Lions, And Tigers, And Bears, Oh My!

Eric Karls • June 19, 2024

Don't make little tings bigger than they are.

One of my absolute favorite parts of coaching, no matter if it’s fitness, nutrition, or awesomeness, is how much I learn from the people I work with. The biggest lesson, we are all the same! We all deal with the same anxiety, depression, stress, fear, and the list goes on and on. Now it may be too different degrees, but the biggest factor isn’t to what degree, but how we deal with it.

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one” ~Bruce Lee

Dealing with it also isn’t always a matter of our coping skills, sometimes it’s our ability to control the level that we allow fear to get to in the first place. This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Box Pro Magazine 8or 9 years ago. Heads up, the article was geared to CrossFit Affiliate owners, but the over-all point of the article applies to us all.
 
I was walking my dog the other day and out of nowhere a tigerjumped out from behind the bushes and tried to attack us. Cocois a 6-pound Yorkshire Terrier, so the tiger was no match, butit’s mentally draining to be on high alert because of the constant dangers ofthe outside world.
OK, I may have embellished that story slightly. The tiger may havebeen the neighbor’s cat that actually ran away, and Cocoprobably only weighs about 5 pounds, but the rest of it is dead onaccurate.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mike Beldsoe and Markus Gerski of 
Barbell Business. My aspirations for the interview: Avoid the stock questions and hit them with a Tim Ferriss intellect and the conversational coolness of a Joe Rogan. I would provide them untold value in the article I subsequently wrote and leave them wanting more. I envisioned an invite out toSan Diego for a mobility session of clubs and maces followed by shooting the shit over mushroom tea.
 
What does walking my dog and high hopes for an interview have anything to do with each other? The over manifestation of fears and perfect scenario expectations leaves our ancestral danger eversion instincts to run wild. This coupled with a healthy dose of ego preservation can lead to paralysis and subpar performance. The two together is a recipe for anxiety, stagnation and lack of fulfillment. The same feelings many Box owners struggle with on a daily basis. Maybe not because of tigers or an interview, but you can fill in the blanks.


So here’s how my day goes. First the tiger thing happens with my dog, I fuck up the scheduling with my wife, and I end up doing the phone interview from the front seat of my wife’s minivan in the parking lot of my 2-year old’s daycare. I’m in a less than positive mental place and have just enough time to do the interview, and then get in and grab my daughter before they send her to the room where all the kids have to go when their over scheduled parents forget to pick them up. Nothing catastrophic, but mix in a little self-imposed fear and a dash of ego preservation and I’ve created a scenario that seems worse than it is.


So here we go, first question: “Tell me about Barbell Logic.” I can hear 
Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!” Not a stupid question, but also not one of the Ferriss or Rogan caliber questions I had envisioned. Markus and Mike go into a brilliant description of their product. The interview continues, and my fears and ego start to slip away and the conversation hits it’s stride. We explored how the key to success in business and life is the ever pursuit of personal growth. To grow we must face our fears, control our egos, and put attacks by tigers and minivan van interviews into perspective.


See the tigers in your life as what they are— just cats. Turn your minivan into the ultimate sound studio with heated seats and back seat multimedia center. Use uncomfortable as a sign of growth and something to run toward and not away from. Make a paradigm shift to making comfortable the enemy. 

The point is that fear is something we manifest in our own minds. 

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”~Seneca

So the big question, “Why do we turn small thing into big fears?” I’m about4 years shy of a 4 year psychology degree, but the only answer I can come up with is “who the fuck knows?!?!” What I do know, is what we really should be afraid of. We should be afraid of not facing our fears, we should be afraid of playing it safe, we should be afraid of not taking the path less traveled, the hard way, we should be afraid of not taking chances. I’ve never heard anyone say at the end of their life, “I’m really glad I never tried, playing it safe was exciting, and not using all of the talent God gave me was good idea.”
 
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside ina cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming"Wow! What a Ride!” ~Hunter S. Thompson
 


In Strength,
 
Eric Karls M.Ed.

CrossFit Conductor

Chief Awesomeness
En gineer
Certified Level 3 CrossFit Coach


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