Personal Commandments

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Personal Commandments

 1.  Serve Others- Add Value

 2.  Be Your True Authentic Self

 3.  Lead With Courage

 4.  Be Humble, Hungry, and Smart

 5.  Be Grateful and Express Gratitude

 6.  ¡Animo!

 7.  Play

 8.  Listen to Understand

 9.  Choose The Right

10.  Amor Fati

11.  S.A.V.E.R.S. every day! (silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, read, scribe)

12.  Ruby Slippers (personal story of core values)

13.  Be Self Aware

14.  Be Curious and Ask Questions

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Seventeen Minutes

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Today's Challenge: Find a solitary place, and slowly, quietly, count to 1,000. Without distraction. Without drifting.

   I smiled when I read this challenge. For most people, it's a challenge to find a time and space where they won't be interrupted. For me, that's not an issue since I live by myself. Counting to 1,000 isn't hard. But, my desire to take on this challenge was zero. I thought I could skip this one. I tried to justify to myself that I spend plenty of time by myself. But, I didn't want to "break the chain," as Jerry Seinfeld would say. I wanted to stay consistent with the larger goal of completing every challenge.

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And so I started counting.

Counting to two hundred was pretty easy. As I approached three hundred, my mind started to wander. I intentionally had to keep focused. "Keep counting. Keep focused." I told myself.

Four hundred. I sighed. Could I maybe quit at five hundred and call it a day? I was a little antsy. No, I wasn't going to quit. Five hundred. Quickly I reminded myself, "No celebrations. Keep counting. You're only halfway there." I visualized the numbers flipping like an old alarm clock that I had as a kid. The number 1,000 seemed far away. I couldn't multi-task and think about other things while counting. I had to focus. That was the point of this challenge.

600, 700, 800. "I'm almost there! I've almost completed this challenge. Oops! You lost your focus and stumbled on some numbers. Focus!"

997, 998, 999, 1000!

It was a deceptively, simple challenge. Those seventeen minutes of counting ended up being a little harder than I expected. It was hard to stay present, to stay on task, and to keep a steady rhythm and pace.

Most people have minds that are easily pulled in many directions. We are easily distracted by the noise of the world, demanding our immediate attention. And we are foolish to believe that we can multi-task.

There is value with this type of exercise. To strengthen our minds, we need to practice quieting the mind, seek to be in the present, and cultivate stillness. Cal Newport, in his book, Deep Work, discusses the benefits of focusing intensely without distractions to learn hard things quickly. Deep work pushes our cognitive capabilities to their limits. Batching hard but essential work into long uninterrupted stretches is key to high productivity. The implication for school leaders goes without saying.

There are other books, of course, that I've enjoyed reading about focusing and building mental toughness. All share a universal message. We can train our minds to focus, think deeply, and be still. It's a skill set to learn with consistent, deliberate practice.

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Purposeful Polar Plunge

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Today's Stoic challenge was to take a 30-second cold plunge: commit to a half-minute of discomfort, and come out on the other side of it as a stronger person.  Taking a cold plunge for health benefits dates back centuries to the ancient Greeks, Romans, and even the Egyptians. Every year in the US and around the world, communities support polar plunges for charity. But this challenge wasn't about the health benefits.

The challenge was about doing something hard and showing yourself that you're tough enough to handle any problem thrown at you. This kind of shock not only gets your blood flowing, but it also strengthens you.

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I was excited to take on a challenge. I was NOT excited about taking a freezing cold shower! As a person that is often cold, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to warm back up after the frigid plunge. It's that "inner cold" that I was afraid of experiencing. However, the challenge was for 30 seconds. Thirty seconds? Anyone can take on a challenge for thirty seconds- including me! And, so I took my standard shower, knowing that I'd eventually have to leave the comforts of warm water.

The time came. Thoughts of dread flooded my mind as I turned the showerhead away from me, adjusted the water temperature to cold, gave myself a mental pep talk, and counted down 3...2...1!

I wanted to scream! Dancing around in a cold shower gasping for air was not my idea of fun! I definitely felt awake! My whole body was tingling. 12..13...14 seconds. Oh, my gosh! What was I doing? "I can do this," I told myself. I was not going to quit, not now, not ever. 28...29...30! I did it! Wahoo!

The "fear" of what the experience would be like was much worse than the actual experience. It was cold! Thirty seconds lasted forever, and yet it ended pretty quickly. It's incredible how a thirty-second experience can pump you up mentally and physically to tackle the challenges of the day. I think that was the whole point.

Ryan Holiday wrote in today's challenge:

All these fears we have, all these things we play up in our minds that cause us to tremble—like the cold plunge—we quickly realize, that wasn’t so bad. “We suffer more in imagination than in reality,” Seneca said. He understood that the cold plunge makes this observation so much more tangible, so much more real.

The point of exposing ourselves to discomfort like this is not self-flagellation, or to prove something to others. In Stoicism, we do these exercises to inure ourselves to difficulty, so that when life threatens us with involuntary inconveniences or forces us into scary situations, we have no hesitation in facing them down. We can simply do what needs to be done. Because we know we can take it. And we should do it today, while the year is young. “It is precisely in times of immunity from care,” Seneca said, “that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress.”

Most of us live in fear of inconvenience, of even the slightest physical discomfort. And when we are matched against something unfamiliar, uncomfortable, uncertain, we panic, we meltdown, we get frustrated and angry. The whole point of this shower is shock and disquietude—to teach the body and the mind an important lesson about what life is really like and who is in charge. You are training the mind to lead the body, not the other way around.

When you practice pushing yourself to (and through) the point of discomfort, you grow mentally stronger, you begin to build resiliency. Everyday annoyances begin to feel less disruptive. They less frequently threaten your ability to remain in control. That’s what it means to be a Stoic: controlling the things you can control, not letting menial external inconveniences derail you.

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Now that I know what it feels like to take a cold plunge, can I make it a habit and train myself to be mentally stronger?

New Day, New Decade

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   This morning and this evening, I was very intentional to "watch" the sunrise and sunset. (It snowed today. Although I have the pleasure of seeing many fantastical sunrises and sunsets, today was not one of those days.) But, I wanted to mark the dawn of a new day and a new decade both physically and symbolically.

   Observing the cycle of another day symbolizes the renewal and rejuvenation process that is so important as we reflect and ponder our personal progress. It's far too easy to let one day blend into the next or even one decade into the next decade. Time can seem to blur when we are not intentional about our progress. We take it for granted that we will always have another tomorrow. And that is a mistake.

  Marcus Aurelius wrote that "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." 

  "Memento Mori" is a Latin phrase which translates to "remember that you will die." It's an ancient philosophical concept that dates back to the age of Socrates. It is not about being depressed and thinking about your mortality all of the time. It's more about treating life as a gift and thinking of time as being a precious resource. We should live our lives with purpose and meaning.

"Let us prepare our minds as if we'd come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life's books each day...The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time." --Seneca

 In the stillness and dark of the early morning, I reflected on both my personal and professional journeys. 

   I chose GROWTH for my one word as the year 2016 began. I blogged about it here.  

The video about watering the Chinese Bamboo was inspiring then and still is today. I certainly feel like I've been "watering the bamboo" for the last five years.



   Although I've grown personally and professionally in many ways, I am mindful of how much more I need to grow and learn. In many respects, I still feel like a novice. I am trying to improve my skills and character every day. Some days I feel more successful than others. However, I keep picking myself up and keep going despite the challenges that come my way. I feel stronger and more prepared for the future than I have in a long time. That's a great feeling to have as we start another day and a new decade.

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