Mastering success is more than manifestation

Fridge Philosophy takes a quote from a legendary coach; Plus: Band of Brothers rewatch episodes 4 and 5.

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Note: Since 2018, I have placed these short quotes on our refrigerator at home to provide subtle hints for successful, thoughtful, and purposeful practices in hopes my teens would internalize them. Along the way, I found them helpful in my own life.

Sparky Anderson was a legendary major league manager for the “Big Red Machine” era Cincinatti Reds and the Detroit Tigers. In Anderson’s context, success is a tangible result that can be envisioned, learned, attained and maintained. It is a commodity that can be manifested through pure will and mindset.

I’d like to say this is possible. Perhaps you’ve noticed self-help coaches coming across your Instagram. Typically, they share how just believing that you will be successful will lead to an enhanced life full of riches. Or perhaps you’re old school and you’ve come across books like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich! or Roxie Nafousi’s Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life. These philosophies hang on the Law of Attraction; the idea of receiving what you put out into the world.

These are high claims and with them, skepticism. This thinking can provide unrealistic expectations and can lead to personal feelings of failure when the manifestation of success doesn’t happen. It can also lead to victim blaming, stating bad things happen because you aren’t thinking good thoughts. (Positive Psychology)

I’d also say that success doesn’t necessarily mean high riches or fame. Success can mean family, community, faith, and well-roundedness. Positive mindsets are proven to have positive outcomes. In studies around placebo and no-cebo affects, people who believed a certain pill would help them saw more positive outcomes, while those who believed that not receiving a pill would hurt, saw more negative outcomes. (Stanford Report)

Just manifesting success and thinking positively isn’t enough because it is passive without any personal action and investment into it. Success isn’t just going to happen. Goals, results, and outcomes can show the incremental advances toward success that keep it going.

In an article “Using Science to ‘Manifest’ Success” (Psychology Today), Dr. Jonathan Rhodes shares how goal setting, visualization utilizing all of the senses, and daily affirmations can move a person closer to manifesting success. It is an understanding of one’s self, the obstacles they are expected to face, and how they plan to react to adversity with a daily dose of encouragement along the way.

Success is tied to the individual. The definition is different for everyone one of us. And, in order to achieve that definition, it has to be tied to you at a primal level. It has to be a part of you in every sense.

Rewatch: Band of Brothers

This year marks the 80-year anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, one of the single-most defining moments of modern history. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be conducting my own rewatch of this Emmy Award-winning series, share my impressions, insights I’ve learned through listening to the Band of Brothers rewatch Podcast with Roger Bennett (produced in 2021) and encourage participation now that it’s available on Netflix.

Episode 4: Replacements

After the initial invasion, the men of Easy Company are resupplied with new troops to bolster the regiment. As with any existing group of men, adding unproven soldiers into the mix creates complicated group dynamics. While some do a little hazing and others offer open resentment, they are immediately thrown into a new mission, Operation Market Garden, where they are dropped into Holland to liberate a strategic town and secure a path into Germany.

While they are greeted by liberators in the small Dutch town, Easy Company soon realizes the false sense of security as they come across a fortified Nazi regiment. We watch Sgt. “Bull” Randleman (Michael Cudlitz) shot, separated from his unit and hiding in a bar, before engaging in brutal hand-to-hand combat in order to survive and get back to the unit. His men, mostly replacements, go on their own to search for him.

Cameo Alert: James McAvoy (X-Men, Split) appears in this episode as Private James Milller, one of the new replacements, who is admonished for wearing a unit citation even though he didn’t participate in D-Day. He is later killed in Holland.

Podcast Nugget: For this episode of the rewatch podcast, Frank John Hughes, the actor who portrayed Sgt. “Wild” Bill Guarnere shared how the real-life Guarnere and Babe Heffron (best friends until the end) could, at 80, could drink the 20-something actors who portrayed them under the table. Guarnere also told Hughes that another actor got the part, but Hughes continued the audition and was cast in the role. Hughes’ underbite in the show is a representation of Guarnere’s underbite.

Episode 5: Crossroads

We are halfway through our rewatch and this episode marks a new chapter of Easy Company. At the forefront is Dick Winters (Damian Lewis), who faces his own crossroads; emotional, career, and leadership. The episode begins with Winters sprinting alone across a field toward a German regiment. At the top of a ridge, encounters a young German soldier and shoots him. Told in flashback as Winters types out the report as the new Battalion Commander, and we see Winters struggle with the killing of a singular man, a boy really. Winters can’t even enjoy a liberated Paris, haunted by the boy’s and unable to switch between a soldier’s objectives and off-duty amusement. At the end, there is a foreboding as Easy Company marches toward Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. This episode was directed by Tom Hanks.

Cameo Alert: Jimmy Fallon plays Second Lieutenant George Rice who drives a jeep loaded with ammunition to resupply Easy Company as they head into Bastogne.

Podcast Nugget: Erik Jendressen, the head writer for Band of Brothers became so close with the Major Dick Winters, that Winters made him an honorary member of the Batallion with his own jump wings. Writer also delivered the eulogy at Major Winters funeral in 2011.