Hard People Do Hard Stuff

This title is the more P.C. version of what my friend Brian Chontosh said, "Hard men do hard shit."

Do you think you've ever really actually gone to failure? If we're being honest with ourselves most of us have not. Sure, we've all pushed hard on a workout and failed reps or ended up on the floor afterwards but most of us have not ever actually gone to the point of absolute failure. To the point of 100%, I could not do any more. Which leads us all to the question, "Where is my actual breaking point?" Most people go their entire lives without ever actually finding out where their breaking point is. That's crazy to me. In my 23 years on this Earth, I don't believe I've ever even come close to finding this point. Sure, I've done some hard stuff but nothing that ever got me close to my breaking point. It's something I'm searching for and something I'm probably going to spend the rest of my life searching for.

Going back to the man who inspired this writing, Tosh. Tosh started this morning at 02:00 and is doing an event where he runs 2.5 miles on the hour for as long as he can go. His minimum standard is 100 hours. But his goal is to find absolute, without a doubt failure. I attempted to pick his brain a little bit this morning and asked the question, "What does absolute failure look like?" He couldn't really give me a straight-up answer because he himself didn't really know. If you do the math 100 hours from his starting point puts him at a finish around Wednesday morning around 06:00. If you've stuck with me this long you also have probably figured out that that's over 4 days. Unfathomable for most.

I've committed myself to not only show up and support him along this journey but also to pay close attention to him during the different stages of the event. To almost be a student and to learn as much as I can from him as I watch him endure this crazy task. I'm doing this to help myself grow and to learn what failure might look like for me. But there's a BIG difference between observing and studying and doing. That's what gets me so worked up over theories and hypotheticals and how things are, "supposed to work". Because nobody actually knows until they've done it. Sure, I can study human history and incredible feats of strength and perseverance and see what has been done. But that doesn't do me any good right here right now. I need to personally push the envelope myself and find out what my personal limits are. What I can do.

This isn't something that comes overnight and it's not something I recommend you go out and do tomorrow. But we can all push ourselves every single day and get ourselves closer to our individual breaking points. We can push 1% harder today than yesterday. We can do a little more each day to get ourselves closer and closer. And then we do a big test or event to test where we are and then we go back to our daily training lives. I say training because I believe that each day of our life should be training. We should put ourselves in positions every day that challenge us and force us to grow. If not, then what are we doing here?

I leave you today with that question. Now I want you to look at yourself and go deep. Figure out where you can push harder every day. Figure out events and situations that you can put yourself in that will force you to grow. Push yourself far enough and you just might find absolute failure. That should be the goal for all of us.

Find failure.

Get after it.

Thank you again for reading today and I'll be continuing to write about this event and keeping you updated. Have a great day!