Courtesy of Smashred

Because the most beautiful places in the world are out there for us to ride.

Because of the challenge.

Because it’s there and I have to ride over it, to push the limits.

What do you mean you don’t understand?

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My home.

My city.

The ultimate playground for a guy like Danny MacAskill.

Danny MacAskill Plays Capetown (complete video) from leica camera on Vimeo.

Go out and play hard this weekend. I urge you to take the limit and trash it.

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‘As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.’ ~Gandhi

Just being in the same room as greatness inspires you to new levels of the possible. Imagine the excitement when you are lining toes in the water with the 1500 best Ironman athletes in he world. The inspiration and palpable energy around you is what people spend years fine tuning their aerobic engines for just to be in that water. It’s a time I will never forget.

I have been lucky enough to spend time with remarkable business people, sports legends and some massively intelligent souls. I always have this sense to create after spending time with them. This calm that presents itself over me, yet leaves me epically excited. I wanted to rush out and make something. To create, at that moment.

And that’s just one tiny example of how being in the presence of greatness can transform us.

How to Find Greatness

Sometimes if you write to a great athlete living nearby (easy when Stellenbosch is around the corner), they’ll agree to have coffee with you. I often go to dinner with World Champions and I see how they affect the new people around them. They leave people with a feeling of inspiration.

If you do something as simple as going to the public library … you are surrounded by Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Emma Goldman, Bertrand Russell, Cervantes, Kant, Plato … an endless list of greats. A personal panel of greatness, urging you to create, urging you to be better.

I read the columns of Paul Krugman (the most important blogger in America), the musings of Scott Adams, The Last Post by Derek K. Miller. On the web, you can find greatness in the oddest corners.

We are currently enjoying the Giro d’Italia and soon, Le Tour de France, where the best athletes in the world will lift themselves up to accomplish feats of greatness.

I look for it in the people around me — someone creating an amazing experience using tea, someone helping others find their dreams … greatness is all around us!

You learn to see greatness when you happen upon it, and that is a true gift. It’s not just in famous people, but in commoners like us. If you learn to look. If you recognize it for greatness, and then use it to move you. I see athletes punishing their bodies for 6 months to finish an Iron Distance race in 16 and a half hours. GREATNESS!! You are my inspiration.

And soon, you use the greatness all around you to reach for greatness yourself.

And eventually, you realize that you’re always in the presence of greatness … because the greatness is within you.

And learning that? That’s the greatest gift ever.

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This article is adapted from an original, found here.

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Today I am not going to speak about my weekly totals. It was virtually an off week with more work and really, more opportunities than I care to even get into. It’s an exciting time out there. Hope you are making the most of it, too.

Today I wanted to talk about what drives us. What makes us give the extra mile. What makes us get up at 5am and go for a jog before heading to meetings, work, proposals, deadlines, stress, pressure, commitments and then possibly back to the gym for a swim before heading home to spend time with friends and family, cook & deal with admin & possible more work.

What kind of idiot does that?

This guy.

Me.

I am not here to waft through life. I am here to live. I am here to eat the best food, ride the best trails, run in the wildest frontiers, to eat more of the best food, to laugh the loudest, the hardest and the most. To brave the circumstances and scare the living bejissus out of myself from time to time. To doubt if I can achieve the lofty goals I have set, to practise milking the journey to that ever changing goal.

I am here to wander among the masses and inspire you to be more. I am passionate about that, about you. I want to push my body to the absolute limit and then crush the limit. Human limitations are just that. Limits. Rules. If there was never anybody who pushed or broke limits then we would surely still be in the stone age. That human willingness to go above and beyond it what drive us.

Yes, I suffer. I hurt. Great. Awesome. I am smiling all the way because I feel absolutely amazing when I am out training and racing. I am happiest when I have no idea how the hell I am going to get through, shortly followed by absolute euphoria when I am through it. That is the essence. Hence the picture. Its Tour de France time. For the 200 best cyclists in the world to ride over 30 mountains in 3 weeks, only to finish in absolute agony with cold sores, strains and tendonitis. For what? Only one dude can win.

Its not only about that one guy. It’s about the celebration of the pinnacle of how far and hard a human being can ride his bicycle. It’s about celebrating the marvel of watching these guys race down twisty roads much faster than the cars can. It’s about celebrating how absolutely amazing we are as a species.

We are driven beyond comprehension. Only the brave….

It is so beautiful and so simple and so primal that I cannot yet fully comprehend how grand it really is. I do believe I have a small insider view but really, I know that every couch potato is inspired when they see the willingness of these guys to hurt beyond comprehension, just to make it to the top of that last climb.

I am going to fill my body with best, most natural food I can find. It will be tasty beyond wowness, fill me with energy beyond zest and give me the appreciation of being responsible for how I fuel my engine.

I am going to explore the entire world. I am going to give back to those who I love with all my love. I am going to be peaceful and appreciative of the simple beauties of the world. I am inspired by people, by their amazing ability to overcome.

I want more of that.

What are you doing to get more of that?

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I hope this inspires you for the week.

Change the world…

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How calm and professional was that bike change?

I mean, he is the greatest one day cyclist in the world, but still, the mechanic even looks baffled at how smooth that was.

Who is your mechanic? Who is backing you up out there, carrying your spares for that moment when you need them. You may be in the smooth calm area of the mind that Fabian exudes with such crisp intensity that its like a red sea opening for him when he wants to come through, or you could be in a mess, cussing and flapping arms in the air like a banshee, but who is your back-up?

Give them a call today and thank them for being there for you, being awesome.

Do it…

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Play these as needed. Warning: you might be inspired to greatness, so use with caution.

1. Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Watched by over 6 million viewers, this video of a Carnegie Mellon professor who is dying of pancreatic cancer contains more inspiration and wisdom than almost anything else you can watch online. Watch it!

2. A Father’s Amazing Love

Unless you’re a cold-hearted bastard (and none of you who read this blog are, I know), you will get teary-eyed watching this video. You can’t help it. There is no more powerful demonstration of a father’s love than this. There is often controversy surrounding the Hoyt team effort, but its commendable on any account.

3. Steve Jobs’s Stanford Commencement Speech

I admit, I’m a Steve Jobs fanboy — the guy invented the Mac, the iPod, and Pixar for goodness sake! He’s also a minimalist, like me, and in this speech he shows the power of pursuing your dreams, something I fervently believe in.

4. Will Smith – Running & Reading (The Key to Life)

Will Smith is right on in this speech. As an avid runner and reader myself, I’ve noticed these same phenomena have changed my life, and I recommend both to anyone I talk to.

5. Free Hugs Campaign

I’m a big fan of the Free Hugs campaign. Such a simple yet profound and revolutionary idea — offer free hugs to strangers and change their lives in small ways. I love it.

via

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen and I read it first on Zenhabits

Are you anxious at times? I am. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of anxiety to go around: lay-offs, relationship crises, pandemics, violence – and that’s just for starters.

Actually, anxiety is a natural alarm system that keeps us safe and productive. But it can become a chronic mindset. When that happens, it can deaden joy and stifle creativity.

How to tackle anxiety
In my life it’s not so much the big-ticket items like the current influenza or the economic meltdown that make me anxious, it’s the fact that I tend to over-commit myself. The result is that I’m always a bit behind schedule. Anyone else feel like that?

One way to deal with overload is to pare down commitments, as Leo Babauta describes in his beautiful post, How to be less busy in a busy, busy world. Another way is to change our ingrained thought patterns and emotional responses.

Luckily there are some wonderful techniques that can help us to stay relaxed, focused, grounded, and cheerful – even under pressure. After all, anxiety is not produced by something external. It’s an internal response to stress. We can train the mind to respond in a more skillful way.

I want to share with you how I stay reasonably sane, grounded, and creative in the midst of a full life. But first let’s take a closer look at anxiety.

Fight-flight-freeze: three responses to anxiety
Anxiety is a low-grade fear. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of one’s anxiety. That’s because anxiety is pervasive, whereas fear has a clear target.

We are hardwired to respond in three different ways when faced with danger: fight, flight, or freeze.

Imagine that you are hiking in a National Park. Suddenly you spot a bear. Faced with immediate danger, you instinctively choose one of three options: you either try to scare off the bear by making yourself look big, or by shouting (that’s the ‘fight’ response). Or you immediately turn and run to safety (that’s the flight response). Or you stand very still in the hope that the bear won’t notice you (that’s the ‘freeze’ response).

Let’s look at how these responses play out in everyday life:

1. Fight: When we’re anxious, we tend to be irritable. This is the ‘fight’ response. Because anxiety is pervasive and doesn’t have a clear target, we tend to snap at those around us.

2. Flight: Sometimes we try to avoid what makes us anxious. People who suffer from severe anxiety even avoid stepping outside their home.

3. Freeze: The freeze response produces procrastination and stage fright. I certainly know about these two. You too?

Note that I’m talking about ordinary anxiety, and not about anxiety disorders. If you suffer from panic attacks or phobias, read this useful article, or get professional help.

Anxiety is an emotion that sends our mind into the future. After all, nobody is anxious about the past, right? As human beings we tend to think in stories that are like mind-movies. Anxious mind-movies usually have a ‘what if?’ scenario.

So what winds us up into anxiety are particular thought patterns and stories. Take a look at the following list and see if any points seem familiar:

1. Self-doubts: Do you doubt your ability? Do you think you haven’t got what it takes, in order to succeed?

2. Wanting Control of the future: Do you want to want to control what happens in future? The truth is that even if we lay great plans, the unexpected can happen. And life has inescapable tides: we age and finally die.

3. High self-expectations: Sometimes we become our own slave-driver. I must admit, that’s definitely a weakness of mine. It’s good to step back at times and check out whether our expectations are realistic – and kindly.

4. Fear of failure: Are you afraid to fail? The truth is that all learning entails failure. Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar, an exponent of the Positive Psychology movement says, “Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”

5. Not being present: This is a key factor of anxiety. When our thoughts dwell on the future, and we stop being truly present, that’s when we can become anxious.

As you can see in the list above, all these internal factors are mental habits that we can change in order to alleviate and transform anxiety. And it’s the last one – being present – that’s the key to inspiration.

Inspiration lives in the present
There is an amazing short video with Brother David Steindle-Rast – a Christian monk. As a boy, he experienced the last years of World War II in Germany. He tells of great hardships: never knowing where the next meal would come from, having to queue for hours for a small pitcher of water, and seeing bombs fall all around him.

Would you be anxious in a situation like this?

Surprisingly, Brother David wasn’t anxious – his experience was completely the opposite: it was one of the happiest times in his life! How could that be? His explanation is quite simple. Because there seemed no possibility of survival and no hope for the future, all he could do was to be in the present moment. This created a deep sense of happiness – in the midst of all that suffering.

Moments of inspiration – like watching the video of Brother David – remind us of our life purpose. We feel uplifted, excited, and yet grounded. I think the reason why moments of inspiration touch us so keenly, is because they remind us of our deepest aspirations.

Sometimes we confuse aspirations with personal goals, but they are completely different. Aspirations are the answer to the question: “What do I want to give the world?” Whereas personal goals are the answer to the question, “What do I want the world to give me?”

Four ways to transform anxiety into inspiration
Here are four ways you can start to transform anxiety into inspiration:

1. Simplify your life: The best guide I have seen so far, is Leo Babauta’s lovely new ebook The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life. He takes you right through the necessary steps to simplify your life. It doesn’t happen overnight, but can definitely decrease anxiety in the long run.

2. Write everything down: Holding too many ideas and plans in one’s head can cause anxiety. A very simple remedy is to record all your ideas, dates, and schedules so that you free up your memory. Buy a simple notebook that you carry with you, or invest in a smart phone that can store appointments and idea.

3. Learn to relax: The anxious body is tense and needs rest and relaxation. There is a good relaxation and sleep hypnosis recording, created by Jon Rhodes. It’s free and you can find it here

4. Practice meditation: If you really want to change the mental habits that keep you ensnared in anxiety, you’ll find meditation a real help.

I know it can be daunting to learn to meditate. And busy people sometimes find it difficult to set time aside to practice meditation. I’ve come up with an easy way to get into meditation. I call it the Three-Breaths meditation. You can do it in one minute or less. It’s a natural way to meditate and doesn’t require you to learn complicated techniques. I’ve created a short video on how to do it. You can watch it here.

The Three-Breaths Meditation entails taking a few moments each day in order to pay tender regard to three breaths as they flow in and out of your body. For best results, keep upright posture so that your body and mind are well balanced. A thoughts come and go, observe them with soft attention and bring your focus gently back to your breath. I suggest practicing this easy micro-meditation a few times during the day. You’ll notice that it brings you right back home to the present moment.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about turning anxiety into inspiration – that’s why I run a Virtual Zen Retreat focused on how to do it. But I hope that you can find something in this post that helps you to start moving away anxiety and towards inspiration.

Learning to guide our mind away from unskillful emotions, like anxiety, fear or anger, and towards kindness and cheerfulness, is a wonderful way to enhance our life and bring about happiness.

If there’s one thing you take away from this post, I hope it’s that ease and inspiration come from experiencing the present moment.
Like. Now.

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Inspire from Scott Lynch on Vimeo.

Are you going to be that girl, taking off her helmet, swinging higher than she has ever gone, and then leaping, full of faith, into the air? Are you going to inspire others with your leaps of faith?

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great post up from the man HERE about the effect of Long Term Greed.

I know, I speak alot about Gordo, but he is a great inspiration to me. 11:08 to 8:22 at Ironman, and went from this:

to this:

using many of the methods I coach my athletes with.

want some? drop an email to raoul at urban-ninja dotcoza

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