It is time for word to the third, my reflections on purpose, life and growth, until we Brooks, the speaker, author, professor, and forever student. Each week on becoming undone I bring you guests who dare bravely, risk mildly, and grow relentlessly. High achievers who've transformed from falling apart to falling into place. But every third episode it's my turn to reflect, refine, and reprocess on word to the third. This week I am running behind. The plan is always for me to drop a word to the third on Wednesdays. It just didn't happen this week. I can bore you with excuses, but I won't. I just think it had done. I've been using an app on my phone called Done. It's a habit tracker that lets me keep tabs on all this stuff I try to do either every day or every week. As I've shared previously this past summer, I did 75 hard.
It was as advertised, hard, but I did it. And in the process I realized that while it wasn't realistic for me to stick to that significant of a time commitment, I wanted to keep up the good habits that I built. The 75 hard app was for me for nearly three months, I'd like to think Done is for the rest of my life. Each day I check a box when I track what I eat, when I get up when I say, when I work out for at least 45 minutes, when I take a 5 minute cold shower, when I drink a gallon of water, when I work on the podcast for at least 10 minutes. And for when I read 10 pages or more in a development book. That's a lot of detail. But it keeps me on track like 75 hard did without all the guilt and the punishment of starting over if I'm not perfect on a given day. Family friend Regina Penny recently posted a version she came up with called 75 Grace, where she's giving herself credit for the journey, while still doing all the work eventually. As cool as 75 days of dog-ed commitment may be, I'm more concerned with living all of the rest of my days purposefully.
That booktask is something I picked up from 75 hard and I've grown to love it. Growing up I wasn't much of a reader unless you count car magazines in which case I was world class. Anyway, I read David Goggins' first book, Can't Hurt Me Last Summer and it was awesome. If you don't know who David Goggins is, google him. While his language may be considered not suitable for work, his message should be mandatory for every human on the planet. Former Navy CEO who's completed more than 100 ultra endurance races held the world record for pull ups in 24 hours, you name it. He's been called the hardest man alive. And he's earned it. The second book came out in 2022 and I asked for it from a birthday. My sweet wife bought it for me but she probably remembered how I came out of completing the first one. Let's just say I was a little motivated to get better and to stop feeling sorry for myself.
It was a major reason I signed up to run my first ever row race at 10K in November of 2021. And the truth be told, it's probably part of the reason I got injured and couldn't run much at all for big parts of last year. You know there's a fine line between being tough and being wise and I push myself beyond that line where there weren't last year. But this new book is different. I'm about halfway through and a more introspective Goggins admit that he got complacent after the smash success of his first book, the edge that it made him a savage before had softened with time. He found himself settling for less than his best more and more frequently. Chapter 5 Disciple of Discipline in particular really resonated with me. As I shared before, my 2023 one word is Discipline. I resolved to produce at least 150 episodes this year. That's around three a week.
After the first month found me ahead of my anticipated schedule. As you saw this week, I got complacent and I missed my deadline. Goggins to the rescue to snap me back on task. He grew up hard fleeing with his mom from his native buffalo and the abusive man who was his father at just the age of a family settled in southern Indiana where a strict grandfather he called Sarge Jack made him earn his keep every day. He was a tough life and Goggins resented the work. But over time he realized that something about it had changed him. He started to care. When a half-assed job doesn't bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. He began to notice an attention to detail and a commitment to doing things his best that hadn't been there before. My story is nothing like David Goggins. My story is, well, confusing.
I guess that's when they were 18 and they've remained married to this day. Both of them grew up faster than it should have had to and divorce had hit them both hard as children. For my dad, he knew what it was like to have to literally pay rent for his own bed at the age of 12, working as free labor in his stepdad's pallet manufacturing business every day. As a result, he couldn't play sports. He had to work. He couldn't study. He had to work late. And somewhere along the way, he resolved to never, ever make his kid have to live that way. As a result, when he got a job in a coal mine when I was little, he worked as much as he could. Nights, weekends, holidays, birthdays.
I had friends at school who didn't have dads around and I was thankful for mine. He worked all the time. I missed him. There were times we'd go over a month without seeing each other awake. I think silently I grew to resent that coal mine. Nearly possessed with providing a safe home and a stable financial future for the four of us. Dad saw what he'd had to put up with and suffer through as a child and he did what I've seen so many of us do as parents. He overcorrected. I was a spoiled little brat for sure. I wanted the cool shoes and the flashy truck and everything else and dad wanted to provide that for me. But more than that, if I'm really honest, I just wanted my dad. I wanted him to be able to come to my basketball games.
I wanted him to be able to come to my birthday parties. I wanted him to teach me everything he knew. But for so many seasons, he couldn't use it work. Selfishers that may have been then, like Argonzo and Grandpa Sergeant Jack was doing, have come to realize that my dad was simply doing his best. And sure I would have loved to have had an around more, but he was doing his very best to provide the life for me that he never had growing up. What he did teach me in the process was work ethic. I watched my dad absolutely grind for more than 20 years. He inspired me to find something I enjoyed and to go all in and I did. As an athletic trainer, I worked nights, weekends, holidays, birthdays. But one day when my daughter wasn't even old enough to walk, I was on the road with the college football team that I was working with. When I came back, I came through the door exhausted and I splashed down on the couch. And my baby girl got up off the floor, walked over and greeted me.
I was amazed. When did this happen? I asked Christie, while you were awake, you were putt. Those four words came crashing down on me as though the ceiling in our home had just collapsed. As a husband with no kids, I knew that Christie had enough going on herself with work in school to stay busy enough to scarcely even notice when I was gone. Or so I told myself. But now the baby girl and the family, when the son, not far down the road, I was confronted with the reality that unless I changed course, this wouldn't be the last first that I'd miss. I knew in that moment that something needed to change and change it did. I finally gave up on my dream of being an NFL athletic trainer later that year. I did manage to squeeze a season of arena football and Florida in between. But the whole family came along and won the most impulsive and absolutely wonderful decisions I've ever made.
But that's a story for another day. The point is, my dad was so afraid of sticking me with a life he had. He swung too far the other direction. And I found myself doing exactly the same thing, albeit in decidedly different ways. I fear that in providing my daughter and my son with everything I wished I'd had growing up, that I've also robbed them of all the good things that growing up on a farm and learning the value of hard work. And working as many as four jobs at a time has taught me. But something Goggins wrote that I read today stuck with me. When effort is your main priority, you stop looking for everything to be enjoyable. You know, enjoyment is tricky. It's addictive. It goes down sweet and easy. But in this season of life, what I'm learning, and when I'm hoping and praying that I'm teaching and modeling to my family and my students.
It's that enjoyment isn't the goal. Effort is. And no one in my life taught me the value of effort, quite like my parents. This week's brick is the modern snow day. Ever since COVID-19 showed us that we can work from home, there's really no such thing as a true day off in most jobs. While I shared in a previous bucket that last week my family and I enjoyed an awesome snow day, when it iced overnight a couple days later. And we got a rare second snow day. Nobody got to enjoy it. We were all too far behind from the day we'd taken off before. As a result, I spent more than 10 hours of a quote-unquote off day writing and responding to emails and being on Zoom calls. My buck at this week is opportunity. I've been more vocal than probably I should have been at work, than I'm hungry for bigger challenges and I want to impact more people.
For whatever reason, I haven't seen the response that I've hoped for and jobs that I thought I'd be grateful haven't really materialized just yet. However, I'm finally starting to realize that if everything would have gone according to my plan, things like this show wouldn't even exist. I'm seeing the value and the season of growth. I'm doing everything I can to become the best version myself that I possibly can. And, thankfully, for not just the victories, I'll put the setbacks to. I know and I believe that my chance is coming. And I'm happy about the direction that's you ahead. What about you? What are you working on or waiting for? And what are you doing in the meantime to get better every day? I'd love to hear about it. Sirphoneovertoundunpodcast.com and drop me a note. I'm Toby Brooks and this has been Word to the Third.
Becoming undone is a nitrihype creative production written and produced by me. Toby Brooks, if you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow this show on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at Becoming UndonePod and follow me at the TobyJ Brooks. Listen, subscribe and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, everybody, keep getting better.