Here's an inside look at what's going on here in San Diego, CA during the first Triathlon Squad training camp of 2013. Thanks to Coach Paulo Sousa for the camerawork/editing. Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
More than just a civil rights activist...
I wanted to do a little something different to celebrate my Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so I decided to do some reading on MLK. I hear the "I have a dream..." line all the time, but I figured surely this man had more to talk about than one of his dreams.
I started googling old transcripts of his speeches to see what else the man had to say. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was so much more than just a civil rights activist. Our society remembers his fight for racial equality, but unfortunately we forget the framework of his argument. Civil rights were merely a starting point. MLK was a rebel. He was a free thinker with a unique ability to relate to his audience. He wasn't arguing to have the same society, but with blacks and whites being equal. He wanted something more--a higher level of society--where equality would be a foregone conclusion. This is a critical difference. Dr. King urged people of all colors to be better, more educated citizens. I challenge you to do your part.
A few of my favorite quotes from today's reading:
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."
"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
"We must use time creatively."
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."
I started googling old transcripts of his speeches to see what else the man had to say. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was so much more than just a civil rights activist. Our society remembers his fight for racial equality, but unfortunately we forget the framework of his argument. Civil rights were merely a starting point. MLK was a rebel. He was a free thinker with a unique ability to relate to his audience. He wasn't arguing to have the same society, but with blacks and whites being equal. He wanted something more--a higher level of society--where equality would be a foregone conclusion. This is a critical difference. Dr. King urged people of all colors to be better, more educated citizens. I challenge you to do your part.
A few of my favorite quotes from today's reading:
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education."
"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."
"If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive."
"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
"We must use time creatively."
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."
Friday, January 18, 2013
Be Your Own Hero
Since I'm involved with endurance sports, I've had quite a few people ask for my thoughts on the whole Lance Armstrong debacle. Here they are:
One of my favorite sources of inspiration, former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, said, "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
This perfectly sums up my feelings on the Lance Armstrong interview that aired yesterday and will air again today. I understand the facts--he cheated. I get it. But there are cheaters in every profession--from cyclist to stock trader. To argue otherwise would be naive.
Does this interview change my view of Lance? Heck...one could even throw Manti Te'o and Tiger Woods into this conversation, too. We the public put these people onto pedestals. We have an awful lot to say about them, but what does this say about us?
Why do we feel the need to label and judge? I grew up believing that sport existed to teach the participants about life. Playing sports taught me hard work pays dividends. Team sport taught me the joy of working with others towards a common goal. Working through the ups and downs of training and racing has taught me the importance of believing in myself. Racing competitors from all around the world has taught me worrying too much about the opponent and not enough about oneself--you can be certain you'll lose.
I compete today as a professional triathlete for these same reasons. I love competing. I think it makes me a better person. I get to know myself a little bit better every time I push my physical and mental limits in a race. This thirst for improvement gets me out of bed in the morning--albeit sometimes with a lot of reluctance on the "getting out of bed" part :)
I know who I am. I compete clean and I compete with integrity. This is not because I don't care about winning--there are few things I hate more than losing. In fact, the only person I know who hates losing more than I do is my brother, John :) (Sorry, bro, I had to do it.)
The ribbons fade and the trophies rust. The true value of sport is in the pursuit. It is about the chase--the challenge--the chase for glory and the challenge to improve oneself. It is this pursuit which defines the individual. Champions look in the mirror and know the work is never finished. Maybe it is time for us to start worrying less about others' reputations and to start worrying more about one's own character.
But then again... Oprah might get lonely.
One of my favorite sources of inspiration, former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, said, "Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
This perfectly sums up my feelings on the Lance Armstrong interview that aired yesterday and will air again today. I understand the facts--he cheated. I get it. But there are cheaters in every profession--from cyclist to stock trader. To argue otherwise would be naive.
Does this interview change my view of Lance? Heck...one could even throw Manti Te'o and Tiger Woods into this conversation, too. We the public put these people onto pedestals. We have an awful lot to say about them, but what does this say about us?
Why do we feel the need to label and judge? I grew up believing that sport existed to teach the participants about life. Playing sports taught me hard work pays dividends. Team sport taught me the joy of working with others towards a common goal. Working through the ups and downs of training and racing has taught me the importance of believing in myself. Racing competitors from all around the world has taught me worrying too much about the opponent and not enough about oneself--you can be certain you'll lose.
I compete today as a professional triathlete for these same reasons. I love competing. I think it makes me a better person. I get to know myself a little bit better every time I push my physical and mental limits in a race. This thirst for improvement gets me out of bed in the morning--albeit sometimes with a lot of reluctance on the "getting out of bed" part :)
I know who I am. I compete clean and I compete with integrity. This is not because I don't care about winning--there are few things I hate more than losing. In fact, the only person I know who hates losing more than I do is my brother, John :) (Sorry, bro, I had to do it.)
The ribbons fade and the trophies rust. The true value of sport is in the pursuit. It is about the chase--the challenge--the chase for glory and the challenge to improve oneself. It is this pursuit which defines the individual. Champions look in the mirror and know the work is never finished. Maybe it is time for us to start worrying less about others' reputations and to start worrying more about one's own character.
But then again... Oprah might get lonely.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
An Expanding Word Bank
Do you
remember taking “fill-in-the-blank” tests back in elementary school? They were the worst, weren’t they? I used to think it was okay when the teacher would give
a word bank, but as I got older the teachers started throwing in extra words that weren’t supposed to be used.
Imagine the nerve…extra “filler” just to mess you up! This thought came back to me the other day
while I was grocery shopping, but more on that later. My argument here is we have so much information constantly
at our fingertips that it actually overwhelms one’s capacity to efficiently
make decisions. It is almost as if
we’re taking another fill-in-the-blank test. This time, when you ask for a word bank, the smug
teacher hands you a Merriam-Webster dictionary and snickers, “Not all of the
words will be used.” A perfect score on your fill-in-the-blank test is sitting at your fingertips, but it worth the effort to extract it?
We are
drowning in information—and most of it is worthless! Think of your email inbox this morning--how many emails did
you delete before even bothering to open them? While you're
thinking of all those unread messages, remember that your spam-filters had
pre-screened all those emails you just manually deleted! This same story is written each time you turn on the TV. Do you remember all the hassle when the
cable companies switched to digital broadcasting in 2009? One of the main reasons for the switch
was so the networks could offer you more
channels! While I was home over break,
I watched the local news on channel #806.
Are there really 805 channels that need to be listed before ABC (in high definition…because regular is
simply unacceptable :))?
Both
consciously and unconsciously, we make daily decisions on what to read, what to
watch, and what to drink. While this proliferation of choices means there
are certainly more good options to choose, it simultaneously means those
decisions are becoming harder and harder to make. We must become better at filtering information. Some
things are worth reading, watching, or drinking—but many are not.
That being
said, the true danger lies in
choosing nothing at all! The pain of a wrong decision is relatively short-lived when compared to the anguish of indecision. Just the other day I was at the grocery store. [As promised earlier, here’s the story.] All I needed was a jar of mayonnaise. When I finally found the mayonnaise
section, there were about 20 different types of mayo. It looked something like this:
Some were in big jars, some were in small jars—some weren’t
in any jars at all. There were
squeeze bottles, big bottles, and little bottles. Some had half the fat, some had no fat, yet all of them
seemed to brag “No Trans-Fat.” I
was paralyzed by the options. My
meager mental capacity was overwhelmed by an imposing wall of egg yolk, oil and
vinegar! Why did this happen? Why couldn’t I just grab one and move
on? I couldn’t because I
reasoned that all the options existed because one was a better choice than the rest. If you know me at all—you know I'm going to get that best one! Yet, was my search for the "perfect" mayonnaise worth two minutes of my time at the supermarket? I'd argue that it's not. The choices that ostensibly make my life better/easier/more enjoyable robbed me of my time--of my life itself!
This is the exact problem psychologist Barry Schwartz explores in his 2004 book, The Paradox of
Choice. Since you probably
don’t have time to read the whole book, here’s a link to Schwartz’s TED presentation
on the topic. If you can get past
his ridiculously stylish outfit, it’s a thought provoking talk that is more
applicable now than ever.
What does this post accomplish? Am I just
adding my own individual spice to this massive stew of options you have sitting
at your fingertips? Let's just say I’m adding another jar of
mayonnaise to the shelf.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Holiday Magic
I knew you were busy over the holidays, so I didn't want to overwhelm you with too much internet reading. If I had been more diligent about posting over the past few weeks, you may have been distracted while internet shopping and forgotten someone on your list. How terrible! You see, I had to keep my thoughts to myself for your own good.
Okay...I hope you saw through that smokescreen. Sooner or later, the truth usually comes out--so you might as well hear it from me. I left San Diego on December 14 to spend the holidays with my family and friends in Wildwood Crest, NJ. I spent my days training on all my old stomping-grounds, but when my training was finished for the day something magical would happen. At around 7:00pm every night, I would sit down at our family dinner table. From that moment on, I was unable to do anything else for the rest of the night! I fell under the "Maloy Dinner Table Spell."
I'm not making this up. You see, no matter what one might have planned on accomplishing after dinner, once he/she sits down, all those responsibilities magically disappear. Nothing in the world becomes so important as continuing to converse at that dinner table. This conversation continues long after the food disappears. This also happens magically.
I know some people are reading this and thinking, "WOW, this spell explains an awful lot." Making this generalization would be a mistake. The "Maloy Dinner Table Spell" only explains the powerful yet unseen force which draws one to the table. The rest is explained by my mom's home cooking and my dad's diligence in keeping one's thirst quenched.
I'm thankful for every second I spent sitting at that table over the past two weeks. I'm even more thankful to have shared that time with the family and friends who will testify to "The Spell." Now I'm back to San Diego--where I'm back to work*. Until next time, this is my dinner table.
Happy 2013! Cheers.
*- In my case, work is a good thing. I hope you can enjoy the good in your work, too.
Okay...I hope you saw through that smokescreen. Sooner or later, the truth usually comes out--so you might as well hear it from me. I left San Diego on December 14 to spend the holidays with my family and friends in Wildwood Crest, NJ. I spent my days training on all my old stomping-grounds, but when my training was finished for the day something magical would happen. At around 7:00pm every night, I would sit down at our family dinner table. From that moment on, I was unable to do anything else for the rest of the night! I fell under the "Maloy Dinner Table Spell."
I'm not making this up. You see, no matter what one might have planned on accomplishing after dinner, once he/she sits down, all those responsibilities magically disappear. Nothing in the world becomes so important as continuing to converse at that dinner table. This conversation continues long after the food disappears. This also happens magically.
I know some people are reading this and thinking, "WOW, this spell explains an awful lot." Making this generalization would be a mistake. The "Maloy Dinner Table Spell" only explains the powerful yet unseen force which draws one to the table. The rest is explained by my mom's home cooking and my dad's diligence in keeping one's thirst quenched.
I'm thankful for every second I spent sitting at that table over the past two weeks. I'm even more thankful to have shared that time with the family and friends who will testify to "The Spell." Now I'm back to San Diego--where I'm back to work*. Until next time, this is my dinner table.
Happy 2013! Cheers.
*- In my case, work is a good thing. I hope you can enjoy the good in your work, too.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Commencement (3 of 3)
#2: David McCullough, Jr., Wellesley High School, 2012
The McCullough family must have a gift for these things, because this speech is pure gold. David McCullough, Jr., tops his dad (#5 on my list of great commencement speeches) with this past summer's speech that went viral online after he told students they "weren't special."
My favorite line of this speech is the final one (listed below in bold). It has a poetic quality with the pause between "...special." and "Because..." which leaves room for interpretation. I see the pause as an indictment of society's need to classify people as either above or below one another--as more or less special.
There are some parallels between the two McCullough speeches on this list, and it's clear David, Jr. has been strongly influenced by his father. Both father and son urge their audiences to read and relentlessly pursue education. Yet, David, Jr. one-ups his father with the "shock-value" of delivering this address to a group of students from one of the most privileged Boston suburbs. This clearly is a man who cares more about communicating his message than he does about keeping his job! This speech comes right out and challenges a culture that is so maniacally focused on being "special" that it has forgotten to highlight the importance of being perfectly oneself.
Excerpts:
The McCullough family must have a gift for these things, because this speech is pure gold. David McCullough, Jr., tops his dad (#5 on my list of great commencement speeches) with this past summer's speech that went viral online after he told students they "weren't special."
My favorite line of this speech is the final one (listed below in bold). It has a poetic quality with the pause between "...special." and "Because..." which leaves room for interpretation. I see the pause as an indictment of society's need to classify people as either above or below one another--as more or less special.
There are some parallels between the two McCullough speeches on this list, and it's clear David, Jr. has been strongly influenced by his father. Both father and son urge their audiences to read and relentlessly pursue education. Yet, David, Jr. one-ups his father with the "shock-value" of delivering this address to a group of students from one of the most privileged Boston suburbs. This clearly is a man who cares more about communicating his message than he does about keeping his job! This speech comes right out and challenges a culture that is so maniacally focused on being "special" that it has forgotten to highlight the importance of being perfectly oneself.
Excerpts:
- "A winning percentage like that’ll get you last
place in the American League East. The Baltimore Orioles do better than
weddings."
- "So think about this: even if you’re one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you."
- "You see, if everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless. In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality—we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement."
- "We have come to see them as the point—and we’re happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that’s the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole. No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it… Now it’s 'So what does this get me?'"
- "If you’ve learned anything in your years here I hope it’s that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning."
- "Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might."
- "You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—quite an active verb, “pursuit”—which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on YouTube."
Because everyone is."
Text: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/09/david-mccullough-at-wellesley-commencement-you-are-not-special-video.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lfxYhtf8o4
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lfxYhtf8o4
#1 steve jobs, Stanford University, 2005
As was the case with so many of his creations, this speech is different from all the others on this list. Read in a certain light, one could argue this speech is an egomaniacal rant. I do not see it that way. This speech has the simplicity of an iPhone, and it's content is unmatched. Coming from a man who rarely made a public appearance without some hidden agenda, I believe Jobs used this speech as an opportunity to address an audience that extended well beyond Stanford University's Class of 2005. Steve's address reads like a "last lecture," and the stories he tells are simply brilliant.
Before I give you the excerpts and links to this speech, I want to introduce it with a story of my own--one that I think is critical to understanding the way this man worked. This will be familiar to those who have read Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography.
In the early 1980s, Apple's most lucrative and productive computer was the Apple II. It was a simple yet popular personal computer that, both at the time and for the following decade, was responsible for the majority of Apple's revenue. While the company wanted to continue along the lines of the Apple II and ride the revenue stream, Steve broke away and formed a rebel group within the organization. He handpicked a select team of individuals to work on a project he was determined to see through--the development of the Macintosh. When the first Mac was finally finished on February 10, 1982, Steve had his "rebel crew" sign the inside of the casing--like artists.
This act of defiance was indicative of the behavior that led to Steve's firing from Apple a few years later. He was not fired for caring too little; he simply cared too much about projects which his bosses deemed "unprofitable." (I am aware that this oversimplifies the situation, but I'd argue his unwillingness to compromise was the main factor in the board's decision to turn against Jobs.) For an artist who refused to capitalize his name in signatures, I thought it would be a small yet fitting tribute to honor that peculiarity in the heading for the #1 speaker on my list. Enjoy.
Excerpts:
- "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
- "I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over."
- "I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me."
- "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
- "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
- "It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you."
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