The Road to Greatness

The fictional book and move The Road is a survival and morality tale in a desolate post-apocalypse setting. A father and his young son are adrift in the tattered remnants of a world shattered by some undefined destruction. The father sacrifices all in the pursuit of keeping his son alive - his son represents perhaps the sole surviving vestiges of kindness and benevolence in the dangerous world. Their life of tranquility, peace and happiness is tossed asunder and they live a cut-throat existence amongst thieves, scavengers, and all other forms of the worst kinds of human behavior. The father is forced to make the literal choices of killing, and dying, so that his son survives. Is there a person, or a cause, or a belief, for which you will make the same sacrifices?

Jim Steel is a renowned strength coach at the University of Pennsylvania who teaches his athletes to operate with a “one more for the apocalypse” mentality. Meaning, when they are in the weight room or are otherwise training for a sport, can they adopt the same mindset as the father in The Road? Are they willing to do whatever it takes in order to eke out one more repetition, one more sprint, one more molecule of energy?

Train your mind and body to elicit the type of maximum effort required in an actual life or death situation. If the apocalypse were upon you, how much effort would you expend? How much would you care about achieving your objective? Use the lessons of The Road as you travel your road toward greatness.

From October 2010, http://raising-a-man.tumblr.com