A good friend of mine (and fellow entrepreneur), Brad Weimert recently completed an epic endurance challenge, and at the same time became the only person to ever do it twice in the same amount of time everyone else did it once. It was a truly remarkable accomplishment. In this blog he reveals his mindset advice.
The Everest
Organizers rent a private mountain, and participants run/walk/crawl up to the top, take the gondola back down and repeat until they’ve reached 29,029 feet. The top of Mt. Everest.
Most people who start the challenge are not able to finish it because they “can’t go on”.
Brad climbed 44 miles, all uphill, over rocky terrain, and overcame excruciating pain and injury to become the first person ever to plant two flags on the top of the mountain.
The conditions were brutal and he was physically broken when he finished, but when he climbed the mountain top for the final time he cemented his legacy as the only person to ever finish the challenge twice in 36 hours. He said it changed his life.
I wanted to know more about how he was able to push himself so hard.
I wanted to know about the mental toughness he exhibited and how he was able to push himself through the pain when things got really tough mentally (and physically)… and I wanted to know how can we apply that in our own lives…
Mindset Advice From An Ultra Endurance Athlete – Here’s what he told me:
“There’s a special breed of crazy that likes to do things like the Everest Challenge and at the core, endurance athletics is a really clear example of what people are actually capable of, versus other people’s limiting beliefs of what they think they’re capable of.
When you push past what you think is your baseline, you find out how much more is there.
And what’s amazing about endurance athletics is that most peoples perceived baseline is way, way, way before when you actually fail physically.”
In other words, you can do way more than you’re doing right now (even if you don’t think you can).
So what would it take for you to get to the next level?
Most people in this group are already massively successful, but there is always another level.
What is the “mountain” that you can summit? Where can you plant two flags where everyone else only plants one?
Then he said…
“Endurance athletes (once you start living in that space) recognize that the challenge is going to involve a lot of pain, and you’re just going to be in this place of constant pain.
So I think that there’s a huge realization of the pain is okay.
The goal isn’t to avoid pain, it’s to understand how to work through it.”
The lightbulb went off because there are so many places in our business where this applies.
How many times do we avoid things just because we perceive them as painful.
The reality is, if we want to level up, it’s going to hurt. So we must accept “the hurt” and not let it get in the way.
Pain is part of the process.
But pain the you’ll go through is where the growth happens.
When you face a new challenge and are able to push past it… that is you moving the needle on what you’re capable of and moving your baseline to a higher level forever.
Like Jessie Itzler told us at the first Closing Table Mastermind…
“When you think you’re tired, when you’re stressed, when you’re overwhelmed, when you think you can’t go on anymore… you still have at least 40% more left!”
Learning to develop a high pain tolerance is a critical skill to moving up the success ladder and one that, with focused attention, can be developed.
Much like an endurance athlete, the same is true for your business. The space between your perceived baseline and what you can actually achieve is tremendous.
Think about some things that might make you uncomfortable now, but if you implemented them, they would move the needle in your business…
Could you:
- Raise money to make big moves?
- Get that new office?
- Open another location?
- Buy out a partner?
- Get to the office 1 hour earlier or 1 hour later every day?
- Go to one extra networking event each week?
- Make more calls every day?
- Take time with your team for extra training?
- Go to the gym on your lunch break?
- Acquire another business?
- Add another profit center?
Any of these could be seen as painful depending on your current situation.
But understanding that the goal isn’t to avoid pain, but rather 1) assess and accept the challenges, 2) make a commitment to push through the pain, and 3) constantly move your baseline upward.
What mindset advice will you commit to?
Let me know here, and I’ll help keep you accountable.
To your success,
Oliver Graf
“Mindset Advice From An Ultra Endurance Athlete”
PS: You can watch the interview where Brad breaks down the entire story at: www.OliverGraf.tv/BradWeimert