One of the Big Ideas from Jonah Hill’s Netflix documentary on our mutual coach Phil Stutz (appropriately called Stutz—have you watched it yet?) is the fact that we will NEVER be exonerated from THREE things…
Pain.
Uncertainty.
And Hard work.
Note: Cristiano Ronaldo Instagrammed this wisdom from the documentary to his 200M+ followers.
Now…
Most of us spend most of our lives trying to pretend that this isn’t true and… that’s the source of most of our frustration.
We need to radically accept the fact that life is challenging.
Even the Buddha’s first noble truth established the fact that life is full of pain/suffering.
And..
Yet…
When we learn to not only ACCEPT this non-negotiable existential fact of life but learn to LOVE it, everything changes.
Which is why Phil’s first tool in his first book The Tools is what he calls “The Reversal of Desire.”
The mantra he and Barry Michels tell us to SCREAM in our heads EVERY TIME we feel even a niggle of fear/doubt/overwhelm?
“BRING IT ON!!!”
Followed by…
“I LOVE PAIN. PAIN SETS ME FREE!!”
Why does “pain” set us free?
Because, as we discussed in one of our VERY first +1s, your infinite potential exists outside your comfort zone. How’s it feel outside your comfort zone? By definition, it feels uncomfortable.
That’s pain.
And…
That’s why embracing pain “sets you free.”
Now…
As we’ve discussed (many times!!), Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn and leading positive psychologist Kelly McGonigal tell us the same thing.
How we INTERPRET the stress and stressful moments in our lives determines how they affect us—all the way down to our telomeres.
They also tell us to say “Bring it on!!” as we APPROACH rather than AVOID life’s challenges.
Why?
Because that’s the ONLY way we can grow—using the “turds” of life (as Phil playfully says in the documentary) as fuel for our growth.
Which brings us back to pain and uncertainty and hard work.
I’ve been thinking about how to make those three things into a practical tool and playful acronym.
Then it landed.
Pain. Uncertainty. Hard work.
That’s “PUH.”
And… Yes. That’s *definitely* pronounced POO. 💩
And that, my dear Hero, is Today’s +1.
Remember.
It takes poo to make a seed grow. 💩 🌱
And it takes PUH to make an aspiring Hero truly Heroic. 💩 🦸♀️ 🦸♂️
Say it with me now with a smile…
“I love PUH!!”
You?
Day 1. All in.
With a laugh.
Let’s goooo!!
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