I signed up for a Seth Godin workshop called The Story Skills Workshop. I think Seth is brilliant - he communicates clearly and succinctly, and his stories and ideas are unique. Inspired by his work and Steven Pressfield's, I started writing, and it has been fun.
Perusing his site, I chanced upon his concept of workshops and seminars. It is a simple and brilliant idea. The only way to get a lot out of anything is to put a lot into it, and make it time-bound. It is a workshop.
Except, I have 3 certifications that I will do soon, so I've been saying for 2-8 years. They are all technical ones in the fitness and nutrition spheres. Stuff I've read and prepared for but just never got around to taking the exam. Precisely why, without the time-bound nature, they are all still in my todo list.
This fitness thing is more accessible than you think. But
Signing up for 1 more workshop makes no sense, when I have a pile of certs marked as TODOs. Except I think this one can be more impactful, for where I am today.
It is more important to connect with people and share my journey and transformation and interpretation of health and fitness. Fitness and health is a lot more accessible than one would think. I've made a lot of mistakes and taken the wrong path many times, misled by poor information and fads and marketing gimmicks. For people with whom my story resonates, I can save you a lot of time.
In my experience, I've seen the following, and continue to see the following patterns as well, which I'd like to chip away at. There's more, but these 5 come to my head right now.
- Strong and healthy people who set wrong/unfair benchmarks or yardsticks for themselves, and feel less positive than they should be.
- Committed people doing a plan that's not scientifically sound, and thus can cause long-term harm. Or at worst, seeing no results.
- Doing short-term diets that are unhealthy, and see short-term results. But eventually, the weight comes back on.
- Health, fitness, and longevity are not looked at as a whole.
- Did I mention crazy goal setting - "I want to look like Thor" what?!
Personally, and at The Quad, we've had the opportunity to share our stories and work with a lot of people and helped them build healthy lifestyles. Personally, if I can tell my stories better, I increase the probability of connecting with someone (and not more people) and enhance their interpretation. That's worth doing.
What's a post with Coach Dan John. If you've read his writing, you know he tells great stories. With every re-read, you keep gathering coaching lessons, technical lessons, and life lessons. The stories make it click.
How will it fit into my cluttered life?
I find myself working quite a bit. Meetings, if you can believe it!? Coaching, training, and writing are daily activities that are creative and my escape. But they take time. With emails piling up, there's not much time to do real work which I do try to cram anyways.
I think I could use a de-clutter.
And so it makes no sense to sign up for something which I (think I) need badly and don't have the time for. But I think I could use a drastic de-cluttering process to my work life and ensure I have enough time for other things I need to do.
So, I took a plunge. I am an idiot if I don't use the workshop. It is a strong signal that I have not de-cluttered, and I can't do good work anyway when cluttered.
De-clutter. Immediately! Or else.
Most times, I am conservative and sensible. But I think I could use a whack to the head.
It makes sense to me.