5 Weeks Out

It's five week from the actual race and the pressure is on.  I think there comes a time in every plan, in every big dream or grand accomplishment, when you look at what you've signed up for and it hit's you: you are insane.  You've totally lost it, gone bonkers, no more marbles, off your rocker, headed to the funny farm, whatever.  This is the point when you actually look at what your shooting for, and for some reason you see it for what feels like the first time, for what it is.  You know it's been there all this time, but it must have been in disguise, because now you see it for what it is: a looming mountain of insurmountable impossibility.  Or at least that's how it suddenly feels.  You have to resist the mental urge to think about possible escape routs, ways out, easy paths that might minimize the effects of you quitting.  I have news for you; this is good!!  This moment is normal and actually means your on the right track to possibly pulling off your probably truly insane goal!

HERE BE DRAGONS.  That's what they used to put on the edges of the maps, the places that people had never gone before.  Complete with little pictures of demon possessed lizards breathing fire and spitting acid!  Humans are interesting really, at one point in the past we actually thought if you kept going in one direction for long enough, far-enough past the point where nobody had been before, you'd eventually come to a cliff and just fall off!  Silly really, but it does indicate one thing.  People are afraid of going where they have never been before.  Which is a smart way to be, really, when your talking about just surviving for as long as possible... but people weren't designed to just survive either, were we... So this brings us to the biggest dilema of our lives.  The truth is, we are not just afraid of going where you've never been before ... if you're honest ... the truth is ... your afraid AND COMPELLED to go there!  The question is, which is stronger?

The vast majority of the time, the fear wins out.  it twists our thoughts, actions, perceptions, logic and decisions to keep us on course to live.  It uses our very senses against us to covertly hid from us the evidence that could lead us to question that decision.  Just look at when people thought the world was flat.  You telling me that for hundreds of years people watched the ocean and Columbus was the FIRST GUY to notice the ships drop below the horizon??????  Nooooooo... lots of people noticed it, but they ignored the logical implications.  Chris on the other hand, decided on a different path.  The path of suicide.  The path of insanity.  The path of total laughable, fly-in-the-face-of-all-current-understanding.  People do this every now and then, Abraham Lincoln, Tesla, Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Newton, and hundreds of others.  If you think this stuff doesn't happen anymore, just google Cliff Young!

Ground breaking might be one option if you're going to go where no man has ever been before, but there is for most of us, another option.  Find someone who's been there before and talk to them.  In my case it's Patty and Brian.  Both have completed and IronMan in the past and both make my mountain of  insurmountable impossibility... well... surmountable.  If you want to build a business, find someone who has done it.  If you want to go to antartica, find someone who's been there.  If you want to go to the moon, start with NASA.  We live in an amazing time where people are doing incredible things all over the planet all the time!  The potential of one person to plug into thousands of incredible ground breakers has never been this big in the history of the world!!  And on top of that we've got the internet! There is nothing stopping you from crushing your mountain of insurmountable impossibility into tiny pieces and selling it on amazon for a million dollars except a decision to go for it.  Remember, you were born to be amazing, you are wonderfully and powerfully made, you have what it takes and the world needs you to go for it!!  There is no growth without risk!

Just think of what the view will look like when you look back from the top!

So, you thought it would be easy?

What do you do when things get really hard?  Do you act like things aren't as hard as they are, and fake it?  Do you start to blame other people?  Do you start to get quiet and unplug from people?  What happens when it turns out to be significantly harder to do an IronMan than you originally thought?  Where do you turn when getting your next promotion is flat out more work than you predicted?  How about when your grand training plan somehow get's off track?!  What about when your nutrition plan just simply is not cooperating and nothing seems to be working?  I tell you what, when your ironman event is late in the fall, like Cozumel ironman which happens in late November, there is going to be an issue that I failed miserably to predict.  I never saw this particular problem coming which is silly, really, since it's totally unavoidable and happens every year as surely as the sun rises.  And it's impact on my training plan is a subtle as a freight train to the face!  It's called sunlight, and we have less and less of it each day as the winter draws closer!

So what now, with less and less time each day to train, and with the weather getting colder and colder, what can I do?  Should I get angry because nobody warned me?  Should I quit?  Should I act like the nutrition will somehow just work itself out and refuse to show any need for help?  of course not, that would be totally and completely lame!!  HAHA!  The lameness is easy to see when it's somebody else's story, sure, but these are the things we do every day when it's our own story!  What do you do to hide yourself?  What are the things your not fully comfortable talking about or discussing?  Is it finances and money that makes you feel inadequate?  Maybe bosses or people you have a lot of respect for make you uncomfortable?  Well I say, you are flipping terrific exactly the way God made you and you should stop pretending because your cooler when you don't!

Here is the secret; you have incredible potential.  An astonishing amount of untapped ability, talent, skill, precision, and power all locked away in this thing called your future.  And you have all the keys you need to capture it all and never give any of it back.  We as humans however, have a hard time believing that we are awesome, we thing we are broken, weak, clumsy, ugly, fat, skinny, whatever.  And we do things to try to hide our weaknesses, and the things we do to hide are the things that end up stealing the future from us.  I am talking about failure, or exposure, or embarrassment.  These things are not things to be avoided, they are things to be sought out and charged into!!  Failure isn't what happens when you don't succeed, it's what happens JUST BEFORE you succeed.  You MUST FAIL in order to succeed!!  that is the truth.  So if you want to unlock all the phenomenal awesomeness that you have in your life, in your future, in your God made person, you've got to stop being afraid of the very things he uses to bring you to your best!


Today I am going biking with a pro biker.  This guy is a competitor in bike races.  He has like trophies and prize money and stuff, and I am going to feel like a pansy riding with him, but that is a lie.  The thing that tries to keep me where i am at says, "he is better than you", "your a loser", "don't waste his time", "he's going to think your pathetic".  HAHA all LIES!  the truth is, I will be a better rider the more time I spend with him and that is EXACTLY why the lies come in.  The lies are afraid of me reaching my full potential and want to keep me away from the things that will help me get there.

Today, and every day, is about slaying demons!  kill the things that want to kill your future, never let a single one live, don't even let them take another breath!!!  You are incredible, wonderfully, and powerfully made, and should be totally and uncompromisingly intolerant of the things that syphon away your strength and take away your potential and future.  Go get em and knock em down!  Go get uncomfortable and start improving yourself!!

When did this happen?

There is a cool event waiting for those of us who decide to change and make a difference in the way we live our lives.  It is an awesome thing that will happen to all of us, right when we least expect it.  It happened to me a couple days ago.  All the training, all the dieting, all the striving to make a difference in our level of health, so that we can live longer and be with our families for more years, as an example of a healthy person who is awesome!

When you start you are looking for results practically every few hours, or at least every day.  At least I did.  Each day after a workout I would check myself out, and look the same.  No difference yet champ. And the weeks roll by, no change.  Eventually though, you start to feel better.  More energy, more happy, laugh more, ect.  Still no change in how you look.  So eventually you stop looking, seriously, you just get over it.  You love working out because you feel great, you could never go back to not working out because you remember how shitty you felt all the time.  See you could never understand how crappy you feel, if you are unhealthy, until you are healthy.  Your normal is unhealthy, you think that is normal for everybody, but it's not.  Once your free of feeling crappy, you realize just how crappy it was!!!  This is true of everything too, not just health!  It's true of a crappy JOB, a crappy relationship, a crappy whatever.  People are afraid to step out at first, but once they do they realize how much better things could be!  ESPECIALLY when it comes to your fitness!!

Here is some truth, i know it may be difficult to swallow, but it's true none the less.  If you have bad days a lot, or you think your spouse is a pain in the neck, and hate your job.  ALL THOSE THINGS WOULD BE IMPROVED IF YOU GOT IN GOOD SHAPE!  the reason is because YOU would improve.  if you want your life to be better, then go make it better.

Anyway, once you are free from the crappyness of un-health, and you look back, you basically stop looking in the mirror because you realize it's not about how you look, it's about how you feel.  Then, nature, and God, have a fantastic surprise waiting for you.  The months roll by, training continues, and you accidentally glance in the mirror again and POOF!  out of know where you have suddenly become the person you always wanted to be, not because you changed your body, but because you changed your LIFESTYLE!!  POOF you suddenly are married to someone you love, not because they changed into someone lovable but because YOU changed into someone who could LOVE!  POOF your business is on a whole new level, not because the people on your team or in your life suddenly got better and more awesome, but because YOU changed into someone who can see the awesomeness already there in other people! 

If you go make a move in your life for just one reason, and you only get to pick one, this would be it for me.  Because I want to suddenly be surprised at the person I have become three months from now when i start to move.  6 months from now.   I am about 4 months into my training, not even fully there yet, i have 2 months to go and i am already astonished at what a difference has happened in my life.

Go get it, go get your reward, go get your true self, go become who you were ment to be!!!  You have everything you need already!!  You have what it takes!!