Let me start by going back to last week. I got quite a few comments on last week’s post from guys who basically said, “me too, brother.” The fears of inadequacy and growth are real. You and I face them every day. A nuanced long-term impact of my fear of growth has been a nagging voice telling me I’m not good enough for new things. As I write this, I am bound for a meeting about an opportunity that could be amazing. Sounds cool, right? I agree. But, some of my first thoughts upon being invited were, “crap, am I actually good enough for that? Do I deserve that?” I had similar thoughts when I was getting ready to propose to my now wife. Make no mistake – I married way up, but it took me a bit to realize that I am definitely good enough as long as I keep getting better. In both instances, I’ve felt scared to see if I could step up to the new role and expectations.
This past week someone brought up a verse from Galatians 5 that got me thinking. For those of you who know the Bible, you might be familiar with it. If you’re not, here’s a small bit of context. The author, Paul, is writing back to folks he helped plant a church in their town of Galatia. Since he left, they fell off the course that he had charted with them. When we get to verses 7 & 8, Paul has a critical question for them that I think all of us can benefit from sitting with. He asks, “You were running such a good race. Who cut in on you?” In his letter, he asked what made them leave the path set on course toward God. For us, the question is the same and can extend to “who cut in on our path to being the best men we can be for LIFE?”
Jocko Willink talks about “the path” in reference to a narrow path that we have to stay on to reach our potential. When you leave the path, it’s worth examining who cut you off and made you steer away. However, in thinking more, I realized that often times the “who” is myself and I need to also consider, what cut in on me.
Thought patterns, habits, choices in friends or other relationships, not taking action, and living out of fear can all cut in on us. If our goal is to live a full life of love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence there will be a lot of things to get in our way. Let’s call it as it is, the world and most people in it won’t want to watch you get better and you’ve probably even set your own thoughts in the same pattern. They’d rather put their energy into dragging you down to their level than raising themselves to a higher one and you’ve become just fine with them doing that – in fact, you might even prefer it.
It made me think of a parable story I heard at some point. As in all good parables, there was an older man out by himself. He was walking the beach, collecting crabs, and tossing them in a bucket for food later. A younger man passed by looked in the bucket and noticed that it did not have a lid and the crabs were starting to crawl out. He approached the old man with his astute observation, “Sir, you’re crabs are going to get out of there if you don’t cover it!” The old man looked over at the bucket, shrugged and responded, “nah, they won’t let each other go anywhere.” The newcomer was instantly confused. “What? They won’t let each other?” The old man challenged him, “go ahead and take a look for yourself.” The young man walked to the bucket, looked inside, surprised. The crabs that were getting close to the edge weren’t climbing out but weren’t falling back either, they were actively being pulled down by the other crabs. The old man murmured, “See? They won’t let each other get out.”
Who are the crabs that won’t let us get out of the bucket we’re in? What has cut us off from our path to LIFE? For some of us, it is our own damn self. We convince ourselves that the only place we’re good enough for is the inside of that bucket. We know it well and we don’t know what might happen if we fall over the edge and land in new sand. For others, it’s the people around you. You weren’t intentional when you developed your core group of friends. You didn’t build a purposeful LIFE Council. Every time you try to better yourself, they’re right there to clamp on and pull you back. When you try to give up the addiction that made you friends in the first place, they aren’t down with that. When you head out to dinner and order a salad instead of beer and wings because you want to get in shape, they make fun of you and gorge themselves.
I think what cuts us off from the path and the crabs that pull us down are often the same thing. Right now, I’m in a battle against my own fears of inadequacy and not being good enough for a new opportunity. I’m trying to peek out of the bucket and climb over the edge but my own head pulls me back down. If you can resonate, let’s go to war together. A great way to work against those thoughts is to find the guys in your life who will push you over the edge even when you want to climb back in. They don’t give you a choice to shrink back and believe in you more than you believe in yourself.
Perhaps the loneliest feeling in the world isn’t being in that bucket alone but rather knowing you’re the only one trying to get out. If you know that you’re in the bucket full of people who are cutting in on your path, you’re going to need strength to overcome. You have to be physically able to crawl harder than they can pull you down (seriously, if you don’t train physically with weights and resistance, start now – your future self will thank you more than you know). You need to have the spiritual strength to believe that there is goodness on the outside of the bucket. You have to find the mental strength to stay focused on the climb and not look back at the temptation of staying with the people you know. If they’re grabbing your legs and pulling you back in, you can’t look back, you have to fight forward.
Perhaps the place with the least loneliness in the world is the edge of that bucket when everyone inside decides it’s time to get out and they work together to tip it over and crawl out. The power of the group makes the climb easy. This is what the LIFE Council is. One of the men in my council, Dan, is the absolute man in my life for this. I recently wasn’t feeling like I had the skills to seek more professional opportunity and I was wondering if my writing was really worth it. I had lunch with Dan and he threw me straight out of the bucket. He looked me square and told me that I was acting in fear, that he already looked up to me for so many things in life, and that he’d be disappointed if I let that bucket define my life. He didn’t drag me back down, he lifted me all the way out! This is what the right group of men do for you. Find them. Be real with them. Grow with them.
Weekend Challenge
Two-part challenge this weekend:
- First, split a piece of paper in half. On the top half, write “what is cutting in on my path to LIFE?” On the bottom, “who is keeping me in the bucket?” Spend time with each. I would even recommend a good thirty minutes Saturday with the top half and another thirty on Sunday with the bottom. This is real work and you have to dig deep to locate what is really kept you away from the man you want to be.
- Take action!
- On the first part, write down the biggest thing that seems to hold you back on a sticky note. Place that sticky note in a place that is associated with the offender. For example, if your thing is disbelief that your work matters, put it on your computer or wherever you work the most. If what holds you back is an idea that you could never lose the weight you want to, stick that bad boy on the fridge and maybe a second one on your dresser drawer that holds your workout clothes. Every time you see that sticky note, declare that you won’t let it cut in on you this week. Say it out loud, “I will not believe that I don’t matter” or “I can lose this weight.”
- For the second half of your paper, it’s time to really consider who might help you get out of the bucket and who won’t. This might suck. You might have to leave some people behind in your life. Not because you’re better than them, but simply because you can’t get better with them around. Make a plan for each person. Maybe you don’t have to take the “screw you, you’re awful” approach. I had a friend in the past that moved in a direction I didn’t want to go and I simply asked him if he’d want to train with me but I had to focus on stuff right now so I couldn’t hang out as much. We didn’t hang out much outside of the gym but I was able to find the piece of life that he kept pushing me out of the bucket but got rid of his influence to pull me down in other areas of life. Life is complex guys. Don’t treat it like it isn’t.
I truly believe that our greatness usually lies close to us. Consider a crab that does somehow get out of the bucket. Once he hits the sand, he is literally only millimeters from where he was before – he’s just on the other side of the bucket wall. We like to think people who seem great are somehow in another world than us. They aren’t. Our greatness is just on the other side of that bucket wall. Be great this weekend and start to be intentional with your thoughts and who you bring into your circle.