Back in 2005 this video from a World of Warcraft battle went viral.
A fair-sized guild of adventurers was setting up for a raid on a dungeon. You can hear them doing all this intricate planning. Who is going where. What’s going to happen. How we’re going to pull this off. It goes on for a couple of minutes while they war-game the next steps.
Then one of the characters, one Leeroy Jenkins, hops back to the keyboard after being away, oblivious to the well-made plans of his team-mates, and sprints off into the dungeon with a hearty battle-cry of
LEEEEEEROOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENKINNNNNNNSSSSSS
at full volume.
The dazed and confused guild get their wits around them, survey the ruins of their best-laid plans, and run off after their spirited comrade with no idea what to do next.
The absolute full-throttle insanity of that move.
I tell you, few things are more satisfying than listening to a bunch of egg-heads spending hours planning for every contingency…
…and completely ignoring them while you take a flying leap right off the cliff, only to land on your feet with the mission accomplished.
I don’t know that I’d call this a model for all parts of life.
But I have found from experience that a great many things benefit from the boldness to say “fgk this” and just get ‘er done, nerds and their plans be damned.
Getting results with your body is definitely one of those areas where you can benefit from ignoring all the safe certainties that The Experts peddle with their listicles of “knowledge bombs”.
If information made you hot, jakt, youthful, energetic, and strong, everybody would be there.
So why is it that you can read all the “value bombs” you can shove into your eyes…
…and you aren’t anywhere closer to where you want to be?
That’s not an idle question that I ask rhetorically.
Meditate on that.
Really dig into what it means.
Years ago, I asked it of myself.
If I know so many facts, if I can recite all this research I found on Pubmed, if I’m dropping all these tips and facts and “knowledge bombs”, then why do I not have the body that I want?
My conclusion still shocks many and angers others.
But, you can search for knowledge all the live-long-day and it means nada without consistency of execution.
The thirst to know more and more does not translate into the life you want.
If anything the thirst to know paralyzes you to possibilities for action.
The Squat Every Day approach was my way of flipping the bird to the egg-heads.
Oh, I’ll get hurt will I? I’m going to burn out? There goes my knees, is that right?
My training has never been more painless or productive since I went through that change of perspective.
It ain’t the facts that make a difference.
It’s how you’re looking the world.
Words are cheaper than dirt. Talk has no skin in the game. Any jerk with an audience can puff himself up as an authority while the mob tells him how great he is.
Strip away the status games and melodrama from the “hey look at me” validation-seeking of broken personalities looking for attention on social media.
Results that you experience for yourself are the only thing that matters in your life.
Find those moments where you can turn off fear and pain and doubt and even the tiredness of your body…
And leap into the fight with your LEEROY JENKINS battle cry.
(You don’t have to yell it out at the gym. You can do this in your own head.)
You’ll surprise yourself with what can happen when you stop telling yourself how terrible it will be.
Also:
Leeroy Jenkins got his whole team wiped out.
Motion matters most… but it’s no harm at all to have a clear direction, a clear idea of success, and why it matters to get there.
If you aren’t getting where you want to be, that’s where to start… not consuming more sludge from the feed.
This new community I’m spinning up is all about getting right in your mind, your emotional state, and your vision before we worry about how you’re training and eating.
Help us grow and spread the message. Tell a friend or five.
Matt Perryman