Living Hell-Yes!

​Dear Why Team member,
I hope you are well and that your New Year is off to a roaring start.
This week we consider...

​Living Hell-Yes!

Last year, while climbing in the Joshua Tree National Park, my guide and coach Matt Walker, shared with me and my climbing mates a very powerful insight I will never forget.
He said that while climbing a difficult rock face, there will be moments when you are caught between wanting to move upward, while simultaneously wanting to move downward; he said between Hell-Yes and Hell-No is just Hell.
BOOM! 💥
Now is that a powerful insight or what?

What a great insight to consider throughout our lives and to further fuel our best year ever. Why?

When you find yourself experiencing Hell, consider your choices. 
Certainly, there are moments in life where Hell-No is not an option and, in those moments, if we are choosing to resist what “is” as opposed to Hell-Yes, are we not just choosing to live in Hell? If that’s the case, no doubt there is a lot to learn in Hell - primarily that it’s not an optimal place to live. Could another description for unhappiness simply be found in the word “resistance”?
We can whine away in Hell or find the strength to go that extra mile exclaiming Hell-Yes!

This Hell-Yes attitude reminds me of the book: “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday, where the title alone says it all.

When life brings us tough times, which life certainly brings, how might the experience be transformed with the mindset of Hell-Yes?! If we cannot change what is happening, how much Hell is experienced in the wishing that things were different? Hell-Yes is a welcoming attitude - one that is more oriented to life happening for you, rather than life happening to you. And as an ongoing theme of this team, how may we further develop the attitude of a Champion?

We may have different images about what a champion looks like, and ultimately, when you look in the mirror, I hope you see a champion. But, when I put Hell and Champion together, I often think about our Navy Seals. Are you familiar with their brutal- to say the least- training program? Traditionally only 15-20% of the enrollees graduate. The final week in their 6-month training program is actually called “Hell Week.” 
Very little sleep is awarded in between exercises, yes, awarded. But in the middle of the camp, “the saving grace,” a sizeable brass bell, hangs calling the weakest to say Hell-No; ring it and receive relief from the tormenting training.  Extreme courage and mental toughness are needed to continue saying, “Hell-Yes! I can do this!” but those who maintain that attitude and act on it, are true champions. 

If you have decided that Hell-No is not an option for you, recommit with the attitude of Hell-Yes!, to reach your mountain top and to stay out of a living Hell.

And any time that you may spend in Hell, consider it a necessary fire to burn away any lies that may be limiting you. Be patient in grief and when the time feels right, stand tall and exclaim Hell-Yes!

For 2019 to be your best year ever, consider spending as little time as possible between Hell-No and Hell-Yes. The experience of Hell has its purposes for us - maybe mostly to develop a Hell-Yes attitude. And as Dr. Kevin Elko often encourages, ask not that life get easier, ask that you get stronger and that your best year will be the year you own everything.

And to that, I say: Hell-Yes!

Make it a great week!

Steve Luckenbach
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