Chop Wood Carry Water: The Little Things Matter

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one college for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert. Today is Friday, April 2, and I wanna talk to you today about a book I'm reading. It's called Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf.

And the reason why I started reading this book, I've I've been watching the NCAA wrestling finals on YouTube. And I've heard a bunch of different wrestlers who won just taught use the term chop wood carry water. So I went and I Googled the term because it, like, came up, like, 10 times. And I found this book. It's called Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcalf.

And essentially, what this book is, it's it's more like a novel than a non fiction book. It's it's just like this story about this kid who goes off to try to become a samurai, and it's got all these different morals in it. But the term chop wood, carry water has to do with doing the basic things every single day. Right? Doing the things that are going to make you better every single day.

Now, one of the things about this is that these things are often not sexy. They're they're the little things you do. Things like saving money, things like, you know, going and working out every day, things like reading, doing the things that are going to slowly build up and that are going to get you to a place to where, you know, you're slowly climbing this mountain before you know it, you're on top. And I think that's the thing we need to get back to because in this day and age, you know, you look on social media, you have all these guys, they're rolling around with their fancy cars, their jets. Right?

They're showing you their awesome lifestyle, and everybody thinks that there's there's this magic bullet. There's this little button you can push that's just gonna make you great. And greatness doesn't come like that. It comes by doing things like chopping wood and carry water. Right?

Comes by doing things like reading a bit every day. Comes by doing things like saving your money. Right? It comes by practicing day in and day out. You know, I I remember I went into jiu-jitsu the first day.

Right? And first time on the mats, you know, I'd been a wrestler before, but I had never really done martial arts. And at the time, I was a big strong dude. Right? I could deadlift 600 pounds.

I could squat over 500 pounds. I could bench press close to 400, and I got broken in half by a kid who was like a hundred and thirty pounds, and it was 14 years old. Alright? And I realized at that point that I was a beginner at something. Now, you know, you you you see martial arts all over the place on on Instagram.

Right? You see all these big jiu-jitsu, guys, and and and, you know, a lot of people, they just try to learn from watching videos, which you can get a lot out of. But the only way to truly learn something like jiu-jitsu is by getting on the mats and actually, you know, practicing moves and actually sparring and getting your butt kicked a million times in a row. When I think about the businesses I've been involved in, you know, my first business for me was a massive failure. Right?

I knew nothing. I knew nothing about how finance worked, how accounting worked. I knew nothing about sales, nothing about marketing. But after I took a massive L, what I did was I went back, I started learning, started reading, started another business, tried again, had a few failures, had some successes, and slowly but surely, things just added up. And today, you know, I'm a little bit better at business, but I'm by by no means where I wanna be, but I I'm getting a little bit better every day by doing the little things.

You know, there there are some people out there who who, you know, they think, oh, you know, I've been working hard. I deserve a day off or I deserve to to to take to relax a little bit. And one of the things you don't realize is that when you do that, you're taking yourself off your path. Even if you're taking yourself off your path a little bit, you know, those little steps that you take off the path, they can eventually get you miles from where you wanna go. Right?

And that's what this is about. It's not about hitting a grand slam or a home run at your first bat. It's about taking a small step up the mountain, and then taking another step after that and taking another step after that. And when you fall down, getting back up again and continuing your way up that mountain. So what I want you guys to think about are one, where do you want to be?

What is your goal? But two, not the the actual accomplishment of the goal, but the little things that you need to do every day to get there. What are the things that you need to do? What do you need to learn? What do you need to put work into?

What are the things that you need to do for yourself that are going to make you into the strong individual that you want to become? Alright, think about that. Right? If you if you just if you just stand there at the bottom of Mount Everest and you stare up at the peak, and you look at it and you think, oh, man, I'd love to be up there. But, you know, it's gonna take a lot of work.

I mean, you're never gonna get up there, which what you got to do is you've got to plan your way, you got to start taking those steps up. And, you know, just like it is when people do actually climb Mount Everest, you know, they they can't just go up all in one day. They've gotta go up to a base camp. They've gotta acclimatize, then they go up a bit. They acclimatize a little bit more, and then they come back down, and then they go back up again.

Alright? That's what you got to be able to do. That's what you got to be prepared for. It's not going to be a straight shot. It's not going to be easy.

It's not going to be you getting there in a matter of days or a matter of weeks or a matter of months, and sometimes not even a matter of years, it might be decades. But you gotta be on the path, and you gotta be working toward it. So that's what I got for you guys today on this Friday, Good Friday. And, I hope you're all doing well. And I want you to get out there and live your best lives while you can.

This is Chris Albert with the Warrior Soul podcast, and I am out.