WHY DID I START SAYING THE “INVICTUS” POEM EVERYDAY?
You probably remember the INVICTUS poem from high school or from the popular movie about Nelson Mandela.
The last 2 lines are epically memorable:
I am the Master of my Fate:
I am the Captain of my Soul.
But over the last 191 days I have gotten to know it up close and personal.
The insight and armor the INVICTUS poem has provided me built a CoronaVirus shield around my Heart and Mind.
Or let's be straight up...
It's a Shield...from damn near any threat.
It just so happens it was built and activated by the time we all got this massive dose of humility.
SO I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU.
Let's jump back to Day 0 and see where this thing started.
I was in a hotel room in Dana Point, CA.
I had signed up for WARRIOR WEEK and did not know exactly what to expect, but was excited and ready.
At 9:30pm I was preparing for bed when I got a text that said in part:
"Here is a link to the INVICTUS poem. Memorize it before we meet downstairs in the morning."
I didn't have it in me to do it right then, but I have had some success in my life, (after watching so many MEGA MEMORY infomercials in the 80's and early 90's), with being able to memorize bits of info, so I decided to do it in the morning.
So 45 minutes before I needed to be downstairs , I did my repetition and association thing, but MEET UP TIME WAS getting closer and closer, and the words are freaking confusing at first.
It's like REAL POETRY.
But I got it down to where I thought I could do it about 3 minutes before I walked out the door to meet the other men and coaches.
They loaded us in a van and asked us to put blindfolds on stay quiet.
(I know...but I signed all the release forms, so there I was.)
About 10 minutes into the drive a coach calls one of the men by name and says...
"Repeat the first 2 lines of INVICTUS."
He was stumped.
The coach said,
"Oh my God, it's gonna be a long day....KING..say the first 2 lines..."
Damn.
Deep breath by me.
A longer pause than I wanted...maybe too long....then,
"Out of the night that covers me...."
I paused for 2 long seconds...
"Black as the pit from pole to pole"
Coach:
"Okay KING DAVID (he had started calling me King David)...now we are getting somewhere."
And I knew it was going to be a Bad Ass week.
SO...
The next morning at dawn when I went down to the ocean before our Meet Time, and did my cold water thing....when I came up from under the water it just came out.
The whole INVICTUS poem.
Probably with a few errors at that point.
Okay FOR SURE with a few errors.
And I wondered as I walked back to my room...
"What would it do for my life if I were to do cold water and the INVICTUS poem every morning for a year?"
Now....
That was a long way to go to get here, but it sets up the power of the poem.
First, let's look at this masterpiece of words.
