[By: Martin Grunburg]
Time to get back to some habits and goals!
It’s been a while — a long while — since my last blog post, and this is largely by design. That is, I didn’t want to begin writing again until, well, I wanted to.
The time has come.
The same can be said for the podcast, which we will light up in just a few weeks. (Season V kicks off on 11/5!)
In both cases the fire is back (along w/ the creativity) and the timing just “feels” right as we head into Q4 and then 2019!
That’s right, let me be the first to wish you a Happy New Year! ; )
Having said that, I want to keep this post relatively tight and light.
Lessons/great reminders from my summer vacation:
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LIFE IS VERY SHORT.
Very, very, very short. Just found out yesterday that an old high school buddy, Mike, passed away, and re-reading his last Facebook Messenger message brought me to tears. The man had a heart of gold. The messages we exchanged included a quick note to him with a link to my interview with Hal Elrod, which discussed Hal’s own battle with cancer. I hoped he’d enjoy Hal’s story and be inspired — he told me he was and we then exchanged soccer stories about our daughters!
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SKYDIVE TO LIVE!
Middle of Sept. we did a team-building event: a tandem skydive. This was an amazing experience. I was later asked, “What was it like to cheat death?” I think I just laughed it off, but as I contemplated that question later the reality struck me: “Nobody cheats death…but it sure seems so many of us are cheating life.”
Death ultimately gets ALL of us. I like to call it the “Big vacuum in the sky.” So, the question really becomes: What are we doing NOW, with the very limited time we have, to not cheat/sell short this great opportunity we’ve been presented? (Read: sense of urgency.)
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EURO-ZONE:
We had a terrific family vacation at the end of July in Europe. The trip provided us the chance to visit my mother in her motherland, Sweden. (Our daughters are 15 and 17 at this point, which is hard to fathom!) The girls thought of it as a big Instagram post…they thoroughly enjoyed Copenhagen, Malmo and Paris. My wife and I hadn’t been back to Paris for almost 20 years! So, yes, she had a great time too!
; )
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EURO-PLUS: SIDDHARTHA:
The Airbnb host in Malmo, Sweden, had this little gem of a story by the bedside. (I’ve read this a few times in the past, but it had been a while, like 20+ years). The difference in reading this book in your twenties and thirties and then in your — dare I say it — fifties is extra poignant. The story follows a young and brash Siddhartha through his early years up through his later years (50+!), and there is simply no other way to appreciate that story with a more “mature” perspective other than to read it then and now. Wow. Book Here!
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YOUR REAL COMPETITION = YOUR POTENTIAL:
Workouts tend to provide fantastic insight into subtle “things,” like our own mindsets, habits, goals, limits, etc. The other day, I really just wanted to quit. I finished the workout and told myself — actually caught myself saying — “That’s good enough!” as I neared the gym exit. Then, for some reason, that simple statement echoed in my head. “Was it really good enough?'” How much was I selling myself short? I turned around walked back and talked myself into two more sets of pull ups (which resulted in the next awareness) . . .
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PLAY “SMALL BALL” FOR THE WIN:
Whether it’s pull-ups or shuffleboard, the lesson that keeps hitting me in the head these days is playing small ball! Thinking/acting “small.” That’s right, small, which leads to BIG results/wins!
It was no small coincidence that later that same day, as the Yankees were losing a playoff game, the announcer kept reiterating this VERY same message as a Yankee player (no names) kept swinging for the fences. “He’s trying to do way too much here,” said the commentator. “He needs to do the little things…just put the bat on the ball, get on base.” Which then reminded me of Cal Ripkin Jr.’s great quote referencing his father at the Hall of Fame induction:
“My father always used to say, when you take care of all the little things you won’t have a big thing to worry about.” To underscore the message further, enter Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher:
“Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.” Which is a nice segue to…
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THE ONLY ZEN YOU FIND ON THE TOPS OF MOUNTAINS:
My daily meditation practice is up to 47 minutes per day. Yep, 47 minutes a day. It’s almost funny to me that I used to think about meditation in terms of “getting it done.” In other words, I’d try to be efficient. When I began mediating around 2001, the goal/target time was about 20 minutes. Then I felt I could cut down my time and have similar results, so it dropped to about 12 minutes. Approximately a year or so later I found I was all the way down to about just six minutes of meditation. It was long after that I found I was limiting my quiet time to 2 minutes!
Did it work? Incredibly, yes. Even a short period of meditation was beneficial, helping me become more grounded and clear, even in just two minutes. But I’d lost my way and understanding. Many of you reading this are probably thinking, “THERE IS NO WAY I HAVE 45+ minutes to sit and do nothing!”
I would challenge that statement/belief and simply ask you how much time you spend with TV and Internet each day? Which do you think offers a greater RoT (Return on Time)?
“Now, repeat after me: “Sitting peacefully doing nothing, Spring comes and the grass grows all by itself.“ -
FREE COURSE IS LIVE! “GET UNSTUCK”
We’ll close out this post with this, my friends: If you’re feeling STUCK or just want to get fired up about life again, we’ve just completed and published this FREE course (limited time). I’m confident this course will do wonders and kick you in the right place to help you GET UNSTUCK! So, if you are STUCK and your results aren’t what you’d like them to be, often it can be traced right back to your habitual thinking and behaviors. Yep, your HABITS.
Just know that going through this course will challenge your thinking about your thinking, yourself, your goals, your future.
That’s it for now!
~mg