I first met SEAL at a 100 mile run in San Diego and I was running this race as part
of a six person relay team with friends and he was running the entire race by himself.
And the run was unsupported so you have to bring your own supplies. So we had, you know,
we overdid it a little bit. We had a tent and we had masseuses and food. I mean we were
ready for like in case we had to stay there a week. And he had a folding chair, a bottle
of water and a bag of crackers. And I just thought to myself like who is this guy. I’ve
never seen anything like it. And during the race I kept an eye on him and around mile
70 he weighed probably 260 pounds which is quite large for an ultra runner. He had broken
all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race.
So when it was done I Googled him. He had a fascinating life story and I decided literally
to cold call him. And I flew out and met with him and after sitting with him for a couple
of minutes I realized that I could learn so much from a guy like this that what makes
him tick and various buckets in my life would be so much better if a little bit of what
he had rubbed off on me. I asked him to come live with my family and I for a month. So
at the time that I invited SEAL to come live with us I had an 18-month-old son. I was married,
still am. Two more kids since. And I had sold a couple of businesses. I was in a great place
professionally in my life but I was also in a routine. And routines are great but they
can also be a rut. And I found that I just wasn’t getting better. I was doing the same
thing every day like so many of us. Wake up, go to work, come home, you know, have dinner,
repeat. And I just wanted to get off autopilot. And I thought that he would be a great way
to get in good shape but also to just mix up my routine and get better.
The first day that SEAL came to live with me he asked me to do – he said how many
pullups can you do? And I’m not great at pullups. I did about eight. Just getting over
the bar eight. And he said all right. Take 30 seconds and do it again. So 30 seconds
later I got up on the bar and I did six, struggling. And he said all right, one more time. We waited
30 seconds and I barely got three or four and I was done. I mean couldn’t move my
arms done. And he said all right. We’re not leaving here until you do 100 more. And
I thought there’s no – well we’re going to be here for quite a long time because there’s
no way that I could do 100. But I ended up doing it one at a time and he showed me, proved
to me right there that there was so much more, we’re all capable of so much more than we
think we are. And it was just a great lesson. It was actually the first thing that we did.
It was just a great lesson that we have so much more in our reserve tank than we think
we do. One of the things that SEAL said to me and it’s in the book and one thing that
people have said that really resonated with them. He would say that when your mind is
telling you you’re done, you’re really only 40 percent done. And he had a motto if
it doesn’t suck we don’t do it. And that was his way of every day forcing us to get
uncomfortable to figure out what our baseline was and what our comfort level was and just
turning it upside down. The 40 percent rule maybe it’s give or take a little but look
at a marathon. Most people hit the wall in a marathon at mile anywhere from 16 t0 20.
And, you know, 99 percent of the people in this country that run marathons finish and
they all, predominantly all of them go through this hit the wall. So where does that extra
50 or 60 percent or whatever the number is come from? I mean it’s their brain saying
I’m done, I don’t want to continue but their will saying you know what? Let me get
to the finish line. So we all have that will. It’s just a matter of how do we apply it
to not just with the once a year marathon but to our daily lives to make it apply to
a variety of things.