World Athletics Day Quotes

I like storms. Thunder torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought. I thought that all the assholes drove German cars, but it turns out that pricks in Mustangs can still leave scars.

Never go to a game of anything and shout, “You’re playing like a woman!” at an athlete, as though that word were the definition of weakness. One day, you’ll be holding a woman’s hand as she gives birth and then that’ll make you feel more ashamed than you’ve ever felt about anything. Words matter. Be better.

Someone who doesn't make the (Olympic) team might weep and collapse. In my day no one fell on the track and cried like a baby. We lost gracefully. And when someone won, he didn't act like he'd just become king of the world, either. Athletes in my day were simply humble in our victory. I believe we were more mature then...Maybe it's because the media puts so much pressure on athletes; maybe it's also the money. In my day we competed for the love of the sport...In my day we patted the guy who beat us on the back, wished him well, and that was it.

I could not hold my breath for seven minutes. I couldn’t even make it to one. I once tried to run a mile in seven minutes after hearing some athletes could do it in four but failed spectacularly when a side stitch crippled me about halfway in. However, there was one thing I managed to do in seven minutes that most would say is quite impressive: I became queen. By seven tiny minutes I beat my brother, Ahren, into the world, so the throne that ought to have been his was mine. Had I been born a generation earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered. Ahren was the male, so Ahren would have been the heir. Alas, Mom and Dad couldn’t stand to watch their firstborn be stripped of a title by an unfortunate but rather lovely set of breasts. So they changed the law, and the people rejoiced, and I was trained day by day to become the next ruler of Illéa.

Deep practice, however, doesn't obey the same math. Spending more time is effective—but only if you're still in the sweet spot at the edge of your capabilities, attentively building and honing circuits. What's more, there seems to be a universal limit for how much deep practice human beings can do in a day. Ericsson's research shows that most world-class experts—including pianists, chess players, novelists, and athletes—practice between three and five hours a day, no matter what skill they pursue.

A man going quietly about his business all day long expends far more muscular energy than an athlete who lifts a huge weight once a day. This has been proved physiologically, and so the social sum total of everybody's little everyday efforts, especially when added together, doubtless releases far more energy into the world than do rare heroic feats. This total even makes the single heroic feat look positively minuscule, like a grain of sand on a mountaintop with a megalomaniacal sense of its own importance.

Everything in physiology follows the rule that too much can be as bad as too little. There are optimal points of allostatic balance. For example, while a moderate amount of exercise generally increases bone mass, thirty-year-old athletes who run 40 to 50 miles a week can wind up with decalcified bones, decreased bone mass, increased risk of stress fractures and scoliosis (sideways curvature of the spine)—their skeletons look like those of seventy-year-olds. To put exercise in perspective, imagine this: sit with a group of hunter-gatherers from the African grasslands and explain to them that in our world we have so much food and so much free time that some of us run 26 miles in a day, simply for the sheer pleasure of it. They are likely to say, “Are you crazy? That’s stressful.” Throughout hominid history, if you’re running 26 miles in a day, you’re either very intent on eating someone or someone’s very intent on eating you.

If records refuse to be broken, shatter them.

What is grit, really? It's a word that's been used to describe everything under the sun, but it means something specific: when things get hard, you push harder; when you fail, you get back up stronger; when you don't see results, you don't get discouraged, but you just continue to pound away day, after day, after day, with relentlessness, consistency, heart, and passion -- that's grit.

By the yard it's hard, but inch by inch, anything's a cinch A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step In addition, to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, low fat and low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat saladswith fish or chicken at lunch. Avoid sugar, salt, white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world class athlete before a competition, because in many respects, that’s what you are before starting work each day

It’s the days when you have to do things that scare you, when you have to take risks, when you have to push against challenge and difficulty—those are the days that make you stronger, faster, and better overall.

the typical amateur endurance athlete trains far too hard on the aerobic and active recovery days. But not nearly hard enough on the intense days. A certain level of proficiency can be achieved this way, but full potential is never realized.

was giving full effort in every single moment of every single day, and becoming the best we could possibly be.

It’s not a question of how much work it will take, how much suffering will be involved, or how fast the results will come. It’s about committing to the grind every day.

Our minds are the key to any challenges we face, both in our sports and in the world. If we can relax in the midst of our focus, we can elevate our performance.

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “What are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones—the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be ashamed to be caught thinking. Someone like that—someone who refuses to put off joining the elect—is a kind of priest, a servant of the gods, in touch with what is within him and what keeps a person undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. With what leaves us dyed indelibly by justice, welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes—whatever we’re assigned—not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think. He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries us. He keeps in mind that all rational things are related, and that to care for all human beings is part of being human. Which doesn’t mean we have to share their opinions. We should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature. And the others? He bears in mind what sort of people they are—both at home and abroad, by night as well as day—and who they spend their time with. And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can’t even meet their own standards.

Passionate people don’t wear their passion on their sleeves; they have it in their hearts. They live it. Passion is more than résumé-deep, because its hallmarks—persistence, grit, seriousness, all-encompassing absorption—cannot be gauged from a checklist. Nor is it always synonymous with success. If someone is truly passionate about something, they’ll do it for a long time even if they aren’t at first successful. Failure is often part of the deal. (This is one reason we value athletes, because sports teach how to rebound from loss, or at least give you plenty of opportunities to do so.) The passionate person will often talk at length, aka ramble, about his pursuits. This pursuit can be professional. In our world, “perfecting search” is a great example of something people can spend an entire career on and still find challenging and engaging every day. But it can also be a hobby.

He braced his elbows on the desk,his brow on his fists. "She came shrieking across the court.I'd just hit a line drive,barely missed beaning her. Cameras rolling, and there I am trying to look my sixth-generational-hotelier best, the athletic yet intelligent, the world-traveled yet dedicated, the dashing yet concerned heir to the Templeton name." "You'd be good at that," Margo murmured, hoping to placate him. He didn't even look at her. "Suddenly I've got my arms full of this half-naked, spitting, swearing, clawing mass who's screaming that my sister, her lesbian companion, and my whore attacked her." He pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to relieve some pressure. "I figured out right away who my sister was. Though I didn't appreciate the term,I deduced you must be my whore.The lesbian companion might have stumped me,but for process of elimination." He lifted his head. "I was tempted to belt her,but I was too busy trying to keep her from ripping off my face." "It's such a nice face too." Hoping to soothe, she walked around the desk and sat on his lap. "I'm sorry she took it out on you." "She sratched me." He turned his head to show her the trio of angry welts on the side of his throat. Dutifully, Margo kissed them. "What am I going to do with you?" he asked wearily and rested his cheek on her head. Then he chuckled. "How the hell did you stuff her into one of those skinny lockers?" "It wasn't easy but it was fun." He narrowed his eyes. "You're not going to do it again,no matter what the provocation-unless you sedate her first." "Deal." Since the crisis seemed to have passed, she slipped a hand under his shirt, stroked it over his chest, watched his brow lift. "I've been waxed and polished.If you're interested." "Well,just so the day isn't a complete loss." He picked her up and carried her to the bed.

You’re going to experience adversity; you’re going to have days that are incredibly challenging, even scary. There are going to be days that cause you to question your motives and ability. It’s important to realize that the toughest days are your best days, because they have the potential to force the most adaptation—mentally, as well as physically.

We live in a day of superheroes and superstars, in a world of the haves and the have-nots. In our culture being somebody really matters: being smart, good looking, educated, athletic or musical – the pressure is on to be somebody. This thinking has seeped into the church as well. The mindset that God only uses the “special” people, those who are ordained or have graduated from seminary, is pervasive. As a result, many are left feeling that they are simply not good enough to be used by God. The world pushes us to be “somebody” and get recognized for our achievements. But God’s Kingdom – a Kingdom made up of the weak, the broken, the pushed-aside, the ordinary – is opposed to the world’s obsession with the superstar.

Success to me is giving full effort knowing that was the best I was capable of. That said, full effort means nothing if day-to-day preparation was not all I had. Success to me is giving everything I have into each and every day, each and every moment; training, recovery, family, friends, giving back, inspiring, loving what I do. Then, come game time, give full effort, knowing I am the best I am capable of becoming.

like on a bathroom mirror or on their fridge. Here’s Katrín’s definition of success: Success to me is giving full effort knowing that was the best I was capable of. That said, full effort means nothing if day-to-day preparation was not all I had. Success to me is giving everything I have into each and every day, each and every moment; training, recovery, family, friends, giving back, inspiring, loving what I do. Then, come game time, give full effort, knowing I am the best I am capable of becoming.

A true superstar, [Shaquille] O'Neal is one of the most widely recognized athletes in the world, especially at waffle houses and all-you-can-eat buffets. Despite being born without the kind of body that would lend itself to being a dominant NBA center, Shaq's tireless work ethic has enabled him to become one of the game's all-time greats at the position. In his nearly fifteen years in the league he has almost managed to develop low post moves beyond backing over people, and he vows to one day make more than half of his free throws.

Elite athletes know something that most people don’t—adversity is the best thing that can happen to you. The competitors here at the Games know that humans only improve through adversity by embracing short-term pain. Ensuring there is no struggle, no challenge, and staying in your wheelhouse is a recipe for spinning your wheels without improving. It’s the days when you have to do things that scare you, when you have to take risks, when you have to push against challenge and difficulty—those are the days that make you stronger, faster, and better overall.

Olympic athletes need to understand that the rules for life are different from the rules for sports,” she wrote. “Yes, striving to accomplish a single overarching goal every day means you have grit, determination and resilience. But the ability to pull yourself together mentally and physically in competition is different from the new challenges that await you. So after you retire, travel, write a poem, try to start your own business, stay out a little too late, devote time to something that doesn’t have a clear end goal.” In the wider world of work, finding a goal with high match quality in the first place is the greater challenge, and persistence for the sake of persistence can get in the way.

By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally.

One athlete does not make a team. One singer does not make a band. One actor does not make an ensemble. One participant does not make a contest. One employee does not make a company. One stroke does not make a portrait. One word does not make an essay. One paragraph does not make a thesis. One note does not make a symphony. One instrument does not make an orchestra. One finger does not make a hand. One toe does not make a foot. One lip does not make a voice. One member does not make a body. One cell does not make a being. One memory does not make an experience. One habit does not make a character. One act does not make a destiny. One day does not make a year. One moment does not make a lifetime. One man does not make a family. One home does not make a neighborhood. One clan does not make nation. One tribe does not make a continent. One people does not make a world.

But I would point out that there is another and still more important function of great mountains - the culture not of athletic faculty alone, but of that intellectual sympathy with untamed and primitive Nature which our civilization threatens to destroy. A mountain is something more than a thing to climb. To the many who, on a fine summer day, swarm up Skiddaw or Snowdon by the well-worn pony-paths, it is pure holiday-making; to the few who (in another sense) swarm up Scafell Pinnacel or the Napes needle, it is pure gymnastics; but between or beyond these two classes there are those - pilgrims I call them - who find mountain climbing what only mountains can give, the contact with unsophisticated Nature, the opportunity to be alone, to be out of and above the world of ordinary life, to pass from the familiar sights and surroundings into a cloudland of new shapes and sounds, where one feels the fascination of that undiscoverable secret (I do not know how else to name it) by which every true nature-lover is allured.

OK, if you are like most people, your list of the most valuable things includes your spouse, children, friends, health, money, and of course, time. Highly successful people have a similar list—but they rank time as the most important item of all. Shouldn’t health be number one? You can be healthy, and then get sick, and then regain your health. How about money? You can lose all your money, and then you can make it all back. Friends? Friends are important, and yet, how many friends did you have back in college that you no longer keep in touch with? Or even people who were guests at your wedding, and that was the last day you ever saw them? Yes, friends are prized, yet we lose them and make new ones all the time. Yes, your spouse means the world to you. And 50 percent of married people get a divorce, and many divorced people get a new husband or wife that is suddenly the love of their life. But time… You can never lose time and get it back again. You can’t spend time and go earn more of it. You can’t buy it, rent it, or borrow it. Time

The government doesn’t care if our kids learn to think or learn for the sake of learning, as long they learn to love their country, and grow up and pay taxes. How much of what we learnt in 10 years of our schooling actually comes handy in our day-to-day lives? Why can’t we learn useful skills, like cooking, in school that actually come in handy when it comes to survival? Does schooling need to last for 10 years? Is it possible to complete schooling in 7 years? Nobody knows and schools have done a great job at not letting us ask questions. We live in times where we cautiously invest 4 years in undergrad schools or 2 years in B-schools in the hope that we acquire strong skills or at least secure a job. Schooling, as it exists, is a 10-year course that neither helps us get a job nor imparts a skill and unfortunately, it is compulsory. Half the jobs that exist today won’t even exist 10 years from now. That’s how fast the world is progressing. We still ask our kids to learn when Shah Jahan was born. It is a joke that at the end of these 10 years, we are expected to choose a career in science, commerce, or arts when school education hardly helped us explore ourselves. Some of the world’s greatest artists, athletes, inventors and scientists are from India. Unfortunately, they are all engineers and tragically none of them know about their talents. The biggest reason for this tragedy isn’t the society, parenting, coaching or anything else. The school is the reason and they too are all eventually victims of the same century-old schooling system. In the legendary words of Kevin Spacey from Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” and our school is our society’s biggest devil.

Matt Espenshade confirmed that in spite of the deaths of so many of the kidnappers, many more are still at large, including their leaders. Those men might hope to be forgotten; they are not. The FBI has continued its investigative interest in those involved with the kidnapping. The leaders, especially, are of prime interest to the Bureau. And now the considerable unseen assets in that region are steadily feeding back information on these targeted individuals to learn their operational methods and their locations and hunt them down. The surviving kidnappers and their colleagues are welcome to sneer at the danger. It may help them pass the time, just as it did for Bin Laden’s henchmen to chuckle at the idea of payback. If the men nobody sees coming are dispatched to capture or kill them, the surviving kidnappers will find themselves dealing with a force of air, sea, and land fighters s obsessed with the work they do that they have trained themselves into the physical and mental toughness of world-class athletes. They will carry the latest in weapons, armor, visual systems, and communication devises. Whether they are Navy SEAL fighters, DEVGRU warriors, Army Delta Force soldiers, Green Berets, or any of the elite soldiers under United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), they will share the elite warriors’ determination to achieve success in their mission assignment. The news that they are coming for you is the worst you could receive. But nobody gets advance warning from these men. They consider themselves born for this. They have fought like panthers to be part of their team. For most of them, there is a strong sense of pride in succeeding at missions nobody else can get done; in lethal challenges. They actually prefer levels of difficulty so high it seems only a sucker would seek them, the sorts of situations seen more and more often these days. Impossible odds.

For years before the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps won the gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he followed the same routine at every race. He arrived two hours early.1 He stretched and loosened up, according to a precise pattern: eight hundred mixer, fifty freestyle, six hundred kicking with kickboard, four hundred pulling a buoy, and more. After the warm-up he would dry off, put in his earphones, and sit—never lie down—on the massage table. From that moment, he and his coach, Bob Bowman, wouldn’t speak a word to each other until after the race was over. At forty-five minutes before the race he would put on his race suit. At thirty minutes he would get into the warm-up pool and do six hundred to eight hundred meters. With ten minutes to go he would walk to the ready room. He would find a seat alone, never next to anyone. He liked to keep the seats on both sides of him clear for his things: goggles on one side and his towel on the other. When his race was called he would walk to the blocks. There he would do what he always did: two stretches, first a straight-leg stretch and then with a bent knee. Left leg first every time. Then the right earbud would come out. When his name was called, he would take out the left earbud. He would step onto the block—always from the left side. He would dry the block—every time. Then he would stand and flap his arms in such a way that his hands hit his back. Phelps explains: “It’s just a routine. My routine. It’s the routine I’ve gone through my whole life. I’m not going to change it.” And that is that. His coach, Bob Bowman, designed this physical routine with Phelps. But that’s not all. He also gave Phelps a routine for what to think about as he went to sleep and first thing when he awoke. He called it “Watching the Videotape.”2 There was no actual tape, of course. The “tape” was a visualization of the perfect race. In exquisite detail and slow motion Phelps would visualize every moment from his starting position on top of the blocks, through each stroke, until he emerged from the pool, victorious, with water dripping off his face. Phelps didn’t do this mental routine occasionally. He did it every day before he went to bed and every day when he woke up—for years. When Bob wanted to challenge him in practices he would shout, “Put in the videotape!” and Phelps would push beyond his limits. Eventually the mental routine was so deeply ingrained that Bob barely had to whisper the phrase, “Get the videotape ready,” before a race. Phelps was always ready to “hit play.” When asked about the routine, Bowman said: “If you were to ask Michael what’s going on in his head before competition, he would say he’s not really thinking about anything. He’s just following the program. But that’s not right. It’s more like his habits have taken over. When the race arrives, he’s more than halfway through his plan and he’s been victorious at every step. All the stretches went like he planned. The warm-up laps were just like he visualized. His headphones are playing exactly what he expected. The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.”3 As we all know, Phelps won the record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When visiting Beijing, years after Phelps’s breathtaking accomplishment, I couldn’t help but think about how Phelps and the other Olympians make all these feats of amazing athleticism seem so effortless. Of course Olympic athletes arguably practice longer and train harder than any other athletes in the world—but when they get in that pool, or on that track, or onto that rink, they make it look positively easy. It’s more than just a natural extension of their training. It’s a testament to the genius of the right routine.

I like storms. Thunder, torrential rain, puddles, wet shoes. When the clouds roll in, I get filled with this giddy expectation. Everything is more beautiful in the rain. Don't ask me why. But it’s like this whole other realm of opportunity. I used to feel like a superhero, riding my bike over the dangerously slick roads, or maybe an Olympic athlete enduring rough trials to make it to the finish line. On sunny days, as a girl, I could still wake up to that thrilled feeling. You made me giddy with expectation, just like a symphonic rainstorm. You were a tempest in the sun, the thunder in a boring, cloudless sky. I remember I’d shovel in my breakfast as fast as I could, so I could go knock on your door. We’d play all day, only coming back for food and sleep. We played hide and seek, you’d push me on the swing, or we’d climb trees. Being your sidekick gave me a sense of home again. You see, when I was ten, my mom died. She had cancer, and I lost her before I really knew her. My world felt so insecure, and I was scared. You were the person that turned things right again. With you, I became courageous and free. It was like the part of me that died with my mom came back when I met you, and I didn’t hurt if I knew I had you. Then one day, out of the blue, I lost you, too. The hurt returned, and I felt sick when I saw you hating me. My rainstorm was gone, and you became cruel. There was no explanation. You were just gone. And my heart was ripped open. I missed you. I missed my mom. What was worse than losing you, was when you started to hurt me. Your words and actions made me hate coming to school. They made me uncomfortable in my own home. Everything still hurts, but I know none of it is my fault. There are a lot of words that I could use to describe you, but the only one that includes sad, angry, miserable, and pitiful is “coward.” I a year, I’ll be gone, and you’ll be nothing but some washout whose height of existence was in high school. You were my tempest, my thunder cloud, my tree in the downpour. I loved all those things, and I loved you. But now? You’re a fucking drought.

The story of Cassius Clay’s lost bicycle would later be told as an indication of the boxer’s determination and the wonders of accidental encounters, but it carries broader meaning, too. If Cassius Clay had been a white boy, the theft of his bicycle and an introduction to Joe Martin might have led as easily to an interest in a career in law enforcement as boxing. But Cassius, who had already developed a keen understanding of America’s racial striation, knew that law enforcement wasn’t a promising option. This subject—what white America allowed and expected of black people—would intrigue him all his life. “At twelve years old I wanted to be a big celebrity,” he said years later. “I wanted to be world famous.” The interviewer pushed him: Why did he want to be famous? Upon reflection he answered from a more adult perspective: “So that I could rebel and be different from all the rest of them and show everyone behind me that you don’t have to Uncle Tom, you don’t have to kiss you-know-what to make it . . . I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanna say . . . Go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do.” For young Cassius, what mattered was that boxing was permitted, even encouraged, and that it gave him more or less equal status to the white boys who trained with him. Every day, on his way to the gym, Cassius passed a Cadillac dealership. Boxing wasn’t the only way for him to acquire one of those big, beautiful cars in the showroom window, but it might have seemed that way at the time. Boxing suggested a path to prosperity that did not require reading and writing. It came with the authorization of a white man in Joe Martin. It offered respect, visibility, power, and money. Boxing transcended race in ways that were highly unusual in the 1950s, when black Americans had limited control of their economic and political lives. Boxing more than most other sports allowed black athletes to compete on level ground with white athletes, to openly display their strength and even superiority, and to earn money on a relatively equal scale. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi

My bedroom is separated from the main body of my house so that I have to go outside and cross some pseudo-Japanese stepping stones in order to go to sleep at night. Often I get rained on a little bit on my way to bed. It’s a benediction. A good night kiss. Romantic? Absolutely. And nothing to be ashamed of. If reality is a matter of perspective, then the romantic view of the world is as valid as any other - and a great deal more rewarding. It makes of life and unpredictable adventure rather that a problematic equation. Rain is the natural element for romanticism. A dripping fir is a hundred times more sexy than a sunburnt palm tree, and more primal and contemplative, too. A steady, wind-driven rain composed music for the psyche. It not only nurtures and renews, it consecrates and sanctifies. It whispers in secret languages about the primordial essence of things. Obviously, then, the Pacific Northwest's customary climate is perfect for a writer. It's cozy and intimate. Reducing temptation (how can you possibly play on the beach or work in the yard?), it turns a person inward, connecting them with what Jung called "the bottom below the bottom," those areas of the deep unconscious into which every serious writer must spelunk. Directly above my writing desk there is a skylight. This is the window, rain-drummed and bough-brushed, through which my Muse arrives, bringing with her the rhythms and cadences of cloud and water, not to mention the latest catalog from Victoria's Secret and the twenty-three auxiliary verbs. Oddly enough, not every local author shares my proclivity for precipitation. Unaware of the poetry they're missing, many malign the mist as malevolently as they non-literary heliotropes do. They wring their damp mitts and fret about rot, cursing the prolonged spillage, claiming they're too dejected to write, that their feet itch (athlete's foot), the roof leaks, they can't stop coughing, and they feel as if they're slowly being digested by an oyster. Yet the next sunny day, though it may be weeks away, will trot out such a mountainous array of pagodas, vanilla sundaes, hero chins and god fingers; such a sunset palette of Jell-O, carrot oil, Vegas strip, and Kool-Aid; such a sea-vista display of broad waters, firred islands, whale spouts, and boat sails thicker than triangles in a geometry book, that any and all memories of dankness will fizz and implode in a blaze of bedazzled amnesia. "Paradise!" you'll hear them proclaim as they call United Van Lines to cancel their move to Arizona.

What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?" "...I say our colleges to-day are business colleges—Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics. What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving a required result—success. Football is driving, slavish work; there isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it. Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers are sent out to bring in business. "Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence, according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you are material, you must get out and begin to work for them—coach with a professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines. "The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than the struggle to win out in the News or Lit competition. We are like a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last possibility. You come to Yale—what is said to you? 'Be natural, be spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one, rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.' "Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count—everything for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I say they don't even represent the individual.

Steve was a warrior in every sense of the word, but battling wildlife perpetrators just wasn’t the same as old-fashioned combat. Because Steve’s knees continued to deteriorate, his surfing ability was severely compromised. Instead of giving up in despair, Steve sought another outlet for all his pent-up energy. Through our head of security, Dan Higgins, Steve discovered mixed martial arts (or MMA) fighting. Steve was a natural at sparring. His build was unbelievable, like a gorilla’s, with his thick chest, long arms, and outrageous strength for hugging things (like crocs). Once he grabbed hold of something, there was no getting away. He had a punch equivalent to the kick of a Clydesdale, he could just about lift somebody off the ground with an uppercut, and he took to grappling as a wonderful release. Steve never did anything by halves. I remember one time the guys were telling him that a good body shot could really wind someone. Steve suddenly said, “No one’s given me a good body shot. Try to drop me with a good one so I know what it feels like.” Steve opened up his arms and Dan just pile drove him. Steve said, in between gasps, “Thanks, mate. That was great, I get your point.” I would join in and spar or work the pads, or roll around until I was absolutely exhausted. Steve would go until he threw up. I’ve never seen anything like it. Some MMA athletes are able to seek that dark place, that point of total exhaustion--they can see it, stare at it, and sometimes get past it. Steve ran to it every day. He wasn’t afraid of it. He tried to get himself to that point of exhaustion so that maybe the next day he could get a little bit further. Soon we were recruiting the crew, anyone who had any experience grappling. Guys from the tiger department or construction were lining up to have a go, and Steve would go through the blokes one after another, grappling away. And all the while I loved it too. Here was something else that Steve and I could do together, and he was hilarious. Sometimes he would be cooking dinner, and I’d come into the kitchen and pat him on the bum with a flirtatious look. The next thing I knew he had me in underhooks and I was on the floor. We’d be rolling around, laughing, trying to grapple each other. It’s like the old adage when you’re watching a wildlife documentary: Are they fighting or mating? It seems odd that this no-holds-barred fighting really brought us closer, but we had so much fun with it. Steve finally built his own dojo on a raised concrete pad with a cage, shade cloth, fans, mats, bags, and all that great gear. Six days a week, he would start grappling at daylight, as soon as the guys would get into work. He had his own set of techniques and was a great brawler in his own right, having stood up for himself in some of the roughest, toughest, most remote outback areas. Steve wasn’t intimidated by anyone. Dan Higgins brought a bunch of guys over from the States, including Keith Jardine and other pros, and Steve couldn’t wait to tear into them. He held his own against some of the best MMA fighters in the world. I always thought that if he’d wanted to be a fighter as a profession, he would have been dangerous. All the guys heartily agreed.

After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of the world. But their wallets always waited cold sober in the cloakroom while the Icelandic purse lay open for all in the middle of the table. Our men were the greater Vikings in this regard. “Reputation is king, the rest is crap!” my Bæring from Bolungarvík used to say. Every evening had to be legendary, anything else was a defeat. But the morning after they turned into weak-willed doughboys. But all the same I did succeed in loving them, those Icelandic clodhoppers, at least down as far as their knees. Below there, things did not go as well. And when the feet of Jón Pre-Jón popped out of me in the maternity ward, it was enough. The resemblances were small and exact: Jón’s feet in bonsai form. I instantly acquired a physical intolerance for the father, and forbade him to come in and see the baby. All I heard was the note of surprise in the bass voice out in the corridor when the midwife told him she had ordered him a taxi. From that day on I made it a rule: I sacked my men by calling a car. ‘The taxi is here,’ became my favourite sentence.

Studies have shown that recreational athletes who exercise less than 45 minutes a day, on average, get the best results when they spend 80 percent of that time at low intensity and 20 percent at moderate to high intensity, just like the elites.

Intellectual Fascism – 1/3 If fascism is defined as the arbitrary belief that individuals possessing certain traits (such as those who are white, Aryan, or male) are intrinsically superior to individuals possessing certain other traits (such as those who are black, Jewish, or female), and that therefore the "superior" individuals should have distinct politico-social privileges, then the vast majority of (American) liberals and so called antifascists are actually intellectual fascists. In fact, the more politico-economically liberal our citizens are, the more intellectually fascistic they often tend to be. Intellectual fascism - in accordance with the above definition - is the arbitrary belief that individuals possessing certain traits (such as those who are intelligent, cultured, artistic, creative, or achieving) are intrinsically superior to individuals possessing certain other traits (such as those who are stupid, uncultured, unartistic, uncreative, or unachieving). The reason why the belief of the intellectual fascist, like that of the politico-social fascist, is arbitrary is simple: there is no objective evidence to support it. At bottom, it is based on value judgements or prejudices which are definitional in character and are not empirically validatable, nor is it falsifiable. It is a value chosen by a group of prejudiced people - and not necessarily by a majority. This is not to deny that verifiable differences exist among various individuals. They certainly do. Blacks, in some ways, are different from whites; short people do differ from tall ones; stupid individuals can be separated from bright ones. Anyone who denies this, whatever his or her good intentions, is simply not accepting reality. Human differences, moreover, usually have their distinct advantages. Under tropical conditions, the darkly pigmented blacks seem to fare better than do the lightly pigmented whites. At the same time, many blacks and fewer whites become afflicted with sickle-cell anaemia. When it comes to playing basketball, tall men are generally superior to short ones. But as jockeys and coxswains, the undersized have their day. For designing and operating electric computers, a plethora of gray matter is a vital necessity; for driving a car for long distances, it is likely to prove a real handicap. Let us face the fact, then, that under certain conditions some human traits are more advantageous - or "better" - than some other traits. Whether we approve the fact or not, they are. All people, in today's world, may be created free, but they certainly are not created equal. Granting that this is so, the important question is: Does the possession of a specific advantageous endowment make an individual a better human? Or more concretely: Does the fact that someone is an excellent athlete, artist, author, or achiever make him or her a better person? Consciously or unconsciously, both the "politico-social" and the "intellectual fascist" say yes to these questions. This is gruesomely clear when we consider politico-social or lower-order fascists. For they honestly and openly not only tell themselves and the world that being white, Aryan, or male, or a member of the state-supported party is a grand and glorious thing; but, simultaneously, they just as honestly and openly admit that they despise, loathe, consider as scum of the earth individuals who are not so fortunate as to be in these select categories. Lower-order fascists at least have the conscious courage of their own convictions. Not so, alas, intellectual or higher-order fascists. For they almost invariably pride themselves on their liberality, humanitarianism, and lack of arbitrary prejudice against certain classes of people. But underneath, just because they have no insight into their fascistic beliefs, they are often more vicious, in their social effects, than their lower-order counterparts.

Think of the difficulties facing an exceptionally talented child. A completely controlled existence, a world structured around said child’s genius. Constant work, attention, adulation and expectation. Until the one day the child wakes up, literally and figuratively, and decides she doesn’t want to be a prodigy. She doesn’t want to work so hard to live her life. She sees the people around her taking the easy road, sleeping in on the weekends, having plenty of time to date and do homework, and suddenly, she decides that is the life she wants. Someone who is so driven might actually pursue that simple life with the dogged determination that made her such a gifted athlete.

DURING THE RIDE back up to Telluride, among tablelands and cañons and red-rock debris, past the stone farmhouses and fruit orchards and Mormon spreads of the McElmo, below ruins haunted by an ancient people whose name no one knew, circular towers and cliffside towns abandoned centuries ago for reasons no one would speak of, Reef was able finally to think it through. If Webb had always been the Kieselguhr Kid, well, shouldn’t somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid? It might’ve been the lack of sleep, the sheer relief of getting clear of Jeshimon, but Reef began to feel some new presence inside him, growing, inflating—gravid with what it seemed he must become, he found excuses to leave the trail now and then and set off a stick or two from the case of dynamite he had stolen from the stone powder-house at some mine. Each explosion was like the text of another sermon, preached in the voice of the thunder by some faceless but unrelenting desert prophesier who was coming more and more to ride herd on his thoughts. Now and then he creaked around in the saddle, as if seeking agreement or clarification from Webb’s blank eyes or the rictus of what would soon be a skull’s mouth. “Just getting cranked up,” he told Webb. “Expressing myself.” Back in Jeshimon he had thought that he could not bear this, but with each explosion, each night in his bedroll with the damaged and redolent corpse carefully unroped and laid on the ground beside him, he found it was easier, something he looked forward to all the alkaline day, more talk than he’d ever had with Webb alive, whistled over by the ghosts of Aztlán, entering a passage of austerity and discipline, as if undergoing down here in the world Webb’s change of status wherever he was now. . . . He had brought with him a dime novel, one of the Chums of Chance series, The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth, and for a while each night he sat in the firelight and read to himself but soon found he was reading out loud to his father’s corpse, like a bedtime story, something to ease Webb’s passage into the dreamland of his death. Reef had had the book for years. He’d come across it, already dog-eared, scribbled in, torn and stained from a number of sources, including blood, while languishing in the county lockup at Socorro, New Mexico, on a charge of running a game of chance without a license. The cover showed an athletic young man (it seemed to be the fearless Lindsay Noseworth) hanging off a ballast line of an ascending airship of futuristic design, trading shots with a bestially rendered gang of Eskimos below. Reef began to read, and soon, whatever “soon” meant, became aware that he was reading in the dark, lights-out having occurred sometime, near as he could tell, between the North Cape and Franz Josef Land. As soon as he noticed the absence of light, of course, he could no longer see to read and, reluctantly, having marked his place, turned in for the night without considering any of this too odd. For the next couple of days he enjoyed a sort of dual existence, both in Socorro and at the Pole. Cellmates came and went, the Sheriff looked in from time to time, perplexed.

Recognizing Your Strengths The strengths you have inside your core represent the self in the world through the internal strengths that shine within you showering the world. The values you stand behind the virtues of living a meaningful life. Your values lead the path for you to be recognized in the world by the action you take. The kindness you have helped bonding the world. The love you spread, nurturing the world. The forgiveness you have, begins healing in the world. The humility inside you representing you bringing out the best of you. The fairness you treat the world, you are showing a leader in the world. The love of learning you practice doing, you are bringing light in the world. The spirituality you practice, you are making peace in the world. The talents you have mattered in this world. Artistic gift of yours, creates a colorful world. Literary gift of yours, inspires the world. Engineering gift of yours, advance the world. Athletic gift of yours, impresses the world. All the strengths you have mean everything to us all. Recognizing your strengths is a beginning of all. No talent is too small or too rare that cannot be used in this intricate world to favor the world. Working hard in nurturing your strengths you are helping us all. One day we all can reap your fruit feeding us all.

Recognizing Your Strengths The strengths you have inside your core. All the strengths represent the self in the world. The values you stand behind the virtues of living a fruitful life. Your values leading the path for you to be recognized by the deeds you do. The internal strengths that shine within you. The kindness you have, help bonding the world. The love you spread, nurtures the world. The forgiveness you have, begin the healing in the world. The humility inside you, representing you bringing out the best of you. The fairness you treat the world, you are showing a leader in the world. The love of learning you practice doing, you are bringing light in the world. The spirituality you practice, peace will follow. The talents you have matter in this world. Artistic gift of yours brings a colorful world. Literate gift of yours inspires the world. Engineering gift of yours advance the world. Athletic gift of yours impresses the world. All the strengths you have mean everything to us all. Recognizing your strengths a beginning of all. Working hard in nurturing your strengths you are helping us all. One day we all can ripe your fruit feeding us all.

When I removed gluten from my diet, I experienced a rather dramatic improvement not just in the maintenance of my energy levels, but in my athletic performance as well. For example, I noticed my muscles and joints didn’t hurt as much the day after a long run, likely the result of a reduction in inflammation, that pesky impediment to exercise recovery.

What’s your unique angle in thirty seconds or less?” In other words, why would anyone care to read his newsletter? I know that sounds harsh, but that’s the first question you have to answer before you put yourself into the public sphere. Pressed into defining his unique angle, Ben paused. He rumpled his face up, laughed nervously, and shrugged. This is hard! Finally he spoke, slowly, and then with confidence. Listen to how Ben defined his angle, his sauce: “I’ve been a performance coach for the last fourteen years, working with the best athletes in the world. Helping people perform better is my groove. I want to help anybody who wants to have a great day and shift them into the mentality to dominate their life. I have information to share when it comes to dealing with the best.” That is beautiful! Both in its heartfelt honesty and authenticity, but also in its clarity. Let’s pick it apart and look at what he did in those four sentences: He defines who he is, Why you should trust him, What he is passionate about, and What unique thing this prepares him to do for you. It is clear, approachable, direct, and short. The first three sentences define what makes him special (fourteen years helping the best athletes in the world perform better!), and the fourth (how he’s solving his customers’ problems, teaching mindsets needed to dominate life) defines the kind of love and attention he’ll generously dispense to cultivate a community. Take a minute, and as Ben has done, write out a pitch in your journal describing your special sauce. CHALLENGE Write out your unique angle. There are no right answers here. You can change these any time you’d like. Who are you? Why should people listen? What are you passionate about? What will you do for people?

You’ve probably heard the stories about lottery winners losing it all. They’re not urban legends; they really happen. The depths people fall to after big lottery winnings are heartbreaking and mindboggling. And it isn’t only lottery winners. You’ve also heard the stories about famous movie stars, recording stars, or star athletes who make incredible fortunes, literally hundreds of millions of dollars, and somehow manage to wind up broke and in debt. And when you heard those stories, you probably thought the same thing I did: “Man, I don’t know how they pulled that off, but if I made that kind of money I sure wouldn’t squander it all like that!” But let me ask you a tough question: are you sure about that? Speaking as one who’s made it to the top and then seen it all evaporate, all I can say is, you might be surprised. There’s a reason those lottery winners lose it all again, a reason those shining stars plummet to those dark places: they may have had the big breaks, but they didn’t grasp the slight edge. Their winnings changed their bank account balance—but it didn’t change their philosophy. The purpose of this book is to show you the slight edge philosophy, show you how it works, give you plenty of examples, and show you exactly how to make it a core part of how you see the world and how you live your life every day. Throughout this book, if you look carefully you’ll find dozens of statements that embody this philosophy, statements like “Do the thing, and you shall have the power.” Here are a few more examples that you’ll come across in the following pages: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.

Just a few days ago, I’d been in the greatest shape of my life, beating some of the best athletes in the world on Mont Ventoux. Now I could barely make it up this tiny hill. We joked about it, because that was all we could do. But it was unnerving. It shook me deeply: my strength wasn’t really in my muscles; it was inside my blood, in those bags.

One night, Walt and I looked out over the audience and saw hundreds of Olympic athletes from around the world, people of every race, language and nation. Walt’s eyes shone as he said, “Isn’t that amazing? Here are all of these people, different in so many ways, yet united by their hopes and goals and dreams. This is how the world should be.

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. God has made a home in the heavens for the sun. It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race. The sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end. Nothing can hide from its heat. The instructions of the LORD are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The commandments of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are clear, giving insight for living. Reverence for the LORD is pure, lasting forever. The laws of the LORD are true; each one is fair. They are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb. They are a warning to your servant, a great reward for those who obey them. How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart    be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Say what you will about Lance Armstrong—I think he did whatever everybody else in his sport was doing, and that it shouldn’t tarnish his accomplishments on a bike—but what is undeniable is that here was a world-class athlete who got cancer in his brain and in his nutsack. And he basically said, “Screw that. I’m getting off this table.” I dig that. I played sports all my life and I dig that attitude. Okay, you’re hurting? Get up anyway.

To do truly meaningful work, you need to get serious, focus, and go all in. Floyd Mayweather Junior is the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world. As of this writing, he is also the highest paid athlete in the world. His motto? Hard Work, Dedication. His team chants the motto as he trains. One group yells, “Hard work!” and the other responds, “Dedication!” The chants get louder and faster as Mayweather increases the speed and intensity of his workout. Mayweather knows the value of these words, and the impact they have on success. He lives by them. He endures grueling training sessions, 2-3 times per day. He often trains late into the night. He doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol—ever. Floyd Mayweather is no joke. He’s the real deal. And that’s why he’s such a big deal. He lives to box. It’s what he loves to do. His hard work and dedication have paid off, literally. Some people question Mayweather’s morals, or ridicule him for his arrogance, but it’s hard to argue with his unparalleled achievements in boxing and the relentless dedication that backs it all up. The best in the world are the best because they work their asses off doing what they were born to do. They make sacrifices. They keep grinding—and they don’t stop.[36]

about to harness that power and make our wildest dreams become our reality. There will be a learning curve and I know that it may be scary for you, but I promise to be there every day for you and continue to train you with love, compassion, and acceptance. I’m going to be the best damn boss in the world. Step 4: Accept Your Mind’s Gift It took years of programing for your mind to believe limiting beliefs. As a kid, you probably picked up the majority of them from your parents, friends, or at school. You were given a lot of misinformation about your true nature that caused you to take on limiting beliefs that have been passed down from generation to generation. These beliefs weren’t passed down out of malice. They were passed down as a form of protection based on fear and lack. For an example, while growing up you probably heard over and over again: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” If currently you’re experiencing anything other than abundance, you probably heard that phrase or something similar over and over again until you adopted it as your own limiting belief. That belief was meant to protect you from experiencing economic hardship. Your parents told you this in hopes that you would be frugal and not waste money so that you wouldn’t experience the hardship that they did. However, that limiting belief that was passed down to protect you is causing you to feel bad and making it damn near impossible for you to attract financial security into your life. What if you were taught that money flows easily and freely? You would most likely have that belief and never experience financial insecurity in your life. Look at rich families that come from “old money.” They stay rich forever, not only because they pass down their money, but because they see that money always comes and that it’s easy to make money if you try. That belief shapes their thoughts and feelings around money and therefore, it manifests their wealthy reality. This last step is about turning your lemons into a refreshing cup of lemonade. Any time you catch your mind feeding you a negative thought, let it raise a red flag and be an opportunity to have a conversation with your mind. Believe me. Your mind will continue to feed you worst-case scenario thoughts and visions. You can go from financially insecure to secure in an instant, but it takes time to dismantle years of fear-based programming and reprogram your beliefs. You will have to sit down with your mind and train it every day. You don’t have to dedicate chunks of time every day and practice as if you were trying to become an Olympic athlete. It’s a lot easier and effortless on your part. Your mind will tell you exactly when it needs some more training by having a limiting belief that causes a bad feeling. Those worst-case scenario thoughts and visions aren’t your mind trying to sabotage you. It’s your mind taking a seat in your classroom and asking for more training.

This is fucking bullshit!” I slip my feet into my fluffy slippers, pull my robe closed, and march across the street. As I bang on the front door, it flings open. There are at least a half-dozen naked women traipsing across the room, gyrating on beefy athletes and doing God knows what. My eyes dart to the sound system, and since I’ve given into my inner psycho, I head straight to it and yank the plug out of the wall. The silence makes everyone look up, and I realize I’m staring at my brother, who looks horrified to see me. And then I realize why and turn away before I hurl. Because the girl down on her knees in front of him is obviously not praying. Jesus, I’m gonna need so much therapy one day. I clear my throat and address the crowd at large. “Some people have to work tomorrow, assholes. Can you keep it the fuck down? Stop terrorizing this neighborhood. The world does not revolve around you and your dumb football games!” I’m screeching. I can’t help it. I’m half-asleep and so hungry I’m nauseous. My eyelids flutter. God, I feel woozy. It’s almost like… Almost like… that time I passed out. Oh, shit. Am I going to pass out again? I can’t remember the last time I ate. Jason and I were supposed to get dinner, which turned into soggy nachos from the gas station, which I passed on. I blink. And blink again. Everything feels fuzzy, like it’s wrapped in film. I don’t even care that Jason is here, and he’s missing clothes. “Shit, Gabby. This isn’t what it looks like.” Ignoring him, I stumble to what I think is the front door, lean against it, and close my eyes. I want to tell Jason to leave me alone, except I’m afraid I’m going to drop to the floor if I let go of the doorframe. Then I hear the little cry. It sounds like a baby. And that’s when I know I must be losing my mind.

When you grow up an athlete and you live in a world that praises you all the time . . . the frequency of praise that comes your way increases,” Miles McPherson, a teammate of Seau’s, told ESPN after his passing. “All that one day stops. But your body, mind and heart are conditioned to such a high level of excitement, adrenaline rush, challenge, and then you’re like taken off the drug, cold turkey.”[*]

One The number ONE means so many things in every aspect of our lives. We are born to ONE woman. We are focused on being number ONE in sports, school, politics, etc. We love to be number ONE. As a Christian, we believe that there is ONE Lord, ONE Savior and ONE church. We bond with others in our cities, states, nations and all over the world that call on the name of Jesus. We can use this number to focus our efforts to improve our lives. Instead of looking at life as half-empty and the things you can’t do, try looking at how ONE can make a difference in your life. If you are battling an il ness, acute or chronic, try doing ONE more thing today. Take ONE more step, try ONE more rep in physical therapy, smile ONE more time at those who are helping you. Sometimes even though you are sick, you can make such an impact on others by how you handle your ONE issue. Maybe you are an athlete; try doing ONE more rep at the end of the set. ONE more interval on the bike, track or trail. ONE more sprint if you are in the middle of football practice. The person who has the “just ONE more” mentality will always beat the other person and be number ONE. If you are dieting and trying to get your physical body back where you want it; try eating one LESS dessert, one LESS fast food lunch, one MORE salad, one MORE veggie and one MORE lap around the block after dinner. If you want to draw closer to God, read ONE passage a day if you are out of the habit. It doesn’t matter which one, just spend time listening to the Word of the Creator. Say ONE more prayer than just the one to bless the food. ONE more good deed to help your fel ow man. ONE more smile for your spouse, child, sibling or parent. What if we all did ONE good deed this week for a lonely neighbor or a shut in from church? 2 Thessalonians 3:1 (MSG) One more thing, friends: Pray for us. Be that ONE person who makes a difference in this world by doing ONE more thing to progress the love of God!

I looked up sharply, displeased to find Donald’s attention on Catherine, who’d been silent at my side throughout the entire confrontation. She offered him a soft smile. “Can I call a car for you, Mr. Rockford?” His mouth fell open then slammed shut. She’d stumped him with her politeness, and I was quietly amused. Catherine had a way of handling the men I met with on a daily basis. Her manners never failed her, but she had a cutting edge beneath her soft outer layer. “No, you can’t call a car for me, young lady.” “Oh, that’s too bad.” She gestured politely to the door. “If there’s anything else I can do to make your exit easier…” His nostrils flared, and his eyes fell on her belly. “You really want to bring a kid into the world working for a man like this? What kind of mother are you—?” That was enough. I jerked him back by the collar of his sports jacket before he could complete his filthy question and marched him toward the door. He resisted, but the old guy wasn’t much more than bones and paunch beneath his tailored suit, so the little fight he put up was laughable. Once he was on the street and my security team was alerted to keep him there, I rejoined Catherine in the lobby. Her lips were rolled over her teeth, eyes on her feet. “Do you have anything to say, Catherine?” She shook her head. “No. Nothing at all, Elliot.” She held her notebook against her chest, her gaze averted. On anyone else, I might have taken her response at face value and believed she was interested in the uninspired architecture of our new building. But not Catherine. She’d been holding herself back from day one. If I hadn’t been so impressed by the ingenuity she’d shown in making an entirely new outfit from the lost and found box—a discarded cardigan, athletic leggings, an oversized blazer, and a tie as a belt—I wouldn’t have hired her. Not because her résumé wasn’t up to snuff. It had been fine. And it wasn’t because her answers to my questions had been anything less than passable.

A few days later, on December 8, at the Commodore Hotel in New York, the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States voted on a resolution to send a three-man committee to Germany to investigate claims of Nazi maltreatment of Jews there. When all the votes—including fractional votes—had been tallied, the resolution had failed, 58.25 to 55.75. And with that—after several years of struggle—the last serious American effort to boycott the Berlin Olympics was effectively dead. In many ways it was a victory for the thousands of young Americans who were then competing for a chance to participate in the Olympics. It was also a victory for Avery Brundage, president of the American Olympic Committee, and his allies who had fought tooth and nail to ensure that there was no boycott. Most of all it was a victory for Adolf Hitler, who was rapidly learning just how ready the world was to be deceived.

Recognizing Your Strengths The strengths you have inside your core. All the strengths represent the self in the world. The values you stand behind the virtues of living a fruitful life. Your values leading the path for you to be recognized by the deeds you do. The internal strengths that shine within you. The kindness you have, help bonding the world. The love you spread, nurtures the world. The forgiveness you have, begin the healing in the world. The humility inside you, representing you bringing out the best of you. The fairness you treat the world, you are showing a leader in the world. The love of learning you practice doing, you are bringing light in the world. The spirituality you practice, peace will follow. The talents you have matter in this world. Artistic gift of yours brings a colorful world. Literary gift of yours inspires the world. Engineering gift of yours advance the world. Athletic gift of yours impresses the world. All the strengths you have mean everything to us all. Recognizing your strengths a beginning of all. Working hard in nurturing your strengths you are helping us all. One day we all can ripe your fruit feeding us all.

Relaxing is about taking a few minutes out of your day to wind down and take a breather. Resting is about stopping for a significant period of time during the day, typically the evening to escape work and stress, and to completely unwind. Sleep speaks for itself.

I like disconnecting and feeling invisible, a sensation like floating, when it’s good. A run alone in the mountains in the early morning when no one is around can be like that. Solitude refuels me, clarifies and heightens my interactions with the world.

A run alone in the mountains in the early morning when no one is around can be like that. Solitude refuels me, clarifies and heightens my interactions with the world.

Olympic athletes need to understand that the rules for life are different from the rules for sports,” she wrote. “Yes, striving to accomplish a single overarching goal every day means you have grit, determination and resilience. But the ability to pull yourself together mentally and physically in competition is different from the new challenges that await you. So after you retire, travel, write a poem, try to start your own business, stay out a little too late, devote time to something that doesn’t have a clear end goal.

New York City wanted to honor the players, too. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would hold a ticker-tape parade for the players, making them the first women’s team ever to be given the historic celebration. Within two days, there the players were at Battery Park on their respective floats, waiting for the parade to start. They couldn’t see up Broadway and had no idea just how many people were waiting to catch a glimpse of them. Then, the procession turned the corner. The sidewalks were packed 30-people deep in places—and it continued all the way up Broadway as far as the eye could see. There were thousands and thousands of people lining Broadway into the horizon. “We turned onto the street and it was like, Are you fucking kidding me? All these people are here for us?” Ali Krieger says, laughing. None of the players had seen anything quite like it. Office workers on Broadway were opening their windows and throwing paper shreds out. The air was filled with paper, floating over the parade route like some sort of festive fog. When the parade reached its destination, City Hall, the players got off the 12 floats they had been riding. They waited in a room at City Hall, finally together again and able to talk about what they’d just seen, and the players became emotional. Some players were crying. Some were in shock. “I never quite understand the following this team has until it’s thrown in my face, and the ticker-tape parade epitomizes that,” says Becky Sauerbrunn, who has nearly 150 caps for the USA. “I was like, Is anyone going to be at this parade? What if no one shows up? It blew me away.” CHAPTER 19 “It Is Our Job to Keep on Fighting” In the days after the national team won the World Cup, the players were the most in-demand athletes in the entire country.

In a now-famous experiment, he and his colleagues compared three groups of expert violinists at the elite Music Academy in West Berlin. The researchers asked the professors to divide the students into three groups: the “best violinists,” who had the potential for careers as international soloists; the “good violinists”; and a third group training to be violin teachers rather than performers. Then they interviewed the musicians and asked them to keep detailed diaries of their time. They found a striking difference among the groups. All three groups spent the same amount of time—over fifty hours a week— participating in music-related activities. All three had similar classroom requirements making demands on their time. But the two best groups spent most of their music-related time practicing in solitude: 24.3 hours a week, or 3.5 hours a day, for the best group, compared with only 9.3 hours a week, or 1.3 hours a day, for the worst group. The best violinists rated “practice alone” as the most important of all their music-related activities. Elite musicians—even those who perform in groups—describe practice sessions with their chamber group as “leisure” compared with solo practice, where the real work gets done. Ericsson and his cohorts found similar effects of solitude when they studied other kinds of expert performers. “Serious study alone” is the strongest predictor of skill for tournament-rated chess players, for example; grandmasters typically spend a whopping five thousand hours—almost five times as many hours as intermediatelevel players—studying the game by themselves during their first ten years of learning to play. College students who tend to study alone learn more over time than those who work in groups. Even elite athletes in team sports often spend unusual amounts of time in solitary practice. What’s so magical about solitude? In many fields, Ericsson told me, it’s only when you’re alone that you can engage in Deliberate Practice, which he has identified as the key to exceptional achievement. When you practice deliberately, you identify the tasks or knowledge that are just out of your reach, strive to upgrade your performance, monitor your progress, and revise accordingly. Practice sessions that fall short of this standard are not only less useful—they’re counterproductive. They reinforce existing cognitive mechanisms instead of improving them. Deliberate Practice is best conducted alone for several reasons. It takes intense concentration, and other people can be distracting. It requires deep motivation, often self-generated. But most important, it involves working on the task that’s most challenging to you personally. Only when you’re alone, Ericsson told me, can you “go directly to the part that’s challenging to you. If you want to improve what you’re doing, you have to be the one who generates the move. Imagine a group class—you’re the one generating the move only a small percentage of the time.” To see Deliberate Practice in action, we need look no further than the story of Stephen Wozniak. The Homebrew meeting was the catalyst that inspired him to build that first PC, but the knowledge base and work habits that made it possible came from another place entirely: Woz had deliberately practiced engineering ever since he was a little kid. (Ericsson says that it takes approximately ten thousand hours of Deliberate Practice to gain true expertise, so it helps to start young.)

Every athlete is required to keep a notebook and record all his workout results, but also responses to CrossFit Amundson’s Question of the Week. “We’re contemplating why we were brought to this earth,” Amundson says. “What are we here to do?” The questions are scrawled on the whiteboard before Monday’s workout. They’re all calls to action. “How can I contribute to the betterment of the world today?” “How can I be of service to other people?” “Who do I need to thank in my life today?” Athletes write in their notebooks. Sometimes they team up in groups of two or three to discuss their answers. Then they start the warm-up and the workout, which is probably some couplet, triplet, or chipper designed by the Glassmans and performed by the original firebreathers ten years before, to the day.

positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked another podcast guest, Rhonda Patrick. Her response is on page 7. * Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”?

on a seagull poo–like texture when mixed into cold water. Amelia saved my palate and joints by introducing me to the Great Lakes hydrolyzed version (green label), which blends easily and smoothly. Add a tablespoon of beet root powder like BeetElite to stave off any cow-hoof flavor, and it’s a whole new game. Amelia uses BeetElite pre-race and pre-training for its endurance benefits, but I’m much harder-core: I use it to make tart, low-carb gummy bears when fat Tim has carb cravings. RumbleRoller: Think foam roller meets monster-truck tire. Foam rollers have historically done very little for me, but this torture device had an immediate positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked

The way I identified with Wu-Wei was through football. You often hear athletes talking about being “in the zone”—a state of unself-conscious concentration. In the World Cup, when England inevitably end up in a quarterfinal penalty shoot-out, I believe it is their inability to access Wu-Wei that means the Germans win. (This was written prior to the 2014 World Cup, so my assumption that England would reach the quarterfinal has been exposed as hopelessly optimistic, but, look, I correctly predicted a German victory.) If you are in a stadium with 80,000 screaming supporters and the hopes of a nation resting on the outcome of a penalty kick, you need to be focused, you need at that moment to be in a state of mind which is the result of great preparation but has total fluidity. Kind of like a self-induced trance where the body is free to act upon its training without the encumbrance of a neurotic mind. Stood in front of the keeper, the ball on the spot, you need to have access to all the preparation that has gone into perfecting the kick that will place the ball in the top right corner of the net. You cannot be thinking, “Oh, God, if I miss this they’ll burn effigies of me in Essex,” or “I think my wife is fucking another member of the team,” “My dad never loved me; I don’t deserve to score.”—those mental codes are an obstacle to success. I once was a guest on Match of the Day, a British Premier League football-analysis show; before it began, I hung out with the host, ex-England hero Gary Lineker and pundit, and another ex-England hero, Alan Shearer. I chatted to the two men about their lives as top-level athletes and they both agreed that the most important component in their success had been mental strength, the ability to focus the mind, literally, in their case, on the goal, excluding all irrelevant, negative, or distracting information. Both of those men have a quality that you can feel in their presence of focus and assuredness. Lineker is more superficially affable and Shearer more stern, but there is a shared certainty and connectedness to their physicality that is interesting.

One of the first scientific papers to write about exercise-induced myokines labeled them “hope molecules.” Ultra-endurance athletes talk about the metaphor of putting one foot in front of the other—how learning that you can take one more step, even when it feels like you can’t possibly keep going, builds confidence and courage. The existence of hope molecules reveals that this is not merely a metaphor. Hope can begin in your muscles. Every time you take a single step, you contract over two hundred myokine-releasing muscles. The very same muscles that propel your body forward also send proteins to your brain that stimulate the neurochemistry of resilience. Importantly, you don’t need to run an ultramarathon across the Arctic to infuse your bloodstream with these chemicals. Any movement that involves muscular contraction—which is to say, all movement—releases beneficial myokines. It seems likely that some ultra-endurance athletes are drawn to the sport precisely because they have a natural capacity to endure. The extreme circumstances of these events allow them to both challenge and enjoy that part of their personality. Yet it’s also possible that the intense physical training contributes to the mental toughness that ultra-endurance athletes demonstrate. Endurance activities like walking, hiking, jogging, running, cycling, and swimming, as well as high-intensity exercise such as interval training, are especially likely to produce a myokinome that supports mental health. Among those who are already active, increasing training intensity or volume—going harder, faster, further, or longer—can jolt muscles to stimulate an even greater myokine release. In one study, running to exhaustion increased irisin levels for the duration of the run and well into a recovery period—an effect that could be viewed as an intravenous dose of hope. Many of the world’s top ultra-endurance athletes have a history of depression, anxiety, trauma, or addiction. Some, like ultrarunner Shawn Bearden, credit the sport with helping to save their lives. This, too, is part of what draws people to the ultra-endurance world. You can start off with seemingly superhuman abilities to endure, or you can build your capacity for resilience one step at a time. Months after I spoke with Bearden, an image from his Instagram account appeared in my feed. It was taken from the middle of a paved road that stretches toward a mountain range, with grassy fields on either side. The sky is blue, except for a huge dark cloud that appears to be hovering directly over the person taking the photo. I remembered how Bearden had described his depression as a black thundercloud rolling in. Under the Instagram photo, Bearden had written, “Tons of wind today, making an easy run far more challenging. So happy to be able to do this. Every day above ground is a good day.” Below, a single comment cheered him on, like a fellow runner on the trail: “Amen to this! Keep striving.

So we begin with a strong bias that whoever we hired must be world-class even before performing one day of work. To make matters worse, executives who start off world-class often deteriorate over time. If you are a sports fan, you know that world-class athletes don’t stay world-class for long.

brabeuo, which in ancient times was used to describe the umpire or referee who moderated and judged the athletic competitions that were so popular in the ancient world.

If happiness is determined by expectations, then two pillars of our society – mass media and the advertising industry – may unwittingly be depleting the globe’s reservoirs of contentment. If you were an eighteen-year-old youth in a small village 5,000 years ago you’d probably think you were good-looking because there were only fifty other men in your village and most of them were either old, scarred and wrinkled, or still little kids. But if you are a teenager today you are a lot more likely to feel inadequate. Even if the other guys at school are an ugly lot, you don’t measure yourself against them but against the movie stars, athletes and supermodels you see all day on television, Facebook and giant billboards. So maybe Third World discontent is fomented not merely by poverty, disease, corruption and political oppression but also by mere exposure to First World standards.

I love Sawyer, Ash,” Beau said quietly into the night. He sounded as if he were trying to convince me of this. “My whole life, I’ve never envied anything of his. Not his father. Not his mother. Not his money. Not his athletic abilities.” He stopped and took a ragged breath. My heart ached for him. I squeezed my hand, which was resting on his stomach, into a fist to keep from reaching up and soothing him like a child. “Until the day I watched from across the football field as he picked you up and kissed you on the mouth,” he continued. “It wasn’t your first kiss. I might have just been fourteen years old, but I could tell I’d somehow been left out of a secret. I wanted to plant my fist in his face and rip you out of his arms. As I took a step toward him, your eyes met mine and I saw the silent pleading for forgiveness or acceptance. I wasn’t sure which. All I knew then was that you were Sawyer’s. My best friend was gone. I envied him and hated him for the first time that day. He’d finally won the one prize I’d thought was mine.” I closed my eyes against the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I wanted to tell him how I’d never felt faint when Sawyer kissed me or how the earth didn’t move under his touch. Instead I stayed silent, knowing I couldn’t. Even though it was Beau I wanted, I knew I could never have him. These last two weeks were all we had. Sawyer would come home and I would be with him again. There was no other option. I turned over and propped myself up on my elbow until I was staring down into his somber eyes. I could feel his heart beating fast underneath my hand. “You were my best friend, Beau. You never treated me or looked at me any way but as a friend. Once I started to change and we all began to notice the opposite sex, you never seemed to care that I was a girl. Sawyer did. Maybe because he hadn’t been my partner in crime. Maybe because the connection I had with him hadn’t been the same as the one I had had with you. But he saw me as a girl. I think deep down I’d been waiting on you, but when he kissed me, I knew it would never be you. I wasn’t the one for you.” Beau reached up and cupped the side of my face with his hand. “I was very aware that you were a girl, Ash. I was just scared, because the one person in the world who knew every secret I’d ever had also happened to be the most beautiful girl I’d ever known. My feelings for you were scary as hell.” I leaned down and kissed the frown between his brows. “Right now. Right here. I’m yours. Not Sawyer’s. He isn’t who I want. Right now all I want is you.

Women have come a long way , since that day on September 7th 1968 , when they burnt myriad symbolic feminine products , including mops and bras , as a mark of protest . The women wanted to call world-wide attention to women's rights and women's liberation ! Today women are making headlines each and every day as the makers and creators of positive change in all walks of life . Be it as doctors , pilots , engineers , artists , writers , musicians, innovators, teachers , astronauts , researchers, managers , private or government employees , designers , scientists , dancers, singers, entrepreneurs , architects , bus-drivers , nurses , chefs , actors, athletes , politicians , or home-makers , women have been and are continuing to prove themselves that they are equal to or better than men in all walks of life ! A big 'Salute ' to all the women in the world !

Observant Jews spend Shabbat praying, eating, walking, and spending time with family and friends. They’re on to something. This life is a marathon, not a sprint. In fact, each day is a marathon. Most of us don’t go to work for twenty minutes a day, run as fast as we can, and then rest until the next race. We go to work early in the morning, run as fast as we can for eight, ten, twelve hours, then come home and run hard again with personal obligations and sometimes more work, before getting some sleep and doing it all over again. That’s why I’m such a fanatic about doing work you love. But even if you love it, that kind of schedule is deeply draining. Not an athlete in the world could sustain that schedule without rest. Most athletes have entire off seasons. So if we’re running a daily marathon, it might help to learn something from people who train for marathons.

Surfing is the first lifestyle sport. X Game staples like skateboarding and snowboarding were inspired directly by surfing. Being a surfer involves a different level of commitment from being a golfer or basketball player. Surfing is more than an athletic pursuit that you do a couple days a week at a course or in a gym. Even when surfers are out of the water, they are watching the weather, tides, and wind, monitoring distant swell patterns, and mentally tuning in the ocean. Surfing defines your life, in the same way that work—being a farmer or a carpenter or a blacksmith—used to define people’s lives. Forty years ago Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock called surfers “a signpost pointing to the future” for their embrace of a leisure-time “lifestyle,” and in this case Toffler was right.

Ruyter’s mouth opened, but no word came. I noted that his lips were pallid. “With this man,” I went on, in the same slow, even voice, “with this man it is different. Mildred, this hero of yours—this Paladin of story-book seducers—is afraid. He is sick with fear. He would not dare meet my eyes, if he were not still more afraid to look away from me. He is half a head taller than I and thirty pounds heavier, and he is an athlete, while I am not. Yet he is more afraid of me at this moment than a clean man could be of anything on earth. The pitiful coward!” “You—you lie!” croaked Ruyter, but there was no conviction behind his denial. “He is afraid of me,” I went on, “because, to an animal of his species, I am that most terrifying creature extant—a husband. In me he sees the law, the punishment of the law, the ostracism of Society, the smear on his name that will last all his days. He sees more: he sees the one man in the world who can shoot him dead, at will, and whom no jury will punish for the deed. He is a wild beast for whom the ‘open season’ is any season I may dictate. I and I alone hold his worthless life in the hollow of my hand. I can kill him as I would kill a cat that has fits—and with no greater legal penalty. He knows it. And his courage has turned to water within him.

Baby Registry Please give this child a strong stomach, an infectious laugh, an independent spirit. A love of words, numbers, people, and solitude. A fear of poisons, reckless driving, guns—and nothing else. Make him or her contemplative but not to the point of fretfulness. Make him or her generous but not to the point of self-effacement. Let this child inherit Finn’s features, especially his eyes, nose, and mouth. And his trim, athletic limbs. His capable hands. Will-taste-anything tongue. Un-noteworthy feet. Ability to not shower for several days and still smell okay, even good in an earthy way. His musical talent—yes, especially that. Even his resistance to being pinned down, because why settle for anything less than a life full of great adventure? Let this child inherit an enduring faith in the power of secular humanism in a world full of racism, sexism, terrorism, and greed. If you must, my teeth and/or earlobes would be fine.

Endometriosis, or painful periods? (Endometriosis is when pieces of the uterine lining grow outside of the uterine cavity, such as on the ovaries or bowel, and cause painful periods.) Mood swings, PMS, depression, or just irritability? Weepiness, sometimes over the most ridiculous things? Mini breakdowns? Anxiety? Migraines or other headaches? Insomnia? Brain fog? A red flush on your face (or a diagnosis of rosacea)? Gallbladder problems (or removal)? — PART E — Poor memory (you walk into a room to do something, then wonder what it was, or draw a blank midsentence)? Emotional fragility, especially compared with how you felt ten years ago? Depression, perhaps with anxiety or lethargy (or, more commonly, dysthymia: low-grade depression that lasts more than two weeks)? Wrinkles (your favorite skin cream no longer works miracles)? Night sweats or hot flashes? Trouble sleeping, waking up in the middle of the night? A leaky or overactive bladder? Bladder infections? Droopy breasts, or breasts lessening in volume? Sun damage more obvious, even glaring, on your chest, face, and shoulders? Achy joints (you feel positively geriatric at times)? Recent injuries, particularly to wrists, shoulders, lower back, or knees? Loss of interest in exercise? Bone loss? Vaginal dryness, irritation, or loss of feeling (as if there were layers of blankets between you and the now-elusive toe-curling orgasm)? Lack of juiciness elsewhere (dry eyes, dry skin, dry clitoris)? Low libido (it’s been dwindling for a while, and now you realize it’s half or less than what it used to be)? Painful sex? — PART F — Excess hair on your face, chest, or arms? Acne? Greasy skin and/or hair? Thinning head hair (which makes you question the justice of it all if you’re also experiencing excess hair growth elsewhere)? Discoloration of your armpits (darker and thicker than your normal skin)? Skin tags, especially on your neck and upper torso? (Skin tags are small, flesh-colored growths on the skin surface, usually a few millimeters in size, and smooth. They are usually noncancerous and develop from friction, such as around bra straps. They do not change or grow over time.) Hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia and/or unstable blood sugar? Reactivity and/or irritability, or excessively aggressive or authoritarian episodes (also known as ’roid rage)? Depression? Anxiety? Menstrual cycles occurring more than every thirty-five days? Ovarian cysts? Midcycle pain? Infertility? Or subfertility? Polycystic ovary syndrome? — PART G — Hair loss, including of the outer third of your eyebrows and/or eyelashes? Dry skin? Dry, strawlike hair that tangles easily? Thin, brittle fingernails? Fluid retention or swollen ankles? An additional few pounds, or 20, that you just can’t lose? High cholesterol? Bowel movements less often than once a day, or you feel you don’t completely evacuate? Recurrent headaches? Decreased sweating? Muscle or joint aches or poor muscle tone (you became an old lady overnight)? Tingling in your hands or feet? Cold hands and feet? Cold intolerance? Heat intolerance? A sensitivity to cold (you shiver more easily than others and are always wearing layers)? Slow speech, perhaps with a hoarse or halting voice? A slow heart rate, or bradycardia (fewer than 60 beats per minute, and not because you’re an elite athlete)? Lethargy (you feel like you’re moving through molasses)? Fatigue, particularly in the morning? Slow brain, slow thoughts? Difficulty concentrating? Sluggish reflexes, diminished reaction time, even a bit of apathy? Low sex drive, and you’re not sure why? Depression or moodiness (the world is not as rosy as it used to be)? A prescription for the latest antidepressant but you’re still not feeling like yourself? Heavy periods or other menstrual problems? Infertility or miscarriage? Preterm birth? An enlarged thyroid/goiter? Difficulty swallowing? Enlarged tongue? A family history of thyroid problems?

We had entered the museum together, but soon I was separated from the group. I lingered near the start of the display, fascinated as well as repelled, transported to the days of my youth in Rhodesia, as I listened to an interview. It was a filmed interview, on a loop, and so the images and the words recurred at regular intervals. A white woman, in her mid-thirties, speaking with those clipped southern African vowels, was setting out her concerns about majority rule. I cannot remember any more detail. But in familiar code-word language, in a reasonable tone, quite matter of fact, as if spelling out the obvious, she justified an evil system. Over, and over, and over again. It became the voice I had heard throughout my youth, and beyond. I watched and listened, mesmerised by this voice from the fifties. Then it hit me. I was overwhelmed by a great wash of sadness for generations lost during the scourge of apartheid. Not just for the millions who died, directly or indirectly, victims of war or preventable disease; but for the might-have-beens, the should-have-beens, the could-have-beens: the unread writers, the unheard musicians, the uncelebrated athletes, the talented and the ordinary – lost to Africa, lost to the world, sacrificed to prejudice. Suddenly and unexpectedly, I was weeping. Or to put it bluntly, I sobbed. There was none of the dignity that can be associated with the word ‘weep’. These were not discreet tears, not dignified drops, rolling down my cheeks. My shoulders shook and my nose ran copiously.

During the final 20 million years of the Cretaceous, tyrannosaurs flourished, ruling the river valleys, lakeshores, floodplains, forests, and deserts of North America and Asia. There is no mistaking their signature look: huge head, athletic body, sad arms, muscular legs, long tail. They bit so hard that they crunched through the bones of their prey; they grew so fast that they put on about five pounds every day during their teenage years; and they lived so hard that we have yet to find an individual that was more than thirty years old when it died. And they were impressively diverse: we have found nearly twenty species of these big-boned tyrannosaurs from the latest Cretaceous, and there are surely many more out there waiting to be discovered. The Pinocchio-nosed Qianzhousaurus, so fortuitously discovered by that still-anonymous backhoe operator at the Chinese construction site, is one of the latest examples. Just as Brown and Osborn grasped over a hundred years ago, when they were the first humans to set eyes on a tyrannosaur, T. rex and its brethren really were the kings of the dinosaur world.