Tag: best self

Uncategorized

You vs. Your Dream Self (a battle to the death)

Pete Huryk

In movies and books there is a concept called the suspension of disbelief.  It basically means that when you walk into the theater, you are willing to believe things that would normally be ridiculous.  Some of the most memorable movies have been set in completely unbelievable circumstances by everyday standards.  A teenager gets super powers from a radioactive spider.  There is a school to teach wizards and witches with a very special boy who was orphaned.  A farm boy from another planet becomes the hero of a revolution while redeeming his father who was the second most evil man in the universe.  These are all great examples of the suspension of disbelief.

The problem that many of us face is that we know our own back-story.  The back-story is the hero’s life before the movie or book started.  Sometimes we never discover their back-story.  The audience is always dropped into the hero’s life right before they are about to be thrust into their unbelievable adventure.  Imagine if you had to watch Harry Potter’s life from the moment he was dropped on the doorstep until his fateful birthday.  You would walk out of the theater before he turned three.  The back-story is not the point.  The moment that the hero decides to take on the adventure is the point.

So what about you?  One of the reasons that we don’t do the things that we’ve dreamed of doing is that we have an overwhelming back-story.  We have a lifetime of knowing what we can and cannot do.  Our ability to make a huge leap from where we are to where we want to be is unbelievable.  What if you suspended that disbelief?

Imagine that in the future there was a movie made about you because in the coming years you did amazing things.  What if today was the day that the audience was dropped into your life?  You look just like an ordinary person.  However you decide to take yourself into a new direction.  This does not need to be a huge shift.  There are no radioactive spiders.  However there is a half an hour per day.  For half an hour each day, suspend your disbelief.  Think, talk and act like your dream self would.  Do this exercise and see how you feel.  Forget your back-story.  Only focus on the future of what you want to be.  As it becomes more comfortable, let it spread like a virus.  Notice that feeling popping up in times when you did not expect it.  Eventually it can take over all twenty four hours.  When you’ve taken your dreams and made them your life, then you can tell people your back-story.

Uncategorized

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!

Uncategorized

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.

Uncategorized

The Paper Collection

Pete Huryk

DiplomaIn college I was a Spanish major and there was a girl in several of my classes who was a Spanish minor.  She was very attractive but her Spanish skills were lacking.  One day she told me that she didn’t even like speaking Spanish that she was just taking the classes to get the minor.  This prompted my question, “why get the minor?”  “Because it will look good on my resume.”  At this point, I was flabbergasted.  “Isn’t the company that is impressed by that going to expect that you’ll be able to use the language?”  This thought had never occurred to her.

In this world of standardization, classification and certification, the papers that we are able to collect seem to hold too much weight.  The story of my Spanish-challenged classmate is not made up and unfortunately not uncommon.  Our diplomas and grades are collected in the hope that it will bring us to that promised land in the future.  The issue is that when we have all of the papers that someone says we need, will we be able to do anything?

Perhaps, paper is not the thing that we need to collect.  Maybe there are better commodities out there to be sought.  Rather than collecting paper, we should be collecting: thoughts, hearts, minds, influence, respect, trust, love, esteem, help, counsel, ideas, laughter, smiles, jokes, hugs, handshakes, pats on the back, kisses, and the list goes on and on.

I’d rather struggle to get in the door because I lack the paper rather than being pushed out the door because my paper was meaningless.

Uncategorized

The Museum Tour Guide

Pete Huryk

My best friend and I visited the Louvre Museum in 1998.  We didn’t go to France for the art or the culture.  We went for the World Cup.  However even as uncultured twenty-two year old Americans we understood that we needed to go see the Mona Lisa and the other things the Louvre had to offer.  We could have taken one of the guided tours but we chose to go it alone.  In our whirlwind ninety minute sprint through the museum, we actually passed by the Mona Lisa twice without noticing it.  We were definitely not museum tour guides.  The guides have a path and plan to make sure that their guests see the true highlights and skip the ancillary exhibits.

What if you were both the tour guide and the museum?  Would you haphazardly show people your worst exhibits?  Would you take them down to the basement and give them a tour of the museum’s sewage system?  Most likely not, you’d do what all good tour guides do.  You’d show your guests all of the best works.

On a daily basis you need to be deliberate about the person that you display to the world.  In no way am I suggesting that you be fake or falsify who you are.  There are some people who will need to see your sewage.  However if you lead with that exhibit, expect that people won’t be back.  If you lead with your Mona Lisa, people will most likely return to see what else you have to offer.

Uncategorized

Mediocrity Man

Pete Huryk

Hollywood is regularly churning out super hero movies and their sequels. At the moment they seem to be almost a sure thing at the box office. Iron Man, Spider Man, Batman and Captain America all seem to capture the imagination of the people as they pay big movie theater prices to see these super humans. It is obvious that “super” is what the people want to see.

What if there was a hero named Mediocrity Man? He had super powers that were inside of him but he was afraid of them. Any time that he saw himself do something out of the ordinary, he would instantly recoil and deny his abilities. Rather than keeping his secret identity from everyone else, he would hide or deny his powers to himself. What if Clark Kent never changed into Superman? Would you watch that movie? Of course not.

If this hero existed, why would he hide his powers? The reasons would be the same that you or I don’t do the things that would produce greatness.

  • It’s too hard.
  • It will take too long.
  • I might not succeed.
  • Or worse, I might succeed and the people would expect more out of me.
  • I don’t want people to make fun of me.
  • No one in my family, town, state or country has ever done it before, who am I to be first?

Imagine the Earth being filled with superheroes. What if people were getting most out of themselves every single day? What would that look like? I’ve been Mediocrity Man. I’ve traded in my cape for a t-shirt on a regular basis. Feeling comfortable in the cape is difficult because I know all of my faults, all of my weaknesses and every way that I have ever screwed up. The hero in the movie never falls for long. He gets his super powers and continues on until the world is safe again. For us regular heroes, it’s not a magic movie moment involving a radioactive spider or the destruction of Krypton that begins our ascent. It’s a consistent decision to be the best form of ourselves.

Uncategorized

The Rocky Steps (Part I)

Pete Huryk

IMG_0589The Philadelphia Museum of Art and its steps are iconic but not completely for the art inside the building. The steps are known to Philadelphia visitors as “The Rocky Steps.” Many runners follow in the footsteps of Sylvester Stallone’s underdog character every day. During my recent visit to Philadelphia, I ran from my hotel to the Rocky Steps in order to climb them and take the iconic victory pose. It’s a beautiful run with a long distance view of your destination.

Although the steps are a victory, they are not THE victory. They are really more of a milestone. The steps and the pose are a place to forecast the future. Rocky did not win the title at the top of those steps. However from that higher plain, he was able to see himself victorious for a moment despite his very long odds. It is something we all need at times. The moment of clarity that allows us to see ourselves at our absolute best possible moment. In your daily life it is easy to get swept up in all of the reasons why you can’t achieve something. You’re too lazy, too slow, too dumb, too poor, too ugly… The Rocky Steps can be a place to rise above all of that because it is a place where underdogs can feel hopeful.

Based on what I saw, dozens of people climb those steps every day. They are looking for that same small victory, to forecast their future success. But they don’t need the steps; they need the vision. The steps are just a nice background for the moment. You can get that clarity right now, wherever you are. You don’t need to go to Philadelphia and run the steps to get that vision. It’s somewhere within you now.