the w0nd3r: #11 - Persistence

Greetings Beautiful People

Rock Band Anvil formed in 1978
Link to original image @ revolvermag.com

Thanks for all your emails, support and videos, I really appreciate them. They inspire me and make this a lot easier to put together so please keep 'em coming. I've now got TWW blog page set up so I'll post the next entry online.

This week’s edition is inspired by the Video of the Week, sent to me by Big Saul (www.freeindex.co.uk/profile(saul-neill)_89827.htm), acupuncturist, martial arts practitioner/teacher, and generally splendid soul. Thanks mate - if you’re ever in Cornwall and you need some acupuncture, Saul is your man.

I dedicate this to any of you going through a tough time, keep going, TWW is rooting for you.

1) QOTW
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Calvin Coolidge

“Great success is built on failure, frustration, even catastrophe.”
Sumner Redstone

2) Story – 100,000
It’s 1am and I’m shadow-boxing in my living room, a tradition which stretches back over 30 years now I think about it. At its outset it was a highly sophisticated combination of punching, kicking and dancing which included spectacular flying kicks off the family sofa - luckily for my neighbours I’ve toned it down a bit over the years. I am just 200 straight right hands (a boxing technique) away from completing the 100,000 Technique Challenge (another www.geoffthompson.com concept) and I am buzzing. My right shoulder hurts but I keep going, a stupid grin slapped across my Chevy Chase as I finally reach the bastard target.

I feel a high, that rush of endorphins you get whenever you complete a difficult task and I sit down to enjoy it for a moment, the magic number writ large in my boxing journal and punctuated with the utterance of a few of my favourite expletives. Right now it doesn’t matter that I started at the end of January and it has taken me more than twice the amount of time I originally intended. It also doesn’t matter that I took breaks or stopped altogether on a few occasions. During the process I learned a lot and not just about how to throw a right hand. I found new ways to incorporate training into my day at home and at work and even in-between, persuading the odd member of the public to cross the road...

“Hey man! Every time I see you you’re punching fresh air!”
Neighbour

I learned what my limits were and I extended them, there were days I threw over 3000 and times when I couldn’t train for several days because of the pain in my right shoulder. There were also times when I was sure the technique was getting worse. But the point is I didn’t give up, and that along with the fact 100,000 is quite a large number makes achieving the goal pretty sweet. I pat myself on the back that night and sleep like a champion, but the next day I find that the satisfaction is short-lived. One hundred thousand. For months the number hung over my head like a neverending piece of homework, but now without that goal training feels…empty.

In Psychocybernetics, Dr Maxwell Maltz posits that human beings are teleological, that we need to have goals to aim for in order for our lives to have a sense of purpose. In Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl takes this idea even further, he says that the goal of writing about his experiences one day was what enabled him to survive the horrors of a concentration camp. For him and the POWs around him having something to look forward to was literally a matter of life or death. Some psychologists argue that one definition of a suicidal person is someone who doesn’t have any goals.

Athletes who win gold medals often say that the euphoria of victory is quickly followed by an anti-climatic emptiness and a new challenge is needed to fill the void or they can get depressed. They transform this emptiness into the hunger for the next achievement. I had a similar comedown after the high of my first fight. After months of training, running, sparring you experience 6 of the most intense minutes of your life followed by a high quite unlike any other, but then the smoke clears and you’re thinking: “…is that it?”

So, the day after I finished I started working on a different technique – only 87 000 more jabs to go. Is there a masseuse in the house?

Epilogue
Five days after completing the 100k Technique Challenge I am training at an amateur club when Mark, a former London Amateur champion at light-middleweight, shows me how to throw a right hand with different mechanics…an easier more efficient way which generates a lot more power.

It’s just as well I’ve got a sense of humour.

3) Persistent People
-Thomas Edison had approximately 1000 unsuccessful attempts at making the light bulb.
-Gertrude Steiner submitted poetry for 20 years before a piece of her work was accepted by an editor.
-In his lifetime Van Gogh sold one painting, and that was to the sister of a friend for £50. This didn’t stop him finishing 800 paintings.
-Sidney Poitier’s was told he should become a dishwasher after his first audition – this was when he decided to dedicate himself to the craft of acting.
-JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone was rejected by 12 publishers.
-“Human Lightning Conductor” Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning 7 times in a span of 35 years and survived every strike - it got so bad people started avoiding him. He continued to work as a park ranger and lived to the ripe old age of 71...then he shot himself.
-Paradise Lost was written 16 years after John Milton went blind.

4) Song of the Week – Keep on by Infinite