Welcome To The Community

Together, we’ll dive deep and find the strength to never give up because Great Things Take Time.

Are you Team Put Back the Shopping Cart or Team Leave It Wherever in the Parking Lot?

You’ve probably seen my commentary on shopping carts. Are you surprised that it took this long to talk about shopping carts in a newsletter?

If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe and join the Great Things Take Time Community to get content from me every Monday.

Here's what's in today's email

• It’s Not Just About A Shopping Cart

• Moments with Maurice

• What's Got Me Smilin'

It’s Not Just About A Shopping Cart

The shopping cart theory is not a new thing. I am not original in my thinking, but I feel like it’s an important reminder. Also, turns out to be a bit of a controversial thing to discuss.

If you’re not immediately familiar with what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the abandonment of shopping carts in parking lots. Not in the prescribed cart return stations that are located in various places of a parking lot (making it easier and more convenient than returning to the store), but littered around the parking lot like abandoned cars in a post-apocalyptic movie. 

There are shopping carts lodged on medians. Shopping carts under trees. Shopping carts overturned, and shopping carts rolling by in the wind like a tumbleweed being blown haphazardly across the prairie. 

So what’s the big deal? Why is not putting back your shopping cart worthy of an Instagram story monologue? What is this…? Manners with Maurice? (Thanks for that one, Tara)

Well, what does the law say about returning shopping carts? Exactly. There is no law. There are no requirements to use a shopping cart that says you have to return them (unless you’re shopping at Aldi and you want your quarter back). No one is going to spring out from behind a car with a camera to shame you. There is no financial or legal stipulation that says you need to return your shopping cart to a designated space after using it. There is also nothing that says you have to remove your trash from the cart, but that’s a whole other conversation. 

There’s only a small sign that says, “Please return your shopping cart after use.” Well, usually. 

What’s your choice when there is no oversight, no consequences, and no major ramifications for not returning your cart? When conditions are right to do the wrong thing, what do you choose? Can you consider it wrong if nothing bad will happen to you for not doing it?

Okay, but what does this have to do with Great Things? How does returning a dumb cart set me up for success?

To me, this speaks to a bigger concept in how we operate in our daily lives. Are we looking for the quickest way to do things, whether or not they compromise others’ safety, time, or lives? Do we assume that everyone else just works for us and that because it’s someone’s job to bring carts into the store that we can just leave ours wherever? Dare I go as far as to say it’s the wrong thing morally?

When I would come to my grandmother, frustrated that things weren’t going my way and that I wan’t seeing change, she would remind me that great things take time- that big changes come from small incremental actions you continue to make. 

Returning your shopping cart once it isn’t immediately going to fix anything, but it’s one small action that you can take that costs absolutely nothing and says a lot about you as a human.

You learn a lot about yourself when you take the extra effort and it spills into every area of your life. I can bet that those who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot cut corners in other areas of their lives. 

Do the workout from start to finish; warm-up, stretch and recovery included. Read the whole article, not just the headlines or someone else’s summary. Commit to the full plan, not just the stuff that you want to do. Don’t skip the edges or cut the corners just because you don’t think anyone is watching. 

Also, let’s be real, doesn’t it feel good to not be a selfish jerk?

Moments with Maurice

If you only pause to reflect on your life for one moment today, do it now.

No one is keeping score but you.

It can be easy to limit yourself if you’re convinced you shouldn’t do something because you don’t measure up to others. You’re best effort could be what someone’s worst looks like, and vice versa.

A few weeks ago we talked about how one of the greatest obstacles to our Great Things is people’s opinions. Is that the case for you?

Hyrox reminded me that it doesn’t matter how you measure up to others, everyone has space to compete and participate.

How many of you have felt the same as Lisa does below? Things can feel intimidating, but just like learning to read or ride a bike as a child, you might not be able to do it immediately, but you’ll get there.

Because no matter what, there is always something to smile about.

Dad ❤️ 

Reminiscing about my dad on Father’s Day. Hope all you dads out there had a wonderful Sunday.

Sundays Are For The Cars

I can’t stress how important it is to find your thing. Find the thing that you can escape to and spend some time each week (however much you can) immersed in it. I’m a better coach because I like cars and spend time disengaging from the fitness world to appreciate how they are put together. You can’t be all one thing all the time, you need a mental break.

What’s YOUR thing?

Remember:

-Adrian