Tag: inspiration

Blogpost, self-reliance

No One Cares About Your Problems (and neither should you)

Pete Huryk

This may come off a bit harsh but honestly, no one cares about your problems. Whether you’re overweight, your pet just died, your spouse left you, your candidate lost, or a thousand other issues, nobody cares and they shouldn’t! The truth of the matter is that your friends, family, co-workers, etc. don’t care about your problems, they care about you. So regardless of how many bad situations have aligned themselves against you, no one cares. Once this realization is solid inside of your head, the other shoe must drop. You shouldn’t care about your problems either. “But my debt….my dog….my boss….the election….the pandemic….”

My statement isn’t that you don’t have any problems. It’s only that you shouldn’t care about them. People tend to become invested in the negative situations that surround their lives. They invest tons of emotion into a situation that they wish would go away. It’s like giving keys to the person who keeps breaking into your house. Regardless of the situation, your attention and emotion are only feeding the problem itself or your perception of it. So is the answer to just ignore them? Not exactly! You shouldn’t care about your problems but…

You should care about the solutions because they need your time and attention. Much like a newborn baby, solutions don’t just take care of themselves. Someone has to keep them alive and allow them to grow until they are self-sufficient. Friends and family can definitely nurture a solution for you but let’s be honest, they are less likely to do it if they see that you’re in love with your problem.

People tend to get more of what they focus on, whether in perception or reality. The key is to focus on the things that you want and give only the attention that is necessary to the things that you don’t. The big bucks aren’t earned by people who are best at describing the problem. They’re earned by the people who find the solution.

Love your solutions today!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

WTFN!?!?

Pete Huryk

Although I’m able to understand text speech, I still tend not to use it very often. Since it is my fourth language, I just don’t feel comfortable with it. I was also raised in the 80s. So periods, commas, etc. were sold as important and old habits are difficult to break when you don’t really want to. Despite some similarities, I’m not Phil Dunphy. I know what the usuals mean. However, I do enjoy making up my own from time to time. WTFN?

The power of text speech is expedience but it can come off softer than the words themselves. In this particular case, I believe that brevity is everything. The message needs to get ingrained in your brain before it has time to formulate excuses, alibis, or arguments. Time is not your friend when it comes to action. The longer that you delay on goals, desires and dreams. The less likely it is that you’ll start. So now that I’ve built this up with too much explanation. Think of something that you want to do. Then ask yourself “WHY THE F%$# NOT!?!?”

Why not you? Why not now? Why not here? Usually the answers are just BS excuses that you’ve built up over the years. Their major purpose is to protect you. Protect you from the possibility of failure while also hiding the possibility of success. Those two go hand in hand. You cannot separate them. Am I suggesting that you completely throw caution to the wind? HELL NO! Forty-five years old is a bad time to start your NBA career. You’ll know the difference inside when your heart leaps and your head only half reacts.

So put it into regular use when a friend asks you to do something. WTFN? That way it’s on the tip of your tongue or thumbs when an opportunity comes your way. WTFN!?!? Give that thing a go because you’re more likely to regret not acting than you are the failure.

Give it a go! WTFN?

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Are You Hot Water This Week?

Pete Huryk

NO! The word “in” is not missing from the title. It is exactly as it should be and you need decide right now, if you’re only going to be HOT water this week. Hot water is useful but it is a few necessary degrees short of boiling. I’m not the first person to use this analogy. Boiling water happens at either 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees celsius. Anything less than that is just hot water. Boiling water gives off steam which has powered locomotive engines in the past. It is a separation point between ordinary and extraordinary. That little bit extra, one degree even can make the difference.

Water has no choice! If it is put into the right environment, it will comply to the demands of heat that is put beneath it. Humans are quite different. We have to give ourselves permission to boil most of the time. Each of us have a set of criteria that will create that extraordinary behavior. It is most likely different for the varied areas of your life. Regardless, let’s revert back to the original question. Are you just hot water this week?

The time to decide is now. If you wait until the moment, there is a good chance that you’ll come up short. You’ll be missing some key ingredient that will give you those all important final degrees. Set yourself up to boil now! You know who you are and what you need to succeed in almost any area of your life. Draw up a plan and then put it into motion. Have the mental, physical and emotional components of extraordinary action put into place. That way when the moment comes, you’ll be ready to boil!

Fire it up!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Short But Not So Sweet

Pete Huryk

There are many things in our lives that we wish were true. Many that we hope are true. The others that we know are true. The other side also exists of things that we want to not be true. Let’s cut out the wishing, hoping and wanting for just a moment and get to what’s true true.

You are a contributor to 100% of your successes and 100% of your failures. No one else can claim that much influence on your life. You are an accomplice in everything that has happened to you. That trend is going to continue until the day that you die. At a certain point then the realization needs to be made that any complaints that you have about where you are, should be laid directly at your own doorstep. So if you like where you are, GREAT! Pat yourself on the back. If you don’t, then you need to change you because no one else has the amount of influence that you do. Get to it. Today! You can’t turn this ship around on a dime but you can do it!

You’re up!

Pete

Blogpost

No One Is Waiting For You To Be Great

Pete Huryk

This thought hit me the other night as I was watching “A Few Good Men”. Tom Cruise’s character is a lawyer who everyone expects to take the easy route. He has a reputation for plea bargains and that’s what they expect him to do this time around. No one is waiting for him to do anything great.

Our lives are made up of moments and they stack upon one another. We get used to our particular level of performance. Whether your best is better or worse than someone else’s is largely irrelevant. People expect that you are going to show up like you. When you fall short of your normal level, the people who care about you might worry. Your enemies may chuckle but most people are too self-interested to even notice.

The thing that no one is waiting for is for you to be great. It will make your friends uncomfortable because if you do something great, then they feel inadequate. Your enemies want you to fail, not succeed and the general bystander needs more mediocrity or ineptitude from others to make them feel better about themselves. So under no circumstances is anyone waiting for you to do something great.

HighJump.jpg

So it all boils down to you and what you want for yourself. The moments of your life belong to you. There will be peaks and valleys for each of us. The question becomes what level do you want to be your average? Who do you expect to show up every day when you look in the mirror? If no one else is waiting for you to be great, will you demand that of yourself? Or will you live up to the expectations that people have for you at the moment? These are questions that only you can answer. Regardless of whether you do so consciously or not, your actions will tell the story. So what are you waiting for? Make today happen and if at all possible, make it great!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Amazon Doesn’t Work Like The Amazon (The Balance of Being Human Today)

Pete Huryk

RightNowThe past was a simpler time in many ways!  There’s no doubt about it.  The complexity of the world has jumped exponentially.  Despite its complexity, human beings remain relatively the same.  The complexity is around us, not within us.  So it is possible to keep the effects of the world at bay if we remember that we are part of the “natural order” of things.  In most cases we act much more like animals than machines.  Despite this fact, we expect ourselves to work similar to machines or want results to show up machine time.

Our ancestors understood that the amount of time spent hunting was far greater than the amount of time spent eating.  This proportion is a natural occurrence.  Obviously there would be times when a quick hunt would happen but it could not be relied upon.  The same was true of the harvest.  While the farmers did less “intense” labor than the hunters, it was stretched out over a longer period of time.  Again the time and effort spent obtaining the desired outcome was far greater than the time enjoying it.  However these proportions were in line with expectation.  So people prepared and adjusted for them.  Now we live in the world of Amazon, INSTAgram, SNAPchat and Uber.

These services and other recent cultural norms are not bad if they are kept in context.  The separation of modern expectations from “natural” phenomena is the key component to surviving the complexity of our world.  Trust is not one click away.  Overnight shipping is not available on love.  Physical fitness is not dependent on an application but rather dedication over time.  Keeping the expectations for the enjoyment of results in correct proportion to the necessary inputs to obtain those results is the key.  This balance can be difficult for people to maintain because the call of the modern context is so enticing.  Why would you spend months going to the gym when you can swallow a pill?

My hope for you is that you’re able to see past the false advertising.  Many of the things that you want are not available “On Demand” and that’s OK.  If everything were as easy as one click shopping, it would cheapen the peak experiences of life.  Time, struggle, intention, effort, passion and so many more ingredients are the appropriate price tags for what is truly important in this world.  It is those people that keep in line with their nature as humans who will avoid the trappings of the modern world.  So go out there today and get whatever it is that you want but don’t click on “one day shipping”!  Enjoy the process instead!

Pete

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Blogpost, self-reliance

The Challenge for June!

Pete Huryk

RunningI’m continuing to challenge myself going into the month of June.  Last month I did not eat until I posted a blog.  This month, my focus is on my exercise routine.  Each day I will do what I refer to as 2 out of 5.  I’ve developed a list of 5 exercises to choose from each day.  In order to meet my requirement each day, I must complete two of the five from the list but cannot repeat the same exercises two days in a row.  The intention is to build consistency into my regimen while maintaining some variety.  We shall see what this does.  Below is my list of five:

  • Run 2 miles or more.
  • Do 250 push-ups or more.
  • Do 125 air squats.
  • Run 10 sprints or more (100 meters)
  • Do St. Johns for 25 or more. (AB rotation: Each exercise done for 25 reps or more, crunches, jack knives, one legged jack knives (each leg), scissors, heal touches, mason twists, 1 minute plank)

While I’m putting this out in public to hold myself accountable, I’m also happy to help anyone else looking to challenge themselves.  If you’d like to take the month of June in order to get a little more consistency to your workouts, feel free to reach out.

Get things done!

Pete

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Blogpost

A Month on the Hook

Pete Huryk

IMG_4495For the month of May, I decided to commit to publishing a blog post every day.  The stipulation was that if I did not publish a post, I would not eat until I did.  Today is the last day of my successful endeavor.  I was able to hold true to my word for the entire month.  There were definitely hours of hunger where procrastination seemed like the only thing that was on my plate.  But each day the publish button got pressed before the food went in.  Below are some reflections on the experiment and things to consider moving forward.

Stakes matter! – There were definitely times during the month that I would not have published a post under normal circumstances.  In the past, I’ve averaged about five posts per month.  I would only post when I felt “inspired”.  Even though I forced myself to go back to the keyboard every day, there was always something there to put out because there had to be.

Rules need to fit the actual outcome you want – For this experiment, I wanted to get my production up for sure.  The rules definitely did that but…  If I were to set up rules for posting a certain level of quality more often, I’d amend the rules in order to focus more on quality rather than quantity.  Such as I would require myself to write a blog post every day before eating but the publishing would be done more sparsely.  That way there is more of an editing process.

What’s your word worth? – Holding one’s self accountable is difficult.  Some people have trouble keeping their word when it is only them who knows.  They need an accountability partner or some other form of public pressure.  The key is to know who you are rather than assuming that what works for others will work for you.  I make deals like this with myself often, the other running one is about my consumption of iced tea.  If you need that extra push of being accountable to others, don’t worry about it.   The tools that work in the real world are the ones that matter, not the ones that work in our imagination.

Going the distance – As with any other endeavor, it’s best to sign up for a game that you have a marginal chance of winning.  As a first time experiment, a year would have been an overwhelming amount of time.  I’m not even sure that I would have made it a month if the length was a year.  It would have been too much too soon.  Now that I know that I can make a month, if it fit in with my life goals, setting a six month challenge for myself would be reasonable.  There’s no reason to set impossible goals for yourself just to impress people.  Your results are more important than your intentions.

Results – By writing every day, I was able to beat my average reads for the past year by 400% and the last day of May is not quite over yet.  Now I recognize that I raised my posting by 600% but I can definitely say that there was a positive impact.  My international numbers went up in certain areas.  I also had more “LIKE” and subscribes in the past month than any prior.  Also the number of old posts that were viewed by new readers was impressive.  So overall, I am chalking this experience up as a success.  I’m going to take portions of it and continue using them to improve my blog output.  However next month, I think I’m going to move my focus to my exercise routine and see what improvement I can make there.

Thanks for following!

Pete

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Uncategorized

The Thirteen Year Safety Net

Pete Huryk

HighWireWalkerIn the 1970’s Philippe Petit walked a high wire strung between the Twin Towers in New York City.  It was an amazing feat that was a result of a slow but steady progression of skill and daring over years.  The film “Man On Wire” is a great documentary about the planning and execution of his walk.  A slight warning that if you are afraid of heights, you may feel uneasy.  Even though you are safe from any imminent danger, you may feel dizzy or tingly based on the images.  I cannot imagine how Philippe Petit felt during the walk, over one thousand feet in the air without a net!  Sure, he had years of experience and successful walks but the scale of this endeavor dwarfed everything else.  It is easy to look at Philippe and say that he is special, talented or even crazy.  Closer to the truth is probably that he was passionate about pursuing something to an extreme level.  The use of a net negates the entire reason that he was walking in the first place.  Under no circumstances and am I suggesting that a tight rope walk from dizzying height should be be in anyone’s future (I’m one of those people who tingles just seeing the photos).  I am suggesting that the intersection of passion and stakes is a place of power.  It’s someplace that we need to become more comfortable going to.

Unfortunately at the moment, we seem to be faced in the opposite direction.  The formative years of youth and adolescence are spent with nothing but safety nets around.  Whether it is literal foam padding to avoid injury or systems that are meant to insulate young people from failure, responsibility or any other stakes that could injure physically or emotionally.  The dichotomy of these systems are interesting because they protect in the short term and potentially injure in the long term.  Finding the balance of those two extremes is the name of the game.  Philippe did not start out on the roof of the World Trade Center.  Those stakes would have been overwhelming.  His passion for walking the tight rope also would not have grown if he never went higher than six inches off the ground.

For each one of us, we have things that could grow into passions but we are afraid to raise the stakes.  Failing, looking foolish and uncertainty are being trained out of our young people.  We have given many young people a “safe space” but the counterweight needs to be put into place as well otherwise we do not have a creative space.  All creation is messy, uncertain and possibly even dangerous.  We are born from a series of chances taken with an element of risk.  So to protect our future generations from that risk is robbing them of what is to be human.

As I often say to my players, “to be a leader, you need to go first”.  So if you have young people in your life, be a model of a balance in both passion and risk.  Perhaps you also need to break out of the foam rubber because comfort and security are things that many of us desire.  Unfortunately they also allow for little emotional intensity which is what passion is all about.  Go!  Take a chance!  Maybe even a small one and be an example for those onlookers who need someone to show them what is possible!

Philippe didn’t leap but he had to take a step off the edge and you can too!

Pete

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