In our last +1, we talked about The Choice of Hercules.
I actually shared that story in my lecture on Day 2 (Saturday) of our Heroic Coach graduation weekend.
Friday’s Day 1 talk was on Theory. We recapped the seven modules from the Mastery Series phase of our program and looked ahead to see how we could apply the wisdom in 2020 while locking in all our gains from 2019 and doing our best to make last year’s best our new baseline.
On Saturday, we focused on Practice. How? By doing a Spartan Race together. What better way to demonstrate our willingness to embrace challenges than to do an obstacle course race together, eh?! (Sing it with me and 500 of our Coaches: “OMMS!!!” It was E P I C.)
On Sunday, we moved from Theory to Practice to Mastery as we “graduated,” received our diplomas Declarations of Optimizing and then, immediately, started again. 🤓
So…
Hercules.
He made a wise choice—stepping up to life’s challenges and giving us all he had.
Epictetus actually reflected on this.
Here’s what he said (which I read to our Coaches):
“What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar? — and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir him into action?”
That’s Today’s +1.
Let’s not roll over and go back to sleep. (Hah.)
Got any heroic choices you need to make TODAY?
High fives and let’s do this.
P.S. I also read this little gem from Epictetus’s Discourses right before we loaded up our fleet of buses to go make history as one of the largest team’s in Spartan’s history: “The true man is revealed in difficult times. So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material. But this is going to take some sweat to accomplish. From my perspective, no one’s difficulties ever gave him a better test than yours, if you are prepared to make use of them the way a wrestler makes use of an opponent in peak condition.”
P.P.S. We had over 500 Heroes rock that race—making us the second-largest in Spartan history. Fate permitting, we intend to have 1,001+ rock it in 2020 to set the all-time record. Wanna join us? LET’S DO THIS! 🙂
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