1) I am a sucker for a good headline. Bold, 48 point black and white with IMPACT font, condensed to the absolute bare essentials, no puffery, no unnecessary words, few articles. The type of headline that grabs you by the WOW. It was therefore with great delight to me this morning when I ‘logged on to check in’ prior to our 0530 spin class (more on that in a moment) and was alerted to a pair of seemingly disconnected events: DAWGS DUNK DUCKS AS STONE SLAMMED.
Yes! MY Husky Hoopsters defeated the slimy, cheating, obnoxious and arrogant Oregon Ducks for the first time in six years on the webfoots home pond. And perhaps even better, taking a more global stance, came the news that Roger Stone, you wanna talk about a treasonous, gasbag, aloof, snob-of-a bitch? had a visit from the FBI while he was still in his pajamas. Robert Mueller says good morning.
Failure (lessons learned) > compromise (improvements) > salvation (growth).
2) In class (here it is) I wanted to comment on the latest gem I unearthed from Steven Kotler’s masterful mine of sports physiology, The Rise of Superman. Where he expertly creates an opportunity for us to look at something differently, that something being an activity we have all been doing for many years, decades. You may insert your own activity here but for my purposes I’ll use riding. And more specifically, the bike leg of a triathlon. We have known for a long time now that to be successful one must practice, practice perfect, practice smart, mimic the motion, incorporate high-intensity intervals and steady-state sub-threshold work and endure long and steady distances. We have also, (I am the guilty ring leader) boorishly bloviated on the importance of the mental aspect of this. Lastly, the third third, is the soul, or spirit element. All this combines into one, the state we have labeled the groove-zone-sweet-spot. Mr. Kotler and his score of scientists have crunched about a half-century of data and report back to us in a feedback loop of monumental impact, that our: ATTENTION IS MOST ENGAGED WHEN A SPECIFIC RELATIONSHIP IS FOUND BETWEEN THE CHALLENGE AND OUR ABILITY TO PREFORM IT. IOW, what he calls the challenge to skill level ratio. They have even put a number on it. The number is 4%. We are most engaged (present) when the activity is 4% above our skill level. Not 40, too hard and we quit or get hurt, and not 1%, too easy and we bore and become distracted, but 4%. Precisely. Failure (we have all gone too hard or too soft) > compromise (toss the highs and lows to commit to the gold zone) > salvation (finding your flow).
3) I serendipitously came across this article talking about time management. In it the authors make the suggestion that the most important hours of the day are between 05 and 0700. Those two hours will make or break your success across the board. From the financial to the social and from the creative to the compassionate. I was already basking in the glow, we have been working out at 0530 for almost twenty years, when the authors announced that, despite the value, what we should be doing is more in the creative realms than the physical. Because it seems those are the hours when our creative power is at its most engaged and fertile. To be clear, this is not saying that our practice is bad, it is simply stating that there is another element to consider should optimum experience, success and dynamic flow be high on your list of areas needing augmentation. Failure (rigidity of beliefs) > compromise (open minded examination) > salvation ( course correction).
The full circle all this rambling incorporates is merely sports, corruption, justice, attention, practice, deep engagement, rich embodiment, relaxed focus, hope, joy, mindfulness and a new term coined this morning inspired by some pre-dawn creativity, body-fullness.
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