Indian anti-colonial nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” On your path to achieving your dreams and aspirations, you will be mocked, doubted, ridiculed, discouraged and laughed at by supposedly well-meaning family, friends, frenemies and haters. As rapper Jay-Z said in his song Reminder, “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.” Your results would cancel the insults, and you would eventually be called to consult and construct.

I recently ran four full 42.2 KM Marathons in May 2023 as part of my goal of running across the ten Canadian provinces. Running one marathon is tough and running four marathons in a month is extremely tough. I strongly believe that “How you do one thing is how you do everything” , I run because it is one of the best metaphors for navigating life, pain and endurance. Most people don’t understand why I would run ten marathons in a year but I know why I am doing it and that is all that matters. Never explain, does that need it don’t matter and does that matter don’t need it.

Before I embarked on the 4 marathons in 4 weeks challenge in May 2023 in which I ran 168 KM and visited three new cities/provinces (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Halifax Nova Scotia, and Calgary, Alberta); I was told that I was crazy, are you not scared of getting injured? who is paying for all of this? why are you running that much? who does that? puzzling looks among other discouraging body language. I set the goal not because I wanted to push myself and feel the joy of doing something most people thought was not possible but because I kept believing in myself.

After I eventually finished the four marathons, the same set of people started changing tone and they said things like I wonder how you are able to do this acts, you probably have great genetics, you crazy, good for you among statements.

Leadership author John C. Maxwell often shares a story about the value of getting results in his books. He narrates a story he read in a magazine:

“About twenty years ago, I saw a piece in a magazine and cut it out because it’s a great example of how someone with a lot of potential really knows how to make things happen. It was called “Sel Not Spel.” It said that a recently hired salesman wrote his first sales report to the home office after working in his territory the first week. It shocked the sales manager because he suddenly realized that he had hired someone who was illiterate. Here’s what the report said: “I went and seen this outfit which ain’t never bot nothin from us befour and I sole em a good order. Now I’m movin on to Nu Yourk.”

“The manager was in a panic. But before he could get hold of the salesman to fire him, he received a second report. It said, “I done been hear fer too days and sole them haff a millyon.”

Then the manager was really confused. He couldn’t keep an illiterate salesman, but he couldn’t fire a salesman who had outsold everyone else on the sales force. So he did what every good middle manager does: he dumped the problem in the lap of the company’s president.

The next morning, everyone in the sales department was amazed to see the salesman’s two letters on the bulletin board along with the following memo from the president: “We bin spendin weigh two much time tryin to spel in stead of tryin to sel. Lets all try to get our sails up. Reed these too letters from hour best salsman. He’s doin a grate job and all you shud go out and do like he done.

Meditations

• Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – Tenderness
• Shame – Failure, violation by others, broken and unworthy. When we experience shame, we feel undeserving of care, love and tenderness. To resolve shame, examine the problematic emotions we hold deep within. Shame is not comfortable to admit or easy to recognize.
• Like all emotions, shame can be a teacher if we shift our relationship to it. We can work towards holding the harshness, self-judgment, embarrassment, and isolation with more acceptance, warmth, and gentleness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. – Max Ehrmann

• Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Expressions of Anger

• Getting angry at people for making mistakes doesn’t teach them not to make mistakes, it teaches them to hide their mistakes. There is nothing wrong with feeling anger, but if you want results, be constructive and compassionate instead of being cross, wait to react, slow yourself down, take a breath, try using softer language, and if possible, offer a compliment first before discussing how things could be improved.
• We lose teachable moments if we react with frustration and the reality is that other people might not act in ways that are acceptable to you. You can’t control how people behave but you can control how you react to their behaviour.
• You can experience emotion without making the emotion become your entire experience.

All the Best in your quest to get Better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.