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Be Excellent, Dude
We spend most of the year building the life that serves our needs then "treat" ourselves with anywhere from two days to three months of sugar, booze and fatigue. At some point, many of our souls will start to rebel. This week's article is about what I did when I heard that calling. We have been staying with friends in Sydney and it takes surprising focus to get enough sleep; eat healthy and do a little bit of training each day. Tossing myself out of my routine has been a good thing - the forced reduction in training volume enabled me to shake my cold and gain some perspective on my life since I left the world of 9-5. With less than one week until Tour of New Zealand, I have stuck to my plan. Freshening up isn't easy for me. Although it has only been eight days since I did a massive workout, my mind plays tricks with me and it feels like I've done "nothing" for a long time. I'm also in that part of the peaking process (6-12 days of freshening) where I feel like I have lost a ton of fitness - and I probably have. I believe this strategy will let me use the first few days of the Tour to rebuild my fitness. I expect (and hope) that I will get stronger each day for the first week of the Tour. That's the benefit from the freshening period. Some of the younger guys have done 30-50 hours last week (no joke) and it will be interesting to see how their approach works across the 15 days of the Tour. I suspect that they will be exceptionally strong in the early days of the camp. Far, far stronger than me. The friends that I'm staying with have known me for 20 years and been through many phases of my life with me. We pulled out their wedding photos the other night (circa 1995) and it was neat to see all of us 15 years ago as well as our friends that were in their 40s back then. Looking at those photos, the game that I played was: A - The Ghost of Christmas Past: see how my peer group aged forward to their 40s It is a neat game to play using old wedding photos because, generally speaking, everyone looks about as good as they can muster at a wedding! The #1 thing that struck me is how large an impact lifestyle has on the visible aspects of aging. I suppose we all "believe" in wellness but I didn't truly experience it until I was able to track back across a long timeframe. What if you don't like what you see? Grateful - There is a REAL long term payoff from applying the tips that you read in this blog. By chipping away (bit by bit) at the areas of our lives that hold us back, we can make huge progress over the long term. Our resolve in the present can be strengthened by understanding the journey from the past. Peer Group - When you make changes in your life, you will change your world and, likely, change your peer group. I was riding with an old friend and he commented to me, "you must just hang around with with your training pals, now". He's a few years into his shift in lifestyle and, I think, what he meant was... now that I've changed direction in my life, I spend more and more time with people that share my lifestyle. I will write a future article on marriage but the central tip would be to share the fun aspects of the lifestyle that you want to create for yourselves. Grow together, and deeper, into your life. A shared passion can sustain your passion. Curiosity - For my birthday each year, Monica buys me a Speedo. For my 41st she bought me a tiny blue Speedo with "Australia" across the back of it. I wonder how many more years I will be able to pass the "speedo test". Being able to pass that test (at least once a year) is a motivator for me. The suit this year was ridiculously small (Boys 8); it's an inside (now outside) joke in our family. No doubt a photo will feature in a future blog. As I age, I suspect that knowing I spent my time well will provide comfort as I face the "ravages of time". Looking at those wedding photos, I see that many of the "ravages" have more to do with sun, nutrition, alcohol and chronic stress. Over the short term these factors are known as: a healthy tan; treats; partying; and working hard. While neither good, nor bad, they are worth considering and dialing in how they make you feel. Nobody thinks they are going to grow old but all those seniors had to come from somewhere. Excellence, as a concept, can leave me feeling uncomfortable. I'm guessing that is because my flaws are visible to me. As I've improved my nutrition, compassion, health - each step forward brings my remaining faults into greater focus. There are two main forms of excellence that we can target in our lives. Let's call them internal excellence and external excellence. Much of what we value as a society centers around external excellence -- measured as relative achievement. Interestingly, as a species, we are not good at adjusting for the effect of chance on relative achievement (appearance, height, peer group, year of birth, genetics...). As well, we are hardwired to defer moral superiority towards those that exhibit external excellence (see Cialdini). True external excellence is valuable but it takes a long time to cultivate. Of course, once you understand how our minds work (see the Cialdini book), it is possible to set your life up to take advantage of our shared biases. For example, I often recommend that my results obsessed clients train with slower partners as well as race locally -- it is a straightforward to way to build self-esteem. [NOTE: there is also benefit to placing one's self in the opposite situation lest one become complacent, or exposed to the downsides of pride. However, it is best to do with open eyes. I've seen "mid-pack" Americans finish last in races in Australia and New Zealand -- that is difficult on the ego. Personally, I've been dead last in Kiwi bike races so I have direct experience with being blown out of the water!] ++ Eventually, most of us will discover that overcoming others merely provides temporary relief from the lack of satisfaction that we feel when we stray from our path. Interestingly, in my own life, a drive to find inner truth (mixed with an addictive personality) compelled a heck of a lot of external achievement. So what's the solution to those nagging thoughts at the back of our minds? For me, the solution is to expose myself to a wide range of belief systems that have worked for other people. A few examples: When I expose myself to these proven ways of living, I am looking for one thing, not The One Thing, but a single item that makes sense for me at the time. I take my one thing and make it a habit. Keep on pushin', PS - Over at the Zen Habits Blog you can read a post on why true external excellence matters if you want to make a living at your passion. PPS - You don't need to convince the world that you are excellent to make a living! Consider this piece on 1,000 true fans as well as Seth's take on it. For me, the above articles point back to dedicated internal excellence. As a consultant, I cultivate a skill set that people find useful and provide products/services to them at a price where we both achieve good value.
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One thing that amazes me about the holidays is how we choose to get run down by over-scheduling, weak nutrition and alcohol consumption.