August 9 - What a Leadership Coach Learned from a Long-Distance Runner.

Running 100 miles is not something most people would do. And if they do, it’s logical to ask, “why?” For my friend Russell a distance runner and three-time combat veteran, the answer doesn’t lie in trying to prove something to himself. He did that with his combat experience in Iraq. It was in returning from that experience that he discovered something new about himself. Something he could only explore by running ever further.

After years of struggling with challenges common to many combat veterans, Russell found himself in a place where he knew alcohol had taken control of his life. We shared that in common: I, too, had forged a new life beyond alcohol. He knew overcoming this challenge was like a forging a hot iron without any tools. “It just wasn’t pretty how I ended up doing it.” He described it to me as we drove to a rehearsal run (25 miles across a wilderness segment of the race). “If alcohol was a red hot nail that required a hammer to shape, I discovered I was beating it into submission with a socket wrench. But the socket wrench worked.” 

 

Russell discover in those moments of “overcoming” that as painful as it was, there was also a part of himself that was observing. “I became interested in that forging space. Running longer and longer distances became a way for me to explore it. You might start off with a socket wrench, but it's in this forge where we discover and create the proper tools to overcome our adversity." 

 

Whether he knew it or not, Russell was exploring the space between what the Nobel Prize Winning Economist, Daniel Kahneman refers to as System 1 and System 2 thinking:

• System 1 [thinking] operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
• System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. (Scientific American, June 2012, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kahneman-excerpt-thinking-fast-and-slow/)

“I know that I will run up against a wall I’m sure I cannot get over when I run 100 miles.” We were both quiet as we thought about his words. 

 

“It sounds like you found a higher power to surrender to,” I observed. He turned to me with a quizzical look. 

 

“How so?” 

 

“That moment of not knowing how to get over that wall yet knowing you will seems like it might be the source of faith for you.” 

 

He smiled and looked back up the mountain. “Yup. I surrendered to that beautiful hot place with a socket wrench in my hand. And during the hundred-mile race, I’ll forge the next tool I need to get through it."

- Chris Briggs-Hale

 

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