A Self-Education Lesson From 50 Cent and Teddy Roosevelt
A Self-Education Lesson From 50 Cent and Teddy Roosevelt
On flipping Dead Time into Alive Time and transcending your opportunities
Two of the best books I’ve read this year are The River Of Doubt and The 50th Law.
The River Of Doubt is the thrilling story of Teddy Roosevelt’s life-threatening expedition down an unmapped river deep within the Amazon rainforest.
The 50th Law is 50 Cent’s crossover book with Robert Greene on fearlessness and 50’s journey from crack dealer on the South side of Queens to global business mogul.
While they’re wildly different books on people who lived totally different lives, I spotted a crossover perspective that 50 Cent and Teddy Roosevelt share.
It’s a lesson that helped them gain knowledge while most others would have sat around waiting for the time to pass, or stayed on the surface of their opportunity.
The lesson: "treat it as a university”
Here’s the example from each book and how it applies to endurance training:
Example From The 50th Law
In 2000, 50 Cent was signed under Columbia Records and getting ready to launch his first album.
Even though he was young and inexperienced in the rap game, he saw how common it was for labels to exploit artists by controlling everything from their image to the marketing and production of their music.
A rapper could shoot up the charts with a hit song, but before long they’d get used to the comfortable life of being a hit artist signed to a hit label.
They’d lose their edge and, without a deep understanding of the business side of music, fade into irrelevance just as quickly and they rose up the charts.
50 had a vision to take complete ownership of his image, his music and business as a whole.
He wanted to start his own label, but knew he’d need the help of a big label to launch his career.
While he looked forward to his contract with Columbia expiring, he decided to treat his time there “as a university” and absorb as much knowledge of the music business as he could.
He recorded music at night and spent all day at the Columbia offices, talking with people in every department of the record label.
He learned about marketing, distribution and the inner workings of the music industry.
50 ended up getting dropped by Columbia in the wake of the assassination attempt that left 9 bullets in him, but by then, he had already learned tons that would help him down the road.
Once he recovered, he was signed by Eminem’s label, Shady Aftermath, and successfully launched his first album, Get Rich Or Die Tryin’.
2 years later, he founded G-Unit Records.
Example From The River Of Doubt
This is the same mindset that Teddy Roosevelt instilled in his son, Kermit, when he invited him on his expedition down the Amazon’s River of Doubt.
It wasn’t going to be a relaxing vacation of a trip.
It was going to be an adventure into an unknown land that required an alert and active mind.
Instead of accepting the invitation with a casual attitude, Teddy encouraged Kermit to join only if he was “to treat it as a college course.”
Kermit was in his early 20s and Teddy knew that the trip had potential to teach lessons that would benefit Kermit for the rest of his life.
Kermit accepted the invite and chose to see the trip as scientific exploration.
He studied plants and animals he had never seen before.
He assisted the trip’s doctor and treated injuries and illnesses that relentlessly plagued their group throughout the journey.
Teddy Roosevelt ended up contracting malaria and, even though Kermit contracted it as well, he rationed their medicine and was instrumental in saving his father’s life.
Eventually, a branch of the river was named Rio Kermit in his honor.
My Application To Endurance Training
Endurance training puts you into a new environment ripe with self-education that can permeate all other areas of life…
But only if you choose to see it that way.
If you complain about the boredom and monotony, you close your mind off to valuable lessons and insights that can help you become a more confident and capable person.
Since I struggled with food cravings and binge eating for most of my life, I saw endurance training as a chance to change my relationship with food.
As soon as I started training, it became obvious that binging on sweets the night before a big training session would make me feel like crap during training.
My perspective changed, my awareness increased and my capacity to reason improved.
I stopped succumbing to short-term cravings and took a longer view on my goals.
My “longer view” started by looking just 12 hours ahead. Eventually, that expanded seeing nutrition from a multiple day and full week perspective.
I gained the upper hand on my life-long struggle and developed extreme confidence in my food choices, no matter what life situation I was in.
Summary: Flipping Dead Time To Alive Time
Robert Greene’s idea of Alive Time vs. Dead Time is another way to understand treating non-ideal circumstances as a university or college course.
You can sit around bored to death, wishing you were somewhere else and wait for time to pass (time that you might as well be dead).
Or you can open your mind and gain valuable lessons that make you stronger, smarter, sharper and more capable in the future (time that you are truly alive).