There is something that you need to know.

As I turned 29 I was flooded with birthday love and one message that kept coming across was that I was a source of inspiration for many people, while I appreciate the kind words, I think many times it is lost on people that I am no different than all the rest of the world. I am just one person who decided to take some chances, have some fun and live outside of my comfort zone.

Why I bring this up is that overall I see an issue and a mental barrier to those that we look to for inspiration. The problems is that we see those people at a different level than us, we see all the great things that they are doing and how “perfect” of a life they lead. When we start to see them in that light, we lose faith that we too can be that great and that we can be just as inspiring. We lose faith because we start to think of all the times we have failed and all of the “flaws” we have, so I want to share my story.

Here is the truth. I am stubborn, rude, mean and at times arrogant. I have failed more times than I can count. I am at times afraid, negative and dislike the world. I struggle and my life and my choices are nowhere near perfect. In fact many times in my life, I have had no idea where I was headed or what I would be doing. Far too often I let my anger run my how I think, feel and act. I am at times very unworthy of all the praise and compliments I receive. This is not me feeling bad about myself, it is just the truth.

We look at everything that is wrong with us and we see them as barriers to us being successful. We see them as things we need to hide, dirty little secrets that we cannot share, because who could possibly be worse than us? The voice inside our head, tells us that if we tell anyone these secrets we will become a fraud and unloved.

The truth is it is because of these things not in spite of them that our story can become so great, so powerful and so inspiring. These are the characteristics that we must overcome to become the best version of ourselves. It would be absurdly easy to live a perfect life, where nothing went wrong and you always got your way but it would be an uninspiring one. There would be no story, there would be no hope and there would be no greatness within you.

To me it seems that many times when we talk about accepting ourselves and loving ourselves, we only choose to love and accept the good parts. While I know everyone has an amazing gift and should celebrate how great they are, this type of thinking is flawed. It is flawed because it makes us hide and not love who we really are, with this thinking we only love ourselves when we are perfect and yet we never are.

The choice to embrace and accept our flaws is when we are truly set free, it is then and only then that we can deal with these issues and work on them. If we constantly ignore them, they will not go away but they will become bigger and bigger and take more control over your life.

I want everyone to realize how great they already are and that they need to share it with the world. It is easy for us to talk about all the good times but what really shapes us and creates us for who we are today is the times that we have struggled and where we fell short. We need to start talking about these times more often. We should stop being afraid to admit that we are not perfect, that we struggle and that we are normal with extraordinary gifts.  When we choose to no longer be afraid that is when we truly can be inspiring and embrace how great we truly are.

People

When I lived in Green Bay, there was a gym I used to go to and every once in a while I would be working out next to two people. I can remember a majority of what their conversations were about, I was interested not because it was inspiring but because it scared me. It seemed that all they would talk about is how much their kids have been disappointing them, what their kids have done wrong and ironically why their kids never seemed to want to spend time with them (hard to believe that someone who puts you down, is not on your list of favorite people). This brings me to the topic of the post, surround yourself with people who will bring you up, not put you down.

In my life I have been lucky enough to have the vast majority of people in my life support everything that I do, so vast in fact that I cannot even name one person off the top of my head that has ever told me I cannot do something and I cannot tell you how much that means to me. Many times in my life a friend of a friend has helped me out without really knowing me and yet they invested in me.  I know that all of the support has made a huge difference in everything that I have done and will continue to do. Take time to find the people in your life that have constantly supported you and thank them. One of the best ways you can thank them is by not only supporting them but supporting other people as well.

If you can’t help someone, then do not spend any time bringing them down. When you feel the need to point out what is wrong with someone, my suggestion would be to find what you can improve in yourself. You will never get better by pointing out what is wrong with everyone else and ignoring where you can improve.  Do not spend any time with the people that bring you down or tell you that you are not good enough. It is not you that they do not believe in, but rather they do not believe how great they can be, so instead they focus on other people. As much as it sucks to get rid of these people, you need to do it to go further faster. You can always reach your full potential but it is better to not have someone weighing you down, that could be lifting you up.

As important as it is to keep the right people in your life and get rid of the wrong ones, the most important thing and the biggest success factor is how much you believe in yourself. If you do not believe in yourself no matter how much anyone else does, it will not matter and if you believe in yourself and no matter how much someone tries to bring you down, it will never happen because you know better.

Most importantly one of the things that you need to remember is that you matter, and that you are enough. I know this may sound cheesy and cliché but it is the truth. It is my belief that many people put this idea down simply because they do not believe in themselves and are afraid of how great they could be. They see all of their insecurities and everything that they have done wrong and they believe that it defines them. They surround themselves with people who do not support them but bring them down and it is a never ending battle to fight trying to prove that you are good enough until you believe it yourself.

The Starbucks "FIasco"

I will admit it, I was not a huge fan of the #RaceTogether campaign that Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz started earlier this month. I understood the concept but I thought the vehicle he chose to deliver the message was ultimate not the right decision. That being said Schultz also had a big hand in buying a 3.8 million dollar business and turning it 13 billion dollar giant, that started a movement of coffee houses to pop up all over the world, so chances are, he may know a thing or two about business and as big of a mistake as the #RaceTogether idea may have been, Schultz once again proved why he will continue to be successful in business.

He is not afraid of failure. When the #RaceTogether idea was first announced, not many people bought into it. I am willing to bet, Schultz knew that it could be a failure but he did it anyway. He took a chance and it did not turn out well but the key is, he took a chance. While everyone else was poking holes in his idea, he was out on the battlefield taking a risk and seeing where it would take him and the organization. He did not just talk about it, he did something about it. How many times in your organization has your leader talked about making a change but has never pulled the trigger?

I know that today when the news came out that it was being cut, cut back, removed or whatever you want to call it, many including myself at first yelled “I told you so!” the only unfortunate thing is that I was in Minneapolis and Schultz was not by me. In this reverse course is further proof that Schultz will continue to be successful and another lesson for not only for business but for life as well, when you are going the wrong direction, change course. Schultz may have had to eat his words but the fact is, he was not afraid to do it. He did what was best for the organization and put the fact that it would make him look bad on the back burner; he put the long-term goals of the organization ahead of the short-term. In everyone’s life there has been a time where you have had to change your course even when you knew it would suck.

There are a few lessons from this #RaceTogether that you can apply to not only your business but your life as well. The first is to stop being afraid to make mistakes, mistakes will always happen. You can choose the mistake of not trying or make a mistake while trying. In one you know the results; in the other the doors are open. The second thing we can learn is that if you want to see change, you must take action. Schultz did not want change he tried to create it. While most people just sit around and wait he took initiative. Another lesson I want to touch on is the fact that too often we only focus on the results. Far too often it is either a pass or fail grade. We forget the most important part, what we learned in the middle, those critical lessons that we must learn to be successful and that made us successful. The final lesson I want to point out is that no matter how right you think you are, never be afraid to change your course when you see a mistake. Would you have stayed on the Titanic while it was sinking because of the “fact” that it was unsinkable? Pay attention to your surroundings and focus on the best term solution, instead of being right. 

Why I stopped running for myself

When I tell people about some of the endurance events, they begin to tell me how they could never do that, how hard it must be, how much time I must have had to give up to get there and then there are times where they tell me that they are not strong enough to do what I do. I want to grab them and look them in the eyes and tell them the truth, they are and you are.

What you have to know is the truth. I am not all that strong, I get frustrated, I get pissed off, I lose my way, I get off track and there are times when I just give up. I have lost faith in myself to believe that I could accomplish what I have set out to do. The truth is, I am weak, I am vulnerable and I fall short a lot more than most of you will know. Now there is another thing that you need to know, none of this really matters because of the people I run for. It is because of them that I can endure the pain, training and frustration that goes into accomplishing my goals.

I tell you these things not because I want your sympathy or because I do not like myself but because you all need to know this. That if I can do such "crazy" things you can as well. There is nothing that makes me greater than anyone else.

Here are just a few of my many highlights of what I can do with the power of other people.

I did a 50 mile road race in Door County, WI. I ran for a young man named Bo Johnson who I never had the pleasure of meeting and yet he was with me the whole time. Bo passed away from Cancer at the age of 13 which was not enough time for the world but enough time for Bo to impact the world. In his final days instead of giving up on life, he gave life everything. He inspired thousands of people to act in kindness and be a bright light even at the world's darkest moments. I continue to run for not only him but his mother Annika as well. Cancer took the most precious thing away from her that anyone could ever imagine, her son. Many people would become bitter, angry, mad and start to hate the world and then there is Annika. A women that chose to continue Bo's legacy of going out and making the world a better place and inspiring and acting with kindness. She is in the corner of anyone that has battled cancer or is battling cancer. She is overjoyed when she hears about people overcoming cancer. I know that as much as Bo has taught her and has inspired her, she did the same for Bo and always had this passion in her.

In 2014 I completed Ironman Wisconsin with two of my best friends, Aaron Hunnel and Katie Neuman. Katie has CP so Aaron and I were lucky enough to be able to be her arms and legs that day. When I tell people this, their response usually is a compliment about how selfless I am, and while I appreciate it, it needs to be known that it was not as selfless as it seems. Katie had just as much to do with crossing the finish line that day as Aaron and I did. Katie kept Aaron and I going the whole time, in fact she did such an amazing job that the whole day was an amazing adventure. That day we swam, biked and ran not only for Katie who is amazing, inspiring, relentless and positive beyond measure but for everyone to provide hope. Katie is bound to a wheel chair pretty much every second of her life. She is not there because of some choice that she made or that her parents made but just because of bad luck and yet Katie is one of the happiest and positive people you will ever meet. She gets life and what it really means to live.

Later in 2014 I ran an indoor 12 hour treadmill run to help raise money for pediatric cancer research and to provide scholarships for pediatric cancer patients. To most runners, including myself the treadmill is not our best friend. Telling people about this event, many of them said they would never even think about doing that and yet when I put it into perspective of the kids and families we ran for, it really is not that bad. On that run I thought a lot about what it would be like to know that your child is battling cancer and how heartbreaking that would be. To know that no matter how much you try and how hard you fight the odds are not in your favor. I thought about the kids who never asked to sign up for a disease that is trying to kill them. The fact that many of them are not even in high school and most people's definition of their age, they would have no understanding of what life is really about and yet they do. They understand life more than 99% of this world ever will. They live when they are being told to die.

As I tell people about my future plans, I once again am given support and at the same time I am asked the question of "Why would you ever want to do that" or the statement of "That sounds like it would suck." What I want you all to know is that why it may suck it is one million times easier and better than everything that the people I run for have to deal with. The pain I feel is temporary and the pain of the people I run for never really goes away and yet they live and inspire people beyond measure.

If you want to be inspired, stop running for yourself and start running for someone else. This applies to life just like it does running, stop living for yourself and start living for something greater, If for no other reason than the simple fact that if you do everything for yourself, your legacy dies when you do but even if you spend one minute investing in something greater than yourself, you live forever.

An Ironman Moment

To start off with, this post really is not about Ironman but it is about a way to live your life. It is a deliberate choice that is made every day. It is not always easy but it is always worth it.

An Ironman moment in your life is a point in your life that you will never forget.

An Ironman moment is an investment with compounding interest. The series of small choices you make on what you will do to and what you will stop doing to get to your moment all adds up and become greater than the sum of their whole. The more you do, it does not become easier but the impact becomes greater.

The choices become so much greater because with each one, you take a step outside of your comfort zone, which creates a bigger comfort zone. It is a choice to challenge yourself to go further while appreciating where you have been. When I ask people about doing an Ironman, their main response is the fact that they have never swam that far or are not that good of a swimmer. I am not sure how to break it to you but no one knew how to swim when they first started training. If we stopped ourselves from where we were and what our current skills set were, we would never get anywhere. We would never do anything. No one, no matter how great they are was able to swim the whole distance. Apply this outside of an Ironman to your life right now, what is it that you want to do but currently cannot because of where you are? You can spend your entire life focusing on why you cannot get there or you can spend your life figuring out the next step you need to take to get there. One will lead you nowhere while the other will change your life.

People talk about all the time that they will have to dedicate to get there. You are right, it is a lot of time to dedicate and it is worth it. The time will pass anyway; you might as well invest it in doing something that changes your life. Think beyond an Ironman, this applies to every aspect of your life. If you want something you have to work for it and invest the time. I am willing to be that the time you think you will miss, will go unnoticed. You can spend your time working towards your goal or slipping away from it. They both bring challenges, when you work towards your goals, these challenges help you grow, when you choose to ignore your goals these challenges make you feel a fraction of how great you really are.

This moment in your life is about experiencing how truly great you are and not in an arrogant way but in a way that excites you to do more, be more and live more. It is about putting everything on the table and seeing what you are truly made of. It is reaching your limits and breaking them. Most people will never truly understand how great they are, not because they are not courageous enough but because they have been told to settle for just being okay and that doing the least amount of work is all that they need to get by. Take a look around you, everywhere there are hacks and tricks to do less work in less time and supposedly get more from it. I see this all as a lie. I do not believe that you there is any shortcut to true success because in the end, success is not just the end goal but it is the work that went into reaching that goal.

The secret is that you do not have to start with an Ironman but you do have to start somewhere, so whether it is running a 5K, doing your first sprint, switching careers, moving to a different city or whatever you can think of, you just have to start and move forward.

Present

When was the last time that you can remember being fully present and not pulled in multiple directions? How did it feel and what were you able to do?

The ability to be present is key to being successful in today’s world, whether it be at work or in your social life. In a world where our attention is constantly being drawn into hundreds if not thousands of directions, the ability to focus on one thing is not only a difficult task but a critical one.

What does it mean to be present? It is beyond just showing up and checking your name off the list, it not just one thing but multiple things you must do in order to be present. It is hard to just tell people to be present as the ability to be present is not a direct input but rather an outcome of how you act. Here are some of the traits I see as needed in order to be present.

Purposeful: If you want to be present you must live with a purpose. A purpose helps you stay grounded and provides you direction. Your purpose acts as your guide to making your most critical decisions. If you are busy trying to decide what your purpose is, you will not be able to pay attention and truly be present. Don’t worry, you do not need to know your life purpose in order to be present but you need a purpose for the day. So when you wake up, pick one thing you want to focus on. It can be a project or it can be a skill that you want to improve upon and make that your focus for the day.

Respect: This applies to everything: people, projects, ideas, and whatever else you can think of. Without respect you are constantly judging people against what you think is right. You are not giving your whole self because you lack the respect that is needed to do so. Forget if the other person does not respect you, that is their choice. You have a choice and if you want to live in a life based on the decisions of other people you will never be present and more importantly you will never be living.

Listen: The ability to truly listen. It is an amazing and not used often enough and many people have the definition wrong. You are not listening if you are thinking about what to say next or what you want to say. You are not listening if you try to finish the other person’s sentence. You are not listening if you are busy on your phone or on your computer. No matter how small the “other thing” is, it is still not listening if you can focus on something else. If you truly want to be present you need to listen.

All-In: It is impossible to be present unless you are all-in, in what you are doing or the conversation that you are having. If there is anything else competing for your attention and you let it get some you are not being completely present. When you are all-in you are focused on one thing. You have to give it your best effort if you want to be present.

Courage: If you do not have courage you cannot be present because you will be too focused on being “right” and not making a mistake. You will hold yourself back from being your true self and therefore not be able to give 100% of yourself. Courage is not always facing a giant; it is sometimes it is disagreeing or making a small decision that has a big impact. It is having courage in not only the people and projects in your life but more importantly the courage of you.

Faith: Now this is has nothing to do with religion or spirituality, that is a whole different subject. This faith is the faith in yourself to begin with. Faith that you are able to do whatever you have been asked to do and that you will succeed. It is faith in everything around you and that you are on the right path. When you worry about what could be or what could go wrong, you stop yourself from being present.

Most importantly what you have to remember is that he ability to be present is a choice that cannot be faked. While it may be hard and difficult to be present, the investment is worth it. When you are present you are able to reach your fullest potential and do your best and most impactful work.

Stop hacking your life

If I have to see one more article about “hack” your life I may just throw up.

On the surface hacking your life seems like such a good idea, you save time and you can get “more” done. What more could you possibly want, you get to skip over all that “work” and just get the reward.

This would all be great except for the fact that it is all so wrong. Life is not about your accomplishments, it is about the journey and what it took you to get there. If you could just take an elevator to the top of Mount Everest would it still be an amazing accomplishment? The answer is no, and that is what hacking really is, it is a way to cheat yourself out of the work but to also cheat yourself out of some valuable life lessons and character building that go along with it. It stops you from having amazing stories that you will remember for the rest of your life. It lacks life.

One of my biggest accomplishments was completing Ironman Wisconsin with Team Katie. I can remember the finish line like it was yesterday and what I can still remember is all the work that went into it. The early mornings, Saturday’s dedicated to your workout and going to bed around 9:00 pm on a Friday night and it was all so worth it, it made the journey. If I had the chance to just be able to take a pill a day before and be ready, I would refuse because it lacks life.

Hacking your life seems like such a good idea because you can avoid all that “pain” that goes along with actually putting in the work but that is where the real magic happens. You see how strong you really are and how hard work pays off. You get to experience the thrill of living in those moments of pain and when you overcome them to move on.

One of the biggest selling points of hacking or in fact the main selling point is all the time you save and yet time is one of the main ingredients for success. It takes time to develop anything that is truly sustainable and powerful. If that time scares you, maybe you should not be doing it in the first place.

Stop missing life and start to really live life. Yes hacking your life is so much easier and there is less pain but it is nothing compared to the feeling you get when you accomplish something you never thought you could do and did the actual work.