After IRONMAN Lake Placid I spent a lot of time recounting my experience to friends. One of them asked me about my biggest takeaways from the experience. I didn’t have a good answer. If you ask me now, I still don’t have one. And I think I’m finally writing this next post because I’m okay with not having “a good answer”. I felt like anything I could say would sound like most of the other inspirational messages easy to find around events like this. Whether or not my takeaways are similar to what people have thought before, they’re my experience and that can’t be taken away.
My first takeaway is perfectly encapsulated by the following quote from Simon Sinek:
“When you compete against everyone else, no one wants to help you. But when you compete against yourself, everyone wants to help you.”
The people at an IRONMAN are special. The spectators, the athletes, the volunteers. Everyone. ESPECIALLY the volunteers. Part of what makes everyone so special is the way that people rally around each other. Some athletes are there to compete against the field for podium spots and that’s okay. Everyone else is there to achieve some personal goal. Knowing that makes it easy to understand and support the people around you. So many times I was helped along by the people around me. I tried to give support back when I could. Simon knew what he was talking about. Every person that clearly had their personal hurdles and challenges was the rally point for everyone around them.
That leads me to my next takeaway: Everyone has a story.
Some are broadcasted and shared. Some are and will always be impossible to know. This is part of life. It just happens to manifest itself in such a beautiful way at an IRONMAN. I want to know everyone’s story no matter how unrealistic of an endeavor that is. What I can do is share mine and learn as many as I can along the way. With small actions we can impact so many lives around us directly and indirectly. Supporting someone around me is one amazing way to be part of a story that’s collectively far more important than just my own.
Along the way, celebrate every achievement. Reaching the next mile marker, getting to bed at a reasonable time, sticking to a diet, anything (even the examples I couldn’t think of that don’t have anything to do with an athletic event). Every achievement no matter how small in my or anyone’s story is worth celebrating. Celebrating someone else’s achievement with them is huge. It had a huge impact on me and I’ll never forget having some of the people closest to me to celebrate coming across the finish line at IMLP. It will undeniably have an impact on the people around me as I celebrate their achievements and hopefully that will continue to spread.
Another wonderfully beautiful aspect of life is what happens with practice/training. Sometimes we’ll see the improvement develop over time but when we don’t it can be easy to forget what went into the achievement. The German philosopher Nietzsche said it well:
“With everything perfect, we do not ask how it came to be. Instead, we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”
A perfect example of this is when Michael Phelps won his plethora of medals. Pick any of the olympics. It doesn’t matter. We revel in the achievement, which is a wonderful thing. We don’t usually talk about all the hours and measured steps he took in training to get there or any of the many difficulties he had to overcome in that process. It’s important to recognize what it took to get to the achievement which is such an important aspect of the celebration.
This is part of everyone’s story: what they went through to get to where they are. So many things shape and influence us along our paths. Forgetting this is sad and unfortunately happens more often than not. Taking time to reflect on how someone was able to put themselves in a position to succeed makes the celebration of that achievement so much more impactful.
When I’m in competition against myself, any and all support is a huge part of what helps me reach my goal. I’ve got a story that’s not always easily understood. It takes a lot to make it to any milestone, especially one like crossing the finish line of an IRONMAN. Support the people around you. Celebrate their achievements and recognize them for the journey, not just their waypoints.
