Runner’s World: How to apply your runner’s mentality to plotting your next career move
I’ve been a distance runner since high school. Back then distance for 5k (3.1 miles). I was strictly mediocre — barely achieving a varsity letter in XC my senior year — but I loved it and it had been my physical outlet for decades, peaking with the completion of the Marine Corps Marathon in October 2001. An arthritis diagnosis greatly reduced my miles in my early 40s, but the mentality that I developed as a “life long distance runner” has served me well in plotting how to approach each of my career moves.
Time and Distance
A distance runner is constantly calculating time and distance. First the obvious — how far to the finish line, and what is my time goal. In HS, my best 5k was 19:50. I’ll always remember breaking the 20 minute time goal. In that race, like all of them, the mind focuses on and compartmentalizes sections. How fast do I want to run the first mile. Am I going to go out fast or run with the pack. How will I approach the first hill. And then the gun sounds, your adrenaline rushes, and you re-calculate everything.
When I left my last FT operating role, I set out to structure the next chapter of my professional journey based on time and distance milestones. What areas did I want to focus on: health, family, mentoring, advising/investing, professional exploration, etc. What were my goals with each, ie, how much distance did I want to cover and how much time should I allow for each— 12 months out, 6 months out, 3 months out, 1 month out, next 7 days.
Looking back on the last 12 months, I’m surprised at how much I’ve accomplished while “not working” :) In hindsight, I’ve been running a different type of race, using muscles I hadn’t used in a long time, and challenging myself to find new, lofty goals to aspire to.
Pace and Discomfort
As a distance runner, you learn to like discomfort. It tells you that you’re approaching a boundary, a physical outer limit. It let’s you measure your effort and make in-race adjustments to maximize your pace and output. Discomfort can come from anywhere — the conditions, the course, competition, how your feeling that day, mental distractions, fatigue. Proper training includes non-running activities, and different distances (both longer and shorter) to help the body and mind develop resilience to whatever might come on race day.
Since graduating from business school in 2002, it’s felt like a 16 year ultra-running event (50k to 100 miles races). I’ve never run one, but I’d image like all distance competitions, the first goal is to finish. And second goal is to finish with your PR (personal record). Then your third goal may be competitive with the other runners regarding finish order. But you’re primarily competing with your self — so you control your pace and level of discomfort you’re willing to endure to achieve your goals.
I’ve been super fortunate to have far exceeded any goals I may have had for myself 17 years ago. It’s only through taking this sabbatical that I realize this. When you’re in, you’re constantly making in-race adjustments to maximize pace and output. And somewhere along the way I forgot about which race I was running, what the goals were, to what end I was liking the discomfort. So I started to explore areas of passion, curiosity, interest. I started to meet with as many interesting people as I could, relying on my network but quickly finding that I was relying on the gift of others’ opening their network to me. I didn’t know where it would take me, but for the first time since abandoning a budding career in patent law in my mid-20s to “start over” in business, I was allowing the race to find my next event dictate which event it would be. In fact, I was letting the event pick me. As my pace has quickened and I’m finding the discomfort of entrepreneurship is more and more appealing, I find myself excited to find the next boundary to push through and discover what’s on the other side. What I could aspire to achieve.
I’d love to hear about your journey! Does this resonate? Thanks for the claps, likes, shares and comments !!
