Don't Avoid the Hills

One of my all-time favorite movies is "The Princess Bride". In this classic fairy tale saga one of the antagonists, Vizzini, declares to the captured Princess, "Life is pain, Princess."

I thought about this line often as I struggled to complete the final few miles of the Big Cottonwood Canyon Marathon near Salt Lake City in mid September. The question popped into my mind more than once of, "Why?" Coworkers, friends, and family have on multiple occasions asked of my long-distance running, "Why? Why subject yourself to that pain?"

The answer to that question is the subject of another day and another post. But during a morning run last summer in Rexburg, Idaho I reflected upon the 'why' and the 'pain' of running. As I struggled up a rather steep incline wishing I had chosen an easier route, a simple phrase popped into my mind that resonated not just with that particular run, but with life in general:

Don't Avoid the Hills

My family was visiting cousins in Rexburg and I had escaped the commotion of a house full of 9 kids--5 of which were mine--and all under the age of 10. This was the second morning I had gone running and was a little more familiar with the local terrain. I followed the same route as the day before, but as I approached the top of a mild incline on one of the main city streets I came to a bend in the road. I suddenly had a choice to make. I could continue on the same path as the day before; it would lead me to the center of town and to the university. I knew the route, I knew what to expect, and I would be comfortable with the run. It was the safe decision.

Or, instead of following the bend of the road, I could, as Robert Frost penned, take the road less traveled. The road to the right was a picturesque country setting, lined with large oak trees and peaceful looking homes. Because of the large trees and the increasing incline, I couldn't see too far down the road, so I didn't know where it led to. I assumed I could eventually make a large loop around town and wind up back where I started, but I wasn't totally sure. And, of more immediate consequence for the runner in me, this new route looked a little more "hilly". Was it worth trying this new route at the risk of getting lost or tackling more hills?

And that's where the phrase popped into my mind:

Don't Avoid the Hills

As the road turned left, I turned right and followed the new, uncertain path. The road was as pretty and peaceful as I suspected. It also led to hills far steeper than I anticipated. But I didn't turn back. I pushed myself up the daunting inclines, enjoyed the beautiful vistas, and relished the satisfaction of making it to the top. I eventually was able to make a large loop around the town and back to our cousin's home, a round trip of just over 10 miles. Back at the house I felt the inner satisfaction of accomplishing something difficult. I was a better runner for taking the road less traveled.

Yes, life is pain. But not fruitless or meaningless--and there is joy to be found. Undoubtedly we grow the most when we're pushed the hardest. Rarely, if ever, is something important or meaningful accomplished without adversity, struggle, and, challenge.

There are also naysayers at every turn. Most people don't want you to try something difficult because you might succeed. Better to play it safe, they'll say, and not take the risk of failure.

But you know what, don't buy that line of thinking. 

The next time you come to a bend in the road of your life, don't automatically stay on the path of least resistance. Don't be too quick to dismiss the notion that you could accomplish something great, regardless the level of difficulty. Don't assume that you aren't the outlier of success. 

Embrace the challenges of life, don't dismiss them. Conquer the hills, don't avoid them.

Tomorrow, I Run

Nearly two years ago I was getting ready to run the St. George Marathon. It turned out to be a race for the ages . . . but for all the wrong reasons.

At mile 24.9 I collapsed.

Six hours later, with breathing tubes down my throat and multiple IVs in my arms, I awoke, finding myself in the Intensive Care Unit of the St. George hospital. My wife and parents rushed down after hearing my plight as I spent the night in the ICU. After stabilizing I was transferred to a regular patient recovery room where I then spent the next six days undergoing blood tests, a heart analysis, and countless other medical procedures that tested my patience and ultimately our wallet.

Contrary to what you may have thought, I had trained diligently for the race and I was in pretty good shape. I hydrated properly beforehand and was very conscientious of my diet in the days and weeks leading up to the event. But once the race began I let my adrenaline get the best of me. I ran the first 10 miles or so at much too quick of a pace for my level of running. By mile 18 I was running out of gas. Around mile 21 I began getting cramps in my calves. I would stop and stretch, but I kept going. My stubborn competitive streak was too strong, though, so I pushed through the pain.

The last thing I really remember as the race course crossed the street diagonally is looking at some of the spectators on the side and nearly asking them for water. It was somewhere near that point of the home stretch where I fell suppine (face first according to the ambulance report) and unconcious.

It turns out I had extreme heat stroke. That lead to renal failure and respiratory failure. All of that led to rhabdomyolysis. Basically my muscles were breaking down too fast and the waste was going into my blood system too quickly. If my CK levels (which tracks the amount of waste in the blood) rose too much more then kidney failure was a distinct possibility. So I was stuck in the hospital until my levels came back down. A normal person's CK levels are 500; a normal person after a marathon is around 5,000. Mine were at 10,000 and rose past 50,000. But, thankfully, they subsided and normalized.

Oh, and half way through my hospital stay, after another middle-of-the-night blood test, the nurse told me I had pneumonia.

Luckily all of that passed. With huge support and prayers from my wife, parents, family, friends, and neighbors, I was able to go home and get back to a normal life.

Which brings me to tomorrow.

I never did lose my stubborn competitive streak. What's worse is that after gradually getting back into the sport, I am an openly-admitted running addict. I run four or five times a week. I have run three half marathons since St. George. And a year ago I finished the Utah Valley Marathon even (though it was at a slower pace aiming just to finish with a friend).

In the back of my mind, though—and at probably at the forefront of my running subconscious—has been the goal to run another marathon at my race pace (about 9 min/mile) and finish strong. Almost nothing in this world feels quite so good, nothing quite so fulfilling or joyful, as pushing yourself to the max (either mentally, physically, or spiritually) and achieving something great.

No, running a marathon doesn't equal to so many other great accomplishments in life. Marriage, children, family, and a multitude of other events top the priority list. At the same time, though, there is something special about race day—the excitement of a cold autumn morning, high in the tops of the towering mountains, with thousands of other runners gearing up for this physical and mental test of strength, endurance, and fortitude;  the almost palpable feeling of anxiety as you approach starting line, realizing the grueling voyage you are about to embark; the hope and anticipation of crossing the finish line after giving all you had physically and all you could muster mentally.

Now tomorrow, in just a few short hours and much to the chagrin of my wife, I get that chance to race again, this time at the Big Cottonwood Marathon.

I won't be crossing the finish line with the first group of participants. I won't qualify for the Boston Marathon. I probably won't even be in the top half of all runners.

But nearly two years after that hot and humbling day in St. George, I will finish the race. And I will finish strong.

Tomorrow, I run.

The Hope of Achieving Greatness

There's something exciting about September 1.

The unofficial beginning of Fall. A new school year. The end of summer heat. The nostalgia of our glorious (or not-so-glorious) high school years. The chill of a new dawn. The foray of bright new colored leaves. The crispness of autumn afternoons and lengthened fall shadows. And of course, the return of football.

All of these factors add to the bubbling anticipation of Fall. But I think there's something bigger, something more profound about this time of the year.

The calendar tells us that January 1 is the New Year. Nature shows its rebirth and revival in Spring. But for man, Fall is the time our internal clocks reset and subconsciously begin anew. 

The circadian rhythm of the school year—whether we're actually in school or not—gives us a natural starting and stopping point every year; a distinct, measurable time period of activity. Within these defined parameters we are tasked with projects to accomplish and assignments to complete. Gone are the ambiguity of lazy summer days—both figuratively speaking or literal. Ready or not, we are forced into the arena of life and given actual responsibilities. It's sink-or-swim time.

Every year millions and millions of students complete a grade, graduate from school, or move onto a new stage of life. Accomplishments will be celebrated next Spring as a finale, but the beginning is now, this Fall. And even if we already graduated from the highest levels of our education ladder, the memory and feelings of beginning again are to one degree or another relit within us. We feel the excitement of the season and the energy of the new beginning.

In all reality Fall is our "New Year". Our team is undefeated; our scores are unblemished; our slates are blank. We stand at the precipice of life with a chance to start something new and accomplish something meaningful, something great.

We have a renewed hope of achieving greatness.

Welcome to Fall!

When Life Taps You on the Shoulder

10,000 hours.

That's a lot of hours.

1,428 days of school. 2,500 football games. 20,000 episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

Like I said, a lot hours.

But that's what Malcom Gladwell theorizes it takes to become the best at something. In his book Outliers, Gladwell chronicles the rise of the Beatles, Bill Gates, and others as they became the very best in the world at their given trade. Garage bands are a dime a dozen, so how were the Beatles able to rise above the rest and become the most popular band of all time? How was Bill Gates, one of hundreds and hundreds of aspiring programmers, able to buck the norm and create a billion dollar company?

By chance? By pure luck? Did the stars just magically align?

Yes, luck and good fortune factor into our successes, just as bad luck and misfortune factor into our failures.

And certainly the Beatles and Bill Gates had natural skills and ability.

But luck and skills can't stand alone. The key ingredient, according to Gladwell, was work.

And not just a little work, A LOT of work. The most successful people in the world don't just work harder than their competitors, they work much, much harder.

Gladwell quantified "hard work" with the approximate figure of 10,000 hours. That's the number of hours that the Beatles played, practiced, and performed—including for months at a time in tiny strip clubs in Hamburg, Germany—before they got their big break on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Fortuitous timing and good luck played a big role in the Beatles' success story. But without the 10,000 hours of preparation and performance, all the good luck and timing would have been for naught.

What would have happened if the Beatles were invited to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show and they hadn't developed the charisma, charm, and chemistry from performing at so many hundreds of shows in German strip clubs the previous 5 years? Their performance would have fallen on deaf ears and they might have simply been a small blip on the American 

radar.

The Beatles, Bill Gates, and others were ready to seize the opportunity when the opportunity came. 

Winston Churchill famously said, "To every man, there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing; unique, and fitted to his talents . . . What a tragedy, if that moment finds him unprepared and unqualified for the work that would be his finest hour.”

 

The world is full of things we can't control. So that's why it's even more important to control the things we can control. Our attitude. Our decisions. Our work ethic. Our decisions.

It's our choice if we want to take our hobby and turn it into a world-class skill and asset. There are no guarantees of success, but we are guaranteed failure if we aren't willing to put in the time. 

If—and that's a big IF—you want to be the best, to really stand out and achieve greatness, then there is no substitute for hard work; 10,000 hours of work, dedication, practice, performance, blood, sweat, and tears.

We have to develop the skills. We need some good luck and fortunate timing. But we absolutely need to put in the 10,000 hours of work. 

With the right combination of those three ingredients we can achieve greatness.

So when life taps you on the shoulder, will you be ready?

Kids, Deadlines, and Sales

Are you in sales? And do you have or interact with children?

Because there's a lot to be learned about sales in dealing with kids.

I don't know about you, but more often than not our kids don't actually get off the couch and clean up the mess until they're about to reach the breaking point of our patience. We implore the 1-2-3 parenting method at our house and it usually turns into "1 . . . 2 . . . two-and-half . . . two and three-quarters . . ." and finally there's action.

Not until there is a deadline with some sort of consequence do we really see progress made.

Call it procrastination, busyness, laziness, whatever, but if we as humans don't see an urgent or significant need to act, we usually don't. It's just easier to do nothing or put it off until tomorrow. Set a deadline, though, (i.e. if I count to three then no T.V. for the rest of the day), and all of sudden there's urgency.

Deadlines make us prioritize our limited time or resources.

Same thing in sales.

As a manager of a small business, sales is the key driver of our engine: ad sales, subscription sales, event sales. No sales means no cash flow and no profit. No cash flow and no profit mean no business.

So how do we drive sales?

We start by using one of my Dad's (@mjstoddard) foundational marketing principles: AIDA.
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

If you want to get a response from a direct mail letter, an email, a flier, or whatever marketing piece you're working on, make sure you grab their attention, get their interest, create a desire for your product, and include a call to action.

It's that last item where deadlines have become of paramount importance. I have found that nothing drives action quite like a good deadline.

We can send a fantastic email to our potential advertisers listing all of the wonderful benefits we offer a month ahead of the deadline . . . and nothing. Maybe a sale or two, but nothing too significant.

Then the day before a deadline, we send out an email to advertisers saying today is the last day to get a special deal and . . . BOOM—$5,640 in new sales.

People don't act until they have to—either because of a time deadline or a scarcity of product. It's something I count on every month or year for whatever sales cycle I am working on.

So rather than bemoan the fact that we're all procrastinators in one degree or another, embrace it. Plan on it. Make the most of it.

Set your deadline to take action.

Running Toward Success

Last week I ran in the Hobbler Half Marathon through picturesque Hobble Creek Canyon in Springville, UT. 800 or so of my closest running friends and I glided down the gentle slopes of the canyon along the narrow highway and paved running/biking trail. Because of its long and relatively steep decent, the Hobbler Half is known for producing PRs—personal records.

I signed up for the race just days before, but I still was excited and confident that I would get my PR.

After an early 4:30 a.m. wake-up call from my alarm, a long bus ride up the canyon to the starting line, and 30-40 minutes of waiting with hundreds of other anxious runners, I was off. And I definitely was off with the intent to beat . . . no, crush . . . my previous PR. For my level of running I was cruising down the canyon.

Mile 1, done.

Mile 2, easy.

Mile 3, get out of my way.

Mile 4, 5, and 6, I’ve got this.

Mile 7, well maybe I’m going too fast for my own good.

Mile 8, yup, this is going to be tough to maintain.

It was at this point I realized my body wasn’t built to sustain that pace despite my somewhat obsessive training regimen. I was running out of gas. Nature took over and my pace slowed waaaaaay down.

Fortunately I made it through the race. After trudging through (or at least that’s how I felt) the final 3-4 miles, I came within a minute of my PR. But I didn’t quite make it.

Which begs the question and point of this whole post: was I successful?

On the one hand I did take 75^th place out of about 800 runners. Not bad. But at the same time there were 74 people ahead of me—quite a few for a relatively small race (there were about 4,000 runners at the SLC Half Marathon in April). And I didn’t get my PR.

So what is success?

You’re probably familiar with John Wooden’s definition:

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

I love that other people or outside indicators—such as a scoreboard, race clock, or bank account—don’t define our success or failure.  We do.

But I also love the flip side—the responsibility of success is on us. Simply trying or having fun won’t lead to greatness, though effort is a key ingredient. In fact, you can’t even leave it at “do your best.”

We not only have to do our best, but funnel that energy and efficiency into becoming the best we are capable of becoming.

What is the best you are capable of becoming? And are you doing your best to reach that? Answer yes to that question, and no matter the score, no matter the results, you are successful.

Let’s face it, I’ll never win a Half Marathon, no matter how hard I try. But that’s not my measuring stick of success.

Rather, did I do my best to become the best runner I’m capable of being?

Fortunately for me, only I can answer that question. And you are the only one that can answer that question for you—what is your best? And did you do your best to become your best self?

As to my question about whether my half marathon was a success, I say yes. I learned from the experience and have now set goals to do better. But for that one summer morning, I have the self-satisfaction of knowing I gave it my all in the pursuit of my best.

So aim high—not in position, or rank, or title necessarily. Expect the best from yourself in whatever role you play, no matter how big or small it is.

Do your best at becoming your best self.

Then, at the end of the day—regardless of results—sit back and enjoy the peace, self-satisfaction, and fulfillment from knowing you were a success.

Don't Leave it in the Shower . . .

Yup, you read that title right. Don't leave it in the shower.

Don't leave what?

Your next great idea that is going to change the world!

Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, once commented, "Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference."

And isn't that why we're here on this little rock of ours—to make a difference? Well, we can't "make a difference" if we don't do anything. Ideas, as the saying goes, are a dime a dozen. It's easy to critique others as we passively view them. It's easy to sit back and say what we would do differently or how we would have made something better.

But the problem with that line of thinking is that we are living in the conditional tense—would've, could've, should've. All three of those conditional words imply that while we could have done something, we DIDN'T.

And as another favorite saying of mine goes (from the play Shenandoah), "If we don't try, then we don't do. And if we don't do, then why are we here?"

There are inherent risks in trying something new or different. The most obvious risk is failure. But why is that such a bad thing? Everyone fails at one time or another. Perhaps to varying degrees, but anyone who has ever had the guts to go out and try something new, to do something different, to stand out and make a difference, has failed or not quite reached their goals. But when we shoot for the stars and instead hit the moon, look at the progress we made and the heights we attained.

Why sit on the sideline and act as if life is a spectator sport? If we play it safe and never try, then you're right, we won't feel disappointment or rejection. But we'll also never feel the exhilaration of success, the satisfaction and inner peace of accomplishment, and the fulfillment of helping others and actually making a difference.

The old basketball cliche is true—you will miss 100% of the shots you don't take. That means the more shots we take, the more times we'll miss. Conversely, by taking those shots we also set ourselves up for more success. Michael Jordan is credited with saying, "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. AND THAT'S WHY I SUCCEED!"

When I was growing up I had two ideas that I facetiously regret not acting upon.

The first was this grand idea I had in the 9th grade for a fast food Italian restaurant. There was nothing like it around in Utah—though I later found out that there were these types of restaurants back East. I even drew up the layout of the restaurant with a friend. A great "shower" idea. But I left it there. A few years later out comes Fazolis, the Italian fast food restaurant.

The second ingenious thought popped into my head while at the dinner table as an elementary student. I was fed up with having to spread butter on my rice, so I said I was going to invent butter you could spray. Well, obviously spray butter is a common grocery store item now—but it wasn't back then, at least not in Utah or in my home. My family and I often joke that I should have been the inventor of the spray butter.

Should have.

But I didn't. I left it in the "shower."

So the next time you have an idea or prompting, act on it. Do something about it. Don't leave it in the shower.

Dare to make a difference!