At mile 80 into a 100 mile endurance run my right leg stopped bending at the knee. Competing in Iron Man, I got a puncture without a repair kit, thinking it would be unlikely that I’d finish. And in a white collar boxing match at York Hall, I was counted to 6 on the canvas.
But what has ultra-endurance sport taught me about life in business? Well according to Zhao and Sang, 2023, individuals who are able to more readily cultivate resilience go further in their career. Having coached many successful professionals on a range of topics from relationships, to health, career and business I’d tend to agree. Because when a consultancy your VP boss has hired is subversively trying to displace you. Or you’re reworking people, process and technology for one of the largest mergers of its type. The art of resilience is essential.
But how do you exercise resilience?
There’s not simply a machine at the gym you can jump on. And sighing when your wife asks you to unload the dishwasher again, probably isn’t going to help either. For me, small, increasing doses of discomfort are the key. Challenges that may start with something like a cold shower for 90 seconds in winter but then evolve into a 2 hour lake swim in 14 degree water actively build resilience. And this isn’t just a wild theory. Andrew Huberman suggests in his research that there is a part of the brain called the anterior midcingulate cortex which actually increases in size with exposure to mental toughness making you more disciplined and resilient.
So what’s next?
Focus.
In this day and age, where many people struggle to hold their attention on a 60s Tik Tok video, the ability to focus solely on to the task at hand drastically improves the speed of completion and level to which it is completed. But at work there’s always a million other things to contend with. The endless back to back meetings. Teams notifications. Slack pings. A mounting to do list. And that’s all before you’ve tried to grab a second for lunch.
Long distance endurance events help because they force you to focus on just one thing. You’re compelled to stop everything and deal with the task at hand. You focus on the next step, the next stroke, the next milestone. Whatever it is, your focus becomes laser-like and absolute because it must. And so I would say that focus is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the greater your capacity to use it. And if you struggle to make productive use of those 15 min slots between meetings, you never find the time to work on the business rather than in it or you find yourself easily distracted, falling back to low-hanging fruit tasks. Then it may be that focus could be the missing ingredient. For me ‘hour of power’ (time in the morning to work on the most important thing that day, uninterrupted) and pomodoro techniques have both been useful tools to apply focus, but in a more business setting.
Third is preparation.
Before my latest event this year to conquer Lake Windemere 2-Way (The UK’s largest lake), I sat down with my paddle board support to go through nutrition feeds, emergency protocol and plan the route of the 22 mile challenge. During my time in product management consultancy, many digital and tech teams have adopted an agile approach in order to ‘more nimbly’ react to a change in business goals or direction. But what many in the trenches fail to appreciate with this methodology, is that agile frameworks aren’t a substitute for a lack of planning. The planning should just be done in shorter cycles.
Similarly, in coaching. Some clients have confessed to arriving where they are by a combination of good fortune, hard work and something resembling leprechauns and rainbows. But when you sit down and put together a plan for what you really want your life to look like, aligning it to your values and setting out clear milestones and goals, you’d be surprised at how rapid the success and alignment can occur.
So what happened during the Iron Man, the white-collar boxing match or the 100 mile run? Well I finally managed to repair my bike, after running 2 miles with it on my back. I got up off the canvas, dusted myself off, kept punching and won the white-collar boxing match. And I somehow managed to run with a straight leg on blisters the size of walnuts and add my name to the 21/150 people that completed the Grim Reaper 100 mile ultra marathon.
How did I do this? I put it down to my fourth lesson.
Dig yourself out of a hole.
Business is filled with similar examples. Apple, Tesla, Lego have all had to dig themselves out of vast holes in order to make a comeback.
And finally, at the risk of sounding cliche…
… Start with why
I once put together a 1400 mile triathlon over the space of a month, whilst I was in my final year at Loughborough University. 700 miles in, I limped into a GP surgery somewhere in South Wales with severe septicemia in both legs. I passed out in the doctors surgery, was rushed to hospital in an ambulance and had keyhole surgery on the top of each leg to drain out sceptic debris. This particular event I was raising money for a Malaria Charity and so despite, doctors warnings I came back and ran the last 2 back to back ultra marathons with a hole in each leg a week later. And so I had a reason bigger than myself to continue.
Similarly, business, in my humble opinion, exists as a vehicle to achieve a certain outcome or series of outcomes. If you’re not sure what that is, when you hit the wall and you feel like you want to throw the towel in it becomes much harder to find reasons to stay the course. But not only that, businesses with clearer mission and vision statements that are aligned to their workforces core values tend to retain staff by up to 29% more, as their employees feel more connected to their work and organisation’s purpose.
Now you don’t have to become the next ‘Hardest geeza’ to experience these benefits, but perhaps this article has inspired you to dust off the exercise bike in the spare room or step in a cold shower tomorrow morning.
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