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Week 31: Leadership Shortcomings, Sucking at Mental Recovery & Why We Invest in the Hard Things
Apologies if you’re a typo freak, last week was full of them.
Spring is coming. But winter will surely be back in Ohio before it’s all said and done. So it goes.
We did have a weekend of glorious weather and spent a great deal of it outside, as one should.
But y’all didn’t come for a weather update, so let’s get to it!
Leadership
The other night I was browsing a forum on sales (nerdy AF I get it go ahead and point and laugh) and came across an interesting post. It was from a sales professional asking what traits made the best sales managers.
The top comments all boiled down to three major behaviors.
1. Always defend the team/employee and have their back
2. Always push for more pay, benefits, incentives, perks, bonuses, etc
3. Be available and responsive
Or so I believed. Thinking that I checked off each of the boxes with flying colors, I sat back feeling pretty self-satisfied.
Until I stopped reading only the responses that highlighted things I was good at.
With some unease, I realized I’d been skimming over the ones that pointed out things I suck at.
Things like:
1. Managing up effectively
2. Staying organized
3. Never letting their ego write checks their ass can’t catch.
Selective attention at its best (or worst?)
I’m not the type of person that insists on marginalizing their weaknesses. I don’t believe that’s how we can be our best. That being said, I do believe that certain traits and behaviors will prevent us from taking things to the next level.
And unfortunately, I can see each of those things checking that particularly unsavory box.
Crap.
Still so much to learn. Back to work…
Couch to Ultramarathon…and Beyond
It’s been a couple weeks now since the last little 50k trot through the frozen woods.
Recovery has been a mixed bag. I was walking normally the very next day this time and running only a few days after that.
Physically, it’s been pretty good.
I’ve begun to realize the mental recovery has been more difficult. With my immediate goal achieved of running two winter ultramarathons, I have a month until the 100k training block begins.
And I feel…listless. Rudderless.
Anxious even.
It feels like the scene from the movie “Gladiator” when Maximus yells to the crowd, “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you were here?”
Am I not entertained?
I discounted both the value and difficulty of the mental side of recovery. And with it, realized how much I need big goals to stay big motivated.
100k mountain training starts tomorrow.
Philosophical Dad Stuff
I came across a video of a guy named Adam Condit who owns a running store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. He and his wife take their family on their running adventures and film them.
While I enjoyed their journey to the Boston Marathon, the end has some amazing thoughts in the narration.
Here’s the link/video if you want to watch the whole thing (~30 minutes), but I’ll write out the part that really got me.
With apologies, I will directly quote Adam Condit.
“So what is the reason we invest in the hard things, that we would invest in the harder things in life; to intentionally bring about pain and suffering in a way that’s calculated? Where we wake up and run in the cold, we intentionally put ourselves through a small painful moment, a painful workout; a suffering of sorts. Why would we intentionally do this and teach our kids even that the way of life is not necessarily through comfort? Why would we teach them this backward logic that comfort is not in your best interest?
Well here’s my reason.
My reason is the pain and suffering will NOT always be voluntary.
It’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when’ the painful moments, the painful seasons, the suffering months, the suffering days, the hard years; won’t be voluntary.
They will sort of come upon you, they will find you, they will seek you out. And so when those days come and those sufferings come upon us that we didn’t ask for, we’ve lived a life that knows how to deal with the pain, that knows how to get through something and not just around it.
Somebody much smarter than me once wrote:
But we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts. Romans 5:3-5
Our pain and suffering can lead us to hope.”
Per ardua ad astra.
Live triumphantly. See you next week.