Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Excerpt from the intro to my new book plus update on my splits challenge

Hey folks!

In my last post I told you I was planning to work up to doing the splits while writing my book to illustrate my process. Let me tell you a little more about where that challenge came from.

In September I saw a video that blew my mind. The young woman in the video became a champion gymnast even though she was born with no legs. Not a para-olympics gymnast--one that competes alongside others that have full use of their bodies. She achieved the "impossible". I really had to look at myself and review all the things that I had written off because of limitations I really believed I had that would prevent me from ever achieving those goals.

I decided to test this out with physical challenge--I gave myself a year to knock out 3 challenges that I believed that because of my body type and age would be impossible to accomplish. I set a date and decided to put cold hard cash on the line. I asked a friend to select a charity to give $1000 to if I failed to make my goal. Well, I guess Christine knew me well enough. She picked an anti-charity.

closer!
The NRA.

Could not be worse.

There is NO WAY the NRA is getting a red cent from me. By September 8 of 2015 I need to complete all three goals or forfeit that money to an org I literally hate.

But in writing this book (another impossible goal) I realized that the anti charity angle only fired up me half way. So I'm upping the ante. For every feat I crush EARLY I'm going to donate 1/3 of the original $1000 to a REAL charity. In fact folks, I'm going to leave it up to you all to choose. I will publish more on that later but I wanted you to know that I plan for some real good to come of this and you will see that this is a benefit that will go beyond my original donation.

(I'm feeling pretty confident)

Also, as promised here is a snippet from the intro to the book I'm working on. Will most likely be edited and changed around but should give you an idea where I'm going with my project.

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If you find you are a person that has the patience and discipline to work any kind of self improvement program to the letter, let me shake your hand. A great deal of personal development books focus on how to develop qualities of grit and stick-to-it-iveness so you can get epic shit done while never actually getting anything done.

I fool people all the time. They think I have discipline. I don’t. I have entire decades in my life where I achieved practically nothing. But there have been times in my life when I got tons of fun, colorful and creative things out in the world.

How did I go from spinning my wheels to getting my own epic shit done?

Early in my life I was infected with the thought virus of “doing things the right way”. As a kid I was a natural artist. I couldn’t stop drawing and painting and really thought I was going to spend my life in art. I decided that I would dual major in college in art and literature (I’m very practical). When I showed up for my first freshman painting class the teacher opined on our color palates and really favored the work that looked the most like hers. I was confused and because I had no perspective I struggled to “paint the right way”. I lost connection with my flow and painting became very hard for me. One of the models from our class stopped by my apartment and looked at a figure painting I had done that I had in the living room. She smiled and said “wow, you really can see how you improved from the class”. I nearly lost it. It was something I painted free hand two years before I even set foot in that damn classroom.

But I still was stuck on this idea that the way I got things done was somehow flawed and incomplete. I had several other experiences over the years of trying to do things “the right way” and found I lost my juice for them in record time. When I think of those experiences the word tyranny comes to mind—the tyrant lived between my ears and set down rules and expectations daily. It was a drag to be sure and I honestly believed there was something wrong with me because I just wouldn't get in line.

See, what I was most afraid of was criticism. If people knew about my half assed approach they would see how genuinely crappy all my achievements really were. Any time you create or produce something there is someone out there who isn’t going to like it and almost as likely they will be willing to tell you they don’t like it. For me, doing it the right way was a ward against criticism—if I did it by the book, how could anyone find fault? What I found was that I did less and less creative work and found a bunch of excuses why I wasn’t writing, creating art, taking adventures or engaging in other interesting projects. My two chief excuses were “I’m too tired” and “I don’t have time”.

Well, those things were spot on accurate. I was too tired to do things that didn’t inspire me and I didn’t have time for anyone else’s rules. So I made up my own.

At the end of the day you CAN do things half assed. Just so long as you choose the right ass half to do.

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