Will Smith once said in an interview, “The only thing that is distinctly different about me is I am not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked. Period. You might have more talent than me. You might be smarter than me. You might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things. You got it on me in nine categories, but if we get on the treadmill, right, there’s two things. You’re getting off first, or I am gonna die. It’s really that simple.”

I laughed a little when I read this because I’ve nearly killed myself on a treadmill before trying to prove to myself what I was capable of. I wasn’t competing against anyone other than my own mind.

I identify a lot with this statement because I know that I’m rarely the smartest person in the room, nor the most talented, most capable, but, I know I can push myself well beyond what others are willing to do.

I can push myself past exhaustion, I can dig deeper, I can go places that others won’t dare. Not all the time, nor in all parts of my life, but this Will Smith quote is a reminder of how we can always be the hardest working person in a room. It’s a choice. It’s a daily decision. A commitment to ourselves.

Every day for the last 7 months, I’ve done 100 burpees as fast as I can. When I started doing burpees, my time to complete them was pretty average, just under 10 mins. This is my usual starting point in most things I engage in, I have enough tools and ability to have a decent average.

But, I stuck with it, putting my full intensity into those burpees, and within 6 weeks, I cut my best time down to 6 mins. Now I was above average.

Over the next 5 months, I reached the 5-minute mark a few times, and every time I did, I had to push myself to a point where I felt I was going to die. I’m not joking. I would push myself to near blackout, and it would cause me to have this heavy, painful cough all day long, and I would feel off and out of it for hours later.

I was proud of every time I succeeded drop my time below 5 mins because I knew few people could do that.

But here’s the thing. I kept at it. Putting out my best effort each day, no matter if was a good time or an average time, it was my best effort. And in the last week, as I finished out 200+ days of consistent high-intensity practice, I broke the 4 min mark (three times).

It’s proof to me that I have the ability to become world-class at something, even if I start out at just being average. It’s taken me 7 months of daily periods of hell, but I’ve done it. I didn’t have this as a goal. My goal was simply to give it my all each morning. But 200+ days in a row of high-intensity practice has changed everything.

Will Smith is world-class in his profession because he consistently was willing to push himself harder than his counterparts.

Intensity applied with consistent practice = Results.
Without intensity, we plateau.

This recent achievement with my fitness has got me wondering what other parts of my life I can apply this focused intensity. I consistently work hard to do well in all parts of my life, and because of that, I’m above average at many things. But…

What do I want to be world-class at?
It’s a good question, maybe even the best question we can ask ourselves.

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I think most people agree that harboring anger is like a poison for your mind. It clouds our better judgment; it blinds our broader eyesight to the point where we have sustained tunnel vision.

Yet our minds love to get angry.

Anger is a delicious dessert for our minds. Our minds crave anger like a guilty pleasure.

Our minds want to hold on to any hint of anger and turn it into multi-season Netflix series that we watch every day.

Why do our minds do this?
Is it rooted in our survival instincts?

I believe that is certainly part of it. In college, when I played rugby, I would ask a player on my team to tackle me a couple times and make it hurt before each game so I would get efficiently pissed off before we started. Without this step, I felt weaker and vulnerable to injury. When I was angry, I felt unstoppable.

In that case, I used anger to wake my mind and body up to the battle I was facing, which was a great tool, and perhaps why our brains like to harness and hold on to anger so we can feel stronger.

But in everyday life, I believe it’s clear that anger is like our kryptonite. It robs happiness from our life. We can’t feel gratitude and love when anger is dominating emotion.

We all see anger in our society. We can’t stop others from being angry. But we can make a point not to feed it.

Instead of harboring anger, we can untie its ropes and let it drift out to sea.

Harboring anger is a choice. You don’t have to live with it.

When anger gets the better of us, we must own it, so we can get better at controlling it. Write down what triggers it, so you can be better prepared the next time that same trigger shows up.

We cannot remove anger from our lives, but we don’t have to harbor it. We don’t have to let it blind us and rob us from appreciating all that is good around us.

Let anger go.

That is what the last few days have seemed like.

One thing after another with this Coronavirus.
With each domino, our new reality becomes clearer.

I watched Amanda unravel 6 months of hard work she had put in designing and organizing the Idaho Writers Conference set for the end of April.

My niece, who is a senior in high school, was notified her sport season was over, prom was canceled, and even her graduation ceremony may not happen. Ouch.

Every day there are more dominos.

When you don’t know when they will stop dropping, panic begins to creep up your spine.

On the one hand, I am thrilled our communities are taking such decisive action. I mean, if you are going to shut down some things, might as well shut down most things.

I’m all for nipping this crisis in the bud. One or 2 hard months sounds way better than 12 months of fear.

I will say I’m surprised by the level of cooperation (now) that I see across the political landscape, locally and globally to try to squash this bug.

The fact that they shut down our entire school system locally with only a few confirmed cases in our state means they are trying to be proactive versus reactive, which isn’t what I am accustomed to seeing very often in local government.

I keep wondering how many dominos will keep falling. But it’s clear, we won’t know until we’ve done this social distancing thing for a few weeks to see how it’s working.

The silver lining for some is that they can hit the pause button on their rat race and spend quality time with loved ones. Yesterday we tried to teach our girls how to the play card game gin rummy (total failure but we gave it a shot), we played catch in the yard, and they taught Amanda and me how to play their favorite video game.

Despite all our concerns about the future, it was a good day for my family. We laughed, we bonded, and we ate 3 meals together.

Maybe some of the dominos that are falling are not all bad.

We all have people in our life that are notorious for being victims, blaming others for their hardships. “I didn’t get this; therefore, this why I’m…” “They didn’t do this, therefore, this why I’m…”

They may be the extreme, but anyone can quickly become a victim when change comes fast and forcefully.

Sudden change is scary, confusing, and because of this, are normal defensive actions may become passive.

Extreme change can easily become an excuse. An excuse to give up, to stop trying and chances are, nobody will fault you for it because you have a darn good reason. “The current was strong, so I had to go down the river.”

This is Passive Change, a victim’s response to change.

We can also fight the current, we may not be able to stop it or swim upstream, but we can strategize a way across the river that is now impacting us. It may take us multiple attempts. But with each attempt, we can learn something new until we figure out something that works.

This is Active Change, a deliberate and sustained response to change.

Change is inevitable in our lives.
We can let it take us downstream, or we can find a way across the river.