I’m not Jocko. Good! Dust off...and Re-engage!

There’s a scene in every suspense, or thriller where the main character is slowly making his way down the hall, into the basement, or heading into the woods alone, because that’s always a good idea! 

Everybody can feel something is off just a little, we don’t know what’s coming, but we all sense it.

"If you quit when you suck, you'll suck forever." - Mori Calliope

I’ve spent the last 48 hours walking around in a mild fog; not able to isolate what was really bothering me, simply knowing, “This doesn’t feel right.”

A gnawing in the back of my mind, something tugging at my psyche’ like when you watch Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense for the first time. You know something’s not right, you just don’t know what yet.

I’m an “emotions on my sleeve” type of guy, for good or bad. I’ve had to learn to recognize those emotions and work toward not allowing them to control me or my actions. But I’ve never considered trying to get rid of them...

It’s almost like my own personal “sixth sense” if you want to call it that. Some people call it a form of intuition. Hindus and Buddhists believe it is one of your charkas, that can be tapped into and trained. 

I use the emotions, this intuition, to gauge my inner peace. Protecting that peace is TOP of my priority list.

Having come to grips with my internal freakshow many years ago, I understand vitally how important it is for me to maintain a peaceful inner spirit. So when something is “off”, I pay attention.

I know that all sounds “woo woo”, and I suppose it is to a degree. Think about it like this.

Have you ever watched a coach or a team captain getting the team fired up before heading out onto the field? Jumping, yelling, and pumping each other up, stoking that fire in each other before they rush out as a unit. Slash grinds his guitar as Welcome to the Jungle blasts through the stadium igniting the crowd for the team’s run out of the tunnel. The team AND the crowd feed off of that energy.

Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay

What about the players sitting quietly off by themselves with headphones on, almost seeming to meditate before coming out? A silent, internal calming.

Opposite ends of the spectrum, both preparing for battle. One is a gathering storm, building energy to unleash on the opponent. The other is a quiet, internal beast preparing to dissect the enemy.

I have used both in my life, at different times. For the most part, I lean toward the second method.

I have stood on stages before and used both, to motivate and inspire, as well as to calm and touch emotions. 

Most people don’t recognize this happens constantly throughout the day, to all of us, whether you accept that it does or not.

Like that old quote, “I can’t prove to you the wind exists. But when you sit in the sun and feel it gentling kissing your cheeks, you know it’s real.”

So when I tell you I knew in my spirit something was off, I’m speaking from experience.

The problem was I also had some frustration and anger hanging around from the last couple of days. I won’t go into details, they aren’t important. I’ll just tell you that I had placed myself in a situation that I “thought” I was prepared for and it kicked my ass.

That failure, along with the recognition that I had NOT been prepared was beating me up on the inside. 

I muddled around most of the day, attempting some work, touching on a project or two, not accomplishing much.

By the time my wife got home from work, I was a mess.

You know me by now. You know I’m never one to leave well enough alone and accept that this simple answer was the truth of what was eating me…for better or worse, I tend to over-analyze my own brain.

Number one, I really want to understand what drives me and pushes my buttons. Number two, I never want to accept what the brain is telling me about my situation because I know the little shit lies to me all the time. So does yours!

I went to bed earlier than normal because I just didn’t want to process anything else for the day. I apologized to Taunya and headed off to sleep.

Well, what do you know? I woke up to my 5:30 alarm and INSTANTLY had my answer.

Sometimes this is a blessing, sometimes it’s a curse. But I’ll tell you, the more you learn to tap into your intuition and allow your subconscious to work things out for you, it’s kind of fun.

There is an old story about Thomas Edison taking naps with ball bearings in his hands. He would fall asleep holding the bearings, knowing that his subconscious would start processing his dilemma. As soon as he fully nodded off to dreamland, the bearings would fall into a pan, waking him up and tapping him into what the subconscious had been working on.

We now know, through modern technology and brain study, that he was attempting to wake his brain up when it was in a particular state of activity.

When scientists measure brain activity on an electrical spectrum, different activities produce distinctly different electrical currents.

Think of it like sound waves, if you don’t understand electrical current. Each sound is carried on a different wavelength, which can also be measured and seen on a chart.

So when they hook somebody up to all those wires on their head and make them do different tasks like puzzles, reading, or meditation, they can see exactly what’s going on in the brain electrically, in wave patterns.

The electrical wave most associated with creativity and problem-solving is called the “Alpha” wave. That also happens to be one of the first wave patterns the brain slides into as you drift off to sleep.

Click the image for https://pogledi.net/en/brain-waves/. There is a great article that covers the information.

So without using sophisticated electrical technology to tell him he was correct, Edison was waking himself up at the moment his brain unleashed its most creative wave pattern. And wallah…he had his answer. Not all the time of course, but enough so that he repeated the exercise often.

This is the same idea behind Solfeggio frequencies and binaural beats. The concept is that if you listen to a particular frequency, similar to what a tuning fork will do, you stimulate the brain to begin operating at the same frequency, creating the desired result. It could be creating restful sleep, tapping into creativity, or simply relaxing and calming the mind.

Again, a little bit woo-woo and completely off-topic, but it’s totally legit. Maybe we’ll cover that later.

 Back to me

I woke up thinking about a t-shirt I bought on Facebook a few years ago. It’s nothing fancy, not even great quality. But the front has one of my favorite quotes.

“Don’t be upset by the results you didn’t get with the work you didn’t do.” 

rangerup.com

(There is some debate over the first one to say it, but it doesn’t matter. It F’ing rocks!)

That was me. Yep, Mr. Big Stuff, up here tellin’ all of Ya’ll how to go about your business. And I’m guilty too…SH*T! 

My brain queues up Five Finger Death Punch’s Fake…I told you he’s a jerk.

I’ve hit some stagnation in my personal business of late, the money side of things. And also in my fitness and weight goals for this year.

As I’m lying there thinking about that t-shirt, I wanted to punch myself in the face. I hate it when I’m right and then rub it in my face.

I’ve spent the last several weeks caught in a HUGE trap for most entrepreneurs, anyone who owns their own business, anyone working without direct supervision, and just about anybody with a goal looking to accomplish anything, like EVER. See if you can relate.

There is a difference between looking busy and being busy, just ask George Costanza.

I was guilty of looking busy. 

I kept my fingers moving, clicking things off the lists in my head, but never actually doing anything productive to further my business.

Then when I headed off to the show for my former company “thinking” I had made mental preparations for the outcome and the work needed…I failed.

So the itch on the back of my neck, the feeling I couldn’t shake, turned out to be my internal Mr. Myagi. He knew I’d been sanding the floor, and painting the fence, but not getting anything done.

image You Tube

Here’s the point today…that stupid quote on my t-shirt. I love it, but it’s dangerous in the wrong hands.

“Don’t be upset by the results you didn’t get with the work you didn’t do.”

I am NOT one of those guys who is all about just “grinding” and “hustling”; “You gotta always be pushing”. I believe there is a time and a place for that. I also believe some people respond to that type of motivational speech. I don’t.

I do grind and hustle. I also think and reflect. I believe both are necessary to succeed, in equal measure.

It is much more common for someone to have periods of grinding, followed by periods of reflection and periods of rest too. There aren’t that many people in the world who just grind non-stop.

There are only so many David Goggins, Jocko Willinks, and Ed Myletts. They built their empires by bulldozing over and through their obstacles.

You MAY be like that, but it’s more likely you aren’t. It’s more likely that you beat yourself up like I do, because you want to be like that, and you just aren’t.

That’s what was eating me! 

Not that I had not put in the effort. I can be honest and accept that I have not done as much as I told myself I had done.

No, I was beating myself up mentally! I was judging myself and holding it over my head that I had failed, once more, to be Jocko.

I want SO badly to be Jocko. I want to be the guy who just laces up his boots and runs back onto the battlefield, broken, bleeding, shredded, but he just keeps going.

I’m not.

I’m also in the middle of reading Tim Kennedy’s book Scars and Stripes. Another Green Beret, Army Ranger, kick ass and take names, "we’ll rest later" kind of a guy.

(Come back in a week or so for my review of the book)

But it’s not me.

It took me most of my life to accept that this is not me, and here I am beating myself up again...hit the music... “You’re a fake motherf***er, I hate you motherf***er, I’ll break you, motherf***er, you’re mine”

F**k!

Takeaway

So here are the lessons I learned this week, maybe they’ll help you too.

1.  I’m not Jocko. I know I have weaknesses at this point in my life that keep me from pushing through sometimes…but I have to keep pushing. I have to!

2. While I may not immediately run right back into the firefight bleeding and bruised, I know I have to get back in there. Quitting is not an option.

3. When I stumble, there is ALWAYS going to be that voice in the back of the room that yells something like, “You’re not Jocko!”...that guy is a d***head, don't listen to that voice!

4. There is a quote most people think Einstein said, but he didn’t say it. I’ll paraphrase it: “Everyone is a genius. If we judge a fish by how well he climbs a tree, he will spend his entire life thinking he is stupid.” I’m not Jocko, get over it, I’m also not stupid.

5. The next time I have results in my life that I don’t want, I will acknowledge they are directly related to my efforts, BUT I’m not going to beat myself up anymore. I get five minutes to be upset.

6. Then I do what Jocko says in his GOOD video - Get up, Dust off, Reload, Recalibrate, Re-engage, and get back on the attack. Figure out where I fell short and make a plan for changing it.

7. Finally, the world doesn’t need another Jocko. It needs a ME! And it needs a YOU. So get back in there.

I don’t LOSE unless I QUIT!

And that ain’t happening!

See Ya’ll next time,

Dewey