“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
– President John F. Kennedy
A week ago, we shared Coach Jimmy’s podcast appearance on The Sevan Podcast, which is always an entertaining show. Sevan knows a bunch of people in the competitive CrossFit world, as he was previously the director and lead videographer for the CrossFit Games documentaries, before CrossFit ditched their media team. Sevan has stayed very close to the industry, and when he talks about something on his podcast, people listen.
This made it so cool when a couple months ago, Sevan started talking about Jimmy on his podcast. He would have other guests on, and he would ask if they had heard of this crazy dude named “Jimbobroski” on Instagram that was doing Murph every day. At first, Sevan was on the leading edge of this story and people hadn’t heard of Jimmy yet. But then people started agreeing with Sevan about him – “yeah he comes up on my feed every day, that dude is nuts!” And then Jimmy was invited as a guest, just about halfway into his quest to do Murph every day for a full year. If you haven’t listened to the podcast, stop reading now and go check it out!
Of course, the first real question that people ask Jimmy after they verify that he’s a real human being and that he’s not insane, is Why? Why are you doing Murph every day? I, of course, have also asked Jimmy this question, both directly and indirectly, like “are you sure you want to keep going?” And I asked him after the podcast if he would crystalize it in writing for me, and I loved what he wrote.
“I’ve learned that you can callous your mind over time and that doing something hard every single day makes everyday life just a little bit easier. I don’t recommend Murph everyday but I do recommend finding your “quit” moment everyday and pushing a little bit past that…
Do something you don’t want to do. Over time there’s less and less you don’t want to do and more things you know you’re capable of.”
This is a pretty strong, and constantly reinforcing reason. The more times he completes the workout, the stronger this “Why” is to him, because he knows he can do it (he’s done it 240+ days in a row now), and he knows that if he doesn’t do it, he’s choosing an easier, weaker path.
As I was listening to the podcast, appreciating Jimmy’s value of hard work in order to broaden your capabilities, and thinking about how to get this message out to our community, disaster struck.
One of our friends and a former CFKI coach responded to a rowhome fire in his duty as a Baltimore City Fire lieutenant. Four of his firefighters became trapped in the building when it collapsed on top of them, killing three of them.
I reached out to let him know we were thinking about him and his family, and part of his response really drove this point home in very real way:
“Pass on to anyone that may need to hear it that nobody will regret going the extra mile when it’s time to give 100%.”
Our modern society is not going to help you prepare for the REAL hard things that are coming your way. In fact, doing hard things seems absolutely ridiculous for 99% of Americans these days. There has been a rejection of physically hard things, probably because everything in our lives has become so easy. We can be as comfortable as we want to be.
But life has a way of testing us, at unknown times. WE HAVE TO BE READY. The excuse of “I didn’t know that was going to happen,” is not valid. None of us know what it will be. But we know it will be HARD. Let’s raise our tolerance, raise our standards for what HARD means. Bring yourself to that point, and don’t quit. Never quit.
Ryan