Hey Team,
If Saturday is any guide, well, summer is here…and it is going to be ‘warmish’. Hopefully (I know I am hoping) the investment late last year in the new whirlybirds in the boxing gym area will prove to be worth it!
The classes last week were super tough – that Wednesday boxing session in particular was a bit of an all-timer. Congrats to everyone who pushed their way through a few sessions last week – this week looks awesome as well (thanks Josh) and we have a great variety of classes in the boxing gym including a fun partners session around the middle of the week. Over in the strength gym our escalations with decline bench press and banded Sumo Deadlifts continue – we also have a metcon focus (Monday) and a gymnastics focus (Wednesday)…get excited!
Now I’ve been reading quite a bit lately – and I fumbled my way through one of the most meaningful books I have read in a long while. It is called “RANGE: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialised World” and was written by David Epstein (who also wrote ‘The Sports Gene’ – another awesome book).
Now the book covers a lot of ground (the story about Frances Hesselbein and her journey to become CEO of the Girl Guides and the changes she made to that institution is worth the purchase price alone) but I today I wanted to focus in on something a little bit closer to home.
As a few people know, our 17 year old (Marshall, who has worked at the gym for more than a few years now) graduated from High School a couple of weeks back. And – as parents will know, it means heading along to the graduation event and listening to the kids and their teachers talk quite a bit about how all of the graduates need to ‘hold on to their dreams’ no matter what happens in the future etc etc. And – to cynical people like me who have changed careers several times and who believes that most of the happiness in our lives comes in ‘small doses’ that oftentimes seems to come along ‘by accident’ rather than as a result of some life-long plan, well, some of that all seems a bit naïve (at best).
Anyway, in his book Epstein talks about a high school graduation speech that was WRITTEN but never delivered. The author was Paul Graham – a computer scientist and one of the co-founders of now legendary investment firm “Y Combinator” (start up funder of a few companies you might have heard of: Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe and Twitch) and he had a bit of a different take on things:
It might seem that nothing would be easier than deciding what you like, but it turns out to be hard, partly because it’s hard to get an accurate picture of most jobs. . . . Most of the work I’ve done in the last ten years didn’t exist when I was in high school. . . . In such a world it’s not a good idea to have fixed plans. And yet every May, speakers all over the country fire up the Standard Graduation Speech, the theme of which is: don’t give up on your dreams. I know what they mean, but this is a bad way to put it, because it implies you’re supposed to be bound by some plan you made early on. The computer world has a name for this: premature optimization. . . . . . . Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. This is what most successful people actually do anyway. In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don’t commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward.
“…look at the options available NOW and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward…”.
How good is that one sentence as a bit of a guide for the way we are all doing things in every part of our lives? It doesn’t really need much pre-planning or forethought – it doesn’t mean you have to stick rigidly to a plan…it just means making positive choices as each day goes along. Of course, you can focus on the MACRO level decisions – buying a house, changing jobs etc – but I know for me I read that sentence and have immediate visions of making good decisions when my alarm clock goes off, when I have a bit of spare time and a choice to make between guitar practice and watching TV…you get the idea and I am sure you could apply the same principle in your own life.
Anyway – great book. I really (really) loved it and I am sure you guys all will as well!
One last one. I am really appreciative to all of our Functional Fitness members who have downloaded our new ‘Sugar WOD’ app so far – when I last checked we had 50 people registered. I really would encourage you guys to get in there, have a play with the app and start logging your times/weights…what gets measured gets managed so if you WANT to get stronger/fitter, this app is certainly a step in the right direction!
And if you missed the email/social media stuff last week, you can download the app to access it HERE:
Download Android: www.sugarwod.com/android
Download iPhone: www.sugarwod.com/ios
Like I said – the gym is picking up the bill for this. Really want to see you guys getting in there, tracking your progress and making some gains!
That’s it. Really looking forward to the week ahead – see you all in the gym,
Michael.
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