Staring Down the Wolf

Welcome to the Introduction. It’s time to stare down our fear wolves.

As I read this story, I made a note to include it as part of Module X in our Mastery Series. We call that Module “Antifragile Response-Ability.” It’s basically all about getting our minds right and choosing the most powerful response to any given situation.

In other words: We need to train ourselves to feed the wolf of courage rather than fear. Again and again and again. (And again and again and again.)

So…

I wrote down “The Two Wolves” on a sheet of paper and then I wrote “Name ’em!”

Then I drew the lines we often talk about that represent who we’re capable of being in any given moment and who we’re actually being. It’s the GAP between those two lines that creates the ick.

The top line? We get there by paying attention to our inner Daimon. The bottom line? We get stuck there by listening to our inner “Demon.” I think those might just be our new names for the courage wolf and the fear wolf: Daimon and Demon.

You know what I had written RIGHT ABOVE those notes for Module X?

“Learned Helplessness vs. Learned Optimism.”

Which is kind of weird because the story I’ll tell for THAT wisdom is basically all about Martin Seligman‘s research (we discuss in Learned Optimism) with dogs that essentially creates a “cowering” dog that proves this: “If you constantly feed fear by thinking about the could-haves, the should-haves, the would-haves, and the can’ts in life—if you allow negative beliefs, attitudes, and conditioned behavior from whatever drama you experienced or stories you adopted—then the fear wolf gets stronger. Eventually he gets so strong that the courage wolf is left cowering, unable to fight back.”

All that to say, let’s feed the Daimon-Courage wolf a little more. TODAY.

Want to stare down the fear wolf? Well, it’s time for some commitments.

Seven of them. We need to commit to:

Courage + Trust + Respect + Growth + Excellence + Resiliency + Alignment.

Each commitment gets its own chapter featuring a story (or two) from Mark’s SEAL and entrepreneurial experience (successes AND, very importantly, failures and lessons learned!) along with the clarity and wisdom gained from those successes and failures.

We’ll pull out a few of my favorite Ideas in a moment. First the quick review.

First, we need to commit to Courage. Aristotle and Mark agree: It’s the #1 virtue that vitalizes all the other virtues. (Maya Angelou agrees as well. She tells us: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues. Without that virtue you can’t practice any other virtue with consistency.”)

Then we commit to Trust. Staring down the fear of failure requires transparency, humility, and follow-through. Among many other lessons especially relevant for me: “Develop the muscle of committing only to the most important actions, and then follow through relentlessly.”

Then we commit to Respect. Staring down the fear of judgment requires integrity, authenticity, and clarity. Quick gem: “In my view, integrity is to be honest and internally consistent, while backing those strengths with moral uprightness. It takes discipline to think, speak, and act with a goodness of character.”

Then we commit to Growth. The key elements to stare down the fear of discomfort are challenge, variety, and mentors. Know this: “Embracing meaningful challenges joyfully—showing up and working hard to become the very best version of yourself through the suffering—is key. That means getting out of your comfort zone, embracing discomfort, and breaking the status quo that locks you in.”

Then we commit to Excellence. The key elements to stare down the fear of being unique: curiosity, innovation, and simplicity. “Excellence is always, always striving for the next big thing—always growing and exploring.” Plus: “Less is more. You want to keep things as simple as possible—but you know that simple is not easy… If you can take a thousand words and distill them down into a short, clear paragraph, that is a sign of mastery. Getting to simplicity requires patience and practice.”

Then we commit to Resiliency. The three traits to staring down the fear of obstacles: adaptability, persistence, and learning. More on this in a moment.

Then we commit to Alignment. The three keys to staring down the fear of sharing include: enacting battle communications, maximizing sharing, and developing radical focus. Gem: “Top leaders don’t hoard their leadership authority. Without abdicating accountability, they will share responsibility for leading so others can gain experience and build trust.”

Courage + Trust + Respect + Growth + Excellence + Resiliency + Alignment.

How are YOUR commitments?

What’s great? What needs work? What will you do TODAY to +1?

Welcome to the chapter on Resiliency.

As I read that section, I immediately thought of Angela Duckworth. Of course, Angela is the world’s leading scholar on Grit. She gleaned much of her wisdom from studying who made it through another brutal rite of passage: West Point’s Beast Barracks.

You know what she has to say about falling down and getting back up?

“There’s an old Japanese saying: ‘Fall seven, rise eight.’ If I were ever to get a tattoo, I’d get these four simple words indelibly inked.”

She also tells us: “To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.”

Mark talks about Ryan Holiday‘s The Obstacle Is the Way in this context. And Joe De Sena’s Spartan Races in another related context.

Ryan says: “It’s a beautiful idea. Psychologists call it adversarial growth or post-traumatic growth. ‘That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’ is not a cliché but fact.

The struggle against an obstacle inevitably propels the fighter to a new level of functioning. The extent of the struggle determines the extent of the growth. The obstacle is an advantage, not adversity. The enemy is any perception that prevents us from seeing this.”

Note: When we have THAT attitude towards life’s (inevitable!!!) challenges, we actually move past resilience all the way to ANTIFRAGILITY.

Which leads us to our official Optimize mantra: OMMS!

Obstacles Make Me Stronger.

Literally.

(Check out this video of our Coaches chanting that. :)

Semper Gumby.

How great is THAT?

That’s another facet of our sixth commitment to Resiliency: Pliancy.

Of course, I can’t think of a stretchy-flexible little green Gumby without thinking of Dan Siegel‘s river of flexibility.

And…

As I went to dig up his precise words in our Notes on Mindsight, I realized he *actually* calls it the “river of integration.”

He tells us: “Now the qualities of an integrated flow spelled a universally memorable word: FACES, for Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized, and Stable. We can say that any healthy complex system has a FACES flow. In other words, when the self-organizational movement of the system is maximizing complexity, it attains a harmonious flow that is at once flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable…

I like to imagine the FACES flow as a river. The central channel of the river is the ever-changing flow of integration and harmony. One boundary of this flow is chaos. The other boundary is rigidity. These are the two banks of the river of integration.”

So… Healthy, integrated people are not only FLEXIBLE, they’re also ADAPTIVE. And COHERENT. And ENERGIZED. And STABLE.

Leaning into the flexible river theme, Dan also tells us: “An old, dear and now-departed friend, the poet, philosopher, and all around wonderfully wise John O’Donohue, captured the essence of this emergent flow when he said that he’d love to live like a river, carried by the surprise of his own unfolding.”

Here’s to the Optimized-Gumby version of us joyfully navigating the river of life. Surprised by our own unfolding. And by our remarkable flexibility. And… by our astonishing green-ness. :)

Semper Gumby.

Those are the final words from the chapter on the seventh commitment to Alignment.

→ “Do you have a sense that things in your life, even the shitty things, happen for a reason? Can you see a directionality in your life? Do you feel that perhaps if you got out of your own way, you would flourish?”

← Me, too.

Let’s remember that nobody’s perfect as we alchemize ALL of life’s lessons and commit to Courage + Trust + Respect + Growth + Excellence + Resiliency + Alignment.

One more question before we go…

What fear do YOU need to stare down first?

Here’s to staring it down and unlocking even more of our potential.