Thoughts on Having Covid this Week: Leverage your ‘present’ CONSTRAINTS for a more ‘fulfilling’ future

Acceptance of your Fate: Stop wondering about if / what it would be like if you had not been stricken.  Make peace with the fact it has happened.  

Viktor Frankl : Define your value through purpose

In Running Ultras:  The worst parts are often when there is still a chance to back out or quit.

Panic is the enemy.  It will not serve you.  It may exacerbate the pain / symptoms

Gratitude: How much time have you spent thinking about the days you were not sick.  Or the days where you did not get a flat, or have a car wreck?

Disease should remind us of the fragility of life.  The lack of promise that tomorrow awaits us.

Embrace the adversity as a chance to ‘highlight’ your true character

I say highlights because we sometimes find out that our perception does not match the reality.  It can go either way.

As a father:  I want to show my children that I can suffer if ned be.

Embrace the adversity as a chance to ‘develop’ your true character

We don’t get tougher from ‘thinking' about jumping in cold water

Ultimately: challenges like these will prepare me to face my inevitable death.  

How can I leverage my ‘present’ constraints for a more ‘fulfilling’ future

Ask yourself with genuine curiosity:  What insights and enlightenments await me?  How can I use the 'now' for the 'then'

Acknowledge, Reflect, Adapt

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Transcript

Leverage your PRESENT constraints for a more Fulfilling future

[00:00:00] Hi, it's Daniel Lucas. And thank you for joining, chasing energy. 

Today is a mini-sode episode 39. And. Today, I'm going to talk to you about what I went through this week. And when I say through this. This week, it took the majority of my week. Mary. Christmas to me, by the way. Uh, So. I'm going to give you. Uh, Sort of play by play of me going through what that presumed to be the new version of COVID this week. 

But that's really, the disease itself is not important. And I'm not going to give you a bunch of advice on supplements to take and things like that. There's plenty of YouTube videos out there. Now, what I plan to do today is to talk to you about. What you can learn from going through physical adversity, you can apply it to a lot of different adversities. 

But today, specifically physical ailment and. And disease is a [00:01:00] big part of what I, what I want to talk about. 

I, as, you know, if you follow this podcast, I'm a bit of a health nut, and yet. Here I am at 45 and. As I've been not shy at all about, I've had some pretty serious injuries. In the last year. It's. Been humbling. So I find myself in these positions of. I can see why people. Give up. They relegate themselves to being the armchair quarterback and, you know, talk about. 

You know that old phrase, the older I get, the better I was. And I can definitely see the draw of that, especially when. You are injured and it's something that just doesn't seem to want to rehabilitate. And you kind of think to yourself, Uh, just, I want to give up. 

However. There is a part of me that knows. That I would not be [00:02:00] fulfilled if I gave up against the things I'm struggling against. Some of which I've not talked about. On this podcast, but I will go ahead and say, one of them is a lower torn. Abdominal muscle. That's been torn for two years and just doesn't seem to want to give me a dead gum break. 

So, but today we're going to talk about. I had COVID. Uh, the newer version and man. What hit Tuesday? It was, uh, so let's start at the beginning. Uh, volunteered on an opportunity. A week ago. Uh, two. Two days after I volunteered. I was working out, which was a Monday night, about five o'clock. I noticed during that workout, that I was about three reps, short, every single set I did. 

And I was about 15%, at least 15 or 20% weaker than it should have been. I felt for the most part, I felt fine. Other than I noticed I was a little bit [00:03:00] tired, but other than that, I thought, Hey. So what. 

I finished the workout and maybe two hours later, I started feeling it in my throat. And what followed was about. 40. Eight hours of very high temperature, very serious, uh, headaches and pain. Fever. All those wonderful things that you've heard from other people who have had COVID. The, the only unique thing that I would say would, would be different from having like, say a severe flu. 

Was it, maybe this was just my imagination, but it sure felt real. This was one of the only times in my life that I could feel my kidneys. And I don't know what that means. I have felt my kidneys before, uh, in a race. That's a different story, but. This was one of the few times I can ever remember thinking. I feel like this is, [00:04:00] I could point exactly to where my two kidneys are right now that they're both in. 

Plain. 

Here's what I wanted to talk about today. Uh, when it hit me and, uh, So Tuesday, I started getting up and canceling my meetings and noticing that this was not going to be good. And I was very much under the weather. 

The first thing, when we get hit with adversity. Is that we think to ourself or at least I do. Why me. What could I have done? You know, what if I had not been at the same spot as the person who was sick? Or whatever. It's no different than when I can think of the last time I blew out a tire. When I was picking up a kid from swim practice. 

And thought. W, you know, what are the odds that when I was parking my car, I happened to hit that one specific spot. At a super slow rate and it [00:05:00] costs me about 400 bucks. Cause that's what two tires cost by the way. 

The point of that is, is that. When we are in the fight. And when I say in the fight, that means. You're in the trench. Okay. So in this case, I've got COVID, I've got the flu. It doesn't do any good. To sit there and go in those vicious cycles of what about this? What if I could have done that? What about this? What if I could have done that? 

And so the first thing that I would tell you is acceptance. Try to practice a little bit of grace. And say, this is the hand I've been dealt. When you think of Victor Frankl, one of my heroes, Viktor Frankl, a man's search for meaning. Talks about being a, you know, a Jew in, in the concentration camp. 

You have to accept, this is where I'm at. This is what it is. [00:06:00] The denial makes things so much worse. The Bible says. A double hint double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. So, if you want to sort of tie those things, the point there being, when you keep thinking about why me. What if this, what if that it's best to just let, go with that and accept the situation. So phase one, 

Is acceptance. Stop wondering about it and just accept this is, this is what I am. So now what am I going to do about it? The second thing I want to talk about, and this is very, very specific to, uh, my situation. Um, In terms of the, the amount of, of this particular aspect and that is panic. Uh, when you go through COVID. 

By yourself, meaning you are the only person in the house and no one's coming in to check on you. I will tell you, there is a, it is a different experience than say, oh, my wife is [00:07:00] in the next room. Oh, my friends are checking in on me every day. Oh, I've got a roommate here. No, there were times during the second night where my fever was very high than I thought. 

I feel like if I cough. Number one, man. I've also got to shoot out of my head. But the second thing I thought was. If I had like an aneurysm, they wouldn't find me for a week. So the point there is. I felt that sense of panic, like, oh, what did, what are we going to do? What are we going to do this call a doctor. Let's go get some medicine. 

There was a part of me that felt that. And the other part of me said, no, no, no, no. It would right now, what you just need is rest, take some deep breaths. Nothing about what I was going through that I could see us. Uh, led me to believe that my mortality was at risk. I could see the fear of it being thought of that way, but I didn't [00:08:00] feel like it was at risk. So the thing I was going to say, number two is panic is the enemy. 

When you have accepted your fate. 

So you have now stopped saying what. Why me, why me? And the second part is saying, well, now I'm not going to panic about it either. I'm going to relax and embrace what's in front of me. When you think about these. Uh, ACE fighter pilots in people who. Do these amazing feats, even when I watch the super bowl, I always, always, and going, how is this guy? When, when you're the quarterback. 

And you're down and it's the Superbowl or the quarter semi-finals whatever. 

I think to myself, how good is this quarterback at handling pressure? Is he going to throw it away? Is he going to let them intercepted? How does he recover from when he has thrown an interception? Is this the kind of person that once he gets frazzled? It's done. You can kind of see this when you see fighters. [00:09:00] 

When you have a fighter, who's a little older. And his kind of lost a few fights before. When they get hit and knocked down, they tend to be a little bit more, okay. Let me re compose myself the younger ones. When they get hit and knocked down, they tend to come back swinging for everything they got because they don't. 

They're basically panicking. They don't want, they don't want to go back in that position again. So that's my second point. Panic is the enemy. When you feel you're panicking. You are robbing yourself of the opportunity to have clarity and guidance as to what to do next. Gratitude. This is the other thing I had to start going through. 

I had obviously had a lot of time to think about this when I was laying in a bed. How much time. Do do I spinned? Thinking about all the days that I'm not sick, which by the way, It's a great mini, I don't get sick very often at all. And I laid in that [00:10:00] bed and thought this is a lost. I'll stay. I laid in this bed for. 

24 hours. What a complete loss day. I didn't get anything done. I missed my workout. You know, that's how silly it was. It was the first day when I was thinking about that. So. I missed this meeting. I missed that meeting. 

As I sat there and realized that Monday, or I'm sorry, Tuesday was a wash. I missed my meetings. I missed, you know, all these things I was trying to get done. 

I thought to myself. What's the last time that I sat and was grateful for a week that I did not get sick. Right. What's the last time I looked back and said, oh wow, it's been an entire month since I got sick. And by the way, it's been more than a month. It's probably been over a year or about a year since I've been sick. 

So really it was one of those things where I go, you know what? I'm not sick that much. I should be. I should be counting myself, blessed that I'm just having, it's been this long of a run. So let's just [00:11:00] embrace this. 

Disease should remind us of the fragility of life. And it should especially remind us that there is a lack of promise that tomorrow awaits you. There is no promise of tomorrow. 

Weekend. I, I know some people will disagree with me or we can dial on any given day. 

I could've died this past week. Um, I'm sure it's a possibility. But the point is. That sickness going through that suffering. It should remind us. You should not take for granted that you're going to come out of this. You should not take for granted. That you're not suffering. In a week or two, when this bug is long gone. 

So that's, that's part of the third one, which was gratitude. That's the third pillar. So we start with acceptance with panic. Is the enemy. We go with gratitude. So basically saying, okay. This, isn't this a blessing. Look at this [00:12:00] thing as a blessing. We're getting it out of the way. And then what I wanted to start pivoting is now you're starting to get to where you've got your feet on the ground, right. And you're, you're channeling, I'm now taking on this adversity. I've made peace with the fact that I have to take it on. 

And that is to embrace adversity as a chance to highlight your character. Now highlight your character. Isn't I used that word because what you may think your character is under pressure and what it turns out to be maybe two different things entirely. You don't really know until you're in the situation. We all like to think that we'll be this super cool Navy seal under pressure. 

But I can, I can attest. There's plenty of people that when the crap hits the fan, they just throw their arms up and raise their voice and start panicking. 

This is what I mean by it's going to highlight who you actually are. [00:13:00] This was one of the favorite things I used to tell people about ultras was you could kind of see inside someone's soul. The last 50 miles of a hundred miler because there is no more ego anymore. It's all been pulled away. You're so tired. You're so. 

I'm exhausted then now it's just sort of, you. And the desire to move forward. So what disease does. Uh, and that I embraced it was us. I thought to myself, this is a chance for me to find out, highlight who it is. I really am underneath all the comfort and routines. Because this was definitely not. 

Either one of those things. The other part was, I thought to myself, As a father, I want to show. So my children that I'm capable of suffering. 

Think about that as, as a parent. That is a big part of what we need to show our children and the people don't like to talk about this, which is [00:14:00] when you are going through sickness. Yeah. As a parent, none of us want to be bothered. Anybody hick. I didn't want to be a bother to my friends. So that's part of why I didn't call any of them and tell them to check on me. I was like, I don't want them to have to bring me something. I can do it myself. 

So the, the next part is embrace. The adversity is a chance to develop. Your character and it is not the same as highlighting your character. Highlighting is showing who you really are, but now that you are. 

Seeing who you are. And you're, you're in a new challenge. Look at this new challenge to say, not only do I see who I am, but this is a chance to make me better. Okay. And in it goes back to again, embracing I'm here. I'm. Going to deal with this thing. And I'm going to deal with it in a way that I'd be very proud of myself when it's done that. 

By the way that's almost exactly the way I think when I'm going through adversity is [00:15:00] how could I be proud of this when I'm done? Whether it's in your relationships when you're dealing with a conflict, whether it was when it was, I was in a race. Uh, there were some, uh, you know, big projects at work in ethical things where I had to sit back and go, what could I hold myself high? 

Uh, Berkshire Hathaway. Owned. One of the companies I used to work for and Warren buffet used to say, Any decision you make, you should be okay with being on the front page of the paper tomorrow. Right. So that's what I mean by, you know, you think about the person you're trying to develop. How is this going to make you into that person? 

Ultimately. And going back to my, me being a fan of stoicism here. Ultimately challenges like this disease. For me. 

And for you. Ultimately it's to prepare you for being brave enough to face your death. 

I do not kill myself when [00:16:00] there are like this week when I was laying in bed, I thought to myself, there'll. Be a day where I will not be able to beat this anymore. There will be a day. That it will not. There won't be another day for me after this. And when that day is coming, I want to be able to show my children that I can be brave. 

That I've leveraged the challenges that I have dealt with my entire life. In order to finally go into the final challenge and show that I can be brave about it. And then I can. Face it head on. Not fearfully. 

So, this is the thing that I, another thing that I don't hear much about, which is asking yourself with genuine curiosity. What insights and enlightenments await. MI. And how can I, how can I gain them? And so I tend to, with the genuine curiosity go, I wonder what, what I'm going to think about this. I wonder when I'm going to [00:17:00] change about my workouts, I'm wondering what I'm going to change about my. 

Lifestyle. I actually did have a couple of epiphanies while I was laying there about an aisle. I'll share those in a new years. Mini-sode about what I want to change for next year. But I actually did have a couple of ideas of, you know, There's some stuff I've been doing this year that I thought was serving. 

Serving me and it, maybe it did to a point, but it's time to change that and pivot to the next level. I think, I think you're ready to go to the next level again, I will get to that in a new year's episode. Today's not the day for that. So here is the key theme. Here's the key thing that I want you to take away today. 

And that is this, how can I leverage my present constraints? For a more fulfilling future. I'm going to say that one more time. How can I leverage my present constraints? For a more fulfilling future. Now. You're present constraints. In this case, I was sitting there fighting through a fever. When I [00:18:00] think about fulfilling future. 

If you've ever heard me digress on fulfillment versus happiness fulfillment is generally only comes. If you face an adversity. And in my case, I actually came up with several little clever things that I was thinking, what could I get done here? That will make me have a better tomorrow. Well, one thing, and this is going to sound silly, but it was one thing that was within my control. That was what I was going through. 

This is this in my control. Is that in my control? That would be this. Uh, every six months to a year, I do. Do a two week caffeine fast. There's a lot of science behind it. I'm not going to get into it today, but it has to do with resetting your adenosine receptors. 

I thought to myself. I've already been in bed for a day. I can't taste anything at all. I did not, by the way, I did not lose my sense of taste and smell. Like most people talk about at. At least I don't think so. Um, but. Yeah, when you're that stopped up and there's so much sinus [00:19:00] drainage and stuff. 

It's relatively mute point. 

So I thought to myself, why not go ahead and do a caffeine D detox because I've already made it to the worst thing, which is the first day, by the way. And I've got splitting headaches right now. No matter what. Well, that's what I kind of dread when I go through a caffeine. Detox is, uh, you. Uh, day of headache and then missing my coffee. Well, in this case, I'm really not going to miss it because right now I'm craving some herbal tea. 

Anyway. So, what I did was I said, Okay. In a week, I'll be back on my feet and I'll be a week into a caffeine fast, which by the way, is. Today. Uh, is. I've actually been well over a week now without any caffeine at all, I have not missed it. At all. Uh, just because I was already kind of beat up and worn down from, from the COVID. 

So it wasn't that big a deal for me to do without I don't, I don't even want to pretend it was actually that hard. It really wasn't. [00:20:00] Uh, so. 

The, uh, I want to wrap it up on this note here about developing your character. 

And so let's review a little bit here. What, what did you learn when you got the disease? Well, we started with acceptance. We talked about Viktor Frankl. We talked about not giving into panic. We talked about gratitude. Are we giving gratitude on the weeks that we're not sick? 

Then we talked about how do we highlight our true character? That's one thing. And then as we're continuing to go this, we say, how is this going to develop my character to the next level that I aspire to do? Because we are human beings. We need to be growing. And yeah, some of that seasonal. But in the end, we always need to be growing. 

So. We have our development of character and then leveraging that curiosity of saying. What are the kind of [00:21:00] enlightenments that I'm going to get out of this? That. Are going to make me more fulfilled tomorrow. And it may be something so simple as, you know, a week after you're out of it. You say, man, I will not take my health for granted or. 

I know, I complain about. Exercising, but really it's a privilege. To be able to exercise and not feel like absolute crap. I could certainly eat up another 20 minutes of your time talking about just how sore I was from the first day out of bed, where I did a couple of basic stretches and could bear. 

It, my muscles were like so tight. That the slightest stretches. I did 10 hours later. I felt like every. The part that I stretched was cramping for about a day. Super humbling. Super humbling. I mean, I think about the, you know, my friends who talk about how two weeks, three weeks after they had COVID, they were trying to go for a jog and they were still winded. 

So, I don't know if [00:22:00] I will have that problem. It's too soon to say, but what I can say is my muscles were tender to the touch. Tender tender to the touch. And what, by the way, one of those insights for more fulfilling tomorrow, Was that I thought to myself, I definitely want to get this abdominal thing. 

I've I've talked about it. I've seen a few specialists, but it bothered me a lot when I was coughing. I mean, I had one hand on that same torn spot the whole time I was coughing thinking, please, God, don't let this thing rip a third time. 

Okay. So the last. Last part that I want to highlight before we end this episode. Is the need to acknowledge, reflect and adapt. And I'm. I'm kind of bundling those together for the interest of time. If you will. But acknowledged, meaning you look at everything that is occurred. You accept. What has occurred? 

You reflect on maybe what you should have done. [00:23:00] Uh, what you will do next time. And then when you adapt, you put practices in place so that you've learned. I've learned from the mistakes or you've learned from the opportunity you don't have. To make a mistake to have a challenge. I don't necessarily feel like I missed, made a mistake when I got COVID. 

Uh, but there are strategies for adapting that you can take out of it to say, okay, what about learn from this? That's going to lead to a better tomorrow. And that's kind of what I want you to get away from this podcast is to you walk away and go, okay. Daniel gave me some tips on how i could have a better tomorrow Borrow some of them i kind of already knew some of them. i didn't but he kind of gave me an order that says this is the way that he thinks about it what could i learn from that and challenge me if you think that something in there superficialis or that i need an extra step this is not a perfected system this is me just trying to help you live a better life Fueling a life worth living So that's what, what I have for you today. I'd be more than happy to [00:24:00] handle any questions you may have. You can reach me at the chasing energy website, chasing.energy. Is the website chasing that energy. There's a newsletter there. Subscribe. It will be a two way communication so that if you subscribe, you'll have a chance to ask me questions about future episodes or maybe about my routines, whatever you want to. 

No, I'm happy to share. Thanks so much for tuning in today. I enjoyed it. It's a blessing and I hope that it gives you a. A little bit of insights for your nest. Next challenge. And. What I really hope is that when you find yourself facing adversity, You at least look at this protocol that I use and say to yourself, 

Ah, you know, some of this might help me right now. 

Till next time, have a great day. Be well. [00:25:00]