davemarr

Do people change?

This is an unresolvable age-old question on the nature of man – Can a person change the essence of who he is or is he just fulfilling his already existing potential, for good or bad, large or small? As a coach and mentor to many a young man, this isn’t an idle question. In my lifelong epistemological search for practical meaning and here in this penultimate chapter on 2018 goals (BOOM! – I  just used epistemological and penultimate in the same sentence! Now me go back to small wordses), it’s a question we must confront – Can I change my trajectory?

Can people change? Yes. It is possible to make significant change to a disposition that has been set from childhood. There are 2 times in one’s life when change to one’s fundamental nature is easier – 1) as a young man out of adolescence embarking on establishing an independent existence; or 2) after a long period where errors in judgment have compounded into crisis and change is mandatory.

This letter is entitled Obstacle to Success and I’m talking about change because the clear fact is that your mindset is by far the greatest obstacle to your success and happiness. That statement is not an indictment against you of course, but is the reality mankind faces. We must figure ourselves out, learn to consistently be our own advocate, harness our mental, physical, spiritual, and social strengths in order to achieve our personal degree of well being. But you may say, “Davo, that may have been you, and I can see other guys whose thinking is weak, but I’m doing pretty well. To be candid, I’ve got it going on.” Indeed. Errors in judgment is an intractable dilemma. For some, after many years with a closely held belief of “being on track” do errors in judgment come to crisis. You can fool yourself for a long time in thinking that today’s casual effort won’t come to crisis, that there’s time yet tomorrow to get motivated to clean out your habit closet, that these small hidden frailties of drinking or porn or excessive use of smartphone won’t compound into a crisis down the road. Yes, you could be fooling yourself somewhere in some way.

Look at it this way – you leave adolescence at around 25 when your brain roughly finishes its physical development. Up till then your view of reality is 2-dimensional. As your life becomes more 4 dimensional, your mind develops in complexity (or vice versa) and you become more set in your ways. Think of a sapling tree that can be trained to grow according to external stimuli. The more it grows, the less it’s able to change its essential structure. Errors in judgment become set as you get older. Therefore, before those become calcified negative habits, as a young man you are most empowered now to set a path that will lead to power and well-being. Ignorance and arrogance are every man’s Scylla and Charybdis (Boom!).

Ok, today’s letter was a bit preachy, sorry. (Not sorry). Even the optimal path of your development is strewn with rocks on which you can easily trip without awareness. I know the dangers first hand of drifting along with smug certainty. This series is designed to make 2018 a powerful year for you. You must intend to stoke the engine (Motivation), that drives towards a direction (Goals), and develops a pattern (Habits) that manifest well being in your life. In the last Letter on this series, I’ll talk on Overcoming Obstacles to Success.

A sapling tree does not grow fruit. Only after years of development will that tree manifest fruit that represents the intention of the Gardener. Only then will you know.

To your spiritual path,

Dave Marr

Not every Ironmen Letter is a towering epistle soaring among those clouds saturated in wisdom that rain down on mere mortal men. No, not every one, ahem. Some are mundane, with feet on the ground, designed to cover territory that is hopefully familiar, but fundamental nonetheless and therefore worthy of repetition. Two such recent Letters covered Motivation and Objectives. And now as we approach that ever recurring starting gate of the New Year, honing your behaviors is today and will forever be a critical aspect on gaining traction in personal growth.

Ok, Time Out: Let me ask you to gauge your attitude right now as you read this. Are you getting through this Letter and moving on to the next item of the day? Or will you get FROM today’s message? Because what the heck are you doing? Let some messages into the inner sanctum where it hits home and creates resolve in you. Some messages should reach you and not be held at arm’s length. Let this be one.

All right, Time In: Presumably you are interested in creating a fantastic life. My discussion on Motivation two weeks ago gave 9 factors that generated positive energy in me that I could translate into motivation. Motivation towards what? Last week I discussed Vision and Objectives for next year.  The two combine to equate to an intellectual blueprint of my coming year. And when I was in my 30’s that would be the end of it. I would be motivated to write down my goals, but wouldn’t be disciplined enough to figure out how to act on them and thereby accomplish most of them. It took me many years of trying to learn the basics of my personality and behaviors before I could harness my motivation to gain traction on my more pernicious issues.

Some men are blessed with a default mode of action. I have many friends who are that way which is good for them. I am not that guy. My default mode is one of laziness. Not extreme laziness, but one of selfish “conservation of my energy”. So if I were given a choice of organizing my garage or reading a book, cha, not even close. But that base modality conflicts with my ego where I see myself as a man of consequence. Those two views don’t square, so I had to navigate that little thing we call “reality” and overcome some limiting behaviors.

I have no problem brushing my teeth twice a day. It’s part of my routine. If for some reason I miss a day, I don’t say, “Ah screw it. I’ll start again next year.” You don’t do that with routines. You do that with disciplines. Because routines are already inside your pattern where you are efficient and you move from one activity seamlessly to another. No doubt you have a morning routine and a nighttime one. You’ve probably got an eating routine, a driving routine, a toilet routine. Efficiency of habit. You don’t have to think about what comes next. That’s the key.

To make lasting change in your physical and personal life you must routinize the things you want to compound over a lifetime. You do that by structuring the habit you want to insert into your routine so that it fits easily into that efficiency mode. Let’s say you want to get in shape. The reason you haven’t done that in the past is lack of time and you weren’t experiencing negative consequences anyway. But now you’ve decided that it’s time to be intentional about your health. You decide that morning has the greatest shot at being consistent, so you plan to get up 30-60 minutes earlier and work out. Awesome! And, after doing it twice and you’re sore and it’s cold outside and the workout was just running a mile followed by pushups and situps, you decide to take a one day holiday because working out daily just isn’t “realistic”. Doing it every other day becomes a problem if you miss your workout day. Soon, the law of diminishing intentions kicks in and the idea of getting in shape remains just that, an idea. Motivation must be restored regularly during the time discipline is honing a habit. Let me say that again: Motivation is the energy to get going and must be restored regularly so that turning a discipline into a habit isn’t a vertical climb. Structuring how you’ll turn the habit into your routine by figuring out exactly what you’re going to do, what you’re going to need, what time you’ll need to wake up, and what time you’ll need to go to bed – are all the details of success.

Now, of course that example may not apply to you. It’s a template. Thus: Motivation is a positive energy. It needs a vision to become something. Your objectives are the plan to turn your motivation into reality. Discipline is the fortitude to stick with your decision long after the energy has dissipated. Habits are the patterns created by discipline that must be structured and thought out. And routines are those habits that are efficiently incorporated into your life.

One last thought – Nothing stands alone. All your behaviors – the disciplines, the habits, the routines – are part of the pattern of who you are. If you discipline one part of your life, it’ll affect the whole.

There. I saved you 15 years of struggle. You’re welcome.

To getting FROM the day,

Dave Marr

Over the last 30 years or so, I have written down my goals maybe half the time and the other half just had them in mind. In assessing the difference, I’d have to give the nod to writing them down, as you’d expect me to say. The years I would continuously reference back to my written goals, the greater likelihood I wouldn’t drift from them. My best year that saw the most economic gains was the year I worked my plan the most consistently. Which makes sense of course – plan your work and work your plan.

The key to a successful year is a strong start, therefore, you need to start working on next year’s objectives now. The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a great time to reflect on this year’s effort – where were you consistent? where do you need to strategize around your inconsistency? If you just drift from one year to another without extracting all the value of your experiences, then your trajectory will be less than it could be. Therefore take your most mature developed attitude and focus 4-6 hours on what you want next year to be like. That’s a lot of concentrated time, but maximizing your life might be worth a few hours. Now, I’ve done the casual goal setting that doesn’t last a month and is quickly cast aside. But to truly maximize your year you need to envision each part of your life: Family, Work, Health, God, Finances, Social, Giving – in your particular order of importance – and create a vision statement as to what you want to accomplish.

From the vision statement, you need an action plan. How are you going to bring your vision into existence? Who can help you? What steps can you work on today that will move you closer? What milestones exist that would indicate you’re 10% there, half way there? What are you going to do to celebrate once you’ve accomplished it. How are you going to feel once you’re there? Is it a box to check off or is it a lifestyle that you’ll own? Not a small question. When I got my blackbelt in karate, a commonplace occurrence was guys would get their blackbelt and never be seen again. It’s like getting your undergrad degree and never learning another thing. How will you feel once you’ve created the reality of what you’ve envisioned? Because, that vision is but a milestone in itself. Who are you becoming?

The path to creation is: Thought – Word – Deed. (Rather Biblical, I’d say). But each must be consistent. To bring about a new and improved you that has a quality family life, great marriage, a valuable career that is stimulating and rewarding, a healthy body that exudes confidence and vitality, a connectedness with God and his creation where ego is appropriately placed, freedom to travel and enjoy life with friends, and enough substance and presence of mind to contribute back to God’s creation in such a way that makes you both bigger and smaller at the same time. Yes gentlemen, conceive of a vision, write it down, and act upon it with daily consistency.

If you are like me and pretty much everyone else on the planet, then this topic is not easily done. Because consistency is predicate on you resolving yourself to the task which waivers with each passing day. You go to bed and wake up a different person. That’s why it’s important to have a couple someone’s in your life where you can commit your vision to. An Ironmen group can do that. The power in this idea of creating a vision for your life and getting 2 other guys to hold you accountable cannot be understated.

Get motivated and get going on your life. There’s nothing to lose but a lower version of yourself.

To your abundance,

Dave Marr

Are you born with motivation or is it something you can develop?

After several decades of observing, I don’t have conclusions, but maybe some insights that might help you with your motivation.  It’s a nature/nurture kind of question: Are you born with the maximum amount of personal energy that drives you to wake up early and get after each day or is it something that must be coaxed and coerced into life with various techniques of threats and rewards?

By my framing it as nature/nurture you already know that I think it’s both. We have a certain inherent disposition for energy that characterizes our personality, but we certainly aren’t fatally fixed at one level. We have choices if our natural state does not serve our long term interests. Granted it’s easier for some than others, but I strongly believe that everyone can be more consistent in the energy that runs through their minds, limbs, and lives. How to do that is the multi billion dollar industry question.

Keep in mind that, like you, I’m just a guy trying to figure things out. I’m no scholar. No preacher. No guru. Just a guy on the bus that has ebbs and flows in the consistency of my motivation. So these thoughts are puzzle pieces that when fit together offer me clues on how to read my own spirit. It seems prudent to begin with the idea that anything permanent must look at the whole of me – mind, body, and soul.

Puzzle pieces

Purpose: It’s the reason I act at all. I have purpose when I work out. It’s to feel good and project health. I want to lead my family by example in health. I diligently go to work because I don’t want to be mediocre (ego), don’t want to be in a negative position later in life (fear), and want to enjoy the benefits of money, power, and choice (freedom). I made a deal with God in my mid 30’s to lead in such a way to encourage positive growth in everyone I come in contact with and He would take care of my physical needs. Having a reason to push motivates me.

Workouts: I have never been able to work out fully by myself. So I’ve have worked out with friends, joined karate, hired a trainer, or set event goals (See Tough Mudder). Workouts give me momentum in other areas of my life. Committing to someone else that I’d show up motivates me.

Leadership: I am a hypocrite. I don’t want to be. So when I encourage people, I don’t want to be that doctor that smells like cigarette smoke or that financial planner that drives a 2005 Subaru. I want to be the thing I am leading: responsible, diligent, healthy, knowledgeable, caring, purposeful. Being able to present integrity to the world motivates me.

Resonate: The world affects me. When I see something that I think is cool, I get motivated for that thing. When I listen to certain kinds of music, I get energized. When I read things of quality, I get inspired. My mind then turns to my purpose and I ride the energy resonating from the source. Conversely, I am now more wise in the things affect me because I know that I can also be affected negatively. Nature and higher levels of humanity motivate me.

Fear: The concern that I will wake up one day and look back on what could have been and express regret at my actions as feeble, as prideful, as comfortable where I end up with a life short on choices. Fear has motivated me more than love in my earlier days. Love and purpose more so these days.

Events: I put things in my future to challenge me, inspire me, define me, and often to reward me. Travel, adventure, and uniqueness motivates me.

Bible: I have a natural tendency to relax. I know that if I relax too much, lots of bad things can happen. I find the Parable of the Talents instructive on four points: 1) You are given a certain capacity and must do with it what you can (faithful); 2) Slothful inactivity is an expression of fear; 3) There is opportunity cost in doing nothing (“I can even get interest”); and 4) Those that use their talents purposefully will be rewarded with more energy and those that don’t will lose what they have. Being in alignment with spiritual wisdom motivates me.

Habits: I have learned my tendencies. I know what affects me. New Year’s energizes me because it’s a fresh start. Springtime too. Mondays too. Friends energize me. Reading energizes me. Going to the right movies energizes me. I have learned that eating poorly sucks energy from me. Watching too much TV drains me. Focusing on the world’s problems saps my energy. On average, making good choices motivates me.

Feedback: I like praise. I enjoy it when someone says something nice about my effort. My wife’s praise is the number one motivator in my life though, weirdly enough, I don’t spring to action at every little request. I like positive engagement, but it’s not a top motivator. It’s more like the cherry on top of the others. But definitely, negative talk dispirits me.

Putting the pieces together

Nothing stands alone.  Every element of your life is a dynamic component with every other element of your life. Energize one area, it should energize other areas. Over time, you’ll arrive at a level of accomplishment worthy of your life. In your Ironmen group brainstorm the pieces of your puzzle:

1. Identify the things that energize you – people, music, reading, TED talks, seminars, church, material rewards, accolades, father approval, economic rewards, safety, adventure, etc.
2. Discuss how you can harness those elements into your plan. Start the day with prayer and meditation, watch a TED talk while eating breakfast, read a “How to” book before bedtime, workout with a friend, sign up for a marathon.
3. Ask your wife, girlfriend (hopefully not both), and Ironmen to hold you accountable to eating right, working out, reading regularly, watching less TV, going back to school.
4. Report back to your Ironmen group and wife how you’re doing. Energy will be high early, so prepare for the long haul. Consistency is everything!!!
5. Send me an email as to how this process is going for you. I’ll report your successful techniques so that everyone can benefit from your insights. You matter to me. You matter to others.

2018 is going to be a great year!!!  Get motivated!!!!!

To your continued success,

Dave Marr

A plane must gain 50 feet of altitude by the end of the runway or face potentially devastating consequences. If for whatever reason takeoff does not occur, it doesn’t matter to the passengers why it hasn’t happened, blame is hopefully for tomorrow, only that impending tragedy has arrived. And now, as the margin for error has vanished and life and death decisions play out in an instant, the pilot holds the key to the future path of many lives.

This metaphor has room to run. The pilot could be any one of us. As a young man, I can readily recall the instances where my ignorance and arrogance caused me close calls. The speed of my car, the level of my blood-alcohol, and the Grace of circumstances allows me to type these words today. Or another time, the depth of the water that separated me from the concrete slabs below the murky surface and the arrival of the police to shoo us kids away to live another day can only be given to God. Or how about the Providential timing of the parenting class that captured my motivations which saved my marriage. Yes, the pilot holds the throttle whereby man, machine, and environment come to the moment of risk where liftoff occurs or impactfully not.

Trying to find a metaphor that really does justice to the risks of life and welfare is difficult. My goal here would be to penetrate your current state of thinking and motivate you young men 1) towards introspection, 2) to reassess the risk of being wrong, 3) to strategically widen the field of inputs which increases the margin for error, and 4) to energize your daily action away from ineffectual momentum where the plane’s trajectory is blindly heading towards a fast approaching obstruction. The plane metaphor works because pilot error is the number one cause of crashes in the air and in life.

Every   single   young   man   must overcome the shortcomings of his mind in order to navigate his life properly. Ego, conviction, naivete, misperception, misplaced loyalties, untested skills, misunderstandings, underappreciation of risk, fear of risk, excessive humility, arrogance, and ignorance are qualities that every man has in some measure. Maturity often comes through pain and adversity- if it comes at all. The motivation, then, is to avoid big pain that will thwart your upward trajectory towards well-being. What I’m talking about is figuring yourself out – in time – to ensure a long life of happiness.

Many guys have been programmed by their past so as to be indifferent to the formula of happiness. On the surface you’d ask them if they wanted happiness, satisfaction, health, wealth, and marital bliss and the answer would be “Of course”. But their actions would speak more clearly than their words. Daily activities demonstrate the true path whereas mental justifications are just immature rationalizations. Again, this is commonplace. Everyone does this to one degree or another. Everyone. Those men that become wise to this self sabotage make a course correction and lift their noses to sail above the danger. Close-minded inaction causes pain. Hey, but on the bright side, you’ll grow…maybe.

Marriage is a great environment to clear up self delusion. A wife and children are passengers to the pilot’s maturity. A great marriage is one of the top reasons for a man’s success, and that’s not even scoring the impact he has on his children and generations down the line. The fun-seriousness a man brings to the marriage helps him see in the mirror his own mental shortcomings. Nothing is more health and wealth inducing than a good marriage; nothing more destructive and expensive than a divorce.

Another great vehicle for introspection and feedback is an Ironmen group. Two other guys you can set goals with, encourage, hold each other accountable, inspire, practice your articulations, and gain perspectives that strategically widens the field of inputs to help you assess your circumstances. This is the path of wisdom – being open to inputs before they’re necessary. And how old are you before you age-out of this Ironmen idea? I’d say early 40’s. Until then, you should widen your field continuously.

Gentlemen, if you’re at 45 feet AGL and you don’t know it, you have a true dilemma that only you can solve.

To gaining altitude,

Dave Marr