The year 2013 could have been like any year, a few challenges, a lot to be thankful for – family, friends, our health, and a few goals to keep focus. But something different happened and in it a life lesson - that life lesson coming out of a pushup challenge, the simplest of activities creating a cascade of interactions, communications, stories, thoughts and ideas which coalesced into The High Performance Life, THPL for short, and in it an opportunity to live a fuller and even richer existence – one focused on the totality of how our lives come together through the lenses of Life, Learning and Fitness. It provided a view into who we are, how we live and how we take our own personal performance to the next level. And what we found out is that when do embrace the THPL community, the collective soul gets better, stronger and more resilient. We gather strength from each other, we support each other and we cheer on our fellow practitioners as it is in their success, as much as our own, that we find the true meaning of THPL.
And so it became – THPL a blog and so much more. The challenges that we each took on were to be measured and completed. And we would be propelled forward by these commitments and achievements. Ah, yes, the recap - the year started with a humble set of objectives / goals. And here is how I did:
Life – write a Blog, coach a few new budding athletes, learn how to meditate.
Success – I coached three athletes directly and they even had a few PB’s in their year. The Blog – 350 posts later, I have not missed a day. It was the most profound challenge of all and I am blessed and thrilled to have taken on this challenge and delivered
Mediation – It did not happen in the traditional way but if there were moments when I spent quiet time reflecting on the year I took them. I thought more about the benefits of reflection but certainly could have done better on this one.
Learning – The goal was to watch 1,000 Ted videos and learn more about the Education industry.
I watched 815 TED and TEDx videos. Yes, it was a bit short of the goal but along the way boy did I learn a lot from quite a few very smart and amazing people. What a year it was to hear the stories of 815 people! The learning about the education industry was as profound any learning that I have ever had. I feel closer and closer to how to bring this amazing power of learning to more and more people, using a structure that is suited for learning from today forward. This is indeed very exciting.
Fitness – Run 2,000 miles, run a 50 mile ultra-marathon, complete my fifth Ironman and do 75,000 pushups.
OK, on the run I truly over-achieved – I ran 3,349 miles, averaged 66 miles a week. It was fun to press beyond the original goal and I feel great for having put so many miles on this 53 year old body of mine. I completed the 50 miler and the fifth Ironman, yea! The pushups fell short as I transitioned to pull-ups in the second half of the year so I call this one a draw. 61,350 pushups, and 14,450 pull-ups.
Along the way I also did my longest single day ride of 230 miles, I set my personal best in the half and the full marathon and I exercised for 1,069 hours.
Impossible to summarize I leave 2013 energized and ready for 2014 and committed to THPL for now and a long time to come. I hope you all continue to come on this journey with me. We know not where it goes but it will be magical that is for sure!
Loving life and truly happy with 2013.
Ciao
Joe