An ex Navy Seal kicked my ass last night.

I get a sick, masochistic pleasure out of working out.

In the summers here in Nashville, I will throw on my running shoes, smear on some sunscreen, bury my Bose earbuds in each side of my head and take to the pavement at the hottest part of the day.

I'll run three miles up along this snaking hill that sits outside the front of my home and as the cars pass me, I'll feel the air grow hotter for a split second before dropping back down to a still sweltering level.

Exercise, for me, is just as much about mental therapy as it is physical.

I have so much shit floating about my skull on a daily basis and the only effective method I've found to flushing this shit is getting out and brushing the asphalt with the soles of my feet and painting it blacker with my dripping sweat. 

This past week, I caught wind that my girl's bodyguard is an ex-Navy Seal.

Naturally, I asked him to kill me in the gym. 

Around 6 p.m. last night, in the basement of Madison Square Garden, just a few hours before I'd watch Kacey take the stage and sing her poetry in front of a sold-out arena, this ex-Navy Seal worked me like a beast of burden in one of the New York Knicks workout facilities. 

(These days, when he's not working as a bodyguard, he's heading the physical fitness at a naval base in Virginia Beach...)

When he asked me how hard I wanted to go, I foolishly said, "Run me through whatever you do on base."

He smiled. He said sure. He barked the instructions. Hit the timer. Told me to go. I went. And, just five minutes later, I found that it took every ounce of my mental fortitude not to wave my hands in resignation.

As I panted myself through every movement and breath and second of the workout, I realized this was the humbling I needed.

I take a great deal of pride in my workout regiment and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that thought I could muscle my way through whatever exercise he threw at me. 

I remember in high school, I had an extraordinary basketball coach by the name of Bryan Speer that would constantly tell both myself and my teammates that there was always someone out there working harder than us.  

While I think rest is certainly important and I can't say I align with the constant hustle that Gary Vaynerchuck so often preaches, I do think it's worthwhile to remember this sentiment when you've grown too big for your britches and feel like you're writing well or living well or working out well; to remember that there is always somebody out there that is writing better than you are or living fuller than you or working harder than you are. 

Before I entered the hell that was the basement of Madison Square Garden with this ex Navy Seal, I thought I was hitting my workouts hard. After I walked out of that hell, I realized I was full of shit. 

This isn't me telling you to put in more hours. I don't think "professionals" necessarily put in more hours. I just think the intensity during the hours they put in is on a level that many of us can't fathom. 

There's a video of Kobe Bryant guarding a Spurs player by the name of Matt Barnes as he is inbounding the ball.

Barnes, pissed off at Kobe for something or another, fakes as if he's going to throw the ball in Kobe's face.

To the crowd's astonishment, Kobe didn't so much as flinch as the ball came just inches to his face. He just stood there, with a blood-curdling gaze fixed completely and totally on Barnes, never breaking eye contact.

This is the kind of intensity I'm talking about. 

Kober Bryant and Matt Barnes played the same exact game that lasted the same amount of minutes, but there is no question of who played it the hardest, the fiercest and with the most intensity. 

Perhaps this is why we force suffering to our bodies, so that when our time comes, we can get the most out of every hour, every minute, every second. 

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.

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Kris Kristofferson flew helicopters for the National Guard to pay the bills as he attempted to make it as a singer-songwriter. In addition to his work with the National Guard, he also worked as a janitor at Columbia Records, where Johnny Cash was signed.

From time to time, he’d run into Cash in the hallways and he’d slip him cassettes of his music (which Cash later said he’d chuck in the lake on his property).

Desperate to get his attention, one day during his shift with the National Guard, Kristofferson decided to fly a helicopter and land it on Johnny Cash’s property in Hendersonville, Tennessee. 

Later that year, Johnny Cash invited Kristofferson on stage at a music festival he was performing at and he would eventually go on to cut one of his songs, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”, which would become a #1 hit.

Good things happen when you refuse to be ignored. This guide, How to become the Don Draper of cold email, will teach you how to shoot your shot, again and again and again, until you get whatever it is you want.  

"It appears that Cole Schafer is warning against the danger of making relationship decisions based on history versus the reality of the present, with a strange metaphor about flying a defunct airplane (even though he, himself, isn't actually a pilot)..."

Carlos Segura is the lead designer and founder of Segura Inc., a design agency that’s been spitting out some of the most profound creative work of the last few decades.

An old colleague of Segura’s –– a guy by the name of Jason Fried who started Basecamp and Hey –– once shared his working agreement over on his blog.

Some find it to be arrogant. Others, brilliant.

I’ll let you decide…

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