7 Healthy Responses to "Hitting the Wall"

Here we are still. COVID is still a thing, social unrest hasn’t gone away, school is back in session, summer is over, and there seems to be no end in sight. Across client engagements, in personal relationships, and even checking out at the grocery store, it feels like that weight is still upon us all. It feels like we are hitting the wall(s).

Psychologically, hitting the wall feels a lot like a wet blanket on the soul, or like running in mud. Sometimes it feels like you just can’t will your brain to work right even though you know what you have to do.

Everyone experiences this. Being around the same people, in the same place, with what feels like a no win situation for a long time can lead to feelings of helplessness. 

Photo Credit Jonathan Rados via Unsplash

What happens next is personality driven. Some get depressed and shut down, others get anxious and cry. Some people emotionally withdraw and seethe with anger. There are so many ways we express this as people, but when we hit the wall, we have to take action.

A few thoughts for when you hit the wall:

• Stop: Before you say anything, don’t. Frankly, try your hardest to just be nice; if you can’t do that, then walk away. 

• Breathe: Take a few minutes with some intentional belly breathing. Take it all in, filling the bottom of your lungs first, then exhale. The ability to activate your parasympathetic nervous system will begin to engage your sympathetic and let your body know that you neither need to fight, nor flee.

• Refocus: What are you mentally fixating on in the moment and how is it helping bring you down from your frustration? If it’s not, you need to refocus on something else. 

• Reassure: You’re not the only one who’s stressed out. Everyone is cooped up. Everyone has lost their sense of normalcy. Reassuring others that you are feeling upset while reassuring them of your care for them makes a difference.

• Get Some Space: Go outside, go into another room, get some distance. If you tend to withdraw when things get tense, perhaps let your partner or your children know that you are upset and you need a moment, but will return and resume the relationship.

• Physical Activity: Get some bilateral stimulation to help your brain to process what you’re thinking and your body to regulate what you’re feeling. Are you getting stronger right now or are you getting weaker? Choose stronger. 

• Acupressure: if you’re really fired up, take a few minutes to activate some acupressure releases. You can learn a bit about some of the techniques at the University of Colorado supported Individualized Training and Education in Acupressure site via our friends at The Marcus Institute for Brain Health.

Here are a few activities you can use to channel your frustration: prayer, journaling, yoga, art, walking, singing, reading, meditation, the list goes on. Find what works best for you and do it consistently. Also, use the technique as a preventative measure to keep you from loosing your cool. 

Photo Credit Nathan Dumleo via Unsplash

You’re not crazy, and you’re not a terrible person. You’re a human being experiencing a difficult situation. Everyone hits the wall from time to time, especially when nothing is the way it should be. If you have already blown through your opportunity to just be nice when you’ve hit the wall, and you are in the process of recovering, here’s a word of advice: apologize and ask for forgiveness. 

Keep short accounts with your loved ones or fellow quarantiners (as a general rule) and especially in this time because they’ll still be there with you tomorrow. 

Finally, settle in, this is not going to change anytime soon. You have to wrap your head around this reality. The reason marathoners call it hitting the wall is because they experience this phenomenon every marathon. It feels like you can’t take another step, or another moment. But you can. And that’s the reason marathoners have stacks of medals hanging on their walls. 

You can take far more than you think. Remember that the next time you hit the wall. 

Thumbnail photo credit Andre Hunter via Unsplash.

A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste

This blog was originally shared by our friends at GORUCK. Please go check them out! You can view the original version here.

This is not normal. It is also not a new normal. This is an interruption. And just like anytime our normal behavior is interrupted, we have an opportunity to wake up, snap out of our mindless patterns, appreciate what we have, and make a better plan for the future. So let’s go, friends. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. 

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how this is an amazing chance to just Netflix and chill. That’s wrong. Don’t do that. Let the rest of the country get soft on Game of Thrones and Domino’s while you take this time to get your head right, your body healthy, and your house in order. When the “all-clear” is given and the world goes back to work, you’ll be strong and focused and ready. As Mark Rippetoe famously said, “Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful in general.” And make no mistake, there will be plenty of opportunity for you to be useful on the other side of COVID-19. Start preparing now. Here’s a framework that I think will help you.

Perspective and Gratitude

It is important to acknowledge that this situation has, and will continue to, cut us pretty deep. To some extent, we’ve all been hurt by COVID-19. Lost wages, social isolation, and anxiety about the future are all taking a toll. I get it. It is easy for us to focus on all of the things we’ve lost and all of the things that we can’t do. But that doesn’t have to be our focus. What if instead, we took some time to reflect on what we have and what we can do? Personally, I feel incredibly blessed to have a healthy family and the warm Florida sunshine. Sure, I’ve lost a few gigs and our anniversary trip is canceled – but I’ve been on more bike rides with my kids in the past two weeks than I did in the previous six months. At some point, this will pass. I’ll go back on the road, the kids will go back to school, and this unique opportunity will be gone. I’d hate to look back on it knowing that I squandered it. We have our health and we have each other. We can always make more money and take another trip. Trite, but true.     

Sharpen Your Axe

If you’re anything like me you have a to-do list that generally adds more check-boxes than it crosses off. It is hard to find the time to clean up the yard, organize the garage, straighten up the closet, or file the tax returns. I used to call these kinds of tasks “ankle-biters”, but now I call them “psychic weight”. They’re like a bunch of little 5lbs plates just weighing down my brain and preventing me from attacking life’s truly important work, and this COVID-19 situation just gave me a clear path to knock them out. Why sit on the couch and do nothing when you could be listening to a podcast and doing your spring cleaning? Why scroll through Instagram when you could be getting some fresh air while spreading some fresh mulch? I’m telling you, this window will close and you’ll go back on life’s treadmill. Get your house literally and figuratively in order while you can. When the whistle blows and the game resumes, you’ll be free from your psychic weight and ready to launch.

Keep Training

We all know that physical training is good for the body, mind, and spirit. And the last time I checked, push-ups were still free and readily available. So are burpees, squats, sit-ups, running, and of course rucking. If you’ve got a little bit of equipment, even better. With almost every gym on the planet offering some kind of virtual, at-home training program including GORUCK, there are limitless options to move your body and stay fit during COVID-19. If you can train with a family member or friend, that would be ideal. If you can’t, start a video chat and train together from a distance. Share your workouts. Challenge a buddy. Get creative. Just #KEEPTRAINING. 

A Helpful Exercise

Take five minutes each morning to pull out your notebook or journal and do this little exercise. It will absolutely help you to stay grateful, sharpen your axe, and keep training. 

Step 1: Get out of bed

Step 2: Drink 20oz of water

Step 3: Write down three things you’re grateful for. Big or small, just be grateful.

Step 4: Write down three things you’re going to do today. Get shit done.

Step 5: Write down your plan for today’s training. Fortune favors the prepared.

These are tough times, but you are tougher people. Take stock of what you’ve got. Be good to each other. Make a plan. Execute. I can’t wait to see you all at a GORUCK event soon. There will be high-fives. There will be hugs. There will be buddy-carries. I will be ready. And you will be too.

Embracing the Stockdale Paradox

At a time when so many of us are frustrated, disheartened, and uncertain about the future, I think we’d do well to take some advice from James Stockdale. Shot down over Vietnam in 1965, Stockdale spent eight years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton where he was repeatedly isolated, tortured, and starved. It is hard to image how anybody could survive that kind of suffering, much less emerge to thrive. But he did, and he has a relatively simple explanation of how - the Stockdale Paradox.

Popularized by famous business author Jim Collins, as a characteristic of great businesses, the Stockdale Paradox is essentially a combination of realism and resolve. You might call it hopeful pragmatism - the ability to face the brutal facts of your current reality while maintaining an unshakeable belief that you will prevail in the end. You can never lose hope, but you can never lose touch. And this is exactly what we need right now.

Pessimism is clearly not the answer. It never is. But, pure optimism isn’t either. In Stockdale’s own words:

“Oh, it’s easy. I can tell you who didn’t make it out. It was the optimists. They were the ones who always said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ Christmas would come and it would go. And there would be another Christmas. And they died of a broken heart.”

This is an extremely difficult period for all of us and we can’t simply wish it away and convince ourselves that it’ll be over after the election, or after the holidays, or at any arbitrary point on the calendar. We have to face the challenges of 2020, and fight. And we have to do so knowing that we’ll figure it out and make it through. This isn’t paradoxical at all. It’s the way that tough people have been solving problems forever.

It is easy to feel like we have to fall into one of two camps (We’re Screwed OR We’re Fine), but we don’t. The truth is, we’re not screwed AND we’re not fine. We are in the middle of a bad situation. It hurts. And we don’t know when it will be over. But we will work our way out of it.

If the current moment has you feeling beat down, go easy on yourself, we are all going to have our low points. Maybe just keep Stockdale in mind. Shrink the world down a bit. Identify what is within your control. Acknowledge that times are hard, take it one day at a time, and keep moving forward.

Living Our Moment

This moment we live in is unprecedented, and yet, each moment we live always has been. Crises have a way of magnifying the fact that the way we live today matters, for each of us and for each other. 

In light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the world waits for a way forward; some people in anticipation, all in uncertainty and many with great fear. Without question the current circumstance requires our attention, our discernment, and our careful response in leadership. 

People are scared. Some of us are navigating the waters of this pandemic with immune systems that are compromised, some of us are aging and fall within the highest risk categories of this virus. Others have reason to feel terror in the face of social isolation; perhaps they’ve already experienced enough. 

We all face new realities regardless of where we come from and today is our moment.

Through the generations we have seen people overcome extreme odds to create new realities for others. For example, we call them “The Greatest Generation” because they persevered through the Great Depression and World War II. And while this pandemic is nothing like either of those circumstances, this moment presents our opportunity to respond well. 

The question is not what will happen. We can only estimate. The question is what will you do? 

When we look back on this moment, no one will remember what events they missed, or parties that were cancelled. No one will recall the few church services they had to attend online or missing their favorite booth at the restaurant on date night. We will remember who provided calm, resilient leadership while others panicked. 

If we do this right, we will remember how we found one another, again, amidst a world drifted into loneliness. 

With an economic market plummeting and fluctuating, the two greatest commodities we can trade in today are hope and connection. In such moments of adversity, these may very well be the two greatest gifts we can give to one another. Make no mistake, they will cost you something. 

The cost of hope is disciplined thoughts and actions. We are all in the people business because we are all people. Organizations are the sum total of people and exist to serve...people! We settle into thought processes and philosophical paradigms influenced by our experiences and our hard wiring. You are who you are, fighting this is like trying to tie a rope in a tornado, but hope can be exercised and developed.

This situation is real, and real scary. Maybe not for you, but certainly for others in your sphere of influence. For the sake of our children, our spouses, our friends, our families and our teammates, take your thoughts captive when they fearfully run away from you. Be validated in the fact that what you are experiencing is real. Yet cinch your thought life down and walk with faithful resolve.

It is ok to admit that you’re scared, it is not ok to spread your fear to those counting on you. 

What we know today will change as rapidly as what we knew seven days ago. You cannot control that. You can control your response. A smile in the face of panic can do wonders to stabilize relationships. A calm word to our children can change their day while cooped up in the house. A bag of groceries on your elderly neighbor’s doorstep could save their life. 

Check your source of hope. Does it hold up to your present circumstances? Challenge that as you navigate these waters. Our greatest discoveries and growth are found at the edge of adversity. 

The cost of connection is your expectations on the way it should be. Ironically we live in an age of extreme social isolation to begin with. Sure, we all look perfect and connected on social media, but we all know it’s not real. We exist on digital islands, connected by a vast sea of social media and technological infrastructure. 

We need each other. We are made for relationships, for touch and face-to-face connection. While imperfect, in this moment we have the opportunity to build bridges across these islands and use social media and technology for their intended purposes: to connect us. Like no other time in history, we are uniquely prepared to shelter in place. 

Host a Google Hangout with your family, your coworkers, your community group or your friends and check in on each other. Is it perfect? No. Is it functional? Yes! Especially when we cannot hug one another or extend a warm handshake. The alternative to action is far worse than a few awkward moments on a call coaching your seventy year old mother on how to use Zoom (sorry mom)!  

Leaders, if we are unwilling to flex to the time in this way, we sacrifice progress for perfection and we will hit the wall. In this way, the cost is far greater than the way it should be. The cost is losing our people and today more than ever that is a cost we cannot bear. We need one another. One imperfect opportunity to connect is better than another moment slipped by in silence. 

Leave your expectations at the door you’re sheltered behind and open up the window to the world in your laptop. 

We will get through this, though we will sacrifice along the way. Many of us feel the pain now as we lay off staff, furlough teams or receive notifications that our job has just been eliminated. Our hearts are with you.  

Whatever unit of function you are leading right now, be that your family, your business, your team, yourself, and/or your community the very worst thing you can be right now is silent. Imperfect as it is, may we live our moment today in the face of great adversity by engaging in hopeful connection during this season in isolation. 

As for us, we’ll embrace and enjoy family time now especially in comparison to the typical busyness of un-quarantined life. May we all learn to find each other again, one game night, one video call, one puzzle, one bag of groceries and one bucket of popcorn and a movie at a time. 

Oh, and on that note, please relax on the toilet paper already! Peace. 

Meet Brandon Young

THANKS!

You could have spent five minutes anywhere. Thanks for spending it with me! 

I love people, that’s the first thing you should know about me, so you already know how I feel about you. I am a follower of Jesus, Kelly’s husband, Jaden and Elliot’s dad, a leader of people and a brother to more humans than I ever thought I’d be blessed to know.

Though we may be different, I know that far more connects us than divides us. I hope you know that too. 

Most people describe me as a passionate leader who lives faith forward with energy, candor, discipline, commitment and an unshakeable positivity. My mind routinely bounces between the creative, enthusiastic, action-oriented me and my drive for structure, order and achievement. It can be a bit exhausting at times. Kelly deserves a medal.

Like all of us, my childhood certainly shaped the man I’d become. I was raised by a single mother in the San Francisco Bay Area. The youngest of three, I learned much about grit, adversity and hard work from my mom. She worked four jobs to keep our family fed, housed and clothed. I developed a strong sense of justice in those formative years and learned to invest in the power of community and relationships, a theme that has carried me far in life. 

I joined the US Army at the age of 18, immediately after graduating high school. When Basic Training, Infantry School and Airborne school ended, I took a shot at the Ranger Indoctrination Program, and graduated earning the storied black beret (at the time, tan beret since 2001). It was an honor to walk amongst the elite of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and I felt belonging and purpose while honing my leadership skills at the tip of the spear. I remained in the 75th Ranger Regiment for nearly a decade, and leaving was very difficult for me. You can read more about that here. 

Though exiting the Rangers was hard, my family was worth fighting for, and we had a lot of healing to do after our difficult start.

Kelly and I married six days after the towers fell on 9-11, her mother died two days later of cancer and eight days later I deployed to the Middle East. Nine months later, I missed the birth of our son, Jaden during my first tour to Afghanistan. In total, I did 4 rotations to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I was present for my daughter, Elli’s birth in 2004 and it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I knew our situation had to change.

I departed the Army in 2009, hoping to create a better life for my family after our rocky start. 

I spent the next few years cutting my teeth in the healthcare sector, as a Territory Sales Manager for Quest Diagnostics. These transition years were particularly difficult for us. We didn’t know how to come home together and made so many mistakes along the way. In 2011, we relocated from Georgia to Colorado, a door that was opened by providence and a decision that Kelly and I made in five minutes. I spent the next four years honing my business acumen, inspiring and transforming our business unit into one of the most profitable in the country and navigating my team through a $7B restructure.

Candidly, I went into business to make money, but I discovered that leading people in the real world brought me to life, professionally, in a new and exciting way. I come most alive uniting diverse groups of people to solve really hard problems that create value for everyone.

For Kelly, Jaden, Elli and I, our lives were transformed when we came into a relationship with Jesus Christ in 2012. Though imperfect, life has come into focus one subsequent leap of faith at a time. Walking in my Christian Faith, it didn’t take long before I felt called elsewhere. Like so many other veterans struggling to reintegrate post military service, something was missing. I left corporate America in 2014 and became the first Director of Development for Team Red, White and Blue. The partnerships we built for America's veterans and the lives we enriched feed my soul to this day.

Leaving Team RWB was one more step closer to home. After 20 years of traveling, I accepted the role as Chief Advancement Officer for the Tennyson Center for Children, Colorado’s oldest and most respected non profit organizations delivering hope to abused, neglected and traumatized children. The assignment was a gift in so many ways; the children are inspiring world-changers and I came home for the first time in my life.

On December 22, 2018, Kelly and I reclaimed what was to have been our initial wedding date and our covenant, remarrying at Mission Hills Church with our children standing beside us and surrounded by our community.

At this stage, you should know that I love making people laugh and my heart beats to encourage others. One of my greatest accomplishments is making my wife and children laugh (mostly) whenever I try.  

All this brings us to today. Inspired by a call to people and the growing need in America, Blayne and I Co-Founded Applied Leadership Partners in 2020 and I continue to sharpen my leadership instincts pursuing a Masters of Divinity in Leadership (2023) at Denver Seminary. In all of these experiences, people, purpose, hope, resilience and faith remain my driving engine of success. 

Having been given the gift to serve and lead teams through change, growth and adversity, we hope to offer some of our wisdom exceeding difficult goals while never giving up or leaving a teammate behind. The world needs authentic servant leaders to solve big problems and we’d be happy to take a fresh look at the challenges you're traversing. If we can serve you, please let us know. 

Meet Blayne Smith

Nice to Meet You

Our experience in life really influences our perspective and how we tend to make sense of the world. To understand where a person stands, it is really helpful to understand where they come from. So, here’s a little background on me.

I was raised in Florida by a couple of great midwestern parents. My upbringing steeped me in some very useful ideals like, ‘take pride in your work’, ‘finish what you start’, and ‘live within your means’.  Whatever my childhood may have lacked in expansiveness or ambition, it more than made up for with love, safety, and unwavering support. As a result, I think most people would describe me as reliable, strategic, thoughtful, or maybe even prudent. I’m good with all of that, but have worked hard over the past several years to also cultivate the ability to be more bold and open.  

At 18, I went off to West Point with the goal of taking on a big challenge and setting myself up for a solid future. Graduating in June of 2001, I’d planned to complete my mandatory five years of active duty service, go find a ‘real job’, and get on with my life. It didn’t really work out that way. The next ten years were a blur, with some notable highlights including: marrying my college sweetheart, 9/11, Iraq, having a boy, becoming a Green Beret, Afghanistan, having another boy, leaving the Army, working in corporate America, and divorce. Some of it is captured brilliantly in this blog post that tells my personal story of combat, loss, the struggle to come home, and the ultimate path back to a good life. It is both heartbreaking and hopeful, and I think you’ll absolutely find it worth a few minutes of your time.

I began a new chapter of life in 2012 when I left my corporate job and accepted the role of Executive Director at Team Red, White, and Blue. Over the next five years, my days and weeks were filled with the thrill of growing a movement and the joy of serving my fellow veterans and their families.

Professionally, it is probably what I’m most proud of and will always be a huge part of my life. Personally, this period in my life was full of new and exciting (sometimes scary) experiences. Most importantly, I met and fell in love with Jeni - my amazing wife, partner, and mother of sweet Penelope.

Leaving Team RWB in 2017 was difficult, but it was only for an incredible opportunity to join my friend Jason, and an amazing business at GORUCK. While my tenure as President of the company was relatively short - which you can read all about in this piece I wrote about our family’s need to return home to Tampa - I remain involved as an advisor and continue to believe deeply in the ‘rucking revolution’.

In 2018, I started a small consulting practice providing strategy, leader development, and coaching services to organizations that are seeking to make a social impact. It’s been an awesome experience so far and I have loved working with so many impressive and interesting teams and leaders. Through the process, I have discovered that my true calling is to contribute to meaningful missions and invest in the people around me. My work allows me to do that everyday and I feel very fortunate to have found it. Joining forces with my brother, Brandon has only reinforced and expanded my desire to share my hard-earned perspective and grow servant leaders. If you or your organization are wrestling with a period of growth or change, we’d be very happy to lend a hand.

An Origin Story

So no kidding, there we were, sipping some seriously strong coffee at a Tampa bodega after 48 hours of whiteboards, big ideas, and practical thoughts. 

We have to do this.

It was 10 years after we first met in Orlando at a national sales meeting - fish out of water in our suits and ties. We’d figured out how to sell and win and lead in this new environment, but we could sense in each other that we were built for something different. Still, we embraced the shock of dealing with angry clients, constant rejection, and the long, lonely miles to learn how to be businessmen. 

We had marched hard miles before.

In 1997 we both entered the US Army, Blayne through West Point and Brandon through Ft. Benning’s Sand Hill. Over the next 12 years, we endured brutal training, honed our craft, led soldiers, and deployed to combat. A lot. Brandon as a Ranger in the 75th Ranger Regiment and Blayne as a Green Beret in the 3rd Special Forces Group. We experienced the full range and depth of the human experience - love, anger, brotherhood, fear, exhilaration, guilt, fulfillment, and profound loss. We achieved some great victories, saw some astonishing things, and survived harrowing moments that will forever be etched in our memories. 

We exited service around the same time, both hoping to turn the page and live ‘normal’ lives. We took corporate jobs and were doing our best to adapt and make a living while quietly struggling through the adversity of post-service reintegration. On the home front, we were trying to hold families together that had been ravaged by war, separation, and loss. We made so many mistakes, but we kept marching.

In 2012, Blayne left corporate America to become the first Executive Director of Team RWB. In the Spring of 2014, Brandon took his obligatory 60% pay cut to join the fast-growing veteran serving nonprofit and a hungry, talented team. Those days were tight, but our mission was solid and our crew was committed. Looking back, we recall with a smile those moments of scarcity, huddled around our financials with Laken and JJ, uncertain if we would make payroll. We didn’t break down, though, we broke through - together. Almost 4 years and $20M later, the organization was on a rocket ship and veterans were getting the care and the community they deserved.  

Back then, we had a couple of shared agreements that made all the difference: 

1) We can’t ask for permission. We have to do what we know is right - what we know will work, even if the rest of the world doesn’t see it yet.

2) We bet on our team and we walk in faith. If we believe in each other and in our mission, we’ll figure it out. 

In the fall of 2019, we found ourselves on a quick phone call that turned into a two-hour conversation about life and leadership and how we should go about making this world just a little bit better. That led to another phone call, then a video chat, then some shared books and articles, then a slew of Google docs, then a two-day whiteboard marathon that ended at that Tampa bodega...with a deep, unshakable belief.

We have to do this.

The truth is, we spent months literally trying to talk ourselves out of starting a leadership development firm. It’s a crowded industry, full of well-known personalities and systems. Does the world really need one more voice amongst all of the noise? As much as we tried to convince ourselves otherwise, the answer was a resounding “YES”.

So, why now? Because we live in an increasingly complex world with complex problems, and those problems are ultimately leadership problems. Whether you are trying to solve hunger, healthcare, climate change, or a financial crisis, you cannot do it without real leadership - applied leadership. More than ever, the world needs authentic, servant leaders who are willing and capable of being who they are, putting their mission at the center, and thriving in adversity. 

So why us? Because after decades of leading teams and businesses in uncertain and austere environments, we feel that we have something truly valuable to offer. Our successes and failures have left us with some hard-earned leadership wisdom - and our aim is to help you apply it. To make sense of how it relates to your team and your mission. To be guides, on the path with you as you navigate your next leadership challenge. 

Leadership is hard, especially if you care. But it doesn’t have to be lonely. We are here to support you and your team through the highs and lows of striving together. If you want your organization to function with more ownership, candor, creativity, and resilience we would be very happy to go on that journey with you.  

Here’s to the road ahead! 

Brandon and Blayne