Tonight for my Mom’s birthday we are going to a taping of “Whose Line is it Anyways?”, the popular improv comedy show! I’m super excited for the time with my parents but also because I love this show!

If you aren’t familiar with improv comedy, it’s just people making up situations on the spot and it’s hilarious. These trained actors are making split second decisions to try and create a scene usually from audience suggestions. It’s tremendous to watch and an incredibly impressive skill.

I started using improv comedy to teach lessons to students a few years ago working at IMG Acafemy under James Leath. He showed me that improv allows students to engage in the lessons and flex their creative muscles, thus encouraging better learning environments.

One of the biggest lessons I share with athletes about improv comedy is that sport and life is all about improvisation. In a game we make a play, the defense counters, and we have to adapt or improvise. Same thing with life, we encounter a situation and we have to do something about it, sometimes that requires improvisation.

Understanding this concept, allows us to be open to situations or circumstances we are faced with. Something happens (audiences suggestion), and we do something with it (improv comedy scene).

Try using this perspective with your own life and see how you can bring situations and moments to life by accepting them and improvising.

I recently read “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins and it was a fantastic read! Intense for sure, because that is Goggin’s style. Throughout the book, Goggins shared principles for life that he learned from his experience growing up in an abusive household, his weight loss journey to join to the Navy, career as a Navy SEAL, and his journey to becoming an elite ultra athlete.

One of the concepts Goggins shared, was the idea of having a personal cookie jar. Now he wasn’t talking about a cookie jar on the counter full of chocolate chip cookies (or your own preference). He spoke about a metaphorical cookie jar that was a collection of both good and bad experiences or memories from the past. Goggins shares that this idea of the cookie jar is importanat, because of how much you learn from the bad experiences and how much you enjoyed the good moments.

By having this mental cookie jar you have a collection of moments that you can draw upon at present times. Use the good moments to remind you of what you’re capable of and that you’ve had success before. Use the bad moments to remind you that you’ve been through challenging moments or experiences before, so you can surely handle what is being thrown at you now.

It’s important to use the past and not just focus on it. Goggins cookie jar metaphor is a great way to start collecting and organizing your previous experiences and start putting them to work for you. Don’t just rely on the good or bad moments, use both experiences, because they have helped you get to where you are now and will help you get where you want to go.

Now anyone else craving a cookie?

Full disclosure I didn’t want to write anything today. I haven’t had a bad day and nothing is wrong, I just wasn’t feeling it. I also have struggled to come up with something I wanted to write about. I’m exactly a week in and I’ve hit my wall! Some threshold I have!

As I was driving this afternoon, I thought about the fact I didn’t want to write today and determined that I “just wasn’t motivated”. That thought turned into, “I’m not motivated because I don’t have anything to write about”, which turned into “I’ve got too much going on today, I just don’t have time to write, especially if I don’t have a topic”. Cop out and excuse complete!

My thoughts spiraled down that negative excuse hole for awhile then I realized my mistake, I hadn’t planned my writing time. Today consisted of meetings and appointments so I planned my day around those and neglected setting time aside to write.

Committing to something takes planning. We plan our trips, our games, our appointments, and our days. It’s important to spend time in that planning phase so you’re not just working on the fly. If you just fly by the seat of your pants, something I’m very guilty of, then you can feel scatterbrained and find yourself making more excuses. Yes life happens and things can throw us off, but having a plan helps us adapt.

Plans can also aid our motivation. Sure you may not feel like it, but if you plan ahead you have an easier time sticking to your commitment. So if you’re committing to a new habit, such as writing, spend time planning it out and avoid that cycle of excuses.

There is a video from former Navy Seal Jocko Willink titled “Good”. This is an excerpt from his podcast, Jocko Podcast. I absolutely love this video and it may be my most recommended video. Take a couple of minutes today and watch it here.

Its intense right? That’s Jocko’s style and it fires me up! More importantly, the former Navy Seal makes an awesome point using the word, “Good”. He doesn’t use it as a cop out answer when someone asks you how your day is going, it becomes a recalibration tool, that basically means “That happened, ok so what are we going to do with this?”

In this sense, the word good becomes neutral to the situation and a call to action. Things going bad, good? Things awry, good? Something messed up, good? None of these situations is by the generic definition, good, but there is still something we can do about it and grow or improve.

Using Jocko’s version of ‘Good’ lets us move beyond the emotions of something going wrong, and focus on what we can do instead. It prompts action and focuses on our process. Results happen all the time, and most of the time the results our out of our control. When the result is something we don’t want, ‘Good’ helps us use the moment rather than waste it. As Jocko says in the video, “…there is going to be some good that is going to come from it.”

‘Good’ is something I have been using in my own life over the last 2-3 years and its been extremely helpful. When life hurls problems my way, or something goes wrong, I spend less time in the emotions and focus more on what I am able to do. Try using this in your life, when you get challenged or face a new problem, say “Good” and figure out what you’re capable of doing in that moment.

Before you read any further, I want you to take 3 deep breaths, but here is how I want you to do it.

-Sit back and close your eyes

-Inhale through your nose for 2-4 seconds

-exhale through your mouth for 2-4 seconds

Ready go!

Now, how do you feel?

If you’re anything like the athletes and performers I work with, I’m willing to bet you feel a sense of clarity and calmness. Does your body feel relaxed? You might even feel like it’s time for a nap.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that if you control your breath, you control your mind, you control your body.

Breathing is an automatic or unconscious experience, we do it to stay alive. We hardly spend time actually thinking about the breathing process. When we do focus on our breathing it’s usually because we are not (chances are that you’re underwater), when we are exhausted, and when it’s cold enough to see our breath.

When we focus on our breathing, as I had you do above, it helps us quiet our mind or as my friend James Leath says “starve the anxiety”.

By simply counting our breaths, we make the unconscious conscious. What it also does it lets us put pause on the day, clear our minds and collect our thoughts.

There are so many factors in our day that we can’t control and those instances can stress us out, distract us from our task, or even beat us down. During those moments, instead of focusing on the things beyond our control, focus on what you can control. That starts with our breath. We can always control our breath.

So when you feel stressed, anxious, distracted, or even just unsettled. Take a moment, close your eyes, and breathe.

Control your breath, control your mind, control your body.

Last week, I had a not uncommon experience while driving. During my daily commute (~50 min) the car in front of me decided that they needed to travel below the speed limit. This drove me nuts!!! How could this car travel at less than the allowed speed on a country highway and impede my progress. How rude of them!! Didn’t they know I needed to be traveling at a faster rate because I was running a few minutes behind! How dare they!

I sat there stewing in my mild road rage while subtly trying to make the driver in front of me aware of my irritation, when I looked down and saw something I hadn’t noticed yet…it was a divided yellow line highway. (Face palm). In my state of annoyance, I ignored the fact that I had an opportunity to act by passing the car (when it was safe of course) and continue at my desired pace. Instead I chose to blame the other driver for this “transgression” and let it impact my mood.

I wish I could say this experience on the road was the first time this has happened for me, but it’s not. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before as well. How many times do we let others hijack our mood or worse our entire day by their actions and in the process ignore our own opportunity to act? Next time (because it’s bound to happen again), when you have a transgression lobbied against you, instead of blaming the other person, take pause to see what you’re able to do in that moment. Is there a course of action you can take? Do not blame others for your own inaction.

As if on cue, the driver in front of me turned left off that road and left to ponder my realization while driving at my own pace. As the car faded off into that side street I nodded in their direction to say thanks for the lesson.

Over the last few months, I’ve rediscovered my love for reading. Check that, I’ve been able to make more time for reading. Yes, most the time now it’s more listening in the car, than reading but audiobooks still count.

I’ve always enjoyed reading. Growing up I loved getting lost in fictional worlds/universes. I still enjoy a great fiction book, these days I love all the learning that comes from nonfiction & personal development books. I enjoy learning about new concepts, thought patterns, and philosophies. Now I read with intention to learn and figure out how I can apply the concepts to my work with performers. The more I read, the more I grow.

I’ve encountered so many great books and learned something from each, but I’ve picked 5 books that I feel have had the profound effect on me. Here they are.

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Legacy by James Kerr

This is probably my most recommended book at this point. Legacy is a deep dive into the culture of the New Zealand All Blacks. This book explores the pillars that construct culture of this organization. It shows the importance of having a culture rooted in values beyond just winning. Great people make great All Blacks. If you’re a coach, captain, or any other leadership role, I strongly recommend you read this book.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

I just finished this book a few weeks ago and it’s one of the more fun books I’ve read. I came across James Clear a few years ago and always enjoyed his articles on jamesclear.com. Clear focuses on components of behavior psychology explaining how to effectively build good and rid bad habits. This book is the definition of ‘edutainment’, you learn something and have fun in the process. If you’re looking to change your routines or daily habits, start here.

Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl

I think anyone who has read this book would highly recommend it. Dr. Viktor Frankl is the father of logotherapy, a psychological concept that centers on the primary motivation of life is for individuals to find meaning. Dr. Frankl developed this theory from his time spent in Nazi concentration camps. The first part of this book is vivid descriptions of the horrendous conditions and experiences in the concentration camps. At times, it’s tough to read. The rest of the book is Dr. Frankl explaining logotherapy in greater detail and how to use it to discover meaning in our lives.

A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller

This book is the sequel of Blue Like Jazz. It discusses Miller’s process of turning Blue Like Jazz into a movie. More importantly it proposes the question of how we can live a good story. It’s Miller’s personal struggle to edit his book and also his life that worth “reading”. This book reignited my sense of adventure in the day-to-day, and is the reason why I will hike the Machu Picchu trail one day.

The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday

Ive become a big fan of Ryan Holiday’s work. This book was my first introduction to Stoicism. According to dailystoic.com Stoicism,

“asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based on behavior, rather than words. That we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses.”

Simply put, stoicism philosophy helps us “act on what can be acted upon”. It was developed to help us focus on practical application rather than just debates.

The Obstacle Is The Way is a discussion about stoicism in both ancient and present times. Holiday discusses the idea of how we can us the obstacle(s) in life rather than be negatively affected of shut down by them.

After I finished The Obstacle Is The Way, I started reading more books on Stoicism and have begun to apply it to my own life and my work with performers. It’s helped me change my perspective on handling matters in life.

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There they are, my current Top 5! Just like the AP poll, I’m sure this list is bound to change the more I read. Each of these books (and many others) have had a strong influence on my life, and I think could benefit yours. What books have you read that have impacted your life or work? What are you reading?

I suck at writing…I really do. Or at least I think I do…I also haven’t really tried too hard. Sure I’ve written countless college essays, a few short blog posts, at one point a master’s thesis, & I’ve even edited articles and books for colleagues, but I don’t think anyone would venture to say that I am good at writing. Heck, you may think I’m no good just from my first two sentences alone. So if I’m no good at writing, why am I starting a blog? Well I may not be good at writing, but I like the idea of getting better at writing, and thats the point.

Yes, I know, I started my first article off with a limiting thought that embodies the fixed mindset (if you don’t know what I am talking about search ‘Grit’ by Dr. Angela Duckworth). But for some reason, I haven’t been able to shake the notion that I suck at writing. Any time I’ve attempted to write, my thoughts appear as gibberish on the paper/screen. I’m left looking at my thoughts as if they are abstract art, trying to understand what it was I was trying to say in the first place (Its pretty bad when you can confuse yourself with your own thoughts).

I am not sure where I got this idea that I would be great at writing the first time, every time. I certainly know better! Its not like that’s been the case with anything else I’ve ever tried. Improvement is a process that comes with consistent effort and sometimes that process sucks. The painful irony is that I coach individuals about this concept daily. I guess its time I started listening to what I tell others.

We all have to suck somewhere…I mean start somewhere. This blog is my effort to engage in the writing process consistently. The public forum of this blog, is just a form of accountability…intense accountability. If you’re familiar with Jerry Seinfeld and his comedic process, this blog is my version of the “chain” & it’s important not to break the chain.

So here is my master plan. Write something daily and post it…that’s it! It’s a simple plan but it’s also maddening. I think I’ve rewritten this article at least 15 times today and this is just my first one!! As one of my mentors shared with me, never confuse simple with easy! But it’s time to give this writing habit a shot. Sure my writing may suck right now (growth mindset!!), but I’m working on it so bear with me.

There is one more part to my plan I guess. As you…yes you are reading these posts (if you’ve even made it this far), I welcome any and all feedback. If you like something I wrote, please let me know! I’d appreciate the encouragement. If you don’t like what I wrote or think I am getting worse, I’ll appreciate that criticism too…it might just take me a couple of days (weeks) to admit that. If you think you could help my writing, please by all means, you clearly see I need the help. Also I take requests! If you have something you’d like me to write about, please share with me!

I won’t lie this whole idea is intimidating and right now, I feel like the emperor when he didn’t have any clothes. But as the cliche goes, “life begins at the end of your comfort zone’. So here’s to habit building, accountability, being uncomfortable…very uncomfortable. Cheers!

Thanks for checking out my blog! My name is Will Drumright and I am a mental performance coach in Indianapolis. Most of my posts are going to revolve around performance psychology and stoic philosophy. I’ll throw a few ramblings about life in here too.

More importantly, as you’ll read in my first post, this is my public effort to engage in the writing process. Let’s see how long the chain can get.

Thanks for stopping by.