Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Sunday musings…

1) Convention. Man, it’s tough to stay with the CrossFit dietary prescription when you are on the road at a big convention.

Especially when your wine glass never seems to be empty.

2) Trouble. “If you don’t go where trouble is likely to happen, it’s more difficult to get in trouble.” Advice Mrs. bingo and I have shared with the bingo progeny early and often. Called an audible after dinner last night in a strange city and went back to the hotel.

Less trouble likely there.

3) Levon Helm. The drummer/singer for The Band passed away at 71 from throat cancer. In the world of my day job 71 is rather young; Levon’s life would be considered rather short.

Cancer of the throat is sometimes just bad Karma, but it’s more often a result of not so great life choices. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Mr. Helm for I know nothing of his life outside of his music, but there is a lesson here nonetheless: life is less likely to be short if you choose to avoid those things known to be bad for you.

Simple, yet followed in the breach often enough that it still bears repeating.

4) Kodak. The great photography company is in the midst of a painful, excruciating death spiral. One of the most recognizable corporate names in the history of modern man is winding down to extinction. Why? It’s the “buggy whip maker” thing. Kodak thought they were a photography company (buggy whip maker) and failed to realize that they were in the image management industry (acceleration). They fell victim to the creative destruction of the digital age, the age of the internet, and the age of “social”.

How does that apply to CrossFit you ask? I think CrossFit is the agent of creative destruction now poised to disrupt an entire industry. No longer an outside, niche whatever, CrossFit is now big enough and has enough momentum that it will likely transform an industry and wreak havoc on traditional, entrenched businesses.

No kidding, bingo. Wow…verrrry perceptive insight on the fitness business. Ah, Grasshopper, but it isn’t the fitness business of which I speak at all. CrossFit is sitting at the edge of one of the more entrenched, businesses of all, and it is quite possible that CrossFit will upset the apple cart in a very substantial way, indeed, will be the agent of creative destruction.

The industry, Grasshopper, is health care.

5) Beauty. My two larger worlds (healthcare, CrossFit) are populated in part by extraordinary women. At the moment I am at a convention of my peers, many of whom are women of magnificent talent and accomplishment, just like my CrossFit world. Some of my professional peers and some of the women on the industry side of my world are also quite beautiful. Interestingly, here is where my two worlds diverge.

Beauty in my professional world makes one a target, and comes with an assumption of lesser significance. The prettier the woman the less serious her contributions are assumed to be, and the more she is resented and targeted when it is clear that she is someone who will make a serious contribution to any professional endeavor, be it business related or patient care.

Weird, huh?

This is one more way that our CrossFit philosophy–chase measurable, observable, repeatable fitness–informs our extended world view. I won’t embarrass any of the notable female Games athletes by naming names, but we all marvel at their results first, and then notice that they are also very attractive. Some of our best trainers and leaders, people who have made major contributions to the canon of CrossFit training and the growth of the CrossFit movement are women. Very attractive women. What we see of them first is their success, their value, their input.

Nicole Carrol (ANSI accreditation, co-director CrossFit training), Mikki Lee Martin (co-founder, co-director, CrossFit Kids)…these are leaders in our world and we rightly recognize that leadership first. They also happen to be beautiful women, a fact that we certainly don’t ignore but rather celebrate.

It saddens me to hear my colleagues lament the treatment they receive in my professional world, treatment that is so very different from how we recognize and relate to beauty in our CrossFit world. I thank the women of CrossFit for the lessons they have taught about true beauty, for being role models for women within and without CrossFit.

I welcome the day when this part of my CrossFit world crosses over into my professional world.

I’ll see you next week…

Posted by bingo at April 22, 2012 8:39 AM