by Tommy Baker
Ask yourself this: Do you feel your physicality is a catalyst to growth in all other areas of life or is it an anchor? For most Americans, the answer is obvious: it’s a Titanic-sized anchor, and only getting worse. Three quarters of American men and 60% of women are categorized as obese or overweight, and now our children are suffering.3
But even if you don’t consider your body an anchor, are you maximizing its potential? Your physicality goes way beyond looking fit at the summer BBQ; what it does to your mind, performance, and creative output is a gamechanger. According to John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,4 exercise creates a pharmacy of chemicals in our brains unlike anything else (including feel-good chemicals serotonin and norepinephrine).
He expands: “It lights a fire on every level of your brain, from stoking up the neurons’ metabolic furnaces to forging the very structures that transmit information from one synapse to the next.” Like anything else, we tend to ignore our health until the crisis hits—and then it’s too late. Here are some ways to know its time for your physical leap:
If you’re feeling sluggish and tired constantly, it’s for you.
If you’ve been on the slow path to a health crisis, it’s for you.
If you’ve lost touch with your body as a tool for growth, it’s for you.
If you’re tired of saying no to what life has to offer because of your body, it’s for you.
If you’re feeling blocked creatively or lacking clarity with your vision, it’s for you.
If you want to experience a new level of challenge and perspective, it’s for you.
Furthermore, the mental confidence and resilience forged by pushing ourselves physically has a direct carry over to other areas of our lives. Your physical leap can light a blowtorch to your business, relationships, and connection to yourself and others.
Waking Up to a Health Crisis
I was toast. My energy is (usually) astronomical in the morning, much to my fiancée’s dismay (she wakes up a little slower, or at what would be considered normal). It had been a few days since I had any energy, so I went to a vitamin IV drip to pump my body full of vitamins.
It didn’t work, and I was out a cool $175. So much for recovery, I thought. Things only got worse, so I booked a massage. I couldn’t finish it, because the therapists touch affected my breathing and caused pain all over my body. It was unbearable.
This isn’t normal, I thought. I’d like to think I know my body decently well, and none of my usual fixes were working. My fiancée had enough, and demanded we’d go to the Urgent Care I said it was a waste of time, but I felt so terrible, I followed through. After a round of tests, they came back with the diagnosis of pneumonia and sent me on my way with some powerful antibiotics.
“Your symptoms should start improving in 72 hours or less.” Tick, tock. Time passed, and nothing changed. I only felt like a bigger boulder had stampeded by entire body. I couldn’t shower, eat, or breathe. Shortness of breath surrounded my experience, and we want back to the urgent care. This time, they told me: You’ve got double pneumonia now.
Finally, that’s when I admitted myself to the emergency room where a test came back with a rare lung condition found in the soil of the dry southwest climate, named Valley Fever. Fungal spores accumulate in the dust, and when breathed in can cause a serious condition. For many, the road to recovery can last anywhere from 6 to 24 months, but symptoms can last forever and spread to other areas of the body.
I was destroyed. For what seemed like weeks, I’d wake up in tears. No energy, and I’d look out to a window of a mountain I used to run up and down freely at full speed. I didn’t know what would happen to my business, which required tremendous energy and face time.
My identity was rocked, and I spent hours alone locked in a closet journaling, thinking and meditating. My story isn’t unique, except for the fact that at the time I was a healthy and fit 31-year-old whose idea of a cheat meal was farmed salmon. Getting rocked by Valley Fever was rare, and a reminder: our health will dictate the quality of our lives. Without it, we don’t have much. It was a tough pill to swallow, and the recovery called for anywhere from eight months to a lifetime of symptoms.
If you’re out there reading this and have been neglecting your foundation, think again; your physical leap is your opportunity to reverse the damage that’s been done. You don’t want your health to become the ultimate roadblock to your dreams, and the best time to start was yesterday. The second-best time is right now.
A Deeper Reason for a Powerful Result
Regardless of the physical leap you choose to step into, there must be a deeper reason behind it. We’re conditioned to choose physical goals and outcomes for half-hearted, vanity-laden reasons: look better, lose 15 pounds, and get ready for the wedding. However, these rarely last. Without a deeper why, we lose interest a few weeks after we started.
That’s one model, and it’s not working. Instead, you’ll have to develop a reason for your physical leap, one you can lean on during the difficult times. There will be plenty of times when you don’t want to train or push yourself. There will be days you want to sleep in. But if your why is strong enough, you won’t listen to those voices looking to make sure you play small. Develop your why, and never look back.
Your powerful why may be the way you show up for your family or the people you love. It could be about getting to know who you are and building deep confidence. It could be about seeing what you’re made of or setting an example for others.
What is your why? As you read through the rest of this chapter, keep asking that question in the back of your mind and don’t stop until you feel it.
Leap Tip: Big Dreams Require Big Energy
Years ago, I ditched training myself physically for vanity. Sure, looking great is fun, but here’s what I know to be true: big dreams require tons of energy. The great news is: once you commit to training for performance, you stop skipping workouts and get all the aesthetic benefits.
Why do you train? Connect your physicality, vitality, health, and energy to your leap and you will never dread a workout again.
What Your Physical Leap Will Reveal
Your physical leap will change you. You’re going to experience the tangible physical benefits that come with making a bold decision for your physicality, and yet that’s barely scratching the surface. When done the right way, your physical leap will create a catalyst effect to open up doors you could have never imagined.
Abraham Maslow is considered one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century. In a landmark paper published in 1943, he revealed what drives human behavior and motivation by identifying a hierarchy of needs. Used worldwide, the impact this model has had is unquantifiable.
The core premise is simple: as human beings, we have needs and those needs must be met before we can fully develop and grow into the next stage. If we don’t have our basic needs of food, water, shelter, and rest, we can’t move on to the higher levels: safety needs, relationship and love needs, self-esteem needs, and self-actualization.
Enter what I call the Homeless Paradox: I can go to my local street corner, and find people living there or begging for cash. If I got out of the car and presented them with say, Think and Grow Rich and sat them down to teach them the lessons, they (likely) wouldn’t care. The information would pass right through them. Why? Because they’re thinking about their next sandwich, and how they’re going to make it through the pending thunderstorm the same evening.
This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in practice, and while I’ll assume you’re not on the street, it applies. For the purpose of your physical leap, the premise is simple: if you’re unwilling to focus on your physical growth and needs, it becomes difficult to maximize your potential. The easiest entry for transformation in the rest of our lives is the physical.
Here’s what to expect once you commit to your physical leap:
Learning about who you are. There is no faster way
to find out what you’re made of than pursuing your physical leap. Often, people who I may have mutual connections with or have known through social media will ask me out to coffee. I’ll usually defer and come back with:
“How about we meet at [mountain] at sunrise on Wednesday, instead?” The reason is simple: I want to dig deeper into who this person is and create an authentic connection. Sitting in a comfortable Starbucks in a crisp 69-degree room doesn’t reveal character, and we end up barely scratching the surface. No, I’m not a Navy Seal commander. What I want to know is what kind of grit you have when life gets a little hard. It’s not about performance, it’s about attitude. Which is exactly one of the key benefits of your physical leap: you learn a lot about yourself when life gets spicy.
Reconnect with your temple. We get one vessel for this experience and we sure as hell don’t act like it. Years of pounding our bodies with caffeine, stimulants, alcohol, sugar, and little sleep have created a disconnection with the most adaptable machine on the planet: our bodies.
The effects of this disconnection are devastating, including: an inability to experience life fully and say yes to all she has to offer. Beyond optimizing your health and ensuring you’ve done everything to make sure you’re here to stay, reconnecting with your temple leads to making better decisions on a daily basis, for example:
You’ll be less likely to eat sugar when you’re stressed.
You’ll be less likely to drink toxic alcohol when life gets hard.
You’ll be less likely to wake up with no energy, all while facing a 14-hour day.
Experience countless (life) lessons. Our physicality is a source of endless wisdom and lessons about life. Want to quit when the training session gets hard? You’ll do the same in your marriage. Want to shortcut reps and cheat your way to a score? You’ll do the same in business. Want the easy path, infomercial six-pack-abs in a week result? You won’t endure when you’re six months in and still not there.
Training physically provides a myriad of life lessons about what it means to develop discipline, persistence, grit, and fortitude when faced with challenge. My obsession with pushing my body to the extreme started from wanting to know a little more about who I was when life got hard. I wanted to see what I had inside, what I was made of, and how I would respond to adversity.
Have the vitality to pursue growth. Finally, life requires a tremendous amount of energy daily. Simply from a physiological standpoint, the amount of energy it takes for your body to keep you alive is remarkable. But that’s just square one. Your physical leap will provide the energy and vitality to bring your life’s vision and make it real. Often, people are simply held back by not having enough energy to follow through on their dreams.
The Spirit of Kokoro
Mark Divine knows a little something about physical performance. A former Navy SEAL who finished first in his BUD/S class, Divine commands presence at a moment’s notice. You can feel his energy from a mile away; this is a man who’s been through the fire a few times, and he won’t take your bullshit.
Upon retiring from active duty, Divine wanted to find a way to bring the lessons, fortitude, and real-world life skills he learned from his experience to the everyday person. He knew the gifts he received from his training were needed today, leading to the launch of SEALFIT, a physical and mental online and in person platform to help people become their best selves starting with intense physical training.
One of these experiences, which Divine aptly calls crucibles, is named Kokoro. The Japanese word for heart, Kokoro brands itself as “the most difficult training available to civilians.”5 And universally, it lives up to its title, spanning 50+ hours of hell-week-style training where attendees are pushed to their limits on little to no sleep. No full starting roster has ever finished together, and the pass rate hovers around 30%. But Kokoro isn’t simply about crushing people; anyone can do that. What Kokoro does is strategic and designed to tap into something much deeper. During an interview with Mark, he expands:
Within hours, you realize it’s not about the physical as that burns out quick. Without sleep, you are being tested mentally in all types of ways without any solution. With the mental burn out, you get to an emotional place where you dissolve your ego and ask your teammates to help or help them. Once they go through this, the intuitive part of us comes through and you experience powerful clarity and flow. Lastly, you experience the spiritual mountain, or what we call warrior spirit, this is Kokoro. Knowing who you are at the core.6
This is the power of a physical challenge and leap: by opening the door, we get to experience transformational shifts as long as we’re willing to dig deep and push what we believed were our limits. Now, I get it: you may not be looking to experience hell week with Navy SEAL veterans screaming in your face for 50+ hours. Again, it’s not about the size of the leap, it’s about what it does for you.
Types of Physical Leaps
So, which physical leap are you going to take? There are countless options, but here are some common leaps designed to take you to the next level, regardless of where you’re starting from today.
Physical Leap 1: The Call to Adventure
One of the most effective ways to create a powerful physical leap is to wrap it around an experience. This can be seeing a part of the country or world known for its vastness and beauty, where you must earn your view. Not only will having a compass of an experience guide you every step of the way, you’re able to create a lifelong memory to anchor your leap. The awe and wonder of the experience will determine your level of intensity through the process, and will no doubt create a shift in your perspective and possibility.
What this looks and feels like is up to you. There are countless options available to you. For some, that may be entering a physical crucible similar to Kokoro where you’re tested beyond your limits. For others, that may be headed to Mount Rainier and climbing 14,411 feet. The adventure leap in regard to your physicality includes a specific experience, a deadline with a date and time, and a stretch of your (current) physical abilities.
Physical Leap 2: The Radical Lifestyle Shift
The second physical leap is all about committing to a radical lifestyle shift with your physicality and lifestyle. It’s Rich’s story from being an overweight, out of shape, 39-year-old to turning your diet to plant- based and committing to endurance races. It’s deciding to completely revamp a part of your life where there’s no way out, and zero chance you’ll go back to your old ways.
One of the best ways to create a radical shift is to commit to an everyday practice with your physical leap. Want to start a yoga practice? Commit to 30 days in a row. Want to shift your diet? Throw out all your food and go keto for the next 30 days. While radical shifts require a lot of initial energy, after two or three weeks you’ll start adapting and it will become your new normal.
Physical Leap 3: Stepping into the Ring
Sometimes, you’ve got to step into the ring. Figuratively and literally, the third physical leap is about taking the bold step of entering a new arena of sport. One of the best ways to ensure the success of your physical leap is to wrap it around the commitment of a new sport. It’s a surefire way to increase enthusiasm, dedication, and find something new to invigorate your discipline on a daily basis.
This physical leap could look like committing to a boxing or martial arts practice, a new sport such as endurance running, swimming, mountain biking, or functional fitness and countless others.
This year, I stepped into the ring of the mountain bike world and even though I’d had a decade of physical training, it re-inspired every part of my training, nutrition, and lifestyle. I was having the time of my life while getting in grueling training sessions. This is where you find the best of both worlds: the sport or activity is so fun to you that you don’t realize how hard you’re training.
Most importantly, you eliminate the constant use of willpower to enslave yourself to the gym and, instead, you are choosing to do something you already like. The
key, again, is to truly commit and go all in—which we’ll discuss below to ensure your success.
How to Create Your Own
If hiking one of the nation’s hardest mountains or stepping into a boxing ring sounds daunting to you, don’t fret. I’m giving extreme examples to show what’s possible for you, but ultimately, make it your own, based on where you find yourself today, and what feels right to you.
What will make or break your physical leap are the core essentials to make sure it sticks. Remember: your leap is not a halfhearted decision in which you throw in the towel after a few weeks.
Let’s examine how to ensure your success every step of the way:
Commit or don’t start. Unless you’re all in, don’t start. Commitment in this case is binary, and often with big physical challenges or initiatives, people start half-hearted and give themselves a way out. Not here. Once you commit, understand you will have days and moments when the enthusiasm of committing to your physical leap has faded. It doesn’t matter, because you’re staying committed to your word and following through for much bigger reasons.
Enroll others and build your tribe. Your physical leap will need a powerful foundation of support, urgency, and accountability. Rolling solo, for most people, is a terrible strategy that never lasts. The great news is there’s never been more access to hyper-specific communities who are taking all kinds of leaps and adventures with their physicality. Enroll people or join a tribe that will push you when you don’t want it.