Finding Gold in the Sawdust + Argent Alpha Bingo

Every Thursday morning at 6:00 am Pacific the Men of Argent Alpha are invited to join what we call the Virtual Water Cooler…a no agenda zoom call where we talk about whatever comes up.

The attendance varies based on availability but we always have a core group of guys who show up ready to share, contribute and learn.

We’ve tweaked this meeting over time and lately we have been following the structure my friend Antonio Neves created called Man Morning.

The Man Morning is simple: a small group of Men gather for a walk and each one shares what they are celebrating and what they are navigating.

Celebrating means wins, progress, breakthroughs, proud moments…anything that puts a smile on your face.

Navigating means some kind of challenge you are working through. Challenges can be voluntary or involuntary, positive or negative or a mix of all these elements.

With that simple framework for what we commonly refer to as a “walk & talk”, we spend 40-60 minutes covering a lot of ground. 

We don’t record these meetings for a number of reasons (things can get personal and confidential) so they come and go each week with no record.

There is so much valuable “sawdust” in these meetings - valuable byproducts of our conversations that could benefit others.

After our meeting I wrote down what I could remember and stripped away the personal details and shared it in one of our internal slack channels.

This sawdust was pure gold and I realized I needed to share with a broader group. 

Below is the essence of what was one of our best Man Morning’s yet…and we’ve had a lot of great ones! I hope you can use some of our sawdust and turn it into something valuable in your own journey.

Spousal Support in the Journey

Each Man in Argent Alpha is a “Hero on a Mission” and the mission is impacted by how aligned his spouse is with the journey. Three of our guys referenced their wives and the alignment they have in improving health and fitness. One member’s wife has lost 15 lbs mainly due to following the improved nutritional habits her husband has been embracing. 

Another member is going on a road trip with his wife and they now pack coolers of healthy meals and snacks and completely avoid the trap of junk food offerings along every interstate in the country.

Back to the Hero on a Mission reference. Donald Miller wrote this book and he describes 4 characters that we all play in our own story: victim, villain, hero and guide. 

Each of us plays these roles throughout the day, it’s just a question of how much time we choose to spend in each role.

And it is very much a choice. Imagine waking up each morning as a hero on a mission. A mission of your own making with you in the starring role.

Our spouses play roles in our story just like we play roles in their story. Thinking about our lives in this context gives us an opportunity to have awareness of the role we are playing and when we need to switch roles.

This book deserves its own newsletter (be sure to read the review linked above and listen to this podcast summarizing the book). Having a spouse who is also playing the hero or guide for you makes the journey easier. If your spouse is not on board with your journey (she may be playing one of the non-hero roles), don’t let this take you out of your own hero mode and make you a victim or villain.

Relief vs Restoration

In Slack, we have a number of themed channels, one of which is called Mindset. In our Man Morning, a recent post by one of our guys came up about Relief vs Restoration. Rather than summarize the conversation, I’m going to share the original post by our member…it’s that good. Here it is:

I’m simply sitting on my back porch. Warm summer evening, cool breeze, beautiful sky now turning that deep navy blue just before dark.

That’s when the carnival started.

Some agitated place in me started clamoring for relief. Even though the evening was washing over my soul, or maybe because it was allowing my soul to untangle, the carnival of desire started jockeying for my attention. I think there’s still some ice cream in the freezer.

It felt like two kingdoms were vying for my soul. The carnival was offering relief. Nature was offering restoration. They are leagues apart, my friends. Leagues apart.

Relief is momentary; it’s checking out, numbing, sedating yourself. Television is relief. Eating a bag of cookies is relief. Tequila is relief. And let’s be honest — relief is what we reach for because it’s immediate and usually within our grasp. Most of us turn there, when what we really need is restoration.

Nature heals; nature restores. Think of sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in at sunset and compare it to turning on the tube and vegging in front of Narcos or Fear the Walking Dead. The experiences could not be farther apart. Remember how you feel sitting by a small brook, listening to its little musical songs, and contrast that to an hour of HALO. Video games offer relief; nature offers restoration.

This is what David was trying to put words to when he reported finding God in green meadows and beside quiet waters, emerging with a refreshed soul. Or as another translation has it, “He renews my strength” (Psalm 23:3 NLT). The world we live in fries the soul on a daily basis, fries it with a vengeance (it feels vengeful). We need the immersion David spoke of.

So I stayed on the porch, choosing to ignore the chorus of vendors trying to get me to leave in search of some relief (Your favorite show is on; maybe what you want is wine ... ). I knew if I left all I would find was sugar or alcohol, and my soul would be no better for it. So I chose to let the evening continue to have its healing ministry. Remember — God doesn’t like to shout. His invitations are much more gentle.

Sunset was over; night was falling, and still I sat there. The evening itself was cool now, and an owl was hooting somewhere off in the distance. I could feel my soul settling down even more; the feeling was like unwrinkling or disentangling on a soul level, as your body does in a hot tub. Thank you for this gift of beauty, I said. I receive it into my soul.

Pre-Game Planning

One of the core pieces of our approach to creating a winning mindset is to have a morning routine. We refer to this internally as “pre-game planning”. A common part of this process is to establish your top 3 priorities for the day and set your intentions (in writing) for the day.

Yes, pen and paper. Seeing the thoughts in your head appear in your own handwriting creates a circuit that leads to those words becoming reality.

One of our guys was inspired by the results of two other members and decided to hit “reset” on his old morning routine. He shared some of the specific changes he was making with the group. 

Sharing these kinds of inspirations, challenges, and ideas with the group always produces benefits for others. If one Man is experiencing something, chances are others are too. Leveraging the Learnings…it’s one of the big benefits that comes from having a Band of Brothers.

Stacking

A bunch of the guys on the call were walking and talking, getting steps in while they shared what they were celebrating and navigating. In other words, they were habit stacking.

One of the guys on the call went the extra mile and rucked with weight to also knock off B1 for the Argent Alpha Bingo challenge (more on that below).I logged 5,700 steps which would have been zero had I done the call from my desk. I ended the day with 18,883 steps thanks to stacking. 

Habit stacking is a powerful way to get more done in less time while building new habits.

Resilience

One of our members recently did his A³ (Argent Alpha Athlete) fitness standards testing and InBody scan after hernia surgery. He finished the A³ standards with one PR (personal record) and had a great InBody scan, exceeding his expectations after being sidelined by surgery. His quick recovery from surgery and performance in the gym happened due to his preparation since joining us last September. 

Since he joined 8 months ago, he has lost 40 lbs of fat, maintained his muscle mass (critical for many reasons) and improved his fitness and health. His performance after surgery is such a great indicator of resilience and how maintaining physical health is an asset that pays dividends. 

With surgery behind him, he is back on another “up and to the right” trendline. Life isn’t linear, it’s full of peaks and valleys. The key is to make sure your overall life trendline is trending up and to the right.

On a different but related note, a member talked about his buddy suffering from pancreatic cancer and losing his father recently. He relied on the new habits and resilience he has built over the last year to help him get through a challenging time. He referenced our program as being an asset to help weather life's challenges. 

Dropping fat, gaining strength, improving fitness and upgrading your mindset all make you more resilient and harder to kill. You never know when you’ll need to draw on these assets but we all know we will face adversity.

Relationships

Another foundational part of our approach is to move from default standards to designed standards in 5 areas. We talked about what other areas would benefit from this approach.

One of our guys quickly said “Relationships.”

Moving from a default approach to relationships to a designed approach to relationships helped him improve his marriage, his relationship with his son and become more proactive in other relationships.

What if we defined a standard for relationships and measured our performance in meeting that standard? What would change? What would improve?

I’ll be finding out myself because I’m adding it to my standards and tracking my performance beginning May 13.

Conclusion

When you get a group of like-minded people together who share a common goal of becoming harder to kill, interesting conversations happen automatically.

In less than 60 minutes we covered all of the material above. No script, no preparation, just pure magic flowing between a group of Men over 50.

Sift through the sawdust in your life, chances are there is some gold waiting to be discovered.

I hope this Argent Alpha sawdust delivered some value to you this week.

Here’s your call to action:

Choose one area outlined above and take action on it.

And/or…read on for another way to take action.

Argent Alpha Bingo

Back to the Bingo reference.

Every month we do an optional challenge designed to increase resilience and increase our comfort with getting uncomfortable.

These challenges tend to be physical but we also venture into other areas.

This month, we took things to another level and created Argent Alpha Bingo.

There are 25 unique challenges to achieve during the month. Here they are:

The instructions are simple: achieve as many of these challenges as you can to the best of your ability.

Can’t walk a 5k with a weighted vest? Do less distance or drop the weight. Or both.

Can’t do a full Sally? Do ½ Sally or do Sally at 2x speed.

Is it 100 burpees in the month or in a day? Your choice but I think you can guess what direction we would lean.

Customize to your ability but make it a challenge for YOU.

The goal is to get a blackout. One of our guys known to his friends as “The Greek” is on track to get two blackouts this month (he’s wired in just the right way to do this, maybe you are, too).

Good luck!

As a man over 50, there’s a good chance you are busy with work, travel, kids, grandkids, you name it.

There’s also a good chance you aren’t in “fighting shape” anymore but it’s on your perpetual to do list to start someday.

Someday is the busiest day of the week.

If you still have some fight in you, a belief it’s not too late, a splash of pride calling you to reclaim what’s yours…then check us out.