Triathlon Training: Origin Story

-By Jaime Willis

No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch.

As many good things do, our story begins through the intervention of Sam Horn. In addition to being an incredibly talented writer and successful entrepreneur, Sam is a Connector in the true Malcolm Gladwell sense of the world. She has the gift of bringing people together to accomplish amazing things.

When Sam began thinking about what to do to honor an upcoming "big" birthday, she was inspired to DO something. Something BIG. Something BOLD. An experience that, on reflection, would stick a metaphorical flag into the ground, saying with gusto, "I did that!" She decided to complete a triathlon.

Sam, being the connector that she is, immediately glommed on the idea of having her friends and family join her in her birthday quest. As you can probably guess, shortly thereafter Matt and I got the call to join her.

I'll be honest, when Sam first called and asked Matt and I to join her in completing a mini-triathlon, my answer was no. I was already working on a big physical challenge of my own. I was so busy already adding another weekly item to my schedule was a lot to ask. I didn't own a bike and the last time I'd swam a lap was to cool off in a hotel pool. No one would fault me if I chose to pass on this opportunity, I thought.

So, the problem with being the Chief Inspiration Officer at a company focused on getting people to achieve their goals, no matter how audacious, means I know what a string of excuses sounds like when I hear them. Even when they are coming out of my own mouth.

My "new" bike - a Schwinn Varsity -
the original "Ten Speed" Bike.

What really sold me on this program, though, was Sam's approach. I always thought that completing a triathlon meant competing in a triathlon -- I needed to be the fastest runner, the strongest biker, and the slickest swimmer in order to be a triathlete. As you may know from my running posts, I am the antithesis of 'speedy.'

Sam's focus was not on competing, but on COMPLETING this event. What a great reminder of why we achieve goals. If winning was our only goal, we'd spend much of our life disappointed. But when we open ourselves to being a part of a great new experience, we all win just by participating.

If you just got a little zing by the thought of being a Triathlon Completer, join us! We welcome everyone, regardless of age or experience! We are committed to ensuring that everyone finishes the race and has fun in the process.

I could never do that!

-By Jaime Willis

"Impossible is Nothing."

- Adidas

Two performers in Cirque Du Soleil's Ovo

James Stigler wanted to understand why Asian students perform so much better than American students in mathematics. In his book, Learning Gap, Stigler mentions the impact of variables such as instructional time (both per day and length of the school year) and curriculum, but he finds that attitude is a large factor in Asian students' success.

Asians, it seems, have placed a high cultural emphasis on hard work as the path to achievement. So when an Asian student tackles a math problem beyond their level of comprehension, they work and work and work at it until they understand the problem and can solve it. They believe that the only thing that stands in the way of their success is just doing the work.

Americans, on the other hand, have placed a high cultural emphasis on skill and talent. So when an American student tackles a math problem beyond their level of comprehension, they believe that they don't "have what it takes" to do that type of math. In fact, an American student will work at the problem no more than 5 minutes on average before giving up, while the Asian student will work for 30 minutes or longer on the same problem.

Esperanza Spalding - 2011 Grammy Winner

Two University of Illinois psychologists, Carol Diener and Carol Dweck, did a similar study in 1978. They found that children who attributed their failure to complete a task to 'lack of ability' did significantly worse at achieving tasks of all difficulty levels than children who attributed their failure to 'lack of effort.'
Even further, the study showed that when they taught children to disassociate failure with lack of ability/talent, the students were able to improve their success rate.

Malcolm Gladwell had a similar conclusion in his book Outliers. He discovered that innate talent and ability was something of a misnomer. In one study, which we've mentioned before in our workshops, Gladwell found that the best violinists in the world were not the ones with the most innate ability, but simply the ones with the most practice time in.

Aron Ralston, survivor

For every single amazing achievement you can think of, there is someone out there who was able to make that happen despite their lack of innate talent or ability. I think of Eddie Izzard, an actor and comedian, who was able to run 43 marathons in a row (one per day) with very little advanced training. I think of Carl Brashear, who became a Master Diver in the Navy as an amputee after twenty-two YEARS of working toward his goal.

So when someone tells me, "I could never do that," I want to scream. SCREAM. "Yes, you can!" The only thing that is truly stopping you is YOU. The path to your "impossible" achievement may take time. And encouragement. And heartbreak. But you CAN achieve anything you set your mind to.

Believe it. Achieve it.

10,000 Hours of Work to Succeed, 10,000 Hours of Work...

- by Jaime Willis

One of the main premises of Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, “Outliers,” is that success has much less to do with our innate skills and abilities and much more to do with hard work and practice. Gladwell goes so far as to quantify the amount of hard work required to be successful: 10,000 hours.

“The emerging picture from [research on expertise and talent] is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything.” Daniel Levitin, quoted on page 40 of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Gladwell illustrates this principle with a 1990’s study by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. Ericsson asked two colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music to divide the school’s violinists into three groups – the students with the potential to become world-class soloists, students who were deemed to be just “good,” and finally students who would likely never play professionally. Ericsson then asked all three groups the same question: over the course of your entire career, how many hours have you practiced? By the age of twenty, the students in the elite group had each totaled ten-thousand hours of practice. The good students had totaled about eight-thousand hours, while the poorest students had practiced just over four-thousand hours.

Think about the level of perseverance and determination that the world-class experts displayed to get ten thousand hours of practice time in. The violinists in the elite group began at age 5 (as did most students in the other two groups) practicing two or three hours per week. But by age nine, they were practicing six hours each week, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen and so on.

For a middle or high school student to spend one to two work days a week on their violin practice means they had to be dedicated. I’m sure that if we interviewed those students today, they would tell us the all the stuff they missed out on because they were focused on playing violin.

What is also interesting to note is that the study found no “naturals;” students who were elite violinists without putting in the ten thousand hours of practice.

What lessons can we learn from this?

1. There is literally NO substitute for hard work. If you want to succeed, you’d better get started logging in the time now.

2. Getting to 10,000 hours (over 3.5 years of 8-hour work days) requires determination and perseverance. You need to set your mind on the goal and attend to it with a laser-like focus. In a race 10,000 hours long, there are bound to be obstacles and challenges, set-backs and disappointments. Don’t let these be more than a temporary stumbling block in your path to success.

3. There is no doubt in my mind that world-class experts on any subject—folks who have put in the 10,000 hours of work to become successful—had help. The elite violinists likely had supportive parents, music tutors, band directors, teachers, mentors, and others all helping them along the way. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to run a marathon if no one was allowed to cheer on the runners? In your success marathon, you must build your support group – a mentor, a coach, teachers and tutors, cheerleaders—whoever you need to have the resources and assistance to make it to the finish line.

I’ll leave you with Albert Einstein’s insight on the issue: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Believe it! Achieve It!

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