TN50#169_Revisiting – Adventure Ready_08 July_2024
Hi Team,
So I’m digging through an old box of military paperwork this morning; looking for copies of a jump log that started back in March of 1992 for an administrative thing I’m working on. As I flipped through papers in the overflowing “love me” box of awards, orders, NCOERs, etc. I ran across a couple other things that caught my attention as I reflect on being “adventure ready” a term one of my coaches, Chris Hauth, coined and that I’ve been pondering since I first heard it a couple years ago.
Happy Monday and welcome to The Next 50 #169. I like to think of personal performance in 3 components: physical, mental and emotional. My frameworks focus on 4 Buckets: Eat, Sleep, Move and Think. This blog is my sandbox for sharing information that you might find useful for your personal performance.
For those interested my first military static line jump was on March 2nd 1992 on Fryar DZ, Fort Benning, GA. My last military free fall jump was on July 28th 2016 on Raeford West DZ, Fort Bragg, NC. Airborne!
Anywho, back to “adventure ready”! I also ran across an impact ARCOM award recommendation from 1997 after competing in the Best Ranger Competition, here’s are the award achievement bullets:
- Represented the 82nd Airborne Division in the Best Ranger Competition at Ft. Benning, GA and his team finished 9th place overall out a total of 32 teams. His team was the number 1 team from all of Ft. Bragg.
- Trained on his own in his spare time. Received minimal assistance in resource-intensive training events i.e., canoeing, spot parachuting, prusik climbing, etc. Additionally, he was not afforded a significant train-up period for the competition – only having three weeks of organized training compared to six months or more or other teams.
- His personal tenacity and his internal “will-to-win” resulted in his team’s superior performance in a world class competition.
Bullets 1 & 2 are absolutely true, bullet 3 is pretty true but after 27 years of maturing I believe there might have been an occasion or two when I was completely counting on my partner’s personal tenacity (as occasionally, he was mine) and some of the time it was probably more an internal “will-to-finish”. RLTW!
“Adventure ready”, imagine having a job that allows you and one of your buddies to go place in the top 10 in a “world class” competition with minimal “resource intensive training”. Being a team leader in the 82nd Airborne Division’s Long Range Surveillance Detachment (LRSD) was that kind of job. This was 1997, pre-war days, and commandos lived for the occasional real world mission, real world training, competitions and selection & assessments for the next move up.
“Adventure ready”, as you can see in the grainy pix, being 26 helped out as well. Yes youth helps out more than you’d imagine. Which is why as an executive assaulter I was constantly reminded of the fact that youth is wasted on the Rangers. (or maybe I was just jealous!)
“Adventure ready”, now at 53, with a nice amount of grey in my beard, it looks different. A recent example is a last-minute plan to hike a 14er, the day after running a 10K and 3 days after a “Murph” – no problem! Or wrestling with a 15-year-old version of me (a kid I like to call – Sam) without too much fear of getting hurt! Last year it was running 7 marathons in 7 days on the 7X-HPP expedition, you get the idea.
“Adventure ready”, now halfway through 2024, what does it mean to you? If you remember my initial articles on the topic last year, that was my challenge. That you identify what “adventure ready” means for you and then make sure you build systems to get to that and maintain that standard. And that being “adventure ready” can be messy as the years go by!
“Adventure ready”, do you have a plan? And if yes, are you executing on that plan? I hope your answer is yes to both because it was December 2023 and I blinked and it’s now July 2024. Am I right? Time is not on your side when it comes to being “adventure ready” I promise you that.
“Adventure ready”, if this is new to you, read these 2 short blogs from last year and you’ll be ready to rock:
- https://fpp.llc/2023/11/06/tn50137-adventure-ready/
- https://fpp.llc/2023/11/18/tn50139-adventure-ready-pt-2/
“Adventure ready”, if you’ve done that and need more help, drop me and we can schedule a call: alex@fpp.llc.
Who do you know that could use this information? I bet you can think of a couple of folks before you click the next email, so please share the post with your team and anyone who might find it useful and let me know what you think!
Have a good one,
Alex
PS. Questions on your personal performance? Let me know at: alex@fpp.llc
PPS. If you’re new to First Principles Performance Coaching, here’s a one stop shop for my stuff.
PPPS. Ready to improve your Executive and Human Performance, email me so I can introduce you to my first ever Better Basics Program – Team Coaching opportunity! alex@fpp.llc
