In our last +1, we flipped the switch and took to the oars following the inspiration of one of my new favorite Latin phrases…
Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe.
Translated as…
“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.”
Today we’re going to have some fun mining our collection of Notes featuring a few of my other favorite, old school Latin wisdom gems.
Let’s start by cracking open our Notes on Harvey Dorfman’s great book Coaching the Mental Game.
As we’ve discussed, Dorfman was a legendary mental toughness coach. He reminds me of Phil Stutz. (See this +1 on Dorfman + Stutz.)
Dorfman tells us about the Latin phrase…
Percussus resurgo.
What’s that mean?
“Struck down. I rise again.”
Me: 😲 🤯 !!
You?
Next up…
This one is from our Notes on Alex Pang’s The Distraction Addiction.
He tells us: “The idea that walking helps thinking and can be a form of contemplation has been around since antiquity. The Latin phrase solvitur ambulando—‘it is solved by walking’—is attributed to ancient philosophers as diverse as Diogenes, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine. Buddhists and Christians share a tradition of walking meditation, in which walks along short paths or labyrinths stimulate spiritual reflection and renewal. Walking was an essential tool for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Paris, Immanuel Kant in Konigsberg, and Soren Kierkegaard in Copenhagen were all famously regular walkers. Kierkegaard declared, ‘I have walked myself into my best thoughts,’ and was drawn to walking for both its physical and mental stimulation (benefits that have been documented by modern scientists). So popular was the image of the walking philosopher that Friedrich Nietzsche famously stated toward the end of the nineteenth century, ‘All truly great thoughts’—including Nietzsche’s own—‘are conceived by walking.’”
Solvitur ambulando.
“It is solved by walking.”
👆 Amen.
That’s why Charles Darwin leased land from his neighbor to create his “thinking trail.” It’s also why I created a little half-mile walking trail on our land when we moved to the country outside Austin.
One more…
Let’s crack open our Notes on Stephen Covey’s book Primary Greatness.
Covey tells us: “When I was working in North Carolina, I was given a shirt imprinted with the state motto in Latin, Esse quam videri, which means ‘To be rather than to seem.’
This should be the motto of every person seeking primary greatness. Unfortunately, too often, ‘seeming to be’ substitutes for real integrity. It’s ‘seeming’ as opposed to ‘being.’”
Esse quam videri.
“To be rather than to seem.”
👆 THAT is where it’s at.
Me: 😲 🤯 !!
You?
And…
That, my Heroic friend, is Today’s +1.
Remember this old-school wisdom…
Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe. Percussus resurgo. Esse quam videri. Solvitur ambulando.
Translated into our modern lives as…
“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.” “Struck down. I rise again.” “To be rather than to seem.” “It is solved by walking.”
Today a good day to take to the oars, rise again, solve by walking, and be rather than seem?
Day 1. All in.
LET’S.
GO.
!!!
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