Unlocked

That’s from an early chapter called “Hitting Bottom” in which George shares his challenges with alcoholism and heroin addictions.

The Shunryu Suzuki quote at the beginning captures the theme of the chapter well.

Suzuki tells us: “Hell is not punishment, it’s training.”

As we’ve discussed many times, Joseph Campbell is one of my all-time favorite Heroes and Guides. He’s staring at me right now from my office wall as I type this.

Every morning he comes to life in my meditation and reminds me that “WE TRAIN HEROES!!”

In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell tells us: “The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. ‘Live,’ Nietzsche says, ‘as though the day were here.’ It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair.”

In fact, those are the very last words of Campbell’s classic book—which was published in 1949.

To be clear: “The modern hero” is YOU.

Let’s live, as Nietzsche says, as if today’s the day.

Because, quite simply, it is.

Here’s to remembering that the good life is one hero’s journey after another as we conquer our dragons, transform our consciousness and give our gifts in greatest service to the world.

P.S.Check out our other Notes on Campbell’s work including A Joseph Campbell Companion, Pathways to Bliss, and The Power of Myth.

And, of course, check out the documentary Pat Solomon created (after reading some of those Notes!) that I happen to be in (alongside Deepak Chopra, Laird Hamilton, Sir Ken Robinson and others) called Finding Joe for more. (Trailer here. Free full movie on YouTube here.)

P.P.S. Check out our Notes on Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward as well. He integrates Joseph Campbell’s wisdom into our modern lives and emphasizes the importance of the “trips to hell” to guide us upward in our journey to activate our Heroic potential.

Rohr tells us: “Holding our inner blueprint, which is a good description for our soul, and returning it humbly to the world and to God by love and service is indeed of ultimate concern. Each thing and every person must act out its nature fully, at whatever cost. It is our life’s purpose, and the deepest meaning of ‘natural law.’ We are here to give back fully and freely what was first given to us—but now writ personally—by us! It is probably the most courageous and free act we will ever perform—and it takes both halves of our life to do it fully. The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it.

So get ready for a great adventure, the one you were really born for. If we never get to our little bit of heaven, our life does not make much sense, and we have created our own ‘hell.’ So get ready for some new freedom, some dangerous permission, some hope from nowhere, some unexpected happiness, some stumbling stones, some radical grace, and some new and pressing responsibility for yourself and for our suffering world.”

That’s from a chapter called “Uncovering the Masterpiece Within.”

That Michelangelo story of “releasing” the statue from the stone in which it was held reminds me of the Golden Buddha story that kicks off Finding Joe that we’ve discussed many times. (And... Check out this +1 and this +1 as well for more...)

The quick recap...

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a huge golden Buddha statue was covered in mud and stucco glass to protect it from an invading army. The trick worked. The invading army ignored the priceless statue.

But... The trick worked TOO well. When the invading army left, no one remembered that the statue was gold. Centuries pass.

Then... One day... The statue is being moved and gets chipped. A bit of the gold underneath shines through. As they chip away some more they realize that the 10-foot “mud” statue is actually 5.5 TONS of nearly pure gold. It’s worth something like $250 million today.

Moral of the story: YOU ARE PURE GOLD! We just need to chip away at what’s in the way.

George talks about the hard work of chipping away at what gets in the way. How did George help his players unlock their greatness?

He tells us: “I introduced them to the concept of being a spiritual warrior, explaining how that involved the conquest of the ego, the small self. You compete against your previous best self; the opponent is secondary. And I stressed the necessity of struggle and needing to get comfortable being uncomfortable. One side of the coin is freedom and potential; the other is uncertainty and anxiety. The Danish existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called it ‘the alarming possibility of being able.’ Anxiety must be accepted and fully experienced. As former poet laureate Robert Frost said, ‘The best way out is always through.’ As spiritual warriors, we have to train ourselves to overcome the internal obstacles and difficulties that stand in the way of allowing our latent abilities to express themselves. That is what unlocking is all about.”

He also tells us: “No struggle, no swag. That could be the motto for everything we do in life. Without struggle, we don’t grow. Without something to push against, we don’t become stronger. It’s not just a matter of physical strength either. It’s the same for emotional resilience and wisdom. Nothing is worth anything if it’s easy and effortless. It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t pay for it in sweat and blood (literal or metaphorical).”

Here’s to doing the hard work of uncovering the masterpiece within! Practically speaking... What’s one thing you KNOW you could do TODAY to chip away at what’s getting in the way of your divine radiance shining brightly?

That’s from a chapter in which George juxtaposes “peak” performance and “pure” performance.

Peak performance implies you’ve hit an ultimate-best. George tells us that’s never the case. He tells us that the more consistently we show up in “pure” performance, the higher and higher our “peaks” become.

How do we UNLOCK that potential?

Via a “relentless drive and consistency of effort” with “total commitment and grueling work.”

As I read that, I thought of the Note I created yesterday on a book written by *another* one of Michael Jordan’s coaches. While George was helping MJ and his Bulls cultivate more mindfulness on the court, Tim Grover was building Jordan’s body and mental toughness.

Grover wrote Relentless and another book called Winning.

In Winning (which was the Note I worked on yesterday), he tells us there’s a big difference between trying to be the best and trying to be the best EVER.

I just got goosebumps typing that and rereading this line from Winning: “Everything I’ve done with my clients has been the result of helping them close the gap between being the best, and being the best ever. Big difference between those two.”

THAT makes me think of Ben Bergeron’s wisdom from Chasing Excellence.

Ben is one of the all-time great CrossFit coaches. In his great book, he walks us through the 12 character traits of a champion. The first character trait is COMMITMENT. The best are ABSOLUTELY committed to BEING the ABSOLUTE BEST.

Bergeron tells us that most people don’t have that level of commitment. Most people have“some sort of skill set and the semblance of drive; they *want* to be good, but when faced with the work required to be great, they shrug and tell themselves, ‘Meh, I’m good enough.’”

Josh Waitzkin says the EXACT same thing in The Art of Learning.

He tells us: “One thing I have learned as a competitor is that there is a clear distinction between what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great and what it takes to be among the best.”

How about YOU?

How’s YOUR commitment?

Are you ALL IN and ready to pay the price to be your absolute, most Heroic best or are you kinda sorta, “Meh...” good enough?

Of course, the choice is yours. But remember Maslow’s admonition that we ALL *ALWAYS* have “capacities clamoring to be used” and that “What one CAN be, one MUST be!”

And, this Maslow wisdom always wakes me up: “If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.”

Here’s to UNLOCKING your greatness.

Go ALL IN.

Today.

P.S. Speaking of no days off, how about this wisdom from Michael Phelps—the most decorated Olympian in history...

btw. I just Googled it to confirm Michael Phelps has won more medals than anyone. Yep. He has won 28 medals overall—which, apparently, is more than 161 COUNTRIES!

In No Limits, he tells us: “Bob’s coaching philosophy can be distilled as follows: Set your goals high. Work conscientiously, every day, to achieve them.

Among the many authors Bob has read, he likes to cite the motivational speaker Earl Nightingale, who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor on the USS Arizona, then went on to a career in broadcasting. The way Bob tells it, Nightingale’s work revealed the one thing that’s common to all successful people: They make a habit of doing things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.

There are plenty of people with some amount of talent. Are you willing to go farther, work harder, be more committed and dedicated than anyone else?

If others were inclined to take Sunday off, well, that just meant we might be one-seventh better.

For five years, from 1998 to 2003, we did not believe in days off. I had one because of a snowstorm, two more due to the removal of wisdom teeth. Christmas? See you at the pool. Thanksgiving? Pool. Birthdays? Pool. Sponsor obligations? Work them out around practice time.”

And... THAT reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In Be Useful he tells us that, in his quest to become THE greatest bodybuilder ever, he trained for FIVE hours PER DAY for FIFTEEN YEARS. At his peak, he was moving FORTY THOUSAND POUNDS OF WEIGHT PER WORKOUT.

Here’s how he puts it: “If the work of being great or achieving something special hasn’t hurt or cost you anything, or at least made you uncomfortable, then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but you’re not working hard enough. You’re not sacrificing all that could be sacrificed in order to be all that you could become.”

He also says: “Don’t be a lazy f*ck. Do the work. The only time you are allowed to use the phrase ‘I took care of it’ is when it is done. Completely.”

And: “Granted, I am a lunatic. I don’t do anything like a normal person. I don’t have normal dreams. My risk tolerance for big goals and new challenges is sky high. Everything I do, I do big.”

Those are the final words of the book.

The ultimate Heroic quest? The Hero becomes a Guide. It’s time to UNLOCK the best, most Heroic versions of ourselves so we can help others do the same so we can change the world, one person at a time, together, starting with you and me, TODAY.

Day 1. All in. LET’S GO, HERO!!