Author: Pete Huryk

I'm an author and public speaker from New Jersey. My topics are usually aimed toward teenagers and range from self-esteem/self-reliance to peak performance in sports.
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Set Yourself Up!

Pete Huryk

For many years now, I’ve not been a fan of the NBA.  Ever since Larry Bird retired, most of the teams seem to be completely reliant on the individual talent rather than the collective.  The one evidence I see of team recognition is the alley-oop.  Two players that recognize an opportunity at the same time and one sets the other up.  The play requires three things: favorable circumstances, recognition of opportunity and decisive action.

In our own lives, success requires similar ingredients.  However there usually aren’t seven foot tall defenders in our way.  Most of the time, we are the only ones playing defense against ourselves.  The world doesn’t stand in our way for many of the things that we want.  The key is that we need to set ourselves up or enlist teammates to help set us up.

Take stock of the goals that you have and set up systems to make yourself successful.  If your goal is to get in shape, put alarms on your phone and lay out your workout clothes the night before.   Be sure not to overwhelm yourself by doing too much at once.  Add a new aspect to your life no more than every two weeks.  Drastic changes tend to create a recipe for failure because as soon as we drop one ball, we tend to let the others fall.  Habits become automatic if we practice them enough.  The habit of going to the gym can be built with the very simple action of showing up and doing simple things for 30 minutes.  Once the habit of going to the gym is ingrained, adding more to the workouts is much easier.

Set yourself up for success, not failure.  You’re only human.  So keep it simple to start and then get more complex.  Find or create favorable circumstances, recognize your opportunity and take decisive action.  Even you won’t be able to stop yourself!

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Worth It?

Pete Huryk

Is it worth the time?

Is it worth the effort?

Is it worth the embarrassment?

Is it worth risking failure?

Is it worth the cost?

Is it worth the possible laughter?

These and a hundred other questions can swirl around our heads when we are about to do anything.  There is an underlying calculation of value to the experience versus some other consequence.  The experiences and the consequences are variables in this equation but there is a constant that needs considering, you.

No matter what it is that you are considering, YOU ARE WORTH IT.  So the only thing that truly needs to be considered is whatever it is, is it worth it to you?  If so, then do it regardless of the variable consequences.

 

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The Statue Equation

Pete Huryk

Most people remember the date, July 4th 1776.  It marked the day that the United States declared its independence from Great Britain.  A lesser known date is June 15th 1775 when George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.  It was at this time that George Washington signed his contract containing the “Statue Equation”.  If the quest for independence was successful, Washington was promised at least one statue in each major city, the eventual capital to be named for him and a monument within that future capital.  Since the colonial leadership had their eyes on expansion, he also negotiated an option for a future state to be named for him.  Hopefully at this point, you’ve recognized the ridiculousness of the prior three sentences.  They are completely untrue.

While I’m sure that Washington and others had some selfish reasons for fighting the Revolutionary War, I doubt that statues and monuments were among them.  The ideals of freedom and self determination were most likely more relevant than the fame that would come from victory.  It is a relatively simple equation that in the past we revered those who acted with a higher purpose than themselves.  Today people are revered simply because they are willing to make a spectacle of themselves in the media.

I do not believe that people are inherently foolish but there is a “shell game” that has been played on us or we’ve played on ourselves.  Fame used to be a byproduct of being exceptional at something.  The desired result was being exceptional in a particular area, now the desired result is being famous.  Getting on TV or one million likes on Facebook or Youtube.  When do we stop fooling ourselves that this is what life is truly about?

The key component to being a human being is acting in the interest of a cause bigger than yourself.  Acting in the interest of making yourself bigger than other seems to only make people smaller.

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Put On Your Iron Man Pants and Run!

Pete Huryk

This past weekend, the family and I took a trip down to Philadelphia to meet up with my best friend and his family.  It was a great opportunity to catch up and for our kids to spend some time together.  I’m also training for a ten mile race in a few weeks and needed to do a six mile run.  Luckily our hotel was almost exactly three miles from the “Rocky Steps”, one of my favorite running destinations.  It was a perfect scenario for me to enjoy myself and get in work that needed to be done.

The problem arose at 6:30 am on Saturday morning.  I woke up ready to run and realized that I had forgotten my running pants and shorts at home.  I had two choices: go back to bed or wear my Iron Man pajama pants on the six mile run.  I chose the latter.  They were warm enough and have pockets to carry my iPhone.  The only negative was my appearance.

Far too often our appearance to others dictates our behaviors.  I am not saying that appearances do not matter at all.  However there is a calculation that needs to be done to decide when it should matter.  In this situation, my long term goal of the ten mile run was far more important than the short term appearance.  Did I feel foolish?  Not for one second!  I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it.  The opinions of strangers that passed by did not matter because they are judging me on only one metric.  I must judge myself on many others.

Defining ourselves completely by the opinions of others is a losing game.  The odds of pleasing others 100% of the time are so minuscule that is bound to lead to disappointment.  Define yourself in your own terms and decide when the opinions of others matter or not.

IronManPants

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The Ten Minute Snow Shovel

Pete Huryk

This morning on my way to the gym, I was delayed for about two minutes.  Along my route, I was stopped because a person was backing out of their driveway or at least trying to.  This person had decided that the ten minutes that it would take to shovel their driveway was too much time to invest.  So they tried hit the gas and muscle their way through the eight or more inches of snow in their driveway.  I had to stop because although it looked hopeless, if they broke through as I was passing their problem could become my problem.

It’s not an uncommon story.  In fact it is one that I have lived out myself many times.  We become too lazy or indifferent to do things as we know they should be done.  Then we spend longer trying to fix the mess that we’ve made from the short cut.  Are the shortcuts ever really worth it?

 

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Life Is All About T&A

Pete Huryk

At this point, depending on your gender, the title caught your attention for very different reasons.  However if you are reading, then that only serves to back up my point.  Your life and anyone else’s life is dominated by T&A.  Probably not the T&A that you have in mind at the moment but rather Thoughts and Actions.

Our thoughts are the pictures and words inside of our heads that cause emotion.  They are the citizens of our first world.  The world that we create for ourselves.  Some of us are effective architects who take great care in the thoughts that are created in our minds.  Others allow any garbage that is brought in through the senses to penetrate and take root.  Our thoughts are the first half of the equation that creates our life.

The other is our actions.  Those things that we do in the physical world.  Our actions are the reality that we share with others.  Hopefully our actions are based in some part on thought.  Often they are a representation of what we did yesterday and the day before.  Regardless the actions that we take are the life that we lead.

The combination of your T&A are the sum total of who you are as a person.  Are you proud of your T&A?  Do they need some changes?  The only way to change yourself is to change your thoughts, your actions or both.  Spend some time paying attention to your T&A.

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My Black Belt

Pete Huryk

I am a black belt in a particular martial art.  This is not conceit or delusion.  I am the best in the world at this particular discipline.  Within fractions of a second, I am able to leave my opponent as incapacitated as I want.  I strike fear into my opponent enough to paralyze him.  If I wanted, I could leave my opponent lying in a twisted heap on the floor sobbing.  However I use restraint and do not practice this art with the regularity that I used to.

The martial art that I possess a black belt in is “self-deprecation”.  I was better than anyone that I know at tearing me apart.  It was almost second nature.  I knew all of the pressure points, the soft spots and how to land a knockout punch.  Sometimes other people would get involved but for the most part, I gave their punches much more power.  I remember starting out as a white belt.  It seemed like a smart move at the time.  I would say something bad about myself in the presence of a female.  She would refute it and I got a bit of a boost.  A small dip in ego for a bit of a raise in ego.  It was a simple con that I played on myself but eventually, I got too good at the dip and dismissed anyone that tried to pick me up.  As I realized the ridiculousness of my martial art, I started to practice less and less.

My guess is that most people have some degree of mastery at this skill.  We know the buttons to push and weaknesses.  Although it may be an easy art to learn and master, it is not one that should be practiced often.  A tempered conscience is a healthy thing to possess but a self-deprecating mindset only hurts.

 

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The Book and The Movie

Pete Huryk

In most cases when a movie is made from a book, the general consensus is that the book is better.  There are many reasons for this but the main one is that a book uses words that the reader must employ to create pictures in his mind.  Books may be written in black and white but they exist in the world of imagination.  The writer’s words are a map that reader uses to create a world without compromise.  I love this medium because of its limitations being based only on the mind of the reader.

As I have mentioned before, I am also a huge movie guy.  The experience is completely different because it happens in “real” time.  The emotions caused by the combination of director, actors, scenery and etc. are much closer to the surface.  Everyone in the room can have a simultaneous reaction to the sights and sounds on display.  Movies inch closer toward reality because we are visual creatures.

The disappointment of the adapted book comes from expectation and compromise.  The viewer wants to see the pictures from their head come to life on the screen.  Movies have several limitations which cause compromises.  If the viewer goes in with the expectation that the movie will be different, it leads to less disappointment and an appreciation for each in their own right.  In all honesty they are two very different things.

Now the point.

We all have this war of Book vs. Movie going on inside of us.  The book is our thoughts.  The way that we envision that our life will go.  The movie is the reality of how things actually go.  In this situation, the same factors cause most of the upset: expectation and compromise.  Your life will almost never match your mental picture perfectly.  As soon as you add in other actors and their interpretations of the script, the movie is bound to stray.  Finding your own balance of expectation and compromise is the way to be satisfied with the movie version of your mental book

.Shakespeare

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Your Game and Keeping Score

Pete Huryk

As a soccer coach, I will often use games in practice to work on different skills.  A game of keep-away with the number of passes being the objective is a way to work on possession.  The key to success is that everyone understands what the game is and how to keep score.  In your life it is important to understand what games your are playing and are you keeping score in a way that allows for you to win some times.

As you go through your daily life, it is important to first pay attention to the “games” that you are playing.  There are literally millions of “games” that the human race are playing.  You have chosen to engage in some and ignore others.  For example, you might be really invested in the “make my parents proud” game or the “be attractive to the opposite sex” game.  Depending on which game you’ve decided to make important, you’ll act very differently.  I am not going to moralize on which games are more important.  The only thing that I would suggest is that you are aware of the games that you’ve made important and if they’ll help get you  where you want to go.

Now that you are sure of the games you want to play, how do you keep score?  Be sure to line your game up with a score that is appropriate and attainable.  If your game is “helping other people” but you keep score by how much money you make, you might need to reevaluate.  The game and the score are not directly related, so you might be really good at the game but feel like failure.

The other thing to be wary of is making the goal unattainable for you.  If your game is “being fit” but you keep score by a ridiculous set of criteria including: 10% body fat, huge lifting numbers or extremely low running times, you may want to revamp.  Humans thrive on progress.  If your goal and the way to score are the same thing, it decreases your chances for success.  So small benchmarks can make your possibility for success much better.

What game are you playing and how do you keep score?  Answer these two questions. Perhaps you can give yourself a better chance of winning the games that you actually want to play.  Also you might be able to quit some games that you didn’t realize you were playing.