not surprising that I enjoy a very well-done inspiration speech. Certain people who truly have the gift – whether by virtue of being blessed by the gods of Olympus from birth or through, careful, meticulous practice over time – really capture my attention. The ability to move inspire people to do more and be more than they thought possible just fascinates me.
But something about Ray Lewis’s speech struck a slightly different chord with me when I watched it. I still had the chills and felt fired up at the end… but a few minutes later, I found myself pausing to think about what he said from a slightly different vantage point. Ray starts off with:
If tomorrow wasn’t promised, what would you give for today? Forget everything else. Forget everything else. Forget that there was any sunlight left. What would you spend today thinking about?
The reason this got me to thinking was twofold. First, it’s about taking nothing for granted today and if tomorrow is never promised, how will you live today. Second, it also got me thinking about the motto of this blog: Relentlessly push yourself forward. These two ideas taken together basically add up to an idea of going non-stop, full tilt, every single day. All good things, right?
Photo Credit: Luc B via Compfight
But can we really do that? Should we expect ourselves to really and truly do that? I don’t mean that in some absurdly constructed argument sense where someone says, “No one would live that way since they would make horrible choices, spend all their money and live like lunatics if they 100% committed to that day being their last on earth!” But what I mean instead is… can you go 100% every single day? Furthermore, should you even try?
The reason I got to thinking about this was not to say that embracing utter sloth is somehow a good idea, but to wonder how to pace this effort… how to handle the daily ebbs and flows of time, energy and desire. No one is going to be “ON” 24/7 – not even the most dedicated and motivated. Burn out would be inevitable with a blistering pace like that.
But hard effort every day? The best attitude you can bring to the table every day? Doable without a doubt. Will your best on a rainy Monday with all-day meetings be as good as your best on a sunny Friday with bluebirds serenading your every step? Probably not, but that’s fine. It’s the daily practice that matters.
And that’s where the importance of finding inspiration – whether in a speech, book, song or conversation with a good friend – matters so much. For in those moments, you can see the possibility of moving a few steps past what you thought was your upper limit. And when you get past those sticking points to a new, brave place… then you have progress and you have moved yourself forward.
I can’t say how this day will turn out, but I am going to take Ray’s advice and be “pissed off for greatness”… for I can feel a little bit more mojo pushing me to that place beyond what I knew possible. Time to hustle.
