Be Remarkable

2014 – Create meaning through resistance

Wishing you a Remarkable 2014

There are plenty of things that will happen in 2014 that will be out of our control – some of them will be great, and some of them won’t.  In 2014, what if we focus our energy on the things where we do have influence, rather that worrying about the things we don’t – spend more energy on the things we are passionate about and, less on the things we are not?

Sometimes that means doing things we don’t ‘like’.  We might be passionate about becoming a great leader, engineer or parent, but becoming great at something often requires drudgery, or making uncomfortable decisions.  The passion for the end result is what helps us persist through the drudgery and continue on the path to greatness.  Seth Godin wrote a book about the barrier to greatness which he described as The Dip, a test to keep out those who aren’t prepared to put in the work.  In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield describes it as the resistance giving examples like, procrastination, self-sabotage, grandiose fantasies, unhappiness and fear – indeed he suggests that the more scared we are of our calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

That’s not to say of course that we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves – but perhaps our definition of enjoyment might be a bit narrow.  In psychology there are multiple kinds of happiness – including hedonic and eudemonic.  The first is characterised by pleasure and is what most of us think of as happiness – watching a movie we love, choosing the dessert option after our main.  Whereas eudemonic happiness is characterised by meaning – persisting through a difficult problem that you care about solving, or spending time helping someone in need.

What you find pleasurable or meaningful may be very different from your partner or colleagues.  Though working to beat the resistance or get through the dip might not be pleasurable, it is likely to create meaning.  And in studying these two angles on happiness, in the long run, meaning is where it’s at!

So, may you successfully control your controllables, climb out of the dip, beat the resistance and, have a remarkable 2014!

-Mark

Ironman shows us what determination can achieve – what it takes to be remarkable

Ironman Hawaii Swim start

Mark Richardson at 46 years old, is married and continues to enjoy a successful career as a sales manager in a large software business.  He’s doing well, but that’s not what makes him remarkable.

In 2003, aged 37, he’d achieved a five year goal of competing in his first Ironman competition.  When he had set the goal for this race (back in 1997), the effects of concentrating on his career were showing not just in the pounds in his pocket, his weight was reaching a tipping point he knew had to change.

Being able to compete in an Ironman competition is a goal that few of us will attain, requiring the athlete to complete a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile cycle ride and to warm down competitors have to complete a full 26.2 mile marathon run. And let’s not forget it’s a competition – so not only are there no breaks in-between each of these individually gruelling activities, you’re also trying to catch the athlete ahead of you, or stay in front of the one who’s chasing.

As with any sport, but particularly in endurance, Ironman is more than a purely physical challenge…

  • There’s the obvious competitive angle – expend too much energy in holding your place on an uphill cycle challenge, or not trying quite as hard as you could have at the start of your swim (see the heading photo!), can have major consequences.
  • Then there’s hydration – drinking too much or too little, too soon or too late can be devastating.
  • Refuelling  – sugary drinks, natural high-energy foods, or high-tech glucose sachets, get it wrong and you’ll just fade away.
  • What about climate, particularly if you’re competing in a different country.

And alongside all of this, there’s the game going on in your head.  Evolutionary science would tell us that our bodies are designed to move, that the modern sedentary lifestyle is our downfall.  Walking a few miles a day and dragging back dinner is one thing, and Ironman is quite another.  Paula Newby-Fraser was a previous Ironman world champion, experienced, extraordinarily fit, doggedly determined, but she has also shown that even the best can get it wrong, captured in this incredible footage of the last mile of her race in Hawaii, 1995:

So, although Ironman is not the only extreme endurance sport (I’ve seen the blisters of a 250 mile desert challenge), it’s up there.  Back to where we started, Mark built his endurance sufficiently to compete in his first Ironman in 2003 – alone a remarkable feat.  But my fascination with Mark’s story comes not from his race endurance – it starts after that 2003 race. 

Finish low2Yes, remarkable achievement goes together with passion, positivity and purpose.  Your purpose might be as simple being able to afford your own home, be healthy enough to take care of your children or to change the world for the better – purpose is personal.  The point I want to highlight is that remarkable achievement takes a long-term commitment, an endurance of a different kind, continually drinking from your reserves of self-discipline.  The goal that Mark set for himself back in 2003 was to make it to the Ironman world championships within 10 years.

Remember, at the time he’d just completed his first Ironman, aged 37.  For most of us, competing in a single Ironman would be a challenge too far.  But he set the 10 year goal, and stayed doggedly with it.  He describes the goal as being like a self-cantering compass in life.  Helping him get up on cold, dark winter mornings to push out another 20 miles; through thousands of hours of training, competition and injury, day, week and year after year – that is remarkable.

In 2012, Mark found himself at the start line of an Ironman in Hawaii.  Almost ten years after setting the goal, he had qualified for and was competing in the Ironman World Championships… and yes, he finished, you can see him in the photo crossing the final finish line.  And true to form, he set himself another goal – to get on the winners podium for his age group, firstly at any race and secondly at the world championships (an improvement of 35 places).

So, how’s your determination, your self-control and ability to commit and stick to your plan over the long term?… Remarkable I hope.

-Mark

Being Remarkable – 1

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I bet you could easily name one or more people whom you would describe as ‘remarkable’.  Those people stand-out.  And what’s more, if we were all in a room the names we produced would have plenty of overlap –  Mahatma Ghandi is an easy one, and Mother Theresa is pretty likely too.

Some small percentage of remarkable people become famous for what they achieve, and so many of us can name them – and in the cases of Ghandi and Mother Theresa there would be little debate about the description.  If you search the web for ‘remarkable people’, celebrity will be mentioned pretty close to the top of the resulting articles, and in some of these cases the debate would stronger!

But being remarkable doesn’t require fame.  The teacher that manages to genuinely inspire her pupils to greatness, surely is a candidate.  As would be the soldier who is awarded the Victoria Cross and the list of Nobel laureates.

My ‘elevator pitch’ version of what I think it takes to become remarkable is – Positive, Passion and Purpose.

  • Positive – what remarkable people do, is for good.  Whether on a small or a grand scale, against insurmountable odds or simply unique – but certainly, for good.
  • Passion – being remarkable takes effort and time, the kind of effort and time that few people are willing to commit… and passion is an amazing driver to put in that effort and time.
  • Purpose –  I was tempted to include another ‘P’ for ‘people’ but decided that purpose and people are intertwined.  We are fundamentally social animals and to be recognised as remarkable by other people, usually requires an underlying purpose that benefits others.  And like passion, purpose and meaning beyond ourselves drives effort over the long-haul.

The rest of this series will go beyond the elevator pitch and I hope it goes some way to inspire the remarkable in you…

Be remarkable,
Mark