Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
What is your GUT telling you?
What clear, unmistakable message is coming from deep down inside you? It's telling you about the passion and purpose you should be living for. You don't have to ask what you should be doing with your life — from the bottom of your being, you know.
On one of those spring days when it's not quite warm enough yet, a young man was chopping wood. The sun would heat him up and then dip behind a cloud to leave him chilled. He swung a big axe in a motion that was both easy and hard — it was a natural stroke, a practiced stroke.
The woodcutter had been doing this for hours, and he wouldn't be finished for hours to come. Tomorrow would be the same, and the day after and the day after. Most people would probably hate this kind of work. It was tough, dirty, monotonous, and even dangerous.
But he loved it.
Why?
That's the question the poet Robert Frost tried to answer as he told this story in his poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time":
Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
It delighted the woodcutter to hit every single block of wood "squarely" so it would split clean. He was proud that there were no splinters. It not only takes skill to do this every time, but also the desire to do it. He did it right because it mattered to him.
You'd think I never had felt before The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft And smooth and moist in vernal heat.
Every stroke of the axe was like the very first stroke he ever made. You hear about love at first sight, or the musician who first hears a piano, or the airplane pilot who solos for the first time. For this young woodcutter, just the feeling of the axe, the earth under his feet, and his own "rocking muscles" made him happy.
My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future's sakes.
The woodcutter knows an important truth: That a life well lived is all about "uniting avocation with vocation." What does that mean?
Well, it doesn't make sense at first, because an avocation is something you do outside of your vocation. You do it for fun, like tennis, painting, or Sudoku. On the other hand, your vocation is serious. It's a job, a career, a profession. So how can you "unite" a vocation and an avocation?
Don't think I'm suggesting that you do Sudoku for a living or become a tennis pro (although real people really do those things). I think Frost is talking about connecting what you love deep down inside with what the world needs: "Only where love and need are one, and the work is play, is the deed ever really done."
He's saying that when your work and your play are the same thing, you start making a life instead of just making a living.
There's something about chopping wood that appeals to the woodcutter. His work is his play. Nobody knows why he likes it so much — he just does. It's not something he ever thought about or planned for. He's just always done it and longs to keep doing it. When he's away from it, he wants to get back to it. When he's chopping, he doesn't want to stop.
This woodcutter makes no sense to most of us. The Wall Street Journal says logging is the worst of the "3D" jobs ("Dirty, Dangerous, and Difficult"). You and I might think he's crazy, but it's none of our business. His desire to be a woodcutter comes from somewhere deep inside him. It comes from his GUT!
Let's find out if you're a person with GUTs. Take this little quiz. When you're finished, add up your points and read the key to find out if you have GUTs.
DO YOU HAVE GUTS?
True or false?
1. Gutsy people don't quit when pursuing their passion.
2. To be "gutsy" is to be humble.
3. Risky behavior takes guts.
4. A person with guts doesn't walk away from a fight.
5. It takes guts to be gentle and kind.
6. Gutsy people are happy.
7. Real joy comes from doing hard, painful things.
8. Gutsy work is risky work, like firefighting or driving race cars.
9. It takes guts to show love to others.
10. Gutsy people quit when there's no point to continuing.
I am 1) Not likely 2) Pretty unlikely 3) Could go one way or the other 4) Pretty likely 5) Very likely to do the following:
11. Tell the truth even if it makes me look bad.
12. Apologize if I do something that hurts someone.
13. Admit it when I make a mistake.
14. Keep my promises.
15. Stand up for someone who is being attacked verbally or physically.
16. Trust people until I see a reason not to.
17. Take responsibility whether the outcome is good or bad.
18. Refuse to do work that isn't important.
19. Walk my talk.
20. Take other people's opinions seriously.
Take 5 points for each correct true or false answer for questions 1-10. Key: 1T 2T 3F 4F 5T 6T 7T 8F 9T 10T
Enter your score here: __________
What does your score mean?
To really understand what it means to have GUTs, let me tell you the story of my friend Kyle Bjornstad. He's a nice, ordinary guy in most ways, and a good but not spectacular athlete. He could be any one of us. But in my book (this book, actually), he's one of the greatest men I've ever known in my life. If anyone has GUTs, Kyle does.
Even as a little kid, Kyle had a passion for basketball and a fixation on playing for the great Oregon State University (OSU), a Division I school with a venerable basketball tradition going back to the 1920s.
"I loved Oregon State from the time I could walk. My family lives in Eugene, home of the rival University of Oregon Ducks. My dad even worked for the Ducks. But for me, it was never a matter of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go: I was going to play basketball for Oregon State.
"All the odds were against me, and I knew it. Full grown, I was only a five-foot-ten white kid, a good player but not great. But I was obsessed. It was in my GUT. In high school I never went partying or anything — I was always at the gym late at night or under the bridge playing pick-up ball with anyone I could find.
"At fifteen, I was looking forward to playing on the high school team as a junior. But just before school started, I was playing in a dumb summer-league game that meant nothing — and I tore a ligament in my knee. I was devastated. I had to sit out the whole basketball season.
"For months I worked like crazy to get my knee back in shape to play on the team my senior year. This was my last chance. I had to make the team, and I did, but in the practice leading up to our first game, I tore my knee again. I had to sit out my senior year, too."
Kyle Bjornstad didn't play one single second of basketball in high school. He basically had zero chance of making a college team anywhere, much less the storied Oregon State team. It was all over for him.
"I'm not the type of person who succumbs to that," he says. "So Oregon State was off the table. But I had other options. There was a small college in Eugene with a basketball team, and I begged the coach to put me on the practice squad just so I could put on a jersey. Well, he liked me and I started playing pretty well. But deep down in my GUT this wasn't my real goal. I decided to leave and enroll at OSU. I told the assistant coach at my school what I was going to do and he laughed in my face: 'Good luck. Best case is you're going to be a team manager — a ball boy. Enjoy it!' This just made me more determined. I sent the OSU coach an email explaining my story, got a meeting with him, and got laughed at again. 'See you around,' he said, as he ran me out of his office.
"I refused to give up on my goal. I started hanging around with the players. They didn't have anybody to practice with in the off-season, so I would go and play with them. One day, one of the assistant coaches checked in on us. 'Hey, you're a pretty good player,' he told me, and invited me to join the practice squad, which meant I could fill in at team practices. I did that for a full season. I was not on the team, but it was a start.
"That year, OSU was awful, but I loved it. The team was depressed, and here I was busting my ass on the practice floor, playing with all the hell and vigor I could. The others would say, 'Dude, why are you working so hard? Knock it off.'
"Things got worse. The team went winless that year, 0-18, the worst record in conference history, and the coach was fired mid-season (which never happens); so players started transferring, quitting, and jumping off this Titanic. They were supposed to tour that summer, but their numbers were so low they decided to take me with them. At last I was on the team! I'd get to play three or four minutes, but tried so hard that the team started to love me even though I was such an outlier.
"The new coach was Craig Robinson — Michelle Obama's brother! He started to right the ship, recruiting a new team for the next year, and I steeled myself to be let go. When Coach Robinson called me in, I knew I was going to get cut. It sucks but I get it. I was shocked when he said, 'I've seen you work your butt off. You're a team leader. I'm giving you a full scholarship."
"I couldn't believe it. Here I was — not only a member of the great Oregon State team, but also team captain and on a full-ride scholarship!
"That year our losing streak broke — we went from 0-18 to best turnaround in the league. We even made it to the College Basketball Invitational, a post-season series. After winning one and losing one, we were in the last few seconds of a best-of-three series; we're up only a couple of points, and the coach sends me into the game. 'Coach, what are you doing?' I'm thinking. 'I'm the smallest guy on the team, and you're sending me in now?'
"Fortunately we stay on top and I grab the last rebound just as the buzzer goes off. We had gone from 0-18 the year before to the first post-season tournament OSU had ever won. That night Coach got a phone call from President Obama congratulating him and us on our stunning turnaround."
I love Kyle's story. Sheer GUTs took him from zero chance of ever playing Division I college basketball to being the captain of a team cheered by the President of the UnitedStates!
When people look at guys like Kyle, they'd say the odds are against him, but I would say that for a guy who can pull it out of his GUT like that, the odds are always in his favor. Nobody sees and nobody knows what's in the GUT.
Kyle says, "You get that feeling in your GUT that you want something so bad, no matter how long it takes or how bad it hurts, you just go for it. Sometimes you fail — and I can accept failure — but I can't accept looking back and realizing I didn't try."
Kyle Bjornstad loves basketball: he's so passionate about it you could also say that basketball loves him. He's an ordinary guy, not a big famous celebrity athlete — but a man who lives from the GUT and loves it.
I want you to notice that Kyle is not a celebrity or an Olympian or a genius. But despite Kyle's many setbacks and humiliations, he never, ever lost touch with his passion. The sweat, the hard work, the pain — it all gives him joy! I know that doesn't sound reasonable, but it's true. And it's true of everyone who lives from the GUT. It can be true of you!
Sometimes we lose touch with our GUT and get tangled up in a stupid net of petty jealousies or political fights at work or just the everyday aggravations of living. We start to feel sorry for ourselves.
When I go for a run, I typically do a five-mile loop along a biking trail that ends with a steep bridge. One day I was running, and a little girl was coming down the path towards me on a bicycle. She wasn't wearing a helmet. Suddenly, she veered toward a nearby gate, accelerated, and bam!!! Hit the gate full force. The impact threw her head over heels onto the pavement.
I ran to help, worried about head trauma. She was beat up, scrapes everywhere, but no broken bones or head injury. Her father, who had been trailing her, came up on his bike as I was caring for her. Gently, I encouraged her to wear a helmet the next time she went for a bike ride. Her father was offended and started screaming profanities at me, telling me to mind my own business.
I shouted back. "I was trying to help your daughter, you ass. If you really cared for her, you wouldn't let her ride a bike without a helmet. It's your fault." Pissed off, I left and started to run again, full of frustration and angrily mumbling to myself.
"That stupid dad. How could he criticize me? All I was trying to do was help. He was the irresponsible one. Taking it out on me was pathetic!"
My paced quickened. I just keep on stewing over it, getting angrier by the minute. Before I knew it, I had run the loop faster than I ever had before and was completely exhausted, wiped out. I would never get up that steep bridge staggering like this.
Then far down the path I saw a blurry figure coming toward me, unrecognizable at first, then as I got closer and closer I could see it was a young man in a motorized wheelchair. He had no arms and no legs and was driving his wheelchair with his chin. He looked like he was having the time of his life. He was happy as can be, calling out a cheerful hello as he passed me.
I was amazed. Suddenly I learned a wonderful lesson. You can go through life making a mess, even get in trouble when you're trying your best, and feel sorry for yourself. You can get pissed off all you want, it just makes you tired. But then I think of that young man and realize I have nothing to complain about.
Back home I told my boys about the young man I'd met on the path. "Oh, yes," they said. "That's Gabe Adams and he is awesome. Dad, he's an amazing artist, just using his chin and his iPhone. And he can even dance! He dances with the cheerleaders at basketball games!"
Days later I saw Gabe again, this time at a high school football game where my sons were playing. He left his chair and hopped and bounced up the stadium bleachers without arms and legs and without help to sit with his family. It was a remarkable thing to watch.
Our boys won that night. But a far greater victory is what I witnessed when young Gabe climbed those stairs with a big grin on his face. I have never seen a happier human being. That night I learned that happiness is a choice, and it takes GUTs to make that choice.
Young Gabe Adams loves to dance, and dancing loves him. Dancing is in his GUT. Maybe the most inspiring thing I have ever seen is Gabe dancing with the cheerleaders at his high school. He does flips and rolls. He vaults across the room. He springs up and down like a champion gymnast. And he does all of this with no limbs! I call that GUTs.
What are the odds that a young man with no arms or legs could become an accomplished dancer? A million to one against, I guess. Unless that young man has GUTs. Then, believe me, the odds are in his favor.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to coach football at the college, high school and youth league levels. I love coaching, and coaching loves me!
My football coaches have been among the greatest blessings in my life. I was very fortunate in my athletic career to have some of the world's finest and brightest coaches — and they taught me more than just football. John Chura, Bill Curry, Ken Blair, and Mac McWhorter all had great influence on me as a young man.
Football has always been important to me. I just love the game, controversies and all. There is something about what it teaches young men that is difficult to put in words. They come to understand the importance of working hard for a goal, doing their part, serving others, and being a leader.
And deep down inside I have always loved to help others, teach others, and coach others. I discovered my love for coaching others when my son Beau was nine and my son Ben was five.
Years ago we moved to Georgia, and my sons wanted to sign up for football, so I took them to their first practices. The coaches were terrible — well-meaning, but just terrible. We were horrified. They screamed at the boys, used disgusting language, berated the kids, and even taught them incorrect and unsafe form. They did not understand the game, nor how to coach so the game was safe and fun.
I found myself going to every practice because I was concerned about my children's safety and wanted to make sure they had a positive experience. So after every practice I would spend countless hours coaching my boys to play with the correct form and giving them positive reinforcement. Before long, a group of concerned parents brought their boys to join my boys for these sessions. Thankfully, we made it through the year without any major incidents.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Guts"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Sam Bracken.
Excerpted by permission of Mango Media, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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