Excuses are not awesome at all – Run through them

Zombies don't accept excuses

This morning as I was driving into work, it was pouring rain. As I approached my favorite stretch of road that cuts between a forest preserve and passes over the highway, I saw a man running – an older man, likely in his 60s. Let me remind you, its pouring rain. I drive past the man slowly and wonder does he want to get out of the rain? Did he begin running and get caught and is now too far from home? Is he so far that his only choice is to keep running?  I drove for another eighth of a mile before I got worried that this guy might catch pneumonia, and turned around to ask if he needed a ride*. I turned around and parked on the only bit of road that was large enough to be a proper shoulder. He approached, keeping his pace. I rolled down my window and he stopped, pushed a button on his watch, and smiled as I offered to drive him somewhere. He replied, “It started raining on Mile 1, and this is Mile 6. So…I’m going to keep going.” He smiled, thanked me for my kindness, pushed a button on his watch, and started running again.

I have no idea how many miles this man continued to run after we parted ways. But I do know that he was only 1 mile from home when it started raining.  And I met him – in the rain – 5 miles later.  I am certain that even the best of us would have considered turning around once the rain started. And of those, some would have turned around.  And we would have had a very reasonable excuse. But this man, knowing that there was far more road to travel forward than backward, kept going forward. For that, he is awesome.

*while it’s not relevant to the story, when I made the decision to turn around, I saw a big pretty rainbow. And when I turned to head back towards the runner, I saw another rainbow in the opposite direction. Rainbows are perfectly normal natural occurrences, but I’m still the sort of person who ascribes meaning to things like that. 

Awesomeness Takes Time

Don't watch me, watch the clock. BOYYEEE!! You know what time it is!!

We would all like to believe that we were born awesome. And to some degree we are absolutely correct. When we first arrive as crying, slobbering masters and mistresses of manipulation, the world literally revolves around us. Furthermore, the universe is merely an extension of us and only exists as we interact with it.  But as we get older, we develop a sense of self that differentiates us from the universe that was formerly our appendage. And that’s when awesomeness becomes more complex.

A couple years ago, I read a book called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.  I had even gone as far as to begin writing a blog post about it for the 1^st failed incarnation of The Awesomeness Consultant. It went like this:

Today’s Inspiration for Awesome: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
[Imaginary Scene: A young Awesomeness Consultant stands before his 4^th grade classmates, clutching papers tightly and shuffling from foot to foot] 

Good morning, my name is the Awesomeness Consultant and this is my book report on Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  Mr. Gladwell has written three other famous books that I haven’t read yet named What the Dog Saw, Blink and the Tipping Point.  I think that Outliers was a good book that presented some interesting information that hold interesting implications for awesomeness…

[End Scene] 

Pardon me for being silly, but yeah this is your basic book report.  Mr. Gladwell makes some interesting arguments and presents some interesting facts that I think would help any of us look at this thing called success differently.  I don’t where success fits into everyone’s “awesomeness paradigm” but as far as my own is concerned – it deserves some attention. Allow [me] to go through the book and highlight a few sections and the implications for awesomeness… 

Chapter Two: The 10,000 Hour Rule
Implication for Awesomeness: Awesomeness takes a lot of time invested

And this is exactly where that blog post ended. I never finished it. So now we’ve come full circle.

Since reading the book, I’ve actually heard the 10,000 hour rule mentioned a number of times. Most recently, I was reading a Men’s Health article about Georges St. Pierre, and in addition to quoting Bruce Lee and Michaelangelo, he mentions the 10,000 hour rule. So what does the rule say? To master anything, it will take a person 10,000 hours. That’s a lot of hours. Let me put it into perspective for you:

Pick anything that you want to master. For me, it would be…ummm…I don’t know….maybe White Lotus Kung Fu (for the sake of discussion). Now let’s break 10,000 hours down:

• If I practiced 2 hours per day, 5 days a week it would take 20 years to reach 10,000 hours.
• If I practiced 4 hours per day, 5 days a week it would take 10 years to reach 10,000 hours.
• If I practiced 3 hours per day, 7 days a week it would take 9 years to reach 10,000 hours.
• If I practiced 4 hours per day, 7 days a week it would take 7 years to reach 10,000 hours.

From that perspective, awesomeness (as defined as mastery of a craft or skill) takes an incredibly long time. As well, to commit to 10,000 hours of practice requires motivation, dedication, and humility. That is one heckuva formula.

Now, you may not have invested 10,000 into any particular craft or skill, and you may not want to. That does not limit your ability to be awesome one bit. By the time you reach 30 years old, you will have been yourself for 262,800 hours. Just being who you are has given you mastery 26 times over.  So actually, awesomeness is still as simple as it was when we were babies. It just takes time for us to realize it.

The only real shortcut

#badshortcut

Every day my inbox is full of spam.  Sometimes there is a sexy single in my area looking to chat. Other times, there is a distant African cousin offering to give me a cut of the $10M that I help him to launder.  And while these may be tempting, they don’t ever entice me to open the message. But there is a nefarious type of email that I get that I am always weak for. The “shortcut” email.

I was just linked to a landing page of a website where some guy was trying to convince me that he had the “shortcut” to getting six-pack abs in 12 weeks. This is not the only site of its kind that I have come across. People are always hawking a shortcut – especially for those things that require a significant amount of effort and commitment; things such as fitness and wealth. And while I know, with a high degree of certainty, that these shortcuts are usually “scammy,” I investigate then nonetheless. Why?  Because I possess that very human trait of “wanting something for nothing.” - or at least wanting something for a fraction of its actual cost.  And it makes perfect sense: If I have limited resources, I should want to spend those resources as efficiently as possible.

I understand that with hard work, dedication, and motivation I could actually accomplish whatever is being sold via shortcut. Of course you can have six pack abs (maybe not always in 12 weeks) with the proper nutrition and exercise. Of course you can build a successful blog with resonant content and regular interaction. Of course you can be debt-free if you spend less than you earn. 

Many years ago, when I was creeping and crawling beneath the bowels of the earth, I was informed that shortcuts would no longer be an option for me.  It was around this time that I learned that taking a shortcut only ensured one thing; that eventually I’d have to do it over again the right way.  So the only real shortcut is to not take any shortcuts.

In the immortal words of the SOS Band, “Baby you can do it, take your time, do it right.”  Let the robust sounds of their composition encourage you.

Pic lifted from extremefunnyhumor.com