DOES A WHY HAVE A SHELF LIFE?

I tend to overthink. By overthink I mean take the smallest idea and crush it with the same force it takes to turn coal to a diamond. I just googled how much force that is so my metaphor would be accurate. It’s 5-6 gigapapascals, and yes, what the hell are those? Apparently, 725,000-870,000 pounds per square inch, which seems like both a strangely accurate but wide discrepancy in psi. Also, coal isn’t pure carbon so even with all those giga-papascals you wouldn’t actually get a diamond. Metaphors it appears are no different than me, they’re complicated.

In 2013 I had the privilege of being asked to do a talk at the inaugural TEDxLSU. It was an interesting experience. I was 42 years old and a year away from quitting my job in the running shoe business. I had one restaurant and we had just started going out on our own putting on races. At the time I said things like “my ‘why’ circle was complete”. I helped provide a race for you to run, sold you the shoes you wore to train, gave you a coaching plan to achieve your race goal and provided some of the only opportunities in Baton Rouge to eat a truly healthy lunch. It felt right. It felt true.

I had stumbled upon this idea of the “why” like a lot of people. While researching for my TEDx talk I stumbled upon Simon Sinek’s 2010, TEDxPUGETSOUND talk, Start with Why, How Great Leaders Inspire Action. In it he posits (very well) the concept that people don’t buy into things because of what we are doing or how we are doing them, but rather WHY we are doing them.

I latched on immediately.

For my whole life up to that point I had this insatiable need to care about what I was doing. If there were no second layer to the thing I was doing, I lost interest. I would walk away from it. Even if a situation was well paying or had great upward potential, it didn’t matter if I couldn’t justify this inner “why”.

My TEDx talk experience was a lot like most things I do. From the hip, nerve wracking for the producers of the event (I scrapped my whole talk and started from scratch after dress rehearsal the night before), but overall I’ll give myself a B- or C+. Delivery was decent but the content lacked the depth to deliver me to some next level professional speaker. I do get an A+ for using my hands.

You can take a look and grade it yourself if you’d like.

For me healthy living, and further FRESHJUNKIE and FRESHJUNKIE Racing became my “why”. I trained for Ironmans, I ate and cooked healthy food, I coached endurance athletes, I put on endurance events.

My circle, was complete.

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I am now 54 years old. I don’t look much unlike the guy in the video above, save my hair is gray and I am a little bit fluffier. I watched that video again this week. It’s not as bad as I thought. I had the single most important thing needed to be convincing. I truly believed every word I was saying.

Time it seems is the enemy of belief.

Full disclosure, my two restaurants eventually closed and I continue and will continue to pay off the debts associated with keeping them open during COVID. It’s a longer story for another day. Ultimately their failure lands on me.

I won’t say I “learned a lot” through failure other than what my true talents are.

Big ideas.

Of jumping headlong.

Of inspiring others to come along and be a part.

Of helping them figure it out and achieving something they never thought possible.

What I learned and continue to learn is that I am not great at the day to day and this world is designed for the day to day.

I am constantly forgetful and scattered despite my best efforts. Things that would seem to be repetitive and a part of a daily work flow sneak up on my as I completely forget things and I struggle to utilize the tools that are out there for me. It’s maddening and it causes me a lot of strife.

I also realize that it’s pretty tough to get paid to just be the things you are good at, although, I am living pretty close to it.

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I have it good. I know this, though I am chronically depressed.

I am grateful. I say this, though every day is an active battle against truly disproportionate anxiety.

I have achieved physical acts that many can’t fathom, and am likely in the top 1% of “healthy” people, yet I now have more health issues than I thought possible.

So today, I question non-stop my so called “why”.

Am I still about what I have said I am about for the last 25 years?

Further, do “why’s” have half lives?

I’ve landed on…probably.

I have also started to wonder if my “why” was for me, or for what I thought I should be in the eyes of others.

Make no mistake, I acted strongly and almost recklessly in the beginning to do the things I thought were important, so I know that it was all in good faith, that I believed.

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I understand my doubts and shortcomings.
I understand the “why” I believed in.

Today I just wonder if there’s a third act.

A new batch of opportunities to help others believe in themselves.

To help them figure out…

Why (?).

#hugsandhifives