40%

Last weekend, my daughter Grace and I completed the David Goggins 4x4x48 challenge (https://www.gogginschallenge.com/). The idea is to push yourself mentally and physically by running 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. If you aren't familiar with Goggins, he is a retired Navy SEAL who now runs ultramarathons and is known as one of the toughest people on the planet. His story is pretty amazing and I recommend you read his book "Can't Hurt Me". It is a very honest account of his difficult upbringing that included domestic violence, racism in rural America and having to lose 100 lbs. in 3 months to be able to attend Navy SEAL training. Inspirational for sure.

Goggins' philosophy is that most people only push themselves to 40% of their potential physically. At that point, our brain stops us. It says we are too tired or too sore, so we stop. He believes that we can push ourselves past that 40% by teaching our brain that it can go harder. And that we should train our brains all the time to push past the 40%. Hence the 4x4x48 challenge. Physically, it is probably easier than a 26 mile marathon because you get rest breaks. Mentally, it is a far greater challenge. Waking up at 3:50am to start a 4am run, when you went to sleep at 1am after a midnight run is not easy. Especially knowing that you have to still do another 5 runs that day. It didn't help that I turned 47 years old while running. I don't recover as well as I used to. And you do that for 48 hours straight. It can break you mentally.

When I say that Grace and I completed it, I don’t mean that she did the running. If you are not aware, Grace was hit by a car about 6 weeks ago and suffered a brain injury. After being unable to move the left side of her body for weeks, she is just starting to take her first steps with assistance right now, so she can’t quite run yet. Still, I did the run while staying at BC Children’s Hospital with her and she was with me every step of the way. Because of her brain injury, she has to push way past 40% to move anything on the left side of her body right now. And she is doing that every day. Her effort for each physio session is way more than the entire 48 miles I ran over those two days. So when midnight or 4am rolled around and I had to wake up, tie my running shoes and go get after it, my brain would tell me to stay sleeping on that couch in her hospital room. It said my legs were too sore. That I was too tired. That I'm an idiot for trying to run with a separated shoulder. But then I would look over at Grace and realize that running 4 miles was nothing compared to what she is going though. Grace amazes me every day and I know that soon enough, she will be out running me and out lifting me at the gym. So thank you David Goggins for starting this event and thank you Grace for helping me finish.

Each four mile run took me somewhere between 35 and 40 minutes to complete (I started fast and definitely got slower as the weekend progressed). But I basically ran for about 7 and a half hours total, so I had a lot of time to think. And what I realized was that the 40% thing isn't just about physical exertion. It's just life in general. I realized that I had only been putting about 40% effort into so many things. Personal relationships. Work. Taking care of my mental health. I wasn't working as hard as I could for any of those.

I realized that I would accomplish something in life and feel a sense of satisfaction. My team hit our sales target. Great. Work is done for the month. I called my mother today. Great. Check that box and maybe call her again next week. I saw my counsellor and talked about some emotional problems. Perfect. I just need to book another session in two weeks and I can say I'm taking care of my mental health.

In all those examples, I did the bare minimum, no matter how much work it was. My brain saw that it accomplished something and said "Good. We've done enough here". It stopped at 40%. It told me I was tired and I listened.

But as I strained to tie my shoe laces at 3:55am, as I ran in the the rain a few minutes later, I did a lot of thinking about what hitting 50% or 60% in life would look like. Or perhaps even 90%. How much better off would my team at work be if I pushed past the 40%? How much better would my mental health be? How good could my personal relationships be?

The Goggins challenge wasn't about physical fitness. Pretty much anyone can do it physically. Walk the four miles if you have to, but you can probably physically run four miles every four hours for two days. It's the mental challenge that is tough. The discipline required is incredible. Your brain tells you you are too tired to continue many times. You need to tell your brain to shut up and push yourself further. It's all mental. And that mental challenge can be applied to anything. I haven't been doing that in life enough. But I am starting now. I will try to push past 40% in everything. Sometimes my brain will win and I will fail. Other times I will beat my brain. But I won't stop challenging my brain to go further than the 40%.

And the only way to accomplish that is to exercise my brain with insane physical challenges to not let it forget what I am capable of. I will probably do the Goggins 4x4x48 challenge again next year and I'm willing to bet Grace will actually run with me. Or more accurately, well in front of me. Because of anyone I know, she pushes it past 40% more often than not.