Your School Teachers Were Pretty Smart You Know?

I’m sure you had “that” math teacher at some point that just made you bananas.  There is like ZERO data proving this but I feel safe in saying that math was probably the most hated subject in school.  Unless you were a big ole nerd just like me. Still, as much as you and I may have loved solving math problems, you may have thought to yourself, “when am I ever going to use this in the REAL world?!?”

One of my favorite authors is Steven Pressfield.  He is a very prolific writer and has produced volumes of works of fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays.  Ever seen the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Matt Damon? Yep, Pressfield wrote the book that movie was based on.  How about the movie “300?” Yes, THAT one with the well-chiseled chest of Gerald Butler and many other hotties…er…ACTORS in it. His book The Gates of Fire is credited as a source of inspiration for both the graphic novel and screenplay that lead to the production of the “300” movie in 2007.

So you may not know the name Steven Pressfield but you definitely have been impacted by his work in some fashion I bet. He recently wrote a post talking about how there are two “mathematically” different ways of looking at the world: Zero Sum vs. Non-Zero Sum.  (The best thing about most of Pressfield’s writings are that they are VERY fast reads). 

• Why is Coach talking SOOO much about reading and arithmetic today?

That is a darn good question my friend!  You and everybody reading this right now have a very similar goal…surprising I know, but it is true.  Each and everyone of YOU want to be a better human to the ones you love. Simple. At the end of our days NOBODY will care how fast you ran a 5k race, how much you squatted that one day, or how low your body fat percentage got that one summer.  However, people WILL care about how much life you added to THEIR lives and THAT is why people will be balling their eyes out for you on that final day. Or I at least hope that is the case for you.

• GREAT! Coach has now got me all depressed again!

Here is my point: we hear time and time again that taking time to focus on your health and wellness is “taking away” from your time to focus on other things more important to you. That there my friend is Zero Sum thinking.  I want to challenge you to think about how much focusing on your health and wellness for a small amount of time each day will ADD to the things that are important to you:

• Want to be the best Mom or Dad you can be? Why not be the best one you can be for AS LONG as you can be?!?
• Want to climb that corporate ladder as high as you can?  Why not de-stressify yourself as much as you can EACH day as you rocket up that bad boy?!?
• Want to crush your arch-nemesis KAREN at the next race you two face off at?  I think you get my drift here…

Focusing on health and wellness goals is not selfish nor does it subtract from all the other wonderful things you have in your life now or want in the future.  My challenge to you today, after thanking your school teachers for instructing you on those “three Rs” of education, is to envision how much more life you will add thinking in a Non-Zero Sum way and how that might be worth having a conversation with us about.

Give us a shout as we already know there is more in you, more about you, and it is time to Incite Your Riot!

Cheers,

Coach Matt