Master the Art of Showing Up
Like many others, I have been furloughed from a job that I love and from a team that I am very close to. I’m sure you can agree that the initial reaction is similar to getting cut from the team. We say…. Yea but all my friends are on the team and what should I do while they’re all playing on Saturday. When it’s not you, it’s pretty easy to say don’t worry it’s temporary and you’ll be back or you’ll find something, but in the moment it just hurts. We’ve all heard the stories about Michael Jordan being cut from his high school basketball team and fighting back to be the premier basketball player in the world. What we don’t hear is that he also grew 5 - 6 inches from his cut year to finally making the team. Mmmmm, maybe I’ll get much smarter before they take me back. We all know that MJ had both talent and desire and getting cut was probably just one small contributor to Michael’s success. We also don’t know much about the other boys that got cut from that team. We do know that Michael showed up first for practice every day.
Its been said that between stimulus and response lies choice. Regardless of what the world puts in front of us, the response is up to us. I have read this in a dozen books and its funny how certain things just stick. So, with my non-self-imposed sabbatical I feel its up to me to choose what to do. Like New Year resolutions, its easy to make promises to yourself when no one else is listening. The secret is follow through and saying it out loud just help reinforce the follow through. Recently while reading James Clear’s book Atomic Habits I was introduced to his phrase, Master the Art of Showing Up. Make it small. So small you can’t not do it. Want to get in shape? Just master the art of showing up at the gym, or putting on your sneakers.
Several years ago I was challenged to provide a short but regular update on what my sales team was up to. The next Monday I started and the Monday Morning Buzz was born. I never intended it to go on so long, but it did teach me the art of showing up every Monday. Today the Buzz, which was primarily for fellow employees transitions to the Cook Endeavour. a blog that I hope to make a weekly occurrence. The Cook Endeavour was born in the mind of Bruce Cook, the younger brother with the idea of presenting interesting and perhaps entertaining looks at the cross over between sports, business, and life. (Endeavour was borrowed from Captain James Cook’s sailing ship for many discoveries) We’ve written a few and a few have been read, but now I’m making the commitment to showing up. If you subscribe, you will be subject to the thoughts of at least two Cooks, but eventually we will weave in opinions from others. We hope you learn a little and smile a lot as we enjoy sharing. We’re so glad you showed up to join us.
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