Raise others up

Reached out to somebody the other day when it came to training to offer some assistance. They are a pretty good athlete and a leader in the fitness industry. I admit, the assistance wasn't asked for at all, was really just putting in some input. The person was so incredibly rude justifying how great and how right they were when it came to their training.

Sat there and was quite upset at first because why intention was to help, then realized:

1) I was wrong for trying to help, it wasn't asked for. Not everybody wants input sometimes people just need their ego stroked

2) Not everyone has a teachable attitude when it comes to things and when we reach out to help we should be aware of that

3) Those that dont want help, usually dont help and assist those around them either, that I found to be very sad

If you are a leader when it comes to anything, business, training, life anything, you are being looked at from people hungry to "be like you" instead of seeing that as an attack on your ego, realize that them getting better, is not taking away from the many things you have in your life. Nobody cares about your spiritual hash tags and holy you are, they care for your ability to "be" something you say you are, not "pretend to be" something you say you are.

The Power of Enduring in our lives: Sabie Bicycle Experience

 In a culture set up for for rewarding results over effort, lets be the people to make the change. 

A quick example. A student studies 4 months, day and night for his matric final maths exam, he takes extra lessons, misses some parties and just digs into the work. He has struggled the whole of high school, scraping through with 45 - 50%. Student B is coasting through the work, usually a straight A 90% student. 

Exam day comes and goes, both wait anxiously for the results. Student A lands a 58% passes and is able to now attend a course he wanted to take after school. Student B 83%, passed with flying colors, A! 7 Percent left than he usually gets, with little to no effort. At prize giving, student B stands on the stage, student A gets nothing, is never rewarded for his effort. We can debate for ages on who actually wins in 10 years time, but that is not the point. 

This weekend I attended a 3 day bicycle race through the toughest routes South Africa has to offer. The town of Sabie, in Mpumalanga South Africa.  360km on tar, over passes with over 7000m of climbing. I was out of my depth! Seeing cyclists rock up on the start line with their skin tight clothing and hundreds of thousands rands worth of bike, you could see these ladies and gents had invested a lot of time and effort into this sport. I was about to be destroyed. 

I had entered this to test myself again to practice my patience, endurance, my efforts in the physical and mental side of sport yes, but also life. I was so nervous. I hadn't done a bicycle multi day event in years and the training build up had not been ideal. 

"This is a Tour, not a race." that was the motto of this event. Comforting but still scary. 

Me and my bike, best friends...sometimes.

I coach many clients whose goals vary from looking good to completing Ironman. Some have 50 years of exercise left in them some 20. Some young, some old. Some perform at a high level and some simply want to be healthy and prosper, but a common theme for all of them is consistency and endurance. When results are extrinsic (getting 80% and being called on stage, seeing a 6 pack in the mirror, or your friends noticing your weight loss) many fall off the bus, become unmotivated, even become despondent with training. But for those who grasp the result and make it intrinsic (how you feel about yourself, being able to do something you couldn't before, comparing yourself to yourself) these clients have no end! They go on consistently for years, chipping away at the "Tour". Its not a race, its a tour people. 

A tour of your life, to forge the best human being possible, in mind, in body and spirit. How do you want your life to look, what do you see yourself doing? Its important to ask those questions because the road to ill health and diseases is paved with no intentions. Its important to be intentional about our exercise and eating because it is the fuel that will lead us to live these large lives where we are able to function with full energy at a high level in what ever we chose. 

You results of your previous years of exercise count for nothing if you are going to ride on the back of your results. Yesterday doesn't count. Today does. If we can start rewarding effort and intention over results perhaps we will be less judgmental on ourselves over our results and more consistent in our efforts. 

Day 1 was the pits. I finished my 105km day with cramps, pain and suffering. I was straight to the physio for a rub down and into a cold pool wondering if I had bitten of to much. I had spent the day trying to keep up with people, pushing up the hills until eventually I cracked and was extremely spent by the end. During race briefing for the next day I remember thinking, "If tomorrow is 150km, Im not going to finish," and thats not really what I came to do. I had to stop racing. 

Day 2 begun and my goal was to go slow, be persistent and finish the day. Everybody left me behind, I was by far the slowest. In the heat, I dragged myself over 2000km at 90km and was about to begin the final climb, the mammoth Long Tom pass. I cannot explain how slowly I went, pacing myself slowly but surely getting to the top. When the top came I was ecstatic, I had done what I had come to do. I rolled into the finish after a long descent, hours after everybody had eaten their lunches and had their naps. It was 4pm about, only the race organizer waiting for me, possibly worried one rider hadn't come back. The joy in me was one that I had everyday while cycling across Africa, moment I had long forgotten. I had these feelings flooding back to me, relishing in the hard moments and knowing that on the other side it always built a little bit of self belief. 

Day two: 3000m of climbing and a tough day out, 38 Degrees. 

Day 3. Rain. Mist. Cold. Scary downhills and shivering bodies. A whole new challenge had arrived. The cold. Get in a car, get comfy, crank up the heat and coast to the end. Along with that option comes no reward in my mind. I was freezing, my hands cramped up on the brakes down every turn trying to hand onto the handle bars while also trying to avoid skidding round the slippery corners. Was it worth it? In my mind of course it was. To feel the cold is to feel alive, to realize how fragile we are but also to discover how resilient we are. The more we seek out discomfort the more we are able to adapt to difficult situations. 

After all the time on the bike. I eventually crossed the line with some friends I had made on the trip. A great feeling, conquering what you had set out to do. I came home last again, slowest but extremely happy that I had learnt a lot more about myself. 

For those looking for things to be easy I encourage you to seek out discomforts and put yourself in situations that are hard. To slowly turn up the difficulty to teach yourself to be more resilient. Walk 5kms, the next month do 10, build it up but try always to challenge yourself. If we can do this in the physical it will teach us to do this in the mental and emotional. The challenges we face in our daily lives are perhaps and extension of this. 

Get out there. Challenge yourself. Endure! 

"Through endurance we conquer." Ernst Shakelton

We can't Jelous our way to success

We can't "Jealous" our way to success or "Jealous" somebody out of theirs.

Insecurities in our lives happen for various reasons. Our pasts have more influence on us than we know. Im going to speak about some natural things that maybe happen when other people start gaining success.

Lets say somebody has come into some money, a better job, a sporting success, anything, you name it, the thing you really want that badly. We want it to right? So we immediately think of thats unfair, I wanted that. I think its a natural survival of the fittest deep wired caveman brain thing. That guy hunted and got a deer to eat, I want that deer by any means.

We are not Cavemen anymore and sometimes we need to realize the way we evolved and moved forward was our ability to reason, to share, to adapt and to create new ways of doing things. (Although amidst Corono and how it started we would think that we have gone so far backwards and maybe we have)

But anyway, back to it. Our first reactions can be

- undermining someones success: ah well they had a rich family and his dad owns the company. He was lucky to get an education. He just got lucky.

Somebodies "luck" or what they have achieved doesn't take away from your life, do you know that? Who the fuck cares what luck they have come across by you voicing it and trying to undermine them has it made that situation become yours? Well Bob you are right, he had a great education and got lucky, maybe we should give you the job, thanks for telling us.? Hell No. Its not the way it works.

What affirmations are you looking for in your life that you are looking for so hard that the very thing that was robbed of your life, you are robbing from someone else?

Perhaps nobody told you, you were good enough, now you continue to break people down.

By giving people, what you didn't get (not physical things or money etc) support, you can come across a great realization. That you can be your biggest fan. You can be your own encourager. You can believe in yourself.

Try it! Try and give to people what you never got, especially those looking up to you, see how the world changes. Will you gain success from it, maybe, maybe not, but sometimes gaining confidence, peace, courage are greater than gifts of many other things!

Try to give a little today. Be truly happy for one another success. We are, because others are, if the tribe is strong everyone is strong. Encourage and have somebodies back today rather than letting Jealousy creep in and steal your happiness.