Becoming My Own Will Smith

The push you need can come from anywhere. It’s easy to get trapped in our own heads. To think of excuses not to do something. To push off making time for the things that you know will make you happy. To fill our days with mindless distractions of busy work. And it’s times like those that the right push can start the ball rolling in the right direction. Mine came from Twitter.

I was tracking Will Smith’s most recent journey from Fresh Prince, to Hollywood mogul, to dude who put on a few too many pandemic pounds, to the guy trying to get in “The Best Shape Of His Life” … to man trying to inspire others with his story via his memoir. This was the guy whose famous drive and work ethic stated that he would rather die on a treadmill than have someone outwork him. And he was out here setting lofty goals … and missing them. A slow(ish) time for a 5k run. Missing his publisher’s deadlines for chapters for his book. Not hitting his weight loss goals. And just generally being burnt out.

And I thought, “Wow”. This is so important. What’s happening in him being vulnerable about his failures, his misses and his straight exhaustion is he’s showing that he’s human. That the Hollywood grind that got him to the top ain’t always pretty. That failure happens. And sometimes when declare a big goal publicly … you fail very publicly.

It reminded me when Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan kicked off the mental health discussion in the NBA. When they were very open about the struggles that they felt. The anxiety and depression that they were dealing with. Being open about the struggle. About the need to seek help. About how it helps to talk about it. And to think that these conversations will influence a generation of people that look up to these athletes, entertainers and influencer and know that it’s okay to face struggles. (And if you’re looking at the season that DeMar’s having right now, knowing that the struggle makes you stronger).

So here I am. Trying to figure out how to become my own Will Smith. To inspire someone else. By sharing my experiences. I don’t have the perfect answer of how to do it. But I know that I have to start.

I’ve tried to codify some of the with my podcast ”Make The Cut”. But the goal of that is to help the next generation of talent break into pro sports. The focus is on other people, their journeys, their lessons and their advice. I haven’t spent time on a platform to share my personal learnings. They’re always obsucated by generalizing the lesson so as to not embarass myself with a real life example. And maybe to think that it will be more easily applied to others’ lives and contexts if it’s not a specific example about getting chewed out by the President of the Toronto Maple Leafs for unfollowing a bunch of shitty accounts on Twitter.

There’s a tiny voice of mini imposter syndrom trying to tell me that it might be hubris to think that my story and my experiences can help other people. But I know that it’s bullshit. You can learn a beautiful lesson from any person on this planet if you dig deep enough. And I know that the most rewarding times for me at work is to share those experiences (those of you who have worked with me know that through our “Fail Fridays” or “Monday Recommendations”). And see people apply those lessons, get better at work. At life. To level up by their own will and hard work.

So here’s the start. Here’s how I plan* to do it:

1/ BE RUTHLESSLY AMBITIOUS

Ambition can me people feel uncomfortable. Fuck, there’s definitely been times where it made me feel uncomfortable when I witnessed it in other people. But for me that discomfort was really jealousy. Jealousy that someone else was willing to have an audacious goal and the balls to state it publicly.

That somehow their journey to chase down their goal would shine a light of me not doing it for mine. Or that their potential success would detract from my life by comparison. We humans are interesting characters. When we can’t root for each other to be successful … man, it’s toxic. And a decade ago, I was able to examine that in myself and reconsistute how I thought about ambition.

And now it’s about being public about it. This isn’t manifesting some bullshit. This is about being outwardly clear with my goals so that other people can help me with them. I want to be the top dog running a marketing team. Make ambitious work. Grow a brand to global dominance.

2/ OPTIMISM + HARD WORK

People don’t fall into success. It takes hard fucking work. Consistently. But just because the work is hard doesn’t mean that it needs to suck. And that’s where optimism comes in. The belief that it’s going to happen. That those goals are going to be crushed. That the grind and hard work is for something worthwhile.

3/ BE OKAY WITH PUBLIC FAILURE

I worked at a place where nothing was a failure. Nothing. Every single project was a success. Every single thing we did with our fans was the right thing to have done. That was the culture of the company. People were always spining something as a win. And that’s a load of bullshit.

The organization was not magically better than other places. It wasn’t batting a thousand. It was sweeping failure under the rug. Refusing to acknowledge it. Refusing to shine a light on it and let lessons be learned. And that’s destructive. Mistakes would be repeated a couple of years later. It was a joke that every three years there would be a restructure, but it was really just two structures that we would swap between.

So I’m going to be okay with public failure. And I try conduct myself in a manner as if all of the things that I say and I do could eventually be public. There are plenty of moments when I was wrong, but I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. Let’s let others learn from our mistakes. Let’s illuminate the lessons learned from failure, not just celebrate the stories of success.

4/ PUBLISH THE NARRATIVE

Write. Write. Write. Or maybe turn a video camera and make some content. But be conscious of not just living the experiences and holding those lessons tight to my chest for me to know, but to share them. To put them out there as permanent content in the world that someone can find. It might be a couple of days from now, it might be a couple of years from now … but the goal is to positively impact one person’s mind.

And be comfortable with all chapters of the story. From the start. To the struggle. To the success. To the fall from grace. To the grind it out to start again. It’s not about just celebrating experience viewed through rose coloured glasses. It’s about sharing the raw lessons that might be uncomfortable to write about, but will help inspire people.

5/ BE WILLING TO CHANGE MY MIND

The Will Smith of 20 years ago is not the Will Smith of today. Over a decade ago, he was preaching hard work hard work hard work. At the expense of sleep. At the expense of your health. At the expense of everything. But that’s not the Will Smith of today. He’s grown to understand that vulnerability demonstrates more strength than putting up an impenetrable facade.

And they say that a characteristic of intelligence is being willing to change your mind in the face of new information. Whether it be from my own personal experience, from scientific research or from patterns learned from other people’s lives, my goal is to be right. And more often than not, that means admitting to being wrong in the face of new data.

Excited to start this journey. And I appreciate you being here for the first step. I don’t know where it’s going to end up, but I know that it will be forward.

- Christian

*Subject to revision

Do Hard Things - The 75 Hard Challenge

April 27th. That’s when I started. Well, restarted. 

A month into the stay-at-home order in California, I was disappointed in myself. I wanted to use the quarantine as alive time instead of dead time. I had a vision of writing an article every day. Reading a book a week. Working out every day.

But I was struggling. We had just moved my family from Toronto to Los Angeles. We had a toddler and a newborn. No childcare support. All that while trying to build a good reputation at a new job. It was rough. 

I was struggling to keep my head above water. Was I in bad shape? Probably not. I was working out four or five times a week. I was eating relatively healthy, but doing the dad thing where you finish your toddler's macaroni & cheese. And drinking. I was hitting three beers a night four or five times a week. Nothing terrible … but still, nothing great.

Most of all, it was the looming presence of constant stress. Something that I was never able to tune out. From work. From our downstairs neighbors harassing us. From parenting. I wasn’t using this time at home to become a stronger human being. I wasn’t thriving. I was barely surviving.

And I don’t want to be a person who treads water. I want to be someone who swims for shore. If I’m spending most of my week with my kids instead of at the office, I need to be a good example. Have energy. Take pride in hard work. Practice patience. All of the shit that I was definitely not doing. 

So I decided to take up a challenge. Those who know me know that I love taking them on - a 30 x 30 run challenge, 5 day fasts, Whole30 diets. All that shit. I love making a commitment that eliminates thousands of decisions. When I have to do the mental gymnastics of whether I should work out today or not, that’s when I fail. When I follow a program, that’s when great shit happens.

I found my quarantine challenge -  75 Hard. The theory is this: do a couple of key things that you know are good for you for 75 days straight. No cheat days. No rest days. No compromise. And if you fuck up on even one of those things, you start again. 

“THE 75 HARD LIST - THINGS TO DO EVERY DAY

Follow a diet
1 workout (45 min)
1 outdoor workout (45 min)
Read 10 pages of a real book
Drink 1 gallon of water
Take a progress picture  ”

— Andy Frisella

Are any of these tasks hard? No. Did it seem like one of those bullshit internet click funnel coach challenges / fitness instagram hashtag? Yup. But then I realized that Andy Frisella, founder of the challenge, had put all in the info is out there. For free. By design. It wasn’t a complicated scheme to trick you into giving your email or your credit card info. Or as one my favorite podcasters says “It’s free. Not enter your credit card free. Just free free.”

So I started. 

And failed a week in.

Then I started again.

And failed four days in.

And then I started again.

And finished it 75 days later on July 10th.

Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes. Will I be doing it again? 100%. It wasn’t for fitness. It was to build resilience. To reinforce the commitment to myself that if I tell myself that I’m going to do something, I’m going to fucking do it. No inner debate. Just get it done or don’t put it on the list. 

Here’s what I learned:

Lesson #1 - SYSTEMS > WILLPOWER

The first two times that I attempted 75 Hard, I failed. Plain and simple.  I attribute that failure not to a lack of willpower, but a lack of planning. I thought - in the way of Forrest Gump - that I could just start and keep going … and going … and going. I could will my way through it. I was wrong. To succeed, I needed to build the right systems. To design my environment, days and routines in a way that makes it harder to fail than to succeed. 

So I built a routine. One that I would stick to for 75 days straight. Wake up, chill with my toddler and then take the progress picture. 

The next big step in the chain I knew that I had to do was get buy-in from my wife. There’s no way that she was going to clear almost 11 hours of exercise time a week … especially when we didn’t have any childcare support. She was running on fumes as much as I was, so I knew I had to solve it. 

So this is where I built the biggest step in my routine - my morning jog. I would take my toddler out in the stroller and do a jog while he ate his cereal in the stroller. Mom would get to rest for a bit early in the morning, I get to hang out with my son and the outdoor workout got done. I would also end up drinking a little more than a liter of the daily water for the day. All done before 8AM. Perfect. 

After that, everything seemed to be downhill with momentum. Building a morning routine had me well on my way. This allowed for flexibility in the rest of the day to get the rest of the 75 Hard tasks done. It made it easier.

Having clean ready-to-eat foods in the house made it impossible to cheat on my diet. Having no alcohol in the house made it a lot of work to drink. Having an accountability-buddy back in Toronto made it tough to skip my second workout. The systems picked me up and made it easy to do the hard things day after day after day. 

Lesson #2 - JUST GET IT DONE. 

Some days are awesome when everything goes right. Some days have a three year old busting out a 45 minute tantrum while you’re trying to finish a strategy for a new uniform launch. And when those days drop into your life, that’s when you realize that done is better than perfect.

The act of sticking to your commitments - especially when things get hairy - builds resilience. The consistency through the tough times are votes for the person that you want to be. The satisfaction in knowing that you dragged your I-don’t-want-to-go ass out of the house to finish your last 45 minute work is untouchable. The feeling that comes with checking that box and getting it done especially when you didn’t want to … I love it. 

As Neil Pasricha says, action causes motivation. It’s getting the little stuff done every single day that builds the motivation to get out and do it again tomorrow.  No excuses.

Hard days come and go. Just get it done. And celebrate yourself when you do. 

Lesson #3 - THE POWER OF COMMITTING TO YOURSELF

I didn’t publicize that I was doing this. I barely told my wife until I was a month in. I waited two months until my sister knew. I never posted it to social media. 

I wasn’t struggling for praise or support from other people. I was struggling for myself. I knew that making a commitment and holding myself accountable to it was more powerful than social pressure. 

I find it easy to make excuses to myself. I think a lot of us are like that. You know the right thing to do, but you opt to let yourself rationalize yourself out of having to do it. You balance the mental math of “I went running today, so I can eat this delicious donut lying around.” You didn’t plan to eat that donut. You just gave yourself some bullshit rationalization on why you can’t hold back. Same for procrastinating at work or at home.

But by showing up every single day, I knew that I was building confidence in myself. Making it easier to believe that I was going to finishing it. Making it harder to bitch out on my commitment to myself. Once I was over the halfway mark, I knew there was no going back. I had invested so much time and effort into the process that I wasn’t about to throw it away. The downhill was definitely easier. Not easy. But easier. 

The progress picture on Day 1 vs Day 75.

THE LAST LESSON - DOING HARD THINGS IS REWARDING

I love doing hard shit. It started because of my ego. Because, if I fail it’s no big deal. Normal people would think that it would hard be hard to do that anyways. And if I succeed, it separates me from the people who didn’t make it. Or even better - the people who never even tried. 

But now it’s more than that. It’s greater than fluffing my ego with meaningless comparisons to other people. It’s about the challenge of chasing my full potential. To wake up and see what I can actually do. 

As an athlete. As a businessman. As a writer. 

As a boss. As a friend. As a father.

As a husband. As a son. As a brother. 

Doing hard things build our resilience. It makes us more flexible to different conditions. It constructs the confidence that we can survive tough shit. Like job loss. Like a recession. Like tragedy. 

Like a pandemic. 

My favorite memory from the whole process was about halfway through. My three year old son had been with me on a bunch of runs / jogs / hikes. And he wanted in. So what started as a father-son hike ended up being a father-son hill runs. Proudest moment of the year. 

- Christian

Learning To Make Better Decisions

Life rewards goods judgement. Making the right call on what system to invest in. Where to live. How to allocated your budget. How to play your cards given the pot odds, betting position and opponents. Choosing the right people to be in your social orbit.

Good choices win out over time. Bad choices don’t.

But how do you tell if you're smart … or just lucky? The bias of fundamental attribution error suggests that we are prone to thinking that when good things happen to us, we created them. But when bad things happen, then it's just shitty luck. We blame external forces for bad circumstances and take personal credit for good ones. Basically, we are shitty at understanding when we made the right moves and when we were in the right place at the right time.

Now imagine if we could improve our decision making. What would the bottom line of your business look like if you removed your worst investment decisions? A lot different.

Denise Shull is a performance psychologist and the real life inspiration for the character of Wendy Rhoades on Billions. The promise she makes to her hedge fund clients is not to make them super-human. But to have them center their decision making process to remove their bottom 10% of decisions. Calls that they make when they're emotional. Or when they're relying on hope instead of facts. Or when they're exhausted and not thinking straight. To them, good judgement pays. Millions of dollars.

To be successful over time, we need to develop good judgement. But how do we improve ours? It's not easy. But it is straightforward.

The key to developing good judgement is the same as improving any skill. You learn by doing. You learn by doing, getting feedback on whether you made the right call, learning from it and adjusting for next time. And then you do it again. And again. And again.

It's a constant practice.

One of the best tools to leverage in developing this practice is a sytem to track your decisions. A system allows you to catalogue the variables that were impacting you when you made the decision. Were you tired? Hungry? What time of day was it? What was your emotional state?

A system enables you to revisit and input the results of your decisions. Were employees happier as a result? Did revenue increase? Were there more repeat customers?

A system helps you to identify patterns - those that lead to good decision and those that lead to bad ones. And once you understand what variables influence your decision making, you can make adjustments to optimize for it.

For example, Jeff Bezos adjusted his schedule such that he now will ONLY take important meetings that require high impact decisions at 10AM. He understands when his mind is in peak form to make intelligent decisions. And he has shifted his schedule to optimize for it. If he is asked to make an important call in the afternoon, he pushes it to the next day at 10AM. It's more valuable to make the right decision the next day than to make a the wrong decision at 4PM.

A tool to leverage in the pursuit of improving your judgement is a decision tracker. It creates a simple system to track, codify and revisit important decisions you are making. That way, you’re not subject to the bias of your own memore - cherry picking, dwelling on the negative or the other stories we like to tell ourselves.

*Download the decision tracking template PDF here. Apologies for not crediting the original source, but I lost where I adapted it from.

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I don't claim to be an expert on this. I still make plenty of bad judgement calls. By tracking them, I can better understand the patterns that led to those decisions. And by calling those out, I have a better shot at changing them for the next round.

Our minds are fickle. Our memories are constantly being overwritten and tweaked every time we recall them. Our stories change. By having something written down and revisiting it over time, it allows us to have a concrete record of what we thinking. Feeling. Hoping for. And that lets us improve.

- Christian