Tag: motivation

Blogpost, self-reliance

The V.O.C.

Pete Huryk

VocIn today’s high-speed world, people use acronyms more often than ever before.  In the past people hoped to be the MVP, a VIP or the CEO.    Now we are saying IDK, LOL, BRB and other things that I don’t even feel comfortable writing in acronym form.  Today I’ve decided to coin my own acronym.  It applies to many people and even applies to me at times.  Rather than being a VIP, we seem intent upon being the V.O.C.

The VOC is the Victim Of Circumstance.  It’s a really tough place to live.  Circumstances keep piling up on these individuals that they don’t like.  The world has thrust all of this upon them.  They don’t like their job, school, boyfriend/girlfriend, lack of popularity, lack of influence or prospects for the future.  These people have it, THE WORST EVER!.  Go ahead and try to tell them about a bad situation in your life and they can find one from theirs that is ten times worse.  The worst thing in most cases about being a member of the VOC club is that you have to choose to be a member!

That is one heck of a choice to make.  There are many things in this world that we should choose to be, a victim should not be one of them.  The problem with being a victim is the lack of power.  It is by nature a position of weakness and defense.  At some point the VOC decided that it was better to be weak, defensive and blameless rather than taking responsibility for themselves.  This is a dangerous bargain to make because eventually it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  When you are wearing brown tinted glasses, everything in the world looks like feces.

So rather than being the VOC, become the DOC.  The Director Of Circumstances is not completely in control of circumstance but acts more like a traffic cop.  The DOC decides what he or she will let pass and what needs to be stopped and evaluated further.  The traffic cop is separate from the traffic.  They may cause it, they may alleviate it but they are not the traffic.  Ultimately, they can usually move to a different intersection if their position becomes too much to handle.  It is a game of choice.

Direct your life today!  Don’t be a victim within it!

Pete

 

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“Daddy, Watch This!”

Pete Huryk

“Daddy, Watch this!” is a phrase that I heard about two hundred times yesterday.  My seven year old daughter was saying it as she performed an underwater back-flip or some other trick in the pool.  The consistent request got me thinking about the request.  While she was extremely happy to do the trick on her own, it became even more important that she share it with me.  The perfection of her delivery did not matter, each attempt was important even the “failures”.

As she flipped in the water, I thought about my students, adult friends and myself.  We generally primp, polish and perfect everything before we put it on display.  The obvious reason for this is a form of fear.  We have failure shamed out of us by the time we are teenagers.  The unfortunate thing is that failure is a necessary ingredient to all progress.  Although public display of failure isn’t particularly necessary, I’m not sure many of us seek out failure in private either.  In a society where no one ever fails, we stand still and become spectators watching the same old tired tricks that we’ve seen before.

So now what do you do?  What do I do?  We fail forward.  We try to top what we’ve done before with the childlike optimism that we can.  Then as we get closer and closer to our coveted goal, we can scream at the top of our lungs “WATCH THIS!”  Perhaps we’ll fall on our faces.  However I’d rather be face-down ready to try again than be standing on the sidelines with an empty heart and only criticism to offer the world.

Go fail forward today!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Scumbag and Tragedy Report

Pete Huryk

100_9372My son’s first birthday party is a memory that I will never forget.  The unfortunate thing is that the reason that particular birthday sticks in my memory is not the cake, the presents or the joy of my wonderful little boy celebrating his first year on this planet.  It is memorable because of what happened the next day.  The next day a student at Virginia Tech killed 32 people and wounded 17 others.  The two events are forever coupled in my mind and at the time shook the very foundation of who I am as a person.

In the aftermath of the shootings, there were several practical things that needed to be done.  I was teaching at school less than two hours from VA Tech.  We instituted protocols for locking down the campus and dealt with the grief of students.  There was a lingering problem that I had trouble reconciling.  I had an extreme amount of guilt for bringing a child into a world that was capable of such evil.  After celebrating the life of one of the people that I love the most, this act of evil made me question what I had done.  The tragedy in Charleston is the latest reminder that the evil of man is still here.  My heart goes out to the people who have lost someone in these senseless acts.  The victims, their families and friends are the only ones that matter now.  I know they are hurting much worse than I was over eight years ago but I have hope for them and us.  For my own part, I was able to pull myself out of the pit of despair that I had created for myself.  There were two words that brought me out: focus and hope.

By focusing on the evil of the world, I had made it my reality.  It is an easy thing to do at times because the media shows us regularly what horrible people can do.  This is not particularly their fault because we pay more attention to tragedy and they are giving us what “gets the ratings”.  However I choose to focus on other things now.  I see joy in my daughter’s eyes for big events like “field day”.  My eyes turn to Mrs. Lobby, the kindergarten teacher, who pours her heart and soul into little minds every day.  You’ll never see those things on the “scumbag and tragedy” report in the evening but they still exist and that is the world that I live in.

My other word is hope.  I have hope and confidence that the good in people will spread and win.  It is my influence on my children and the other people that I have contact with that I can affect the future.  I am a small drop in a large ocean but I hope that my small ripple combine with those of others can create a tidal wave of good that reaches around the world.  We must find the good in each other and expose that to the rest of the world.

As my final thought, I’d like for you to imagine two pitchers and a large bucket.  In one pitcher is red colored water and in the other there is blue.  If you only pour red into the bucket, the bucket water will be all red.  If you pour equal of both, you get purple.  The water has no choice what color it is.  However we have a choice what we put out into the world.  If you want the world to be greedy, selfish, hateful and driven by negative thoughts and emotion, then put those out there.  Recognize that you have a choice.  I don’t have rose colored glasses on and I’m not going to break into a verse of “kumbaya”.  The only thing that I want you to realize is that you have a choice.  The world is not inherently evil nor is it inherently good.  People have choices.

Be good to one another.

Pete

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The Pepsi Challenge

Pete Huryk

pepsiLast century (specifically in the 1980s) Pepsi had commercials and other advertising with the “Pepsi Challenge”.  An “unbiased” consumer was asked to try two different colas and give their preference.  Of course the on-camera participants always chose Pepsi.  Perhaps it was what they truly liked or the entire thing was rigged in some way.  In all honesty it doesn’t matter that much to me because I preferred Pepsi to Coke without the seeing choices of others.  It does make for an interesting discussion on why we choose the things that we do.

In a given day, you have literally thousands and possibly millions of choices to make.  Some of these choices are simple and probably automatic.  For example “Am I going to wear clothes today?”  No matter whether the answer is yes or no, it is an easy choice based on your daily life.  Other choices are much more complex and require major deliberation.  Choosing to go to college or the military is life-altering and for many would demand some time and attention.  In the middle of the automatic and grandiose decisions are many moment to moment choices that need to be made by you.  There are many people who treat these mid-level choices as though they were huge.  Others put all of their choices on automatic pilot letting others decide for them.  The worst scenario is that people forget that they are choosing at all.

In each moment, you have choices and some of the most important are about how you are going to feel.  Believe it or not, it is a choice.  If you are feeling sad, it is a choice.  Perhaps there are very good reasons for you to choose that but it is your choice.  By taking the physical state of your body, your mental focus of the moment and your inner dialogue, you determined the feeling that you were going to produce.

So now I put a new “Pepsi Challenge” on to you.  Let’s call it the “Huryk Challenge”.  Can you choose to feel good in all circumstances today?  No matter what life throws at you, can you CHOOSE to feel good.  You do not need to like the circumstances but you choose your feeling despite the poor situation.  I challenge you.

Choose to have a great day!

Pete

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Full Throttle All the Time

Pete Huryk

BoltWe are not machines.  It seems as though we wish that we were at times.  However the human animal is not infallible and fatigues just like any other creature on earth.  If you look at the World Records for running events, there are a few truths that you can learn about humans.

World Records for varied differences.  Please check my math, it’s late and it might not be perfect.

100 meters – Usain Bolt – 9.58  (23.37 MPH) (2 min 34.14 sec per mile)

200 meters – Usain Bolt – 19.19 (23.31 MPH) (2 min 34.38 sec per mile)

1 mile – Hicham El Guerrouj – 3:43:13 (16.13 MPH)

5K (3.12 Miles) – Kenenisa Bekele – 12:37.35 (14.83 MPH) (4 min 02.74 sec per mile)

Marathon (26.2) – Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto – 2:02:57 (12.78 MPH) (4 min 41.68 sec per mile)

After all of those numbers, names and information, what is my point?  You need to know what race you’re running in order to determine “full throttle”.  Each of these amazing athletes ran their race as fast as they could for the distance that they had to cover.  Usain Bolt’s 100 meter record is amazing but his pace is completely unrealistic over a 26.2 mile race.  Dennis Kiprutto Kimetto’s pace for a marathon is astounding but if he ran a 100 meter at that pace, he’d be considered “slow”.  The key is to know the race that you are in and what “full throttle” means for that race.

This is applicable to many areas of real life.  For example intimate relationships.  If you are looking to get married, recognize that it is a marathon.  Expect that the pace is slow and steady in order for it to last for years.  High school relationships are usually over in a few months, so the sprinter’s pace of spending every moment together is natural.

So what kind of races are you in at the moment?  Recognize what “full throttle” means for each of those races.  Perhaps there’s a project that is a sprint, then sprint that project.  Maybe at the same time you need to take control of your health, which is a marathon (figuratively).  Then you need to marathon your health.

Regardless of which form of “full throttle” you are in, realize that you are human.  The expectation that you can maintain Usain Bolt speed for 26.2 miles is ridiculous.  Don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations.  Recognize the race and go after it intelligently!

Go full throttle today!

Pete

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The Best There’s Ever Been

Pete Huryk

AliThere are often debates with sports about who is the “Best There’s Ever Been”.  In basketball, names like Michael Jordan, Lebron James and Wilt Chamberlain come up often.  In soccer, the names are usually Pele or Messi.  Muhammad Ali proclaimed himself to be the “greatest of all time”.  Many of these conversations are apples to oranges comparisons that are nothing more than opinion.  The positive side to these debates is that they give a peak model for the newcomers to follow.

For most of us, we were not born with the necessary tools to be the “best ever” in anything.  The books “The Talent Code” and “Outliers” outline many of the factors that contribute to the recipe of greatness.  Despite the lack of ingredients, there is no reason for the everyday person to shy away from the thought of greatness.  We must reach for rungs on a ladder that we are able to climb effectively.  By comparing myself to Messi, I’m setting myself up for failure and disappointment.  In order to find true comparative success in anything, there is one basis for comparison – self!

In ourselves we can find both our truest basis for comparison and our best competition.  “Never try to be better than someone else.  But rather be the best you can be.” is a quote from legendary UCLA coach John Wooden.  As we standardize test and rank everything from our number of friends to attractiveness, it seems as though we’ve become obsessed with comparison to others.  This obsession moves us farther from the comparison that we really must  do in front of a mirror or in our mind’s eye.  You don’t need to try to be the best there’s ever been.  You only need to be the best you that you’ve ever been.

Go do you!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Levantarse

Pete Huryk

levitateAs a speaker of Spanish and English, I get a good perspective on the differences between the two languages.  One of the most confusing differences for English speakers is reflexive verbs.  In Spanish, you wake yourself up, wash yourself and brush yourself your teeth.  There are many actions that Spanish specifically tells you that you do to yourself.  For example, the verb levantar means “to lift” but levantarse means “to lift one’s self or get up”.  This simple difference in the way that an idea is expressed can change our perception of self.

Our language sometimes limits our thought process because we often think in words.  The idea that we lift ourselves up is not a difficult one to understand.  However it is one that we may take for granted.  We’re too busy getting up every morning to remember who is lifting us up and why.  Even though we are always lifting ourselves up, we may feel forced to do it.

There is power in choice.  Deciding on the reasons why you are getting up in the morning gives you the power to live with purpose.  It is much easier to slog through difficult times when there is something waiting for us at the end.  If all you see is the slog, then life is the slog.  So even though the day has already begun, it’s not too late to decide what today is about for you.  Why did you get up this morning?  If you don’t like the answer that you give then re-ask the question with a broader scope of possibility.

Make it a great day.

Pete

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The Goonies

Pete Huryk

GooniesI recently watched a movie from my childhood called “The Goonies”.  If you’ve never watched it, it’s worth a look.  It’s the story of a group of misfit friends who are thrown into an amazing adventure.  Like so many of the movies from my childhood, it is something that is timeless to me for a variety of reasons.  Although it’s been almost thirty years since I first saw it, I know what attracted me to the movie at the time.  It was foul mouthed kids that weren’t too different from me that fell into adventure on their own.

In my early teen years, my friends and I were always getting into low level Goonie adventures.  We never found a pirate ship or fought off criminals but we did a lot without supervision.  I’m not sure if the movie inspired us to test the limits or if we would have done that anyway.  Our boundaries slowly but surely expanded from our backyard to as far as our bikes would carry us.  It was a slow and steady process of discovery over years.  These years gave us a sense of confidence that we could handle things on our own and avoid getting into trouble at the same time.

The world is a different place and I feel as though the ability/desire to find and handle those Goonie adventures is being lost.  The process of creating adventures and responsibility for the consequences is an exclusively adult job these days.  Kids have little ability to make minor mistakes much less big ones.  At some point they will be faced with the world and I wonder if they will recoil due to a lack of experience or rise to the challenge.  The self-reliance that we gained is something that I cherish.  Where would I be without it?  I really don’t want to know.

Go and have an adventure today.  Also tell me about one of your Goonie adventures by clicking here.

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Lifeguards, seat belts and fire extinguishers

Pete Huryk

matchThis post will be short because the concept is simple.  Lifeguards, seat belts and fire extinguishers are all put into place because they are intended to save your life in times of peril.  None of these safety measures is infallible.  There is no guarantee that you’ll be saved.

However there is something that these and other devices cannot ever save you from: your self.  These devices cannot protect the person who is completely self-destructive.  Fire extinguishers can put out fires not stop a pyromaniac.

This is so simple when it’s fires, accidents and drowning.  It’s much tougher to identify when it is a habit that we don’t realize is tearing us apart.  We think that the world keeps setting fires in front of us to be put out.  Unfortunately we take no notice of the matches that we casually flick into the brush as we stroll through life.  Take a deep look at your actions and see if you need to decide not to light some of the matches you have in your pocket.

Light a fire that propels you upward but doesn’t burn you up.

Thanks,

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Beezy World

Pete Huryk

BeezyMy daughter is an amazing person especially for a six year old.  She is always coming up with entrepreneurial ventures and brilliantly off the wall ideas.  Her imagination is amazing and she has created her own world in many ways.  Most recently she has asked to have her room repainted to look like “Beezy World” (Beezy is my wife’s nickname for her).  The clouds are lower in Beezy World and the blue sky is on top.  She has also developed not just one but several languages for Beezy World including Beezy Spanish and Beezy Chinese.  It is pretty obvious that she carries this world with her on a daily basis.

Although the creation of a personal world may seem like a childish thing to do, we all do it on some level.  We all live in our own version of the world.  There are some constants and overlapping but in many ways, we carry our own world along with us.  In a very Obi-Wan sense, our world is dependent upon our point of view.  For some of us we are semi-passive and the world happens to us.  While for others of us, we are active.  The world is not what happens to us but rather our influence on our surroundings.  So the world is not as concrete as it may seem but is more the result of the ingredients that we add to it.

So the question becomes do you like the world that you carry around with you?  Is your Beezy World the one that you want painted in your room?  Or is it time to make a change?  Since you are the creator of this world, make it what you want it to be!

Carry on!

Pete