Pain or Pain? – You Choose

Life is painful.   There, I said it.

Everyday we have some sort of pain that shows up:  emotional, physical, mental, something.  Consequently we spend much of our time running from pain.  We hire therapists, life and business coaches, or consultants to help us figure out how to get out of pain and stay there.  We self medicate with alcohol, food, tobacco, prescription drugs, sometimes even illegal drugs.  Coaching alone is over a billion dollar a year business. Add to that what people are spending on therapists, counselors, consultants and doctors and that’s a ton of money spent trying to get out of pain.  I can’t say I blame people.

The problem is we are looking in the wrong direction for relief or freedom.

Some of you know I do Crossfit.  Crossfit is, in my opinion, the most physically and mentally demanding fitness program in the world.   I have been an elite athlete for many years.  In my youth, I was a swimmer and good enough to earn a scholarship at an NCAA Division I school. After college I started playing women’s rugby and was at one point just a step away from the US National Team. Currently I can deadlift 355 pounds.  Swimming, rugby, deadlifts?  I know something about physically demanding.  I know something about pain. Swimming is one of the most physically and mentally demanding sports and to succeed requires some real fortitude. But those13 years facedown in a pool, and 20 years of knocking heads on the rugby pitch don’t hold a candle to the demands of Crossfit.

But this post is not about Crossfit, swimming, rugby or deadlifts.   It is about what I have learned from Crossfit.  From Crossfit I learned what true freedom really is.  We mistakenly think freedom is a life free of pain – pain about money, pain about relationships, pain about what is missing or what is happening in our lives.  But true freedom is not about any of that. YES, life is hard, it is painful.

True freedom is not a life void of pain, but the ability to choose your pain.

All the time, money and resources we spend trying move away from pain is really wasted energy.  Eliminating pain is impossible. In the excruciating physical and mental pain of Crossfit I have found true freedom: the ability to choose my pain.

Want freedom? Answer this:  What pain can you choose that will free you from the shackles of your pain?

The Problem with Goals

The problem with goals is we often achieve them.

We use our smarts, our will, our cunning, and our business acumen to do what we set out to do.    We will often stay the course to achieve something that may no longer be relevant or important in the big picture.  We let our goal of achievement get the better of us when a change in course, a completely different strategy or goal would have been so much better.

It happens all the time:  While single mindedly focusing on our goals we miss something that comes along that would have been so much better.  Sometimes we don’t even see it, other times we see it and disregard it.    Why?  Because we are determined to make that goal, DARN IT!   Now don’t get me wrong, getting things done and keeping your word are important, but not at the expense of having a better life, making more money, or having more fun.  I have to remind my clients of this all the time.  The question for you is…what goals are you holding on to that are limiting what you can achieve?

I know, I know. The Knowing Myth

I have been studying high performers—and low performers—for years.

The question that comes up consistently is:

What sets the high performers apart from everyone else?

What are the qualities and characteristics that make some people break out and perform beyond what anyone thought possible? What keeps other people from doing great things?

The so-called experts have concluded that the high performers believe in themselves more, are more persistent, perhaps more talented, more focused, have a better work ethic, etc.

This expert believes that while those things may be have some influence, they are not the secret sauce of achieving high performance. The most impactful difference between high achievers and everyone else is that the high performers are able to navigate and take action in the unknown better than their less-curious counterparts.

Low achievers are constantly stopped by the need to know before they even try. They ask themselves questions like: What will happen? How will the entire thing turn out? How can I start when I can’t see how it will go? Because knowing the answer to any of these questions is impossible, they become stuck in the illusion that they have to know in order to do. Inside this double bind, they are often unable to try. The trap of having to know keeps them small.

In contrast, high achievers take action in the face of uncertainty. Navigating the unknown and being able to act in spite of it requires a high level of curiosity.

What is curiosity? How would you define it? We’ve asked thousands of people this exact question, and all the answers are surprisingly similar. People say curiosity is something like: the need to know, looking for the answer. True curiosity is none of these things. It is being comfortable in the unknown, not having to have an answer, and, oh my goodness! not having to be right.

What do you have to know? And how is that stopping you from taking action?

Where in your life do you have to be right? And how is that keeping you from being the best you can be?

This way of being curious is directly related to innovation. What if Thomas Edison let the unknown stop him? Would we have electricity? It took an immense amount of curiosity for Edison to continue the quest.

What about Sony and the Walkman? They really had no hard evidence that the public wanted it. As it turns out, the Walkman was the first step toward the MP3 player—technology that changes our world. There was no way Sony could have predicted how that would turn out.

George Martinez used curiosity at Sterling Bank and changed the face of small business banking in Houston, Texas. While he was the chairman and CEO of Sterling Bancshares, Martinez grew the bank from $3 million to more than $3.5 billion in assets. During his 32 years there, he was instrumental in taking the bank public and achieving record profits for 15 consecutive years. Martinez used his curiosity to navigate his talent management and staff situations and empowered all his employees to do the same, producing record profits at the same time.

The single most important skill people need to break out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary is the skill of curiosity, which allows people to gracefully navigate the unknown. Curiosity is the central tool in our business practice.

We use our curiosity to find yours. Once you find your curiosity, your brilliance can emerge. Applying curiosity to your brilliance allows you to bring it to the world, which is what the high performers are doing all the time, they just aren’t telling.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Is Will Smith so wise because he is successful, or did he become so successful because he is so wise?

Need a little inspiration?

The best pre-game speech in sports history.