FRI: Sweep the Shed

If I asked you which professional sports has the highest all time winning percentage in their sport, what would you say? The New York Yankees? Manchester United? The Los Angeles Lakers? The Pittsburgh Steelers? The Montreal Canadiens? All good guesses, and all would not even be close to the mark. In fact, you wouldn’t even be in the correct sport or correct hemisphere. The correct answer is the All Blacks, the National Rugby Team of New Zealand and owners of a 77% career win percentage and three Rugby World Cups despite a population of under five million. How do the All Blacks do it?

Among behaviors at the root of their flag is the mantra of “sweeping the shed”, which is tagline meant to illustrate that every team member has responsibility to the boring, nitty gritty, thankless work collectively coined as sweeping the shed. It means that no matter how high up your status on the team might be, you’re doing the crap that every other player has to do. Always. Everyone sweeps the shed.

Whatever your aim, there are certainly mundane behaviors associated with reaching it and it’s both easy and common to want to skip over that work. Meal prepping for weight loss goals. Getting up slightly earlier to get your daily reading in. Spending ten minutes before bed stretching. Working on a Saturday. All of us have work that entails sweeping our shed. Ensuring that we fulfill those obligations is not just about that work at hand, it’s indicative of whether or not we’re all in with our goals, or just dipping our toe.

There’s an old saying that success happens at the margins. The small, tiny decisions we make that we don’t think may be a big deal often determine our success. For Navy Admiral William McRaven, it was making his bed everyday. For the All Blacks, it’s sweeping the shed.

What are yours?

-Dave

Friday, 2.23.18

First, for Strength.
4 Hang Power Cleans @ 60-80%
5 Power Jumps
Complete 1 set every 4 minutes
for 16 minutes.
—
Then, for Conditioning.
400m Row
Rest 90″
400m Run
Rest 90″
(x20 Min)