Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty-One

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My father was a serial entrepreneur. He owned at least six businesses that I know about during his lifetime. This is the ultimate entrepreneur’s book. “Built to Serve,” by Evan Carmichael is for those that want to find their purpose and become the leader they were born to be according to the subtitle. I would say that it delvers.

If you want to have your own business and use the Internet (especially Youtube) to generate business Evan is your guy.

Purpose

Before you can serve anyone you need to know your purpose. Evan presents you with excellent questions to ask yourself. He says your purpose is your “source of power.” He takes you through a process to discover your purpose.

You discover the who, the why and the how. First is your who. Who are you? Then you discover your why. Why do you want to do this? Finally, how are you gong to do it.

Your Who

Evan says that your “Who” is the starting point for everything. You start by figuring out what makes you happy. He gives you an excellent exercise for discovering this but he has also written another book called “Your One Word,” that he says will help even more.

In Built to Serve he presents you with five questions to help you discover your who.

Who was your favorite teacher growing up?
What is your favorite movie of all time?
What do you love most about how your parents raised you?
Which successful person do you look up to and why?
What lessons do you want your kids to have?

So once you have discovered your who and your core value, what then?

Your Why

Your why equals your purpose. It comes from your pain. I thought this was very enlightening. He says the way you turn the pain into something good “…is to turn that negative situation into a life-changing gift for yourself and others, to live a service life instead of a surface life, to give yourself a powerful reason to wake up in the morning and work on building something better for yourself and the people around you.” He says, “Your job is to face the pain, eat it, grow from it, and then create positivity and oxygen for others around you.”

Here is the difficulty which he attempts to answer and that is if you are still moored in the pain and have not yet overcome it then what good are you to someone else? He says, …”just the fact that you’re out there trying is an inspiration to others, and you also know more than you did when you started.”

Your How

You need to know how you saved yourself. Now if you haven’t done that then get busy. So you ask yourself, when did you decide something had to change? What is the first thing you did to start the change? Then How did you sustain the momentum? That is your recipe for success he says.

Your how is your passion. It is the work that you love. Evan says when you combine your Who with your Why with doing the work you love it is a hone run.

So don’t delay go get this book. It is one of the few books I have read that really could change your life if you are the right kind of person. Even if you don’t want to start a company it has some great insights about life in general. If fact, I would suggest you get it and read it twice.

Go Hiking and Get Your Life Back

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So you ask me, “How does that work?” Well, if you have been reading these odes to the mountains you will understand that is the easiest task. All it takes is a few hikes and your life changes.

How does it change? First, you go hiking. Before you went hiking you were so distracted by emails, Instagram, Tik Tok, and even Microsoft teams that you had lost your life. It had disappeared into the electronic Matrix. Once you get on the trails things settle down.

The Matrix

You might think that when you are looking at your phone instead of looking at the person across from you that you have your life firmly in hand. Or you are supposed to be exercising but you are sitting on a bench at the gym staring at your phone.

Your mind is in a Matrix composed of all the lures of the electronic universe. You have to escape it to see it for what it is, an addiction so heinous that it will grind you up and spit you out into a pile of wasted lives.

Busyness

Oh, you say that you have your phone under control and you are in charge of it. But you are going from one meeting to another, rushing from one office to another, catching a plane, a lunch date, or grabbing a bite on the run. You have lost your life in the busyness of it.

How long has it been since you had time, even ten minutes to sit and think? A long time I imagine.

The Solution

The best solution is to go hiking! Put your phone in your pack and only take it out to take a picture when you get to the top of a mountain. If you need to take a picture before you reach the top then you still need to keep it in your pack. Make it hard to get at.

Then you hiking, with trees surrounding you and the odor of pine needles or will strawberries wafting up to you. The breeze is on your face. You relax as you push yourself forward. You become one with nature. You get your life back.

A Little More

Maybe a quote from one of Eldredge’s other books, Epic. He says, “We have grown dull towards this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is a fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all?” “Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, clouds have made a rainbow in a circle around the sun…”

Go hiking, experience it all (maybe not Elephants), and get your life back!

Bookish Weapon Number Fifty

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There are lots of books that urge you to put the phone down and get off of social media. Eldridge does that in this book, but it is much more than that. Eldredge writes for Christians or those that are intrigued by Christianity, However, there are ideas in this book for everyone.

Distraction is the currency of this time. Focus or relaxation is hard to come in today’s world. It takes conscious effort. John Eldredge helps us in his book, “Get Your Life Back.”

Questions

Eldredge asks us to score our soul by answering the following questions:

Are you happy most of the time?
How often do you feel lighthearted?
Are you excited about your future?
Do you feel deeply loved?
When was the last time you felt carefree?

All good questions. If you did nothing but sit down and answer these you would get a lot out of the book.

One Minute Pause

In this book, Eldredge introduces the One Minute Pause. He has an App that gives you a choice of one, five, or ten minutes to pause. He suggests you do it twice a day. I use the ten-minute version once a day myself and love it.

He says, “The one minute pause can be used in many ways: for prayer or silence, to find your heart again, or to enjoy a moment of beauty.” Think about this. Taking one, five, or ten minutes once or twice a day to calm yourself can make a huge difference in your life.

Detachment

You have probably at least read about detachment. Buddhist Monks discuss the importance of detachment, but I was a little surprised that a Christian writer would tout its benefits. However, Eldredge adds a qualifier. He calls it “Benevolent Detachment.” The benevolent part means kindness he says. So we detach from what is burdening us without being unkind to others. So no “cynicism or resignation.” As Eldredge says, it is “something done in love.”

Eldredge goes on to discuss how God calls us to a carefree life. He sites a book I have reviewed here called, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” in which the author makes the case that you “can’t care about everything all the time.”

Drinking Beauty

This is the title of one of his chapters. I love it because he talks about nature. Eldredge is a fisherman and a game hunter who does a lot of hiking and climbing too I believe. Nature offers beauty to everyone.

St Augustine described it as “a plank in the waves of the sea.” “Beauty rescues,” says Eldredge. I was so happy to read this because it validates what I knew to be true by spending so much time hiking myself.

As usual, there is so much more in the book. A chapter on being kind to yourself and a chapter on spending time outdoors! So buy it! Read it!!

Go Hiking and Do Some Rethinking

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Hiking is a time when you can think about all sorts of things you have been putting off. Be honest. It is hard to find the time to just think.

So when you go into the mountains make sure you bring your brain along with you. It can be a great companion and you may learn all sorts of things.

Rethink Your Life

You can rethink anything, not just positive thinking discussed in the book. You can rethink your whole life. Have you thought about your life lately? Most people don’t think about their loge as whole until they are a little older, but it can be useful at any age.

Maybe during the first couple of miles, you think about your childhood. Then the next couple miles your teen years. Then the next couple your twenties and thirties. When you get to the top, you’re probably just starting to reach your forties unless of course you are much younger and have not reached that age yet. If you are older like me it will take all the way up and all the way down to get through your life.

Rethink Your Health

Are you doing everything you can to stay healthy and fit? Are you using any technology to help you? Did you know that according to Kelly McGonigal, “The average daily step count required to induce feelings of anxiety and depression and decrease satisfaction with life is 5,649 the typical American takes 4,774 steps per day.” Brian Johnson quoted that the other day. So are you using a Fitbit, Garmin, Suunto, or something else to track your steps? Why not?

How are you and sugar doing? Maybe with you, it isn’t sugar but chips or something salty. Quitting sugar was the biggest contributor to me dropping lots of body fat over the last year. You can climb a lot of mountains but if you are packing the sugar away it won’t help you much.

Rethink Anything

You get the idea. Use that hiking time to think about anything you want. Maybe it is your relationship or lack of one. Maybe it is your job or lack of one.

What a blessing it is to be so close to nature and able to use it to help you connect with yourself. So go hiking and rethink some things.

Bookish Weapon Number Forty-Nine

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Rethinking Positive Thinking

Have you ever had to rethink anything? What about something like gravity? Something that you just don’t think requires any rethinking. This book is like that. Who could imagine that positive thinking would invite any rethinking?

“Rethinking Positive Thinking,” by Gabriele Oettingen gets your attention. The subtitle is “Inside the New Science of Motivation.” Who doesn’t want to know about that? The question is what needs to be rethought? The author discusses the “cult of optimism” and how it is everywhere. The book was written in 2014. She sites “The Secret” and “Chicken Soup for The Soul,” and says that the idea that all we have to do is imagine what we want and it will magically appear leaves a lot to be desired.

Studies

Study after study after study. That is the first part of this book. The author and her compatriots used students in experiment after experiment to prove their ideas. They did studies with people of other age groups as well. She says she spent twenty years doing this research. So if you are someone who needs to see the proof, it is here.

There is a study involving women and their shoes. I thought that was an interesting one. Actually, there were a couple of them.

WOOP

All the studies ultimately resulted in a useful tool for you and me. The acronym is WOOP and it stands for Wish, Obstacles Outcome, and Plan. Simple and powerful and it is why Brian Johnson at the Optimize Me group picked it as one of the three best books of that genre.

Dreaming about pleasant outcomes isn’t enough, but it does lower your blood pressure. I bet you didn’t know that. So next time you think your blood pressure might be rising just think about winning the lottery.

Wish and Outcome

The first thing to get on paper is your wish. Your goal. Your vision. Get it down in detail. Maybe as Hal Elrod suggests do a ten-year vision for each area of your life. With the WOOP process you “disengage from wishes that aren’t practical.” Focus only on realistic goals!

Why is the outcome you want? It might be easier if you think of the outcome as the benefits you will receive if you attain your wish. Think about these in detail. Include all your senses or as many as possible. Feel the sand between your toes if your wish is to walk a Hawaiian beach.

Obstacle and Plan

Now here is where all the studies paid off. After you have your wish all settled you need to focus on the obstacle or obstacles you will be facing. You need to focus on the negative present reality along with the fantasy of the big wish. The author stresses that it is important to focus on internal obstacles and not the external ones. Do that in the right way and Boom, success. Well, almost.

You do need one more thing. A plan. How are you going to get from point A to point B? What can you do to overcome your first obstacle? She calls this the “If, then” plan. Say to yourself if X (the obstacle) occurs you will do Y (overcome the obstacle). I would also add the importance of changing strategies if you get feedback that your plan is not working then adjust your strategy.

The App

Yes, there is an App for WOOP. They have one for students and adults. This is smart. More of these books should have Apps that help people through a new process.

You can find the APP at woopmylofe.org. But I say buy the book too!! There is a lot more in it. Not just studies.

Go Hiking Because The Discipline Will Equal Freedom

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Hiking every weekend takes discipline. There are some weekends when I would rather stay home in bed. However, once I am on the trail I feel completely free.

That makes sense. Once you take action you set things in motion and it changes your brain.

Before

This is the time when it feels better to stay in bed. It is when you need to use Jocko’s “Binary Code.” Yes or No! Get out of bed or don’t get out of bed. If you are disciplined you will get out of bed. Your mind will tell you it’s cold, it will be wet, you will be miserable. Not only that but your knees are hurting and you should probably rest them.

It doesn’t end there. If you are old like me then your mind really has become good at messing with you. If the little adversary in my mind is feeling particularly strong it might tell me I’m too old to go hiking. It might ask me why someone my age is doing something that only younger people should do.

During

The battle doesn’t end just because you were able to get out of bed and get ready. No. You get to the trailhead and it is pouring down rain or snow. You sit in your car and the mind starts asking those questions again. What do you think your thing to prove? Who are you trying to impress? Who do you think you are? Why would a reasonable person go get wet on purpose?

But you overcome that. You turn off that part of your mind. You get out of the car, put your pack on your back and move! It is slightly easier now. You have taken another action. But it is hard at first. Just getting going, but it gets easier and easier mentally.

After

No matter how convinced you were you had no business climbing a mountain that day, when it is all over and you jog your last 100 yards down the trail, you have such a feeling of accomplishment and freedom it is hard to describe.

After you have changed back into your street shoes, taken off your pack, and settled into the driver’s seat the sensation hits you that you have done more by 8:00 AM than most people will do all day. So be disciplined about it and go regularly in the rain and in the snow.