Tag: Self-Actualization

It’s Not Your Job To Hold Down The Score

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is an All-American Pillowback.

Football season is upon us once again! Sport offers no end of inspiration and lessons in preparation and success, so why not look toward America’s favorite sport for a little Wednesday inspiration?

… It’s not my job to hold down the score – that’s your job.

This was legendary college football coach Bobby Bowden’s response to Lou Holtz when Holtz (himself a legendary coach) accused him of running up the score of a game in (most likely) 1970. The above version of the quote is the one that Holtz himself recounts in the book Bobby Bowden on Leadership: Life Lessons from a Two-Time National Championship Coach. The years since have distorted this quote, though the meaning has never been altered. I most often hear it phrased as: “it’s my job to score, it’s your job to stop me.” It might seem a bit cold-hearted, but Bowden has good reason for walking such a hard line in refusing to sit on the ball.

When Bowden was in the first year of his first major head coaching job at West Virginia University, he was feeling pretty good about a 35 – 8 halftime lead that he and his team owned against their bitter rivals, Pitt. Unfortunately, that 35 – 8 lead turned into a 36 – 35 loss by the end of the game and the bitter sting of that defeat – which Bowden himself attributes to his being “too conservative” in the second half – haunted him throughout the rest of his now-legendary career and into retirement.

This quote would be Bowden’s go-to defense when he would (not irregularly) be accused of “running up the score” over the years but the reason I’m sharing it with you today has little to do with arguments regarding sportsmanship. The quote itself and the unfortunate circumstances that were the genesis of the logic behind the quote are powerful reminders that we can never afford to take our foot off the gas pedal.

Naturally, our day-to-day lives and situations are rarely as directly combative and adversarial as a football game (that is, there are not always “winners” and “losers”) but if we ease off in our efforts – if we “sit on the ball” – we will find ourselves surpassed by the “competition” and there will be nobody to blame but ourselves.

Considering this, there’s no reason at all to ease off the accelerator. After all, it’s not your job to underachieve to make others feel better – it’s their job to keep up with you while you make the most of what you have and are continually pushing the boundaries!

I Am Groot

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is Groot.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy stole a lot of hearts over this year’s blockbuster season (I would say “summer”, but it’s winter here in Australia!), including my own. As you know, I love finding lessons in non-traditional places and there were lessons aplenty in this comedic space western. Spoiler alert: engaged.

Establishing Your Personal Brand Ain’t Easy

Peter Quill would really rather be known as Star-Lord (legendary outlaw) but he’s having a hard time getting it to catch on. Still, he persists in his efforts by embodying the values that he would like people to associate with Star-Lord. He has no time for the authorities, lots of time for the ladies and just the right amount of swashbuckling swagger for an outlaw cut from the John Stamos mold. His efforts are ultimately rewarded, paying off in a deeply satisfying and hilarious way toward the end of the film.

Sometimes It’s Best To Jump Right In

It’s usually a good idea to carefully plan your next actions, lest you wander too far down the wrong path. However, it can sometimes be easy to fall into a trap of planning paralysis in which you spend so much time trying to develop the perfect plan that you never make any real progress toward your goals. Groot takes this to an extreme when the Guardians are imprisoned toward the beginning of the film and are planning to escape. As Rocket Raccoon lays out his plan (complete with superfluous steps installed for his own amusement), Groot gets immediately stuck into his own assignment of removing a battery from the alarm system. Unfortunately, this forces the rest of the team into immediate and rushed action, but you have to admire his go-getting attitude.

Don’t Let Emotions Cloud Your Judgement

Drax the Destroyer blames Ronan (the film’s main villain) for the death of his family. Unfortunately, his drive for revenge handicaps him with severe tunnel-vision that nearly gets himself and the rest of the Guardians killed. Fortunately, he learns his lesson and – seeing at last that his own goal aligns with that of the Guardians – he finally chooses to join forces with the other Guardians in order to avenge his family.

Think Outside The Box / Never Give Up

When guns of all sizes and one spacecraft-turned-cannonball fails to stop Ronan from reaching the surface of the planet Xandar, Quill tries one last thing: song and dance. With Ronan moments away from laying waste to the entire planet, Quill busts a move and urges Ronan to “listen to these words” as he breaks down O-O-H Child. Naturally, it was all a ruse to distract Ronan and create the opportunity to destroy his warhammer, and it works to perfection. As long as there’s time on the clock, be willing to try anything and everything.

Take Time To Celebrate A Job Well Done

I am Groot.


Make A Habit Of Passion, Learn From Kids, Be Inspired

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is reading 'A Hologram For The King'.

The weekend is here again! Rituals were the theme of the week, which happens to coincide with the first weekend link about making a habit of pursuing your passion projects. Kids pervade the other two links by showing us how to channel our inner nine-year-old and allowing for a little inspiration after a disappointing loss in the Little League World Series.

Tackle Your Passion Project With The 90-90-1 Rule

Concluding a week of discussing rituals and their roles in our everyday production and creativity, here is the kind of challenge to help you get a start on making everyday your ideal day. Dedicate the first ninety minutes of your next ninety work days to working on your highest-priority passion project. Seeing as habits stick after 66 days, you’ll be well on your way to the life of your dreams if you see this challenge through to the end.

Five Things I Learned From Hanging Out With A Nine-Year-Old

There is much we can learn from kids and Eric Ravenscraft shares a few valuable lessons here. Kids aren’t afraid to make mistakes or try new things, which is refreshing to see if you spend a lot of time around jaded adults that have thrown in the towel.

R.I. coach inspires after LLWS loss

Speaking of kids, the Little League World Series is ongoing at the moment. Unfortunately, the Rhode Island team representing New England was recently eliminated but their coach took the opportunity to deliver a speech that I doubt any of the players will ever forget. I can’t embed the video here without it starting automatically, so I’ll spare you that annoyance and point you to the link.

ToVa Rewind:

Convert Routines Into Rituals For Meaningful Progress
Use Rituals To Engineer your Perfect Day

Rupert is reading: A Hologram For The King by Dave Eggers

Have a great weekend!

Use Rituals To Engineer Your Perfect Day

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is having a perfect day.

A powerful way to start living the life you want to live while making progress toward your grandest goals is to map out what your average perfect day would look like (via). Not your fantasy perfect day, but a perfect day that you can engineer out of the raw material of reality.

Naturally this perfect day should include doing the things you love, even if only for a little while. Writers should want to write everyday. Musicians should want to play. Painters should want to paint. Athletes should want to run. If this is not the case, perhaps revisit your “passions”.

On Monday we discussed converting your routines into rituals. The use of such rituals can help you stick to your map of an average perfect day on an ongoing basis.

What differentiates routine from ritual is intent. Routines are undertaken passively, sometimes unconsciously, while rituals are ceremonial and intentional. Assigned the proper meaning, rituals grant us passage to a desired state of mind or place. A cup of stale coffee from a vending machine is mindless and routine but a flat white made by your own hand and enjoyed in your favorite chair can be so much more. It can usher in creativity or kick-start intense productivity – it’s really for you to decide.

Such rituals should be installed as cornerstones within your average perfect day. In this way you can piece together great, productive days one ritual brick at a time and see them through to live the life you truly desire.

Convert Routines Into Rituals For Meaningful Progress

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is a creature of habit.

You might not think that you’re a creature of routine but consider the course of your average day for a few seconds. Maybe you always have a cup of coffee in the morning and try to wait until noon before having another. You iron your shirt for the next work day just before you go to bed. Maybe you can’t fall asleep without some light reading. The first thing you do in the morning is mindlessly scroll through your Facebook feed while you will yourself to rise from bed and face the day. You probably always have lunch around the same time.

With the same person.

In the same room.

You might be realizing that you have a lot of routine activities that you don’t actively consider. Imagine how much more your day would mean if you did actively consider them; if you engineered your routine activities into a set of daily rituals. No matter what your idea of success looks like, meaningful rituals can help you get there.

Drive The Plot Forward

Where a routine is mechanical and rote, a ritual is ceremonial and injected with meaning. A daily ritual can’t be a ‘token’ activity that you do merely because you feel like you should or because you’ve seen other people do it – it must mean something to you and that meaning should ideally relate to whatever you’re trying to accomplish.

It is common wisdom among writers that each word of a story should drive the plot forward. The same rule applies to your daily activities: if the activity at hand isn’t getting you closer to your goal, why are you doing it in the first place?

A powerful enough ritual can set the pace for our entire day, so it is important to consider the pace that we want to set. This begins with knowing yourself and your natural rhythms. If you’re developing rituals around writing, for example, you would want to tee these rituals up at a time that you are naturally more creative. The ritual, then, serves to maximize and enhance your natural rhythm.

My own rituals that lead into my creative work (usually writing) involve a cup of coffee, reading and – depending on the type of writing I’ll be doing – a walk around the neighborhood. I am naturally more creative in the afternoon and early evening so if I were to deploy these rituals at 5 A.M. they would be less effective than if I started them after lunch. Likewise, a walk only fuels my creativity if I’m going to be writing a blog post. If I’m going to be writing fiction, it’s best for me to get right into the work with my coffee in hand. Once I’ve followed the given pattern of rituals, I am well and truly in the ‘zone’ for creative work.

Your own rituals should likewise suit your own personal and specific needs. It’s interesting to know that F. Scott Fitzgerald arose at 11 A.M. most days, but that doesn’t mean you’ll write the next Great American Novel if you also wake at that time. Rising at 11 worked for him, but only when combined with any number of other rituals that fell in line with his own creative rhythms. There is no formula for creativity and maximum productivity – there is only what works and what doesn’t work for you.

Your Rituals Evolve Along With You

I was raised on a lot of colloquial wisdom in West Virginia. A saying that I heard pretty often while growing up was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s true that constant tinkering eventually (and sometimes rapidly) reaches a point of diminishing returns. In the same way that you can only coax so much power out of an engine, you can likewise only derive so much power from a ritual.

Life-hacking your cup of coffee, in other words, won’t make the muse any more forthcoming. Your ritual will only ever be what it is until – one day – it’s not.

The day that it’s finally ‘broke’ and needs fixing.

Your rituals will evolve along with your personality, goals, rhythms and surroundings. A walk around the neighborhood might inspire you around your current suburb but if you move across town it might cause anxiety. The ritual will be broken and need to be adjusted or jettisoned.

It is important to remember that rituals are not end states – they exist on a continuum along which they must serve your needs for the moment (via). They may eventually stop serving your needs as you move toward your goal. Your rituals of the moment must always be helping and not hindering, otherwise they become rote and you guessed it: routine.

Periodic reflection is necessary to prevent your rituals from leaving you in a rut. It’s important to pause every so often and consider the purpose of your rituals, the same way you did when you considered your daily routine at the outset of this article. What activities in your day are filled with meaning and which are just examples of you going through the motions? Lose the meaningless ones and substitute in ones that will actively bring you a step closer to your dreams each time you perform them.

If we are all floating downstream, daily rituals are our paddles. Without them we have less control over our path and are ultimately at the mercy of the current. By empowering ourselves with rituals we give ourselves the freedom to choose our path; to chart our own course. Don’t settle for going with the flow – make your activities mean something.