4. Reframing, Reps, Letters
Transformation
Reframing
Our 6YO started swim lessons again and really enjoyed her first class, especially the teacher. At the second class, we noticed there was a new teacher. She was reluctant to get back into the pool, “What if she’s not as good as Gracie?” I replied, “What if she’s better?” (the verdict ended up being they were about equal). The ability to create our own story about any of our experiences is powerful.
Professional runner, Ryan Hall, has talked about the idea of reframing the story of races that didn’t go as expected:
Every time I bring up my failure, get asked about that bad race, get asked the question: how’d your race go? It is an opportunity for me to tell the narrative that I want to believe and be heard. I can talk honestly about my race experience in both a negative and positive light. How do I want to frame it to myself and others? Once you realize that every time someone asks you how your race went it is is an opportunity to shift your own inner-narrative and re-shape your experience you invite the conversations and realize how powerful the stories we tell both ourselves and others are.
How can we reframe challenges in a positive light? Gratitude and curiosity. I’m slowly increasing the distances I’m running on trails, and almost every day I think about how fortunate (freedom, health, etc.) I am to go running for hours on trails, often not seeing another person. As runs get longer, unknown trails become known, and there’s something magical about wondering, “What’s beyond if I go just a little further?”
Reps
In grad school, I remember a portfolio manager talking about his grad school days and how he would print out stock write-ups and spend hours in the library reviewing them like case studies. He was getting 10x the practice as someone who might look at a company a week. Reps. Josh Waitzkin (mentioned in last week’s post) discovered foil surfing where he can surf for ~2 minutes vs. a wave that might last less than 15 seconds. Reps. Tony Robbins talks about the early days of joining a motivational speaking company where the #1 rep was doing ~3 talks a month. Tony started doing 3 talks a day. Reps. Tony is also a partial owner of the Golden State Warriors and recently talked about Steph Curry:
He shoots 500 shots a day, 3,500 shots a week, 14,000 shots a month, 168,000 shots a year. These are practice shots. So he’s been in the NBA 15 years. He’s made 2.52 million shots in practice. In his entire career [games], he’s only taken ~5,000 shots, he’s made ~3,000 3-pointers, and he’s the greatest in history. Less than 1/10th of 1% of his shots have actually shown up in a game.
Putting in the reps consistently is simple, but not easy. I think about how painful morning/night time routines were (bathroom, brushing teeth, floss, getting dressed, etc.) and how my wife created a simple checklist with pictures. At first it was constantly checking to see if each item was done, but now our 3YO is walking out of the bathroom, “I finished my morning routine.” Reps.
Letters
This was the first year I wrote a letter to our daughters. The idea was inspired by this twitter thread by Jim O’Shaugnessy. Part of the thread:
…get in the habit of writing your children a series of letters so that they too can understand you, and, with luck, themselves better. Having to articulate thoughts in a letter allows you and your children time to reflect on things in a way that is often difficult in the day-to-day events of your lives together. It’s something that I always wish my dad had done, as we had a rather difficult time understanding each other and I think a series of letters from him would have helped me understand him much better than I ultimately did. Ideally, you should start as soon as you can and continue to write over the years. I started when my son, Patrick, was 7 days old and continued until my last child turned 21.
The past year has been one of major transitions for our family, and I thought it would be helpful for our girls to know the reasons for some of our decisions at the time we made them. Time fades memories, and it’s also a way for me to capture what the present me was thinking when I look back on this time 20 years from and say to myself, “What were you thinking?"!”
Although I hope to live a long, healthy life, at least putting together a letter annually ensures there are some notes on thoughts just in case it’s sooner. And I guess that’s also another reason for the Substack!