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Weekend Challenge #55: The Last Challenge is to Never Stop Challenging

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It’s been over a year since I introduced the LIFE Council and the Weekend Challenges. The goal was simple: provide practical processes for progress toward the principles – love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence. Fifty-five weeks in a row of focused and powerful ideas to help you think, rethink, and grow in LIFE.

This 55th iteration brings the Weekend Challenge series to a close.

I set out to give you all – and myself – a year’s worth of actions that would help us be better. Throughout the year, I was challenged many times with what “better” means and if it is really a goal at all. I’m still sitting with the nuance of “better.” My next project will dive deeper into that exact place.  

A year later, I believe even more strongly today than I did a year ago, that the LIFE principles are worthy aspirations and meaningful guides for everyday decisions.

Originally, the LIFE Council and Weekend Challenges were designed to combat a single issue: male loneliness. Very quickly though, I realized that that loneliness is usually a result of me thinking in isolating ways.

Being lonely comes when I lean into toxic mindsets, don’t engage in introspection, hide behind my ego, focus on external measures of success, and act selfishly.

As a result, the LIFE Council and Weekend Challenges expanded from loneliness to address these bigger, in my opinion, root, issues. I dove into sharing ideas to take accountability for and begin to shift the mindsets that lead to loneliness. The Weekend Challenges were those ideas in action.

The expansion from the original goal is why it’s time to pivot. I want the Weekend Challenges to remain powerful toward the end of toxic thinking that isolates you and me from the people we love, and the people we don’t.

Some Reflections Before We Go

Life has surely been. . . let’s say “dynamic”. . . these last 55 weeks. Globally, we had a pandemic. Nationally, an election captured our attention unlike any other in American history. Personally, I went through a job change, experienced personal loss, established more of what it means to be a husband, took new financial steps, and put my work out into the world for the first time. I know you went through a lot too.

Along the way, I didn’t take every Weekend Challenge to its full extent but each week, I did take conscious steps to implement something from the challenge. As a result, I have some positive habits and attitudes today, that I didn’t have 55 weeks ago.

With everything that went on and all the potential reasons to be idle, I am excited to look back and see that the Weekend Challenges cultivated actionable difference amidst the changes. Each week, they grounded me back to the core LIFE principles and who I aspire to be. They reminded me of the importance of the Stoic principles to focus on what you can control and remember that life is short. They brought to bear existentialist ideals of authentic living by choosing to be responsible for the experiences in my life. And they solidified my faith in God, the amazing people I walk through life with, and myself.

I hope you’ve found some of the same benefits from the Weekend Challenge series whether you read and tried them all or just caught one here and there. If one person saw one benefit, it was worth all the time and energy.

If I had to sum up the entire series in a sentence, it would be this one. To expand your LIFE, you don’t need to do everything but you need to believe that you can do something.

To expand your LIFE, you don’t need to do everything but you need to believe that you can do something.

If you didn’t come along for the ride as the Challenges were published, that’s ok. Take what will serve you and toss the rest. Pick a category of the Challenges you want to work on, read the blogs, and do the work. It doesn’t actually have to be the weekend for you to take them on, and each doesn’t need to last only a week. Shoot, pick one single challenge, and enact it for a year – I guarantee you’ll see a positive difference.

The Weekend Challenge series will not disappear. I purposefully wrote the series in a way that, I believe, someone could pick it up at any time and dive in. So, although they won’t be new in the sense of time, they can be contemporary in your life at any time.

Whenever you are ready and willing to take the hard, lasting road to a stronger sense of self and success, get the LIFE Enacted Guide and use the Weekend Challenges to stay on course.

Over the 55 weeks, we’ve touched on a lot of topics and leaned on the wisdom of some incredible minds. See the end of this bad boy for a categorical chart of all of them.

What now?

I’ll admit that part of me wanted to use this as a chance to bow out of writing every week. There were times I barely got the work done and others I published something that I wasn’t proud of. Ever been there?

I’m not doing that. Instead, I’m letting the Weekend Challenge series serve its purpose into the future. If it were to go on and on, it will lose its focus and power.

As I mentioned, I want to start thinking about “better” with more nuance. I worry the self-development world has become a place to become aware of our issues (a great thing) but then it stops. A comedian recently joked that we are the most self-aware that we’ve ever been but not changing. He quipped:

Person 1: “I have anxiety.”

Person 2: “Oh wow, what are you doing about it?”

Person 3: “I’m telling you so that you can adjust around it.”

I worry that he is right. That we’ve built a field of awareness but have fallen short of accountability and solutions. Not everyone has gotten stuck of course, but I’ve been there with my own anxiety plenty of times. I think the issues come from the extremes. Either people don’t take any accountability and expect others to cater to them or people go full-on into work to be “better” but do so without a clear direction of what better means. One day, after attaining money, fame, or the like, they look up and find themselves still with the same issues. They took some ownership of getting “better” but they went the wrong way.

My new project will be launching soon. It will still be writing-based but will be delivered differently. A newsletter is in the making that will go out via email. Honestly, I hate social media. The Weekend Challenge made sense to send that way but going forward I want to connect with you all much more closely. I want to build a community of people ready to think hard, change their minds when needed, challenge themselves, and build networks so we can stand stronger together. The email newsletter serves more of that purpose.

I hope to bring you the best of the information I get from books, blogs, podcasts, etc. but bring it down to earth and challenge some of the assumptions we make in self-development. I’m not a billionaire entrepreneur, a professional athlete, or a military special operator. You probably aren’t either (statistics would say so at least). But we can all benefit from a once-a-week reminder to rethink our desire for “better” and stay focused on what wisdom from the ancients to modern-day says is worthwhile – peace, joy, hope, and purpose.

I want my newsletter to be a weekly breath of hope for you. Honestly, as a standard pessimist, I need it for myself. The news is dark, but the world is still full of goodness. Let’s highlight that, shall we!

Sweet, What About LIFE Then?

The LIFE Council is not going anywhere. Though I won’t be writing for it every week, I have plans to expand that too. COVID hit the pause button on my vision. Once we can hit play again, we want to bring people together in-person at LIFE Council events. Here are some plans on the horizon:

  • LIFE Council retreats. We’ve held two retreats for my personal Council but once we are able, we want to expand the offer to other groups.
  • Right of Passage Events. I’m truly excited for this one as it harks back to some of my initial ideas. We will create experiences for fathers, sons, and mentors at key points of young men’s lives – turning 16, heading to college, getting married, etc. The goal will be to give intentional space to help young men understand what it means and takes to move into the next phase of their lives. We will refine the typical, and surface-level notion of what it means to “become a man” to fill a generation of men with mindsets and skills to be successful far beyond the modern definition of job titles and income level. The goal is to influence that generation to be the best partners, fathers, leaders, and friends the world has ever seen.
  • LIFE Breakfasts. One big pull on my heart lately has been to focus the council more locally and less across the world. I think a big impact is to be had right here in the community so we will create short opportunities for people to come together.

It feels odd to put a cap on something I’ve been committed to for a year, but I know it’s time. The resources are here. The ideas are in the world. The power to create change is within you.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend, set an identity as a life-long learner. Decide that you can grow and learn right up until the end. I don’t care your age, background, faith, or whatever else. The minute you shut off to learning you set the course toward loneliness and emptiness.

Use the Challenges below to work on it, read a new book, or have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. Kick off the rest of your life, by leaning into learning something new this weekend. It is truly the one and only secret to a fulfilling life (in my opinion of course).

See you all later. Have a good weekend. Be on the lookout for the newsletter coming to an inbox near you!

Topic CategoryBlog Number and Title
Loneliness and Friendships#5: How’s Your Circle?
#8: Isolation and Fellowship (Pus Other Resources)
#15: Is it Really All About Loneliness?
#19: 5 Things you Have to Stop to be a Better Human (& LIFE Council Member)
#26: Retreat to Return Better-Why Getting Away Makes You More Present
#29: Four Ways to Build an Awesome LIFE Council Crew #35: Who’s Waiting For You?
#51: Trust in the Foxhole – Friendship Lessons from Chosin
Stillness, Presence, and Peace#3: Tenacious Stillness
#9: Control of Life
#42: Gaining Control of the Emotion of Mass Destruction – Anger and How to Control it
#53: “Presence in the Process” – What You Need to Give Up and Pick Up to be Present
Practices of LIFE#1: Legacy of Service – Give to be Remembered
#12: The Power of Public – Sharing Your Aspirations
#20: The 3 Things You Need for Life-Long Learning
#28: 4 Steps to Escape Your Jail Cell
#41: The Art of Not Getting What You Want
#44: Picking up the Rope – Go to Battle or Learn to Support
#45: 31 Lessons for 31 Years – Lessons from my Life so Far
Rethinking Common Ideas#22: The Worst LIFE Advice You’ll Ever Get – Don’t Stay In Your Lane
#24: The World’s Easiest Way to be Liked – Integrity is Key
#33: “Will it Matter in 100 Years?” – Legacy and Why You Need to Let it Go
#38: Lies of “The Grind”
#40: Truths of “The Grind”
#50: Three Reasons to embrace Your Jaggedness
#52: Who You Are Matters – A Cautionary Tale of Self-Help Quips and Quotes
Love and Relationships#3.5: What is Love?
#11: Are You too (In)Dependent?
#16: Are You a Crappy Lover? 3 P’s to Operate with Love #25 (.1 & .2): What True Love Is: Lessons from My Wife and a Foster Puppy
#43: Only Love Can Change – How to Actually Change Ourselves and Others
#46: Habits of Service – Going Beyond Acts, to Show Love
Self-Belief and Development#6: Your Fear of Growth
#18: Fill the Dash: What Will Your LIFE be?
#30: The LIFE Council Can’t Help This (Part I)
#31: The LIFE Council Can’t Help This (Part II)
#34: Going to Battle with Life’s Worst Critic – Self-criticism and You
#39: Let’s Get Real About Self-Help – How to Use it Instead of Celebrate it
#48: A Life to Envy or a Life to Remember?
#49: The Ultimate Believer – You Have to Believe in Yourself First
Pursuit of excellence#2: Tenacity – Show Up Even When You don’t Want to
#4: Making Room for Excellence and You – Getting Better and Having Self-Acceptance
#7: Who Cut In on You?
#13: The Next Right Step – Becoming Who You Want to Be One Step at a Time
#14: A Walk to Bring Down the Walls that Stop you From your Dreams
#17: The Integrity of Your Dreams
#21: The Long Race of LIFE: 3 Lessons from the Early Stages of Endurance Training
#23: Why You Have to “Check-in” – Showing Up is Most of the Work
#27: Ditch Your Goals and Start Declaring Who You Are #32: Three LIFE Lessons of 70.3
#36: Crush the Small Goal and See a New Door
#47: Envy Steals Excellence
Purpose and Fulfillment in LIFE#10: Invisible Enemies
#37: The Road to Meaning is Paved in Bricks
#54: Purpose – It’s Not What You Think

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Weekend Challenge #54: Purpose – It’s Not What You Think

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I’ve been struggling.

I’ve been struggling with what my “thing” is. Everyone seems to have a “thing” – that thing that they are known for. They seem to have found their purpose.

If everyone has some deep-rooted purpose that drives their life though, where does that leave anyone like me who doesn’t seem to have found their purpose? I can’t pinpoint a single thing that I want to define me. Today, I’m prouder than I am ashamed of it but it weighed on me for years.

Purpose has been popularized to the “oh, this isn’t really the same thing as it was” point so let’s revisit this two-syllable word that can create anxiety in so many of us. There are two key ideas that I believe to be true about purpose which are too often left out of the popular notion.

Purpose is Dynamic and Plural

Purpose is most often described as some sort of singular and fixed, end-all-be-all to our existence. It is talked about as a stagnant driving force throughout our lives – unchanging because of its universal truth in our hearts. It defines us and guides our every decision and move from the moment we find it until we die.

The problem is that notion assumes stagnation that doesn’t exist in the human condition. It is a rare, if not completely fictitious person who has a single-minded focus throughout their life. Don’t trust me, trust those who have shown us. Here are some examples of people who seemed single-focused and incredibly purpose-driven who have proven that purpose isn’t fixed.

  • Michael Phelps was driven by a purpose to be the greatest swimmer of all time to the tune of 40-hour training weeks and 10,000 calories per day Most would say he accomplished that with his 28 Olympic medals – 23 of them gold. Then, he turned 32 which is not quite an age for purposelessness to settle in. Now, he is an activist for mental health and therapy motivated by his own struggles with depression and anger. Purpose changes.  
  • Barack Obama started his political career as a small community organizer in Chicago. His purpose was determined by what that community needed locally. Then, as he experienced more, he began to shift to a broader approach and desire to bring about change but his purpose to lead the nation wasn’t cemented until others pushed him there. He couldn’t see it himself, but once others showed him, he opened his purpose to more. Purpose broadens.
  • Alexi Pappas has lived with dual-purpose throughout her life. She is an Olympic caliber runner and a creative filmmaker plus a best-selling author all at the age of 30. Her dual purposes – be an Olympian and a world-class creator – shift and combine for Alexi to be the amazing person she is. David Epstein would call this range and says, “our greatest strength is the exact opposite of specialization, it is the ability to integrate broadly.” In a world that celebrates specialization purpose can be plural.
  • Bob Dylan, after years of being “the voice of a generation” with a purpose to engage people from behind the microphone, announced that he had become a Christian in 1979. His purpose continued in music, but he integrated his new faith and recorded two gospel albums to share the message of Jesus for three years. Purpose grows.

Each of these top performers has been and is purpose-driven. None of them though have lived with one purpose that has driven every decision and action. They’ve been open to the inevitable complexity of human experience for themselves and others. Purpose is dynamic, ever-changing, and pluralistic.

Purpose is in the Present

Purpose is almost always talked about as being in front of us. It is something you “find” somewhere at some time in the future.  Simply stated, that doesn’t make sense. If it’s always in front of you, you can never get there and yet your life every day is meaningful. The trick is that you must choose to see it.

Zach Mercurio has recently said, “Purpose is your contribution. It’s how your strengths make an impact. The problem isn’t ‘not having purpose.’ The problem is not being able to see it”.

That’s incredibly well put. Your purpose is already within you. It is in the moments of your life that you knew you were contributing. A conversation with your friend after a breakup, making that meal for your spouse after a long day, leaving an extra tip for the waiter on your Friday date night, or creating that program at work that people use to help clients.  

Beyond purpose being actions of now, sometimes your purpose is to simply be in the moment.

Purpose can come with pressure when we assume that is something to find or attain

Purpose can come with pressure when we assume that is something to find or attain. It’s intangible. It can’t be bought or taken off a store shelf. All you can do is live it and chose to see it. Don’t discount the small yet impactful things you do. Don’t overlook people right in front of you in order to stress about the masses on social media who could follow you someday.

You, yes you, have a purpose right now. You always have. God created you with it. It might take on a new variation tomorrow. It might have something added to it. It might even expand with a new opportunity.

The only thing purpose is not is something you don’t have and need to get.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend don’t try to live with purpose. . . because you already are! Instead, choose to see it. Choose to notice how many things you do this weekend that contribute to a positive world.

When you ask your spouse how their day was and choose to listen, that’s purpose. When you tuck your kid into bed and read a story, that’s purpose. When you meet a friend for coffee, that’s purpose. When you simply chose to wake up and live the day, that’s purpose.

You are purposeful. Make the choice to notice it and be prepared for it to shift, adapt, and elevate as you go through this incredible ride of LIFE.

Have a great weekend! Remember that purpose isn’t as scary or complicated as it seems. Purpose can and will change through life. Be ok with it, embrace it, and choose to see it today and every day.

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Weekend Challenge #53: “Presence in the Process” – What You Need to Give Up and Pick Up to Be Present

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An ability to be present is a superpower. If you’ve watched The Last Dance, you know Jordan was great because of his presence. Every game was its own, every play got his full attention. The moment demanded all of him and he gave it. Can you do that? You don’t have to live with monks (although Jesse Itzler did and it seemed to teach him a lot) but you do have to be intentional.

Before getting too deep, it’s worth a quick detour into why presence even matters in the first place. In the context of our LIFE principles, presence in everything. LIFE doesn’t exist in the future and you can’t change how it looked in the past. Your chance to live with love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence only exists right now.

With presence, you’ll love better, be less likely to slip in your integrity, build stronger fellowship, and pursue excellence at this moment than the next culminating in “big E” excellence at the end of life.

Unfortunately, presence has been watered down in recent years. It has become some sort of new-age, Portland hipster meets LA Vegan fad but it shouldn’t be. Presence is simply the state of being in the here and now.

In doing research, I searched “how to be more present” in Google. In 2 seconds, I was blasted with over 2.5 BILLION hits. There are videos, blogs, and more than enough articles titled something like “26 Ways to Be More Present” to keep you busy reading tips on presence without actually being present, for a decade.

There’s good reason presence gets such airtime. Being more present and mindful of the moment has been linked to alleviating feelings of loneliness, stronger romantic relationships, reducing inflammation and pain, and of course, the subjective wholly grail of happiness (joy, purpose, hope).[i]

For anyone who reads this 2.5 billion and 1st blog on presence, I do hope to cut through some of the mess. You don’t need a Ph.D. in psychology to be present and you don’t need 101 tips either. You simply need an awareness and a few basic ideas but it’s easy to get lost.

One place we get lost is in the language around presence. Books on presence could fill a bookstore and if you add digital pieces, you get a Super Walmart stacked to the ceiling. But every person who writes on the topic seems to feel the need to create a new name for it to make themselves stand out and the language complicates more and more.

Tell me if you’ve heard any of these: monotasking, single focus, flow, moment awareness, turning inward, me time, mindfulness, live in the moment, embrace the now, reflective journaling, crouching to self (okay, I made that one up).

All of these have their unique components to be sure, but the essence is the same- be aware of the moment in which you are living.

A second area our path can get crossed is in the timeframe of a “moment”. Presence at the moment doesn’t mean the exact 60 seconds you are in. “The real present moment,” Ryan Holiday said, “is what we choose to exist in, instead of lingering on the past or fretting about the future.” The present moment is the window of time you can choose to let go of the past and not worry or hope for the future. It could be one breath, a dinner with your spouse, an entire day, or even a year if you could hold on to it that long.

Most of us can’t hold onto presence for a few minutes, let alone a year but why does it slip away so quickly?

As Holiday also reminded us, “Being present demands all of us. It’s not nothing. It may be the hardest thing in the world.” Presence slips away because it requires more than we are willing to give up for it.

My 2021 mantra is, “presence in the process”

My 2021 mantra is, “presence in the process” because, well, I am terrible at being present. I haven’t built present habits yet but in working to do so through January, I’ve already seen things I need to give up and ones I need to pick up.

What You Need to Give Up for Presence

Presence might require you to give up:

  • Old habits of thinking. According to Adam Grant, our ways of thinking all too often, “become habits that can weigh us down, and we don’t bother to question them until it’s too late.” We’ve built habits of catastrophizing, confirmation-bias, worrying, and regret as ways to feel in control of our lives but they make it impossible to be present. They move our focus to the external and uncontrollable. Be courageous enough to think differently.
  • False responsibility. Related to habits of thinking, we tend to believe that it is our responsibility to worry about the future or analyze the past. If we are to take care of our family long-term, we must plan, right? Yes, and remember that your most important job is to be there for them today, this week. Plan for tomorrow but you’re giving yourself a false sense of responsibility by obsessing over the future.
  • Your ego. It feels good to share your amazing trip to Hawaii on Instagram. Your ego loves watching more and more people hit that little red heart. It feels just as good to post your vision for the future and have people encourage you to go get it. But being present may require you not to post about everything in your life. Your ego doesn’t want you to be present, it wants you to brag about the past or the future. Give it up, your ego is, after all, your biggest enemy.
  • The badge of busy. The most overused humble-brag ever is, “busy.” Ask 10 people how they are doing and I can almost guarantee you’ll hear some form of “busy” from 7 of them.  It comes off as a complaint, but it isn’t. It’s a badge of honor and an ego kick. To be present, you might have to say no to more things. You will have to stop measuring your life by how full your calendar is. You’ll have to learn how to spend an entire day on one thing, instead of a hundred things.

What You Need to Pick Up for Presence

Alright, let me add my ideas to the million ways to be more present on the internet. There are so many things out there that I had to get practical so maybe these can help you too:

  • Focusing on a single task at a time. I’ve been a time-boxer ever since listening to Indistractable from Nir Eayl. Recently, I’ve tapped into its true power by actually sticking to the boxes – most of the time. When my schedule says “write the blog” I put close my internet browser, turn off email, and write the blog for as much time as I set aside. The same goes for answering emails, training, posting to social media, and so on. It’s not easy but I can already see how much higher quality my work is when I stick to one thing at a time.
  • No (or very little) social media before noon. On my perfect day, I don’t touch my phone until noon. When I can do that, I notice I’ve usually had a great day before noon. It doesn’t happen every day but I’m working toward that by adjusting notification settings and leaving the phone in another room.
  • With people, be with people. I’ve taken to leaving my phone in the car when I go to dinner with people or visit friends. I find it way too easy to look at it when conversation lulls and then I become a known phubber (snubbing people by looking at your phone).
  • Take a moment. Throughout my day, I actively remember to pause and take in what is happening around and within me. I’ll notice I’m starting to feel anxious about a work project or that I haven’t left my desk in a few hours. Noticing, being present in that moment, allows me to then adjust and adapt.
  • Honoring the process. If you’re reading this still, you’re probably rare. Not many folks stick with reading something this long and that can be discouraging for a writer. But Seth Godin reminded me that creativity is “a commitment to the process, not simply the next outcome on the list.” I’m learning to be present in the process and focus less on what might come of it.

Overall, don’t make it so complicated. Presence is a habit of being here. It’s not something you do, it’s something you be.

Let’s free presence from the shackles of being a new-age fad that requires a man bun or 10,000 hours of meditation practice. We need to free presence of our thought habits and obsession with the past and future. Free presence and it will free you.

Weekend Challenge

Let’s start small this weekend. I simply want to challenge you to try something that can help you be more present. You should also give a go at what I think you need to give up and pick up but if you’re not quite that bought in yet, that’s ok.

This weekend, at random times, set a few alarms or reminders in your phone that simply say, “what is this moment?” Whenever that notification comes to you, pause for a brief moment (physically if possible but at least mentally) and take it in. Check-in with your 5 senses – what do you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste at that exact time? This is presence.

Image of presence reminders
My reminders to be present this weekend

You may want to warn the people you hang out with that you might get a glossy look on your face after checking your phone throughout the weekend but this small exercise can begin to build the habit of presence you need.

Start there. Let me know how those moments go and challenge a friend or partner to do this with you.

Presence is overcomplicated sometimes but no need. It’s difficult to be sure. Start small and you’ll get there. I’ll be with you. Presence in the process.

[i] Check out Growing Young: How Friendship, Optimism, and Kindness Can Help You Live to 100 by Marta Zaraska for more. Chapter 10 is focused on mindfulness, presence, and meditation as a key to longevity.

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Weekend Challenge #52: Who You Are Matters – A Cautionary Tale of Self-Help Quips and Quotes

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This week, I was confronted with a quote during an Instagram death scroll that made me take a second look. As someone who struggles with self-doubt from time to…always…I follow a lot of people who provide such uplifting media because I need it. But that means I often scroll right by. This time, I didn’t. I paused. Reread. And then thought, “wait, I think that’s missing something.”

Yes, I had the bravado to think I could disagree with one of the biggest names in the self-help world. Let me tell you why…

Here’s my submission for the anthem of self-help for the last decade:

“You kind of suck. You must get better. If you run a marathon, do a 50k. If you wrote an article, get to work on the book. If you’ve ever dealt with anxiety, depression, fear, anger, or any emotion for that matter, just stop. Get better. Better. Better. Better.”

Now, I am a fan of the self-help world. Psychologists and counselors who are willing to share their work through a $14.95 book give access to many who can’t put up $100 every week. But somewhere along the line, some things went awry as less than qualified people began to pedal less than thoughtful ideas and shamed millions along the way.

Mark Manson, himself a self-helper and author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, pointed out some issues with the industry that are worth summarizing before I go to my own:

  1. Self-help reinforces perceptions of shame and inferiority when people consume it with an attitude of, “look at all the things I’m not doing to be better than I could be. I’m more awful than I thought.”
  2. Self-help is a well-hidden avoidance tactic for people to say they are working on themselves while not actually doing anything about it. Reading a book is the start, not the finish.
  3. Self-help is built on unrealistic expectations of getting better in every aspect of your life in the matter of an hour seminar or a couple of hundred pages.
  4. Science can be in short supply. Most authors and leaders in the space do very little research on their work. That can be ok, but it should be something to be wary of.
  5. Self-help means help yourself, yet most treat it as getting help from a guru or author. Only you can really create change in your life, so the ideas of others are just that, ideas, not perfect and universal solutions.

If these issues are true why do I, and millions of others, buy so much self-help stuff? There are a lot of reasons but a hopeful one is simple.

Many people truly want to improve their lives but get stuck in how to do it.

It’s encouraging to see how many people are trying to get “better”. What I can’t stand is the blind way we talk about what “better” is. Is it happiness? Discipline? Motivation? Or is it something deeper like faith, friendship, love, or hope? It could just be as simple as having more stuff – money, cars, houses, and everything else you don’t need but you hope impresses other people. Maybe it’s all of it? The quips and quotes of self-help fail to reconcile why we need help in the first place.

Such ambiguity begs the question of whether self-help is actually helpful or not. I think it is but we need to be more careful and discerning in certain situations.

A Case Study In Mattering

As a case study, let’s return to where I started. That quote I saw this week that gave me pause was from Tom Bilyeu (who I truly do appreciate as a thinker and leader). He said, “It doesn’t matter who you are today. The only thing that matters is who you want to become and the price you’re willing to pay to get there.” I get it, the idea that you can leave your past behind no matter how rough it is and become something new is cool. However, I also think it needs context.

I don’t think Bilyeu is wrong. His work is incredible, and his pedigree speaks for itself. I also know this message permeates self-help everywhere. AND I wonder if it’s oversimplified. Boiled down for Instagram but missing the nuance that life always has.  

To truly engage in self-help, it absolutely does matter who you are today.

Who you are today is the only place to start becoming who you want to be tomorrow. Like a river that starts as a stream, the current version of you has awesome things to offer the version of you that you are building. The idea that you would try to forget or somehow extinguish who you are for something else, doesn’t work.

It seems that a more nuanced way to approach the idea is to recognize that who you are today does not determine who will be tomorrow. It is not the cause-and-effect life you were taught as a kid – go to a good school and get a good job; get your act together and find a partner; go to jail once and you’re screwed forever.

Who you are today though does matter for your future. If you have struggled, hit rock bottom, and want to climb out, you can’t forget about the bottom. The lessons you learned there should go with you. Your background and mistakes that put you there aren’t to be ignored; they are to be incorporated.

Brene Brown may have said it best. “When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.”[i] It takes incredible courage to examine our collective and individual stories. The easier route is to try and deny the past to act as if it doesn’t matter, but as Brown points out, then the past defines you.

I think Bilyeu is on to something that Brown might echo. The past does not HAVE to define your story but it’s not as simple as ignoring it. If you are willing to step into and own your past, only then can you build your future.

So, it’s not that who you are today doesn’t matter, it’s that who you are today needs ownership.

You matter, right here, right now. You might not be exactly where you want to be. You might want to get better. But if you don’t reconcile the story of who you are today, and clearly identify what “better” means, you aren’t going anywhere.

Weekend Challenge

Get better. See you next time. Kidding, kidding…

This weekend, I hope you can start to own your story, take account of your past, and realize how much you of today matters. One of my favorite questions about who we are today to address in a written or recorded journal is:

“What values have my actions exemplified?”

You can think in terms of your whole life, the last year, a few days, or whatever time frame you need. I started the LIFE Enacted Guide with a version of this question to honor what you might be tempted to ignore – yourself! 

I want you to lean on who you are today to create a purposeful vision for your future.

If you want a deep dive, grab the LIFE Enacted Guide but at least ask yourself this question. If you’re honest, you might unearth some ugly stuff. For example, I found that I live out value for the “approval of others” and “financial success to measure my worth.” I don’t like it, but they have shown in my actions. I usually create work thinking about if it could go viral – approval of others – or make me a bunch of money – financial success as worth.

I want to live values of contribution instead of consumption and authenticity instead of popularity, so I have some work today. Change is damn hard but the guide helped me identify the not-so-great pieces of who I am today so that I know how to get “better” tomorrow.  

Who I am, matters to who I am becoming. The same goes for you.

Who I am, matters to who I am becoming. The same goes for you.

Happy weekend everyone. Be careful of the quips and quotes in the self-help world that go big on social media – their authors often have so much behind them that you should dig into.

Let me know if you’ve seen any quips that need questioning this week and share how your weekend challenge helps you figure out who you are.

[i] Brene Brown (2015). Own our history. Change the story. https://brenebrown.com/blog/2015/06/18/own-our-history-change-the-story/

Weekend Challenge #52: Who You Are Matters – A Cautionary Tale of Self-Help Quips and Quotes Read More »

Korean war memorial cover picture

Weekend Challenge #51: Trust in the Foxhole

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1950. Chosin Reservoir, North Korea. Young American soldiers and Marines huddled in the dirt, near overrun by Chinese armies. The darkness pierces as flashes of enemy gear and bullets rush at them. The enemy’s lightning movement in stark contrast to the frozen terrain. Breath hanging for minutes in the -36° air. Firing pins too cold to strike hard enough and send a round downrange.[i]

For fourteen days and nights, American troops sat frozen as the enemy attacked. No way out. No chance of reinforcement. All they had was one another. The men lying next to them in the foxhole trading time in the bottom where the slightest warmth could be found with time on the top peering into the darkness. Shaking each other awake after only a few minutes to avoid frostbite while they slept. All they had was the man next to them. All they had, was the hope brought by another person surviving the same situation they were.  All they had was trust in the foxhole.

Marines at Chosin
Marines at “Frozen Chosin” relying on one another

Do you have foxhole trust with friends in your life?

Although you and your friends will likely never face anything such as Chosin, the lessons learned there shine light upon what it means to build real trust.

In his book, Think Like a Monk, Jay Shetty, outlined “4 C’s” of trust.[ii] See if you can catch how they might have been at play in the foxholes of Chosin:

Competence. When someone is competent, their opinions and recommendations can be trusted. They do their job and fill their role.

Care. We can trust people who we know care about us and have our best interests in mind.

Character. Those with a strong moral compass and uncompromising values earn our trust because we can rely on them for wisdom and guidance.

Consistency. Those we trust are reliable, present, and available when we need them.

It’s not a leap to see each of the 4 C’s at Chosin. Those soldiers had to be confident in each man’s ability to do their job and keep everyone alive. They cared for each other by sharing desperately low food rations and taking watch while others slept. They leaned on the uncompromising shared values of service and sacrifice. They were confident in each other to be there when temperatures dropped, the sunset, and the enemy was on the move.

The foxholes at Chosin can be tough to relate to but if we shift the enemy from the literal Chinese army to the metaphorical battles of life, we can start to see ourselves peeking over the edge. We need a foxhole built on trust when a family member passes, we lose a job, we move to a new city, we wave goodbye as our kids go to college, someone leaves a relationship, anxiety rises, depression sets in, a pandemic surges, a natural disaster strikes, or in the face of any other tribulation that comes our way.

If we are alone in our foxhole of LIFE, we are almost certain to be overrun by tragedy and loss. But if we turn around and see others in the foxhole with us, our resolve is strengthened.

It leaves us to question if we build the kind of trust necessary to fill the foxhole or if our adulthood and complacency strip us of some of the most important relationships of life. Loneliness, particularly in men, is rampant as I wrote in the very first piece for this blog, and our inability to build trust is a big player.

This is where the finger-pointing starts. We blame lost friendships on others. That old friend ditched you when they got married. Your college roommate got a job out of state and you never heard from them. When you moved, your friends seemed to forget about you. You ended a bad relationship that your friendships were tied to and no one took your side.

All of those are real possibilities but they rob you of ownership. You stopped reaching out. You pouted instead of making plans. You took it personally when someone had to cancel. You didn’t build your own network and relied on your old partner to do it for you. You let the friendships go and emptied your foxhole in the name of pride and being busy.

The problem is, we like ownership when it comes to workouts and waking up early. We don’t like it when it comes to our relationships and friendships. It’s easy to take what Jocko Willink says about extreme ownership and apply it to your alarm clock but his message is so much more.

If you don’t have foxhole friendships, you have to look at yourself first.

If you don’t have foxhole friendships, you have to look at yourself first.

You might be expecting me to give you answers at this point, so I hate to let you down. The truth is though, I write about things I struggle with so I’m working on how I build and maintain trust with my friends too. The best I can do is offer some questions that can jumpstart your ability to build trust and friendship:

  • Competence
    • What can I learn about that my friends are interested in?
    • What needs are there in my friend group that I can be more aware of?
    • Do I have the skills needed to be in the foxhole with my friends as they face challenges?
  • Care
    • How do I show my friends that I care about them?
    • Do I really operate with my friend’s best interest in mind or do I bring selfishness to our interactions?
  • Character
    • Do I live the LIFE values as an example for my friends?
    • In what circumstances do I compromise our values for my own betterment?
    • Am I vulnerable in my journey to live with character or do I only present the strong moments to my friends?
  • Consistency.
    • Am I consistent enough?
    • What are the inner conversations I have that hold me back from reaching out to friends?
    • Am I secure enough in myself to answer when they call on me?

These questions can be tough to handle. I for one, know that I act selfishly in a lot of my friendships. I don’t want to admit it, but the truth is where I have to start.

The bottom line is that you need foxhole friendships to live LIFE to the full. The lone wolf sounds cool, but no lone wolf survives. It takes a pack. How will you build yourself into the person others want in the foxhole when the sun sets, temperatures drop, and the enemy is on the move?

Weekend Challenge

Two parts to really get into action on building yourself this weekend.

First, determine what your foxhole looks like. If we’re honest, a lot of us (especially men over 27 according to the research) look around our metaphorical foxhole and realize it’s empty. By being so focused on what is coming at us, we failed to build the trust that others need to be in the foxhole with us. We use excuses like being busy, prioritizing family, and having a career to justify our small number, and low-quality friendships but the truth is we simply don’t place the value on them that we should. We don’t admit that strong friendships would make us better family members, colleagues, and leaders. So, take stock of the foxhole. Who is with you? Would you also be in there’s?

Second, with those folks (or lack of) in mind. Ask yourself some of the questions above. Get some paper, write out the 4 C’s, and honestly evaluate yourself as a trust-builder. Find one of the 4 C’s that you might be able to improve upon to build more trust and then begin to act by making a call, checking in, buying a book, getting the LIFE Enacted Guide to align better with your values (yup, I did it!).

That’s it. I hope you have a great weekend. A weekend full of friendship, meaningfulness, and moving toward the person you want to be.

Best today. Better tomorrow.

[i] If you’re interested in Chosin, I read a really cool historical novel on the topic a few years back. It’s a big read but worth it if you’re into it. It’s called Frozen Hours by Jeff Shaara. Go check it out.

[ii] Shetty was inspired for his 4 C’s from the 3 C’s of trust put forward by a study on the Iraq War titled, “The 3 C’s of Trust: The Core Elements of Trust are Competence, Character, and Caring” authored by Michael D. Matthews and published in Psychology Today in 2016. (http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-strong/201605/the-3-c-s-trust)

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Weekend Challenge #50: Three Reasons to Embrace Your Jaggedness

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You are not average. No one is. There’s no such thing as average. That’s what Todd Rose, a high school dropout turned Harvard professor, says. I’m inclined to believe him, and I see the truth in it every single day.

In the 1950s, the United States Air force had a problem. Their pilots were struggling to get their wings and even crashing planes at times. The problem was quickly identified. The pilots had grown since planes were first developed and the cockpits no longer fit them. To fix the issues, they set out to measure over 4,000 pilots for 10 dimensions of size – arm length, torso height, etc. The thinking was that the new cockpits should be designed for the average size pilot among all these dimensions. Sounds about right. But, it wasn’t.

There were exactly 0 pilots that fit the average. No single pilot was “average” size. The Air force had spent a lot of money to figure out their research was ineffective.

The ultimate solution was one that inspired many of the features in your car today. They made the cockpit adjustable to the pilot, instead of trying to make the pilot adjustable to the average cockpit. Yup, that car seat that has 4 settings for every member of your family was inspired by the Air Force. Thanks, America!

Instead of the average, Rose said that each pilot had a “jagged profile” of size. One might have long arms but a short torso while another has long legs and broader shoulders. (Notice how “average” also negated the chance that women may ever fly the planes).

Example from Todd Rose of jagged profiles of intelligence

Such findings are important for the Air Force and car manufacturers, but they hold true power when we start to see them everywhere. In schools, we want to teach for the average students but when we understand jaggedness, it’s easy to see that there is no such thing. We want to create an 8-hour workday that is the average time spent on work tasks for a good employee but now we have entrepreneurs, freelancers, and a deep passion for our lives beyond the office.

In your daily life, jaggedness is crucial. If you want to live well and be fulfilled you can’t chase some kind of average, even if it’s “above average.” Instead, you have to understand your own jaggedness because it carries three important implications for your LIFE.

First, jaggedness reminds us that we are in fact unique and no one is “average”

I don’t mean this in a “we’re all special” kind of way. I mean that, in a very practical sense, you have unique things to offer the world. You have skills, talents, treasures, thoughts, and ideas and that can work in distinctive combinations to improve your life and those around you. It also means you don’t have things that others do. Popular culture tells you to spend your energy filling that gap between what you have and what you don’t so eventually you have everything but that doesn’t hold up in reality.

The Jagged principle tells you to use what you do have to optimize your life just as the Air force pilots did with the cockpit. If you have business acumen, start something. If you have a talent for sales, sell something. If you can sing like Mariah Carey then grab that mic. Worry less about becoming a culminated above average person who has a business, sings at Carnegie Hall, and sells ice to Polar Bears because you won’t get there or at least won’t have the passion to sustain it. Worry more about how you might be a unique contributor to something you believe in.

Second, the jagged principle helps you build stronger relationships.

Consider Michael Jordan who remains to be the best basketball player to ever live. His track-record is undeniable but when we say he is the best player ever; what do we mean? Even Jordan himself in the new docuseries, The Last Dance, acknowledged that without Pippen and Rodman, he wouldn’t have won so much. It was no coincidence that Pippen had the most assists in the NBA and Rodman was near the top in rebounds nearly every year the Bulls won. Jordan, as you do, had a staggered profile of skills. What he understood is that it wasn’t his job to fix the lower skills and become closer to the average – it was to elevate the teammates that could fill those gaps for him and allow them all to fully capitalize on their high points.

You have a team too. The LIFE Council is built on the foundation that friendships matter. Friendships in this case though are not people we like to hang out with and make us feel good. A LIFE Council member will call you out on your fear and push you when needed. They don’t care about your feelings as much as they do about your character and potential.

If you can understand your jaggedness, you can begin to build a network of reciprocal relationships – romantic, friendships, mentorships, and others – that provide fulfillment for everyone. Now, to clarify, I’m not advocating that you build relationships based purely on what others can do for you. That’s sociopathic behavior and would ignore jaggedness to only honor others for their best attributes. Instead, knowledge of jaggedness allows you to embrace friendships as components of being your best self. As a friend, you can offer the areas that you have strength in but can be humble to accept guidance in those you do not. You don’t have to hide behind the facade that you have it all because you are aware that “having it all” doesn’t actually exist and that vulnerability creates trust, the foundation of all relationships.

Third, the jagged principle helps us get better in meaningful ways instead of entering the unrealistic “be the best in everything always” rat race.

Related to the first two lessons, the jagged principle creates space for focus. The “grind” and social media want you to believe that you must get better every day, in every way. Ever notice how little attention is paid to what “better” even means? It seems to be just having more. More money, more intelligence, more fitness, more beauty, more abs, more productivity, more discipline, more rest, more mindfulness, more everything. But more of everything soon becomes less of what matters as you become some robotic type of “average.”  

Instead, understand your jaggedness and stop aiming for a good average. Like Jordan, aim for excellence in one or two areas. Become the best in the world (or at least your world) at one thing. Be the best father. Be the best wife. Be the best writer. Be the best and watch the average of your other traits come along for the ride. If you don’t know your jaggedness, you don’t know what to focus on and you shift your attention like a dog surrounded by an army of squirrels.

Don’t fall for the trap that you need to be “better” at everything. It’s impossible and an invisible prison of mediocrity because if you’re average everywhere, you’re not excellent anywhere.

This principle of jagged gifts and abilities is not new but Rose offers it to a world that is teeming with distraction and comparison. The LIFE Council exists to help people move the needle in their lives forward but not in a “do everything” sense. Instead, to have LIFE to the full, you must know your jaggedness and harness your gifts to contribute to those around you and build meaning. I’d dare to say that being some culmination of average, would be a pretty boring life. Live big. Live full. Live jagged.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend get to know your jaggedness. This isn’t necessarily an exercise in strengths and weaknesses. It could be that, but it offers more if you want it to. You can do this with one big exercise, or you could do a few and be more specific. Here are some examples.

  1. Fitness. I went through this about a year ago and it led me to train for my first Ironman. I plotted out the jaggedness of my fitness with the traits of mobility, cardiovascular, strength, size, mental toughness, and intensity. Turns out I felt below average on cardiovascular and intensity. So, I decided to choose an event that would capitalize on my mental toughness but expose the weakness of the other two, and I still lift a few days a week. I didn’t simply drop my above averages toward average to bring the others up. I tried to elevate my jaggedness
  2. Parenting. Obviously, without kids, I haven’t done this one but I could imagine you plotting things like time with kids, patience, service, activity planning, or positive talk. Then you could share that with your spouse, or even your kids, and see that you’re not trying to be the average parent, but you are trying to be really excellent in areas that matter to you and that you already have an edge. Use your above averages as leverage for the others or compliment your partner.
  3. Self-development. This could be a broader way to approach your LIFE. Plot exercise, healthy eating, reading, journaling, prayer, sleep, learning, and bad habits to see how holistically jagged you are.
Jagged fitness example
My jagged fitness

With each of these, you may see places for growth and areas to celebrate. What you will not see is a perfectly average person across the board. Even if Instagram wants that from you – an above-average everywhere robot – you can’t and shouldn’t want to provide it. Understand your jaggedness and then start to see it in others. Just because someone isn’t as rich as you are, doesn’t mean they are dumber than you too. Just because you’re kid isn’t at the top of the class doesn’t mean they aren’t incredibly creative.

See the nuance in people. Stop labeling based on one thing you notice. For you and for them.

Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #49: The Ultimate Believer

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It’s 2021. 2020 is behind us and the world looks…the same? We’re six days into the new year and the pandemic is still here, schools are still closed for now, and we had one of, if not the, most egregious acts ever committed in American political history as a mob got inside the United State Capitol on January 6th. I’ll be honest, it all left me feeling pretty low, defeated, and wondering if what I do even matters.

Amid all of it, I was reminded of a quote from a mentor and friend. Zach Mercurio, the author of The Invisible Leader, has said “The first step to discovering purpose – in school, at work, in life – is a deep appreciation and love for yourself – the belief that you have something to offer.”

The first step to discovering purpose – in school, at work, in life – is a deep appreciation and love for yourself – the belief that you have something to offer.

– Zach Mercurio

I had to remind myself that even in the midst of chaos, the individual – I – could meaningfully contribute to a better life. I was almost ashamed of myself because I launched a product just weeks ago based in the belief that an individual person, with a clear vision and purposeful commitments, can change their lives and impact those around them in positive ways. I felt like I had been a fraud.

Zach and other authors have shared the message of self-belief over and over, yet I still have trouble with it. Maybe you do too. As I drafted this on January 5th, my message was, “you should believe in yourself because you are awesome.” It’s still true but now, on January 7th, I hope you can begin to believe in yourself because I fear the people our nation needs most are often silenced by their own self-doubt.

It took me 30 years to start having a voice. I still don’t know if I’m contributing but I’m trying. In those 30 years though, I can recognize two main reasons I didn’t believe in myself. Have these kept your voice from the world too?

The Shoulder Shrug. The first barrier to believing we have something to offer is the metaphorical shoulder shrug we give when we aren’t sure how to contribute in the first place. When we can’t see how it can be incredibly difficult to believe we can at all.

I’ve dedicated a lot of my life to projects and degrees to ensure that I can contribute to others. But I’ve probably spent equally as much time in the anxiety of not knowing how I can make a difference- feeling purposeless despite projects and degrees – and questioning if I can really contribute at all. But I have picked up a couple of things from people smarter than me that are helpful if you’ve ever been there too.

The best thing you can do when you don’t feel like you can contribute is…contribute. Do something seemingly tiny but that you know without a doubt is useful to someone else. Get up early to make coffee, walk the dog a few times this week (contributing to dog lives counts too), or reach out to a friend to check-in.

If none of those ideas sit with you, you can always lean on connecting people to contribute. The great thinker, Adam Grant, spoke to this in his book Give and Take as well as articles since. He said,  “An email intro is the ultimate five-minute favor: An act that costs you a tiny bit of time yet can be life-changing for others.”

If you dig through your 2021 version of a Rolodex, you’ll start to notice there may be people who you know share an interest but don’t yet know each other. Send an email to them that says, “Hey, I was thinking today how you two both share an interest for _____. I don’t have much to add to it, but I thought a connection between you could be meaningful. Cheers!”

Another way to move past the shoulder shrug is to make a list of all the ways you CAN’T contribute. Things only make the list if they truly have no impact now or seemingly into the future. What you’ll find, as I did when I tried, is the list will be incredibly short. This will force you to see that your contributions might not seem meaningful, purposeful, or giant but you contribute ALL THE TIME!

As Zach has said in other places, “if you ever wonder if what you’re doing contributes to someone else, finish the sentence, ‘This task exists so that’…” and you’ll find that at the end of nearly everything, there is another human.

If you catch yourself in the shoulder shrug of not knowing how to start, start small, and build connections. You’ll be amazed by how things can get rolling from there.

I can’t see it. The second barrier to being your own ultimate believer is the failure to see your contributions. An unfortunate lie of the Instagram culture that we’ve bought into is, “if you don’t see it, it didn’t happen.” If you do a great workout but don’t take a picture of the sweat on the floor, then you might as well have stayed on the couch, right? NO! That’s so obviously ridiculous when written on paper. The same ridiculousness applies when you convince yourself that you’re not contributing because you can’t see it clearly or immediately.

What is it called when we can’t see but we believe anyway? Faith. To be your own ultimate believer, you need faith in your contributions. It is common for teachers to talk of the ten-year rule, where students from ten years ago come back and thank them even if they were thankless a decade earlier. You must acknowledge that the same can go for you. Your contributions may not have immediate and visible outcomes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t count. In fact, lasting impact may take longer to be visible anyway.

Don’t underestimate what you can’t see.

So, yes, if you want meaningful LIFE – to love well, be a person of integrity, create fellowship, and pursue your excellence – you must start with a deep and genuine appreciation of yourself and belief that you have something to offer.

Weekend Challenge

If you’re a rational person who wants the best for others and cared about the state of the world, this weekend, please don’t let your mind convince you that you can’t contribute in a meaningful way. Take on one of the mini-challenges below to get started:

  • Connect two people who you think might have a shared interest
  • Try to make that list of what CAN’T contribute and realize how short it is
  • Complete Zach’s sentence with a few actions – “This task exists so that…”
  • Find faith in your contributions by thinking back to something you did and then saw it impacts later (it happens all the time but we so easily miss it)

That’s it, everybody. At the end of a crazy week, I hope that you can find your contributions, see the meaning in them, and move forward to make more. Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #48: A Life to Envy or A Life to Remember?

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Dare I be another blogger who is going to do an end of the year post? Should I join the ranks of those who will bait you to click on their articles by opening with something about how awful 2020 was and how we all deserve a big pat on the back for getting through it?

Maybe I should but if you know me, I hope you know, that’s not my style.

I’m publishing this on Christmas Day – a day that for me, as a Christian is one full of gratitude for the greatest gift ever given. Jesus is the reason, am I right? In honor of life given that would ultimately be traded for the lives of others, I think it’s valuable to keep this blog short to leave you with more questions than answers and time to think about them.

Over the course of the year, I hoped to give you a reason to pause and think about what you truly believe in and how you act in accordance. I’ve challenged you each week to take on a task that would help you reflect, learn, grow, and improve for yourself and those you love. I wrote every single article for myself, created each challenge to help me be a better person, and invited you to come along for the ride. I can honestly say, 2020 was an amazing year of growth for me. I hope it was for you too.

Well, this is the last Friday of 2020 and as we end the year, I want to challenge you with two final things:

The first is a shameless plug for the LIFE Enacted Guidebook that I will release next week. It is a five-part guide to set our intentions along with the LIFE principles for the next year. With 2020 being what it was, I knew it would be important to be intentional about 2021 and I want to invite you along with me. It’s was more than goal setting and will be a LIFE launching experience. Stay tuned on social for more and I challenge you to take on the hard work with me.

The second challenge got me this week and was spurred by a podcast from Tim Ferris with the great organizational thinker, Jim Collins. Collins is famous for his books Good to Great, Built to Last, and How the Mighty Fall, among others. He is a prolific thinker—about everything he says can change your life if you’re open. His genius is, in my opinion, not in his answers but in his questions. During the podcast, he shared a question he got from a coursera on philosophy and ethics that I think all of us would benefit from considering as 2020 comes to a close. Here it is:

Do you want to live a life to envy or a life to admire?

Many lives are worthy of envy. The rich and famous have lives to envy. We look at them when they are gone and think, “wow, that would be a cool life.” There’s nothing wrong with that but it takes something different to live a life to admire.

Lives to admire are scarce. On Ferris’ podcast, Collins gave the example of Abraham Lincoln. You wouldn’t envy his life. Hardships as a child including the death of his mother, ostracized everywhere he went, early love torn from him, death a regular occurrence, the burden of making decisions as President that would cost thousands of lives in a single day, and ultimately having his life taken from him just as he could have finally found rest. You don’t envy that experience, but wow, what a life to admire and learn from!

I don’t know about you, but, to me, there’s a certain amount of depth in the admirable life that the envious life simply misses. Although it might be the harder path that doesn’t result in the highest levels of material gain, I aspire to the admirable life. It’s not about legacy, it’s about making the short time I’m given on earth a contribution—a “thank you” note for the gift God gave on Christmas day a couple of thousand years ago.

What about you? Envious or admirable? You get a choice every day.

(Perhaps not ironically, Collins also noted the extreme power of small, thoughtful gestures to build a life of meaning and significance. Let that sit for a minute in regard to living an admirable life…)

Weekend Challenge

This weekend get ready to launch with the LIFE Enacted Guide. A great place to start is by simply asking yourself:

“Do I live a life to envy or a life to admire? Am I fulfilled with the answer?”

Have a Merry Christmas and a great weekend! I’m grateful for each and every one of you who is willing to invest in this amazing life we’re given by leaning into LIFE.

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #47: Envy Steals Excellence

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“If you had to trade places entirely with the person you envy, if you had to give up your brain, your principles, your proudest accomplishments to live their life, would you do it?” Ryan Holiday asked this question of readers in his most recent book; Stillness is the Key. When I read it, my answer was “no”, and I moved on. But it stuck with me the last couple of months.

Envy has been a struggle of mine. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I want other’s lives. In my case, envy is usually focused on money. I was jealous of what other people have and can buy while I struggled to pay rent in graduate school and lived in a friend’s basement. As a kid, my stepdad would drive home through the “rich neighborhood” and point with amazement to houses that we couldn’t afford. Envy of what other people own is equally deep-set as it is irrational. My life is blessed beyond the shadow of a doubt, I have no real reason to envy what others have.  

The reason you and I can answer “no” to Holiday’s question and yet struggle with envy and comparison is in the complexity of our social world. In 2020, we’re not tempted to keep up with Jones’. We’re tempted to keep up with the Jones’, Hemsworth’s, Bezos’, and fake Instagram pictures of houses people don’t own and cars they rented for the day. Our phones provide a fast pass into the lives of the rich and famous and it’s not a far jump to think we should be there too.

The E in LIFE Council represents the pursuit of excellence. It is a commitment to holistic – mental, physical, spiritual – growth, and development. When you start to pursue excellence and push the boundaries of what you are capable of, envy can become very real. You’ll soon find yourself feeling like the smallest, weakest, dumbest person in the physical or virtual room. On Instagram, your training plan to run a marathon – a measure of excellence for you – is quickly eclipsed by people taking on ultramarathons that span 200 miles or more. In real life, you’ll start to be around people who warrant comparison. For example, I started swimming at a local pool this winter and realized in five seconds that even though I was the youngest person there, I was leaps and bound behind everyone else. I started to look to the left and right and be envious of their speed and form in the water.

As an envious person at times, and someone who knows a lot of people who struggle with it too, I thought passing along four pieces of us that I’ve noticed envy steals and how to reframe our minds around each, might be helpful. Especially as we go into a season of turning over the calendar, your pursuit of excellence in 2021 can’t be envy driven if you want it to be meaningful. Let’s go:

  • Envy steals self-confidence. When I got to the pool that first day and saw everyone else was better than I was, I wanted to quit. I was embarrassed. I knew that in other areas of fitness, I might be better than them so I figured I should go back to the gym or my bike. Envy and comparison will steal every ounce of self-confidence you have. It will tell you that because someone has more than you, you must have nothing and therefore are nothing. Reframe your confidence by asking, “how did they get more or become better?” The answer will almost certainly be that they worked for a long time. I asked two of the swimmers that day how long they had been swimming. Each had been in the pool at least three days a week for over 15 years! I was comparing my first day to their 1,000th day and losing confidence because of it. That doesn’t make sense. Also, ask yourself, “would I trade what I do have to be where they are?” In entrepreneurship, I don’t have to look far for someone better than me, I haven’t made a cent yet. But I’m also unwilling to give up the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, and the lessons I’ve learned to get me to this moment and my confidence needs to come from there. Self-confidence is reliant on self, not on others. Pump yourself up now and then and remember that you bring a combination of strengths and experiences to the table that no one else can. Be proud of that, not ashamed of it. Don’t let envy rob you because, without self-confidence, true excellence is out of reach.
  • Envy steals love and fellowship. Along with excellence, two LIFE principles are love and fellowship. They recognize that life is best experienced in the company of others. It’s our job to build bridges between people, pull others into fellowship, and love deeply. When you compare yourself to someone, you put a wall between you and them. You get defensive to protect what dignity you can while you think about how much more they have than you do. Envy steals all ability to championship fellowship or love that other person because you’re too busy guarding your ego against being injured. Reframe your thoughts by focusing on love and fellowship with people you perceive to have more and be more. Not once have I struck a conversation with someone I was jealous of and not been shown that they, just like me, are a real person with real issues. In fact, on more than one occasion, upon reaching out to someone I envied because of their financial status or business growth, I was told that they had looked up to me for my education. Once that wall was down, most of us became friends. If you dwell in envy and don’t reach out in love and fellowship, loneliness is all you’ll get.
  • Envy steals perspective. A tough exercise is to think about who we envy and for what. It’s not one person. If you ask someone such a question, you’ll hear something like this. “Well, I wish I had Andy Frisella’s business mind. Oh, and training like Apollo Ono or looking like Chris Hemsworth would be awesome. With Warren Buffet’s money and humility, I’d be happy. And this guy I work with just has the best family, I wish I could be a dad like he is.” Notice the problem? In our envy, we pick and choose the best pieces of people and act as if we should have them all and more. Frisella struggled in school and business, Apollo Ono has faced massive depression, Hemsworth doesn’t always look like he does in movies, and Warren Buffet has struggled financially in his life. Reframe your mind by realizing even the most amazing people have trouble but learn from their ability to use it as fuel for their growth. In fact, by comparing only to the best piece of someone you steal their humanity too. You look at them like a robot of success instead of a complex person with emotions, trials, and hard work. Remember what Robin Williams, the funniest man alive before taking his own life, said, “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” Be kind to the people you look up to and don’t steal their humanity because you’re too envious to see reality.
  • Envy steals you. In her book, Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown pointed out that comparison is actually a form of conformity. If I asked if you wanted to be a conformer, I don’t think you would give me a high-five and say, “hell yea!” You are pursuing excellence to be different, to be creative, to be unique. By living in envy, you essentially give yourself over to becoming someone else. You say with actions, “I don’t want to be anything for myself, I just want to be that person.” I don’t know about you, but I’d never say that out loud because I don’t believe it. Be you. Not them. Reframe your mind by pursuing excellence for your own identity. If you want to be a healthier person, compare yourself to last year, not to an Olympian. Yes, the Olympian is probably healthy but you’re not trying to be an Olympian. Plus, go watch Weight of Gold and see how often elite athletes aren’t healthy. Don’t buy into the Instagram hype of being the best at everything. It’s fake.

So, if you really had to trade places with the person you envy in every way. To give up everything about yourself, your family, your accomplishments, would you do it? I hope not. The world needs you. We already have an Andy Frisella, Jeff Bezos, Chris Hemsworth, the guy you live next to you, and your friend. We don’t need more of them. We need more of you.

Weekend Challenge

This weekend take stock of your envy and comparison. Get serious and write down the names of every person you compare yourself to on a regular basis (careful, this could get longer than you think). Next to their name, write which of the 4 things that envy steals from you in those moments – self-confidence, love and fellowship, perspective, and yourself. By doing this, I think you’ll be able to see more clearly how envy and comparison get in the way of excellence and start to reframe your mind with the ideas above.

In a week, I’ll be launching the LIFE Enacted Guidebook. A 5-part workbook to set yourself up for 2021 to the best year you’ve had. It’s not a goal making workshop, it’s an identity shifting, purpose-driven deep dive into who you are and who you want to be. Take this weekend challenge seriously because you cannot look for a better tomorrow if envy is a chain holding you back.

Are you courageous enough to stop comparing? Can you stop hiding your insecurities behind the fact that other people have done big things and instead realize that you can too?

I hope so! Have a great weekend!

Best today. Better tomorrow.

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Weekend Challenge #46: Habits of Service – Going Beyond Acts, to Show Love

Weekend Challenge |
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How do the people in your life know you love them? Is it assumed or is it actionable? It’s an easy question on the surface, but when we dig into it, the complexities are obvious. Showing love, communicating that we care so deeply for another person can get messier than we would hope. Think back to one of those awkward moments of puppy love in middle school and you’ll know what I mean. You try to show love by picking on the person you like and somehow being mean to show love just never landed right. Shocking.

As adults, we need to be more aware and nuanced with showing love. The obvious place to start is with Gary Chapman’s infamous love languages. Five categories of giving and receiving love help our lazy brains figure out how we can act and talk. Here’s a quick review:

  • Gifts: the act of giving and receiving gifts as a sign of love and care
  • Words of Affirmation: using our words to affirm our love for another or complement various aspects of what we love.
  • Quality Time: expressing love with undivided attention and meaningful interaction
  • Physical Touch: using small physical gestures to show love toward another
  • Acts of Service: doing something appreciated for someone for their benefit

These love languages are incredibly helpful to understand people in your life. To know how you best receive love and prefer to show love, can lead to a meaningful conversation regarding your interactions. However, many people rely on these in theory but fail to enact them except in grand gestures and big moments.

Buying a great Christmas gift for a partner is certainly an expression of the gift language but if that’s the only time of the year you bring something home, you missed the mark. Similarly, if you set aside a special dinner for your anniversary to spend quality time together but miss the moments of sitting together and reading on a random Wednesday, you’re probably off base. The love languages are at their best when they are incorporated into everyday life in big and small ways.

My language of choice to show love is acts of service and I like to think I’m pretty good at it. It might mean I’m fairly poor at the others (something to work on) but it offers me a way to connect with people across my life. Perhaps the biggest lesson I’ve learned about acts of service is that the best way to implement them is not to think of them all the time and go big, but to create what I call, “habits of service.”

Usually, we think of habits as good or bad for ourselves. We start exercising daily or end a habit of sugary drinks to be healthier. We start reading every morning to connect with our minds or spirituality. We take up a habit of drinking water before coffee in the morning. We stop checking our phone first thing when we get up. We’ve all heard these before, and they all are “me” focused. Habits of service turn the power of what we know about habits and make them “they” focused.

If it isn’t enough for you to want to create habits of service for the good of others, consider that research has shown time and again that doing nice things for others is a great way to be happier. Giving makes you happier than receiving. Volunteering boosts your levels of dopamine like an Instagram notification that your favorite influencer just liked your cat picture. Taking the extra step to do something nice for another person, benefits you basically to the same degree as it does them. So, if you’re selfish, being unselfish is actually going to fit you just fine. Lucky you.

The challenge with habits of service versus general acts of service is that they are easier to neglect. It’s easy to remind yourself that you volunteer at the soup kitchen every year at Thanksgiving or that you want to clean the house when your wife goes out of town. Those are big and intermittent. Habits, the smaller acts that take place every day or every week, are easier to forget and to underestimate.

I want to suggest that to show love, if you can make habits of service part of your daily or weekly routine, you’ll level-up your relationships. Nothing complicated. It’s as simple as applying the same skills to build these habits as you did to start working out or whatever you’ve changed.

Habit building strategies:

  1. Complete the act of service each day for 30 days and it’ll stick.
  2. Write the new act on a sticky note where you’ll consistently see it to remind yourself.
  3. Plan for service. For example, to remember to make coffee every morning, set out the supplies the night before.
  4. Create feedback loops. After you complete the act of service in mind, create a way to notice that it was accepted. In the coffee example, you could see if your partner used the Keurig or took a cup that you left out and you get feedback that it is useful.
  5. There are a ton of others. Go check out James Clear’s Atomic Habits or Duhigg’s The Power of Habit and you can apply their ideas to these relational habits.

I won’t belabor this too long as I recognize the concept is simple enough to get in a few hundred words. Plus, you all are smart and have probably already started thinking of habits of service you have now and ones you could create. The last thing to say is that a true act of service doesn’t need recognition or a “thank you” to be valuable. Make these habits for the other people you love, not to fill your own ego.

Fair warning, creating these habits will put you on the hook to continue them for a long time. This isn’t bad, it’s good. Seth Godin in his new book, The Practice tells of the real practice in Turkey of placing bread on the hook. When someone fortunate buys bread, they purchase a second loaf to put on the hook. When someone in need comes by they can ask if there is any bread on the hook and receive the blessing of someone else’s giving. Being on the hook requires more from us, but only in our culture is being more seen as a burden. Be more generous and loving, it’s good for you.

Let me give you some examples of habits of service to start your thinking and then this weekend, share out other ideas so that we can all start to build more into our lives at home, work, school, and friendships.

Habits of service ideas:

  • Make the coffee each morning. Put out the K-Cup, find your hipster and pour it over, or go old school and make a pot.
  • Make the bed. If your partner or pup isn’t still in it of course.
  • Clean the dishes. Every day, not just sometimes, and even if they aren’t the ones you made dirty.
  • Lay on their side of the bed to warm it up for a bit. No one likes a cold bed)
  • Go for a walk with a friend. Even when you’re busy, it’s good for you too.
  • Feed the pets in your home or offer to do so for neighbors out of town. This is an easy one and the pets will love you too.
  • Start the car on cold days. Good for the person and the car plus getting into the cold in the morning has some great health benefits.
  • Open doors for others. Car doors, business doors, whatever. I know this can backfire sometimes in the social justice circles but do it for the folks you know will appreciate it.
  • Answer an email sent to a group. When those dreaded “reply all” emails come through that everyone plays virtual nose-goes with? Take care of those for the group.
  • Turn on the heater in the room people spend the morning in. My wife is always cold so when she does yoga in the morning, it’s super easy to hit the power button on the space heater for her.
  • Scrape off the car next to yours in the parking lot. Every time you clean your car off, take care of the one next to it.
  • Put an extra cart away in the grocery store parking lot. Don’t be that guy who leaves your cart in a parking space and take care of one of those guys while you’re at it.
  • Connect people. When you meet someone new, jump on email or LinkedIn and try and connect them to someone you think they could help or be helped by.

Before we go, I feel obligated to mention that there’s a flip side here. Habits of service are easy to miss and take for granted when they are done for you. Be sure to be on the lookout for when others are enacting habits of service and recognize them.

Weekend Challenge

Let’s go at both parts of this idea. First, write a list of the habits of service that you already hold. Then create space to write down three more that you want to integrate before 2020 comes to a close and get started with them this week (bonus points if you share those ideas on social media and tag me).

Next, soften your eyes to the acts of service others might be doing for you. Just try to notice them over the next few days and then make a list at the end of the weekend. Share the list with the folks who enacted the service and thank them for all those little, daily, and seemingly insignificant acts.

2020 is ending everyone. I’ve seen a lot of satirical celebrations as a tough year goes to history. But the reality is that nothing will be different in your life on January 1 than it is on December 31 unless you change it. The government can’t fix it, your partner can’t change you, and your boss isn’t responsible. You are. Start with these habits of service now and they’ll carry into strong relationships for 2021.

Have a good weekend! Best today, better tomorrow!

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