We were in a design technology room, likely in year 10, legs swinging from a workbench and a bar stool respectively when Chris said something stupid and, simultaneously to me, supremely instructive.
I’ve got a few friends who have a habit of saying things in this register, and all of these botched mantras and hot-takes and ways of seeing the world crack me up and stick with me.
Three of my favourites, from most recent to Chris’ are:
Seth: Sometimes you’ve just got to be a dog, *ruff, ruff*, and bark it out.
Will: Remember, Jack, a snake only coils one way.
Chris: The early bird catches the worm, but the second bird catches the log.
You only get insights like these when you spend too much time with people, and a sad part of growing up is growing apart and having fewer opportunities to engender them.
Chris was in the US earlier this year and looked to have had an incredible trip; I’m looking forward to heading out in November and, knowing nothing, asked him what he would do with the knowledge he has now.
It’s been 18 years since Chris’ aphorism but it’s something I still think on and laugh about, and I’m thankful for the pioneers like him in wondering and wandering for helping me figure out my path.
The myth of the first mover advantage
In a race, the person who crosses the finish line first, wins.
In business, there rarely is a finish line.
In this sense, life is more like business than a race. Unless you count death. Which I don’t. To my mind, with the facts I have to hand, death’s more of a hard stop that can come at any point than an aspirational line to cross.
If you’re up-to-date with your productivity and self-improvement literature, you’ll likely have come across the notion that, like in modern dating, “coming first” could be holding you back.
From Roger Bannister to Roger Rabbit
Roger Bannister wasn’t the first person to run but he was the first person to record a sub-four-minute mile. Within months, what had for years seemed impossible was then regularly achieved (and surpassed) by others.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? wasn’t the first live action and animated film – think Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins – but it absolutely pushed what was thought possible in the medium in terms of both look and message, and, arguably, still hasn’t been surpassed.
In the tech world, the first iPhone looked like a spaceship compared to the Blackberry and Nokia models before it. AskJeeves was the first search engine I used. Skype was how I first videocalled friends.
Zoom, Google and Apple are ubiquitous. None of them were strictly “first”.
The early birds caught the worms in the market, but those second and third birds sure do look pretty with their…logs.
This means (more than) business
Yesterday I ran 5K in less than 23 minutes while keeping my heart rate a good 20 beats per minutes below my race max (and) all while participating in conversation. This would have been inconceivable a year ago when I ran out of my skin to achieve my then sub-23-minute record.
Like, it was easy? Fun? Enjoyable? It was in the rain, it was straight after a heavy upper body gym session, it simply wasn’t an issue.
Take a second, and think on your own achievements.
Whether they’re personal or professional, what can you do now without breaking a sweat that previous you would have given anything to achieve?
I stare agape at chefs who can julienne onions while talking to me and ensuring their kids clean up after themselves. I’m amazed by journalists who can “churn out” multiple articles in a day that newspapers will pay for, all while texting me how their day is going, sorting their laundry and maybe even getting some steps in. I love seeing my clients warm-up with their previous personal bests as they push for more with better technique and awareness, and – as a consequence of practice and time put in – less effort.
You can’t refine what you don’t attempt; you can’t cross the finish line if you fail to start.
Sometimes you’ll need a Chris, sometimes you’ll just need a you
In 1981, Sebastian Coe would go on to beat his own world record for the mile twice in the space of not months but days. He became the person to beat, and did it. The point here that “the best” and “your best” might be at times synonymous but that doesn’t mean permanent, whether subject to betterment or lesser-ment.
By focusing on running this year, I’ve got more running heroes.
Dave Forrest and my dad are both big inspirations and both on their day have superhuman heart rates. Now, I’ve still got work to do on my race pace heart rate but by virtue of running and working on the slow miles that they told me to do, out of curiosity I measured my resting HR last week and found it hovering close to theirs – around 41BPM on average (tickling 39 when I wasn’t ogling the heart rate monitor!).
Their times and race finishes (and heart rates) show me what’s possible in the realm of the sport. Just as the gap between me and them is huge, so too is the gap between me and me, and the room to grow only seems to increase. My times and finishes (and heart rate) relative to where I was remind me that I’ve come a long way and am capable of just as much (and more) if I want it and can stick with it.
You don’t have to go it alone
In this week’s episode of F&T (available on Spotify and YouTube), I catch up with Seth Mullan-Feroze, whom you might better know as sethsfilmreviews. Before the hundreds of thousands of likes and millions of views, Seth was my first fitness coach.
In the three months we worked together in 2022, I realised how little I knew when it came to a bodybuilding approach to health and fitness, how much harder I could be working, the mistakes I’d been making, and what I liked and disliked about his coaching that could inform my own approach. Similarly, Seth had worked with a coach to reach the point I met him at.
If you’ve felt stuck for a while with your fitness – whether in the gym or on the track or even just looking in the mirror – you’re not weak or bad or defective for recognising you might have reached the limit of what you can do right now.
Sometimes we’re the heroes we need, sometimes we need to be shown how. And learning from people who’ve already made the mistakes – and invested the time and money and emotion you would also have to invest going it alone to get from where you are now to where you would like to be – could be the best decision you make.
Through August, I’ve taken a newly qualified PT from zero experience to feeling ready to sign up his first online and in-person clients and helped somebody who previously pigeonholed himself as a sedentary gamer to over 8kgs lighter and a keen gymgoer, inspiring his friends to do the same.
So if you don’t know what you want, or you want to know what’s possible but don’t know where to start, I’d love to hear from you, and, if we get on with each other after an initial chat, work with you towards realising your new best.
This is my calendar for a free coaching call
This is my coaching email address if you’d prefer to message me first
And that’s it from me!
Much love and I’ll see yas in the next one
J x