No Locks of Love: T-Minus 2 Days

Throughout history there have been many stories of people able to accomplish remarkable feats due to their hair.  DC and I believe that our very own Patrick O'shea may be one of those mythical creatures.  His well documented locks have proven to be a strength on the course.  Recently Patrick shaved off the locks for the St. Baldrick's foundation.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long, healthy lives.  You can find out more about the amazing work they do here.

Did these locks possess mythical powers?   Were they the secret to his gazelle-like state on the course? We'll find out in just 2 days? 

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What Lies Within

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

 – Ralph Waldo Emerson

DC recently penned a post entitled "One Goal - Many Paths" which you can read by clicking here.  In this post he talks about how each of us has taken a different path towards the same goal.  At the end he challenges Pat and I to highlight our path so far this year.  This is my attempt to sum up the first part of my 2014 year in the mud.

I learned a lot about myself at World's Toughest Mudder.  Three things really stick out to me when I think about lessons learned. 

1. I am capable of doing things that I never thought I could and that most people would never think of doing.  This has been a big part of the journey so far.  There is always a notion to up

   

   Me at the end of almost any workout!

   the ante with each challenge and adventure.  This has caused each of us to visit numerous doctors, emergency rooms, etc.  It has also forced us to push past the limits we impose on ourselves. 
2. You are in big trouble when your strength and grip begin to fail.  The number of penalties I began racking up for failed obstacles undoubtedly adding unnecessary miles to the race.  The feeling of taking a penalty at boa constrictor because you know you cannot pull yourself up has driven me
   
   so far this year.  I have been relentlessly working on grip and upper body strength through a rigorous CrossFit program.  I've seen in this short time the amount of weight that I can press, squat, clean, etc. grow tremendously.  There is something about ringing the bell to note a new personal record (pr) that drives you even harder to get better.  I also recently became a CrossFit Level I Certified Trainer in an attempt to learn more about this evolving sport and the benefits is can have on my mud running career.  I feel confident that this year I will show up stronger and ready to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.
3. Everything we have accomplished including World's Toughest Mudder is because the three of us do it together. I guess somewhere along the way we gave up on finding our elusive fourth member and settled on the magic number 3. DC, Pat, and I would not have been here without the constant push and competition.  Each of us have pushed past breaking points because the other kept going.  I wouldn't be out on a course by myself because to me the journey is as much about camaraderie as it is about pushing my personal limits.  We are taking slightly different paths this year to get back to WTM.  Many races we will run as a three man unit but others will only have 2/3 of the Bad News team.  DC and Pat will also be running races individually.  

I know we will be better prepared and ready to up the mileage and the adventure at the WTM 2014 wherever it is going to be held.  Since the beginning of our 2014 season is underway I thought I'd add where you will see us this year.  We have a new logo (coming soon) and t-shirts so be on the lookout for those.  Let us know if you will be in some of these places so we can meet up and take on challenges together.  One of our favorite parts of this journey is the amazing people that we have met along the way.

What Lies Before Us

The season has started with a two lap performance and an unforgettable road trip to Atlanta.  The calendar for the year is as follows:

June - VA Mudder

July - DC Spartan Sprint

August - Virginia Super Spartan (The team returns to Wintergreen where this whole crazy adventure began)

September - Capital Region Mudder

October - Tri-State Mudder

                Spartan Beast (This completes our first Trifecta)

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But What If I Fail

"But what if I fail?"

One of my favorite authors Seth Godin recently posed this question in his blog.  This question made me think about my World's Toughest Mudder experience.  His answer to the question of failure was quite simple yet profound.  The answer to the what if question is, you will.  You will fail and fail often if you are truly stretching yourself and trying to achieve lofty goal.  World's Toughest Mudder was a very lofty goal two years ago that became a reality in 2013 through a course of repeated failures.  

My World's Toughest Mudder experience can be looked at through this lens of failure.  I did not reach my initial goal of completing 50 miles.  My legs gave out much earlier than expected.  I failed repeatedly to cross the rings.  I even took several penalties without attempting obstacles in the early morning hours of the race.  I've teetered between proud of the experience and disappointed in my performance.  DC's post about Always Do Your Best   and Pat's post about Dealing with Expectations have helped me grapple with my own notions about performance.  Did I do my best?  I believe so...especially in that moment in time.  Would I do some things differently?  Absolutely which brings me to Seth's second question about failure.

A better question might be, "after I fail, what then?

Many people spend time thinking about things that they should have done differently.  This happened for me as a teacher after every lesson.  Keep in mind that you only know how to do things differently once you have tried something the first time.   My best lessons as a teacher never occurred the first time I taught the content.  As I refined lessons and changed assessments my results got better.  The same holds true for World's Toughest. My failure on the rings is a perfect example.  DC and I have concocted a number of different techniques to stay relatively dry on the rings.  Each one of these ideas was born out of a failure.  So far none of these techniques have been successful but it could be related more to operator error.  After you fail you will be one step closer to succeeding.  Success will occur on the rings in 14. 

I can look at my WTM experience as a failure which could be accurate.  I did after all wind up face down in the New Jersey swampland at 3 in the morning unable to move with the world's dimmest headlamp.  I am instead choosing to look at it as a springboard to my successes in 2014.  Similarly, my first mudder in Wintergreen was the springboard to many successful future races.  I know the weaknesses that prevented me from even more success at WTM13.  I need to be a stronger runner (both in speed and distance).  I have to continue to work on grip and upper body strength.  I need a brighter headlamp and additional baselayers.  I'm working on the plan that will get me back to WTM in 2014.  This plan will be littered with failures along the way.  Each one of these failures will continue to move me step closer to success.

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Leadership Lessons From Walk the Plank

One of my favorite obstacles at Tough Mudder events has to be Walk the Plank.  Although I did not grow up in the circus or qualify for the '92 Olympics as a gymnast I do have a penchant for flipping on, over, and off things.  Walk the Plank provides the perfect obstacle for this type of craziness and creativity.  One of my favorite pictures from all of the events is the mudder flip progression below.  

This is the official description of the obstacle from www.toughmudder.com 

Test your fear of heights and cold all in one with our 15+ feet high jump into freezing water. Mudders℠ like to display their fancy diving skills (or belly-flops) at this obstacle. Don’t spend too much time pondering your leap – Marines at the top of the platform will chew you out.

I began a series when this blog initially started that outlined leadership lessons learned from various obstacles.  You can read Leadership Lessons from Everest here and Leadership Lessons from Electroshock Therapy here.  I thought I'd do the same with Walk the Plank.  

1. Leap Before You Look - Patrick actually outlined this lesson in a post that focused on The Power of Under-Thinking.  There are times as a leader when you have to make the leap even in the face of adversity and obstacles.  I have seen countless people freeze at the top of the platform because they are afraid to jump.  We also witnessed a husband coax (push) his wife off because she was frozen at the top.  I would not recommend that as a strategy although I did empathize with him.  A fundamental difference between good and great leaders is a willingness to pull off a flip when others are afraid to jump.  Keep in mind that sometimes the risk can be too big and you end up like the clip below.

2.  Look Before You Leap -  I know this is the inverse of the previous lesson but there is a reason.  A leader must be aware of their surroundings at all times. This type of situational awareness allows leaders to make the right decisions because they have the pulse of the organization.  This is also true with the Walk the Plank obstacle.  You need to wait at the top to make sure the water is clear.  It often takes a long time for people to surface from the jumps so you need to make sure that the coast is clear.  You have to balance this with waiting too long and being frozen at the top or having a spouse push you off.  Feel free to flex for the cameras while you wait like the video below.

3.   Organization and Precision will Make ALL the Difference - We have now completed this obstacle a number of times in several different states on many different types of terrain.  While the obstacle itself remains the same the organization of the obstacle is different.  Sometimes there are people at the bottom directing participants on when to climb up.  Other times there is nobody present and the lines begin to back up.  Sometimes there are a host of people coordinating jumps at the top with countdowns.  Other times there is not a clear structure for when to jump or you are told individually.  This makes a huge difference in how the obstacle adds to or takes away from the experience.  This is also true with leadership.  The details often make the difference between a successful endeavor and one that fails miserably.  Nobody will care how revolutionary your product is if they cannot find a place to park.  Organization and precision make a difference at Walk the Plank and they make a difference in your leadership.

There are certainly many more leadership lessons to be learned at Walk the Plank.  The rules also change with this obstacle as there are no flips allowed south of Georgia.  We'll see what lessons are learned in Virginia Beach.  We'll be sure to post them here!  For now we have rare footage from our first ever attempt at Walk the Plank in Pennsylvania.  It's amazing to see how much we have changed from 1 short year ago.

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Who's In Your Starting Five?

The Starting Five in South Carolina

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

I read this quote recently and began to think about the people I spend the most time with as a leader.  I believe that you should always surround yourself with people who make you better.  I also believe in surrounding yourself with people who think differently and push you to stretch your thinking.  

As a leader you can only lead people as far as you have gone yourself.  That's why it is critical to continually re-evaluate your "starting five" to determine if they are helping to develop you as a leader.  The book The Wisdom of Crowds touches on some of these key points.  These are four factors that book references that will make up a wise crowd or an all star starting five.

Diversity of opinion	Each person should be an independent thinker
Independence	People's opinions aren't determined by the opinions of those around them.
Decentralization	People are able to specialize and draw on local knowledge.
Aggregation	Some mechanism exists for turning private judgments into a collective decision.

I actually think about the five people quote in two different ways.  First, there are the five people that I have the most face to face time with.  These are the people who are on your leadership team, executive team, etc.  These are the key decision makers who you rely on to get a project done.  Are you surrounded by the right people?  

The second way involves the importance of a Personal Learning Network (PLN).  The five people I spend the most time with really depends on the project, area of interest, topic discussed, etc.  Technology has become a game-changer in terms of unparalleled access to experts in all fields of study.  In this way I become infinitely smarter with my starting five.  I am able to garner resources, ask questions, discuss obstacles, and take advantage of opportunities.  I often wonder how I ever operated without the benefit of my PLN.  Mudder Nation is a great example of a PLN devoted entirely to insane people like the three of us.  This blog has also expanded our starting five as it has given us another avenue to connect and learn from others who are taking on grand adventures.  

DC, Patrick, and I have all also written various posts about how one wouldn't be here without the other.  This is the heart of the quote.  You will only be as good as the company you keep.  This line is scary as it is just another sign that I am turning into my parents.  They often gave me this advice throughout school as it pertained to friends.  I feel fortunate to surround myself with people that push me in all phases on my life.  Some people push me professional while others push me to be a better person.  The rare people are the ones that can push you in all aspects including your year in the mud.  


Who is in your starting five?  Take a look at those five people.  Are you okay with your average?  Is it enough to move you or your organization forward?  How can you leverage the collective wisdom of this group to transform learning?

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T-Minus 7 Days: Removing the Monkey

7. Will Patrick finally remove the monkey from his back by successfully completing the Funky Monkey obstacle?

I know this is a sore subject for one of us but I know this is definitely a goal in Miami.  Patrick typically dominates the course so holding the Funky Monkey over him is one of our few pleasures.  We spend the rest of the time trying to catch him on the course.  I would bet on him this round after several near misses on the last two courses.  We promise to have the footage....whether it is the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat!

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