I woke up from a pretty normal night of rest and I felt absolutely horrible. The first thought, “Am I sick?” While I had a bit of a headache, nothing else was pointing to me being sick. I began to go through why I could feel so horrible. The past few weeks had felt really awesome. I had been hitting the gym in a good rhythm, sticking to my recovery, getting good rest, and productive at work. So why is it that after seemingly a solid block of work, it just wasn’t clicking? I call it the tortoise mindset.
I think we all remember the story. There was this race that happened between two unlikely animals to ever be in a race. One, the hare, was a fan of sprinting and was confident that the race would be easy. The other, the tortoise, was just going to get to the finish line, putting one foot in front of the other, more interested in just getting to the finish line. I will spare the details but spoiler alert, the hare lost. But I always thought the hare lost because he lacked focus. It wasn’t that he was tired, it’s that he was cocky and thought it was easy. He could have won if he just stayed focus. So, I wanted to become the hare that was better than the rest. To have the speed and the focus would be the ultimate combination. More on the tortoise in a little bit.
Most of my life I have always been an athlete. Playing just about every sport one could think of, it was a good way for me to frame the things that I would take on in life. In the classroom, in the business world, the athlete mindset was always something that worked really well. It was about outworking the competition, powering through the difficult moments, and getting a bit of luck along the way. I’ve been doing a lot of research lately into sports science and training methodologies and there isn’t a direct correlation between effort and result. In fact, it is fast becoming the narrative that the harder you go all the time, the worse the performance gets. As I was in bed, feeling extremely tired, I realized that I had been going about everything all completely wrong. It was time for a reset of my mindset.
I’m not saying that hard work isn’t important. In fact, hard work is what separates those that perform and those that don’t. But there is a time and a place for that hard work and it isn’t sustainable to put in hard work every single day. While it is popularized in society that the rise and grind culture is cool (and it totally is in a YouTube video or an Instagram post), it is more about finding a balance between effort and progress. To apply this to the emerging sports science, it is about going slower, more often, and longer. Seems pretty boring if you ask me. It lacks that excitement that comes with pushing weights in the gym, being out of breath at the finish line, and dripping in sweat. When I think about going slower, in anything, I immediately get this feeling inside my body of wanting to do quite the opposite. When I get focused on something, I go after it. The thought is, “Why wait? Just go for it and see if it is possible.” So, naturally, I am usually equated with being a go-getter and super productive. People have said, “I can’t believe you can get so much done in a short period of time.” It’s reassuring to hear that from time to time, almost this validation that the method of getting after it is worth it, putting me ahead and helping me reach my goals even faster. So why be patient with anything? But the bigger the problem, the bigger the wall is to climb. As I began to reach higher levels in business, and higher levels in my own athletic pursuits, it suddenly required a different approach. And that is where the tortoise comes in.
The tortoise mindset is rooted in a constant, steady pace to reach an end goal. When most people say, “It’s not about the end goal, it’s about the journey,” I call bullshit in my mind every single time. There is always an end goal. There is always something that we are striving for in life. I know that the intention of the saying is ground people in the present, realize that there is a lot of joy and learning throughout the journey and to not skip over that. And I totally agree. But then there are those moments when things are incredibly difficult. There are moments in life that seem that there is no way out. The goal is the thing that brings us back to center, back to the present, and recognize the journey that it takes to get there. If the tortoise had not focused on the finish line, maybe he would have never gotten there. He would have enjoyed the present so much that he decided it wasn’t worth it to race the hare anymore because he was quite rude. What I find most impressive about the tortoise is the recognition that it would be a process, over a period of time, to eventually reach the goal. It was far out at the beginning, something that was attainable, but meant to be accomplished one slow step at a time.
This is the mindset that has helped me the most in my pursuits. By taking a day off from the gym, going slower, I can still reach my athletic goals (and maybe even exceed expectations). I just have to be patient. For the business goals that I have, it is ok to not be stressed every single day and in an all out rush to get things to the next level. Some of the best companies were built off of slow, methodical growth over decades. With the excitement of technology and the opportunity of “making it big,” it is almost like that mindset has been forgotten. Speed is now what life is all about and I fear that, as a society, we are trending more towards the hare approach, rather than the tortoise. Why do we need to publish all day on social media? Why do we need to constantly come out with new products, cheaper products, faster products? Why does a package actually have to arrive in two days? We don’t need to publish all day on social media, we don’t need to create new products all the time, we definitely don’t need more cheap products on the market, things should be made to last longer, and things can take time to arrive (I get way more excited leading waiting for something to arrive when it takes longer). And that only comes through going slower. Keep the end goal in mind: building a great company, accomplishing that fitness goal, buying that house, but remember that the tortoise made it to the finish line first, against all odds. And the tortoise probably felt pretty good afterwards. The tortoise wasn’t exhausted, disappointed, or arrogant. The tortoise seemed pretty fulfilled.
I’m still working on being a tortoise, as I have always been the hare. But already, I have found it to be more enjoyable and I haven’t fallen “behind” as I thought I would have. And I still have the same level of motivation towards my goals. It’s not like I suddenly just want to go on vacation or lay on a beach for months and say, “I only work a few hours a week and make millions” (we all know those people and they are probably faking it). The most important part is to know the goal that you want to achieve, the goal that is only for you, and to commit everything you have to it over a lifetime. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just remember…patience is power, heart is everything, and the tortoise was right.