Book 240 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: The Devil is Outside Doing Pushups!

Book – Purpose Through Pain: Finding Limitless Potential in the Presence of Adversity by Justin Arnold

Book Description:

Purpose Through Pain uncovers a story of hidden abuse, childhood trauma, heartbreak, and unrelenting purpose. Author Justen Arnold offers you the experiences that have shaped his past, the standards developing his present, and the faith that anchors his future. You will find comfort, conviction, and inspiration as you walk through the stories and principles within this book. Justen has many adventures to share as a father, husband, victim, emergency room patient, gym owner, nature enthusiast, entrepreneur, crash survivor, and health, fitness, and wellness coach. Along this journey, you will find page-turning tales, honest reflections, recovery from childhood trauma and sexual abuse, conversations on masculinity, practical insight from the four quadrants of success, and motivation for men especially. See what hope looks like for our hard times. Grab a friend and read together. You will have so much to discuss. It is time to renew your passion for life and let your purpose shine through the pain!

Reflection:

The Compound Effect is at it again!!!

I can’t share this reflection without sharing the funny story about how I found this book and met this author in the first place.

Purpose Through Pain was discovered through a chance meeting with the author, Justen Arnold, on Twitter of all places. Before this Year of Magical Learning journey, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used twitter more than once in my life. For reasons unknown, I decided that I wanted to start turning these Year of Magical Learning reflections into blog posts after I had written like 30 and post them on our ClubAny website. After I finished publishing a few, I noticed this “share on twitter” button functionality and I decided to give it a try. I’ve been sharing them on that platform ever since. I’m glad I did as “Give More Than I Take” is one of my core values and by sharing these on twitter I been able to share with a broader audience and find a way to connect and thank a lot of the authors that inspired my journey, sparked new thoughts, and have played an important part in shaping this journey and my life.

Because I started posting the YOML reflections on Twitter, I found myself on the platform a little more (A LOT more sadly) than I ever had before and learning more about the platform in general. One of the authors that I really admire, Adam Grant, has a large twitter following and is very active on the platform. Adam had posted on this particular day, “What book had the greatest impact on your thinking? Not just what you think, but how you think”.

When I saw this post, I immediately couldn’t wait to dive into all the responses as I knew there would be a ton of great books I could discover to add to my Anti-Library and get to later for the Year of Magical Learning. Scrolling through the comments, I came across Justen’s posts about learning the most from writing his own story and I immediately understood what he meant. I had just finished writing I Can’t Imagine only a few months before this moment and I knew how impactful it had been in shaping my thoughts on life, processing what had happened to my daughter and our family, and sculpting my purpose that I intend to pursue the rest of my days.

I reached out to Justen and said I’d love to learn more about his book and his life. We met via zoom and enjoyed learning about each other’s lives and creative projects. Justen asked if I wanted to be a guest on his podcast he hosts about finding purpose through pain, and I said ABSOLUTELY! Getting to talk about Emilia, sharing her story, and how I found purpose through my own pain is what I live for in this world. I was all over it and really enjoyed the experience!

After the podcast was over, I promised Justen I would buy his book to learn more about his story…and here we are. Crazy how life works sometimes!

What I found while reading Purpose Through Pain was an inspirational and beautifully written story about Justen’s life, his struggles, and how he has channeled all of that into the engine that drives his life. The idea of finding purpose through pain is the essence of what this is what the Year of Magical Learning is all about. Embracing your circumstances, discovering who you are and what matters most to your life, and then coordinating your life around actions to align to your purpose.

As I was reading, I found myself taking all kinds of notes from the amazing analogies Justen shared to brings his thoughts and ideas to life. Fishing Lines versus anchor lines, exercise is a celebration of what your body can do and not a punishment, fruit is produced so others can take your seeds and plant them, tell a better story, and so many more.

The one that I will never get out of my head is how Justen describes the analogy of distractions from your purpose as the Devil Outside Doing Pushups! For some reason, my mind always starts to think of the cartoonish New Jersey Devils hockey team’s mascot waiting outside my door, wearing a sweat band, and pumping iron whenever I hear these words…it makes me chuckle. Justen is right in saying that living a purpose driven life is not easy. My life is filled with distractions, just like yours. In the past 6 weeks alone, we’ve had Covid, childcare issues due to Covid, travel, work events, new schedules that we’re adjusting to as my wife embarks on an exciting new career journey, being displaced to a temporary home for 3 weeks when our A/C went out, end of the quarter at work, etc.

Needless to say, the devil has been outside maxing out his reps and really getting swoll the past few weeks doing anything and everything he can to push me off my course of living for 2. In my previous life, I would have for sure cracked and let the devil get his win. After all, he has been really working hard. Here’s the difference with my new life…He’ll never win because Emilia won’t let him! I can never forget why I’m doing this, no matter what the devil tries to throw in my path. I know he is there, but I don’t care. Emilia and I are on a mission, and we aren’t going anywhere!

THANK YOU, JUSTEN, FOR SHARING YOUR STORY WITH THE WORLD! I’m so glad we met, and I was able to learn about your life.

Question: What strategies to you deploy to keep distractions from throwing you off your purpose?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? - An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - Purpose Through Pain: Finding Limitless Potential in the Presence of Adversity by Justin Arnold