Choose a Challenge, Before a Challenge Chooses You!

Following the birth of my second son - Ariel - a challenge within my company (Excellent Israel) was issued. 60 minutes or 20 climbs of the Sidni Ali hill in Herzeliya. Whatever comes first. With my second son being infamous for his lack of sleep (up approximately 3 hours/ night), I felt it was simply to much for my body to handle, which is why I caved after 30 minutes.

I swore that I would come back for vengeance.

Fast forward to May 2024. Arieli is 2, and I am recovering from a 5 month foot injury and have decided it was time to take myself back to that infinite incline. So I called John (for security reasons his real name cannot be disclosed), a former student of mine who is in peak shape. I tell him about the challenge and he says, "Let's do it!"

Throughout the night Ariel wanted to intensify my challenge (of course) thereby deciding to throw a party in our bed between 03:00-05:30 at during which at 03:57 I sent John a message on Whatsapp - My kid is not sleeping tonight, so I'm out! Finally the kid goes down. At 06:30 he falls off the bed and begins to cry - what we call in the parenting business GOOD MORNING! Well if I'm already up I may as well tell John to give a ring so I can explain myself. I erase my middle of the night messages waiting for his call.

My mind flooded with excuses and discussion points - until he called. "Hey John! My kid didn't... you know what, never mind, I'll be there at 09:00."

What did I just say?! Something took over and suddenly told him that I'll be there.

As we stood atop the picturesque and historic viewpoint looking down on the hellish hill, I told him, "I've just recovered from an injury, so my goal today is to do 12 climbs. Cool?" He gives the thumbs up and we begin.

In case you are not familiar with the hill, here is the thing - the concept of FLOW does not exist there. Every climb becomes exponentially worse! All you can think about when climbing down is that you're going to have to go back up. And when going up all you can think about is why the hell am I doing this?!

As we finally closed in on climb # 12, John smiles at me as he turns to go back down the hill and says, "I'm going for 20!"

The first words out of my mouth were "_ _ _ _ YOU! Why do you have to be such an over achieving schmuk!" Simultaneously my mind flooded with all the excuses I prepared in my cannons before hand. My kid didn't sleep. My foot hurts. It's so damn hot. We agreed upon 12!

But the most important voice was the one in my mind that said, "SHUT UP! This is how you build MT!" So we ran.

Another hill. Another round. Legs shaking. Dousing myself in water from the on beach showers and continuing. Making it to round 20 and clocking in at approximately 48 minutes! I told John again "_ _ _ _ YOU!" and "Thank you!"

The MT Takeaway

In order to build MT we must understand that we must learn to play with two types of challenges in this life.

1. The ones you choose - waking up early, climbing the hills, intentionally doing the things that you hate most.
2. The ones that choose you - when tragedy shows on your doorstep, heart break surprises you and you are forced to answer the call.

The secret here is that the way to build MT is choosing to take part in those challenges so when challenges choose you that you will be prepared to answer the call. And there is no escaping challenge # 2!

This MT muscle requires you to know how to turn the volume of self-doubt and excuses off in your mind and step up. Surround yourself with people like John, that force you to be better. Choose type 1 challenges!

Aftermath

With pride and gluttony I decided to write in the Excellent Whatsapp group to all those who completed the challenge.

Thanks for the inspiration. After completing this practice I love and hate you all. 20 climbs of Sidni Ali challenge completed.

The response - "it was 25 climbs, not 20."

"_ _ _ _!"

With this I have now become the patient of my own medication. In each of my lectures I always tell the audience, "Don't worry, it's only going to get harder." This will be my turn to apply.

So yes, I'll be back (and if you're intersted to join and build your MT, reach out).

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