Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Average 70kg D**khead: Motivational Lessons from an Ex-Army Special Forces Doctor
    Average 70kg D**khead: Motivational Lessons from an Ex-Army Special Forces Doctor
    Average 70kg D**khead: Motivational Lessons from an Ex-Army Special Forces Doctor
    Ebook126 pages2 hours

    Average 70kg D**khead: Motivational Lessons from an Ex-Army Special Forces Doctor

    By Dan Pronk

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ever get the feeling that you're destined for great things, but you don't quite know how to get started? Perhaps you're stuck in a rut with life passing you by and a fear that you will die wondering what you could have achieved? If so this book is for you.
    Average 70kg D**khead tracks key life events of Dr Dan Pronk from his beginnings as an average chubby kid, through his failed attempt at professional triathlon, onto becoming a doctor, joining army Special Forces, being decorated for his conduct in action in Afghanistan, and then onto his post-army career as a medical executive and co-owner of a multimillion dollar business. Throughout the book Dan shares his motivational philosophies and key lessons learned from his journey. He breaks down the goal setting process and provides examples of how seemingly impossible goals can be deconstructed into smaller and smaller achievable sub-goals, creating a clear pathway to getting started and moving towards your ambitious objectives. Dan highlights the crucial factor of persistence in goal attainment and uses case studies from the Special Forces selection process to illustrate that average people with above-average persistence will beat stronger, smarter, faster, and more educated people who are not as willing to persist every time.

    This book will inspire you to do more. Be it to get off the couch and get started, or double down on your existing goals and supercharge your commitment to them. You only get one go at this life, so what are you waiting for? Give it a read and get going!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateDec 7, 2018
    ISBN9781925846812

    Related to Average 70kg D**khead

    Related ebooks

    Self-Improvement For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Toughen Up

      Jun 26, 2020

      Toughen Up
      7 min read

    • Article

      Wod God

      Dec 2, 2019

      Wod God
      10 min read

    • Article

      More Than A Runner

      Jul 2, 2020

      More Than A Runner
      6 min read

    • Article

      Plant-based Powerhouse

      Dec 30, 2022

      Plant-based Powerhouse
      7 min read

    • Article

      Food For The Soul

      Apr 13, 2023

      Food For The Soul
      5 min read

    • Article

      Find Your Power Story

      Jan 15, 2023

      Find Your Power Story
      7 min read

    • Article

      School Of Life

      Nov 23, 2023

      School Of Life
      19 min read

    • Article

      Wolves Not Sheep

      Jan 10, 2023

      Wolves Not Sheep
      6 min read

    • Article

      MY JOURNEY TO Self-love

      Jan 26, 2024

      MY JOURNEY TO Self-love
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Weight On Our Mind

      Jun 14, 2022

      The Weight On Our Mind
      18 min read

    • Article

      Illness Is Not Your Identity

      Nov 16, 2022

      Illness Is Not Your Identity
      8 min read

    • Article

      Road To Recovery

      Jun 5, 2022

      Road To Recovery
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Doctor Will See You Now

      Jul 15, 2021

      The Doctor Will See You Now
      6 min read

    • Article

      BODY Talk

      Jun 27, 2022

      BODY Talk
      5 min read

    • Article

      3 Personal Stories

      May 1, 2020

      3 Personal Stories
      5 min read

    • Article

      Every Body is Perfect

      Sep 8, 2022

      Every Body is Perfect
      10 min read

    • Article

      On A Bear Hunt

      Feb 17, 2022

      On A Bear Hunt
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Average 70kg D**khead

    3.5/5

    5 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This is not just for people interested in military or medical fields, everyone can easily learn from it. It is light, funny, and easy read. It doesn't spend 15 chapters of childhood memories like most books of these types. If you need some more ambition or just want to learn how other people put one foot in front of the other and littery don't stop until they reach their goal. It changed my perspective on how to achieve life long goals and little ones too. Dan Pronk doesn't just tell you how he has gotten to where he is now, he shows you how he has gotten to where he is now. Explains when it might be time to change directions in life, how to overcome other people's judgments, how to enjoy accomplishments and the little things in life. Most importantly how to go from point A to point B, along with how to define point B. It's a lot easier then one might think. I DM Dan on IG and got back to right away being a student nurse considering the military after school. I highly recommend checking out his webinars regarding PTSD and PTR (post-traumatic recovery) and I'm sure lots more at world extreme medicine. Also, Dan is very active on podcast alike check out his IG for more details @Danponk. Truly a down to earth guy, thanks Dan for the awesome read!!!

    Book preview

    Average 70kg D**khead - Dan Pronk

    Conclusion

    Introduction

    The first point that I would like to make before we get started relates to the very ethos of this book, and that is this book is imperfect. As you read you will no doubt find typos, spelling and grammatical errors for which, while they are certainly not intentional, I make no apologies. For the American audience, the book has been written using English spelling protocols, so there aren’t as many spelling mistakes as you might think you’re picking up! One of the key principles I want to convey in this book is to take action and get started, and the process of meticulously revising and refining this manuscript would have been the antithesis of that principle. This book serves as an elaboration of some of my Instagram posts that seemed to capture the imagination of some and through their comments and messages I was humbled to learn that I had helped to motivate and inspire them to keep moving forward in life. I truly hope that at least one of the topics discussed herein resonates with you and inspires you to take a current endeavor to the next level or overcome the mental barriers to start something new. We only get one crack at this life, so make it count! Let’s get started.

    Average 70kg Dickhead

    The term average 70kg dickhead stems from a conversation that I had in my early twenties with my flat mate at the time. We were both keen triathletes and had just returned from a training session at the gym where there had been a humungous rock-ape type bloke lifting ridiculous weights and screaming for the whole world to hear as he did so. The subsequent discussion that my friend and I were having centred around whether being able to lift that amount of weight in the gym necessarily translated into any practical application, specifically fighting. I put this query to my friend and he had replied with surely if he can lift those weights in the gym he could pick up and throw your average 70kg dickhead. The term resonated with me as it is precisely as I have always, and continue to, see myself – an average 70kg dickhead.

    I confess that many of the experiences that I have had over my life have been far from average, and some of the things that I may have accomplished in my professional career have been slightly right of centre on the bell curve. That said, when it boils down to me specifically I am average, weigh roughly 70kg, and as my wife loves to remind me, am indeed very capable of being a bit of a dickhead. I was born into an average middle-class Australian family to an army dad and a speech therapist mum. I have one brother and we had a cat growing up. Average. I was average throughout my schooling and owing to my dad’s army postings went to 8 different schools, getting expelled from one. I eventually got through grade 12 with Cs in physics and math, and grades good enough to get me into university to do something but nowhere near good enough to apply for medical school at the time. I was average at sport for most of my youth, swimming and playing cricket at a regional level in my primary school years. In my later years of high school I took a keen interest in middle-distance running and this was the first time I really devoted myself towards setting goals, and I found myself popping my head up above average by ranking in the top 10 in my State for 1500m in my senior year. Aside from that I had an average amount of friends at school but was never the cool kid. I had girlfriends, but never the hottest girls in the school.

    Overall I had a very average upbringing. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly wasn’t below average or disadvantaged in my upbringing, mine is not an inspirational story of overcoming overwhelming adversity or rising up against huge odds. My family unit was stable, we weren’t rich but we had more than enough to get by. I always had a roof over my head, and I never went hungry, quite the opposite – until I started running I was a slightly fat kid. What I’m getting at here is that the physical and mental tools that were at my disposal at the beginning of my life were the exact same set that the majority of society gets allocated, nothing more, nothing less.

    In the 25 years since I left school with average grades I have managed to become a doctor, join the Australian Army and pass Special Forces selection, get decorated for my conduct in action on Special Operations in Afghanistan, complete specialist medical training, represent Australian Special Forces medical on an international level, complete an MBA, co-own a business with multi-million dollar revenues, buy a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, found an ambitious startup company building a prototype sports car with a view to limited production, and get an executive job running a state-wide medical capability. I’ve fallen in a bit of a post-traumatic heap after my time with the army and managed not only to climb back out of my rut, but to somehow become a better person because of it. Along the way I married a fantastic woman and we had three awesome kids.

    I’m as surprised as anyone about some of the events in my life over the past 25 years, and on reflection I can see that there’s a healthy mix of nature, nurture, amazing role models, and more than a fair share of lady luck and good timing to my story. This book is a series of ramblings regurgitated from my mind in an attempt to explain how an average 70kg dickhead somehow managed to occasionally squirm his way to above average results. It is not designed to be a memoir of any kind, and follows no particular order, it is simply a series of chapters relating to motivational factors in my life to date and lessons learned along the way.

    It is Not the Critic Who Counts

    Many readers will recognise the title of this chapter as the opening words from the legendary speech widely known as The Man in the Arena delivered by Theodore Roosevelt to a large audience in Paris in the year 1910. If you’re unaware of this speech you should look it up, in my opinion it is the most inspirational passage that has ever been uttered and it has fueled my motivation towards many goals in my life.

    Failure to see the truth behind this opening line: It is not the critic that counts is at the core of why many of us in this life never hit our goals, and why some of us never even set goals in the first instance. It is human nature to be influenced by what others think of us, especially those close to us, and sadly it is also human nature for a lot of people to want to drag down the tall poppies among us. I guess this tendency stems from an inherent insecurity that many have that is worsened by watching others rise above the level of performance that they are at. These people don’t have the aptitude or drive to strive towards a goal themselves, so to retain their own sense of self-worth it is crucial for them to do their best to dissuade others from pursuing self-improvement that would lead them to betterment. That way everyone stays at their shitty level and they can feel equal, and not inferior. The way that these people achieve this objective is through criticism of your goals and aspirations. Let me provide an example.

    In late 2001 I had been introduced to the world of Army Special Forces through my best mate, who had joined the Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) and was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan on one of the early rotations of Australia’s involvement in the conflict. I had visited him for a holiday to catch up before he deployed and during the trip I had the chance to meet a few of his fellow operators and tour the base they worked out of. I was hooked. A lightbulb flicked on in my mind and I knew instantly that was the career for me. I was already on a trajectory toward being an army doctor, but I decided that from that day forth I would dedicate my very existence toward becoming an army Special Forces doctor. It was a perfect fit in my mind, a way to blend medicine with a physically demanding role, as well as a healthy dose of professional satisfaction and excitement on the side. I dedicated the next six years of my life towards bettering myself with the objective of completing the grueling SASR selection course. I completed my medical schooling, all the while pack marching hundreds of kilometers month-in, month-out, I studied languages, I scuba dived, I rock climbed, I shot handguns and rifles, anything to improve myself in areas that I felt might improve my chances of being suitable for Special Forces service. All the while I stayed quiet about my aspirations, and aside from a few key people in my life who I knew would support me, I didn’t tell a soul. Fast forward to 2007 and I had graduated from medical school, completed my compulsory medical internship and a further year of civilian hospital experience, and I was a few months into my posting to my first army unit. Despite having technically been in the army for six years by that stage, all of that time had been spent in civilian schooling and hospitals, so in effect I was only several months into proper military service. That first year in uniform was spent doing a series of basic induction courses to learn how to behave as an army officer, as well as apply my medical skill set in the army environment. For all intents and purposes I was a newbie, wet behind the ears. That was the context within which I attended my interview with my army career advisor that year. Now before we go on, I feel it’s important to see this interaction from his perspective. From his side of the table he would have seen me as a brand-new baby army doctor who was 30 seconds into his job and was yet to even complete the courses required to become employable in a full capacity in the role, let alone deployable. He didn’t know me from a bar of soap,

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1