This week reminded me of a post I wrote back in January 2017 – Celebrate the Victories. My week was packed with new baby challenges, grad school finals, public speaking engagements and the routine joys of a day job. By the grace of a loving wife and good fortune, I have a few minutes to write this post before settling in for a weekend with the family and the start of a new graduate school semester.

It is easy to become overwhelmed by our desire to achieve, and to forget to celebrate the victories we have along the way. Such was the case for me this week, when I found myself stressed and panicked on Thursday afternoon, certain that I was going to fail one of the many obligations I had still ahead of me. And in that place of fear and doubt, my mind landed on the idea that even if I did fail to meet my goals this week, I had come so far already. Challenges and opportunities can equally be perceived as burdens or blessings. And when we forget to celebrate victories, we find ourselves increasingly burdened and decreasingly blessed.

While I felt buried by the opportunities facing me, afraid of failure and embarrassment, my fear lifted when I realized that the challenges I was facing were instigated by my own successes. Victories are important. They pick us up, give us perspective, and motivate us to keep persevering. Great achievements are not borne from fear and doubt but from courage and commitment. And realizing our potential and recognizing our accomplishments gives us the encouragement we need to continue forward in the face of fear.

Take stock of where you are. See what you have accomplished. And when you feel like your goals may be too far to reach, perhaps it’s time to stop looking forward and instead take a quick look back. Seeing the distance between where you were and where you are can often lift you up to where you want to be.

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Me.Now. completes its first 100 days tomorrow. While those 100 days feel like they have passed somehow both fast and slow, what has been accomplished is owed to all of you who continue to participate in our growing Me.Now. Movement. It is with humble thanks that I share the benefits I’ve seen from Me.Now. in these last 99 days.

Me.Now. is built on the principle we can achieve more together than apart. This principle has manifested for me in ways I never thought possible. The Me.Now. Movement has carried my ambition to be an entrepreneur from bar-napkin doodle to reality. I’ve found encouragement, business connections and practical guidance in the last 99 days that have enabled me to develop a product and launch a business with international ties. Trust Ema LLC is primed to begin sales in April 2017 and would not have been possible but for those Me.Now. early adopters in Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Florida who lifted me up every time I stumbled. While I do not know what the future holds for EMA, I know that I am surrounded by support.

Me.Now. advocates that commitment to passion and ambition will lead to new confidence and new opportunities. I found out this week that I was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the US business school of my choice. I applied for the same scholarship last year and did not receive the award. In my previous application, I researched and prepared a package that modeled every pillar of the scholarship’s ‘ideal candidate’ attributes. I was stressed throughout the process and greatly discouraged when I found out I was not chosen. This year, leaning on Me.Now. principals, I built an application designed only to represent me, not the ‘ideal candidate.’ I felt almost no stress because I knew that my success was not dependent on the scholarship. While I do not know why my package won the scholarship this year and not last, my confidence and commitment are redoubled to both the Me.Now. Movement and my own entrepreneurial journey.

Me.Now. encourages all people to stand firm against doubt and fear. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about ditching discouragement and noted that I and other members of the Me.Now. Movement had suffered recent setbacks. As I write this post, the same members I referenced then have overcome their adversity and built bridges to new opportunities through personal courage and collaboration with other Me.Now. members. The Me.Now. Movement has seen new job opportunities, new goals, new supporters and even new babies in the last two weeks simply because we do not let doubt and fear steer our course.

Thank you for letting me share this good news through a blog usually dedicated to storytelling. I believe it is very important to celebrate the victories whether big or small and simply couldn’t let these first 100 days go by without thanking this group for what you’ve done for me and what our Movement continues to do for one another!

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I’ll never understand why I chose to run my first (and only!) ultramarathon at 31 years old in the sweltering heat of Thailand. Maybe it was the result of too many Singha beers and sweaty nights after living 2 years in Thailand’s capital city, Bangkok. Maybe I should blame my triathlete friend who found the race, gave me the idea and promised to run with me. Whatever the reason, I found myself standing at a starting line with 200 runners, one friend and a random Japanese tourist decked in Hello Kitty attire at 5am on a steamy morning in 2012.

An active runner since high-school, I learned early on that my running talent is utterly average. I continued to run through college and my late 20’s mainly as a means to meet girls and prevent the proverbial man-belly. My health history in Thailand had been less than ideal, plagued with instances of food poisoning, foot injuries and a scary stint with Dengue Fever – a mosquito born disease that cost me significant weight loss the previous year. I suppose this race offered me an opportunity to reclaim some of the magic I felt had been lost to a desk job, entering my 30s and suffering a handful of health setbacks.

Victory – that feeling of winning – is an important motivator for all of us. It gives us the sense that our time and effort counted for something. History teaches us that, ‘to the victor go the spoils,’ and we are encouraged to pursue, ‘Victory at all costs!’ With all the pomp and rhetoric, the real value of victory is lost. Thinking that victory is a conclusion diminishes its utility for the future. Rather than treat victory as a single achievement that marks the end of an endeavor, I propose that we consider victory a mile marker on a larger journey for growth.

My first few steps after the starting gun on that humid morning in 2012 were a victory for me. Every morning run, epsom salt bath, healthy dinner and supportive word from my wife gave me hope and encouragement to train another day for a race that was way out of my league. Before the race ever began, the workouts alone had returned me to health, brought me new friendships, inspired others to exercise and given me renewed confidence. All these were victories, too. 

50 kilometers later, after 5 grueling hours running past Buddhist temples, through banana plantations, coconut groves and white sand beaches I crossed the finish line. The race was one of attrition; nearly half of the runners had dropped out of the race by the time I had finished. The heat, distance between support stations and challenging terrain favored tenacity over form. Looking forward to my complimentary Thai massage and chicken fried rice, you can imagine my surprise when I was called to the stage and awarded the 3rd place finisher medal. While my amateur running career started and ended that day, my journey continues and I always remember to celebrate the victories.

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