Pronk - Average 70kg D**khead: Motivational Lessons from an Ex-Army Special Forces Doctor

To find out more about this book or
to contact the author, please visit:
www.vividpublishing.com.au/70kg

Copyright 2018 Dan Pronk
ISBN: 978-1-925846-81-2 (eBook)

Published by Vivid Publishing
P.O. Box 948, Fremantle Western Australia 6959
www.vividpublishing.com.au

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Version 1.0. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Contents

Introduction

The first point that I would like to make before we get started relates to the very ethos of this book, and that is this book is imperfect. As you read you will no doubt find typos, spelling and grammatical errors for which, while they are certainly not intentional, I make no apologies. For the American audience, the book has been written using English spelling protocols, so there arent as many spelling mistakes as you might think youre picking up! One of the key principles I want to convey in this book is to take action and get started, and the process of meticulously revising and refining this manuscript would have been the antithesis of that principle. This book serves as an elaboration of some of my Instagram posts that seemed to capture the imagination of some and through their comments and messages I was humbled to learn that I had helped to motivate and inspire them to keep moving forward in life. I truly hope that at least one of the topics discussed herein resonates with you and inspires you to take a current endeavor to the next level or overcome the mental barriers to start something new. We only get one crack at this life, so make it count! Lets get started.

Average 70kg Dickhead

The term average 70kg dickhead stems from a conversation that I had in my early twenties with my flat mate at the time. We were both keen triathletes and had just returned from a training session at the gym where there had been a humungous rock-ape type bloke lifting ridiculous weights and screaming for the whole world to hear as he did so. The subsequent discussion that my friend and I were having centred around whether being able to lift that amount of weight in the gym necessarily translated into any practical application, specifically fighting. I put this query to my friend and he had replied with surely if he can lift those weights in the gym he could pick up and throw your average 70kg dickhead. The term resonated with me as it is precisely as I have always, and continue to, see myself an average 70kg dickhead.

I confess that many of the experiences that I have had over my life have been far from average, and some of the things that I may have accomplished in my professional career have been slightly right of centre on the bell curve. That said, when it boils down to me specifically I am average, weigh roughly 70kg, and as my wife loves to remind me, am indeed very capable of being a bit of a dickhead. I was born into an average middle-class Australian family to an army dad and a speech therapist mum. I have one brother and we had a cat growing up. Average. I was average throughout my schooling and owing to my dads army postings went to 8 different schools, getting expelled from one. I eventually got through grade 12 with Cs in physics and math, and grades good enough to get me into university to do something but nowhere near good enough to apply for medical school at the time. I was average at sport for most of my youth, swimming and playing cricket at a regional level in my primary school years. In my later years of high school I took a keen interest in middle-distance running and this was the first time I really devoted myself towards setting goals, and I found myself popping my head up above average by ranking in the top 10 in my State for 1500m in my senior year. Aside from that I had an average amount of friends at school but was never the cool kid. I had girlfriends, but never the hottest girls in the school.

Overall I had a very average upbringing. Dont get me wrong, I certainly wasnt below average or disadvantaged in my upbringing, mine is not an inspirational story of overcoming overwhelming adversity or rising up against huge odds. My family unit was stable, we werent rich but we had more than enough to get by. I always had a roof over my head, and I never went hungry, quite the opposite until I started running I was a slightly fat kid. What Im getting at here is that the physical and mental tools that were at my disposal at the beginning of my life were the exact same set that the majority of society gets allocated, nothing more, nothing less.

In the 25 years since I left school with average grades I have managed to become a doctor, join the Australian Army and pass Special Forces selection, get decorated for my conduct in action on Special Operations in Afghanistan, complete specialist medical training, represent Australian Special Forces medical on an international level, complete an MBA, co-own a business with multi-million dollar revenues, buy a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, found an ambitious startup company building a prototype sports car with a view to limited production, and get an executive job running a state-wide medical capability. Ive fallen in a bit of a post-traumatic heap after my time with the army and managed not only to climb back out of my rut, but to somehow become a better person because of it. Along the way I married a fantastic woman and we had three awesome kids.

Im as surprised as anyone about some of the events in my life over the past 25 years, and on reflection I can see that theres a healthy mix of nature, nurture, amazing role models, and more than a fair share of lady luck and good timing to my story. This book is a series of ramblings regurgitated from my mind in an attempt to explain how an average 70kg dickhead somehow managed to occasionally squirm his way to above average results. It is not designed to be a memoir of any kind, and follows no particular order, it is simply a series of chapters relating to motivational factors in my life to date and lessons learned along the way.

It is Not the Critic Who Counts

Many readers will recognise the title of this chapter as the opening words from the legendary speech widely known as The Man in the Arena delivered by Theodore Roosevelt to a large audience in Paris in the year 1910. If youre unaware of this speech you should look it up, in my opinion it is the most inspirational passage that has ever been uttered and it has fueled my motivation towards many goals in my life.

Failure to see the truth behind this opening line: It is not the critic that counts is at the core of why many of us in this life never hit our goals, and why some of us never even set goals in the first instance. It is human nature to be influenced by what others think of us, especially those close to us, and sadly it is also human nature for a lot of people to want to drag down the tall poppies among us. I guess this tendency stems from an inherent insecurity that many have that is worsened by watching others rise above the level of performance that they are at. These people dont have the aptitude or drive to strive towards a goal themselves, so to retain their own sense of self-worth it is crucial for them to do their best to dissuade others from pursuing self-improvement that would lead them to betterment. That way everyone stays at their shitty level and they can feel equal, and not inferior. The way that these people achieve this objective is through criticism of your goals and aspirations. Let me provide an example.