Why Being Reasonable is Holding You Back

Here’s the key point — your ability to be unreasonable is directly proportionate to your ultimate success in life. Read further for evidence as to why.
This morning I was listening to hectomillionaire Jesse Itzler talk about the month he spent with former NAVY Seal David Goggins. [Link - here]
(For those who don’t know Goggins, check out the Joe Rogans podcast featuring him, it’s a master class on mindset domination, you can find it here — Goggins/Rogan)
In the month Iztler spends with Goggins, Goggins subjects him to many arduous tasks; from running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours, to freezing cold ice plunges. It’s a profound contrast to what we experience every day, in which creature comforts such air conditioning, hot showers, comfortable beds and warm food permeate our lifestyle with insidious effect.
In this video, Goggins introduces us to the idea of extreme hormesis — the process of subjecting yourself to adverse conditions, with the view that your body and mind will respond by evolving to survive in their new environment.
We’ve all done the gym, the morning runs and the late business hours, but how many of us have subjected ourselves to true gruelling adversity? To the point where ‘normal’ people shake their heads and condemn our actions as ‘unreasonable’.
The underlying tendency to be unreasonable is what is required to do amazing things, to leave people in disbelief. Accordingly, our ability to be unreasonable with the constraints that life places on us, to push past them and willingly stare down adversity, is directly proportional to the success that we will accumulate in life. Confronting adversity is the catalyst that sets the process of iterative hormesis in action.
The tendency to be unreasonable is what has driven Itzler to become a hectomillionaire and Goggins to push through the infamous Navy Seals ‘Hell Week’ & Delta Force selections numerous times. It is the tendency that we must all aspire to, to achieve whatever it is that we want in life.
When asked why Goggins wasn’t satisfied with the accomplishment of being a NAVY seal and continued to push to join the next group of elite forces. His response was, ‘I want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people.’ In the context of this article, he wanted to be unreasonable by the standards of unreasonable people.
The practice of being unreasonable, is the process of shedding personal/societal expectations and redefining our own standards of what is possible.
To take this from the abstract to the practical, we must ask ourselves — what adversity must I face to get where I want to go? Is there something I have been avoiding, that if conquered, would elevate me, not just incrementally, but to the whole next level?
Because in life, there are levels to everything. The question is, which level do you want to play at and what/who are you willing to face to get there?
I implore you, don’t just read this, make the decision to be unreasonable right now and commit to just one thing that is going to push you way out of your comfort zone. This decision in itself, is the next step closer to greatness.
TB
P.s. To get some skin in the game, I commit to running a marathon by the end of September. My current furthest distance is 21k’s, i.e. half a marathon. I also commit to surviving one month in sub zero temperatures with only a bow and two weeks supply of food — by end 2019. Finally, I commit to undertaking a replica SAS training camp, by mid 2019.
They’ve all been on my mind but there, now I’m committed.