Hunt Discomfort, Do the “Impossible”
Mexico City, October 1968. Olympic Gold favorite, Jim Ryun, was squaring up with 11 other men to run the 1,500 meter race. Jim hadn’t lost a race in 3 years and on top of that had just set a world record; he and millions of spectators around the world already “knew” he was going to win. That is, until the “impossible” happened…
The “impossible” is only something that hasn’t been done yet. It’s not worth considering for some and outright out of the question for most. But for the few that make a run for it, it can yield the kind of results that changes lives, changes industries and even make history. But it’s certainly not easy. It takes hunting discomfort to build courage, resilience and an ability to dig deep even during tough times.
That was something that relatively unknown competitor Kipchoge “Kip” Keino was already practiced at. Kip was a police officer from Kenya that had no formal training, no special equipment, he didn’t even have a real coach! But he did have a dream: to bring home Olympic Gold. A dream that seemed dashed when he collapsed during another race two days prior and was diagnosed with a severe gallbladder condition. Doctors advised him to withdraw from any further races and seek treatment as his condition was potentially fatal.
What the doctors didn’t know is that Kip had, in a way, been training for this for a long time. He had hunted discomfort, building courage and resilience, from a young age as a member of the small tribe, the Kalenjin. In the Kalenjin community they hunt discomfort and even cultivate an ability to withstand pain and suffering from a very early age. They believe in ritualistic ceremonies exposing children and young adults to endurance trails where they’re beaten, burned, stung by African stinging nettles and cut. Participants are required to remain totally stoic or they’re outcast from the society forever without the possibility to return.
Hunting Discomfort like that builds a resilience muscle. The more you Hunt Discomfort anywhere, the more you’re able to deal with it anywhere. It gives practitioners the ability (yes ability) to forge ahead despite physical pain, or more common today, emotional or psychological pain. To do more with less. To move ahead despite the circumstances. Think: continuing on when someone tells you something is “impossible”, sharing ideas that might be criticized, or starting over in earnest after a big failure.
Flexing that muscle to forge ahead in tough times, Kip defied the doctors and jumped the next bus to his race in a level of pain that would cause most of us to cry out for mercy. When traffic slowed, he skipped the bus and ran something like 2km to the stadium to be able to make it on time. Summoning the courage, the strength and resilience he had been building for years, Kip went on to win that race by still the largest margin in Olympic history. He had done the “impossible”.
Kip’s ability to deal with discomfort beat out the known quantities of an Olympic favorite with years of race preparation, the best equipment and world class coaches. And Kip isn’t an anomaly. Over the next 30 years, Kip’s countrymen, mostly from the same Kalenjin tribe, started winning race, after race, after race, going on to win something like 70% of professional races while representing a mere .06% of the world’s population. That would be like learning that all the world tennis players are from the same town in Syracuse, NY. Sounds crazy, right? Maybe even impossible?
After much research, initially led by Sports Illustrated senior editor David Epstein, it didn’t come down to genetics. It didn’t come down to the environment. It came down to the Kalenjin tribe’s upbringing, preparing them to forge ahead #NoMatterWhat by hunting discomfort.
Hunting discomfort made the “impossible” possible...
Now, I’m not expecting you to enter into the July ‘21 summer Olympics. Or start conducting ritualistic pain ceremonies (please don’t). But when was the last time you chose to put yourself through something really difficult? When was the last time you purposefully picked discomfort to build your capacity to handle it? Join me in discussing that this week in the #NoMatterWhat Community on Facebook to be inspired by what others are doing, gather ideas for what you might want to do, and if you already have a strong discomfort muscle, it would be beneficial to share what you’re committed to do from here, going forward. I’ll have your back for it, don’t worry.
We all know that in most modern societies discomfort is optional. We can choose the easy path. Opt out early. Shy away from things that are too hard. And usually do all those things without much penalty. But without the resilience muscle that Hunting Discomfort builds, it leads to feeling stuck, incremental results and that all too familiar status quo. Certainly not a setup to do the “impossible”... Kipchoge “Kip” Keino hunted discomfort to beat incredibly “impossible” odds and Olympic favorite Jim Ryun to win Gold.
The question is now, what will you do?