Stay on Offense Climb Mountains

Attacking Adversity

Bookish Weapon Number Seven

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In his excellent book, “The Miracle Equation,” Hal Elrod devotes an entire chapter on my favorite idea from his book. That is a lot of space so this post may be a little longer than others. Let’s take a closer look at his chapter four – Becoming Emotionally Invincible.”

“How is that even possible,” I thought, as I read the title to this chapter. Who has that kind of Superman power? According to Elrod, we all do, but he certainly has developed it in a way others have not.

The Miracle Equation, review by Bill Montgomery

The Miracle Equation, review by Bill Montgomery

It’s All Your Fault

The way I see it is, at the core, we are talking about personal responsibility here. Elrod makes a statement that is worth quoting. Actually he makes a lot of them and I will be quoting and quoting and quoting. Here is the first. “Every painful emotion the you have ever felt, are feeling now, and will ever feel in the future was, is, and will be self-created by you and is completely optional.” That last part is tough. Optional? You feel what you feel don’t you?

Hal says that we all “have the power to stop self-creating negative emotions and live free from emotional pain…that is what it means to be become emotionally invincible.”

Rules

Have you read, “The Five Second Rule,” written by Mel Robbins? Good book. You should read it, but it is not the rule we will be discussing here. There are lots of rules. Sometimes it is hard to keep them all straight.

Hal Elrod’s rule is the five minute rule. He says he came up with this rule after a car accident as he lay in his hospital bed. The light bulb moment was that he made a decision to accept his new reality unconditionally and it only took him five minutes to come to this acceptance. Then he remembered the five minute rule his old boss had taught him that states the you can complain for five minutes about something that went wrong, but that’s it.

So the idea is when something happens like breaking your leg. You can bitch and moan for five minutes and then you need to accept the reality of it. Hal’s boss said the when the five minutes were up you needed to say, “Can’t change it” out loud. Isn’t that powerful? How many times has something happened to you that you had no control over changing and you got all upset for hours? Days? Months? This is a wake up call for all of us.

Let It Go

You are gong to have positive and negative emotions your whole life. Any tools you can muster to manage the negative ones helps you. This is a bookish weapon the helps you stay on offense.

Hal says, “..”all emotional pain that we have ever experienced, are experiencing now, or will ever experience in the future is self created by our resistance to our reality.” He goes on to say, “…it is the degree to which we resist our reality-the degree to which we wish or want something that is out of our control to be different-that determines the degree of emotional pain we experience.”

The idea is to let it go. You don’t have to like it, but let it go. Besides, you have probably heard a version of the story about the farmer who had something unfortunate happen to him and is told by his friends that this is so bad. It turns out in the story the it was actually good. Then something else would happen that looked good and it turned out to lead to something bad. Hal says, “You can’t accurately judge an experience as “good” or “bad” in the moment.”

Hal asks how we can tell if something is out of our control and can’t be changed. It is anything that has already happened. So he says to accept life before it happens. Not just what has happened, but what will happen. Now when are you going to start using this?

Bookish Weapon Number Six

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Eric Greitens book, “Resilience,” was one of the very best books I had ever read on the subject when it was published in 2015. Please read it if you are struggling in life. Once again, this book has so many bookish weapons in it choosing just one is difficult. However, there is a concept discussed that when understood gives the reader a powerful weapon.

Resilience, review by Bill Montgomery

Resilience, review by Bill Montgomery

Feelings, Action, Identity

Everyone talks about how they are feeling. I feel sad, angry, hurt, etc. Greitens points out that in our culture we focus on our feelings first. Then those feelings lead to action. We get angry so we yell at someone. We are hurt so we isolate ourselves. That shapes our identity and we become someone that yells at people, gets angry easily or avoids relationships.

Greitens says this is the wrong way to look at it. Putting feelings first gets us in trouble. Feelings are always going to be there. We just need to put them in their proper place.

Identity, Action, Feelings

Instead of focusing on what you are feeling, ask yourself who you want to be. Then you take action based on that. The action will impact the way you feel. “Your emotions can be harnessed and your feelings trained.”

Greitens discusses Plato’s horses and chariot story where the horses represent our emotions so if we allow emotions to take over they run wild.

It Isn’t Easy

What a great bookish weapon this concept is for us. It is not easy, however. Greitens says, “This all takes daily attention. You never win an award for mastering emotions and call it a day.” He goes on to say, “Decide who you want to be. Act that way. In time you will become the person you resolve to be.”

Wise advice! This book is filed with so much and I certainly recommend you read it. My look at one or two ideas from a book is not meant to be a review, but just a quick look.

Go Hiking Every Week

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Most hikers, even avid hikers, don’t climb a mountain every week. At most they might hike once every couple weeks. That isn’t too bad if you are hiking all year long, but let’s consider the advantages of weekly hiking.

Climb More Mountains

This is pretty obvious. If you are going every week you can climb more in less time. There are so many mountains here in the Picnic Northwest that it is hard to exhaust them.

Enter the hypocrite. Even though I go hiking every week from March through September I do not climb different mountains. I have my favorites and keep gong back to those over and over and over again. Especially in March, April and May when I climb Mt Si again and again.

Your Legs Will Thank You

Consistent weekly hiking will build your legs and lungs. If you wait too long between hikes your legs are going to be sore constantly. It builds your endurance. Your ability to exercise for long periods of time so then you are ready for anything, even the Zombie Apocalypse.

This is an appropriate time to advocate for a little self care. Please, after your hike be sure to use a foam roller on your legs as well as stretching them. This may seem common sense but it is not. In fact, an epsom salt bath or ice bath can help early in the season when your legs have not adapted.

It Becomes A Habit

Now I have to admit that when hiking day rolls around I don’t always “feel” like going. Maybe it is raining. Maybe it’s snowing. It is probably cold. However, going weekly establishes a habit. Then of course you need to establish some “rules” for yourself. Mine are always begin the hike before sunrise, go hiking no matter what the weather happens to be, and always time yourself.

Maybe I should qualify that last rule. Yes, always time yourself, because you want to get better and to get better you have to measure your progress. However, there may be a day on the trail when you want to stop and take a picture or you just decide to take it a little easy. That’s ok. I approve! Now, go hiking every week!

Bookish Weapon Number Five

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Including this bookish weapon is presumptuous, because the author, Jordan B. Peterson, of “12 Rules For Life,” is a fan of long discussions rather than the few minutes of a talk show or a few hundred words in a post like this. However, I think that this one bookish weapon is worth the risk. Please read the whole book as well as one of his other books, “Maps of Meaning.”

12 Rules for Life, review by Bill Montgomery

12 Rules for Life, review by Bill Montgomery

Focus On You

The bookish weapon I wish to explore from Peterson’s book is rule number two in this book. It states, “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.” If that isn’t going on offense I don’t know what is. This section of the book is as long as some books so we are going to focus on one aspect of it.

Peterson points out that, “You are important to other people as well as yourself. You are therefore morally obliged to take care of yourself.”  It would seem that this is obvious but it is not. Most of us do things to ourselves that we would not do to others, because we figure that we belong to ourselves and can do what ever we want with our possession.

Your Best Friend and Who Owns You

Who is your best friend? It better be yourself. You can’t love someone else until you love yourself. If you accept that then what are you going to do about it or stop doing? But if you say I hate myself so I am going to punish me, then consider that you might not really own yourself.

Consider what Peterson says about this:

‘“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” According to this philosophy, you do not simply belong to yourself. You are not simply your own possession to torture and mistreat. This is partly because your Being is inexorably tied up with that of others, and your mistreatment of yourself can have astonishing consequences for others.”’

Your Future Self

Peterson has also said that those “others” include your future selves. If you treat yourself in a way that hurts them it doesn’t turn out well long term. He says, “You are a community of people across time.” This idea is so valuable. It has helped me gain a new perspective on my day to day decisions.

So maybe you are someone that really doesn’t like yourself very much. Then consider that it is not just you that is involved. It is other people and your future selves. This will definitely keep you on offense. Keep rule number two in mind as you go about your day.

Go Hiking In The Snow

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When the season changes and it snows or the snow just hasn’t melted off the mountain yet you need to know how to handle it. It mainly comes down to gear and staying away from areas that are avalanche prone. So this piece is for those that have never hiked in the snow before.

Snow Gear

It can be dangerous if you so not have the right gear. First of all you need hiking boots. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not. I see people in tennis shoes all the time, yes, even in the snow. A friend of mine climbed to Camp Muir on Rainier in his Gucci boots. Yes, that happened!

Then you need some kind of traction device for your boots. There are three. First Yaktrax, which are the minimum necessary. They consist of rubber and wire and are the least expensive. You pull them over your boots. The next choice is Microspikes. These are similar to Yaktrax but have tiny spikes which give you much better traction and they las much longer than Yaktrax. Finally, you could get a set of crampons but that is probably not necessary unless you are climbing a mountain like Rainier.

Be sure to dress in layers so that you can peel them off. It is easy to overdress, get wet from sweat and then get cold quick.

So there you have it. All you need to enjoy the snow. However, some of you might decide to cut corners or just forget to bring something.

Quick Story

I climb Mt Si every week from March through May. There is usually still snow and ice on the mountain in March, but it is not an avalanche area and pretty safe. That is why I stay with it for three months until the snow melts elsewhere.

Last year I headed out the door with what I thought was all my gear, but I had forgotten my Microsipkes. I did not realize I didn’t have them until I reached the trailhead. So do I just go home or see how far I can go. The snow was not significant so I thought I would give it a shot. Going up was pretty easy. Keep that in mind. I knew this already, but it was so easy going up. Once I started down I felt pretty smug. I had gotten to the top without any traction. Then suddenly, I slipped, my feet went out from under me and I went down. As I always do (yes I have fallen before), I laid there for a few minutes to see if I had broken anything. As it turned out I broke a rib. So the moral to the story is make sure you have a check list of items to bring with you ad use it.

Life and Going Hiking In The Snow

So it is pretty easy to apply this to life. If you do not have the right tools to do a job then it either won’t get done as quickly, as well, or it will end in disaster. Be prepared! As Jocko Willink says, “One is none and two is one.” I take two head lamps on every hike, because I begin hiking before sunrise and don’t want to run out of batteries in the middle of a dark mountain.

It is also a good example of preparation matching the challenge. If you are going hiking in the snow then you need to be more prepared than when it is dry ground. There are gradients of preparation too. If it is raining you have to demonstrate more caution when negotiating slippery areas. So keep all this mind when you face challenges and of course go hiking!

Bookish Weapon Number One

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Let’s look at three powerful statements that taken together are one Bookish Weapon. But first, bookish weapons are everywhere because books are readily available especially in the area of self-help. Today’s bookish weapon is from “The Resilience Factor,” by Karen Reivich, PH.D. and Andrew Shatte, PH.D. This book really helped me train my mind.

The Resilience Factor, review by Bill Montgomery

The Resilience Factor, review by Bill Montgomery

Do you know your ABCs?

They are the basics for handling adversity. You could say this is the ground zero bookish weapon. The A stands for adversity. That one is pretty easy. What about B & C? First (or I guess it is second) take C. C is for consequences, feelings, and behavior.

Most often when adversity happens we feel something, do something, or both. Stimulus – response. Pavlov’s dog, right? Often we get wrapped up in the consequences without even realizing how we got there. It is much more complicated than that and we can have much more control over our feelings and behavior. That brings us to the B in ABC.

“B” stands for Beliefs

This is what you believe about the adversity. Let’s say you get a flat tire in the morning on the way to work. Is it an inconvenience or is it going to ruin your whole day? Well, if you have a belief that the beginning of a day sets the tone for the whole day, then maybe it will ruin your day. Remember, your beliefs determine your consequences, feelings, and behavior.

The authors do point out that sometimes, like when a bear is about to attack you, or your pet gets run over by a car. The emotions are triggered by the event and not beliefs.

Use this knowledge to identify beliefs and help you clarify what happened. Discover the belief that triggered your emotion. Now, challenge it.

Bookish Weapons

Relvich and Shatte give you three statements that help you be resilient in real time:

A more accurate way of seeing this is…
That’s not true because…
A more likely outcome is…and I can…

As I mentioned these three statements are a Bookish Weapon themselves. They are powerful and force you to think through the situation and my favorite part of the book.

There are also what they call Iceberg Beliefs. I think Tony Robbins would call them Global Beliefs like “Life is a struggle.” They can support you or not. The question to ask is, “What is this belief costing me?

Stay on offense!