When someone is resistant to a new idea, one of the things he will do to stall, procrastinate and delay is ask the question
‘why.’
I know this tactic very well .. and so does my wife.
We went through the ‘why’ stage when we were learning each other’s language.
When I was learning Chinese, instead of simply absorbing the material like a sponge, whenever I was angry at having to relearn new thought patterns, I would stop the knowledge absorption process by asking “why?”
“Why does the person’s name have to come first, followed by the time, followed by the verb? Why do you say it that way?
‘Wo mingtian chi fan tai duo.’ Translated literally, I yesterday eat too much.
I’d much rather say it my way, ‘Wo chi fan tai duo mingtian. ‘I ate too much yesterday.
Zhannie went through the same, only in reverse.
“Why do I have to put an ‘s’ on the end of some nouns but not on others? Why not just put the number before the noun so we know how many of something? Isn’t saying five car the same as saying five car(s)?”
When you think about it, we don’t need the doggone ‘s’ at the end to understand. But we insist on it in English. Why? Who the hell cares? Just the way it BE (yes, twas an intentional Furey mistake). We accept it and move on.
Whenever something is NEW to a person, if he is resistant to change, instead of being open and listening, he’ll literally start demanding ‘why, why, why?’ Yet, deep down, the person doesn’t really want to change – or do some work.
Reminds me of the story Michael Masterson told at my bootcamp a couple weeks ago. When he first began studying Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – he had a million questions for his instructor. Finally, one day, his teacher said, “Michael, there is one answer for all your questions.”
“What’s that?” said Michael.
“Training.”
Oh yes. Training. Practice. Doing something.
Very profound – yet so very simple.
From that moment onward Michael got on the mat and trained like never before. Sure, he still had questions – but he understood many would be answered if he busted a hump each day.
The result: Michael turned into a butt-kicker himself. Today, at 55 years of age, he’s a force to be reckoned with. All the younger guys in the gym know they’re in for a thrashing when they train together.
This same scenario is true with my conditioning and fitness programs. Don’t write and ask why pushups are better for you than the bench press. Just do the doggone pushups. Don’t ask why I say you don’t need LSD cardio if you can do 500 straight Hindu squats. Just do the Hindu squats and you will have your answer.
The only real way for someone to be convinced of the validity of Combat Conditioning or Combat Abs – is to get the programs, use them and discover the truth for yourself.
So “do the thing,” as Emerson says, and “you’ll have the power.”