I suck, I lost

Ok not really; especially on the post directly after talking about the power of words to build us up.

The results came in and the winner was not me…or the guy I thought should have won…or any of the other speeches/speakers that I really liked.  But I also was not the judge nor was I offering a scholarship so needless to say it wasn’t my call.

It is very hard to get better with victory.  Sports illustrates this so well in that there are so few professional teams that repeat and win championships in consecutive years.  It is through loss and defeat that teams get better, grow, and ultimately learn how to win.  It is a process that has been repeated in sports, business, love, and politics.  So I’ll take my setback and build from it, but what did I learn?

I’m still pretty good

i am far, far from being good-good, but I’ve still got some talent when the lights are turned on.  I’m seriously not polished and that’s ok, because I haven’t been working on it in years, but with limited time I put something together that resonated with people.  Ultimately speakers have to do just that, we will always be hyper critical of each other and ourselves, but when your 9th grade history teacher hears it and likes it, you know you’ve done something right.

I can reach people

Three minutes is an impossibly short amount of time to craft a message.  Eight days to create said message is also incredibly short.  I wish I could publish some of the things that were sent to me privately about the speech.  You can see the response on my Facebook wall.  It is a very small sample size and most of the people who viewed it know me and care about me, but they were not required to give input.  The best part is the people who don’t already love me, that found a way to reach out to me and say a kind word.

I’ve got to be my number one fan

I have a ton of people who love me and support me.  It is impossible to succeed at anything without support.  But I’m not going to be able to convince people who don’t love me to love me until I love me…the most.  I’ve never lacked in confidence, but conviction and belief are a different part of the equation.  The fan line has to begin directly behind me.

Keep writing

I’ve got to keep at it, it is an art.  Writing blog posts, writing short speeches, and writing bigger things.  I’ve got to use the inspiration in my mind and put it out there.  As a 1b to this, I’ve got to produce stuff and put it on social media.  People that don’t love me aren’t going to find me if I just sit in my living room talking to myself.

Find a mentor

This is old business logic.  Find someone who is further along than you and learn from them.  If I actually want to do something with this little bit of skill I have, I’m going to have to have someone directly help me.  There are no shortcuts to the top.

I’ve got a ton of ideas.  Some are motivational, some are about fitness and weight loss, some are directional, and some are just fun.  I really don’t know what to do next…but I’ll do something; I promise.

Ciao

SK

Ps…Here’s the winner

Do you remember?

I will go out on a limb and say that most, if not all, of us has a great moment we look back on where we were “in pretty good shape”.  It may have been playing sports in high school or when you completed a race in your 20s or after a biggest loser challenge at work in your 30s.  There’s some cool memory you have where you felt pretty good about who was looking at you in the mirror.

Mine was in my 20s and playing pick up basketball ALL THE TIME.  There is zero exaggeration in all the time.  I was probably on some kind of basketball court five days a week.  I played basketball instead of going out.  I wasn’t really trying to be in shape, we were just having fun and the by-product was I could run and jump and had a little bit of stamina and strength, pretty freaking awesome.

Fast forward from that happy picture you have in the full length mirror to the pictures you take now that are just of your increasingly round-ish face.  I was trying to think the other day when I got fat.  As with most things it is a slow and arduous process to reach the rotund physique that I created in my soon to be 41-year-old body.  I do recall a moment though when I was getting out of the shower and realized that my fat rolls on my back were now touching each other (sexy imagery I know).

Being sloppy was pretty fun though, aside from the aches, pains, shortness of breath, and ice packs.  I just ate and slept and ate some more.  I was lucky enough that my fat-boy was still able to be a fairly active dude.  Those good genetics allowed me to just keep on keeping on with my life because “it wasn’t that bad”.

I remember being smaller, but I really don’t remember what it felt like to be “in good shape”.

I remember the feeling of getting excited about a buffet

I remember the mouth-watering goodness of birthday cake

I remember eating a third plate in one sitting of a holiday meal

But I don’t recall what if felt like to actually be fairly fit…that’s pretty sad.

I remember someone telling me once that while recovering from alcoholism he had to create “new tapes” that would play in his head.  He had to create new responses for the situations his entire life that had previously been to take a drink.  I want some new healthy tapes too.  I’d like to know what waking up and craving green smoothies instead of chicken biscuits feels like.  Maybe I can automatically enjoy an apple the way I’ve enjoyed a Twix my entire life.

Reset

Restart

Re-live

Timehop is a pretty cool app that goes back into your social media archive and shows you what you posted in previous years.  There has been tons of cool stuff but something I have also realized

DUDE I’VE BEEN FAT A LONG TIME

and I’ve been putting it out there a long time and I’ve been fighting it a long time.

Finding that 20 something basketball kid isn’t about a resolution or a plan or a program.  That kid didn’t have any of that.  He just played and lived.  That kid didn’t eat great but that kid also knew that if he wanted to be able to not suck on the court that night I couldn’t destroy five trips back through the buffet line either.

Reset

Restart

Re-live

Making new memories takes time and most of us hate that part so we’d rather just keep pulling up the mental VCR on the old memories that are comfortable and safe.  Gang you can’t find a VHS tape now to save your life, yet you won’t upgrade your mental Beta tapes for fear of losing something special.  I think it is a good day to try this fancy new HD life guys…come on, you’ve got nothing to lose.

Ciao

SK

That’s what friends are for

The fast is over and tomorrow I will reveal the results.  I’m seriously excited to see what the final tally will be and where I will go from there.  For today, let’s talk about your support system.

Accountability, authentic, and transparency are super-cool buzzwords that people like to throw around these days.  Ultimately it is about people being personally accountable for their actions and outcomes and not putting on a face for the world.

I AM HORRIBLE AT THIS

I really don’t think I know very many people who are good at this.  We all put on a show and let people in only on a surface level.  I don’t necessarily think that you need to tell everyone you see all of your business, but you do need people in your life that hold you accountable and push you to do more.

“I want the kind of friends that love me enough to meet me where I am but love me so much not to leave me there”

I don’t know where I hear this, but it is not my quote.  I believe we want, crave, and need these kind of relationships in our lives.  What in the world does this have to do with juicing (I told you the other day that this stuff is just like relationships)?

I don’t think there is any way that I could have done this fast without the help and support of my coworkers that undertook it with me.  The reason I know this is because I have always quit on these kind of life change/health events within the first third of the adventure.  And I have tried short, long, exercise, diet, and activity changes that were much, much easier than fasting yet I didn’t have near the success.

We went through all the mess together.

We texted each other when we struggled.

We celebrated each and every day with each other.

We could understand each other’s misery.

There was something magical about coming in each day and knowing that everyone I was looking at all day was in the same boat as I am.

I guess I need to formally thank my coworkers for doing this nonsense.  I couldn’t have made it through the third day without knowing that I would be put on the spot the next day about the waffle I consumed.  If you are even a little, itty-bitty, teensy bit interested in maybe juicing then I would say find someone who is going to do this with you.  Preferably someone who you interact with daily.  I’m sure there is someone at your office or your house or in your neighborhood that could lose a couple of LB’s and would team up with you.

Challenge extended–movement to be continued

Now for the real reason that I wrote this post:

 

Ciao

 

SK