So it's just a quick tap.
We would love to see you over there.
Okay, onward.
Hello and welcome back to the show.
Hello, Ben.
How the heck are you?
Hello, Patrick.
I'm good.
It's good to see you.
You got a nice little melody in that, a little softness to it.
I'm excited to this.
Some number of months ago.
I should have looked up when we did it, but some number of months ago this year certainly we took a chapter of a book called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.
We listened to that chapter and then you and I had what I think was a cool conversation about that text, about some of the ideas inside of that text especially obviously, as it relates to Chasing Excellence.
And so I've had that in the back of my mind for a while.
I kind of want to do that again, and maybe we'll do it again after this one.
But this time around, we're going to do the same basic idea for a poem called If by Rudyard Kipling.
Cool?
Oh, yeah.
Great.
A little bit of context.
We're going to listen to it.
It's a short one.
It's only a couple minutes.
A little bit of context for folks.
Rudyard Kipling was a British writer born in India in 1865, became one of the most celebrated authors of his era.
We all probably know him best as the author of The Jungle Book.
He won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.
He wrote If in 1895 or around 1895.
It was published in 1910 in a collection of poems called Rewards and Fairies.
It quickly became one of the most beloved poems in the English language.
And in 1995, it was voted Britain's favorite poem.
So...
Again, we're going to listen to it, and then on the flip of it, you and I will talk through it.
Cool?
Yeah, it's great.
All right, here it is.
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowances for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies or being hated.
Don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master.
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, if you can bear to hear the truth.
You've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings.
And never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve you long after they are gone.
And so hold on when there is nothing in you. except the will which says to them, hold on.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it.
And which is more, you'll be a man, my son.
That's good.
All right.
Good job, Patrick.
Thank you.
That was If by Rudyard Kipling.
I wanted to, or we wanted to just maybe first walk through this poem, maybe not line by line, but certainly kind of stanza by stanza, idea by idea.
So as a way to kind of kick off into that, I think the first thing that sticks out to me in this entire poem is how the whole thing kind of builds on itself right.
This whole thing is like if this and it's not.
If this, then that, but it's if this, if this, if this, and then finally, at the end of it, it's and then this right.
So it's all these loops that are opening and opening, and opening and stacking, and stacking and stacking.
And to me, it's like, it's a reminder that it's never one thing.
That it's never enough to just think, oh, if I do this, then I get there.
Then that's the finish line.
But it's like, no, no, it's this and then this and don't forget this.
And it's unrelenting and it requires such resilience and patience and effort.
But the reward is everything.
Yeah.
And so that's not a specific place to start, but that's my big takeaway from this thing.
And having read it, you know, 15 or 20 times now in the last couple of days.
Let's go back up to the top.
What do you think about when you first come across this or read this or listen to it?
Yeah, well, that's, you're way more of a literary, if that's even a thing, you're way wicked smarter than I am.
So I love that you pulled that out.
I just want to like pause on it for a second.
If we were to go the other way backwards, right?
Which is, if you want, I forget where he ends it, but the world to be yours.
Yeah.
Yours is the earth.
Yours is the earth.
Yeah, right.
If you want everything that the world has to offer and have this, I'll say our words.
If you want this truly full, meaningful life, if you want to be he says a man, but if you want to be fully human right.
If you want to fully embrace and capture everything it means to be alive in this world.
It comes down to, as you said, these series of things.
But all of those series of things had to do with, as you said patience resilience fortitude calmness, not getting wrapped up.
The punchline is, it's your character.
It is how you deal with these things and not get wrapped up in others or circumstance, or your successes or your failures or what the crowd or man.
I love that.
I think this is so well written.
It takes me, as a gym monkey and coach of thrusters and pull-ups, to go through this a few times to actually pull it all out.
But and I have to look up a lot of the words that I don't understand as old English, be it, but as you go through it it's I think it's incredibly powerful and beautifully written.
I'm always in awe of people that have this sort of ability, because it's so on the other side of where I am.
You are, you're there, you're a phenomenal writer.
And it just, it's like a musician watching them play music to me.
It's just like, it's magic.
You know, it's cause it's so far from, from where I am.
And, Totally.
And when it goes to this, if something that resonates so deeply with the way that I try to have this awareness and intentionality and action built into my life.
I love these beautiful, memorable guideposts.
These paths that are being laid out before us, of saying just a reminder in the most elegant way this is the path.
And I think there's also a lot of power.
I had this feeling when we did the As a Man Thinketh chapter as well, which is like oh, these ideas are not new.
They're timely.
And the reason why I think that's really important is because I think we can get lost in a lot of the noise of today right,
But you think about what are the ideas that have actually truly stood the test of time, right?
That's a cliche, but like it means something like these.
This poem still resonates today, even though it was published in 1910.
And so when you realize that, when you remember that we can kind of give ourselves permission to say, like the new stuff is not the stuff, right?
The new stuff just feels important.
It just feels essential, but it's mostly just shiny, right?
It's like, can we bring ourselves back to the core essential ideas.
And these a poem like this, a book like As a Man Thinks, like they're reminders that people have been struggling with these ideas for as long as people have been around at least enough to communicate.
And so I think that there's a lot of value in remembering that.
It's the same as ever concept that Morgan Housel talks about, which there is.
We're just repeating this same thing on a loop, essentially.
It'll be displayed slightly differently because we live in different worlds, but the message and the lesson and the virtues all remain the same.
To frame this up a little bit, in our framework, what we're saying is we want to chase what truly matters, which is to have the awareness, intention and actions that today that will lead us toward a meaningful life or at least set us up as close to success as we can possibly execute on, based off what we know.
Because I truly don't know what a meaningful life is.
But we're taking our best guess with as much perspective and wisdom as we can, not just from ourselves, but people have gone before us.
So, if that is the case, what we are saying is this kind of gets bolted into or propped up on a few things that seem kind of like very disparate from that and really basic and foundational, which is are you moving?
Are you exercising?
Are you eating things to nourish your body?
Are you sleeping so you have energy and vitality?
And are you training and working your mind, reading philosophy and approaching every day with the right perspective?
And then punchline, this, which is, this is the connecting with yourself aspect.
When we think of eat, sleep, train, think, and connect, this is the connection part.
And the connection is is my character, who I am, and the way I present and think about myself today as a human being in this thing we call humanity?
Is this in line with the highest version of myself?
We talked about that.
Aristotle called it the soul.
Your soul is just your very, very best version of yourself.
And we all operate some gap, one, two, or three away from that.
And that's natural.
We're never going to get truly to our highest self.
No one is.
Gandhi...
Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa are close, but they are not even truly walking souls.
They are human and they have faults.
But the goal is, how close can we get there?
Passages like this and conversations like this remind us of what it is to truly connect at that level and what are the things that are going to get us closer and closer and closer to that highest possible self.
There's a lot there.
I think maybe just picking up on something you just said, though is that idea of there's always going to be that gap between who we could be and who we are right.
And the people you just listed are the people who are sort of revered as being amongst the best possible right.
The ones who perhaps have closed the gap the most between that potential and that reality.
And I think one of the things when you read this poem is the recognition of again and I said it already but like how much work it takes, how much diligence it takes, but also like recognizing that it's not a game of perfection.
It's not a checking every single box of these ifs.
But to your point, and maybe we can bring in one of our frameworks, which we've already mentioned, which is awareness, intention and action.
It's like, can we bring awareness to each one of these ifs?
Because if we can do that, or when we can do that, we are at least in the position to make a slightly different decision that we will be proud of when it's all said and done.
Yes, spot on, right?
So like the awareness, and not just the awareness, but the intention and action, right?
Like all of it.
And the awareness comes from popping the lid off and looking at it, examining it, right?
Like having awareness of it.
If you don't recognize that you're an alcoholic, there's no work to be done.
But that awareness of like, oh my gosh, maybe I have a problem.
Right now, okay, now we can create a game plan and execute on it.
Same thing here.
What is the character traits?
What are the things I want to highlight underline, circle and make sure that these are the things that I'm leaning into in my life.
So I think, as we go through this, I think it's a great point to kind of like okay, what does he mean in this?
What does Kipling mean in this first stanza?
And then kind of go, okay, like, How do we do that?
How do we kind of like bring that to life?
Would it make sense to, I'm going to read the stanza again.
We'll go stanza by stanza.
I'll just read it so that we're all kind of front of mind and then point out whatever or pull out whatever.
The first thing is.
Okay, here's the first stanza.
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies.
We're being hated.
Don't give way to hating.
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.
I mean, just that, right?
Just that.
Like, if he's just written that, I can remember like, wow, it's okay.
Still Britain's favorite poem.
Like, we're good.
This might be my... I think everything kind of builds upon this first one, right?
I think there's a reason it's first.
And what he's talking about here is emotional intelligence, right?
Not getting... pulled down, pulled into the sewer cycle that is pulling at you.
And you said it's like it takes so much intentionality.
It takes so much effort not to do this.
This is the emotional intelligence.
This is the composure under pressure, under stress.
When the world is in chaos, when others are panicking or blaming you or everyone doubts you, that ideal person is calm.
They're self-poised, they're balanced, they're centered.
That person that we want to be is someone that can trust in their own judgments, not in a cocky way, not in an ego-driven way, not in like yo, you're wrong, I'm right.
So there's no arrogance to this.
In fact, it's the opposite.
It's like, hey, I know who I am.
I am confident in this.
I don't need to convince you.
Otherwise, in fact, I'm okay with you having your opinions.
I'm not even gonna be defensive about that.
Wow, like that is awesome.
The thing I use in our organization here is with my coaches, every one of our coaches is a leader.
Whether you've been here coaching for a day or 10 years, everyone's a leader.
And if you are challenged, which is going to happen like someone's being like.
I don't believe that's the way that should be coached right.
Small thing.
Or somebody passes out in the middle of the workout and now you are in a crisis situation.
You need to lead.
As the seas get rougher, the captain gets calmer.
So this is the big thing.
This is the emotional.
It's like it's just a matter of I love, because the biggest thing that I try to instill in my family, in my teams, is this idea of centered calmness.
If we're driving highway through a tunnel, it's really painful and not very productive to be smashing from one side of the tunnel over to the other.
It's a lot more productive to just stay in the middle.
It takes a level of emotional intelligence to be able to do that.
Because when, what does he say?
He says like when others are doubting you, when you're being lied about, when people are hating you.
Talk about triggers.
You're being lied to or lied about.
People are saying things about you that aren't true.
For you not to get rattled takes an incredible amount of emotional intelligence, because those emotions are going to happen.
And what we want to do is not say those aren't real.
But the goal is.
The goal is not to feel these emotions.
As you said, like all these amazing people, they're feeling those things.
They're feeling doubt.
They're feeling insecurity.
They're feeling hated on.
But what they do is they don't live there.
They get back to center.
The goal is how quickly can I recognize I've been knocked off and can I return back to center?
Because the productive stuff happens through center.
So it is truly about keeping composure when everyone else about you is losing theirs.
Yeah, a couple things.
One that tunnel analogy is the one that Robert Glazer used when he talked about living without values or living kind of blind to your values.
You'll keep, you know, imagine yourself driving down a dark tunnel without the headlights on.
The chances of you not hitting the walls are almost impossible, right?
But if you flip the headlights on, The metaphor being, if you know where the walls are, if you know what your values are, the chances of you hitting those walls are almost none, right?
And I love that, because so much of this is.
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting or being lied about, don't deal in lies.
So much of that is like the instinct is to fight back.
The instinct is to react to that, right?
Or somebody's being hated, don't give way to hating.
The instinct, if we're not careful, is to put it right back at them.
But what you're saying, what this tunnel metaphor is saying, is no, no.
If you actually understand that composure, that centeredness is the value and that your work is to bring yourself back to center as quickly as possible, that's where your energy goes.
Your energy doesn't go back towards the wall, thinking well gosh, if I hit the wall harder, maybe the wall will hurt.
Instead, it's like, no, no, the energy that I have, it's to bring myself back to center.
It's to get out of this tunnel as quickly and as safely as I can.
So good.
One of the other sort of principles that is expressed here is you don't need to win every battle, right?
And if you give attention to things that don't deserve your attention, you then do not have attention or effort or this finite resource to give to the things that truly do matter.
So real world example, right.
Of today's like social media.
Someone hates on you on social media.
Okay, you feel crappy for... You feel crappy.
Like that's just... Guess what?
That's normal.
Yep.
If you're human, that'll make you feel it.
Right, exactly.
Okay, then what?
So if you go like, I need to win.
I need to show this person.
I need to fight or persuade or... or at least defend myself.
You're going to try to win battles and end up losing wars.
It's not about that battle.
It's about a much bigger thing and just understanding that there's a level of patience and integrity that Kipling's describing here, which is if you can kind of not dive into these things when this is happening around you.
That takes both a level of patience, like, hey, I know that this battle right here, I might not win.
It's probably not me worth even like showing up with a knife, gun or anything else like to this fight.
Just like it's best for me to walk past it because there's bigger things down the path for me.
And then a level of integrity.
Integrity is this thing of like?
Okay, can we just respond or choose not to respond to these lies, to this hate, without a defensiveness or without a retaliatory mindset?
But just kind of this, hey, they are going to have theirs.
I think he says like let them have that, make allowances for their doubt.
Like, allow them to, they're coming from a different perspective, allow them to have have some grace, allow them to have their misunderstanding and you don't need to go and convince them otherwise.
We're brought to you by Cozy Earth, the company on a mission to transform your five to nine, that time that matters most, into the most comfortable part of your day.
Head to cozyearth.com, use the code excellence for up to 40% off.
Be sure to place your order by December 12th for guaranteed Christmas delivery.
December is full of hustle.
It's full of bustle, but the moments that I personally look forward to the most are the ones where I can slow down, cozy up and just chill.
That's exactly what Cozy Earth delivers.
Luxury comfort that makes home the best place to be.
And if you're looking for the ultimate holiday gift.
Their bubble cuddle blanket combines comfort and style with its distinctively textured design and ultra soft faux fur feel.
That's fun to say.
So we got one of these for a gift this year.
I'm excited to give it to the person.
I'm not going to tell you who it is.
It's perfect for snuggling by the fire, movie nights with family or just adding a touch of luxury to any room.
A gift that makes every day feel like a special occasion.
Give the gift of everyday luxury this holiday season at CozyEarthcom with the code EXCELLENCE for up to 40 off.
We're brought to you by CrowdHealth, the health insurance alternative for people who make their own darn decisions.
Join CrowdHealth to get started for 99 for your first three months using the code excellence at joincrowdhealthcom.
It's open enrollment season, which means health insurance companies are hoping you'll blindly sign up again for overpriced premiums.
Honestly, I've been looking at this for myself, trying to figure out what makes the most sense for our very healthy family.
And what I keep coming back to is CrowdHealth, because it feels like the options we used to have before things got so Over-stinking-complicated.
Healthcare for under 100 a month gets you access to a team of health bill negotiators, low-cost prescription and lab testing tools, plus a database of low-cost, high-quality doctors vetted by CrowdHealth.
And if something major happens you pay the first 500.
Then the crowd members, just like you, step in to help fund the rest.
CrowdHealth members have saved over 40 million in healthcare expenses because they refuse to overpay doctors.
Join crowdhealth.com.
Use the code excellence.
CrowdHealth is not insurance.
Opt out.
Take your power back.
This is how we win.
Join crowdhealth.com.
We're brought to you by Element, an electrolyte drink born from research revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three times government recommendations.
Head to drinkelementcom slash excellence to get a free sample pack any order.
If you're eating a whole foods diet as you are, here's something most people don't realize 70 of the sodium consumed in the standard american diet comes from processed foods.
That means when you're prioritizing real food and training hard, you probably need to add a bit of electrolytes to feel and perform your best.
I've learned this firsthand when i'm pushing hard in the gym or trying to stay locked in during a long work.
Block water alone doesn't cut it.
Low energy, brain fog, muscle cramps, slow recovery if any of these sound familiar, It might be sodium.
That is the missing link.
Element delivers a science-backed dose of electrolytes with zero sugar, zero food dyes and none of the dodgy ingredients found in popular sports drinks.
Plus, if you don't love it, give it away to a salty friend and they'll refund your cash.
No questions asked.
Try Element risk-free at drinkelement.com slash excellence.
Get a free sample pack with any order.
A few weeks ago, we had that conversation about complaints.
And one of the things we talked about was how most things don't matter and the things that do matter matter a lot.
And I think that this is a poem all about the things that matter a lot as compared to the many things that don't matter at all.
I think that's spot on.
Let's jump into the second stanza.
As a reminder, here it is.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, if you can bear to hear the truth.
You've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools.
Dude, the rhyming is insane.
I know.
So good.
Yeah.
This is how, like it took me almost to the end of reading this for the first time, to go wait a minute.
It rhymes.
Yeah.
I mean, we're not taught poetry anymore, so nobody's fault.
And I'm not looking, but come on, I should have You maybe should have noticed.
I should have noticed.
You were thinking, you were too focused on the content and not the rhyme scheme.
Yeah, let's say that, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so then like I also, I had to look up some words in this one.
Yeah, this one's knaves.
Yeah, knaves.
So knaves are, I found out, are like a deceitful, unprincipled, dishonest people.
They're like cunning manipulators is what that is.
So twisted by... manipulative people to set you up for a trap, right?
They're going to use your words against you, that type of thing.
So here's like, this builds upon the first one, right?
Which is, again, if you can stay calm, right?
If you can stay calm when people are taking your words and they're taking them out of context and they're using them against you to deceitfully mislead other people, it's like again can you just kind of like say, on your humble, heroic path, right?
It's not about getting pulled in or swayed by all of these other aspects.
It's also in the beginning about like okay, let's like just these, like kind of like disclaimers, like dream big, but like whoa, stay grounded right.
It's think, but don't just get lost in thoughts.
My favorite part of this whole one is because I think that this really speaks to more so than anything else.
The last part of that is this resiliency to it.
The first one is emotional intelligence and stay centered.
This is also that, but it's also like a resilience.
And when he says because I had to look this up as well when he says to stoop, that means to bend down humbly.
Oh my gosh.
To bend down humbly means And build up the broken things that you've given your life to, and rebuild them with quote worn out tools.
Worn out tools.
It means like, maybe literally like.
Imagine like you're a craftsman and like something has come and a natural storm has destroyed your shop and everything in it.
Okay like, can you humbly just pick down, bend down, Pick up the pieces and start again with what little worn out tools, literally or symbolically.
Maybe it's just like with the remaining energy and effort and skill that you have left after being exhausted by this loss.
But not like it's just so cool.
Like that's such a cool imagery of like what resilience actually is.
You've been broken, but resilience, like resilience is, You can withstand this.
You didn't shatter.
And I love the worn out tools bit too, because it's like you've picked this thing up again, metaphorically or literally, and you can see in it all the work you've already done with it.
And at the same time, you have to say, I need more work out of this thing.
I thought maybe I was done with this tool.
I thought I was done building, but it turns out I've got to start from nothing, except that these tools that have already been weathered, that I've already put stress on It's not well, I don't have the tools because you've got the tools.
You know you've got the tools because you've used them before.
And so it's a reminder of not only the necessity of resiliency, but it's also a reminder of your own personal history in using the tools to build the thing.
Yeah, and you also were leaning really hard into that because it ends with it.
I love that part.
Everyone loves resiliency.
There is a second part to that as well, though, is because he says, meet triumph and disaster.
These are imposters, right?
They're not real.
They're fleeting.
They come and they go.
They don't define you.
They are not this thing.
It's what we've talked a lot about.
It's the internal versus the external.
We just bid a Daily Chase article about this.
It's like, what are we focusing on?
Are we focusing on the external things? or the internal.
Again, the internal is the character.
And if it's all about the external, it's like we're going to ride the waves and the depths of everything that's happening to us and around us.
So it's resilience, but it's also wisdom.
The ability to see successes as failures, as temporary conditions.
They are not real.
The thing that actually is the real and the lasting is the internal, which is your character and who you actually are becoming in this process.
This is a little bit, if the first one is emotional maturity, this is like emotional neutrality.
It's a realist mindset, right?
It's the ability to keep perspective with the wins or with the losses.
And when the wins come, it's not like, oh, I'm the best.
I can't lose.
It's not this It's not, I have it all figured out.
It's okay.
There's some successes that came out of this.
They can go away.
If I built up the most wealth because I am the best craftsman and look at how I have the biggest shop and a natural disaster comes and wipes it all out.
Like if it's all just about what you've created, that's outside your control.
So it truly has to be this internal thing.
And it ends up being a long process term identity play.
I am a person of this type of character rather than short-term outcomes.
Look what I have won.
Look at what I have lost.
That's truly what like wisdom is is just this understanding that there's going to be ebbs and flows and you can stay neutral.
And neutral isn't, I don't want to say neutrals.
I think people hear that, they're like, blah, not at all.
Neutral is phenomenal because you don't have these depths, you still get to experience elation and joy at a much higher like vibration.
It's kind of like it's always there, which is, instead of like wait for the winds, wait for the winds, wait for the winds.
Oh, there they are.
Boom, back down.
Right.
One more thing about the if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat these two imposters just the same.
I thought of this when you mentioned the realist mindset, which is something we've talked about before, which is not labeling things as good or bad, because we actually don't know, right.
And so is it a triumph?
Or is it a disaster?
You don't actually know, it feels like it in one, you know, in the moment.
But a realist actually says, Oh, interesting.
That seems good.
Right?
Let's see if it sticks.
Or gosh, that sounds terrible.
Let's see what happens next week.
Right?
And that's really back to the centeredness back to the neutrality.
That's really what I think the realist is trying to do is seeing things as clearly as possible, not with the ups and downs as you're talking about with the.
You know the emotional up and down, but the oh interesting.
Let's see what happens next kind of mentality.
I love that.
Yeah, very much.
There's a great deal of power that, and I use that word intentionally.
I love the way that when Tom Brady was playing, he used to talk about power and he would say, like I wouldn't get.
They would be like what do you have to say to your haters?
And he's like, I choose not to give them my power.
I'm like, oh man, right?
I love that.
I don't remember what I was saying because it's a Tom Brady tangent.
But the realist, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if that feels like I just threw that in there out of nowhere.
But it's true.
If you really really, really really zoomed out and you went like, how are we going to judged our lives way after we're gone?
Right,
Like if we had the ability, our soul had the ability to come back and then look at our lives.
I don't think a lot of the bad things we would call bad things right.
It's this crazy level of life that was there for us, not goods or bads.
A lot of this is just like, Goods and bads are cultural.
If it rains while you're camping, you're bummed out.
If it rains when you're a farmer and it hasn't rained, you're like, it's the best day ever.
So it's all perspective.
Right, exactly.
So it's hard to say truly what is, and that's what wisdom is.
That's what I say.
This is such a great stanza on resilience and wisdom.
Don't be influenced too much by this triumphant disaster.
And also, if disaster is to hit, humbly bend down and pick up the pieces and start again, without complaining or self-pity.
That means even internally complaining.
Talk about a test of character.
Like that's what this whole thing is about.
And I just love that imagery of you've been knocked to your knees and And you just get on back up, no mention of it and start again.
That's pretty awesome.
Let's go to the next stanza.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone.
And so hold on, when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them hold on.
Mm-hmm.
You play a game of pitch and toss lately?
Okay.
So I had to kind of like double down on that line, actually a little bit which, if you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, that sounds like gambling.
I don't think that's the intention of this stanza.
I think the idea behind here and this resonates so deeply with me as somebody that struggled with this personally for so long
And because it was a self-limiting belief when I saw the opposite in others.
It was such a moment of admiration of me for other people which is the courage to risk your security, your reputation and discomfort in order to lead people grow and live a more meaningful life.
What this means is don't cling to past victories.
Don't define yourself by what you own or what you've achieved.
It's a matter of not being broken by loss in any sense whatsoever.
This is.
I'll give a little context to what I mean by this personally, and then when I see it in others.
When I was competing in the sport of CrossFit, I was, as you know, you were part of it.
I was sponsored by Team Again Faster.
I had been to the games and people were.
You know, it's that thing of like you are not what you think you are.
You're not what other people think you are.
You are what you think other people think you are.
And I had major imposter syndrome. of like, I am not this elite athlete that people think I am.
And it froze me in terms of the things that I wanted to, the situations I wanted to put myself into.
And I can remember sectionals, which used to be this thing in between the open and regionals.
Way back in the day there was an in real life event that happened.
You qualified out of the open And the top X number of people from this went on to regionals.
After the first day, I was in first place in my sectional by quite a margin.
And I felt like such a fraud, because I was like these are just because the workouts lined up for me.
I know it's coming down the pipeline.
And I was so self-conscious, so insecure that...
I basically, when I look back on hindsight, going into the last workout, my back locked up.
It was a strong man-type event with carries and deadlifts and stones and my back.
I'd always had issues with my back locked up.
I don't think, looking back on hindsight, it was my back locking up.
I think it was my own insecurities manifesting themselves in a physical way to the point where dot dot dot, I didn't finish the workout.
I tapped out and looking at hindsight, I think that I quit because I knew I wasn't going to win.
I was probably going to take third place, still qualify for regionals.
But for me, that was such a failing because I was the only sponsored athlete.
I was the only person that people like, It was just this idea.
I was clinging, clinging to this achievement, this identity that I was like if it's better for me to be injured, then take third.
I shortly after that, at least in my mind, it was shortly after.
I'm not sure.
I remember watching the world champion arm wrestler at the time who was undefeated, and To me I was like he's undefeated.
He hasn't lost in four or five years.
He must be walking around with so much fear.
What if he loses?
And he was the exact opposite.
He would arm wrestle anybody, anytime.
And I was like, that is the coolest thing ever.
It is graceful. under risk, right?
I was the opposite of that.
I was not grace under risk.
I was risking something, putting myself into the arena.
It's this grace under risk.
It's not a recklessness, right?
It is a courage to let go of this security that you have of, I have this reputation.
People know me because of this.
If I lose, that is shattered.
Talk about a negative story we're telling ourselves.
So it's not that it's just like this gambling thing.
It's not that, but it's a refusal to identify with successes or failures.
It's you are something beyond the successes or failures.
And when I.
That's why I realized that I was going to be a much better coach than I was an athlete, because I could internalize this and then ensure that my athletes didn't operate with this level of hesitation.
What I was looking for with them was an ability to compete free.
And I was competing the opposite of free.
I was latched down in a huge way.
In order to do that, they needed a marriage of two dichotomies, which is detachment and discipline.
Discipline approach to competition and training, disciplined approach to everything that they are doing, but a complete detachment from outcomes.
And this is what Kipling is kind of leaning into here is that ideal person which is so cool that I just think it's so cool that he's leaning into this is able to take one?
What's he say?
Make one heap of your winnings, just like pile it all in.
Yeah, you piled it all in.
You know who else was phenomenal at this?
It was Rich Froning.
Rich Froning was, you know, multi-year CrossFit Games champion.
And anytime, anywhere, it'd be like, hey, Rich, can you come to the Invitational in Europe?
It's like, yup.
When is it?
It's Saturday.
Oh, two days?
Yup.
I'll be there.
I'll be there.
Like anytime, anywhere.
He was like, let's just go.
That ability to be free and not this like, well, no, no, no, no.
I'm the champ.
If I don't win this and like playing that game out.
That ability to not define yourself by what you've, what you own or achieved, or not be broken by loss is just so powerful.
I love that.
Grace under risk, I think is a great idea.
Grace under risk.
It's not avoiding the risk.
And it's not being reckless.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not being crazy inside of the risk.
Again, it's kind of that dichotomy of detachment and discipline.
It's like, right, because you think this is risky.
To put myself in risk is to lose control, but to assert grace inside of, that is to say I will control what I can control and I will let the swirl around me swirl.
We're brought to you by Timeline makers of MitoPure, the only clinically proven urolithin-A supplement for strength and healthy aging from the inside out.
My friends at Timeline are offering you 20% off just for you.
Head to timeline.com slash excellence.
Get started.
Have you tried all the health trends, but you're still feeling tired, foggy, a little off your game?
It's time to go deeper. way deeper because true health starts in your cells.
Our body makes less energy as we get older, but now you can help recharge the batteries.
Timeline's new Mito Pure gummies are the first ever longevity gummies powered by Mito Pure.
They improve energy at the source, deliver sustained energy so you feel like yourself again and can increase muscle strength by up to 12 after 16 weeks.
Mito Pure delivers six times more urolithin A than a glass of pomegranate juice. tastes better too.
And it's the number one doctor recommended Urolithin A supplement.
If you want to stay strong and energized now and as you age, then you have to try Mito Pure Gummies.
Timeline.com slash excellence for 20% off.
Your cells will thank you.
We're brought to you this time around by Cash App.
The holidays are about finding the perfect gift, but this time of year, not every deal is actually what it seems.
Scammers are getting more creative to trick people into sharing their payment info through methods like fake shopping sites and giveaways.
Luckily, Cash App's 24-7 fraud monitoring helps detect and alert you for unusual card activity should someone gain access to your card, so you can act fast if something seems off.
You can also lock or unlock your Cash App We'll be right back.
Banking services provided by Cash Apps bank partners.
Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank member FDIC promotions provided by Cash App, a Block Inc brand.
Visit cash.app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures.
We're brought to you this time around by Surfshark, a VPN that helps you take control of your online privacy and security.
Go to surfshark.com slash excellence.
Use the code excellence at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN.
If you're listening to this show, we know you're going deep.
You're reading the articles, watching the videos, listening to the interviews.
You're putting yourself out there in search of learning and growth.
Every time you're online, your data is exposed, whether you're on public Wi-Fi at the gym, traveling to a competition or just browsing at home.
Surfshark encrypts your internet activity and keeps your online presence private, so you can focus on what matters without worrying about who's tracking you.
We've been using this on all our devices here at the house.
Yes, you can use one subscription across unlimited devices and it's seamless.
Whether I'm accessing content while traveling or just want peace of mind, my information stays mine.
It works.
Plus Surfshark comes with a risk-free 30-day money back guarantee.
So there's no downside to trying it.
Secure your privacy with Surfshark by going to surfsharkcom.
Slash excellence or use the code excellence at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark.
I like how it's...
Each one of these stanzas sort of builds in the beginning, right?
The beginning is like about emotional intelligence and like composure, calm under pressure.
The next one is also about that, but it's more about, like that, emotional neutrality and perspective is kind of the bigger thing.
This one is also about like that same, because he talks about in the one previous about success and failures.
And he takes like success and failures again to this one and just kind of leans into it a little bit more.
We're just turning a dial even further, right?
And never breathe a word about your loss.
And the other one was to stoop and build out with worn-out tools when you've been broken.
And this one's the same thing.
We're building back up again.
You've lost something, and it's a really nice build.
This one is that lack of identity and a sense of detachment in a positive way.
Yeah.
It's almost like in the previous one when he talks about triumph and disaster.
In some ways I think he's saying these two things are going to come.
And it's how you respond to them that matter.
And in the next one, it's like, it's not enough to respond to them when they come.
There might be a time when you need to go towards them.
You might need to push towards this one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginning.
It's not enough to just simply sit back and wait for triumph, or sit back and wait for disaster, in the hopes that you might respond appropriately.
But there may also be times when, in fact, you have to run towards those things.
That's phenomenal.
And if you don't have this sort of attachment, this self-identity rolled up in what you've achieved, you can go do that freely.
And when you go and do it freely, get into exercise, science and coaching and peak performance, you allow yourself into a flow state.
That's beautiful.
When you have this detachment to the potential outcome, that's the fastest way to rip you out of it.
Essentially like anyone's ever done breath work or really deep meditation, and you kind of find yourself in this like blissful.
I'll say.
It's sort of like otherworldly spiritual state.
The spirit like middle zone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's really like this middle zone.
That's where you want to be competing.
It's sort of this like, just like this sort of detached, it's just all happening around you.
But anyone that's ever done that sort of gotten to that place in meditation and you have this like weird sort of like thought that comes flying in and rips you out.
That's that attachment.
And if you all of a sudden go like, wait a minute, what if I miss the shot?
Judgment.
That's going to rip you right out of flow.
So this idea is like, don't worry about that.
Don't worry about if you're going to miss the shot.
Dude, take the shot.
Like, go take the shot.
Let's do the last one.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose your common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much, if you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and which is more.
You'll be a man.
My son.
Okay, so running for 60 seconds is distance running.
Good.
I'm good at that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
That's promising.
Thank God.
Maybe people didn't have good endurance in the 1890s.
In the 1900s, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
What sticks out here?
Yeah, so this I think is a little bit about like integrity in all circumstances, right?
So be the same person wherever the situation that you're in.
The same person on and off the stage, right?
Don't be one person... at work, and then another person with your friends, integrity.
And integrity is doing the right thing regardless.
And that's regardless of whether somebody might know about it or not, regardless of how small or big it is, regardless how easy or hard it is and regardless of who's around.
So whether you're with the crowds, don't be persuaded.
There's all these social experiments right now right?
Which is like there's a person in a waiting room and then a buzzer goes off and everyone stands up and then sits back down.
And after like a while, like the people, they just start doing it.
Well, that's being like, that's a good example of being persuaded by the crowd.
You don't even have any idea why you're doing this thing, but all of a sudden the crowd influences you.
And this is like saying, hey, like don't let the crowd influence you.
And if you're with awesome people like Kings, the elites, the celebrities, don't like get pulled into thinking that you're someone different than the crowd.
Like you're just another person.
If you don't let other people enemies friends, anybody pull you away from what you believe is the right path.
And with enough deep introspection and surrounding yourself and listening to things like this, you've cultivated what you believe is your path of fulfillment and joy and purpose.
There's in order to live that out, it takes crazy amounts of intentionality.
As you said, if you don't do that, you're going to get pulled down this river.
You're going to get just drifted down.
And if you live in a way where that current isn't going to pull you in and to boulders, rocks and over waterfalls, meaning like it hurts.
Don't let these other people influence your path.
And that takes purposeful living.
You have to do this purposefully, filling each minute.
This is the 60 minutes, 60 seconds party, living each minute with full effort.
And the way we've, you know, we've talked about this before, is like maximizing minutes.
We say that in terms of like.
Wrote about it in Chasing Excellence in terms of in order to be a world champion, that's what you need to do is make every minute a masterpiece.
Every minute matters.
But this is the same thing in terms of Kipling's approach to meaningful living.
It means every minute should be done with huge amounts of intentionality.
Heather's the one that's brought like so much of this.
She's so intentional with minutes it's there's never a just floating there's never a floating it's if there's a moment of floating it's hey let's go for a family walk so at least we're like out and connecting with each other it's hey let's go and do something intentionally to make this minute mean something that can be tiring but it's also amazing Like, right, it's like, holy cow, if you were to take one extreme or the other, give me that, the 80 or 90% of that.
Like, I want more of that influence.
I want that as a coach as the opposite, right?
There's like this constant reminder, like minutes matter, minutes matter, minutes matter.
We're just the accumulation of these minutes and moments.
So I like how it kind of the whole thing kind of like starts and then comes to this crescendo of like and make sure that every one of these minutes matter, not letting anyone else kind of like pull you away from it.
Yeah, i think this, this part is where i started thinking about the default path versus the intentional path.
Right, you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose.
The common touch really is saying, if you can.
You know one of the ideas we've we've talked about before, just this idea of context independent peace of mind.
In other words, can you maintain your peace of mind regardless of what's happening around you?
And there's a degree to which I think there's like a context independent.
I don't even know what the right word is, but character or values, right.
So it's like, no matter what's happening around you, can you maintain who you say you are?
The discipline to be the same person everywhere.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
That's so good.
Yep.
Yep.
So it's like environmental whatever's happening in the environment, can you be the same person?
If I drop you in one environment, can you be the same person that you are when I drop you into the next?
Because when you are doing that, I think it goes back to the self-awareness we've been talking about.
It goes back to the discipline.
It goes back to the self, the knowledge of who you are and how.
That knowledge is not dependent on what is happening outside of you.
That knowledge is dependent only on who you've decided to be and the actions you take in accordance with that.
So good.
There is a little.
I just want to pull it because it's so easy to look over this but if you can count all men with you, which also means like connection and empathy and an understanding, and you are one of them.
And the idea is can you connect with everyone with empathy, but not be influenced or swayed by anyone?
Cool.
Let's wrap this up.
You teased me before we started recording that you wrote yourself a version of this in, perhaps without using the word knaves, and pitch and toss.
It's just all knaves and... It's all knaves and pitch and toss.
Why don't you give us that?
And then we'll say goodbye after that.
Yeah.
So I was saying to you earlier, before we started recording, that I did this as an exercise because I really do love what this poem espouses, what it implores us to try to live with intentionally.
And to the point where it would be amazing to kind of like put up on the walls of the gym, right?
It'd be so cool to kind of like hey guys, in terms of character, this is part of what we're thinking about.
But if you leave people kind of like scratching their heads and like what's knaves and it doesn't really... Which kings are you walking with?
Yeah.
Yeah, it probably doesn't resonate the way that we would intend it to.
So I did rewrite it just as that exercise.
Like, hey, would this work if we put this up on the walls?
Yeah.
The little disclaimer is mine doesn't rhyme.
It's okay.
We're not going to judge you on the art.
I'm just really interested in what you took out.
If you can stay calm when everyone else panics, when blame starts flying and fear fills the air, If you can trust your own compass while still listening to those who doubt, if you can wait without frustration and stay honest when others twist the truth, if you can rise above hate without letting hate harden you and keep your feet on the ground, not acting too proud, not too clever, you're already stronger than most.
If you can dream big, but not get lost in dreams.
If you can think deeply, but not drown in thought.
If you can meet both success and disaster and see them for what they are, temporary, fleeting.
If you can watch the things you built crumble and still bend down humbly to rebuild using whatever strength and skill you still have.
Left no complaints, no self-pity.
You found the quiet strength of character.
If you cannot let your accomplishments define you but continue to play, then lose and start over, and never speak of the loss.
If you can push your body, your mind, your heart to keep moving when they beg you to quit, and hold on, when all that's left inside of you is a single whisper that says keep going, you'll find that real freedom comes from discipline, detachment and the courage to begin again.
If you cannot be swayed by the crowd or stand among the elite and stay humble, if no one can shake you, no one can control you, but everyone matters to you.
If you can give every minute of your life the effort it deserves fully present, fully honest then the world is yours and everything in it.
And what's more, you'll have lived as your truest self.
That's awesome, dude.
That was great.
I didn't even miss the rhymes.
Who cares about rhyming?
Well, that's to the point.
I didn't know there was rhymes until the second time I read it, so...
That was great.
That's a good place to wrap up.
We'll include that text in the listener guide so folks can read your version as well.
Because I know we went through a couple of times with the Kipling one.
Thank you everybody out there.
Ben, that was great.
Thank you very much.
We'll try to find another bit of old text to dissect in a couple months.
Thank you so very much for tuning into the show this week.
Two quick things before we go.
The first if you want even more from this episode, I do recommend you check out the full listener guide, where we break down all the big ideas.
We ask reflection questions.
We give you steps to put these ideas into action.
The link is in the show notes.
And the second thing While you're there, check out the Chase Club.
It's our premium membership, where we include bonus content, ad-free episodes and the brand new Chase Tracker app.
Check it all out at chasingexcellence.email.
