One Person’s Normal Is Another Person’s Extreme (Find Your People)
One Person’s Normal Is Another Person’s Extreme (Find Your People)
You have probably heard of David Goggins. The retired Navy SEAL has found success in ultramarathons and as an inspirational speaker. His road to success was not an easy one. He did not have a great family life as a kid, eventually became morbidly obese, and suffered from a stutter brought on by toxic stress. Overcoming this adversity instilled in him the desire to be as mentally tough as possible. Not just more tough than his peers, and I am paraphrasing from his book here but “an exception among the exceptional”.
David Goggins
Pete Carroll, former Seattle Seahawks football coach has said about Goggins: “ In my pursuit to understand and learn from the greatest competitors in the world, David Goggins is one that sets the standard.” Carroll knows a thing or two about elite performance and I would agree with this sentiment given everything that Goggins has accomplished. That said, I disagree with a lot of people's take on what this kind of example means for them. There is only one Goggins and it isn’t you (or me). Trying to be like him is a bad idea. You are only setting yourself up for failure.
Don’t Go Join The Circus
Back in the old days when the only form of entertainment for kids was a stick and a hoop, every year or two the circus would come to town. If you didn’t get the circus you probably got some kind of traveling carnival. Either way, a saying came into common parlance: Don’t go join the circus.
The idea was that since people didn’t have a lot of excitement in their day to day existence, the life of a circus performer seemed amazing. Every once in a while someone would get swept away by emotions and join the show. This is when reality set in. Life on the road is a grind and people are much different when the costumes come off.
It was a bad idea to make a life-changing decision based on the illusion of “the show”. What you saw in public was far different than the working reality. Even if you completely understood what that life entailed, it was very unlikely that it was going to be a fit. It takes a very rare personality to thrive in that type of environment. Most people who try to go on the road with the show regret it.
Along these lines, any time a famous person tells you what you should do, or someone else holds them up as an example of a path to take, it can be tempting to follow that advice. The challenge with this approach is that everyone has a different make-up. Your talents, life circumstances, and preferences are all important when trying to figure out what to do next.
It does not matter how famous someone is, their approach is never universal. Take Dave Ramsey, for example. Millions of people listen to him but I don’t agree with everything he has to say (especially on leverage). It just isn’t a good fit for what I am trying to accomplish. If you want to see that it is ok to disagree with a recognized authority, I lay it all out in this video that is less than 3 minutes long:
