Note: To celebrate the upcoming November Project/Dooster Film collaboration, “Showing Up,” we have identified several Phoenix tribe members who we feel embody the November Project spirit. We are dropping one personal story a day leading up to the Showing Up event on Monday evening. For more information and tickets to this FREE event, click here.
Meet Chuck, the unofficial “NP greeter” that high-fives people as they arrive at the stairs every Wednesday. He’s also the guy you go to if you need something random, such as a workout idea, graphic T-shirt, or access to a theater to screen a film. If you don’t recognize him, simply turn the photos upside-down: he and Jaime are the guys who do hand-stand push-ups while wearing a weight vest.
Why do I show up to November Project?
At first, I showed up because it was a new challenge. I have always been the type of person to tell others to meet me here or there for a workout. Most of the time my workout partners would cancel or not show up at all, so I got used to working out and racing by myself, but then my friend Chandler asked me to meet him for a workout at the Papago Mountain amphitheater. He mentioned there would be others, but didn’t go into detail.
The first challenge was waking up at 5am. Not my first choice. The second challenge was making of sense of what this group November Project doing. They were bouncing up and down screaming “Good morning” and yelling, “F*** Yeah”. The last things I am thinking of saying at 5:59 am. The third challenge was getting through the workout. I was tired and out of breath. The fourth challenge was to find someone to bring with me next week. That person would be this guy named Jaime.
Now I am showing up because of Jaime. We become close friends as the weeks pass and we look forward to every Wednesday, but then one day it was raining hard at 5am. I stared in the darkness reading the text from Jaime that he wasn’t going to make it. I could of went back to sleep, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t stop thinking about the people that were going to show. I kept thinking that I had to be there for them. I showed up and I have been showing up ever since.
I show up for the people that know my name. I show up for the people that don’t know my name. I show up for the people I haven’t met yet. I show up for the people that want to quit. I show up for the people that want to go farther and faster. I show up for my friends. I show up for my TRIBE. I show up for my family. I show up for the other TRIBES that come and visit. I show up because WE are NOVEMBER PROJECT.
The challenge now is to make NOVEMBER PROJECT part of my life every day of the week in some way because it is much more than weekly workouts. NOVEMBER PROJECT are my friends and my family.
