Bobby Rock

The Bobby Rock Newsletter #30 (10-21-2021) - Embracing Failure

Welcome back, friends!

I’m here in the LA groove, doing the usual juggling act of engaging various projects within multiple ventures… while keeping an eye on the Dodgers (end of season), the Lakers (beginning of season), and the Texans (mid-season), wondering why ANY of that shit should matter to me at all. (Another conversation, for sure.)

But for this week, let's talk about Embracing Failure: a concept that every human—and any sports fan—will have to come to terms with at some point if we don’t want to lose our minds!

In this Issue:

• “A Truckload of Rejection:” Learning a valuable lesson about reconciling our failures from writing guru, Steven Pressfield.
  
  
• Cardio Factor: Yes, I say, we must move the iron. But we also gotta tax our cardiovascular system regularly if we want to enjoy top level health and fitness. Here’s the quick overview on how…
  
  
• Geniuses Run Late: At least that's what we’ve always told ourselves… but now science concurs!
  

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Embracing Failure

Steven Pressfield is a seasoned sage of the writing world. He has penned numerous novels and screenplays, as well as a series of best-selling non-fiction titles aimed at writers and other creatives—all of which I have devoured through the years—including Do the Work, Turning Pro, The Artist’s Journey and his must-read masterwork, The War of Art.  

Obviously, the guy is a hell of a writer. But one of the reasons I believe his non-fiction work resonates with so many is because he has always written with an unflinching transparency about his own experiences as a writer… and the untold amount of struggle and strife he’s had to deal with through the years. Looking for another “How to Pen a Best-seller in 30 Days” type of vibe? You’ll have to look elsewhere. Pressfield’s work is built around the grind, the long-game, the daily engagement of process, and the never-ending battle against "Resistance with a capital R”—which remains at the core of his thesis. Likewise, his personal journey has been brutal, and he’ll be the first to tell you about it in a way that is both self-effacing and encouraging.

Which brings us to a compelling video he recently posted in one of his weekly emails:

The theme of the email was “A Truckload of Rejection.” In it, he wrote about our culture’s tendency to celebrate and highlight all of the wins, the victories, the trophies, the accolades, and the "best-sellers," even pointing out that his own website does this. (Whose doesn’t?) 

In the video, we see Pressfield loading a number of storage bins into his truck, each packed with his various unpublished (AKA rejected) novels and screenplays. And believe me, as a writer, I could feel my sphincter clench at the thought of the untold amount of hours he invested in every single one of those works, only to watch them all retire to the solitary confinement of a storage facility, never to be read again. I could literally feel his pain, mainly because I, too, have my own backlog of such work (along with that graveyard of ancient cassette demos that so many of my old school musician colleagues still have).

"All the published work you see from a writer is just the tip of the iceberg," Pressfield says. "The rest of it is (unseen) below the surface, but you still need to write it.”

It was a poignant, real-life embodiment of the dogged work ethic—and the sheer volume of output—Steven encourages us to cultivate in our own practice if we want to be professionals.

Point well taken.

And then, here’s where my mind went:

Stephen Pressfield is a bad motherfucker based on all of the great books he’s published. But what role did these unpublished failures have in his ability to write all of those published successes? A major one, I would guess. 

And likewise, I would submit: Don’t we all have that “truckload of rejection” in our own experience? Maybe our failures are not in hard-copy form like Steven’s, but my guess is that most humans have a truckload of failed ideas, projects, interactions, proposals, and various other works that either bombed-out or never went anywhere, and then were filed away in some forgotten scrap heap. And while we all want to forget about most of them, isn’t there some merit in acknowledging that these failures have been part of our own personal “school of hard knocks” curriculum that has inevitably played some crucial role in where we are today?

In other words, these supposed failures have all been at least as important to our current level of evolution as our successes, if not more so. In fact, I would argue they have likely been most essential to our growth and development because, after all, how much do we really learn on those occasions when we experience rousing success?

Final Thought

To a lesser degree, I think we may also classify something as a failure because it was either never completed (my specialty), or it never got out there enough to ever truly be rejected! Still, though, the work and effort invested in an unfinished, back-burnered, or poorly marketed project never withers in vain. You still had to do the “reps.“ You still had to log the time. And that level of in-the-trenches work always matters, even if that particular project never bore any obvious fruit—or at least hasn’t yet.

So here’s to doing the work and reaping the fruits—even if the harvest winds up in a different field.

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The Cardio Factor

With so much of our effort focused on lifting weights for maximum muscular conditioning, we have to remember the importance of cardiovascular training, as well. Cardio work is not only essential for our overall state of health and wellness, but also for “going the distance” in virtually any kind of arduous performing or training environment, including weightlifting.

Cardio training involves those aerobic activities that condition the heart, lungs, and circulatory system. These include running, cycling, swimming, kickboxing, brisk walking, and pretty much any other activity that jacks up your heart rate, including the use of classic cardio equipment like the treadmill, elliptical, stationary bike, and Stairmaster. You can either engage a single, preferred cardio exercise for every workout or switch it up each time. The only real guidelines are that you do some cardio work at least three times a week, for a minimum 30 minutes per session, and that your heart rate stays consistently elevated throughout the workout.

Running has been my primary choice of cardio for years, 

but it’s certainly not the only option...

Here are a few other suggestions:

1. Warm-up/Cool Down: Always start your cardio workout with a five-minute warm-up and end it with a five-minute cool down.  This will aid the body in a smooth transition to and from the increased heart rate, and also help to avoid injury or undue fatigue.

2. Weights First, Cardio Second: When doing cardio and weight-training in the same workout, always do your cardio training after lifting for maximum benefit. This way, you will utilize most of your glycogen (carbohydrate) stores in the muscles for optimal weightlifting intensity, which will then cause the body to utilize more fat stores during your cardio work afterward. 

3. Intensity Level: (For general conditioning.) On an intensity scale of one to ten (with ten being max capacity), maintain your cardio workout at a level seven; vigorous enough to get the heart pumping, but not too intense that you couldn’t maintain a conversation. 

4. Circuit Training: On those occasions when you’re pressed for time and you need to combine your lifting and cardio in one quick workout, perform three to five weight-training exercises back-to-back, with no rest between sets. This will keep your heart rate elevated and essentially turn your lifting session into a cardio workout.

5. Multitask: When using cardio equipment at home or in the gym, consider reading, returning phone calls, or listening to music or audiobooks.  This can help make your cardio workout time even more of a "non-negotiable" part of your lifestyle.

Commit to cardio training as a lifelong activity and enjoy more energy and endurance, less body fat, greater health and conditioning, and the likelihood of a longer lifespan.

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Always Running Late? Don’t Fret.
You Might Be a Successful, Optimistic Genius!

Okay, so here’s an interesting tidbit. I continue to run across science that attributes being late all the time to being wildly creative, hopelessly optimistic, and even successful in your work. Why? Here are the bulletpoints as I see them:

1A) Optimistic folks tend to be “overly optimistic” about how much time they really have… or how long things are going to take before they can head out to that appointment or engagement. 

2A) Super creative types tend to lose track of time, given their propensity to fall into “flow state” as they engage the frontal lobe of the brain. (Losing track of time is one of the more well-researched symptoms of frontal lobe engagement.) This can lead to being late.

3A) Many people perceived as successful—especially the mover and shaker types—are often big-time multi-taskers… which can definitely hold you up as you struggle to juggle it all.

If any of this sounds familiar, here are a few “note to self” reminders of how to counter these issues (because I, more than anyone, need to get this!):

1B) Redirect your optimism about how much time you have—to an optimism about your ability to be on time—by taking a skeptical view on the unexpected nature of life. Shit happens, things pop up, prep time takes longer than we think… let’s stay ahead of the curve. You can do this! (My attempt at "optimism"...)

2B) Losing track of time is great because it’s typically a sign that we are tapping into our best mode of thinking and creating. But there’s no reason not to schedule these kinds of sessions. We really can decide on a starting and ending time to delve into this timeless space without any compromise to the quality of our frontal lobe engagement. Set an alarm to bring you back to reality… and to get you rolling on time for your next thing.

Note: If you really think it's impossible to "plan" for your loss-of-time creative periods, just ask a child how bothered they are that their recess periods are structured. No problem! If they can jump right into the zone, so can we (although it might take us "more sensible" adults a few more minutes).

3B) Virtually all of the latest and greatest neuroscience shows us that it’s the consistent, uninterrupted stretches of concentrated effort that strengthens our brains the most (and yields our most productive work), while the constant shuffling around inherent to multitasking does neither! Multitasking is seldom, if ever, in our best interest, and should never be a reason why we’re late… regardless of the popular cultural perception of “busy-ness."

Good luck, my fellow geniuses!

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Thanks again for being here, folks! Connect next week...

Until then,

BR

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