Rise of the Rebel: sunrise to sunset

Thank you!

All up, we have raised over $10.5k for Out Doors Inc!

We burnt over 11,000 calories just on the machines in that hour, but I’d say we burnt over a million throughout the day!

Let’s also say we did 10,000+ burpees on the day

And I hope you all walked away with some mindset things to think about & build on now for yourself

Any last-minute donations can be made here…

Donate

Why?

This day wasn’t just about the physical challenge, and we knew that part would be hard anyway. But it was more about your mental health & wellbeing. This is why each event was tied into a mindset component. I hope that at least one of these resonated with you & you could take it away to help you grow as a human

We’d love to hear what you thought of the day

5 Minute Survey

“Always do your best.”

A simple and powerful mantra to live by, but how often do we truly express our best?

Often, we find ourselves giving less than our best before we even begin something without conscious thought.

For example, upon seeing this workout, was your immediate response positive or negative? Encouraging or defeating?

Did you start to plan how you would "moderate and strategize your effort", aka giving your good effort but not your best?

Effort is one of the few things we can control. However, we often give up this control to influences below our level of awareness. Often, fear convinces us to hold ourselves back, play it safe, and not really give our best.

Not giving our best is one of the nasty ways our ego takes out an insurance policy against our Self, using our potential to pay the price.

Best Effort is a choice to engage in your life with honesty, intention, and fullness in mind, body, and spirit.

It is making the decision to be your best at the present moment, understanding this doesn't guarantee success and might even be 'less than' something you've done in the past.

Your Best Effort is not your best performance.

This is often a very difficult lesson to learn and may require some unlearning, but it is powerful and influences all areas of our lives.

This workout will challenge you to commit to 10 minutes of fully expressing your best.

Always your best, independent of the result.

Aggression gets a bad name, but it really means confronting something and attacking it. For our purposes, we are confronting our own limits, our own resistances, our own excuses and attacking them with the intent of building ourself up, not tearing ourself down.

When we execute aggressively, we do so with fullness in our body, mind, and heart to overcome our challenges and not be defined by them.

We need to experience the benefits of aggression and fighting for ourselves so that we can stand up for ourselves in our daily life. It's not about defeating someone else, it's about not defeating ourselves.

Composure is the ability to create a state of calmness within oneself. Having a composed mindset provides the foundation to take purposeful and effective action.

Composure from a mindset development practice ‘hears all sides’ of whatever voices are present, some certainly louder than others. Composure only hears them, knowing trying to silence them will only elevate the volume.

Composure is emotionally neutral. Neither positive or negative, agreeing or disagreeing with whatever is ‘said’. Composure is neither a judge nor a jury, rather the courthouse that provides the space for whatever sides to state their positions.

Cultivating a composed mindset requires acknowledgement. To acknowledge is to accept the presence of something without assigning value or meaning. To not accept is to attempt to change reality, shirk away from the truth, and turn away from life.

Acknowledgement is not agreement, rather the powerful ability to simply observe.

When the stress is high and the environment is chaotic, composure is the presence to maintain bearing and provides ability to operate among the stress.

Composure Under Exertion as a mindset is expressed in the presence of uneasiness and turmoil, knowing action must still be taken, and provides solid ground from which to engage. Just as a surgeon's ability to steady their hand is a prerequisite in order to perform whatever specific technique is required, composure is a mindset that steadies your mind to connect purposefully with your body to act.

For this workout, you will be challenged to maintain composure while exerting maximal effort. Pay attention to your thoughts, actions, and responses.

While it may seem like a paradox to be composed AND give max effort, how often does 'real life' adjust the conditions to be convenient and exclusive of other factors?

Persistence and patience are productive attributes that help us stay committed to our path.

When combined, Persistent Patience creates a yin-yang relationship that helps us address our actions in the present without getting overwhelmed about the future.

Persistent Patience is the continued action towards a goal while accepting in the present our actions will not immediately result in the desired end state.

A Persistent Patient mindset expresses our ability to engage in both the short-term and long-term, immediate and eventual, near and far.

A Persistent Patient mindset shifts the emphasis from final task completion towards real-time execution, creating the space for us to be present in how we are operating now as we drive forward towards something we want to accomplish.

Persistent Patience is a powerful mindset that can be applied to our goals and ambitions in a way that grounds us in the present. It helps us value our life now, even if we are not exactly where we want to be, while we work towards where we want to go.

While in basic training, one of the drill sergeants came in one day and made a proposition. Do 60 pushups together as a platoon (about 20-30 people) and there’d be some sort of privilege in the form of unbothered time. If anyone cannot perform the 60 pushups, they’d face some sort of punishment.

This was towards the end of training, so doing a ton of pushups was standard. 60 was an easy set so when he offered this up, it was obviously a no-brainer.

When it became clear the platoon was ‘in’ on the deal, he informed them that we would do 1 pushup every minute and for the rest of the minute we would hold the plank position.

Immediately people quit on themselves...before doing a single fucking pushup.

Backing out in light of this new information was simply not an option. Sure, some could say that was unfair and we got duped, but how accurate really is that? It’s tough to cry foul when you already quit before trying...

What transpired over the next hour was awesome. There were kids who were physically pretty weak but dialled in mentally. They went to a different place. It was more like stoicism. It was aggression, but not towards anyone in an attacking way, rather the task at hand. It was acceptance of the circumstances and not wasting energy on that which could not be changed, choosing instead to direct their effort towards enduring this task with all the resolve and strength they would need to find.

60 minutes later and almost everyone completed the task.

Was it hard? Yes.

Did it look pretty? No.

What is most incredible about this experience was just how quickly we write ourselves off. We think ‘I can’t do that!’ only because we never considered doing it.

You might not hold a plank for 60 straight minutes, changing from static to dynamic only to do a pushup every minute.

So?

You might be believing the doubt that you are not capable of such a feat.

You might be thinking “this is so stupid, I’m not doing this.”

Both of those can be spot on.

Both of those can be dead wrong.

You don’t get to decide the circumstances of this workout. You only get to decide if you will show up.

So, how will you show up?

You may show up with curiosity and inquisitiveness that will likely fuel you past what you thought you were capable of.

You may show up, or not even show up, because you didn’t control the shots, you don’t like the rules, and you wrote yourself off before you even began.

You get to choose how you will show up, if you will show up, and for whom you will show up.

This workout will take you along a pretty gnarly journey, but you have to show up.

Zoom Out is a way to detach from a state of over-saturation or being overwhelmed with tasks or ‘things incomplete’ and create energy for yourself by acknowledging your legitimate progress.

Our limitations often keep us fixated on what/where/who we are not and completely ignore the progress we have made.

When we Zoom Out, we detach from the immediate and view it with a wider field of vision. When we do this for ourselves and actually recognize the strides we have made, we build confidence through genuine acknowledgement that helps keep us going.

Zoom Out provides you a mindset to look at yourself through a lens that actively seeks and recognizes your progress so that you can empower yourself to keep working hard on you.

"I can't..."

"I could never..."

"I can only..."

Limitations are a natural part of the growth process. They are a requirement for us to breakthrough because they tell us we are expanding beyond our current state and form.

Sadly, we often write ourselves off so matter of factly and are quick to believe the natural resistance of growth is an absolute denial of potential.

Be honest with yourself and think about a time where you did something you didn't think you were capable of doing. It begs the question, why the limitation?

If we examine our relationship with limitations, at first we might get angry and aggressive at the voice that tells us we can't.

If we think about viewing this voice as a silhouette character that tells us we can't do things, when we have proven we can, it's natural to want to tell this character to f*ck off. But then what?

Sure, maybe it does, but does it ever go away? Not even close. It f*cks off, then it gets back to work digging through the archives of things it can pull out and use against you, nerves it can hit, scabs it can pick, insecurities it can exploit to keep you from pursuing something meaningful in your life. Recharged and reloaded, this silhouette character grows bigger and comes back stronger, with the intention of keeping you from stepping outside it's shadow and into your own light.

Ignoring the silhouette character's existence is not an effective long-term strategy.

Face it. Get to know it. Consider why the relationship might appear to be what it is and what another form of it could look like?

The silhouette character is not there to keep you from making progress, rather it's there to prevent you from experiencing loss. The tactic of choice, imposing limitations, is not adversarial, rather defensive in nature that come from a place of safety, not oppression, despite the initial appearance.

What if the silhouette character and it's limitations were there all along to help you, not hurt you?

How would that change your view of the relationship?

What would viewing this silhouette character with compassion and empathy look like? Maybe even sadness, knowing it will never appear to have a face or substance?

The silhouette character stands between you and the light of life, casting it's shadow upon you and trying to keep you in the dark.

When repositioned out of the light so it's not between you and the light, the silhouette loses it's featureless existence and comes to life.

When it is positioned facing in the light and you are standing next to the light and grounded in your own life, you now see this character in it's entirety.

Through awareness and a shift in our own perspective, we can now position ourselves to see this silhouette character clearly, with all the beauty and strength, flaws and imperfections.

In what we initially saw as a featureless, faceless, character void of substance, we now see a sight hard to look at. We now see ourselves staring right back at us.

How would our world change if we accepted this, acknowledged the silhouette character simply as us, trying to protect ourselves by creating these limitations to shield us from failure?

Let's start by exploring our limitations, questioning them, getting to know the silhouette character and approaching our pursuit with a newly understood ally, not adversary, in ourselves.

We carry things.

We might not even realize what we are carrying if we don't check in with ourselves. Often, we carry stuff we didn’t even pack ourselves, but unconsciously learned through past and present programming. Past experiences, successes and failures, family 'ways-of-doing-things', societal expectations and pressures are ways our programming has us accumulate mental and emotional 'stuff'.

Everything has weight.

Shame, judgment, self-doubt, cynicism… just a few of the things many of us carry around that are heavy and weigh us down. They do not serve us and prevent us from living our fullest lives. They are load without benefit and a source of erosion that breaks down the body, mind, and spirit.

Love, passion, relationships, ambitions and goals also have a weight. They serve us and can propel us to live our life in a manner that builds us up. They are loaded with benefit and while heavy, facilitate growth and expansion.

We all carry things that do not serve us, but acknowledge that it is sometimes incredibly difficult. This exercise is not about judging what we carry, simply taking inventory. Awareness is the first step towards change, so be patient and kind with yourself that you are a human during this process.

This workout challenges you to identify what it is you are carrying and raise awareness about the effort required to carry with you what is in your ruck.

When things have meaning and purpose, they are worth their weight. Take inventory of what is in your ruck, how you can honour these through effort and grow, and what might be ready to be taken out so you can lighten up your load and continue moving forward.

What is closest to us generally has a significant influence on us. That is very obvious and nothing you don’t already know.

What this workout will challenge you on is tending to the journey of your mindset in relation to your intent, your actions, and your present state.

Keep It Close is a mindset to trigger yourself to stay present, check-in with where your mind, thoughts, attention goes, and take action in the present.

When your mind drifts away, especially during bouts of significant adversity, you create an environment where mistakes are more likely to occur that otherwise would not.

Essentially, checking out when shit hits the fan is ill-advised.

This is a deep rabbit hole since there are circumstances in which we dissociate to protect ourselves and our psyche. That’s not what this mindset is about nor is it what this mindset is targeting.

Keep It Close provides an actionable mindset tool that you can use when you’re anywhere along the spectrum of mild inconvenience and boredom to extreme discomfort and hardship, but still relatively safe and not in a life-danger situation.

When practising Keep It Close, you can use your hold on the sandbag as your representation of that which is within your locus of control as well as that which is outside of it.

An Internal locus of control focuses on what you can control and what you make happen.

An External locus of control focuses on what you cannot control and what happens to you.

The intent of Keep It Close is to raise your awareness about your locus of control in relation to both what you can and cannot control, what you can make happen and what is happening to you.

The purpose of this workout is to honour your efforts, acknowledge your progress, and celebrate the decision you make to show up day in and day out for yourself and your personal legend on this planet. To work hard on facing your own self-imposed limitations and pursuing a path of higher self. To recognize the power we have to hold ourselves down or build ourselves up, and choose the latter.

Celebrating ourselves is sometimes the hardest thing we can do, which is why we are doing it here.

You've dove into limitations, boundaries, and obstacles to answer the question: what stops me from breaking through

The answer is often found within, but so too is the solution to this problem.

What is really stopping you? Perception? Expectation? Past experience? Succumbing to something that is overwhelming? Fear of failure?

What stop us is often found in the mirror, but what drives us is also found in the same mirror. We look to pursue what drives us when we confront the forces that stop us.

You have been seeking to understand who you are over the past 10 workouts and who you can become in body, mind, spirit. When you connect with who you are and express that, you live a fully engaged life and give to the world the amazing human you are. You transcend and overcome your limits and truly breakthrough from within.

When you do that, what really can stop you?