In my first review post, I wrote on a central theme of the book, the “secret to their success”, which is bringing a sense of joy to your life.  This sense of joy is what the author largely credits to the Tarahumara Indian’s ability to run 100 miles or more, all with a smile on their face.

With this post, I’d like to focus on a short segment in the book that I found particularly inspiring.  It’s about The Beasts the ultra-distance runners in the book encounter and how they respond to them. While the stories in the book are told by these runners, they nonetheless have just as much relevance for all of us.  Even as most of these runners do what they do because they love it, a point that really stuck out for me is that when they race, they are challenging themselves by not only attempting something most rational people would think verges on the insane, but doing it while pitted against some of the best in the world that do the same thing.  It dawned on me while reading the book that this is an apt metaphor for our own most aggressive, visionary and challenging goals, whether business or personal.  Some use the term BHAG to stand for Big Hairy Audacious Goals.  Those goals that will truly stretch us, where there is a good chance if not high probability of failure, and which (unfortunately) we are usually up against some world-class naysayers.

So, whether you’re running 135 miles through 130F heat, or tackling your own personal or professional BHAG, eventually you’ll bump up against The Beast.

What Beast?

For ultra-distance runners, The Beast is often fatigue related to pushing the fringes of human physical endurance.  For you and I, The Beast is usually more personal.  For some it may be self-confidence, for others, it may be competing priorities.  Even more nefarious are subtle Beasts like impatience and unrealistic expectations.

You don’t confront The Beast by joining Toastmaster to work on your fear of public speaking; you confront The Beast by agreeing to be the keynote speaker for a conference of your peers to work on your fear of public speaking before joining Toastmasters.

So what lessons did Born to Run teach me on how to fight The Beast?  I took two lessons out of the book.

Lesson #1: Learn to love The Beast

Lisa Smith-Batchen, who trained through blizzards to win a six day race in the Sahara, gave me the most direct lesson is dealing with The Beast: learn to love it.  In her own words:

I love the Beast.  I actually look forward to the Beast showing up, because every time he does, I handle him better.  I get him more under control.

The author adds his own commentary:

Once the Beast arrives, Lisa knows what she has to deal with and can get down to work.  And isn’t that the reason she’s running through the desert in the first place – to put her training to work?  To have a friendly little tussle with the Beast and show it who’s boss?  You can’t hate the Beast and expect to beat it; the only way to truly conquer something, as ever great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

Lesson #2: Believe Know the Impossible is Possible

Lisa’s comments came within the broader context of a story about Scott Jurek, an elite ultra-distance runner who was looking for a new challenge.  He found that challenge in the Badwater Ultramarathon – 135 miles through some of the most brutal conditions in North America, perhaps the world.  Having conquered virtually every ultramarathon available, Scott was nonetheless humbled by Badwater 60 miles in, and collapsed to the ground:

…Scott was vomiting and shaky.  His hands dropped to his knees, then his knees dropped to the pavement.  He collapsed by the side of the road, lying in his own sweat…his friends didn’t bother trying to help him up; they knew there was no voice in the world more persuasive than the one inside Scott’s own mind.

Call it fatigue, call it exhaustion, call it the limits of human endurance, The Beast had arrived.  His thought process to pick himself up off the ground went like this:

There’s no way, you’re done.

You’d have to do something totally sick to win this thing now.

Sick like what?

Like starting all over again.  Like pretending you just woke up from a great night’s sleep and the race hasn’t even started yet.  You’d have to run the next eighty miles as fast as you’ve ever run eighty miles in your life.

No chance.

Yeah.  I know.

When The Beast arrives, there can be no doubt as to the goal and whether it will be reached; the only question can be what needs to change to get there.  The result of this race?  Scott not only finished the race, but with a new record time.

Change in perspective

The real message in this particular chapter though I found in Lisa’s comments about The Beast.  Literature abounds that prepares us to fight The Beast.  Whether it’s Nietzsche’s concept of the overman always fighting, always struggling; or your annual performance appraisal identifying “areas for improvement” – we seem to be programmed to view challenge as something to overcome.

The important change in perspective here is to view challenge as something to look forward to and welcome.  What a change in perspective – not to view overwhelming challenges as a battle, but something to be welcomed, even looked forward to.  The Beast then becomes a real-life laboratory to put into practice all that self-development you’ve been working on.  The Beast becomes an opportunity to grow and develop even further.

More importantly perhaps, learning to welcome The Beast puts YOU in control, not The Beast.  Oh, you may lose a battle here and there, but welcoming The Beast means you have already won the war.

This change in perspective also helps me put words to describing my concept of “personal excellence” I reference here on this blog but have never felt like I could adequately describe.  Learning how to do things better, even becoming an expert, is personal development.  Welcoming The Beast is personal excellence.

Your thoughts?

Does this resonate with you?  What Beasts do you encounter?  Do you welcome them or fight them?  Does the distinction between development and excellence ring true with your experience?

This is a post from: DaveCrainOnline.com. If you liked this post, and haven't done so already, you can sign up to receive future posts via E-Mail. If you prefer RSS, here's my feed.

Welcoming “The Beast”

So what’s their secret?

Well, my take on it is a bit more involved than the writer is, but in a nutshell their secret appears to be something we all remember fondly, is well within our grasp, but we (wittingly, or unwittingly) choose to live without on a day to day basis.

Their secret is to combine their running with pure, childlike joy.

Yea, right, I hear you saying.  For many of us, it wouldn’t matter how much you smile, you wouldn’t be able to run 10 miles, let alone 100. Let alone without resting.   And there is where the book gets more complicated, but also where I think the message gets more relevant and more broadly applicable.  In fact, I’m taking notes and hope to write a small series on the personal growth and excellence lessons I’m learning out of this book.  For now, I’ll tell you the following story.

I AM a runner.  I’ve had my ups and downs over the years, but I do enjoy the sport.  Much like the Tarahumara, I generally shun sidewalks and roads and do almost all my running on trails.  I tend to be a short to middle distance runner preferring outings between three to six miles.  Luckily, I’m blessed to live in an area of Ohio loaded with nature trails in that range that are not only beautiful, but challenging to run.  There’s nothing like flying down a hill, half running, half jumping, testing your legs (and the trail) with a do-or-die proposition: either I’ve still got the energy after four miles to jump these three steps and still stay running, or I slide headfirst down the rest of this hill and probably end up in emergency.  (Yes – it helps to be a little crazy to be a trail runner.  Or trail runners just are a little crazy, I’m not sure which).

But that’s the essence of the book – because I can guarantee you whenever I’m running down those stairs, jumping two or three at a time and challenging my body to keep me upright, I’ve got a huge smile on my face.  And anything you’re doing, personally or professionally, that you do with a smile on your face, gets done better and feels better doing it.

I tested this theory out over the last week.  I like to stay in shape over the winter so I run treadmill a lot in my basement.  I’m sure many of you can sympathize with me when I say treadmill running is boring at best, a grind at worst.  There is nothing joyful about running on a treadmill.  Or is there?  In anticipation of better weather, I have been slowly increasing my distance, which correspondingly was increasing my boredom and ability to stay focused.  So the other day midway through a 5 mile run on the treadmill, I started imagining myself running outside, jumping from rock to rock on a hillside trail overlooking a beautiful vista.  A half-smile came to my face which I let blossom into a full-blown one.  Immediately, I could feel a change happening to my body.  A slight energy increase, a lessening of fatigue, a greater connection with that “runner’s high”.  Literally before I knew it, I had put in my last two miles or so.

I’m sure to many of you this sounds like new-age hocus pocus, and that’s fine.  If you’re a runner, or if you just like interesting stories, the book is still a great read.  Runners especially will appreciate all the information on how all the foot, shin and knee injuries that 80-90% of us experience every year, started occurring only after the introduction of the high-tech running shoe!  I’ll be talking about the Tarahumara’s answer to that one too.  The stories about some of the ultra long distance runners and races where the Tarahumara ran with them are simply a blast to read as a runner.  You will really enjoy this book.

But for those of you committed to excellence, whether personal or professional (or both), try a simple experiment.  The next time you’re doing something that is complete drudgery, remember a time it wasn’t drudgery or tie it in your mind to something else that makes you smile and brings a bit of joy to the activity.  I’ll be interested in hearing your feedback, even though I already know what will happen…

Look forward to more on this book in future posts.

This is a post from: DaveCrainOnline.com. If you liked this post, and haven't done so already, you can sign up to receive future posts via E-Mail. If you prefer RSS, here's my feed.

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