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Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-Seven

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Garrett White is the author of “WarriorBook.” I was introduced to it by enrolling in his challenge, which was very useful for me. Check out Wake Up Warrior online. He focuses on those men who have a business and family. He helps them have it all in Body, Being and Balance. It sure is a bookish weapon!

So what is the WarriorBook all about? First of all it is 512 pages long so I am only going to touch the surface of this monster. It spends a lot of time discussing “The Pit.” The pit is where you are when things are not going so well. He also talks a lot about the Drift and Shift model. Then he discusses “The Core,” “The Keys,” and “The Game.”

The Pit

Garrett says that “At some point you will find yourself in the Pit of Despair playing the Sedation game. Your Liberation will come through your ability to hear and act on the Voice inside of you.” This is a whole chapter discussing boredom and burnout, and Garrett’s own experience in the Pit. He gets pretty real including fights with his wife, divorces and financial problems.

I liked his explanation of “Sedation,” which is using alcohol, drugs or whatever to numb yourself. I thought “sedation” was an excellent term for this.

Men

This is a book for men and about men. Here is a quote from the book that will gibe you an idea about where he is coming from. He is talking about the depolarization of couples and one of his points is “We don’t even know what being a man is anymore because everywhere we turn men are being disappointed, disjointed, and disconnected. They’re being told, “Shut up, go get the money, don’t talk about your feelings, and just so you know, we don’t need you because we are the same.”

So Garrett got things rolling with the Warrior programs. He figured he was the one that needed to do it. To give men a chance to have it all.

Questions

Here are some questions Garrett has you answer that might just help you sort things out a a man:

Is your life working?
What does living mean?
What does it mean for me to ultimately have it all?
What do I want my life to look like?
What do I want as a man?
Are you ready to pay the necessary price?

Body, Being, Balance, Business

One of the things Garrett hits hard is the importance of hitting your four “Core.” These are the above. Body – Fitness plus fuel (diet and exercise), Being – Meditation and Focus, Balance – Partner/Posterity, Business – Discover and Declare.

Then he says ask more questions:
Am I winning? Am I winning the game of life? Is it worth it to play? (Huge question) What are the targets I am searching to hit today, this week, this month, this quarter? How do I know I am winning? How do I simplify my life down to a game of metrics?

This book is available on audio I think. However, a search on Amazon does not turn it up. You might have to take one of his challenges to get it.

Go Hiking And Develop Your Attributes

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Yes, by now if you have been reading these tributes to hiking you know what I m going to say. Hiking will help you develop your attributes.

It doesn’t take much skill to hike. You just need to know how to put one foot in front of another. It is different from climbing or mountaineering in that way. However, it does take some strong attributes. Plus, if you don’t know the BEARS you need to buy my hiking course which will be linked to as soon as it is available.

Discipline

It takes strong discipline to hike a mountain every week. Remember, discipline is different that self- discipline. Discipline means understanding what it takes to achieve your goal (the top of the mountain or doing it every week) and being “steadfast” in executing.

Week after week, month after month you climb a mountain. Not the same mountain but a mountain. You always reach the top. That’s discipline!

Perseverance

As Rich Diviney says in “The Attributes,“ “If courage is the ability to effectively move through fear, challenge, and discomfort, then perseverance is the ability to keep doing it over and over.” Hiking week after week fits that description.

Many times you might not even feel like getting out of bed to go hiking. It is nice and warm in your bed and you would like just a little more sleep. But no, you get up and go. Again and again and again!

Narcissism

This attribute drives us to take risks and get noticed. So it helps us achieve our potential. A good thing, right? Well, it is sort of like Goldilocks and The Three Bears. It has to be just right.
Too much narcissism and you become easily offended. You can’t take criticism and your self-esteem is usually low. People will catch on pretty fast and it will be over for you.

Use it when you go hiking to help you set that big goal. A mountain you haven’t climbed or a climbing record for a certain mountain. In any case go hiking!

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-Six

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“The Attributes,” by Rich Diviney will teach you a lot about things you thought you already knew. Things that you can use in the fight. There were two examples in the book that took me by surprise. Accountability and Narcissism.

I focus first on these because I found them most interesting. After those I will look at some others.

Accountability

There are twenty-five Attributes in the book, so why start with this one? It is because discovered I was very low in it. I thought I understood what it meant, but then Diviney explained that one of the things that someone who is accountable doesn’t do is be a mediator.

He explains by saying that someone who is a mediator will get an order from the boss and then go tell his subordinates that this is the new order and he doesn’t necessarily agree with it but it is whet the boss wants. That is being a mediator and is bad. You should rather own that order like it was your own.

Narcissism

My first reaction was that you would not want a Narcissist on your team, but I was wrong.

The author points out that everybody has a degree of narcissism in them and a certain amount of it is a good thing. It is only when it gets out of hand that it becomes a negative. You need a decent dose of it to get yourself to take on a challenge. Otherwise you wouldn’t try.

Resilience

The best story in the book is the one about Hank. He lost both his legs in war. When he wakes up in the hospital and realizes he has no legs he says to himself, ”I’m going to be fine. Grab the paper towels.” Apparently his mother had taught him not to cry over spilt milk. He had dropped a bottle of milk and it splattered all over the floor. His mother told him to “Get the paper towels.” That stuck with him.

If you are high in resilience then maybe you would react like Hank. Hank also says, “Getting over the little tragedies in daily life is how you get over the big tragedies.” He says he became resilient before he lost his legs.

Discipline

You probably think you know all about discipline. You read Jocko Willink’s book “Discipline Equals Freedom.” You didn’t, well read it then. Anyway, I thought there was just one kind of discipline, self-discipline. It turns out I was wrong again. Diviney explains that self-discipline is not eating the cookie, overcoming emotions and weaknesses, but discipline is about “accomplishing external goals.”

The other thing is that self-discipline is a skill and discipline is an attribute! As he says, “Discipline is the determined ability to remain focused until goals are accomplished.” That is huge. I never realized the difference for some reason.

Conscientiousness

Ok, this is the last one. I don’t need to re-write the book. However, Diviney tells another story about a man named Chris that displayed this characteristic. It is “an amalgam of traits and behaviors. Persistence, thoroughness, and predictability are key parts of a conscientious personality, as are resourcefulness, energy, and planning.”

Chris was a Navy SEAL going through BUDs. Divine says he volunteered for everything. He was always looking to do more. In his childhood he learned that you should always be looking to help. This carried into adulthood. His philosophy served him in civilian life as well when he became a SWAT team commander. His men figured, “If the boss is always looking for something to do, the theory goes, maybe I should too.”

Remember, there are 25 attributes in the book. Don’t miss ay of them. Read it!

Go Hiking and Get Beyond Order

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How do you get beyond order when you go hiking? Simple, as Jordan B. Peterson has said, nature is chaos. You can’t get much further from order than that.

Getting into the wild is, well, wild! As I write this I am planing a hike in a place known for lots of bears. When you’re out there in the woods, the bears and the cougars are the dragons in your world.

Lions, Tigers, Bears and Dragons

Here in North America there arena’t many lions or tigers unless you include Texas. Texas is the exception. I was going to say you wouldn’t find any real dragons in North America but when I think about Texas I am not so sure. After all doesn’t Tim Kennedy live in Texas?

Yes, I am digressing a bit. It happens when I talk about dragons. Peterson often tells a story of a dragon under a bed somewhere. He says we should kill the dragon when it’s small before it gets so big it can eat you. Good idea for sure. But with bears in the woods you actually want to stay away from the little ones because mom is usually close by.

Whistling In the Dark

It isn’t really dark when I hike before sunrise because I wear a headlamp. I tell myself that the bright light will scare the Sasquatches, bears and cougars away. So I Googled that and it says,
“Bears aren’t typically scared of bright lights because bears naturally have no negative association with bright light and don’t see it as a threat.” So much for that theory. I really wished I hadn’t looked for the information.

What’s left? Whistling! Noise does scare bears away. I am not so sure about cougars. I don’t think anything scares a cougar. If it’s hungry it just wants to eat you. I am not going to Google for an answer. Cougars scare me more than bears.

So go hiking, face real danger and then come home and the little dragon under your bed will seem like nothing.

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-Five

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Is “Beyond Order” a Bookish Weapon? Of course it is, because in gives you more tools to fight adversity. Most of these tools are concerning how you think about things. They are structured in twelve rules about life.

Let’s look at the first rule in the book which is “Do not Carelessly Denigrate Social Institutions Or Creative Achievement.” Of course Jordan makes a comprehensive argument as to why you should not do this. There are eleven more rules like this. Actually there are many more rules, but you need to read his first book for those.

Rule 1

In this summary of the book I am not going to spend lots of time on each rule, but I think I need to briefly discuss each one. Well, no! So I will just convey what I liked the most about a few of them or the most interesting ideas from my perspective.

The first tidbit I came across was when Peterson says that his experience from years of psychological practice taught him that “people depend on constant communication with others to keep their minds organized.” That observation is fascinating to me since I spend most of my time alone.

The second thing that got my attention was on page nine. He lists a series of questions he asks his clients such as “Do they have friends and a social life? A stable and satisfying intimate partnership?” And on and on. Based on my answers to the questions I am “insufficiently embedded in the interpersonal world and in danger of spiraling downward psychologically because of that.” That was not encouraging.

Rule 2

The second rule is “Imagine Who You Could Be and then Aim Single-Mindedly At That.” Two points noticed. He says, “By accepting life’s suffering therefore evil maybe overcome,” and “That which you most need to find will be found where you least wish to look.” He goes on to discuss Harry Potter and how that whole story fits in to all this.

Finally, he says, “You need to know where you are, or you will not be able to draw a straight line from your starting point to your destination. You need to know where you are going, or you will drown in uncertainty, unpredictability, and chaos, and starve for hope and inspiration.” That really sounds like my life, at least from time to time.

Rule 3

“Do Not Hide Unwanted Things In The Fog.” In this chapter he discusses things like “willful blindness,” and “Failing to look under the bed when you strongly suspect a monster is lurking there is not an advisable strategy.” That is so good!

He talks about what the fog actually is. “You have become distrustful even of hope itself, as your hope has been repeatedly shattered (and that is the very definition of hopelessness). You are afraid of yourself and other people. You are in the fog. “Imagine. More precisely, that you are so afraid that you will not allow yourself even to know what you want.”

Rule 4

“Notice That Opportunity Lurks Where Responsibility Has Been Abdicated.” (Ok, this one and maybe one more rule) Here Peterson discusses Peter Pan. He says that Peter has come to some conclusions like not wanting to grow up. “Better to remain king of the Lost Boys. Better to remain lost in fantasy with Tinkerbell, who provides everything a female partner can provide – except that she doesn’t exist.”

“You must sacrifice something of your manifold potential in exchange for something real in life. Time at something. Discipline yourself. Or suffer the consequence.And what is the consequence? All the suffering in life, with none of the meaning. Is there s better description of hell?”

And what about “willful blindness”mentioned earlier? He says, “It is a terrible temptation, as it allows for the sequestration into the future the trouble we face today. That would are fine if trouble did not compound, like interest – but we all know it does.”

There is so much more. Please read the book!!

Rule 11

Yes, I know, I skipped a bunch of rules, but I am not trying to rewrite the book. Rule eleven is “Do Not Allow Yourself To Become Resentful, Deceitful, or Arrogant.” I have so much underlined here it is hard to choose what to share.

I think this plea summarizes this rule: “Perhaps you could live in a manner who’s nobility, grandeur, and intrinsic meaning would be of sufficient import that you could tolerate the negative elements of existence without becoming so bitter as to transform everything around you into something resembling hell.”

Now, go get the book!

Go Hiking and Control The Chatter

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In the adjacent book review I left one important thing out that is brought up in the book. The importance of getting into “nature” to help you take control of the Chatter. The author discusses enjoying a sunrise as “soft fascination” as opposed to voluntary attention. Voluntary attention can be exhausted. He says nature draws our involuntary attention because it is “rife with soft fascinations.”

There were studies done on this that the author discusses and you can read the book if you need more proof. One is mentioned below. Nature reduces rumination. Isn’t the amazing?

Climb a Mountain and Control the Chatter

Just climbing a mountain helps you to keep rumination at bay. Less negative chatter enters your mind when you hike. I knew it made a difference but I had never seen anything to validate my view.

One of the things I find myself doing while hiking is repeating mantras. It keeps me going and is like a meditation. Then when the sun comes up it is so awe inspiring.

Studies

One study that was done in 2016 had one group of people watch a video of streets with no trees and another watch one with trees. The ones that were exposed to the “most views of nature showed a 60 percent increase in their ability to recover from the stress…”

So if you can watch a video and chill out then getting out in the woods will be even better! Now there is no excuse to not get our in nature.

Conclusion

The author says, “Collectively the findings demonstrate that nature provides humans with a tool for caring for our inner voice from the outside in, and the longer we are exposed to nature, the more our health improves.”

Go hiking!