Kicking Ass 101
Today begins my first official day of Praxis. Last night, I and my fellow Praxians of the January 2020 cohort, had the honor of T.K. Coleman and Hannah Frankman kicking off our program. This send-off may not even have been anything special. In fact, this is most likely how everyone’s program begins, but as it is our start, our beginning, this moment has personal significance as it marks the beginning of all beginnings.
Both T.K. and Hannah each gave us three tips on how to not only succeed but to excel in this program. They are as follows:
- “Go to the Weight Room instead of the Waiting Room.”
This was T.K.’s first suggestion. It is a simple analogy that I am sure all Praxians can relate too. The analogy is this, Praxis is a gym, and it being a gym, you get out what you put in. We all know this when it comes to the weight room. It is the reason no one looks at someone who is jacked and says, “You don’t deserve that,” or “You didn’t work hard enough for that.” We know that in the gym, there is a direct correlation between effort, hard work, and the time we put-in to the pay-off. And even tho it is rarely acknowledged, this is the same with our careers and our development journey.
2. Just get stuff done.
Hannah’s first tip gets straight to the point, and let’s be honest, we all know that “stuff” is supposed to say “shit.” It’s a simple concept, really. The idea is this: be a doer and not a thinker. As much as everyone loves an intellectual, in life, we aren’t rewarded for the thoughts we have, but what we do with them. So get out there and get after it.
3. Kill the FOMO
Until T.K. explained the acronym, I had forgotten entirely about this enemy of mine. FOMO — The Fear Of Missing Out. We all experience it at some point in time or another, but what is it really? At the heart of that fear, what are we actually confronting? I’ll tell you; we are encountering a break in our hierarchy of values. When we think we are experiencing FOMO, we are, in actuality, struggling with the desire for short term gratification, over the long term. We are playing the short game, instead of the long one. And whenever one does that, they are bound to lose at it (the long game). So kill the FOMO. Don’t give in to that pressure. Instead, stay true to your goals and trust the process.
4. Do the most challenging projects.
This gem from Hannah highlights a critical element of self-improvement and growth of any sort. It is an age-old concept, immortalized in mythology through the hero’s narrative. It is the theory of, “That which you most need, is found where you least want to look,” as Jordan Peterson so eloquently puts it. It is taking the hard path, knowing that it is the path of development — the path of growth. Jerzy Gregorek put it much more simply, “Easy choices, hard life. Hard life, easy choices.”
Do the hard things because in doing them, you reach the zone of proximal development, and that is where the most growth occurs.
5. Go the extra mile.
“The only way to signal real value is to find the standard and go beyond it.” — T.K. Coleman.
Who does the world remember? Do we remember all the nine-to-fivers, the box checkers, or the bare-minimals? No. No, in fact, we remember the opposite. We recognize the Steve Jobs, the Nikola Teslas, and the Elon Musks. And why do we remember them? It’s not because they were “nice” people. From all accounts, Steve Jobs was a very demanding boss. No, we immortalize them because these individuals went above and beyond what anyone had hitherto done. They sought to change the world, and they did this by doing what others only dared to dream of doing. Go the extra mile.
6. Document all that you do.
I believe Hannah’s exact words were, “if you do it, document it.” In a world that revolves around social media, this shouldn’t be much of a challenge for most. But for me, it is. I am not one to put my thoughts out there or to let people know what I am doing. However, that is about to change, and thus I am writing this post. There is a phenomenon that occurs whenever we do not signal what we know, what we are doing, or what we have done. The phenomenon is that it didn’t happen, at least not in the eyes of everyone else. We know it happened. We lived through it, experienced it. But, the world and everyone else in it do not, and so it is not part of the collective consciousness.
Each of these suggestions is extremely valuable, in and of themselves. Combined and lived out, though, they are dangerously powerful. But more importantly, these tips outline an underlying sentiment that is so central to Praxis. It is the notion that this course, this program, is driven by growth, both personally and professionally. Thus, this is the beginning of all beginnings from where all future growth will stem.
From this seminar, I have become more adequately equipped for Praxis, and with these insights in mind, I am acquiring Forward Tilt.
