UNLEASHING THE DRAGON

I made an interesting observation. Some of the greatest martial artists who have performed their craft at the highest levels are counter-culture to the "give it all you got," culture of western society.

These individuals are tenacious in their arena, yet they seem to have more compassion. They are far surpassed in their skill and ability, yet they walk in humility and honor. They could destroy you in seconds, but they are always calm, cool, collected, and poised.

Young athletes, young men especially, strive to continuously be the Dragon: fierce, competitive, aggressive and strong. Our society has taught them that this is the way to achieve success.

But on the contrary, I have observed that the consistently dominate athletes, businessmen, martial artists, musicians, etc all maintain a certain inner strength derived through an inner peace that differs from others.

They are sometimes said to be the "nicest guy you'll ever meet," off the field. But on the field, they change. They morph. The fire out of their mouth is so much more powerful and controlled, they almost effortlessly torch their field of play.

I'd like to share with you what one Dragonhas taught me through his books. He teaches that the garbage you allow into your mind is what distracts you from letting your body and mind connect as an athlete. His name is Bruce Lee, and he calls it Wu Wei.

Wu means "non" and wei means "action, doing, striving." In the The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, their is a part where Cruise is getting messed up in a training exercise by two or three Samurai. During the fight, he looks haphazard, fighting out of raw emotion, swinging his weapon with no intent, just hoping to connect. Though Cruise is a trained military soldier and warrior, his aggression and training does not give him what he needs to take on his opponents successfully. One of the Samurai yells out to Cruise, "too much mind."

Wu Wei does not invoke taking no action. It is the art of letting your mind go and trusting it to do the work you've taught it to do. As an athlete, you train your skills daily. The more hours of deliberate practice you put in, the more refined you skills become.

But why, sometimes, can we not get past a certain stage. Why can't we transfer this practice to a field of play and dominate our opponents. Because we never truly trust ourselves. We get in our own way. Instead of acting in harmony with what is in front of us, we try to force the issue; control.

Attaining Wu Wei means to attain what Lee calls "spontaneous action," or "spirit action." This means that you have allowed the mind to become the governing force and have let your senses go.

To do this you must master the principle of Wuhsinor "no-mindedness." Allan Watts describes no mindedness as, "a state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club."

To all my young athletes and parents. This second mind or "club" that beats all your hard work into mediocrity is the ego. The ego is what makes us worry about what people think of our performance. It is what causes fear, anxiety, jealousy, envy, pride, vanity, covetous, and even hatred. This "club" keeps our performance on the practice field stellar, but once the lights are on, this "club" does everything that it can to tell us "we're not good enough," or "people are judging me," and so forth.

Take a lesson from one of the greatest masters of his craft. Learn the Unleash The Dragon, by trusting all the work you have put into your skill. When performing, only focus on the skill, focus on improving your ability to use what you have practiced. And do not worry about the outcome. Only by practicing and attaining, Wu Wei will you ever become a true master.

Check out this clip of Bruce Lee teaching a young student Wu Wei. He didn't mess around:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roY9SaqM0mo

MY LIBERATION TOUR STORY

My last 100 days of existence has been anything but fun. But sticking with one of my favorite motto's, "if it doesn't suck, don't do it," I endured the Liberation Tour and completed it right on the deadline.

This is a quick story of my Liberation Tour experience and a few things I took from it.

Pictured to the left is me, bent over a sledge hammer, in a puddle over my own sweat. I just swung that thing for twenty minutes straight. That was after I had the bright idea of running the 4 mile run challenge in my garage at 4pm. Bad idea. Not only because it was the longest running challenge (4 miles) but also because it was 324 degrees inside my garage.

Train in the worst conditions possible...that's what I always say right? Well the only thing that was missing that day was Lucifer himself poking me with his flaming devil Triton.

But I thought this picture would give you a good idea of the way I felt after enduring through 30 of the worst physical challenges someone could volunteer to do...dripping sweat, utterly exhausted, relieved that I was finally done, and ultimately quite accomplished.

If you are not familiar with the Liberation Tour it is simply a battery of physical and mental challenges I created that provide you with "30 ways to make you quit." The goal is to check off each of these challenges in 100 days or less.

A better explanation is given below. I use this in the blog site.

"You are about to embark on a truly unique experience of '30 ways to make you quit.'

Your mission...conquer all thirty ways to quit in 100 days or less.

'30 ways to quit,' will challenge your mental and physical capacities.

To complete this tour is a great feat.

To complete this tour is to prove your ability to withstand constant adversity for 100 days. It will force you to keep going when you want to give up. It will force yourself to push yourself farther than you want to go.

In the end, you will be Liberated. Liberated by knowing that the person you once were no longer exists, You, my friend, will see a whole new meaning to your potential."

I created this tour understanding most of you fail to realize how much you have already inside of you. That everything you want to accomplish, you already posses. It's just waiting to be liberated.

But you settle. You choose to take the path of least resistance. You let fear, insecurity, doubt, selfishness, and flat out laziness steal the greatness from inside of you. You let others direct your paths and set barriers on you.

Every now and then you need to do something to see what you're made of. This tour gives you that. It challenges you by providing a set time of consistent mental and physical adversity. It's done in a controlled manner. All challenges are based on you as an individual.

Finding what you're made of can't happen if someone else is forcing you to do it. You'll cop out. Finding what you're made of is a voluntary activity.

Voluntary...You don't have a schedule or time to show up to do these exercises. You don't have anything motivating you but your own will and competitiveness against yourself. You have no one coaching you. Each one of these is done on your own merit. Your own will.

The toughest thing about this challenge was not listening to myself. Those words that spoke to my not so great personality characteristics of laziness, doubt, and fear. And many times telling myself, "I don't really need to finish this. It doesn't matter."

But it did...my dad taught me to never quit. When it starts to hurt that's when it gets fun...that's where you separate yourself from everyone else. That's where you put a smile on your face and shift into that other gear.

My biggest fear: Running...I despise it for some reason. I believe when I was putting together the challenges for this tour put the 1, 2, 3, and 4 mile run challenge in for myself. If it was going to liberate me, I had to get over the fear I had of running for more than 94 feet at a time.

A ex-navy seal once said, "running is the best exercise because it build's character." It does. It's easy to stop. Your body has given you a great muscular system that brakes quite easily. The key is forgetting you have breaks and just keep going. That saying always made sense to me, but now, after doing it, I really understand that statement.

When I began the tour, I was ready to conquer these runs, and the first thing I did was the 1 mile run. It had been two years since I ran one mile, without stopping. I ran it in 6:45. I later wrote on a facebook post, "When I got off the treadmill it felt like a Gnome was repeatedly hitting the back of my hamstrings with a 2 x 4." It was tough, but not as tough as I thought.

I had the pleasure and was motivated by watching two Liberated Warriors crush this tour in 40 and 41 days.

Jimmy Powers, a young fire fighter, absolutely ran through the Liberation Tour in 41 days. He'd show up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and kick the crap out of these challenges (you can read more of Jimmy's story on the Liberation Tour blog). Jimmy would talk a lot of noise to me, "are you gonna finish?" "Come on old man?" "Step your game up." Jimmy didn't know but he was a large part of my motivation.

Then we had a second person finish. Picture a mother of four, 40 years of age, knocking out 150 squat jumps and 20 minutes of sledge hammer swings in one single day to make sure that she completed the tour in 40 days...completing it a day faster than Jimmy the fit fire fighter man. It was amazing. She will probably hold that record until she decides to break it herself.

So far three people have finished. That leaves quite a few in what I call the "Liberation Tour Graveyard." Some got close, some tried one challenge and then thought, "what the heck am I doing," and, some never even started.

What I realized is that most of us fall short in accomplishing what we want in life when things start to get hard. When things start to get uncomfortable. That's when it's easy to start making excuses and justify another route.

It's also easy to quit once the newness and excitement wears off. We are all fired up the first couple of weeks, but then when things start to get repetitive, boring, or especially more difficult, we get that voice in our head that starts to talk us out of completing what we started.

Sunday, the day after I completed my tour, I got more things done around my house than I'd done in months. I said to myself, "I just finished the Liberation Tour, why they heck can I not get these little things done around my house. I just ran 8 miles in one week, I can do anything." My wife was probably wondering if someone broke into the house, knocked me unconscious, and got all these things done.

TO WRAP THIS UP, HERE ARE 5 QUICK LESSONS I LEARNED FROM THE LIBERATION TOUR.

1. YOU CAN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE INSIDE YOU UNTIL YOU FACE WHAT SCARES YOU TO DEATH: Over the last 100 days, I've heard a lot of people talk about how they could complete the Liberation Tour in 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days, etc. I giggled. It's easy to talk trash to an enemy when they're behind a brick wall you won't climb over.

2. EXCUSES RULE OUR LIVES AND STEAL OUR GREATNESS: Excuses are easy. Get rid of things in your life that are easy. An excuse is nothing more then validation of weakness.

3. IF YOU WRITE OUT SPECIFICALLY WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH, WORK ON IT A LITTLE BIT AT A TIME, IT'S AMAZING WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE: Only set goals you can measure numerically. Set thirty today for the next year. Then go liberate yourself.

4. WE GET OUT OF LIFE ONLY WHAT WE COMMIT TO FINISH: You can never give what you don't have. And you will never have what you do not finish.

5. IT'S STILL NOT FOR EVERYONE: No matter what, some will, some won't, and some just choose to defer. I think I would rather be the one that does. What about you?

If you would like more information on the Liberation Tour, you can reply to this email or go to the Liberation Tour blog.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK

CONFLICT THERAPY

Author Robert Green in his book, The 33 Strategies of War writes, "Child psychologist Jean Piaget saw conflict as a critical part of mental development. Through battles with peers and then parents, children learn to adapt to the world and develop strategies for dealing with problems."

The author continues on reiterating the importance of not backing away from battles throughout adolescence and adulthood:
"it is through your battles that you learn what works, what doesn't, and how to protect yourself."

The Quick Conclusion: No matter your age, learn to embrace your battles. The younger the better.

Unfortunately our day and age has taught us to do everything possible to protect us from going into battle:

We want to be secured a position on the team, instead of giving them no choice to put you in the starting lineup.

We travel around the country attempting to expose talent to scouts, instead of spending that time becoming a master at our skills.

We settle for jobs we hate instead of actually doing what we want to do.

We choose to be mediocre because we are afraid of being exposed for who we really are.

We don't stand up for something we really believe in because we are afraid of not being liked.

We keep ourselves busy with meaningless tasks instead of actually focusing on the one or two things that could really change our lives.

We let others decide what's best for us, and thus, have no passion, power, or meaning in what we do.

We spend hours on the Internet, checking our email, seeing what our "friends" are doing on facebook, instead of using that time to work on something that could change our's and others lives.

And in the end...we make make far more excuses than we make progress.

John Maxwell recently gave a talk called, Why John Wooden's Teams Won. Maxwell observed...

"He (Coach Wooden) achieved personal victories before he lead his team to victory. He won the battle of self. He has disciplined his own life, and has won his main victory. This allowed him to also show other people how to be victorious."

To win the battle over yourself should be number one on the agenda. To do this, show up to your sessions of CONFLICT THERAPY.

In these sessions you can see what we are made of. In these sessions is you'll gain perspective you need to let your gifts, talents, and passions come to life.

It is never a good idea to go into battle with someone who has never been tested. Or as I like to paraphrase, "never trust an un-broken man." Only the tested and broken man can truly lead others into victory over themselves. Anyone else is a poser...a fake.

Who would want to go to battle with you?

This Week...Decide to do something significant with your life. Try for one entire day not to make one excuse. I think you'll be surprised on how many you actually drum up.

This Week...Go get some CONFLICT THERAPY. Then GO passionately share your stories of struggle and triumph with others. You're life and the lives of those you touch will begin to change.

As Thomas Jefferson was quoted, "When the heart is right, the feet are swift."

Below is a clip of one of my all-time favorite movies. It is all about conflict therapy. It is about discovering who you are through a seemingly impossible fight. It's about knowing what your fighting for. It's about what happens inside you when you're backed into a corner. It's about knowing what you stand for. And most of all, it's about continually winning the victory over yourself.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK MY FRIENDS!!

CINDERELLA MAN

HOW NOT TO BECOME THE "USED TOO GUY"

This MMM came to me when an athlete of mine asked how much I bench. My immediate response was... "Well, I used to...."

Instead of telling this kid the standard, "how much you bench doesn't matter," I went with a possibly inflated number that I did in the 90's:))

What's funny is I said this with no hesitation. Not a thought entered my mind about telling him how much I currently may bench press. I would love to blame it on the fact that I haven't done a bench press max in a few years, but when it comes down to it, it's because I became the "used too" guy.

Here are a couple of facts about the mythical "used too" guy:

1. As the years pass, your "used too" numbers continue to improve. For example: If you actually bench pressed 250 lbs in high school. Buy the time you are 30, it marginally increases to 275-300lbs. And by the time you are 40, you may be looking in the 325-350 area. It's amazing how your "used too" guy gets stronger as you struggle to put up 135.

2. The "used too" guy always comes through: He always comes through when you cannot meet a challenge, you get your butt kicked by a kid, or you are watching any sport. The "used too" guy always finds a way to whip up a "good ole days" story to let people know that you didn't used to suck this bad.

3. If not for the "used too" guy most of us would be in trouble. You see, the reason we call the "used Too" guy off the bench every now and then is for validation. Validation that we actually were athlete's, or strong, or even smart. GPA is another on of those numbers that probably magically increases with age.

When you call the "Used too" guy up from the bench....no one cares. You generally get a blank stare just like Napoleon and Kip as they watch Uncle Rico's self-recorded VHS tapes of him throwing a football.

No one who lives in the present really cares about or likes the "used too" guy. Their are two ways you know this. The person your are introducing the "used too" guy too will either A) roll their eyes, or B) Just change the conversation.

What we need to understand is keeping this guy around doesn't help anyone, especially you. I am particularly talking to coach's and leaders in this one.

Someone once told me that in order to become a coach (or leader), you first have to let go of the fact that you are not longer a player. Why? Because if you are a player, you compete. If you are competing against your team, than it is impossible to be an effective coach.

A great leader thinks only about one thing...everyone else.

One of the most virtuous qualities of a leader is humility. Humility is impossible if you think about validating your worth more than you think about improving your team.

Another problem is the "used too" guy can stop your from progressing. At some point you probably stopped working out as hard. At some point you stopped practicing your sport for 2 hours a day. The natural law says that if you stop doing something that used to consume your life, over time, that skill will eventually become diminished.

So this week, as a coach or leader, take this advice on getting rid of the "used too" guy for not just your good, but also everyone else too:

1. Put your team first: Quit telling them how great you used to be and start showing them how great they still can be. As their leader you must continue to improve with the intention of giving what you learn.

2. Use past stories only to teach lessons: Do not waste your time telling stories to validate your worthiness or let them know how magnificent you used to be. Stories of when you failed, overcame, or had to fight through particular situations are much more effective as a leader. Teach your team through stories that help them take wisdom you've gained from the past.

4. Don't compete: Not with your team. Most leaders have a competitive streak that can change relationships. You never want to make competition personal with people you lead. You can play hard, you can go hard, but never take it to a level where it becomes personal.

I love to play one on one with my kids. And I love to beat them. Unfortunately, as the years have gone by they have improved and grown. I have not. I hate losing, I don't care if they are in the NBA, I still hate losing. But when I changed my mindset to using that time to help develop them and our relationship instead of trying to get a W for my own ego, everything changed. Now I can compete hard, lose, and the only thing I am worried about is if I gave them a chance to get better.

5. Worry about being the best at who you are right now: You can't be the best at who you are right now if you are still holding on to what you once were. Fight even thinking about what you did yesterday. It's over. The best continually strive to get better daily.

Life's greatest gift is the ability to change with every moment. Each moment gives you a new opportunity to be something better than you were. This is created by nothing by the decisions you make to change, to learn, to do what is right. To me this is more than just a gift, this is a responsibility.

Watch Uncle Rico in this video as he shows you what the "Used Too" guy is all about! It is outstanding. Have a great week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gducgTcJMMU

A DAY I'LL NEVER FORGET

There are certain days you will have in you life life that are just a little more special than others. One of mine happened to come on March 27th, 2007 at the 2007 McDonald's All-American Game.

I am quite fortunate to have great friends like John and Sue Calathes. They entrusted me to work with their two boys, Pat and Nick, who turned out to be some pretty talented players.

My visit to Louisville that year was to watch the younger of the two, Nick. Nick was a two time Florida Player of the Year and was on his was in the fall to play for Coach Donavan and the Florida Gators. My wife and I were able to share this tremendous experience with Nick and his family.

We had the opportunity to be apart of what I consider to be the greatest talent pool of McDonald's All-American's ever to come out in a single year.

Here are some of the players who played in that game. If you know basketball, while you read these names, you will understand why this game was so unique and special: Nick Calathes, Johnny Flinn, Austin Freeman, Donte Green, J.J. Hickson, Kosta Koufas, O.J. Mayo, Patrick Patterson, Nolan Smith, Chris Wright, Jerryd Bayless, Michael Beasley, Eric Gorden, Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Jai Lucas, Derrick Rose, Kyle Singler.

Apart from the game we attended a formal event on March 27th, 2007. The event featured two legendary basketball icons. Speaking first, Bill Walton. Second, only reading a poem from memory, John Wooden.

I am writing this on Sunday June 6th, 2010. Today I am thirty-three years old and it is a bitter sweet day for me. My birthday, but mourning my hero, John Wooden. I know he is with God. I know that he is now with his wife, who he loved and adored so much, Nelly and I am so happy for him. But, man will I, and this world, ever miss a man like Coach.

Yesterday, Coach Wooden passed away at ninety-nine years old. Coach may be one of the only men in the existence of humanity whom lived his live to the fullest. A man of genuine character and integrity to the highest degree. A person we can all model our life after. Not because of his success as a coach, but because of who he was as a person.

Back in Louisville.....

As we took our seats at the banquet, in the middle of our table sat a silent auction item, an autographed John Wooden basketball. I told my wife I would spend every penny we had in our bank account to get that ball.

But once again, my hosts who I shared their table with, decided they would let me win the action and keep the ball. What friends. And for me, what a gift. In the end, I walked out with my favorite piece of autographed memorabilia that I will ever have.

But that's not the greatest part about this story...

Nick came back to our table and asked me if I wanted to meet Coach Wooden.

Uhhhhhh....yes.

Nick, who had just had about a 10 minute conversation with Coach, escorted me through a crowd of people and lead me to being in front of living legend, my hero, a person who I want to be, the man who has lived his life as example of what a "coach" should be. Nick introduced me as his coach, and Coach Wooden shook my hand, covering our hand shake with his left hand, and said, "You've done a great job."

Holy Crap!!...he may not have known that I wasn't Nick's basketball coach (even though I've done my fair share of schooling Nick on the court:)). But to hear John Wooden affirm to me that I've done a great job!! I will hold onto that for the rest of my life!

This MMM is about opportunity. It is about how to set yourself up to realize these special opportunities that you may have only dreamed about.

If you want to create for yourself unbelievable opportunities, start putting these things into action this week.

1) Surround yourself with greatness: Surround yourself with great people, great organizations, great teams, great books, great quotes, anything that will continue to feed your mind with greatness. If you do this, you will continue to find yourself with great opportunities.

2) Understanding what a great opportunity is: If you don't know what a great opportunity looks like, it will pass you up. I am sure there were hundred's of people that day who did not make the effort to meet Coach Wooden that day in Louisville. I am sure most people knew who he was. But I do not know if most of them had read every single book that Wooden has ever wrote or been apart of. I have. I felt like I knew Coach Wooden from all of the books I have read about him. I knew this was a one and a million opportunity.

3) Loving what you do: Bottom line, without passion for what I do, for my love of the game of basketball, for my love of developing and coaching young men and women, I would have never been invited by Nick and his family to be at this event.

4) Get to Work: Let your passion lead to work. My philosophy on work has always been to find out who is the best at what I do, find out what they are committed to everyday, and try to go at it ten times harder than they do. The harder you work, the more opportunities you get.

5) Have a passion for giving others great opportunities: I think this is something that is not said as much in "motivational writing." The greatest rewards I get in life are the rewards of knowing I have personally been a part of giving someone a great opportunity.

What fuels my passion and work ethic in what I do is all about that. It's not about the money, it's not about the status, it's about nothing but giving people opportunity. I love it. That is what I do.

I realized a long time ago that the level of opportunities that I could give to others was based on the level of greatness I achieved for myself. As I continue to work hard, I see that I continue to raise the level opportunities I give to others.

Wooden said, "Ability is a poor man's wealth." He helped me realize it is of much greater value to go to work on who I am than what I do. He helped me to realize that to give opportunities to others, this was the most important part of my growth.

He summed this up when he said, "What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player." Or a basketball coach, or a strength coach, or a lawyer, or a sales person, or a student, or any other label we tend to put on ourselves.

Here's a question that you can think about this week:

"How many people would say that you've given them an opportunity for greatness that they would have never had without you?"

As you go forward, realize the more people you can get to say this, the greater your life will be.

PLEASE WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO ON COACH WOODEN CALLED, "WOODEN'S LOVE LETTER." IT'S UNBELIEVABLE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFbZckxrTTQ

THE PROBLEM WITH "I'LL DO MY BEST."

I am always curious to see what the NBA comes up in each years television ads for the playoffs.

Last year it was using the song "Amazing," by Kanye West. This year they didn't stray far off Kanye by auto-tuning players using their famous press conference and interview cliches' and making it into an auto-tuned song. There's nothing like hearing an auto-tuned Stan Van Gundy mixed with a little Kobe and Magic.

One of the most famous cliches in sports is wrapped in the idea of "doing my best." You here it all the time, "I'm doing the best I can to...", or "all I can do is my best." But there is one problem in this feel good, I'm a team player, statement:

"Doing your best" is a cop-out. It's an excuse. It is a failure to commit to excellence. It shows lack of courage to commit to a real challenge.

Harsh...yes, but if you really think about every time you've said, "I'm just doing my best," it's usually because you are sugar-coating a poor performance in some area of your life.

Uhhhggg....There's nothing like being convicted by your own writing. But I know that I do this. I know that I say, "I'm doing my best in different areas of my life." But the truth of the matter is; I'm lying to myself and the people I'm telling it too.

Here's a startling revelation: If you're doing your best, you don't have to say that you're doing your best.

Telling people you're doing your best is a lot like telling people about how much you hustled during a game. How many times have you seen a guy sit in front of the cameras and say: "I dove out of bounds twice into the crowd, to save a loose ball. I jumped on every loose ball, I got 20 rebounds, I'm just doing my best out there."

Never....

Because when you give you're best, It's obvious. You may not be the highest scorer, and no one may even talk about your effort, but your effort is obvious. It is your effort in the little things. Those things that only a certain percentage of the people in this world actually will do, that end up paying high dividend in the big things.

The other problem with, "I'll do my best," is that it lacks responsibility. Instead of personally committing to what you can do better as a person to develop yourself to enhance your team, this pretty lyric is used to deem you a good team player and kick all responsibility to the side.

However, the first thing that each of us need to do is figure out what we must do to help ourselves. A winning team is never full of team members who do not take personal responsibility for winning. A winning team is full of individuals who know their role well, and work continuously on improving their specific individual skills to enhance the performance of the team.

Each member of a team needs to have their own individual goals that make them better at who they are and what they do. As each team member strives to become better at these particular things, as they continually set high goals and achieve them, the team will become better and winning will become less of a "did our best" effort, to just consistently finding "W's" in the win column.

Here are a couple of suggestions for this week to help you to stop "doing your best," and to start getting things done:

1) Plan, Reflect, and Record Your Insights: In the book, Discover Your Genius, by Michael L. Gelb, he writes, "In a classic study of mental traits of genius, Catherine Cox examined 300 of history's greatest minds. She found that geniuses in every field--from painting, literature, and music, to science, the military, and politics, tended to have certain common characteristics. Most notably, she discovered that geniuses enjoy recording their insights, observations, feelings, and poems and questions in personal notebooks or through letters to friends and family."

This is taking, "writing your goals down," a step farther. We all have heard that you should write down your goals, but we also need to reflect on them. We need to think about what worked and what didn't. As an athlete in the development of your skills, you can write down what worked and what didn't in practice, the insights you took from it, and how you can continually fine tune and improve your game.

2) 5 Things a Day: You may or may not have heard of the old five swings a day idea. This says that if you have a tree and an axe and you swing the axe five times per day, eventually the tree is going to fall. There are generally three to five things that if you do them each day, will eventually pay you great dividends. For example, I understand that if I spend time each day, thinking "outside the box," reading, writing, watching, or giving inspirational material, and working on my creative ideas, I reap big dividends. Because I am an "outside of the box" thinker, have the heart of a coach, and love to create, doing these three things on a daily basis pay off for me more than anything else I do. You may notice I only have three. But surely you can have up to, but probably not more than five.

3) Get a Coach: Whatever you want to be great at you need someone who A) has been to the place or at least knows how to get to the place you want to go and B) will hold you accountable to the highest degree. Both A and B are much more difficult to make happen on your own, if not impossible. If you look at most people who are successful at what they do, it is because they have been mentored, coached, and taken their by the hands of someone else, a great coach.

Let's stop "doing our best," and start getting things done. Have a great week!

THE PARADOX OF COURAGE

Tell me if you ever feel like this....."Bored?"

Tell me if you ever feel like this...."Behind?"

Tell me if you ever feel like this..."Insignificant?"

Tell me if you ever feel like this..."Fearful things aren't going to work out how you want them to?"

I came across a piece of writing this morning by G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was an English writer who wrote diverse books, essays, poetry, philosophy, publicly lectured, debated, wrote of Christian apologetics, and even dabbled in fantasy and fiction. The particular piece I read was the paradoxical clash of "courage." After reading, I strongly felt I needed to share it with all you.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and hero's. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers.

It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage...

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch from it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying.

He must not merely cling to live, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape death.

He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape.

He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."

Remember the questions I asked at the beginning? How often do you feel like those things I asked, bored, behind, insignificant, and fearful?

If often, I believe there is reason, maybe one you've never thought of. We have been taught to seek comfort in our lives. To attain wealth that we can do whatever we please. To gain status so that others will take care of our menial chores of life. To bask in all of life's most exotic pleasures. To build monuments to show our accomplishments, to show the world, "Look at me! Look what I have done!" I heard a story of an Asian man who was asked, "When will you know you have achieved success?" He replied, "When I have an Anglo gardener." I thought that was funny.

I'm not saying their is anything wrong with the pursuit of wealth and respect for what you do. And we do these things mostly because this is what we are taught is the "American" thing to do. We are taught that these things are "living the life," when in fact these things are the farthest thing from "living" at all. America is the richest and most depressed nation in the world. How does that work? Interesting.

The pursuit of comfort is the pursuit of detaching your heart from what it really wants. Have you ever noticed that the more you "chase success," the more miserable you are.

Your heart doesn't want to be bored chasing after comfort. You're heart wants something to believe in, something to fight for, a reason to get your butt up in the morning with some enthusiasm.

King David of Israel was the youngest of eight brothers. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint the new King of Israel, David's father Jesse, went through each brother thinking surely that they would be God's choice. Jesse's oldest sons were strong, good-looking, and were all very skilled. Because of their great looks and "king potential" (in their eyes anyway), Jesse thought the next King of Israel would definitely be one of his eldest sons.

But God says something interesting to Samuel. He says, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as a man sees; for a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

The Hebrew concept of heart (used in this verse) embodies emotions, will, intellect, and desires. Heart, in this context, means that the life of a person will reflect his "heart."

Where are your emotions, will, intellect and desires leading your life? Do you even know? If you are feeling bored, behind, insignificant, and fearful of the future. If so you may need a heart check.

But remember the paradox, in-order to gain something you must be willing to lose something. Remember the soldier in Chesterton's writing. The soldier surrounded by enemies, in order to survive, he must have a strong desire for living and a strange carelessness for dying.

Nothing is ever mentioned in courage about a strong desire for comfort. That's not courage...to me that seems like fear. Constantly striving each day to make sure that you are fat and happy. Or in the writing is explains it as, "merely clinging to live." This soldier, as he says, "is a coward, and will not escape death."

I hope this MMM stirs something in you today. I hope for a moment, maybe you realize that you have been choosing this path of comfort now for too long. That it's time to find some courage and really follow your heart. That you will find where your emotions, will, intellect, and desires have been desperately yelling for your attention. That you will realize that you've been the soldier merely clinging to live your life, afraid to pursue your true desire and calling, and it's time to get up and fight your way out.

"He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."

LETS GOOO...