Tuesday ETK ROP Resumes

The conquer the Bulldog quest continues with...

Heavy Day/Benchmark for Right Of Passage from Enter the Kettlebell.

Warmed up with Super Joints, Goblet Squats, Halos and Pump Stretches plus 5+5 TGU's with the 16kg.

32 kg Clean and Press Ladders. 3 ladders of 1,2,3 with Box Pistols of the same.
Finished with 12 minutes of Bulldog Swing Ladders.  4,8,12,16 x's 2 then 4,8 totaling 92 Swings in 12 minutes.

Light Day on Thursday will be 4 C&P singles with 4 Box Pistols and Snatches on the dice roll...

You Are Powerful Beyond Measure!

Saw this today, gave me the chills.  Very good words in here.  Enjoy All!

Note to Self...

"Everyone is a prisoner of his own experience. No one can eliminate prejudices--just recognize them."

                                                                               -Edward R. Murrow

Anytime you start off a sentence with, "I don't mean to sound..." or, "you can take this anyway you want, but..." you're better off at that point just stopping and keeping your opinion to yourself.

But why spoil such a great opportunity to step in it and learn a valuable lesson about your jaded bitter self?

After seven plus years of working in an industry where a fair amount of the people you encounter just assume you're trying to screw them and then tell you one thing but do another strictly to secure them selves a better situation regardless of the effort you've already put forth and without giving you the last opportunity... you tend to form some opinions.

Being in sales is also being in the people business. It is also part psychologist. To be successful, it is important to understand how people make decisions, when and why. Why is it that one person can walk into a store, pick an item and buy it without a second thought? Whereas another person will walk in(same item), see it, want it, and then go to 5 or 6 other stores to compare prices, shop online, call a few places and invest 3 to 4 weeks (sometimes months) before they can feel as comfortable as the first guy did when he purchased right away?

Neither one is wrong and neither one is right. It is simply the process of the individual. What is consistent is that a person will not buy until the item in question is worth more than the money in their pocket.

That is where nature and nurture come into play.  It as also where one gets to walk a fine line between stereotyping a group, race, or culture with understanding the reality of how a group or culture views money (for the most part). Now, if you're going to be engaging in business with a person from a said group or culture, wouldn't the knowledge of how that group/culture buys, shops, and makes a decision be valuable? Or is that taboo?

What about when the two cultural views on money and value clash? What happens when one's view of being frugal conflicts with an other's view of service and selling?  For example, in the world of sales, it is customary to shop around and it is almost expected. Any sales professional worth his salt understands that a majority of his clients and buyers are going to look around before making a final decision. For sales people reading this, this does not mean you don't go for the close on the first meeting. It means that if you don't close, odds are pretty good, they're going to look around especially if you talked about price. There is, in this, an unspoken rule of ethics that has arisen and a few opinions which can create a circular mess.

How does a buyer know they have a good deal? Should the buyer be obligated to give the originating salesperson the last shot at the deal? Is it OK to buy strictly on price alone? Should the value of the service rendered to deliver and implement the product play a role in the presumed value and consequently price of the product in question? Is it possible that some will wind up spending more (gas, labor, maintenance, and the most valuable of all commodities time) in their quest for a better deal? What if that better deal means sitting in traffic all day, renegotiating, settling for a different color, type or model, not getting exactly what you want, etc? For some it's worth it. I hear it and experience it almost everyday.

Through out all of this, one thing remains the same, a person will not buy until the product or service is worth more to them than the money in their pocket.

So where am I going with this? What's the point of this expose into decision making and cultural buying habits?

I made an inappropriate comment. It was said in frustration. I knew it was inappropriate as I was saying it and knew for sure after I said it. Strangely, I don't even know if the person who I said it too even recognized it as inappropriate. So if the audience didn't see it, it didn't happen, right? Wrong. I know. I said it. I shouldn't have and it was wrong of me to allow myself to go there. That's not the kind of person I am or want to be.

I will not repeat what was said or go into the details of the actual offensive statement. I'd rather let your own inner prejudices fill that in.

I broke a personal cardinal principle from my own life. That principle is to stay here, in the now. I allowed and used past experiences to make a judgment on something in the present. This isn't necessarily wrong, but it certainly can limit possibilities. When you slip out of the now and regress to an explanation based on an individuals culture or race, it is you (me) making myself feel better for not having built enough value in my product to make it worth more than the money in said individual's pocket.

Some people/cultures have some behaviors that are fairly consistent. When I was a waiter, there were certain groups that consistently did not tip well. As a salesperson, there are some groups that will typically try to buy your product for below your cost. This is just information. It is not however a constant nor is it a reason to jump to any conclusions about how the individual in front of me is going to act or behave.

Staying in the now means staying fresh and approaching each situation from a position of service. It means honoring what you've learned in the past, yet remaining open to the possibility of now.

Rising above what I would view as an instinctual response is part of the challenge and mystery of being human. From early on you learn and form opinions and judgments. Mostly to protect yourself. From as simple and as obvious as touching a hot stove, to getting cheated on by a lover, or loaning money to someone. When you get burned, you tend to think differently the next time the situation arises.

Another wonderful aspect of humanity is the ability to recognize when you're wrong and learn from your mistakes.  Within and between the stimulus, lies the ability to respond.  And when you recognize it, you can change it and respond differently than you did the last time.

Me? I blew it. Insensitive, inappropriate, unacceptable. I made an assumption. And we all know what happens when you assume. In this case, the only ass was me. I am grateful for having recognized it and would like to sincerely apologize to the parties involved. I am truly sorry.

Looks like I have more work to do. Hopefully to those of you reading this slice of humble pie you will gain something from this and we as the human race can get a little closer to accepting our differences while embracing our similarities.

Monday Night's Training

Last night I worked on:

Double Kettlebell Military Press:  24kg, 5 sets of 5 on the minute.
Double Kettlebell Iron Cross:  16kg, 4 sets of 3 every 2 minutes.
Superset of Ring Push Ups with Chest Expander 5 sets of 10.  30 seconds between.
Snatches 16kg, 5 sets of 20.
Finished off with a little Clubbell Practice based on Ed Thomas DVD.

Good session overall.  Shoulders feeling strong.

Will continue on intertwining Stacking workouts from 101 KB Workouts and  preparing my Hub for Stacking.

The Tao of the Kettlebell - Verse 8

The supreme good is like water,

which nourishes all things without trying to.

It flows to low places loathed by all men.

Therefore, it is like the Tao.

Live in accordance with the nature of things.

In dwelling, be close to the land.

In meditation, go deep in the heart.

In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.

Stand by your word.

Govern with equity.

Be timely in choosing the right moment.

One who lives in accordance with nature

does not go against the way of things.

He moves in harmony with the present moment,

always knowing the truth of just what to do.

Lao-Tzu

Isn't it interesting that right before it's time to write about the 8th Verse of the Tao Te Ching, I stumble on the quote I had mentioned from my last blog?

The supreme good [insert higher power of your choosing] is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to.

Wayne Dyer's book Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, based on the Tao titles this verse, "Living in the Flow."  Dr. Dyer also reminds us that our bodies are 75 percent water and our brain is 85 percent water.  "The rest," he goes on to say, "is simply muscled water."

That's great!  Muscled water!  What does water do?

It flows to low places loathed by all men.  Therefor it is like the Tao.

Think of the God realized beings who got low in order to go high.  Jesus, as one example, associated with all kinds of "low" men. In modern times there are countless examples of this.  If God is like water and we are mostly water then we too are a tiny piece of God.  That also means that we are stronger and more powerful then we, more often than not, give ourselves credit for.  I will be the first to admit to this.

Live in accordance with the nature of things.  In dwelling, be close to the land.  In meditation, go deep in the heart.  In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.  Stand by your word.  Govern with equity.

Be timely in choosing the right moment.

Here Lao-Tzu guides us in a direction that will take you down a path of peaceful living.  Where life will flow.  There is no need to try to force things to happen, when you abide by the Tao and live in accordance with the nature of things, everything will fall into place.  

This verse also reminds me of another quote about water and living in the flow...

"Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water.  Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.  Now water can flow or it can crash.  Be water, my friend."

                                                                                 -Bruce Lee

Strength.  What is it?  What makes it?  One of the key components of strength is tension.  You'll read about this in Pavel Tsatsouline's Power to the People.  So why are we talking about water?  Water is anything but tense?  Well there in lies the rub.  Water can change shape and structure to adapt to the moment.  Evaporate, freeze or flow, water has the flexibility to adjust to the demands of the environment.  Do you?

When training for strength, be like water.  Know when to tense up like ice and when to flow like a stream.  Know when to rise like the tide and crash like a wave.  What barriers are in your way that need eroding?  With time and by living in accordance with the nature of things, you too can overflow.

One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things.  He moves in harmony with the present moment, always knowing the truth of just what to do.

The key to this verse is here.  He moves in harmony with the present moment...  The present moment.  Be here, in the now.  When you allow yourself to exist outside of the now, you are not in the flow.  Rather your ego is rowing your boat.  Great strength lies in the ability to stay in the present moment.  From the power lifter to the gymnast to the Girevik, the ability to stay with the movement as it happens and have a laser focus on where you are and what you are doing is a key element to pressing through.  Look at 3 typical drills.  A deadlift, an Iron Cross and a heavy near maximal Kettlebell press.  If you're thinking about what you need to pick up from the market while attempting one of the drills, you're probably not going to hit it.  Rather it's going to hit you and probably on the head in the case of the press.  But also look at how fast these near maximal efforts almost command and engage your body in the now.  It's nearly impossible to think about anything else but the task at hand and the more you can dial into that focus during your lift, the stronger you become.  

The real question now is:  How can you take this focus and harmony with the present moment into daily living and be as strong spiritually as you are physically...