We have this thing at the end of lunch where all of the campers finish the phrase in the title. One lucky kid (usually sitting close to my table) gets to yell ‘AWESOME’ in the microphone while everyone else yells at the top of their lungs. It’s a fun way to end a meal and get ready for what’s next.

And, it’s a way to remind our campers and staff that ‘being awesome’ is a choice.

But, what does ‘being awesome’ even mean?

Lesson at the Beach

I’ve recently spent some time in southern California seeing families. On a particularly beautiful morning, I spent time at Venice Beach walking and watching. Near a pier with a bunch of roller coasters, I ambled past an interesting exercise area. What I saw left me shaking my head in wonder.

On two ropes hanging 30’ down and about 5 feet apart, one guy was going up with a hand on each rope. At the top, he put his feet on top of the support bar and hung there like a bat. Then, he came down the ropes – upside down!

Nearby there were a set of 10 rings, each hanging eight feet off the ground and spaced evenly about ten feet apart. One lady was going through them like she was flying, gliding, sailing.  She was spinning and twisting with an almost joyful expression. The next guy up looked like Tarzan, flying through the rings just as effortlessly.

The final stop on the show was a pair doing some sort of combined ground based acrobatics. He was the base and lying on his back. She was like a human pinball that he spun and supported her only with his feet.

These people were awesome and did incredible things I’d never before seen. None were professionals – all just did it because they loved to move. I asked the first three people how they learned and all basically said ‘by watching others and trying new moves out that looked like fun.’

It can be intimidating watching people do things that you can’t do yet. All we see is the current fruits of their past labors. And, labor they did!

Pound the Stone

None of these people showed up on the boardwalk, jumped into the air, and could do what I saw in that moment when they started. In fact, the upside-down guy gave himself a fist pump when he got to the bottom – he was pretty excited he’d just completed the move.

Becoming great at something takes months and months of effort and thought and practice and learning. It takes building on top of what you’ve learned and loving the process. (There is a great book about this called Pound the Stone.)

And, you have to be careful about comparing yourself to those who have already put in the work to be Awesome at something. If you want to act like Streep, dance like Baryshnikov, cook like Flay, or shoot like Steph, you’ve got to put in the same hours they did. And, that’s a lot of hours and a lot of dedication.

It’s not enough to know what you want. It’s more important to find something you are willing to work for. Once you’ve found that something for which you are willing to put in the time, effort, and learning, then get after it and enjoy the process!

But the process isn’t always fun, is it?

A Good Exercise

I recently read a great example about this. Imagine the one thing you really want – becoming a professional athlete, creating an amazing company, whatever it is…. Now, imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and that goal has been accomplished.

It would be fun, sure, for a few days. But then you’d get bored with it and start looking to build something else. It’s the struggle, the journey, the process that we truly love the most.

Those men and women on the beach, they had loved the process of becoming awesome. And, they will continue to strive to get better at what they’ve found they love. You can do the same.

Now, go out there and be awesome!

Have a great week,

Cole

This past week, I spent a good bit of time between the Washington, DC and New York City areas visiting families. In fact, I did the trip by car twice in less than a week. I know – not great planning on my part but when parents call….

Late Sunday night, I was about two hours outside NYC when my navigation told me to leave the highway. “Hmm,” I thought to myself. “This doesn’t seem to make sense but maybe there’s an accident or something up the road I don’t know about.”

So, dutifully following the directions, I pulled off the highway.

Four minutes, two toll gates and a few embarrassing moments later, my trusty navigation system had led me onto I95 north – the same road I had just been traveling. Not something you want to happen late on a Sunday night but not the end of the world.

Thirty minutes closer to NYC, my navigation decided it was time for me to get off the highway again. Driving along at highway speeds on my own, I decided not to look at my phone and just give it another chance.

Five minutes, two toll gates, and a few frustrated laughs at myself later….

A Lesson from Circles

Here’s the thing – I’ve driven the road between Baltimore and New York City probably 50 times over the past twenty years. I know quite while how to get from one metropolis to the other without outside help. So, how could I have made the same mistake twice?

I was listening to the wrong voice.

This happens a lot to us in our lives. Sometimes, the voices coming at you are negative and hurtful. Sometimes, the voice speaking to you comes across as helpful, patient, and interested in your well-being. However, whether or not you listen is up to you.

My navigation app has saved me a lot of time and has very, very rarely steered me wrong. However, in this case, I trusted an outside voice over my own knowledge and experience and paid the price.

After getting over the embarrassment, I started to think about all the other voices I let into my life. The people with whom I spend, the books I read, the podcasts to which I listen, the websites I visit, the music I play…. All these voices have an effect on me even if I don’t realize it.

The Courage to Choose

The great news? These are all my personal choices. I get to decide what I listen to, attend to, and focus on. I get to decide with whom I’ll spend time.

I recently read a book by Ray Dalio, a smart man who built a large company doing things differently than most in his profession. One of his central themes includes one of our values. His key to a successful life is a two-step process: you have to first know what the best decisions are and, two, have the courage to make them.

We have to have courage to do things that feel hard or different or weird. Rather than blindly following directions or going with the flow, we need to take some time to think and reflect before going forward. Otherwise, you might find yourself running in circles….

Have a great week!

One of my favorite interviewers asks all of his guests a question at the end of the interview. It’s a simple one that requires people to truly think. Here’s the question:

“If you could put anything on a highway billboard sign, what would it say?”

Because I travel to meet families interested in sending their children to Weequahic, I see a lot of signs. Most of them are the plain-old ‘stop’, ‘yield,’ and street names and numbers. However, every now and then, I see one that really stands out.

Recently, I’ve seen a few road signs that actually made me think. Not so much about ‘Stop’, or ‘Yield,’ ‘Exit,’ etc. Those come and go and I certainly pay attention but they don’t make me think.

However, three signs I’ve passed on the road lately have made me think a bit more and I wanted to pass them along.

Create

The first of those was a sign I saw outside our hotel during a recent trip to Custer, South Dakota. (The Black Hills are ton of fun, FYI….)

Our little hotel was full of surprises: a huge wall of board games to enjoy, free panc

ake breakfasts with 15 different toppings, and a warm cookie ‘Happy Hour’ every day at 4pm, just to name a few. They did a lot of big and little things really well.

On the way out for another adventure in the area, we noticed their letter board sign for the first time. This is what it said:

Create the Life You Love

I had to talk to the owners. This place was just too much along the lines of what we try to do at Weequahic. Turns out, there were three owners and all had worked together for years at different hotels. They had learned the business inside and out and decided to head off on their own to create the experience they’d want as a guest.

The sign, they said, was simply what they were doing. And, it showed!

Thankful

I drive through a number of towns that have churches with the billboard signs. Most of them are cute reminders of what they are about. Driving from camp to NYC a few weeks back, one of the churches had this out front:

We don’t need more to be thankful for. We need to be more thankful.

As a camp family, we have a lot. We have great people, fantastic campers, supportive and engaged families, a beautiful setting, and really good camp food. The opportunities we get on a daily basis would stagger the mind of anyone who didn’t ‘know’ camp.

And, the more thankful we are, the more we’ll enjoy it. And, we can be even more thankful. Which leads to more enjoyment. The wheel just keeps on going.

Grattitude

The first time I saw this sign, I was driving from LaGuardia Airport to Weequahic. Cruising up I-87 in the Harlem area, the Grattitude sign loomed. This was several years ago and just one summer after we had first introduced our GAC values. So, as you could imagine, I took note.

The second time I drove by, I was with a friend who could take a picture of the sign for me.

However, upon looking at the result later that night, I realized the sign was misspelled – there is an extra ‘t.’

Turns out, the artist responsible for the work added the extra ‘t’ to, in his own words, ‘turbo charge the grateful feelings.’ It could also be thought of combining both ‘gratitude’ and ‘attitude.’

As it stood there for several years, the sign was a fantastic reminder of timeless idea: adopt the attitude of gratitude and you’ll have a happier life. I miss the reminder.

What’s Your Sign?

How about you? What would your sign say?

But don’t stop just at figuring out would it would say. Rather, go further and think whether you live it or not. Because, really, your own actions are the sign you choose to show the world on a daily basis.

So, what’s your sign? Have a great week!

– Cole