Humor, honesty, and the parts most people leave out.
Brick Bridger wants to fight a 450-pound black bear with his bare hands.
No guns, knives, or traps. Just him and the bear.
Brick isn't some random dude. He's 6'6" and 265 pounds, a two-time NCAA heavyweight wrestling champ who won eight UFC fights before an injury ended his career. Now he runs a wrestling academy in Arkansas.
One summer night he's 15 minutes late to his mom's barbecue at the family cabin and a massive black bear breaks in. His mom doesn't make it and his brother ends up paralyzed in a wheelchair. This wrecks Brick because he believes that if he'd been on time that night he could have stopped everything from happening.
So like any rational person, Brick decides he's gonna find the bear and fight it. Fist to paw.
To be clear Brick isn't real. He's the main character in Bear Brawl, the new novel from Jon Finkel that came out this week. Jon and I connected online and he sent me an advance copy. I absolutely loved it and devoured the book.
On paper this plot sounds absolutely ridiculous.
But that's part of the fun and why I digged reading it so much. The storytelling is fantastic and the book has an amazing arc. I'm not giving away how he gets ready or how the book ends. You gotta find that out for yourself.
What grabbed my attention most about the book is Brick's conviction and belief. It's delusional optimism at its finest. He lost something that meant everything to him and he's willing to put his life on the line for it, even if he gets violently killed by a bear.
Meanwhile most of us won't hit publish on a post because somebody we went to high school with might see it. I'm guilty of this one myself.
I'm the best I've ever been professionally right now.
On stage, as a coach, my expertise and knowledge, all of it. After 400-something talks I'm at the top of my game. Whatever you do, odds are you’re the best you’ve ever been as well.
But being a beast at what you do and people knowing you're great at it are two very different things. That happens to really talented people all the time.
So I know talent isn't gonna be enough for my next chapter. It's gonna take some things I didn't fully use in the last ones.
I’ve learned that the best opportunities don't always go to the most talented person in the room. They go to the person who's the most fired up, the most reliable and the most consistent about what they want.
This next chapter for me means being strategically loud.
Being my own best advocate, getting in different rooms, pressing publish more often, and saying things in my newsletter that I never would have said before. Might as well get started right now.
I built something I'm really proud of.
Build Your Keynote is the same process I use with my private clients. I built it so you can do it yourself. It works like an interview, one question at a time, until your genius, the stuff you're great at but never quite knew how to say out loud, is finally on paper. And don’t let the name fool you. It's not only for keynotes.
Getting started is free, so take it for a spin.
The good news is none of this takes more talent.
You don't need to be 6'6" and 265 pounds and you definitely don't need to fight a bear. What you do control is how you show up, what you do every day, and how hard you go at it.
What do you need to be delusionally optimistic about right now? And who do you need to tell, even if it gets a little awkward?
Tony
PS: Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Bear Brawl.
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