Run Toward the Sound of the Gun

In today's podcast, wanna talk about the importance of just getting engaged in your life, confronting whatever it is you need to be confronting right now. No matter how difficult, no matter how challenging, you have the power within you to do incredible things. I was listening to a podcast by, William McRaven. He was he's the guy that did your make the bed speech, University of Texas that went viral. If you haven't heard that, I would encourage you to to Google that.

In 2014, it's it's one of the all time, some have said, one of the one of the best speeches commencement addresses ever given. Anyway anyway, in in this podcast I was listening to, he talked about running towards the sound of gunfire. When you when you find the importance of doing that. And before I get further into that, let me let me just tell you a little story that I read from Carol Dweck's book, Mindset. It's a great book.

Would recommend that. And and just kind of the the title that I put on this this little paragraph, instead of complaining, just go to work or run run to the sound of the gun, fight, or run to the sound of of the gun going off. So she tells this story. George Danzig was a graduate student in math at Berkeley. One day as usual, he rushed in late to his math class and quickly copied the 2 homework problems from the blackboard.

When he later went to do them, he found them very difficult, and it took him several days of hard work to crack them open and solve them. And they turned out not to be homework problems at all. They were 2 famous math problems that had never been solved. So if you are are still struggling with issues that have never been solved in your life, just think of the story. Just go to work.

Keep working on them. Don't give up. Don't be too discouraged, because of some past traumatic things that have happened. Absolutely, they impact us. But our only option, the only option is to strive to become fully engaged in our healing and recovery, to take responsibility for ourselves and our life and realize that it's up to us to take our power back.

It's up to us to find our way. Nobody's really coming to to help you. Nobody. And another thing that I remember in in William or in McRaven's podcast, He was the the ultimate leader, you know, at a peer a period of time over in Afghanistan. And he had a right hand man that helped him, that he could bounce ideas off and stuff like that.

And in those difficult days, can you imagine being the leader and just being discouraged on some days? And and just you know, and you're in that position. And he would talk to his right hand man. And sometimes the right hand man would say something to the effect of, you know what? Stop complaining.

You're the leader. You you just need to lead. Nobody cares about your problems. You need you need to and as I've thought about that and and and and working with so many different individuals, I, as a therapist, care and do listen about problems and struggles and challenges, but most other people in life, they really don't. They just they're busy with their own stuff.

They just don't care. They want it they don't wanna listen to someone complaining all the time. And then this is the story that, William McCraven tells about running to the sound of gunfire. And to illustrate this, and and the interview said this, to illustrate this, you talk about a professor. His name a professor from Bowdoin College named Joshua Chamberlain, who played a vital role in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Tell us a little bit about Joshua Chamberlain and his significance. And, Admiral McCraven says, The point of the chapter of running to the sound of guns is exemplified by Joshua Chamberlain. So, a college professor gets called up to lead the 20th Maine during the Civil War, and Chamberlain, who is not a career soldier, but he gets put in charge of the 20th and pulls them together as a fighting unit. In early July of 18/63, the Union forces arrive at a small town in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg. And within the next day, the Confederate forces show up in Gettysburg as well, and the Union forces have arrayed their men and their soldiers, along what's called Cemetery Cemetery Ridge.

It's a little bit of a high ground in Gettysburg, and the Confederate forces under John B. Hood show up and Robert E. Lee, and Robert E. Lee and Hood wear Cemetery Ridge as a tactical military standpoint, that if you can break the center, then you can split the forces, and your chances of defeating the enemy are much larger. So, John Kerry realizes that Hood wants to break the center, so he takes the folks from the flanks, particularly from the left flank where the 20th main is, and he moves them to the center.

But in doing that, he exposes the left flank of Cemetery Ridge, deeply exposed deeply exposing the left flank. Well, Hood sees an opportunity because the only thing worse than breaking the center is turning the line against tactical tactical terms if you can get to one side of the enemy or the other and you turn them where your forces are sweeping down and they're in line perpendicular to where where and you're gonna win. So Hood realizes, here's a chance to get 3 or 4 times the force necessary. He charges up what's called the Little Round Top at the Flank of Cemetery Ridge, and Joshua Chamberlain is there, and he has already been wounded by shrapnel once, maybe twice at that point in time. And now the rebel forces are making their way up the hill where they're about to take the little round top and turn the line.

Chamberlain realizes he has got to lead his forces into the teeth of the Confederate forces, So he draws his sword, yells to the men to fix bayonet, and he leads the charge down the hill against the rebel forces and pushes back the rebel forces that day and saves little Round Top. Now and this is the point of the story. Sorry. That was all this military stuff that not many people really understand, including myself. I'd have to get into the tactical stuff of that.

But but this is what admiral McCraven says now. Now you think about that for just one minute. So Joshua Chamberlain, one man, because he ran to the sound of guns, because he attacked the problem head on, didn't retreat, he knew he had to go right into the teeth of the problem. He saves little Roundtop, and saving Little Round Top, he saved cemetery Ridge, and saving Cemetery Ridge, he saved the Battle of Gettysburg. And saving the Battle of Gettysburg, he probably saved the Union, and in saving the Union, he saved America and saved the world.

One man's decision that you never heard about saved the country and impacted the world. And and and and then closing with this, he says, the time has come for you to start figuring out what you believe. Oh, these are my own words. Sorry. I just typed something after it.

The time has come for for all of us to start figuring out what we believe. Not what our parents believed, our friends believed, but what you believe. What you're willing to commit yourself to. What kind of life did you wanna live, and how are the small choices you're starting to make right now? This is the I I was I was writing this for a group of graduating seniors that I was speaking to.

What small choices you're starting to make right now, and how are those small choices going to impact your life? I just think it's it's helpful. I just love the concept of of running to the sound of the battle rather than retreating. It shows a proactive attitude. And and and the other thing that I I think the message we can get from some some great military leaders is they had to deal with very, very challenging, difficult, horrific situations, but they just don't they just don't spend time complaining about them.

They spend time just doing what you can do because it just doesn't do any good to sit around complaining. The only thing we can do is get engaged, fully engaged, actively engaged, moving forward. What can I do today? And if you find yourself sitting in a depressed state or feeling that way, just get up and move. Go for a walk.

Get yourself moving. Not that it relieves it all completely, but do something. Stay engaged in your life. Back again to something that I've mentioned in many of these podcasts or a few of the podcasts. Okay?

Two circles. The inner circle, things I have control over. Outer circle, things I really don't control. Take a look at your life where you're spending most of your time and energy and where your expectations lie. Don't let frustrated expectations destroy your peace too much.

Use some wisdom in setting expectations, and don't put specific time frames on certain things if you can help it. Now I know that's not possible when we have a work project due, and school assignments due. So there's there's some, you know, usefulness in putting time frames on things, right, having to go with a specific time frame. But there are other things in life that are truly outside of our control that putting a time frame on them will create create immense suffering and will not help you in any way. So, anyway, the takeaway from this podcast, there really is just full engagement.

Run to the sound of the guns. K? You see an issue, anywhere that there's an issue in your life, if you feel you can do something about it that's within your power to control and influence, well, just engage and do something about it. And then and then it's it's on to the next and to the next. It's just a more it just seems like a a healthier way to approach life and to be engaged and take charge and be responsible for who you are.

Quit allowing what other people have done in our past, the betrayals, the traumas. Quit allowing them to have so much power in your life. So again, think about these two circles. The outer circle is all those things in the past that have happened to us. We can't control the fact that certain things have happened to us.

We cannot control that there are certain types of people in the world. One of the things that has been so hard for many of those that I've been working with in in therapy is that they just can't wrap their head around that there are certain people that will do certain things. Well, we just have to accept the fact that there are. There are people out there that will do crazy things. There are people out there that will do things that you would never do, but you cannot allow that to destroy your peace.

You're not responsible for that. You're responsible for you. So come back to the inner circle. Do what you can to be fully engaged and take charge of of the things you can take charge of, and have a a a gentle letting go in a sense of of releasing so much power the expectations in the outer circles seem to have on us to see if that can help loosen things up for you and find a little more peace in your journey.