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I Got Fired So I Initiated The Protocol



What do you do when life kicks you hard, below the belt? Have you ever been fired, divorced, lost a close friend or family member, house burned down? Maybe all of them in one day? It's amazing how much shit can hit us in an instant and even more amazing how some people are able to overcome and rise like a phoenix yet some never truly recover and wallow in despair and misery. What's the difference between them?

 

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities - brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems." John W. Gardner

 

My belief is that the only difference is mindset. Gardner's quote above sums it up. If you're looking at every problem like it's an opportunity to grow, you're going to own it and be thankful for the chance to overcome it. I'm an old infantry soldier so a morbid sense of humour is a really good antidote to fucked up scenarios but the mindset that the infantry instills in its soldiers is one of a growth mindset.

Only recently, once I left the army and started my teaching career and graduate study did I come across a great book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. Her thesis is based on the idea that you can have two different mindsets that can set yourself up for success or not. Essentially, A growth mindset is one that encounters a challenging problem, for instance a job loss, and rather than think, "Holy shit I'm never going to be able to get back on my feet," you say, "I'm not back on my feet yet." This produces a cognitive shift to find novel solutions and adopt an openness for change. The latter is what is called a fixed mindset and Dweck maintains that this is the one that leads to pessimism because one believes that they cannot develop new skills and that the skills and knowledge they have is fixed. An example of this is the athlete who says, "I'm a bad runner, I've got short legs, I'll never be able to run 5km in under 25 minutes."

Really? Never?

When I was a young buck, I secretly yearned to become a SOF warrior. I started running my guts out at the track and started really improving my strength levels and then, bam, I got hit with a virus that took me out for the better part of a year. With all my progress lost, I succumbed to the fear based impulses of my reptilian brain and accepted that I'd probably never make it anyways. If my thirty-seven year old self could go talk to my twenty-one year old self, it would be a very one sided conversation with plenty of knife-handing and chest poking.

 

"There's always a way - if you're committed" Tony Robbins

 

This fixed mindset usually starts to manifest itself in high school; I know, I used to see it every day when I was a math teacher. "I'm just not good in math, my mom wasn't good either." Like somehow, there's a genetic transference of shitty math skills like eye colour. There was a transference, however, but not of genes but of mindset. Look at children before they reach their teenage years and they believe than can literally do anything, for the most part, or are at least receptive to a new idea. Once high school rolls around, our world begins to become a lot more difficult which is a reflection of the complexity of the problems we need to solve. Think back, yourself, to that moment in high school or maybe it was college where your said, "I'll never get this, fuck it, time for some MarioKart." We all had one, how did you overcome? Or did you? Did you reflect upon it? These are important parts of what I call the PROTOCOL.

I was inspired to write my protocol based on a podcast done by Jocko Willink awhile back. It was based on how to handle break ups but resonated with me since he outlined, in his stoic fashion, how to get aggressive and get back on the "warpath"after a set back. Here's a transcript from Jocko Podcast #3:

 

When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that is going to come from it…

Oh, the mission got cancelled? — Good…. We can focus on the other one.

Didn’t get the new high speed gear we wanted? — Good…. We can keep it simple.

Didn’t get promoted? — Good…. More time to get better.

Didn’t get funded? — Good…. We own more of the company.

Didn’t get the job you wanted? — Good…. You can get more experience and build a better resume.

Got injured? — Good… Needed a break from training.

Got tapped out? — Good…. It’s better to tap out in training, then tap out in the street.

Got beat? — Good…. You learned.

Unexpected problems? — Good…. We have the opportunity to figure out a solution.

That’s it. When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out, don’t get startled, don’t get frustrated…. No.

You just look at the issue and you say “Good”.

And I don’t mean to say something all cliché and I don’t mean to sound like “Mr. Positive”. Find the positive, but do that! Focus on the good. Take that issue, take that problem, and make it something good. It’ll bring that attitude to your team too! You go forward.

And lastly, to close this out. If you can say the word “Good”, guess what….it means you’re still alive. It means you’re still breathing. And if you’re still breathing, well then you still got some fight left in you.

So get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, reengage, and go out on the attack!

 

With my clients we go through how our weekly wins and losses and how to overcome and smash through our goals.

Not getting stronger? Good. We need to mix up our methods in the gym.

Can't put on weight? Good. Time to figure out a better nutrition plan.

This process is based on habit formation but also on the idea that any goal can be attained with the right mindset. Therefore, I have them read and reflect. All the benchpress and fitness tests in the world won't do you any damn good if you crumble once presented with an unexpected challenge to your progress.

Here are life's 10 biggest stressors;

  1. Death of a spouse (or child*): 100

  2. Divorce: 73

  3. Marital separation: 65

  4. Imprisonment: 63

  5. Death of a close family member: 63

  6. Personal injury or illness: 53

  7. Marriage: 50

  8. Dismissal from work: 47

  9. Marital reconciliation: 45

  10. Retirement: 45

There are plenty more but I'll calculate my score based on what I've been going through.

Personal injury or illness: 53

Dismissal from work: 47

Pregnancy: 40

Change in financial state: 38

Change to a different line of work: 36

Change in number of arguments with spouse: 35

Mortgage over $20,000 (updated for 2018 = ~$150,000): 31

Christmas approaching: 12

For a grand total of 292!! Big Winner Chicken Dinner!

According to the scale:

  • 80% likelihood of illness for scores over 300

  • 50% likelihood of illness for scores between 150-299

  • 30% likelihood of illness for scores less than 150

So, I'm skirting the line of becoming ill due to stress but thankfully, I haven't succumbed to any illness to date and I attribute that to feeling in charge of my destiny because I wrote out my Hardship Protocol. I wrote this out immediately after being let go. The greater intent is to pass it along not only to you but my children so they can learn from their dad's experience and have a framework for becoming resilient. Here's The Protocol:

 

The Protocol - To be initiated when life kicks you in the pills

Step 1: Thank your boss/partner/wife for the experience, then;

  1. Call your wife/partner/best friend

  2. Treat yourself to a latte

  3. Get to work and start thinking of your next move

  4. Run 8 miles HARD & FAST or something equally physically painful

  5. Play a game of something with your son/buddy

  6. Write your Battle Plan (write what you intend to do, the first mission in seeing out your intent, how your going to execute it and what resources you're going to need to do it!)

  7. Go to bed early

  8. Get up at o'dark thirty the next morning

Step 2: Work on your improving yourself. What have you been putting off that would make you a better employee/member of society? For me this was;

  1. Finish my project management certification modules

  2. Finish my paper on concussion management for submission to PhD program.

  3. Take business courses on marketing.

Step 3: Actionable steps and habits you can adopt right now. Mine were and still are;

  1. Volunteering

  2. Attend networking meetings

  3. Push broadly into networks.

  4. PT everyday

  5. Wake up 0500

Step 4: Write out your Perfect Day. This is crucial. If you don't have your vision for the future then all your efforts are lost in the sauce. Don't skip this step;

Sea air mixed with brewed coffee swirl around in my nostrils and I take a moment to write down my goals for the day. I have an important conference call regarding my newest school project being built in Africa. I’ll also need to find some time for a little gift for my assistant who lives in town.

After my call, I can go crush some heavy deadlifts. I’m heading to the gym I own just down the street. I love the people here and I still teach one class a day to stay sharp and interact with my community.

After training, I make a huge breakfast with my wife and we sit outside and enjoy the sun. It’s time for a 30 min siesta in the hammock.

Before supper, I’m volunteering at the local school to help teach English and science. Once this is complete, I head back home, all by bicycle, to ask X how his day was at school and grab a nice cold beer and sit on the patio. The day is nearing completion and we eat a lite supper of squid and antipasti and go to bed early after reading a good book and making out for like 15 mins.

 

I'm far from being out of the woods and this all speaks to a greater issue of veteran transition into the civilian workforce. I'll be sure to write something about this topic in the near future. Whatever your method for overcoming set backs, it's really important to remember that you can't do it alone. We're conditioned in the military to "sort your shit out" and its implication is that you have to dig deep and do it on your own. Well, I can assure you that, yes, introspection is really important but when you're on the receiving end of life's shit stick, you need to call in support. I'm always free for a chat but there are also great networks of really supportive veterans on Linkedin and Facebook that have been become massively important for me as well.

I'm far from any sort of veteran transition guru but I know that whether you use my Protocol template or not, the big picture is that you create a plan to deal with adversity and gain some control of your situation. I know this works because I'm living it right now; my vision is clear, my objectives defined and my resolve, hardened.

Deadlifting With My Mom

Updated: Feb 7, 2019



There are some things that you can safely assume will never happen in your life, like; successfully helping a Nigerian prince find his fortune, getting a royal flush an

d watching the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley cup. Add to that list, for me, deadlifting with my mother.

Anyone that has known me for any appreciable amount of time knows that I really enjoy smashing a WOD at my Crossfit box.

Q: How do you know someone does Crossfit?

A: They won’t shut the f@ck up about it!

With that being said, I’ve been drinking the Crossfit CoolAid for over a decade now. I remember my first WOD was in 2008 at Carleton University. I was the platoon second in command for a drill team in Ottawa that summer. On our barrack’s floor we had a whiteboard for timings etc. One day, I go up and on the board is written, “Boys, we’re doing Fran today”.

“Ah shit.” I thought. “Gotta stomp this out, toute suite. Not happening on my watch.”

So a quick chat with one of my section leaders clarified that there was nothing to worry about and that it was just one of the “Nasty Girls” WODs from this mystical organization called Crossfit.

“C’mon Sarge, you should try it. It’ll be fun.” He said.

21-15-9 later of pull ups and thrusters, I’m a heap of sweat and agony but I’ve unlocked a part of my brain that hadn’t been activated for a long while, the part that loves pain and misery, the part that kept me in the infantry in the first place; I was hooked.

So, I couldn’t swing my arms properly on parade for the next week and I was chewing Advils like smarties but I had to learn more. That’s where my journey began and where I really dove into the Crossfit main site and literally started picking up barbells for the first time and trying all the “dangerous” exercises that my high school coaches advised me not to do.

I returned to my unit that fall with this crazy new idea that we need to adopt this way of training to be 'fit to fight'. We incorporated it into our recce teams and then went ahead and built our own, literal, Crossfit box filled with anything we could get our hands on that wasn’t mechanical. I’m proud to say it’s still there and I was just using the gear that is in it, last week.

Crossfit is what got my head right and my body forged before I deployed in 2010. With the amount of gear we carried and the crushing demands on the body carrying all of it in 40+ degree heat, not being fit wasn’t an option. I acquired proof that their methodology worked. I was double hooked.

Ok, so how does a training system that is proven to get warriors into fighting shape relate to lifting with my mother? Well, I realized that this just isn’t for warriors, it’s for anyone who wants to stay in the fight. Life is just a real long round in the octagon. You’re gonna take some hard body shots at some point and might even get pinned a few times but you gotta break free, get up and get on the offensive. That’s what my mother did.

My mother is the reason why I’m a hard charger.

She was a teacher her whole career and still imposes fear into grown ass men that were taught by her. She even had my first ever section commander standing at attention over the phone when he called for me during dinner time. She takes the bull by the horns and gets shit done. Although she may have ruled her class with strict obedience to the rules, I always remember as a kid, having adults come up to her and say thank you for teaching them so many important skills and lessons and that part of their success was due to her class.

Although my mother is a proven leader and action taker, she always had an issue maintaining her weight. It’s like the discipline she had to diligently plan a years worth of lessons, complete a Bachelor's degree and run a home just couldn’t be applied to her nutritional habits and she fell into metabolic disorder.

My mother was diagnosed with diabetes about twenty years ago and has, only up until recently, been managing it with medication and regular visits to the doctor. Numerous failed “diet” attempts and exercise plans always resulted in some yo-yoing but ultimately produced a feeling of futility. This all changed about two years ago after my son was born.

At this point in time, my mother was really starting to struggle to get up from her chair and climb the stairs. Her knees were starting to ache and having to bend over to stand from sitting was starting to strain her back. Something had to change. Doctors were very concerned about the amount of atrophy in her legs and wanted to test for a whole barrage of neurological disorders. Her morale was rock bottom, she was worrying about where she would have to move to accommodate a wheelchair and getting her house cleared out in order to sell it.

I mentioned coach LP in my post, How HSPU Changed My Life and I’m going to mention him again because he’s a life-changer and I’m eternally grateful to him. Since I was already training with him, I suggested to my mother that she do the same. It was a long shot but I knew she wanted to be able to chase after her grandson and be the present grandma she had wanted to be for so long.


Day 1

I proposed a meet up at Crossfit de l’Ouest and my mother obliged me. I still get emotional thinking about how impactful that meeting was with LP and my mother. It was like a massive, cognitive shift happened right before my eyes. Like seeing something you never would’ve thought could happen, happening right in front of me. She agreed to start training that day. That's a picture of her right after signing up!

A massive cognitive shift happened right before my eyes.

I’ve seen a lot of Crossfit transformation videos and I’m always impressed but when it actually happens right in front of your eyes, it’s incredible. My mother pushed hard, starting with three times a week out of the gate, basically from zero to 60 mph, overnight. What was even more amazing what that she really liked it. Sure, she complained it was hard and that she doesn’t like to sweat but man did she give ‘er. I’ve got video proof too. Check out the video below! She’s 70!

After two months her blood sugar had stabilized, she lost ten pounds, reduced her medication intake, got a grip of her IBS. After about four months she was literally chasing after my son and practically leaping out of her chair. Four months of weight training, after never having lifted anything other than a sack of potatoes, my mother was a totally new person.

And then, we had a training day together earlier this year and it was surreal. My mother and I are pretty close but having her step into my world and own it made a whole new connection between us that I thought we’d never have.

Some of her doctors have suggested to stop training altogether, “WTF?” I said to her. “In less than a year, you’ve basically reversed course on your metabolic disorder and given yourself new life and a doctor has the audacity to say stop, you might get hurt!?”

The other day, I had a heart to heart with my father about this. He told me about the day when my mother purchased a second-hand walker because she felt like she might need it soon. He said, “I was so pissed off, I threw it in the storage room in the basement because she was accepting defeat.” He went on, “She’s got undeniable proof that lifting works and she’s going to stop because some doctor says stop?”

I’m happy to say that she hasn’t and really enjoys her new fitness habit and new lease on life.

I’m so proud of you, Ma; the whole family is and X is so happy that he can run around with his grandma.


Header Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

I got injured during the war; it's the best thing that ever happened to me


I wake up some mornings and I can’t walk properly. Worse, some days I can’t go to work since my back is so jammed up nor can I play with my son either. I’m limited to how long I can stand and how long I can sit, it is a lingering reminder of the Afghan war and it’s the biggest gift I could have ever been given.

I recently spoke to an auditorium full of high school students during Remembrance Day about sacrifice and why we remember those who fell in battle. I wanted to convey that we’re not glorifying war or beating the drum of patriotism but we’re honouring the sacrifices that so many made so that we enjoy the modern comforts of peace and stability at home.

Every one of us who has deployed to any of the dusty battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan are well aware of sacrifice. We all made one, one way or another, and some paid the ultimate one. My sacrifice was the health of my back. And no, it’s not what you might think, I wasn’t rushing to save a truck full of children under heavy enemy sniper fire, I simply was picking up my gear on patrol and BANG! I thought we were under contact. Turns out, it was just two of my intervertebral discs deciding to explode out of their vertebral homes.

From that point on, I soldiered on. I took drugs for the pain and just ‘gave ‘er’. “It’ll probably be better in a few weeks”, I told myself. I got home and things seemed alright, but I was slowly degenerating to the point where I couldn’t get into my car without wincing. I missed professional development courses, I stayed home some nights instead of grabbing pints with the boys and ultimately started living with nagging, life-altering pain.

I took drugs for the pain and just "gave 'er"

How could this possibly be a gift? As I was talking to the students in the auditorium, I stated that my injury is a gift since it totally changed my perception on fitness and health. First, I asked myself, “why did this happen?”. It turns out that I had some very pronounced physical weaknesses and mobility issues. This lead me to undertake my personal training certification and learn more about anatomy and functional strength. Second, two months after my son was born, I had a terrible, incapacitating lock up of my back. The physical pain was excruciating but worse was the pain of knowing that I couldn’t help my wife or take care of our son. This was the moment I knew things had to change.

From that point forward, I took my injury very seriously and hired an incredible coach at my local Crossfit box. We worked together for over a year, I competed in the Crossfit open and haven’t had a serious incident since. However, the greatest part about hiring my coach was that he eventually became my mother’s coach who was beginning to physically deteriorate. She went from being a diabetic with limited mobility to literally running after her grandson and drastically reducing her use of medications.

Now understanding the power of a good coach, I mused if I could be just as influential in other’s lives. I’m a teacher by trade and was a high school science teacher at a great school but something started to nag at my soul. I poured myself into podcasts and books; I learned more about myself from Joe Rogan’s podcasts in 3 months than I did in all of University. The lesson that stuck was this:

Don’t waste time doing sh*t that you’re not passionate about.

This message resonated in my brain, daily. Teaching was what I loved to do but the classroom wasn’t my passion. This manifested itself as a health scare when my doctor discovered I had dangerously high blood pressure. I’m 36, in the best shape of my life, I eat well and sleep well and I have heart attack level blood pressure? The universe was sending me a message that was loud and clear - I needed a change or die!

I finally made the hardest professional decision of my life and left my comfortable, permanent job to work in the education technology field. It didn’t last long, but it hardened my resolve to finally do what I always wanted - launch my own fitness business. I’ve been able to bring some of the new tech skills I learned to bear on my new coaching business and the fact that I know I can overcome a debilitating injury only strengthens my tenacity that I will be successful.

Every day I reflect about my mission in Afghanistan. My physical pain is a constant reminder that I’m still alive. This is a cherished gift of mine because I got to come home when others didn’t.

I got to come home when others didn't

My talk with the students closed by outlining this one final point; sacrifice and struggle, they have allowed me to appreciate my life to the fullest, I hope to convey that through my coaching and help change as many lives as possible.

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