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My Birthday & A Story From Dad | Newsletter #24
Hey!
This is a very different newsletter today.
First of all it's my birthday! Woo!
But secondly, I'm gonna' let my dad write this one.
My Dad has been a big influence on me, sure.
But every week when I see him he gives me a little nugget and says 'oh you should include that in your Runly newsletter next week'.
Rarely, in fact almost never have those nuggets made it to the weekly newsletter. Until now.
My Dad has had a distinguished career in elite sport & business - leading high performance teams and coaching on mindset.
This week he offered up to me a piece about a 62-year old farmer from Western Victoria.
Take it away, Dad...
Cliff Young, 62-Year Old Farmer (& Ultra Runner).
In the 1980’s there was a ultra marathon race from Sydney to Melbourne, a distance of some 800 kms or so and it attracted great coverage and world class ultra marathon runners.
It also attracted a 62 year old local farmer from Western Victoria, Cliff Young who having never entered a race before, decided to enter.
Initially the organisers rejected his entry but he persisted and was reluctantly registered to run.
He was asked before the race how he got himself fit and he replied that he didn’t have a tractor or a horse so he had to chase his dairy cows around the paddocks which had built his fitness!
Despite competing against world class runners, Cliff had one thing going for him.
The belief or ‘truth’ held by the top runners was that to compete successfully in such a race of 900 kms you need to run 18 hours a day and sleep six. Cliff didn’t know that ‘fact’ or limiting belief.
He didn’t know any better so, not knowing you were supposed to sleep, he started running and took a day and a half off the race record by not sleeping!
The next year, which is even more revealing around the power and impact of beliefs, his record was broken by a full day by other runners after the belief about how a long distance race could be tackled was irrevocably changed forever.
In our life, businesses and running journeys we need to be challenging the beliefs that may have been true in the past or others offer to us as 'truth'.
At times we need to change the way we think, approach a challenge or reassess our assumptions and check if that assumption still holds true.
Change the way you think, question your approach and adapt your strategy.
