Make 5% your 100%

Hi friend,

last Saturday I asked you for one line. Your 5% for the week. The smallest thing you could own, on the good days and the bad ones.

I said I would tell you what the room reported. Coming to a surprise message and a challenge that we can do together in a second.

Mine was the 5:00 alarm. Bag packed the night before, so there was nothing left to argue about at 5:01. Some mornings I still had a small debate with myself. But at least just a short one.

A Surprise Message

On Sunday a message landed in my inbox that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

A reader named Jana wrote to me from Ticino.

Three months ago, her life nearly ended on an operating table. Seven hours (!!!) of surgery to remove a tumor that had been growing, unknown, since 2001. She lost a liter of blood. The scar is still healing. The skull is still numb.

Last week she hiked to 2300 meters and swam in an alpine lake. See the picture below.

Here is what she wrote, and I keep reading it back:

She told me the tumor had buried most of her childhood memories, and that after the surgery it was as if a heavy blanket was lifted. The memories came back. Millions of puzzle pieces, she called them, rebuilding a rich and adventurous life.

And then, at the end, a P.S. that made my whole week. She’s training too. To cross from one river to another. About ten meters. Ten meters.

That is the entire point. The distance was never the thing.

Jana already lives what I want to write to you about today. Before she trusted the surgeon, before any of it, she led herself.

That is where everything starts.

A Challenge - Let´s prepare together

After reading from Jana I had an idea. On the 22nd of August, people all over the world are getting in the water on the same day for our Community Swim. The distance doesn´t matter. Swim 10m, 500m or 15km. What ever fits you. We do it for NF Kids.

What matters is that we can make this a our challenge. Let´s use the next four weeks to prepare our endurance mindset for the Community Swim (or any other challenge that you want to set yourself up for).

My idea is that between now and then, we build four things together. The four principles that carried me across every lake I’ve crossed, and through cancer before that.

I call them the SWIM Method. Today, the first one.

S is for Self-Leadership.

There’s an idea from a psychologist named Julian Rotter, from the 1950s. He called it your locus of control. Some people feel their life is mostly run from the outside: luck, other people, circumstance. Others feel the wheel is mostly in their own hands.

The 5% version of it

You don’t control the 95%. Not the weather on the lake. Not whether you feel like it. Not what anyone else does. But there is always a 5% that is yours, and self-leadership is simple. You take that wheel, and you don’t hand it to anyone. You focus on your 5%.

Nobody is going to make you train for the 22nd. No boss, no coach, no alarm and especially no Bernhard can do it for you.

This week’s experiment: take the wheel back

Two moves. Seven days.

1. Catch yourself handing it away. Once this week, listen for it. “I couldn’t, because.” “They made me.” “There wasn’t time.” Catch it in the moment. Then take back one piece. One thing you will lead yourself to do, no excuse, nobody’s permission.
2. Give it a trigger. Last week you named your 5%. A name isn’t enough. A name still has to be decided in the moment, and the moment is where you are tired and reasonable and full of good arguments.

So write it as an if-then. Two halves, two rules.

The IF is a moment that happens whether you like it or not. A time. A place. Something already in your day. Never “when I feel ready.” You will not feel ready. That’s the 95%.

The THEN is one action, small enough that you cannot argue with it.

Last week I said not “get fit,” but “shoes on and out the door.” Good. Now go one step further.

If it’s 7:00 and the kettle goes on, then the shoes go on.

Not: I should call my father. But: if I sit down in the car after work, then I call him before I start the engine.

Notice where the decision happens. You make it now. Calm, on a Saturday, reading an email. Not at 5:00 in the dark, where the tired version of you gets a vote.

That is self-leadership in its smallest form. You give the order, and you give it in advance.

One line. If, then. Write it down.

That’s the S.

Next Saturday we do the W. It’s the one Jana already lives: your Why.

You can’t always choose the water. You can always choose the next stroke.

All the best

Bernhard

P.S. Wanna join the Community Swim? You can do it here. 15 euros, every cent goes to NF Kinder.

P.P.S. Hit reply and tell me your if-then this week. I read every one, and next Saturday I’ll share a few (with your blessing).

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