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Hangman’s Noose

by Walt | Sep 8, 2011 | Journeys, Success | 1 Comment

Life is to be lived. No excuses. No reservations. No holding back.
— Steve Goodier

“How ya doin’?” I asked.

“Hangin’ in there,” Rick replied.

We were lifting at the gym. Rick had just arrived.

“A lot goin’ on,” he explained. “Busy, busy, busy. But, not bad, I guess.”

Not good I think.

“Hangin’ in there” is not enough.

Life is not an endurance event. Getting by is not a win. If all you’re doing is “hangin’ in there,” something is amiss.

Here are my other favorite responses to the “how are you” question:

Not bad
OK
Shitty
Pretty good for an ol’ guy
Busy
Same day different shit

And the best of all:

Woke up on the right side of the dirt

Now, people, this is all there is. These days of our lives are all we have. The sands run through the glass pretty fast.

All of us go through difficult times: The loss of a loved one, a debilitating illness, unemployment, divorce, interpersonal conflict. Times when all we can do is hang in there, claw through our days, and hold on tenuously as best we can. And sometimes these events can stretch for months or years at a time.

I know. I have walked through some of those dark valleys.

But, if that’s how life is all the time – an epic, arduous grind, one day collapsing into another – then something needs to be fixed. That’s not the way life should be.

Joy is our birthright.

Blaise Pascal argued that every person, without exception, is a seeker of happiness. Aristotle believed happiness to be the summum bonum, the highest good.

The Dalai Lama writes, “I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness.”

Indeed, happiness is the key to our success. The paradigm of old held that if you worked long and hard, had a great job, amassed a lot of money and things, then you would be happy. The research is now clear that the old paradigm had it completely backwards. “Happiness fuels success, not the other way around,” writes Shawn Achor in his book The Happiness Advantage. “When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work.”

So “hangin’ in there” just won’t cut it.

If you’re feeling that you’re just getting by,

Identify the biggest drag on your spirit; see if you can change or eliminate what’s bringing you down.
Apply the 80/20 rule; focus on the 20% of activities that bring 80% of your happiness; get rid of the 20% of activities that bring 80% of the headaches.
Check your boundaries; see if you’re getting the time and space you need to nurture your soul.
Catch up on some sleep; fatigue will wear you down.
Say no more often; make a “stop doing” list and follow it religiously.
Take some time away; if you can’t take a week or a day, take an hour at Starbucks by yourself.
Go “off the grid” for a few hours; turn off the electronics; eliminate the inputs; silence renews the spirit.
Consider the help of a counseling professional; none of us can go it alone.

None of us can be happy all the time. But we give no greater gift to the world than to live our lives with joy.

Coming soon!

The Secret Behind The Secret

by Walt | Sep 1, 2011 | Journeys, Ultra Training | 5 Comments

Whatever you can do or dream, begin it.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Missing Secret

I have a secret. It’s the secret behind The Secret. It’s the secret to all success. Irene whispered it to me on a rainy hillside. Do you want to hear it?

You know The Secret: that Law of Attraction stuff. What you think about expands. What you focus on materializes. What you visualize, you attract into your life.

I’m a big fan of the Law of Attraction. I use it all the time. But I think the purveyors of The Secret leave out a major component of the formula and do a huge disservice to those well-intentioned folks who can’t understand why their lives don’t change, even with all the good that they imagine will unfold.

Those folks say the Law of Attraction doesn’t work. They visualize and visualize and nothing comes to pass.

It’s because they don’t know the secret behind The Secret.

I do. I know the real secret. And I will tell it to you.

Visualization Is Not Enough

Visualization is important. But something more is required.

It’s called action. Action is the secret behind The Secret.

We cannot hit a target we cannot see. So envisioning what we want to have, where we want to go, who we want to be, are essential components of success. We need a clear picture of our goals if we are going to have any prospect whatsoever of attaining them.

But visualizing is not enough.

Once we know what we want, we need to move. We need to take action. Tony Robbins would say, “massive action.”

I was reminded of this a few days ago as we completed our first ultra-marathon in tropical storm Irene. For months, we’d been visualizing the day we would cross the finish line. But as important – perhaps more important – we’d been getting out the door. Running. Following a specific plan of action. Incremental steps. Day in and day out.

Irene – they called her Irene – pummeled the hillside on the day of our race with wind and torrential rain. She taunted us. We laughed and ran across the meadow.

We had trained in wind. We had trained in rain.

It didn’t matter.

The finish line was firmly planted in our minds. But we were there, together with Irene, because we had done the work.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.”

Surely there are times for planning. But it is so easy for all of us to get lost in the planning and never start out.

Start out. Even if you can’t see the whole way. Take the first step. And then the next. You’ll be amazed at the progress you will make.

Emerson said, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” It most certainly does. But it doesn’t happen by itself.

Life Is An Action Sport

Life is an action sport. Participation is required.

The title of our ultra-marathon training guide is: Relentless Forward Progress.

It’s about life.

It’s the real secret.

Yup, The Gods, They’re Crazy

by Walt | Aug 25, 2011 | Journeys, Ultra Training | 0 Comments

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky.
— Deep Purple

The explosion shattered the stillness and nearly knocked me off my feet.

Here’s what I had been worrying about as I ran along the road in the pre-dawn light:

the exhaust system on my son’s car
my hip flexors
the cat
whether I had returned all my calls
my office building
whether the restaurant would be crowded

Then the fire ball shot from the sky; the sound like the blast of a nuclear bomb. A mere 30 feet closer and the outcome… not good.

I had to stop. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of me. I couldn’t breath.

Who would have expected an electrical transformer to blow up at that moment? Right there, right then.

But isn’t that what “they” always say?

“Who would have expected it? What a shock! Wrong place, wrong time. They were such a nice couple.”

My mind drifted back to the beautiful traverse beneath the summit of Illinza Norte. A brilliant crystal clear day; a gentle acclimatization in the Ecuadorian Andes. And then the sudden rockfall, the size of a semi-trailer, a mere 50 yards from where we stood.

Didn’t see that coming.

And then my mind carried me further to the back seat of a crushed Honda Civic on a warm sparking Sunday afternoon in February, the acrid smells of battery acid, anti-freeze and air bag powder permeating the air. I held the limp body of my friend Chris as his life ebbed away. Who would have expected the oncoming car to cross into his lane?

Who would have expected it?

That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s the things we least expect that get us.

We like to live with the illusion of control. With the fantasy that as long as we obsess about things, worry about people and problems, believe we can manipulate situations and outcomes, we think we will be ok, that those we care about will be safe, that everything will work out just fine.

We do this with our kids, our partners, our businesses, our entire lives.

And it’s not true.

It’s the stuff we can’t imagine that comes to bite us; the stuff we don’t expect, the stuff we can’t even begin to conceive of. (Because to conceive of it would make life untenable?)

The challenge for us: Stop the hand wringing. Stop the kvetching. Know this truth: Worry is a waste.

Let it go. Be here now.

Yes, the gods, they may well be crazy. But they seem to know an incontrovertible fact: We humans seem to need an explosion now and then to jolt us out of our pettiness, our small mindedness, our narcissistic self-absorption; to wake us up and remind us:

time is short
treasure what we have
cherish those we love
celebrate what is
find the joy

Suffering and loss are never far away. Indeed, they will come come and find us however much in control we imagine ourselves to be.

The lesson, just this: Live deeply, fully, in this moment. Here. Now.

Get Out Of Jail Free

by Walt | Aug 18, 2011 | Journeys, Ultra Training | 0 Comments

If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page.
— Mark Houlahan

Liz sat across the table from Ann. “I could never do that,” Liz said.

Ann had been describing our marathon training. Granted there may be a legitimate argument that our program is somewhat extreme. But the “I could never do that” response is such a bugger for me.

Yet all of us do it. All of us have been guilty at one time or another of saying, “I could never do that.”

We enjoyed the summer flick Rise of the Planet of the Apes recently. In it, Caesar, the ape who becomes the leader of his tribe, learns how to fashion a key, open his cage and free himself from captivity.

It reminded me of the true story of one of the ways that monkeys are captured in the wild: hunters cut a small hole in a coconut, and fix the coconut to the ground with a length of chain. The hole is just big enough for the monkey to slide its hand into. But when it grabs hold of the tender meat inside the coconut and closes its fist, it can’t pull its hand out of the hole. It’s stuck on the horns of a dilemma: hold on tight to the juicy meat; or open its hand and escape to freedom.

You know what happens. Despite holding the key to freedom, the monkey stays stuck. Caught.

Just like us.

Brian Tracy, author of Create Your Own Future, writes, “Your greatest limits are not external. They are internal, within your thinking. They are contained in your personal self-limiting beliefs. These are beliefs that act as brakes on your potential. These are beliefs that cause you to sell yourself short, and to settle for far less than you are truly capable of.”

What we are capable of is: Anything.

Our brains don’t distinguish between internal visions and external reality. “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it,” said William Arthur Ward. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them,” Disney echoed.

“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves,” Thomas Edison said.

Think, for just a moment, of only a few of the things that have been “imagined” into being: the automobile, the light bulb, the television, the personal computer, space travel, the Internet, the iPod, and Facebook.

Yet our limiting beliefs continue to dog us, haunt us, infect us. They hold us captive. In cages of our own. (And as guests in others’ cages too.)

We are the jailer and the jail.

And we hold the key.

All we need to do is open to possibility. And the expansiveness of the Universe is ours.

With open hands and and an open heart, anything is possible.

Each day, we are given the gift of a new page. Each day, we get the chance to let loose our grasp again of all that holds us captive. Each day, we have an opportunity to create anew the masterpieces of our lives.

Or we can choose to hold on tight to the coconut.

It’s up to us.

Put all excuses aside and remember this: you are capable.
— Zig Zigler

Follow The Fun

by Walt | Aug 11, 2011 | Journeys | 2 Comments

But something touched me deep inside. The day the music died.
— Don McLean, American Pie

My Favorite Question

It has become my favorite question to ask at professional functions: “So what have you been doing for fun?”

I get quizzical looks, looks of bewilderment, confusion.

Fun? What is this thing “fun”? Why would anyone think about fun at a meeting of the bar association? Who talks about fun in courthouses?

I may not be the only one. But I’m certainly one of the few!

Fun Has Died

For so many, there is no fun. Life is serious. Work is serious. Time away from work is serious. Fun is fanciful. Fun has disappeared.

My friend Susan Biali, an accomplished flamenco dancer… wellness expert, speaker, writer, coach… and physician (!), wrote the magnificent book Live The Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More Passionate You. Recently on her Facebook page she mentioned that she had seen a tee shirt that read: “Baylor Law School – Where Fun goes to die.”

Her sighting hit close to home. My Cornell law school classmates were a somber group. The rumors were true: students did razor blade pages from books on reserve. Competition was fierce. There wasn’t much in terms of lighthearted frivolity.

Time has not been kind. It seems as if most of my professional colleagues have lost their mojo: few have fun. Fewer still remember what fun once was.

One lawyer friend confessed to me that he used to love to wash his car on Saturday mornings because, for him, it was fun. But because the time wasn’t “billable,” and there was so much pressure from his firm to produce, he couldn’t enjoy what was once a simple pleasure. How sad is that!

There are exceptions: my lawyer-friend Mark likes to heli-ski; Jamie is a triathlete; my friend Harry finds joy in his home on the coast of Maine.

But by-in-large, it seems like adulthood is where fun has gone to die.

It doesn’t need to.

We are meant to have fun!

Find The Fun – And Follow It!

Fun feeds us. Fun nourishes our soul. Fun makes us whole. And it’s only when we’re whole and complete that we can best serve those we love; it’s only when we’re whole and complete that we can bring our gifts to the world.

Aristotle believed that happiness is life’s central purpose. It’s tough to be happy if you’re not having fun.

Our most important work according to the writer Alexandra Stoddard, recognized as a pioneer of the “Happiness Movement,” is “the active joy of living fully every moment.”

Active joy is fun.

Biali asks, “Is Fun alive and well in your life or has it died a few deaths over the years? What do you to do make sure Fun lives in your life? And if necessary, how might you resurrect it?”

Here are some ideas:

Lighten up. Take yourself less seriously.
Take some unscheduled time off.
Go to the beach; go to the movies; go to a museum.
Draw; photograph; paint.
Raft a river; climb a mountain; go on safari.
Play; dance; go to a costume party; sit by the fire and tell stories.

In his Stanford University commencement address, Apple founder Steve Jobs said:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something….

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose…. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

There is no reason not to follow the fun.