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?

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.

Learning Curve or Curve Ball?

You Learn Something New Everyday

That’s the old saying. But do we? Really?

What did you learn yesterday?
The day before?
Last week?
Last month?

Are you even paying enough attention to know what you could have learned today?

Learning is the key to success.
Learning is different from knowing.
In fact it takes not knowing – a beginners mind to really learn.
What have you learned lately?

What can you do today to make you better tomorrow? Learn something!
What was the last book you read? The last seminar you went to? The last teaching MP3 or CD you listened to? What can you do today to make you better tomorrow? Learn something!

Currently I am reading 3 books. Last year I read 5 books, attended 3 seminars and listened to numerous CD’s. Of course, some were better than others, but I learned something from each of them.

A few weeks ago I found myself in a mini sales seminar. I could say it was good, but that would be a lie. The truth is they were some of the worst ideas I have ever heard about selling. A couple of people walked out, but I stayed. Why? I was convinced there was something I could learn or that would be useful to me. And there was.
Every situation you are in is an opportunity to learn something. The BIG question is are you curious enough to find it and resourceful enough to turn it into learning?

We live in a I want it now, instant gratification, I can’t wait, just get ‘er done world. Problem is real success doesn’t work like that. Ask anyone who is very successful they will all tell you the same thing, it took 10 years of hard, determined work to achieve their overnight success. If you are stuck looking for the magic bullet then finding and leveraging the learning in every situation may be impossible.

Unwilling to work that hard or persist for that long? Then you are working at the wrong thing. The only way to achieve true success is to be willing to do the work for the sake of the work, not for the sake of the future or the money or the achievement. Working for the sake of working is the sweet spot for real learning and is called Mastery.

What is the business application for learning? The more you learn and grow the more valuable you are to those around you. The more value you can bring to the table the more you can get paid. Learning equals earning.

What will you learn today?