Today’s Day 1 of our Heroic Mastery Series and Coach-Class II certification programs.
My heart just skipped a beat as I typed that!!
I feel like these guys:
Seriously.
I feel pretty much EXACTLY like those guys. (Hah.)
It’s funny because our Team shared that image with our Coaches in an email the day before last year’s graduation—saying that’s how THEY felt in anticipation of all of us getting together for the big weekend.
My soul smiled when I first saw that animated gif and then I couldn’t get the image out of my mind as that’s exactly how *I* felt as I drove to the Trail the morning of Day 1 of the graduation weekend (which was Day 298 of our program).
So…
Stepping back for a moment.
As we’ve discussed, our Heroic Coach program is all about helping our Coaches do three things:
1. Become RADIANT EXEMPLARS who demonstrate true Mastery in the Heroic protocol;
2. Develop Coaching Skills to help OTHERS Optimize their lives and become the Optimize = Optimus = Best = Eudaimon = Hero versions of themselves; and,
3. Build their Coaching businesses if that’s the direction they’re headed.
Now, half of the 1,000+ Heroes who joined our program did so simply to improve their own lives. They just wanted the Mastery side of things and weren’t going for the actual certified Heroic Coach status—which, of course, is awesome.
The other half were all about becoming certified Heroic Coaches—even if they didn’t have any intention of becoming full-time professional Coaches per se. They wanted to hold themselves accountable to super-high standards and then take that wisdom into their lives as CEOs, Executive Directors, HR Executives, Educators, Therapists, Personal Trainers, Moms, Dads, Exemplary Humans, etc.
So…
As part of our program, if you want to get certified you need to be in (or be making progress toward being in) the best Energetic shape of your life. One way to demonstrate that is by doing a Spartan Race with us on graduation weekend.
So…
On Day 299, 500+ of us did a Spartan Race together. (Note: For those who can’t make the event or choose to express their Energy-best in another way, they can let us know how they intend to fulfill the requirement. Examples include a Heroic Coach who led an Antartica expedition (!) and another who completed a 170km trail race in the Alps. And, for some of our Coaches, running a 5k or walking 15,000 steps in one day was a heroic achievement we celebrated with them.)
So…
The Spartan Race was truly amazing—for a number of reasons.
One of our Coaches (go Arturo!) would have won the whole Open division (finishing #1 out of 5,000) if he didn’t stop to help people along the way. (Misty goosebumps as I typed that.)
He finished 20 seconds behind the first-place finisher and told me he could have easily shaved 10 minutes off his pace if he wanted to.
I asked him how many Spartan Races he’d done before. He said it was his first race.
I asked him if he was a trail runner. He said, “Nope.”
I asked him how he did so well. He said, “I just do what you tell us to do. I swim, climb, eat well and practice the fundamentals.”
I said, “Dude. You rock.”
Another Heroic-Spartan finished first in her age group. (Go Penney!! 🥇) And yet another finished first in HIS age group. (Go Jason!! 🥇)
I finished with the second-to-last group of Heroes, having fun supporting one another right to the Finish Line. Then we had our last crew who came in after dark, featuring a crew of Heroes supporting one heroes who gave her all and finished the course several hours after our fastest guy.
I’m so proud of each and every one of our Heroes who made it to the Starting Line and supported one another in making it to the Finish Line.
And that’s what I want to focus on Today.
I’ve done a couple Races with friends before but I’d never gone out and did a Race as a TEAM. Until this event with our Coaches.
It was so EPICALLY cool to go through it with one thing in mind: No one gets left behind.
We all went out their with one virtue-goal in mind: Heroic Encouragement.
What struck me the most? The fact that you can make HARD things relatively EASY when you do them together.
This hit me the second or third time we hammered out our burpees together for one another.
As you may know, if you fail an obstacle in a Spartan Race (and, odds are even the fittest WILL fail at least one obstacle), you have to do 30 burpees.
Now, I’m a guy who does 100+ burpees every day.
But…
30 burpees in the middle of a Race?
Not so fun.
Which, of course, is the whole point.
But…
When we went through the Race as a TEAM, we’d just create a big ol’ burpee circle and support the one(s) who needed support.
“How many burpees we gotta do?”
“30? OK.”
“How many people we got?”
“10?” “OK. 3 each!”
“1. 2. 3.” “DONE!”
You know how much easier it is to do 3 burpees times 10 people vs. 30 burpees x 1 person?
A lot.
Which is why, at the end of each micro set, I might have screamed, “TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!!!!”
And, well, that’s a long way to get to the point of Today’s +1.
Let’s remember: Team work makes the dream work.
Got any hard things in your life?
Let’s see how much easier we can make them by doing it together.
P.S. Here’s what Heroic-Spartan Team Work That Makes the Dream Work looks like:
And:
And me and my Wifey having a blast!
P.P.S. I said, “TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!!” after each set of burpees.
You know what we said after each individual burpee?
“THANK YOU, JOE!!”
As in: “Thank you, Joe De Sena for reminding us that life isn’t supposed to be easy and for giving us a painfully playful way to pay the penalty for missing an obstacle in life.”
We recorded this “THANK YOU, JOE!” video on Sunday morning for Joe.
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