The Mission

What  lofty title for the Coconut Horse. If anyone of you are followers of my epic backblasts, well, today may be disappointing. At the Horse on Sunday mornings, we have an agreement that the Q of Q-Source is also the Q of the workout. Usually works well, but coming off The Mortimer, I had a scheduled day off to recover – at least from the run. Now Flintstone on the other hand, that HIM already threw out the HC for a ruck. I know his training was more steady than mine or he’s just a glutton for punishment. Either way, he was there at 0600 and Whoopee fresh off a relaxing week of spa treatments, foot massages, mud peels, and happy endings (let’s at least hope?), joined him for the standard 5 mile tour. I posted at the COT having completed my homework and ready to lead the discussion. Whoopee was nice enough to buy me a coffee.

Our Q-Source group is reading and reviewing Freed to Lead. Sunday morning covered Part 3, Chapter 1 and beginning of Chapter 2. We began by discussing The Mission which if it’s not engrained into your head is: “the reinvigoration of male leadership within the community.” Whoopee identified that has changed since the original publication (2014) as the F3 Nation website now states: “the invigoration of male community leadership.” So a slight variation. Whoopee is prepared to match wits with DREDD on the tense or word “invigorate or reinvigoration.” If you’re trying to invigorate, that means male community leadership is non-existent – obviously there are many organizations and causes that do a lot of good in our community prior to F3 starting in 2015 so maybe that take on words is to take a Sad Clown and invigorate them? Chew on that at your next opportunity.

We then dove into Chapter 2 covering a few pages discussing the First F and how the Sad Clown can navigate the gym or pay a personal trainer vs. the accountability that can be found among F3 men. I do agree it’s much easier to find a push or sometimes a pull from the PAX for the workout, something that can’t be achieved as easily when your watching a video. I can attest to that as I was on the IR a good portion of 2020 and missed the camaraderie which comes in the form of Mumble Chatter. We then moved briefly to Shovel Flags and their importance to identify the home base, especially for a new guy or out of town F3 man trying to find the exact location.

Finally moved to cover the backblast and their structure. Our region is better than most about publishing them. Obviously I enjoy writing mine and apologize for the length. If you haven’t been made aware, there is a point to their purpose which is more than identifying the best and worst or workout highlights. The attendance recorded greatly assists the SLT, especially Weasel Shaker and First F for who is posting and where. The data collected identified the recent expansion of Tequila Sunrise on Friday mornings and the upcoming Phat Ricky Extravaganza set to have a second workout in Dallas (begins Saturday morning at 0700 at Cloninger Park). As we migrate to the warmer months, possibly other AO’s could become candidates for expansion – that is up to you. Ideal size for a workout is 10-12 men. If you’ve ever been to workouts with 20 or more, it can be a lot to handle for a regular AO.  The last piece of the BB is the naked man moleskin – which is when the Q attempts to share a “truth nugget” which runs the gamut from motivation to wisdom. I always find Whoopee’s to be passionate (I shared that with him in the discussion).

The final thing we covered is the fact that we post for each other. Plenty of times we fart-sack or in some cases smart-sack (as was the case for all but Flintstone from the Mortimer participants). Sometimes just our mere presence can provide the necessary companionship that helps another brother more than we’d ever know.

If it’s been a while or you’ve never read Freed to Lead – it’s beneficial to go through this again, especially after having been at this thing a few years.