Be A Skyscraper: Building Strong Foundations

Demi Lovato played a princess in Disney’s ‘Princess Protection Program’. She blossomed into a pop star, alongside her co-star Selena Gomez (JB’s squeeze). Lovato’s MTV video ‘Skyscraper’ has drawn in excess of 35 million hits. Many graduates (including Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears) of the Disney film or television series and franchises have attained royalty status with their worldwide fan-base of teenagers, youths, and even adults.

Skyscrapers are extremely tall concrete structures that are built on strong and sturdy foundations. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world – standing at 830m, in Dubai. Tom Cruise filmed his own aerial stunts on ‘Mission Impossible: The Ghost Protocol’ on this iconic landmark. Being the athlete he is, he rappelled and climbed on the side of this glass-and-steel modern monolithic wonder.

Like the 49-year-old box-office star, foundational training is vital to pulling off physical challenges. Cruise spent months training on a four-storey structure before taking on the actual skyscraper, complete with feisty crosswinds and heart-stopping moments.

Poets write their poems with words, built on a structure of head, heart and hands. As the film ‘Music & Lyrics’ described, it takes both melody and words to make beautiful music. Yin and yang: the harmony of nature. How you write your training program will depend on your goals. Co-writing your preparation plan can be a powerful, collaborative experience. You weave a fabric based on the threads of possibility and experience, which is then cut to size. Sure, your work is cut out for you and you need to put in the foundational time, be it for aerobic base building, or speed and strength training.

Endurance athletes are also poets at heart. They may do extreme tasks (like long runs and rides), with apparently, no rhyme or reason. Yet, there is a method to their madness. You do not plunge into the open arms of a triathlon with scant preparation, as you will ‘suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes’ (with reference to ‘Hamlet’). Every step is calculated and intentional. Every punctuation or word is written to engage different parts of our intellect and emotion. Build on the skyscraper of your being, and beyond.