Transcriber: Visha Dave Reviewer: Emma Gon
You would be hard pressed to think
of a more thrillingly dangerous job than test pilot in the late 1940s,
because at the time it must have seemed
like physics itself was being reinvented.
Engineers were poking and prodding
the very extremes of aviation to see
where human ingenuity could push the limits of speed and altitude.
And nothing is more synonymous with this time than the sound barrier,
the idea of seemingly impossibly pushing a plane
and its pilot faster than sound travels.
Every component in every subsystem would have to perform flawlessly
the engine, the steel, even the human inside of it.
All of it had to endure. All of it.
And in 1947, a boldly confident 24 year old Chuck Yeager
became the first person ever
to break that barrier in an X-1 rocketplane.
A man who clearly never had any moments of self-doubt
punched right through a natural speed limit.
This story shaped my childhood.
The idea of getting into a plane
and using engineering and a fearless attitude
to go faster than a natural barrier spoke to me at my core.
Chuck Yeager said it was all about pushing the envelope
to see how far something will go just before catastrophic failure.
And while I've had a lifelong fascination with speed and aviation,
I didn't become an aerospace engineer,
and I certainly don’t test leading edge aircraft.
But in my thirties, I decided to find the limits
of a fleshy carbon based robot, the one I inhabit.
And I signed up for the San Francisco Marathon
and its accompanying training program with Coach Leo.
I thought marathons are nothing more than
a test of your body's limits.
How far can you push your subsystems before they fail?
Nutrition, hydration, muscular, skeletal,
GI tract integrity, particularly that last one.
If you've if you've ever run distance, you know.
Can these systems stay nominal for 4 hours to push your body 26.2 miles,
or will you suffer some catastrophic failure that grounds you prematurely?
I approach this problem like any engineer working on any problem,
I knew the obvious challenges.
I’m not particularly athletic and San Francisco as a backdrop
is such a comically hilly city, sometimes when you drive there,
your ears pop from altitude changes.
But I know myself as a high performer,
and I'd seen other people complete this challenge.
I already knew everything I needed to succeed.
I entwined my identity with completing this marathon.
It was my profile picture. I updated anyone who would listen
about my progress and all the fancy gear I had purchased.
This was my sound barrier moment
and everyone was going to know about it.
Because marathons are those types of accomplishments
that are difficult, if not borderline impossible,
but you can take credit for forever,
like graduating or publishing your first novel,
from LinkedIn to my gravestone.
marathoner was going to be a title I was going to own forever.
The training program leading up to the race was led by a fit,
relentlessly positive man named Leo.
For three months, I would wake up at 6 AM on Saturdays
and run increasing distances of 8 to eventually 24 miles.
This program was really aggressive and skipping or not finishing
or training run would seriously set you back or more likely end your season.
Things were on track for me until a particularly hot summer morning
when it was time to do a 16 mile run.
The longest I had ever gone in my entire life.
We were at Lake Merced and at mile 13,
everything in my body started to turn against me.
My pace started to slow, then get slower and then I stopped.
And I watched the training group disappear without me
around a grove of eucalyptus trees.
And I can still feel that feeling of watching my dream
of becoming a marathoner, both metaphorically and literally
disappear around a corner without me.
Because I knew if I couldn’t finish this 16 mile run,
I’d have no chance in completing next week’s 18
and a 26 mile marathon would become a laughable goal.
I vividly remember standing there on the concrete,
baking in the sun, fighting that familiar quiver in my lower lip
as I realized my entire identity as an unflappable high achiever
who was capable of the impossible was invalid.
And I picked up my phone ready to call lift and go home and give up.
And I can’t stress the incredible timing of this moment,
but like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia,
coach Leo comes running back on the horizon to find me.
He had done a head count
and he realized he was missing someone.
And when he got to me, he said, “Hey, what’s going on?”
And through the vice like grip my emotions had in my esophagus,
I squeaked out the words,
“I’m sorry you had to come back and find me, but I’m giving up.”
And Leo, full of his signature relentless positivity, simply asked,
“Well, what’s bothering you? And I said, “Well, it’s hot
my shirt is chafing me and I think my my nipples are bleeding.”
And he said. “Well, give me your shirt.”
So I did. “Anything else?”
I said, “Well, yeah, I mean, this chest strap, heart rate monitor
that tells me my heart rate is really restricting my breathing.
And he said, “Okay, give me that never wear it again.
Anything else?” He asked me.
“Yeah, I mean, every time I look at my phone,
my pace is slower and mentally it’s really hard
to see it get worse and worse.
And he said, “Give me your phone.” And one last time, he asked,
“Is there anything else stopping you?”
And I look down at my lack of excuses and my raw [inaudible]
And I said, “Well, no, but...”
And he cut me off and he said, “Listen, your body’s scared.
It's never done this before. It's going to throw up every excuse for you to stop.
But it’s your job that when you see that check engine light
come on in your brain to take a little piece of electrical tape
and stick it on there and keep going.”
And he said he would run the last three miles with me.
We just had to concentrate on running six feet at a time.
So I agreed.
I pull myself together and six feet at a time, we finished all 16 miles.
And before I could say a word, Leo interjected and said,
“You know what? Let’s do two more.
We can make it an even 18.”
And before I could really argue, we did,
we ran another mile out and another mile back
to bring the total to 18 miles for the day.
And when we got back and I had put Band-Aids on my chest,
Leo handed me my phone, and lo and behold,
those last five miles were the fastest of the day
And I was dumbfounded!
I wanted to give up at 13, and instead his coaching
and his belief in my ability to push beyond my system’s limits
not only got me through the run,
they had gotten me to perform bonus miles,
and those last miles were the fastest of the day.
And I didn’t have the words,
I still don't have the words to show my gratitude
for this incredible gift of inspiration.
So I just gave him a big hug and lifted his heels up off the ground.
The kind of hug you really only reserved for your family.
I couldn’t believe it because I’d always considered
the idea of inspiration to be flowery and for other people,
something that goes on a poster in a teenager’s bedroom.
It wasn’t for me. I’m in my thirties.
I’m a [inaudible] and I was above all that hokey stuff.
And I had approached running like a science, like a test pilot would.
And yet I couldn’t deny inspiration was the one thing
I still needed to achieve my goal.
And from then on, I was no longer too cool to take advice.
I listened to everything the coaches said about what to eat,
what shoes to wear, even what clothes worked best,
even if they weren’t particularly Instagrammable.
And I went on to finish the San Francisco Marathon
all 26.2 miles, a few weeks later, with a big, dumb smile on my face,
knowing that I had solidified my sound barrier moment.
The next year, the San Francisco Marathon
asked me to be a coach and I jumped on the opportunity.
And after coaching for hundreds of miles,
the story I want to share with you is I had a group of trainees
on a 20 mile training run and somewhere around mile 15,
I did a headcounand I had lost one.
So I ran back in the course and I found her on the sidewalk,
doubled over with her hands on her knees.
And I asked her, Hey, what’s going on?
And she looked up at me
and just dissolves into tears.
And she said she was so sorry that I had to run back and find her.
But she was giving up. This wasn't for her.
And I channeled what Leo had explained,
how the mental check engine light works,
and I assured her that if she could do this,
if she could complete today, she could do all 26.
And the reason that I knew this was that I was
in her same spot one year before.
Everyone has this moment, but not everyone has a coach nearby.
And she agreed to finish with me.
And we ran the last five miles together,
slowly just concentrating on six feet at a time.
And when we finished, she didn’t say anything.
She just wrapped her arms around me and gave me a big hug
and lifted my heels up off the ground a little bit.
The kind of hug you really only reserved for your family.
We know these myths around the great figures in history,
but it’s rare to even get a glimpse of the self-doubt
that almost gotten their way.
In this era of social media, It’s more important than ever
to remember that the struggle is
what makes the seemingly impossible task unique and worth doing.
I don’t know what makes trailblazers do something
for the first time in human history
and we need those larger than life Chuck Yeagers
to give us a vision of who we want to aspire to be
and catalyze us to get to the starting line.
But more important are the coach Leo’s in our lives
who believe in us and can inspire you to run six feet at a time,
even when it’s hot out, you’ve hit the wall and your nipples are bleeding.
Achieving great feats is life defining.
But truly the best experience is when you can take all your struggles
and lessons learned and channel them
to be the leader for the next group, the next set of people
who are taking on a monumental challenge for their first time.
And my challenge to you is to recognize
when someone else has hit their wall
and is struggling and be their coach Leo,
whatever the dynamic is, be it a teacher to a student,
a manager to an employee or a coach to a trainee,
and perpetuate this cycle of inspiration.
Thank you.