So me (Ben) and the boys (6 grown men, leaders at our local church) decided to accept the challenge of this thing called “75 hard” and today was day 22.

I won’t go into the origin story but I’ll tell you what it consists of:

Everyday for 75 days:
-keep to a diet of your choosing
-one 45-minute workout outdoor
-one 45-minute workout anywhere
-drink a gallon of water
-read 10 pages of non-fiction

So yeah, its pretty cool… right?
WRONG! Definitely not “cool.”

It’s not cool. It’s extremely difficult and in some cases probably a little unwise! But I volunteered for this insanity.

You might, rightly, ask: why?

I’m so glad you asked!

I heard something on the internet recently (okay I’ll confess it was Joe Rogan) that said we should all sign up for some voluntary adversity once in a while…

I may not agree with everything that flies out of Joe Rogan’s mouth, but I think he’s right on this one 😬

Because you know what voluntary adversity does? It prepares you for mandatory adversity.

Allow me to illustrate: every year for the last 7 years, I’ve read at least 1 book that has had a profound impact on my life.

Whether it was because of some seed planted from my dad (who imparted the value of life-long learning) or some boss, pastor, supervisor (who taught me about “self-leadership”), I’ve always had this voracious appetite for constant improvement.

And it’s not enough to just read a book. Like all the greats have written, one must have the motivation for moving that new information into application (in order for it to make a difference).

Now I could talk about how I always had a chip on my shoulder regarding fitness and health and body image.

I could talk about my endeavors, over the years, into CrossFit and endurance sports and then cold plunging and fasting.

This is a platform addressing the issue of grit after all, and physical grit is an integral part of “voluntary adversity.” Not to mention the major thrust of this so-called “75 hard” is physical grit-I conveniently left out one of the key aspects of the daily challenge, which is to take a picture… of yourself… standing in front of the mirror.. without a shirt on- but today I want to talk about a different sort of grit.

Emotional grit.

I want to talk about how if it weren’t for the “volunteer adversity” of pouring over these books year after year (one in particular: Pete Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) I most definitely would not have had the mental or emotional faculties to deal with the information I received the day before our challenge began.

You see the day before the challenge we got a call from our family doctor informing us that my 8-year old daughter’s MRI results came back, she’s got a mass of tissue in her leg.

Talk about an emotional gut punch. Exit air, stage left.

I had a moment on the phone with the doctor, straight from a movie, he was like ‘hello, are you still there…?’

But there were a few things in that very moment I was committed to NOT doing. What I was definitely NOT going to do was:

-let my emotions take the wheel
-be overrun with fear (because of future fatalistic thinking)
-make a “spiritual agreement” with the forces of darkness that the worst was coming for us
-over-react
-lash out
-be hyper-sensitive
-pretend that the world must stop and revolve around us

I could probably go on and on (and I’m not, by the way, saying I’ve had a perfect record on all this-obviously not, I’m still human, I’ve still been plenty broken, and I’m still a father who never wants anything bad to happen to his kids), but the point is this:
​I wouldn’t even have any of this language (let alone the tools to handle these reactions!) if it weren’t for reading a book and trying to apply what it says.

Here’s the punch line: if we don’t volunteer for adversity during our “regularly scheduled programming,” we will have a much harder time wrapping our hearts/minds/bodies around it when unavoidable adversity inevitably comes.
Whether you signed up for it or not.

It’s a part of life.

I don’t know what tomorrow holds, for my daughter, for me and my wife, but what I do know is that we will all have the “agency” to choose how we respond to it.

I know one thing: we will be tougher for it… and no, the “toughness” will not be the end-in and of itself, it will be the means by which we face the next hill, the next battle, the next crisis and, Lord willing, we will “not be found wanting.” (A Knights Tale, 2001)

A list, I give to you (John 14:27):
1. Go out and get that book by Pete Scazzero or at very least start listening to his podcast https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/podcast/​
2. At the expense of referring someone I don’t really, totally sponsor use this link to get some super “macho” stuff on 75 hard https://andyfrisella.com/pages/75hard-info​
3. “Hard does not equal bad” - a great quote and a stellar read, especially for the women readers out there, do yourself a favor and start here https://misformama.net/hard-is-not-the-same-thing-as-bad​

Happy Thanksgiving,

-Ben and Rylee

​