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Bagger Vance and finding your one true authentic swing

Junuh finding his one true authentic swing

“Yep… Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing… Somethin’ we was born with… Somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone… Somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned… Somethin’ that got to be remembered… Over time the world can rob us of that swing… It get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas… Some folk even forget what their swing was like…”

The Legend of Bagger Vance
Steven Pressfield

Finding Your Swing Again

Do you know where it went?

How long has it been gone?

What took its place?

Do you even believe that you have it anymore?

In the movie The Legend of Bagger Vance, Will Smith’s character Bagger Vance, counsels Rannulph Junuh, played by Matt Damon, that all that is standing in his way of winning history’s greatest golf match is finding his swing.

Author Steven Pressfield must have read our mail when he wrote this scene. Junuh was lost. He was lost beneath a heap of personal debris. Life had crushed him by its relentless and violent persistence. He used to play golf. He used to love the game. He used to smile. He used to be the town hero. Now, after a decade of disappointments, hardships, and consequences from character defects, he lost his swing.

Bagger Vance was right

Inside every one of us there is our one true authentic swing, the swing that only we can make. The swing that was installed into our DNA upon inception. Some might call it our sweet spot. Some might say it’s our gifting.

I think Stephen Pressfield was naming something deeper than gifting.

Our one true authentic swing is that thing we do that only we can do the way we do it.

I’ve watched surfers, singers, pianists, speakers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, carpenters, artists, writers, athletes, and chefs, each swing in a way that can only be explained as authentic – somethin’ we was born with.

I’ve tried to explain this phenomenon before. I called it The Illusion of Ease. Pressfield’s explanation through Bagger Vance is better.

Read it again

Somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone… Somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned… Somethin’ that got to be remembered…

Don’t the chill bumps on your arm provide you all the proof you need?  Something that is ours alone, that can’t be taught or learned, but has to be remembered.

What would it take for you to remember your swing?

How long would you have to search through the archives of your soul’s memory to find it again?

Do you realize how the world needs your swing?

No one else has what you have. No one else swings like you swing. No one else can replicate it.  You couldn’t teach someone to swing like you if you tried.  You have to remember.

You have to pull it out of the bag, the closet, down off the shelf and try and find it again. We are waiting for you.  How long must we wait?  How long will you deny the world your swing?  Please reconsider.

I know that your second grade teacher, your mother, your father, your Boy Scout leader, your coach, your boss, or your ex-wife made you believe that your swing was not special.

They were wrong-dead wrong.

As Bagger Vance instructs us of the pending tragedy,

Over time the world can, rob us of that swing.  

Tragic the idea remains if:

  • Michelangelo had not painted the Sistine Chapel
  • Steven Pressfield never penned a book
  • Wes Anderson never stared through the lens of a camera
  • Kelly Slater never got in the ocean
  • Bill Gates never wrote a line of code

I’d love for you to reconsider.

Stop denying it.

Stop burying it.

Stop pretending it isn’t that great.

Find your swing.

Offer it to the world.

Gift us with your one true authentic swing.

What to Say When You Have Nothing to Say?

Canyonlands National Park

I usually have an idea in my head or a concept that I am looking forward to unpacking with the keystrokes of my Mac.

This time I don’t!

At the moment my idea reservoir is about as dry as the Canyonlands of Utah.

For today, my entry is to say that I have no big idea to offer you.

Yet, I suspect this discomfort is more common than we might want to admit to each other.

Sometimes we just don’t have a revolutionary idea or project that we can’t wait to work on.

I wouldn’t call this writers block

It’s more like the time right after a big race or shipping your project.

You did all of the work, trained well, showed up on race day and delivered.

The day immediately after the race is a bummer.

There is a let down of excitement.

The lead-up anticipation is over.

The daily motivation of the deadline is gone.

It’s back to the drawing board to start working on the next “big thing”.

The Next Big Thing

I envy people that are more even keeled than me.

I love watching them as they do the work without requiring a new injection of “what’s the next big thing?”

They have an amazing ability to move from one day-to-the next without much thought.

I know athletes like this.

They finish one race on Sunday and then on Monday they start their training cycle over again.

They don’t need a goal or mission or a big story to chase.

They simply wake up tomorrow and do the work.

Dreaming of a Reason

My heart drives most of what I do.

Unfortunately I don’t wake up on Monday after a race and just jump back onto the hamster wheel.

I go for a run, but not with the same zeal I had before the race.

I go searching for a more allusive question

"What is my heart saying is next?"

I usually need a reason or an idea to drive me to get all of the way to the finish line.

This same mystery surrounds writing this blog.

I am familiar with the Steven Pressfield “Do the Work” idea.

I am not talking about work ethic here.

I am talking about the internal fire burning at a dull glow instead of a hot fiery furnace.

Friends I am not going to conjure up some list of five things to do to cure this predicament.

I know some of those lists are very popular and even helpful.

Instead I’m going to leave us both with the mystery of the question

“What is our heart saying is next?”

Keep going.

What if No One Likes What You Create (Creative Process)?

The Creative Process is full of reasons to quit

When I sit down to work on new creative projects, I often hear this question before I even start. How much time do you spend thinking about why you shouldn’t start creating something new instead of just doing it?

How many statements of disqualification do you listen to everyday?

Do you ever hear questions in your head like these?

The truth is I hear this list a lot.

Sometimes I even yield to its taunting voice. I want to share with you the struggle that I face to make it make it to the finish line. I’m writing this post for myself as much as for you. I need the help in silencing my lizard brain that wants me to stop risking and play it safe.

The “What If’s” that try to stop me from doing great work

  • What if my next projects, my next presentation, my new curriculum, my new software app stinks?
  • What if no one uses it?
  • What if no one likes it?
  • What if no one leaves a comment on my next blog post?
  • What if I don’t finish the Marathon I am training for?
  • What if my manifesto doesn’t get read?
  • What if no one buys my new product idea?
  • What if your book manuscript doesn’t get published?
  • What if no one listens to my new podcast?

I waste time listening instead of doing

How much time do we spend churning through these questions instead of just doing the work?

I am going to wager a guess.

Some days, I spend almost 75% of my time
entertaining these whispers of doubt instead of
courageously doing the work regardless of outcomes.

How many incomplete projects or ideas do you have in your cue?

Steven Pressfield describes these enemies of the creative process in his book, The War of Art. He names the tension, calls out the culprits, exposes our fears and throws a lifeline to the reader to stop listening and start doing great work.

I have a series of projects that I have been loosing the war to what Steven calls “The Resistance”.  Watch his video here on how to overcome Resistance.

Take an Inventory

  1. Would you be willing to take an inventory of the number of projects, ideas, initiatives
    that you have started in the last six months, but not completed?
  2. Now take a similar inventory of the number of projects that you have completed?
  3. How many of the completed projects, ideas, products, inventions, books, stories, speeches, stood up against the above list of fears?

Do The Work Anyway

Once you answer the questions above with the answer I am going to do it anyway.

Then you are free to do the work you love regardless of people’s responses. Jeff Goins published a great ebook that speaks to this kind of thinking, Your Are a Writer, so start acting like one.

Instead of doubting, I want to act like the person I want to become.

  • You are a writer.
  • You are a designer.
  • You are an author.
  • You fill in the blank. “I am a…….”

What will you do today that yesterday you dismissed because you thought
no one will like what you create?

You might also enjoy the podcast interview with Jeff Goins.  Listen here.  

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