Building a mountain out of layers of paint.
“Getting better at anything is like building a mountain, one layer of paint at a time”
- Joe Rogan
There is the work and then there is how you feel about the work.
And only one of those factors is negotiable.
There have been times when I have understood the above statements and times when I have not – and the outcome associated with that level of understanding has been as you would imagine, poles apart.
Let’s break it down.
There is the work.
My case studies have always been some ridiculous winter ultras, so I can speak from direct, first-person experience. Races of 400, 500, 600km into the deep, frozen wastelands of the world. But it could be anything – personal journeys, grand scale projects, bootstrapping a start-up or navigating the c-suite.
There is the work – that which must be done.
But to quote Goggins, ‘There’s levels to this sh#t’
It’s one thing to put in the effort – it’s another to know that you’re pointing that effort in the right direction. I’ve trained like a man possessed for big races, only to show up and discover that my freshly minted toolkit is replete with tools wholly un-suitable for what the real world then threw at me. And disaster ensued.
If you don’t have the right tools, you can’t fix it.
So first up – understand WHAT work needs to be done.
You want a toolkit that is deep and broad, delivering capacity and adaptability across a myriad of possibilities.
Take the time to understand what that toolkit needs to look like, see to it that every tool serves multiple purposes. How can you layer so that work done here, helps leverage work done over there.
Map it out and get to work.
How you feel about the work.
The work must be done – so we can stop putting any mental or emotional effort into whether we will be doing it. It simply gets done.
It saves you an enormous amount of time and anguish when you remove the question of ‘will we do it’ – because you already know the answer,
So that leaves us with ‘how do I feel about the work’?
Sticking with racing, I always think about the miles ahead this way – you can do them happy or you can do the sad. But they are getting done.
The only choice you have actual power over is the manner in which you execute.
If you can navigate to a place where you can appreciate the process, respect the role it plays in service to a larger goal, you will manage the long road. You may not necessarily love the work, there will be days when you hate it. Beat up, worn down, questioning all and sundry. That’s ok. Return to the centre – the work.
See it as the entry price, the cost of earning your place at the start line. NOT the finish line, but the start line.
I have always looked at the start line of great endeavours as a place I must earn the right to stand on.
Then the race itself simply becomes a celebration of the effort that has gone on before.
The race is when you get to take the tools you forged and reap what you’ve sown.
Did you do the work – the right work - and lay down your layers of paint.
Did you build a mountain of proof that you are who you say (or think) you are – someone capable of such an endeavour.
Did you do the work in a manner that helps you or hinders you? Showing it the respect it requires, or did you trim the corners, give quarter, visualise an outcome that had its foundation in fantasy?
Or did you let the work mould you. Sink into it, respect it, embrace it, garner an understanding of what the work does for you, how it chips away the rough edges, broadens the map and deepens the well.
Visualisations can be tricky - seeing yourself as some all-conquering hero for whom the eventual task would be naught but a bump in the road – or did you visualise the truth. A hard-fought race, a task of great difficultly, of being on your knees, depths of despair, questioning of faith – but finding your way to your feet once more, because you had done the work.
It's a rousing metaphor but what does it look like in the real world?
I can write a solid piece, but no one will give a rat’s backside if it’s all just a word salad theoretical pontification.
So, here’s my PhD in the work – an image
Same start line, two years apart.
The first human on the left (2017) worked hard, damn hard, work based on what he expected to encounter.
He saw himself as a great candidate, an adventurer about to set forth and conquer something beyond the capacity and comprehension of most.
He lasted roughly 250km (156 miles) before harsh reality delivered him the lesson he required. The real world oft does not provide what you expect – conditions were harder, weather was worse, there were gaps in the shiny toolkit. Gaping vast oceans of inexperience and folly, that only a harsh and ego-bruising failure could bring to the light.
The second human on the right (2019) did the work. The right work, that built a toolkit broad and deep focussed on capacity, adaptability, and discipline. A toolkit that could be called upon in all conditions, all circumstances.
That human stood on the start line in the knowledge that they had not missed a single squat, or push up or metre in training. Not a single rep had gone without due care and attention. No one had seen it, no one would know. It was the quiet confidence of one who has done the work in the dark corners and quiet hours.
When you can stand on a ‘start line’ (and know that that is not the beginning but the opportunity to deliver the final product) in the raw and honest knowledge that you have not missed a single rep in prep – you may as well be carved from obdurate stone.
That second human was carved from stone, he would navigate all manner of hell for 614km (383 miles) and stand atop the podium.
And when it was all over, he came home and once more began again to add layers of paint to the mountain.
“You don’t build confidence by shouting affirmations in the mirror. It comes from building a mountain of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are’
- Alex Hormozi
Because a mountain of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are is always being eroded, by time, the elements, your very mind.
So we return to the work.