📜Why We Need to Know the Rules That Matter for Us📜
🔥Welcome to Volume #00111!🔥
I’m Christian Champ. This is ☯️The Middle Way Newsletter ☯️. It is a place where I write, explore, share, and invite you along for the journey.
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📜Why We Need to Know the Rules That Matter for Us📜
"Let's go, Isaac!" I yelled to pump him up.
My four-year-old son slowly walked onto the mat wearing his slightly too-big-for-him singlet for his first wrestling tournament.
The minimum age for the tournament was five years old, but it was a rule they didn't enforce, and he wanted to compete with his older brother.
When it came to wrestling, he had only trained a couple of times but had already competed in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments.
His opponent towered over his small and stocky frame.
The goal for the tournament was to move forward, get takedowns, and stay on top.
Neither he nor I knew the rules of wrestling well, so we left him to move forward, get a takedown, and stay on top.
He perfected the first part, moving forward, controlling his opponent, and throwing him into the mat.
The takedown meant he led 2-0.
Then things fell apart.
Taking the back in jiu-jitsu is one of the most dominant positions. It gives you four points and many ways to end the match in a submission, usually through a choke.
After the takedown, Isaac forgot he was wrestling and ran the BJJ rules through his operating system. In went his hooks (taking his legs and using them like hooks to control his opponent's legs) as he jumped on top of his turtling adversary.
Isaac then rolled onto his back while controlling his opponent and started to choke him out.
He took the back in wrestling BJJ style.
The kid tapped, but it was the wrong rules for the wrong sport.
Isaac let go of the choke (as soon as the kid tapped), but since the referee didn't stop the match, he kept holding his opponent's back with his back flat on the mat.
The referee counted out the pin, and Isaac lost.
He pinned himself.
Isaac shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling, mixing the emotions of dejection and confusion.
If Isaac had followed the simple rules of moving forward, getting takedowns, and staying on top, he would have won the match.
Instead, he got the takedown and shifted into BJJ mode.
He didn't remember the rules and beat himself.
The simple rules we gave him, get a takedown and stay on top, didn't resonate when the action shifted, and his habits took over.
Just like Isaac, We Need to Know What Rules to Follow and Which Rules to Ignore
When it comes to rules, the first question we face is, what game are we playing and how do we win?
We don't want to be like Isaac and win the wrong game. At the same time, we can use our skills in different games to help us win our matches.
It all starts with defining what games we are playing.
Then we ask what rules we must follow to win or keep playing our games.
The game can define these rules, but we can also define them ourselves.
I created a rule to bring good energy to every meeting. Good energy for me means living a good life and helping others.
When I don't bring good energy, I ask why I broke the rule. Is it because of the environment of the meeting? Is it because of the people in the meeting? Is it because of the topic of the meeting? Does this rule still serve me?
What rules do we need to follow, extrinsically or intrinsically, placed on us? What rules do we need to break or ignore?
What rules get placed on us, and do they help us play and strive in the games we want to play?
Like Isaac, we don’t want to win the wrong games.
We need to notice the rules we follow and ask if they are helping or hurting us.
🧠Things to Think About🧠
Reigning NBA champion and two-time MVP Nikola Jokic on Fame and Post-Career Goals
When we think about fame and celebrity, we can reflect on these comments from Jokic.
In a recent appearance on his teammate Michael Porter Jr.'s "Curious Mike
Podcast," the five-time All-Star offered his thoughts on the celebrity lifestyle.
"It just feels sad," he said.
"Being famous, I think some people like it. I don't, really. When I finish my career, I really wish nobody knows me, and I really wish my kid, or kids in the future, really remember me as a dad, not as a basketball player," he said.
Derek Thompson on Cell Phones Making Kids Dumber
Scores are down across the board in all geographic regions around the globe and the common denominator is the decline coincides with cell phones.
The deeper, most interesting story is that test scores have been falling for years—even before the pandemic. Across the OECD, science scores peaked in 2009, and reading scores peaked in 2012. Since then, developed countries have as a whole performed “increasingly poorly” on average. “No single country showed an increasingly positive trend in any subject,” PISA reported, and “many countries showed increasingly poor performance in at least one subject.” Even in famously high-performing countries, such as Finland, Sweden, and South Korea, PISA grades in one or several subjects have been declining for a while.
The punch line:
In sum, students who spend more time staring at their phone do worse in school, distract other students around them, and feel worse about their life.
🎧Things to Listen, See, and Watch 🎧
Matt offers a framework for building a new normal for adults.
💣Words of Wisdom💣
"In the abstract, life is a mixture of chance and choice. Chance can be thought of as the cards you are dealt in life. Choice is how you play them." (Edward O. Thorp, A Man for All Markets)
"Barry Taylor, the road manager for AC/DC, put it this way: "God is the name of the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape."" (Pete Holmes, Comedy Sex God)
"Why do we have more faith in a theoretical mathematical model than in what we can see in front of us? Are we bizarrely cherishing numbers or models over simple observation, because the former look more objective?" (Rory Sutherland, Alchemy)
After all, the higher you climb, the more your success depends on making other people successful. By definition, that’s what coaches do." (Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle, Trillion Dollar Coach)
"The best use of literature bends not toward the narrow and the absolute but to the extravagant and the possible." (Mary Oliver, Upstream)
"If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.” (Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)
"This is what leadership at its truest means-leading from the future toward unreasonable expectations, leading past the impossible to the point of victory." (Howard Bloom, The Genius of the Beast)
"The one commodity that we all share in equal amounts is time: 1,440 minutes — 86,400 seconds — per day." (Matthew Dicks and Elysha Dicks, Someday Is Today)
"Make a Mentor Out of Everyone There's no rule that says you can have only one coach. In fact, the world is full of people who can teach us. That's what a mentor is someone who shares her expertise to help you improve" (Julie Zhuo, The Making of a Manager)
"Stress is what happens when you face a demand that you aren't conditioned to comfortably handle." (Sally Jenkins, The Right Call)
🙏Thanks for Reading🙏
What rules do you need to make, break, and follow in the new year?
Namaste,
Christian
