“When a person really desires something, the universe conspires to help that person realize their dream.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Was I about to lose to an inanimate object?
There I was, in the gym staring at a 100 pound dumbbell. I had just failed on a chin-up with that thing strapped to my waist. Normally, I would be doing anywhere from 3-5 reps with relative ease but today it wasn’t happening.
I had just gotten back from a 3 week vacation, where I didn’t exercise. The weights were feeling heavier than usual. As I stood there, I contemplated whether to reduce the weight or try again.
Science based lifters would have said I needed to ramp back up to my usual pre-vacation loads, so I should have taken 70-80% of my normal weight. This wasn’t a competition and nobody was watching, these reps had no particular consequence. Yet in a way, they meant everything.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, it was just me in the frame. It was too late now. If I didn’t complete the set as intended, I would be giving up. If I gave up, I would have allowed the weight to snatch my soul.
This dumbbell had no feelings, and wasn’t trying to actively resist me. My competition, was my own mindset. There are two kinds of people. One group believes that their fate is preordained, and life is something that just happens to them. Others believe their will shapes the universe into what they want it to be. What kind of person did I want to be in that moment?
I strapped the weight back on the belt, and banged out 3 ugly reps.
Anybody who has ever achieved success had moments like these. Faced with an obstacle they could have advanced or retreated. If we know their names, it’s because they chose to advance.
Success largely comes from sticking with your mission until the right opportunity presents itself. Even critics that dismiss success as a function of luck or randomness, must also accept the longer a participants stays in the game, the greater their chances of receiving good fortune. That’s why if you want to succeed, it largely comes down to how long you’re willing to pursue your ambition. This longevity is dictated by two things: morale & pain tolerance. Both are functions of mindset.
Today’s article explains why the greats manage their mindset to spend their life chasing their personal legends and quests.
In case you missed them, here are some other recent articles to check out:
Longevity Matters
Who was the better military commander Napoleon Bonaparte or Joan of Arc?
Nobody would consider this a serious question. How can you compare a military career lasting under two years, against the track record of arguably the most famous military leaders in history? Napoleon went from infantry soldier to Emperor in under 20 years. If he had died two years into his military career, nobody would know his name, and the history of France and Europe would have been very different.
It takes time to do great things, often years or decades of persistent work before the break through arrives. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they laid bricks every hour for decades and centuries. That’s why it lasted 500 years, 1,500 if you count Constantinople. Centuries later, we still think Rome daily.
Why shouldn’t we? Rome is responsible for many of the underpinnings of Western Civilization. There are still many relevant lessons for us today, such as expansion. How far do you keep pushing after you’ve already experienced success? What do you do once you’re out of Beginner’s Luck and each incremental gain takes pain and sacrifice?
Pain Tolerance
Can you name somebody that reached the top of their domain without pain?
Some make it appear effortless, but don’t be fooled. In any competitive endeavor, nobody that’s ever won consistently did so without countless hours of discomfort. Before he was tennis great or a fashion icon, Andre Agassi, hit thousands of shots each day in his backyard, while his father yelled at him. Andre hated it, but nobody could argue with the end result. Even Federer, who was noted for how smooth and effortless his game looked, couldn’t reach the pinnacle of the sport until he took his training more seriously.
They had to. They were going against other professionals, that wanted to win as much as they did. Differences in natural ability net out, as competition improves. All pro athletes are born with natural athleticism; in some sports that alone is sufficient for a top amateur career. Once you reach the pro ranks, everybody is going to be athletic, and skill increasingly dominates.
This isn’t limited to sports. It’s possible to be a top high school student without studying endless hours if you have high intellectual horse power. Once you reach an elite university, all your classmates will have been top students (besides a few legacy and suspicious scholarship admits). To be a top student at an elite university, the gap in raw intelligence won’t be as pronounced, you will need to work as hard as everyone else.
Elon Musk isn’t the smartest man to have ever lived, but he’s one of the most successful. SpaceX didn’t come to be because he knew more about propulsion. Tesla didn’t become the leader in electric vehicles because Musk had superior insight into the auto industry. Musk was successful because of his ability to tolerate pain. To this day, he works longer hours with more intensity than almost anybody else. If you think this is overblown, I invite you to read Walter Isaacson’s biography, or listen to anyone who has worked with him.
Many of the companies Musk competed against were bloated and led by empty suits/pant suits, not built to handle pain or pressure. In their defense, it’s hard to rally employees. Most big companies aren’t built that way, bureaucracy designed to insulate pain, makes them weak.
You can’t expect even the most motivated employees, to tolerate pain for the same duration as a founder/CEO, it’s not their life mission. A leader’s job is to help their followers tolerate pain. They do this, my maintaining good morale.
Morale
Alexander was defeated without having lost a battle. Despite all the success, his men’s faltering morale is what ultimately ended his campaign. Sure, the copious amounts of wine, poisoned or not, didn’t help but if the booze didn’t get him, his men’s refusal to continue his conquest would have.
Alexander’s pain tolerance was legendary. His track record, unquestionable. Toughness aside, when it comes down to it, as a leader, he needed his men to follow him. He asked a lot, and he got a lot out of them. If they mutinied early in the campaign, Alexander wouldn’t have been remembered. He couldn’t have inspired Napoleon, Charles de Gaulle and countless other military geniuses, that would eventually learn the war ends once their side loses the will to keep fighting.
Some people can maintain good spirits in any conditions but most can’t. Coaches and leaders are valuable if they can motivate people to tolerate pain for extended stretches. Agassi hated tennis for most of his life, his career would have ended early if not for the team around him that kept him from quitting.
I worked with many gifted athletes that never panned out as professionals. Some would blame injuries or bad luck. The honest and introspective amongst them would admit, it’s because they fell out of love with their sport. With the right motivation, you can bounce back from tough breaks, you just need to be willing to keep going in the face of adversity. This doesn’t guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure.
Great leaders know how to keep their followers motivated. Successful CEOs need their teams to tolerate more pain than their competition. Coaches need their athletes to keep pushing, even when they don’t want to. All political leaders experience setbacks, but they still need to energize their supporters to achieve their agenda.
The best way to do this is to deliver on promises. If you promise your troops glory, you better win great battles. Great employees will always have options, if you want them to stay, you need to give them confidence you can deliver. Nothing kills motivation faster than overpromising and underdelivering. A leader only has so many chances, before their followers decide they can’t trust their assurances.
For individual activities, the follower you need to convince, is yourself. I could have skipped that set of chin ups or took a lower weight, but then I would have been disappointed in myself. The more this happens, the less trust and confidence I’ll have in my abilities, and the worse I’ll be. If your goal is to pursue your life mission for a long time, you need to avoid this line of thinking; it’s a death spiral.
The successful people you see avoided giving up. They were able to keep a long term view, while tolerating pain and maintaining proper morale during their life’s mission.
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You were able to do a chin up with a 100 lbs dumbbell? I had no idea Ben Saltiel was jacked like that. I’m impressed
Great article. Typo alert: Andre Agassi not Adrian.