So undeserving

One of my favorite things to do is to watch inspiring stories of amazing individuals on Ellen. One day while browsing through there was a segment about a young lady that would be receiving money. In the interview Ellen mentioned that the young lady had to give up cable to be able to feed her children, this stopped me in my tracks.

I was mad, frustrated and upset. How could giving up your cable be considered like such a big deal. I live with cable and I am able to survive. There are plenty of people out there that live with so much less and in my opinion are so much more deserving. Then it hit me like a bag of bricks, very rarely do we ever get what we truly deserve and more importantly the idea that we have the right to judge the worthiness of anyone is wrong.

There will always be someone who wants it more, deserves it more and has suffered more. Yet for some reason that cannot be explained we get so much more than we deserve. I for one can say with absolute certainty that if I was given everything that I deserve, I would not be where I am today.
Far too often in my own life, I have held back kindness, words of encouragement or praise for someone because I did not believe they deserved it. I did not believe that they had done enough to earn what I could give them and what could potentially change their life and the true misery of it all is I lost far more when I did not share than I would have lost or potentially lost with sharing it, all because I did not think they were deserving.

The problem I faced and still face at times is the belief that I have the right and the need to base my actions on how deserving an individual is. I understand the fact that we need to choose who we spend our time with and make sure we spend our time with those that bring us up. This is a different concept. It is not about whom you spend your time with; it is about a simple action to choose kindness and to choose to give the best version of yourself every single second of your life.
In life we always have two options, to give the best version of ourselves or to settle for something less. When we settle, we do more of a disservice to ourselves than to anyone else. When we choose to not give the best version of ourselves we not only impact our current situation in a negative way but our future as well. Every decision we make brings us closer or further away to our goals and to becoming an even better version of ourselves.

It is the people that have chosen to constantly give the best version of themselves with blatant disregard to what was happening around them that stick out in our mind. Think of Anne Frank, and everything that she dealt with in her lifetime. Martin Luther King who lived in a time where it would have been easy to embrace violence, decided to give the best version of himself and inspire a nation. In my own life I think of two individuals who keep me going every single day and have inspired me beyond words, while I have many of these people in my life, this mother and son stick out. Their names are Annika and Bo Johnson.

Bo was diagnosed with a rare form of Leukemia at the age of 12 and sadly his life ended far too soon on September 28, 2012. While the news is devastating I do not think I am doing him proper justice by just focusing on the battle he had to endure, the real story of inspiration is the life he lived inspire of it all. Bo’s message is simple, Love each other, help each other, have your neighbor's back. If you see someone in need- even a stranger- reaches out and helps. This world can be a better place if we care and help each other. When he was sent home to spend his last remaining days with his family and friends, he did not focus on being negative because of the situation he was in but instead he decided to give the best version of himself and to change the world and the lives of the people around him. Then you have Annika, the mother of Bo, a women who had the most important and precious thing in her life taken away from her. To most this would be the start to living the rest of your life full of hate and seeing all the evil in the world. This is not Annika; she gives the best version of herself and continues to change the world around her. She cheers on every patient battling cancer with the hope that no one will ever have to go through losing someone they love like she did. I imagine a world where they both made the decision to simply not give the best version of themselves, it certainly would have been understandable, they certainly would have been deserving to do so but they decided not to, and instead of hiding from the world, they went out and changed it.

There are two messages I want you to get from this post. The first I hope is clear, stop judging people, yourself and your actions based on what is “deserved” and simply give the best version of yourself. The second is that I want you to realize that the only way you can change the world is by giving the best version of yourself. You do not need some giant plan, you just need to be yourself.

Life is too short...

We often use the saying “life is too short” or some variation of it to help us deal with an issue, put things into perspective or motivate us. While the saying has a lot of sentiment, we need to stop using it as a source of motivation and as an excuse. It puts us at odds with trying to do everything before we die. Here are some examples of that prove my point.

We often use “life is too short” as a mantra to no longer put up with negative people in our life. First let me say that I do not think anyone should waste any time with someone who brings them down. It is unhealthy and you deserve better. It does not matter if it is a relationship, friendship or someone you work with. Spend as little time with these people as you can and if you can get them out of your life, do it. If you lived to be 100 or 200 or even 500, would it be okay to spend your time with people that bring you down? The fact of the matter is, you could live forever and you should never spend a moment with someone who makes you feel bad about yourself.

“Life is too short to not take chances”, puts us in a place that we constantly need to worry that if we do not take a chance today or right now, there will never be another one. That we are somehow limited on the chances and opportunities that we have and we need to be sure we never miss one. While I am all for taking chances and making the most out of every opportunity, if we need to compare it to how long we could live, we miss the point. We should not take chances because of the limited time we have on this earth, we should take chances because it is something that we want to do and something we feel called to do. If you take a chance just because of limited time, you are more likely than not, wasting time. In fact the whole idea of chance is absurd to me, yes there will be chances of opportunity for you in your life that come along unexpectedly but we need to be in the mindset that every damn day is an opportunity to live the life you want.

My whole issue with the “life is too short” mentality is that it stops a lot more opportunities than we think. For some, life is too short to follow their dreams. Their dreams will take a great amount of time, and we never know when we could die. Following our dreams mean giving up things that we love and that hurts. Some dreams are long-term and pretty damn ambitious and so for those dreams, we could say life is too short. Life is too short to go and chase all of it, to spend countless hours working on a project and to not even know if it will all work out. Life is too short to not be “happy” and have the easy life. Some dreams mean letting go of other dreams, to stop being comfortable and to be scared at times. The real issue with telling people that life is too short is it makes them judge what they want to do based off of them dying and not based on what they really want to do and where they will have an impact. It is better to be in pursuit of your dreams and die then to not chase your dreams at all because there was not enough time.

We need to focus on the fact that there is so much opportunity. Opportunity is all around us. Fill your life with taking chances and following your dreams because you could live for 50 more years not because you could die tomorrow.

There is something that you need to know.

As I turned 29 I was flooded with birthday love and one message that kept coming across was that I was a source of inspiration for many people, while I appreciate the kind words, I think many times it is lost on people that I am no different than all the rest of the world. I am just one person who decided to take some chances, have some fun and live outside of my comfort zone.

Why I bring this up is that overall I see an issue and a mental barrier to those that we look to for inspiration. The problems is that we see those people at a different level than us, we see all the great things that they are doing and how “perfect” of a life they lead. When we start to see them in that light, we lose faith that we too can be that great and that we can be just as inspiring. We lose faith because we start to think of all the times we have failed and all of the “flaws” we have, so I want to share my story.

Here is the truth. I am stubborn, rude, mean and at times arrogant. I have failed more times than I can count. I am at times afraid, negative and dislike the world. I struggle and my life and my choices are nowhere near perfect. In fact many times in my life, I have had no idea where I was headed or what I would be doing. Far too often I let my anger run my how I think, feel and act. I am at times very unworthy of all the praise and compliments I receive. This is not me feeling bad about myself, it is just the truth.

We look at everything that is wrong with us and we see them as barriers to us being successful. We see them as things we need to hide, dirty little secrets that we cannot share, because who could possibly be worse than us? The voice inside our head, tells us that if we tell anyone these secrets we will become a fraud and unloved.

The truth is it is because of these things not in spite of them that our story can become so great, so powerful and so inspiring. These are the characteristics that we must overcome to become the best version of ourselves. It would be absurdly easy to live a perfect life, where nothing went wrong and you always got your way but it would be an uninspiring one. There would be no story, there would be no hope and there would be no greatness within you.

To me it seems that many times when we talk about accepting ourselves and loving ourselves, we only choose to love and accept the good parts. While I know everyone has an amazing gift and should celebrate how great they are, this type of thinking is flawed. It is flawed because it makes us hide and not love who we really are, with this thinking we only love ourselves when we are perfect and yet we never are.

The choice to embrace and accept our flaws is when we are truly set free, it is then and only then that we can deal with these issues and work on them. If we constantly ignore them, they will not go away but they will become bigger and bigger and take more control over your life.

I want everyone to realize how great they already are and that they need to share it with the world. It is easy for us to talk about all the good times but what really shapes us and creates us for who we are today is the times that we have struggled and where we fell short. We need to start talking about these times more often. We should stop being afraid to admit that we are not perfect, that we struggle and that we are normal with extraordinary gifts.  When we choose to no longer be afraid that is when we truly can be inspiring and embrace how great we truly are.

People

When I lived in Green Bay, there was a gym I used to go to and every once in a while I would be working out next to two people. I can remember a majority of what their conversations were about, I was interested not because it was inspiring but because it scared me. It seemed that all they would talk about is how much their kids have been disappointing them, what their kids have done wrong and ironically why their kids never seemed to want to spend time with them (hard to believe that someone who puts you down, is not on your list of favorite people). This brings me to the topic of the post, surround yourself with people who will bring you up, not put you down.

In my life I have been lucky enough to have the vast majority of people in my life support everything that I do, so vast in fact that I cannot even name one person off the top of my head that has ever told me I cannot do something and I cannot tell you how much that means to me. Many times in my life a friend of a friend has helped me out without really knowing me and yet they invested in me.  I know that all of the support has made a huge difference in everything that I have done and will continue to do. Take time to find the people in your life that have constantly supported you and thank them. One of the best ways you can thank them is by not only supporting them but supporting other people as well.

If you can’t help someone, then do not spend any time bringing them down. When you feel the need to point out what is wrong with someone, my suggestion would be to find what you can improve in yourself. You will never get better by pointing out what is wrong with everyone else and ignoring where you can improve.  Do not spend any time with the people that bring you down or tell you that you are not good enough. It is not you that they do not believe in, but rather they do not believe how great they can be, so instead they focus on other people. As much as it sucks to get rid of these people, you need to do it to go further faster. You can always reach your full potential but it is better to not have someone weighing you down, that could be lifting you up.

As important as it is to keep the right people in your life and get rid of the wrong ones, the most important thing and the biggest success factor is how much you believe in yourself. If you do not believe in yourself no matter how much anyone else does, it will not matter and if you believe in yourself and no matter how much someone tries to bring you down, it will never happen because you know better.

Most importantly one of the things that you need to remember is that you matter, and that you are enough. I know this may sound cheesy and cliché but it is the truth. It is my belief that many people put this idea down simply because they do not believe in themselves and are afraid of how great they could be. They see all of their insecurities and everything that they have done wrong and they believe that it defines them. They surround themselves with people who do not support them but bring them down and it is a never ending battle to fight trying to prove that you are good enough until you believe it yourself.

The Starbucks "FIasco"

I will admit it, I was not a huge fan of the #RaceTogether campaign that Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz started earlier this month. I understood the concept but I thought the vehicle he chose to deliver the message was ultimate not the right decision. That being said Schultz also had a big hand in buying a 3.8 million dollar business and turning it 13 billion dollar giant, that started a movement of coffee houses to pop up all over the world, so chances are, he may know a thing or two about business and as big of a mistake as the #RaceTogether idea may have been, Schultz once again proved why he will continue to be successful in business.

He is not afraid of failure. When the #RaceTogether idea was first announced, not many people bought into it. I am willing to bet, Schultz knew that it could be a failure but he did it anyway. He took a chance and it did not turn out well but the key is, he took a chance. While everyone else was poking holes in his idea, he was out on the battlefield taking a risk and seeing where it would take him and the organization. He did not just talk about it, he did something about it. How many times in your organization has your leader talked about making a change but has never pulled the trigger?

I know that today when the news came out that it was being cut, cut back, removed or whatever you want to call it, many including myself at first yelled “I told you so!” the only unfortunate thing is that I was in Minneapolis and Schultz was not by me. In this reverse course is further proof that Schultz will continue to be successful and another lesson for not only for business but for life as well, when you are going the wrong direction, change course. Schultz may have had to eat his words but the fact is, he was not afraid to do it. He did what was best for the organization and put the fact that it would make him look bad on the back burner; he put the long-term goals of the organization ahead of the short-term. In everyone’s life there has been a time where you have had to change your course even when you knew it would suck.

There are a few lessons from this #RaceTogether that you can apply to not only your business but your life as well. The first is to stop being afraid to make mistakes, mistakes will always happen. You can choose the mistake of not trying or make a mistake while trying. In one you know the results; in the other the doors are open. The second thing we can learn is that if you want to see change, you must take action. Schultz did not want change he tried to create it. While most people just sit around and wait he took initiative. Another lesson I want to touch on is the fact that too often we only focus on the results. Far too often it is either a pass or fail grade. We forget the most important part, what we learned in the middle, those critical lessons that we must learn to be successful and that made us successful. The final lesson I want to point out is that no matter how right you think you are, never be afraid to change your course when you see a mistake. Would you have stayed on the Titanic while it was sinking because of the “fact” that it was unsinkable? Pay attention to your surroundings and focus on the best term solution, instead of being right. 

Why I stopped running for myself

When I tell people about some of the endurance events, they begin to tell me how they could never do that, how hard it must be, how much time I must have had to give up to get there and then there are times where they tell me that they are not strong enough to do what I do. I want to grab them and look them in the eyes and tell them the truth, they are and you are.

What you have to know is the truth. I am not all that strong, I get frustrated, I get pissed off, I lose my way, I get off track and there are times when I just give up. I have lost faith in myself to believe that I could accomplish what I have set out to do. The truth is, I am weak, I am vulnerable and I fall short a lot more than most of you will know. Now there is another thing that you need to know, none of this really matters because of the people I run for. It is because of them that I can endure the pain, training and frustration that goes into accomplishing my goals.

I tell you these things not because I want your sympathy or because I do not like myself but because you all need to know this. That if I can do such "crazy" things you can as well. There is nothing that makes me greater than anyone else.

Here are just a few of my many highlights of what I can do with the power of other people.

I did a 50 mile road race in Door County, WI. I ran for a young man named Bo Johnson who I never had the pleasure of meeting and yet he was with me the whole time. Bo passed away from Cancer at the age of 13 which was not enough time for the world but enough time for Bo to impact the world. In his final days instead of giving up on life, he gave life everything. He inspired thousands of people to act in kindness and be a bright light even at the world's darkest moments. I continue to run for not only him but his mother Annika as well. Cancer took the most precious thing away from her that anyone could ever imagine, her son. Many people would become bitter, angry, mad and start to hate the world and then there is Annika. A women that chose to continue Bo's legacy of going out and making the world a better place and inspiring and acting with kindness. She is in the corner of anyone that has battled cancer or is battling cancer. She is overjoyed when she hears about people overcoming cancer. I know that as much as Bo has taught her and has inspired her, she did the same for Bo and always had this passion in her.

In 2014 I completed Ironman Wisconsin with two of my best friends, Aaron Hunnel and Katie Neuman. Katie has CP so Aaron and I were lucky enough to be able to be her arms and legs that day. When I tell people this, their response usually is a compliment about how selfless I am, and while I appreciate it, it needs to be known that it was not as selfless as it seems. Katie had just as much to do with crossing the finish line that day as Aaron and I did. Katie kept Aaron and I going the whole time, in fact she did such an amazing job that the whole day was an amazing adventure. That day we swam, biked and ran not only for Katie who is amazing, inspiring, relentless and positive beyond measure but for everyone to provide hope. Katie is bound to a wheel chair pretty much every second of her life. She is not there because of some choice that she made or that her parents made but just because of bad luck and yet Katie is one of the happiest and positive people you will ever meet. She gets life and what it really means to live.

Later in 2014 I ran an indoor 12 hour treadmill run to help raise money for pediatric cancer research and to provide scholarships for pediatric cancer patients. To most runners, including myself the treadmill is not our best friend. Telling people about this event, many of them said they would never even think about doing that and yet when I put it into perspective of the kids and families we ran for, it really is not that bad. On that run I thought a lot about what it would be like to know that your child is battling cancer and how heartbreaking that would be. To know that no matter how much you try and how hard you fight the odds are not in your favor. I thought about the kids who never asked to sign up for a disease that is trying to kill them. The fact that many of them are not even in high school and most people's definition of their age, they would have no understanding of what life is really about and yet they do. They understand life more than 99% of this world ever will. They live when they are being told to die.

As I tell people about my future plans, I once again am given support and at the same time I am asked the question of "Why would you ever want to do that" or the statement of "That sounds like it would suck." What I want you all to know is that why it may suck it is one million times easier and better than everything that the people I run for have to deal with. The pain I feel is temporary and the pain of the people I run for never really goes away and yet they live and inspire people beyond measure.

If you want to be inspired, stop running for yourself and start running for someone else. This applies to life just like it does running, stop living for yourself and start living for something greater, If for no other reason than the simple fact that if you do everything for yourself, your legacy dies when you do but even if you spend one minute investing in something greater than yourself, you live forever.

An Ironman Moment

To start off with, this post really is not about Ironman but it is about a way to live your life. It is a deliberate choice that is made every day. It is not always easy but it is always worth it.

An Ironman moment in your life is a point in your life that you will never forget.

An Ironman moment is an investment with compounding interest. The series of small choices you make on what you will do to and what you will stop doing to get to your moment all adds up and become greater than the sum of their whole. The more you do, it does not become easier but the impact becomes greater.

The choices become so much greater because with each one, you take a step outside of your comfort zone, which creates a bigger comfort zone. It is a choice to challenge yourself to go further while appreciating where you have been. When I ask people about doing an Ironman, their main response is the fact that they have never swam that far or are not that good of a swimmer. I am not sure how to break it to you but no one knew how to swim when they first started training. If we stopped ourselves from where we were and what our current skills set were, we would never get anywhere. We would never do anything. No one, no matter how great they are was able to swim the whole distance. Apply this outside of an Ironman to your life right now, what is it that you want to do but currently cannot because of where you are? You can spend your entire life focusing on why you cannot get there or you can spend your life figuring out the next step you need to take to get there. One will lead you nowhere while the other will change your life.

People talk about all the time that they will have to dedicate to get there. You are right, it is a lot of time to dedicate and it is worth it. The time will pass anyway; you might as well invest it in doing something that changes your life. Think beyond an Ironman, this applies to every aspect of your life. If you want something you have to work for it and invest the time. I am willing to be that the time you think you will miss, will go unnoticed. You can spend your time working towards your goal or slipping away from it. They both bring challenges, when you work towards your goals, these challenges help you grow, when you choose to ignore your goals these challenges make you feel a fraction of how great you really are.

This moment in your life is about experiencing how truly great you are and not in an arrogant way but in a way that excites you to do more, be more and live more. It is about putting everything on the table and seeing what you are truly made of. It is reaching your limits and breaking them. Most people will never truly understand how great they are, not because they are not courageous enough but because they have been told to settle for just being okay and that doing the least amount of work is all that they need to get by. Take a look around you, everywhere there are hacks and tricks to do less work in less time and supposedly get more from it. I see this all as a lie. I do not believe that you there is any shortcut to true success because in the end, success is not just the end goal but it is the work that went into reaching that goal.

The secret is that you do not have to start with an Ironman but you do have to start somewhere, so whether it is running a 5K, doing your first sprint, switching careers, moving to a different city or whatever you can think of, you just have to start and move forward.