F3 The Fort – Relaunch of WHETSTONE

WHETSTONE relaunches in the Fort officially on Saturday April 21 and what better way than to relaunch with a CONVERGENCE! Any excuse to gather for a common beat down, interwoven with messages on why/how we need WHETSTONE followed by a short chat post COT. Maximus has a beyond style workout planed. 0700 at Fort Mill High School. Note, all other area AOs will be closed (TheFort, The Yard, Alcatraz, and The Deep).

WHETSTONE

As you may already know, the mission of F3 is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership. This means that ALL of our bootcamps, runs, rucks, kettlebells are means to a much greater end…to strengthen the lives of other men in order to become and to develop HIMs.

Just as no man casually drifts into being physically fit, no man drifts into becoming a HIM. The current of our culture toward isolation, addiction, and mediocrity is strong. Therefore, you must intentionally direct your life against this current in the direction of personal growth…or you will, by default, drift toward sad clown-ness.

While all of us have made some measure of progress in the realm of physical fitness, many of us still lack the deeper dimension of HIM-ness that cannot be developed in a COT, Coffeeteria, or happy hour. Committing to WHETSTONE is a proactive step into this dimension. In the end, our workouts, CSAUP events, and happy hours will eventually fade, but how we have influenced and been influenced by one another will be our legacy.

SO WHAT IS WHETSTONE?

• WHETSTONE is a committed relationship between two men. One (the Stone) serves as a mentor to the other (the Blade), you can serve as both Stone and Blade in most partnerships.
• Although the Stone and Blade may indeed be friends, the WHESTONE differs from a typical friendship. The purpose of the WHETSTONE is the deliberate sharpening effort in helping men to hone the skills and character qualities that comprise the High Impact Man (HIM) he is called to be.
• As with anything F3, WHETSTONE is free, voluntary, at-your-own-risk, and you can modify as needed.

THE WHETSTONE COMMITMENT

We’ve seen that meaningful WHETSTONE relationships revolve around the following five things:

• Consistency – there is no set rule for frequency, but it must be frequent enough to be effective but not too frequent to be overburdening. Every other week seems to be a good cadence, with a one year commitment.
• Confidentiality – To go deep, you must have trust and transparency. Therefore, one man needs the permission of the other to share anything personal discussed during a Whetstone meeting.
• Courageous Humility – Just as the meeting of a physical blade and stone creates friction against both objects, a Whetstone relationship is not supposed to be a “smooth” process. This WILL most likely be uncomfortable initially. These are “muscles” that many of us are not in the habit of flexing. So just like you were probably sore at your first several F3 beatdowns (and probably are still sore at times) expect to be “sore” in this. Courageously, and Humbly, “embrace the suck” and grow.
• Curriculum – Although there is no prescribed curriculum to follow, there are ample topics to guide your conversations. Its recommended to have a few standard questions to check in with each other, i.e. how are your 1^st F, 2^nd F, and 3^rd F going lately; what’s happening at home; where are you struggling; where can I help keep you accountable; etc. Additionally we recommend checkout the awesome content on the QSource posts found on the F3Nation website. Try to establish a specific topic or question for each gathering, the monthly 3^rdF theme posts are a great starter as well.
• Communication – although phone and email are good, it does not replace physical meeting where you can look each other in the eye. It is strongly encourage it find a partner that you can meet face to face.

HOW DO I SIGN UP FOR WHETSTONE?

There are many things we are good at; merkins, eating, CSAUP events, but match making is not one of them. Thus we will NOT create the Farmers Only dating site for finding a WHETSTONE partner. Finding a partner is your responsibility. We’ve tried to play match maker in the past, and overwhelmingly we’ve seen that WHETSTONE partners that have proactively found each other were significantly more likely to have a meaningful relationship.

But we won’t just leave you out there alone searching for a WHETSTONE partner in the gloom by yourself. We ask you to complete the WHETSTONE INTEREST FORM, in which you will provide us the info for three (3) PAX that you would want to engage in a WHETSTONE relationship. To help you avoid that awkward moment at the high school dance, we’ll send a note to your three (3) PAX informing them that you’d like talk with them about WHETSTONE. From there on, it is on you. They know that you’re interested in improving yourself and investing in them.

You control your own destiny, so take control and find a WHETSTONE partner that can influence you and that you can invest in.

IF YOU WANT TO JUST TALK TO YOUR THREE PAX ON YOUR OWN, GREAT, JUST SEND US A NOTE ON TWITTER WITH HOW YOUR PARTNER IS!

WHETSTONE SUPPORT

We want to see you succeed. We want to see you as a HIM in your marriage, your job, with your kids and in the community. We’ll help push monthly content for you and your WHETSTONE partner to discuss, that’s the easy part, having the honest dialog with your partner is the hard part.

Give us a follow on twitter @F3FortWhetstone, join the conversation, tell the Nation that you’re actively engaged in WHETSTONE and share ideas.

COMMON EXCUSES:

We’ve all heard them, so we took the liberty of short-circuiting your excuses:

“I already have an accountability partner.” That’s great! All of us should have a few men in our Shield Lock. Whetstone, however, is different than accountability. It’s a purposeful mentorship requiring one man to courageously (and humbly) step into a Stone role and another to humbly (and courageously) step into a Blade role.

“I’m not qualified to be Stone where I assume a leadership role in the life of another man.” ALL of you are potential Stones. Have you ever learned from failure? Ever overcome a challenge? Ever passed through one of the milestones of manhood (marriage, parenting, owning a home, etc.)? Then you have something to offer. A large part of being a Stone is about recognizing one’s life experiences (and resulting lessons learned) as a gift to be shared with another. Your struggles allow the Blade to be more transparent about his own challenges.  On the flipside, knowing that you are serving as a Stone for another man may just force you to step up your game, walk a little straighter, and address some of those hindrances that have dogged you for too long.

“I don’t need to be a Blade where I am led by another man.” If you really think this, then it shows that you very much need to be a Blade. The fact is that ALL of you are potential Blades. None of us has this thing called life figured out, and development doesn’t stop till we reach the finish line. Humbly admitting your need for the intentional influence of another man and courageously extending your trust in him leads to a kind of personal development not found many other ways.

“I just don’t have time for this.” Actually, we’d challenge you to rethink this logic.  Each man is given 24 hours in a day.  You have the same amount of time as every other man on the big ball.  No more, no less.  Priorities are what consume our time.  Honestly assess your schedule, which is a reflection of your life’s priorities, and ask yourself if you are truly investing in the things that matter most. How a man invests the time he’s been given ultimately determines his life’s legacy. So, is sharpening the life of another man OR being sharpened by another man worth investing an hour every couple weeks? We think so.

READY TO START YOUR WHETSTONE JOURNEY? FILL OUR THE WHETSTON INTEREST FORM AND JOIN THE CONVERSATION ON TWITTER @F3FortWhetstone