Surround Yourself With People That Are Better Than You

There's always someone better out there. Someone smarter. Someone better looking. Someone more athletic. Someone better than you at what you do best. But that's a good thing. Spending time with someone that will push you, challenge you, teach you something you didn't know... that's the best way to improve yourself.

Growing up, my best friend, Erik, was much better than me at chess. He beat me consistently. In fact, he once beat me in only three moves. How do you lose at chess in only three moves!? But I improved much faster than I would have if I had only played someone at my level. I had to improve to keep up. I learned from watching his game and from making mistakes that I would try to avoid in the future.

In college, I walked onto one of the best collegiate rugby teams in the country. Compared to some of the guys on the team, I was awful. Over the course of almost 4 years, I improved a lot because I was surrounded by talent. I had two options: 1)Learn to play better or 2)Get killed on the field. I experienced a little bit of both. Our B-team made most clubs' A-teams look like amateurs. There's no way I would have made the progress that I did if I wasn't playing with such skillful athletes and a talented coach.

My good friend, Joe, is an animator and one of the most creative people I know. I have so many creative aspirations that rarely come to fruition. But when I'm around Joe, my imagination kicks into high gear. The artistic juices flow and my mind falls into that creative state because his style and his accomplishments inspire me. I'm flooded with ideas and for brief spurts, I'm productive and actually make progress on some of my projects.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran a 5K in Tower Grove Park. The course was made up of constant, rolling hills and it was a little warm and humid. It was a smaller race with fewer runners than I'm used to. I won by almost two minutes. It's incredibly rare that I win a race. When I do, it's usually a smaller race like this where there's less competition. And because I was running all alone at the end, I probably didn't push myself as hard as I could have. All of that being said, I still ran what I considered to be a good time.

Last weekend, I ran another 5K made up of much more challenging hills in much more humid weather. It was a larger race and I could tell when we were lining up that there were some guys there that were probably faster than I am. This time, I was more than two minutes slower than the kid who won. I finished 3rd overall instead of first. But... I also ran almost 30 seconds faster than I did when I won the race a few weeks ago. It was the fastest 5K I've run in 8 years... my third fastest 5K ever. Sure, I could have run a smaller race and possibly place higher, but by having someone better than me to chase, and competition chasing me, I was able to push myself to a better time on a more challenging course.

I'm always looking for people that can teach me something, that inspire me, that push me. They make me want to be a better person. They make me want to grow. I'm not afraid to be surrounded by people better than me.

I miss the care-free summers of childhood. There were few things in life that I looked forward to more than three months without any real responsibilities. It didn't matter if I had big plans for the summer vacation. In fact, the lack of plans was kind of the point.

Unfortunately, growing up means that most people no longer get a long summer vacation. As an adult, the closest things I have left that even resemble those carefree breaks from the real world are long holiday weekends. Those glorious, three-day holiday weekends that bring back that feeling of freedom that is now such a distant memory.

It's like my childhood summers were lions running wild in the savanna. Now, I get excited over cramming three months of adventure into three days, like I'm visiting my poor lion in his cage at the zoo.

That's why I try to soak up as much of that sweet, giddy joy as I possibly can over the course of three short days. This Memorial Day was no exception and I satisfied my need for fun, adventure, and nostalgia with friends and family.

I can't remember a Memorial Day at the Lake with better weather. It was warm and sunny and the water was remarkably warm for this early in the season. Saturday was filled with plenty of lake time... floating, soaking up the sun, and almost killing ourselves tubing. We also put the finishing touches on our homemade boats and capped the day grilling the thickest hamburger patties I've ever seen.

Sunday morning, we suited up for the 8th Annual Michael Kinnear Memorial Regatta. This was the year of the last-minute boats as most of our entries were built in a day. We also had only seven entries this year, but I'm confident that we'll have a stronger showing next year.

Matt had an ingenious boat design and pulled off a great last-minute Buzz Lightyear theme. He even finished third in the race!

Liz and I went with "I'm on a Boat" by The Lonely Island. I'm not sure I made a very convincing T-Pain and most of the adults didn't know what song we were talking about, but it was still fun singing while we were "blasting 5 knots, wind whipping our coats". And we won the race and brought home the much coveted Lac Capri Cup!!!

Sunday night was the traditional post-race dinner and awards ceremony. We had a ridiculous amount of delicious food (as is the custom), handed out trophies for the various race categories, and enjoyed some live music.

When my friends and I sat at Happy Hour and came up with a crazy idea to build boats out of anything that wasn't meant for boats, I didn't imagine the race would become such an event or that we would still be celebrating it eight years later.

Of course, all of that celebration meant a lazy Monday full of lakeside recovery and attempts to postpone the inevitable return to the real world. And now, here I am... back to the grind... counting the days until I get to relive my childhood again (even if it's only for a few days).