Boom! This is Books & Biceps #370!

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Elevate Your Performance

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Ever year when school starts I recommend the same book to both kids and adults: Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Why? Because I’d guess I’ve read over 1,000 books in my life and I’ve recommended well over 300 in this newsletter over the course of the seven years I’ve been writing it, BUT, my favorite book of all time has been the same since 3rd grade: JLS.

So take a break from that biography or memoir or novel or sci-fi thriller that you’re reading and pick up Jonathan Livingston Seagull. You can read the entire thing in about thirty minutes and every single page is dripping with wisdom and inspiration.

This is one of the few books I took a ton of notes on and I revisit them all the time and now I’m sharing them with you.

Here are 8 brilliant and practical life lessons from the little book that's sold over 50 million copies:

1/ On Perfection

"You will begin to touch heaven in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying 1,000 mph. Or a million. Or the speed of light. Because any number is a limit. Perfection doesn't have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there."

2/ On Persistence

"Ten times he tried, and all ten times, as he passed through 70mph, he burst into a churning mass of feathers. From 2,000 feet he tried again...wings stable.... It took tremendous strength, but it worked! Jonathan had set a world speed record for seagulls!

3/ On Negative Thoughts

"I am a seagull like every other seagull, and I will fly like one...just another one of the Flock.” THEN "Such promises are only for the gulls that accept the ordinary. One who has touched excellence in his learning has no need of that kind of promise."

4/ On Breakthroughs

"How much more there is now to living! Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's a reason to life! We can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free. We can learn to fly!"

5/ On Going Your Own Way

"His one sorrow was not solitude, it was that the other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them... They refused to open their eyes and see."

6/ On Having Purpose

"Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull's life is so short And with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed."

7/ On Practice

"For each of them, the most important thing in living was to reach out and touch perfection in that which they most loved to do, and that was to fly... They were magnificent birds...and they spent hour after hour every day practicing flight."

8/ On Limitations

"Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly."

The book is so simple and wonderful. You’ll pull 80 gems from it. Read it alone. Read it with your kids. Just read it.

I’m super proud of my daughter for a TON of reasons. She gets straight As, she’s one of the kindest, most caring people I know, she’s funny and a great conversationalist… And she’s not afraid of taking on challenges, like her first 5K this weekend!

Now, here’s the quick story of how we made it happen:

A few weeks ago when school started, she had to do a fitness test in gym class and they ran a timed mile around the track. My daughter is not a runner. At all. She’s active and does jump rope and slam balls and other HIIT workouts in the garage, but she’s not knocking out runs regularly.

When she got home, she wondered aloud if she could finish a 5K and while she was talking, I went online, found a race close to us and signed us up. Boom. Done. No deliberating. No thinking about when or how. No time to procrastinate. I just booked it.

The one catch: it was just over two weeks away and of course, she got nervous.

How are we going to train? Do we have time to train? Also, I hate running sooooo…

Now, this is where I want to share a life lesson that I live by: take action on ideas when they pop up.

I know earlier in my life she’d have mentioned the 5K, I’d have said something that we all say, “sure, we can do it one day”, and we’d never talk about it again. Or months and months would pass and then maybe we’d do something.

“Maybe” is an action killer. Just commit to the damn thing and figure it out later. Don’t hesitate. Lesson for kids. Lesson for adults.

Back to the run. I knew going from barely finishing one mile to running 3.2 (5K) was of course doable, but also, not enjoyable for a non-runner. Something about that 15-minute mark into the 20-minute mark realllly sucks for people who don’t run much (me included).

So, I decided to break it up. We’d run one minute and then walk one minute and we’d go for runs every other day. And every other day we’d add on a little distance/time.

The first run was ten minutes. Then twelve. Then fourteen. Then sixteen. Then twenty.

You see where I’m going here? It was easy to add time/distance when you’re running for a minute and getting a minute to walk and catch your breath.

Two days before the 5K we were up to 30 minutes, which worked out to about 2 miles.

I knew we were set for the race and when the day came, we stuck to our plan. One minute run. One minute walk. Until we crossed the finish line. No injuries. No cramps. No knee or ankle issues. And I’m proud to say she did it.

First one’s in the books and the next one is next month!

You are all going to love this. I promise. My guys over at one of my favorite podcasts, Be Kind Let’s Rewind, nominated me for Podcast Guest of the Year against some STIFF competition. Incredibly, I won!

Please watch my acceptance speech and subscribe to their show. Nobody does 90s nostalgia better:

If you’re a guy over 40 and you’ve been looking for a new digital magazine that’s written for midlife men, by midlife men, on the topics that actually matter to us: family, fitness, fashion, finance, food & fun, then join 25K of us at Midlife Male.

I write a column every Tuesday called The Manologue. This week I tackled a topic near and dear to all of our hearts, owning our own physical media again. That’s right, I am returning to the CD-filled, DVD-ruled, paperbacked and glossy-covered glory of the 80s and 90s and you’re coming with me.

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ALL THESE GUYS WERE, SO THEY BOUGHT MY BOOK: GENERATION GRIFFEY!

If you still wear your hat backward like Griffey, think all the Prime flavors are dumb because Gatorade Citrus Cooler is the greatest sports drink ever, miss Blockbuster and Tower Records, destroyed your friends in Street Fighter, GoldenEye, and NBA Jam, can quote Tommy Boy and Billy Madison, and never missed Stu Scott on SportsCenter —this book, Generation Griffey, is for you.

I ranked 90 of the '90s things that made your dude childhood legendary. A rankfest, if you will. Ninety columns. By me. For you. For US.

Why Generation Griffey?

First, it’s a great name. We’ve got alliteration, “generation,” and the quintessential athlete of that era: Ken Griffey Jr.

Junior perfectly defines the era for late '80s and '90s kids because the apex of his career matches our childhood. From the day he joined the Mariners’ lineup in 1989 through the next decade, nobody embodied '90s style (the backward hat), swagger (the swing, the smile, the commercials), and coolness (the kicks, the cameos, the crossover stardom) quite like Griffey.

His reign atop the sports/celebrity pyramid (alongside Jordan) from his rookie year in Seattle to his move to the Reds in 2000 serves as the perfect bookend for all of us who grew up in the last decade of the last century.

See? Generation Griffey is a spectacular name for this book.

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