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Danger Is My Middle Name

Rule 11 - Do Not Bother Children When They Are Skateboarding

 

I remember the thrill of bike riding as a kid—not the leisurely neighborhood rides, but the high-stakes, adrenaline-filled jumps at the construction sites in nearby subdivisions. There were no helmets, no safety nets, just me and a coupel friends daring each other to push limits. Sure, there were scrapes and bruises, but there was also a sense of accomplishment. Each jump taught me something: how to land without wiping out, how to balance just right, and how to laugh through the metaphoric and literal pain of failure.

Rule 11 reminds us to "not bother children while they are skateboarding," or in my case, bike jumping. The essence of this rule is clear: let people take risks, test their boundaries, and grow from the experience.
 

Fast forward a few years to hockey practice. Youth hockey starts with mastering the basics—skating. Eventually, as I got older, my hockey league became "full-contact", that is, body-checking became part of the game. You need a strong foundation before you can safely handle the physicality. For the next step, we moved on to practicing the mechanics of body-checking in controlled drills, learning how to give and take hits effectively. Scrimmages at practice then became a testing ground for understanding and testing our limits of capability and resilience in a relatively safe environment. By the time league games came around, our goal was to have enough skill and experience to calibrate our "force", understand our limits, and understand what's safe and what's not. It was a balance of strength, control, and respect for the game, teammates, and opponents. Usually it was, anyway. I'm sure it helped me stay safe, too.
 

These lessons in calibration and readiness extended far beyond the rink. In Extreme Ownership (St. Martin's Press, 2015), Jocko Willink says, "Discipline equals freedom." By preparing ourselves thoroughly, we set the stage for success—whether it’s on the ice or in life. And as Jordan Peterson puts it, "You should be a monster. An absolute monster. And then you should learn how to control it." Hockey taught me that strength without control is chaos, but strength with control is power.  A related, relevant, and a personal favorite quote attributed to Peterson, "A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has it under voluntary control."

 

Why We Need to Push Ourselves

These experiences taught me a universal truth: we need to challenge ourselves. It’s not just about proving we can do something hard; it’s about understanding our current limits and then working to extend them. Growth doesn’t come from comfort zones; it comes from discomfort, risk, and the occasional failure. We do hard things voluntarily, even playfully, to know that when there are hard things we must do, we can step up confidently.
 

When kids engage in rough-and-tumble play, they’re learning important lessons about boundaries and force. A parent wrestling gently with their child is teaching calibration—how to use just enough strength to achieve the desired outcome without causing harm. The relative robustness of a parent allows a child to push really hard with little risk of actually harming their parent, while learning about the limits of comofort and saftey in physical situations. It also teaches our children what they can take and where their limits are! This same principle applies to personal growth, professional development, and team dynamics. It’s all about exercising the minimal force required and learning how to fine-tune your approach as you grow.

 

The Power of Personal Integrity

Personal integrity requires an honest assessment of where you are and where you want to go. You can’t set realistic goals if you don’t understand your starting point. It’s about finding that delicate balance between pushing yourself and respecting your current capabilities. Incremental growth is the key here. Every small improvement builds on the last, creating a solid foundation for the next big leap.

 

This philosophy isn’t just personal; it’s professional, too. Teams grow and succeed when each member understands their role and their limits. By challenging ourselves—individually and collectively—we create new possibilities, achieve milestones, and ultimately redefine what’s possible.

 

My Takeaway: Incrementally adding risk means growth

So what’s my takeaway? Simple: I need to do things that are hard, risky, and push my limits. But I also need to regularly evaluate my current status, my strengths, and my skills. Whether I’m learning to hit a hockey puck, land a bike jump, or tackle a professional challenge, the goal remains the same: understand where I’m at, push toward where I want to be, and embrace the growth that happens in between.

 

After all, what’s life without a little danger? Or in my case, a middle name that reminds me to keep pushing the boundaries. What's your middle name?