—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Joel Runyon is an athlete and entrepreneur. He has influenced me as much as nearly anyone through sharing his pursuit of his potential, which resulted, in me, in my sidcha practices and concept. In his words
I travel the world, run ultra marathons, and build businesses.
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
He is the founder of IMPOSSIBLE - a company dedicated to helping people push their limits and do impossible things.
In 2017, he became the youngest person in the world to run 7 ultra marathons on 7 continents. Along the way, he raised $192,000 for Pencils of Promise and built 7 schools.
He is bad at saying "no" to a challenge.
His TEDx talk, which changed my life, describes how he turned his life around, crystallized in his cold shower therapy practice.
His action-oriented blog, ImpossibleHQ, has three main parts:
He lives by what he says:
How do you treat the world? True to form, Joel committed to a double challenge of avoiding bottled beverages and picking up trash, so we talked about both. I recommend trying the challenge of picking up trash daily for a month or so. It takes almost no time or effort but gives you insight into how little many people value material objects or how much they pollute. Or maybe their ignorance. Joel and I talked about the results. We can't figure it out, but you can't help considering it when you experience how people treat the world. When was the last time you littered? Where does it come from? We speculated. Write me if you have ideas. I find it very confusing. We don't value stuff. That's why we give it away. I hope you see that acquiring bags, disposable things, and so on lead to garbage, which is waste, which hurts others. Stop acquiring. Also true to form, Joel remarked that making a difference is "almost too easy," yet he learned more about the environment than he would have reading statistics. Takeaways Habits make new behaviors trivial, no mental effort. Habits enable you to live by your values. In his case, beyond the environment, he ate and drank less sugar and unhealthy stuff with gain in joy and refreshment. He experienced more nature. I don't know your values, but if they include clean land, air, and water, he presents two you can start with little effort. Be warned: you'll care more. You'll change. You'll improve as a leader. You'll be surprised and notice others' behavior and yours. You'll probably become less tolerant for litter and waste. Don't we want to tolerate litter less? With experience, the skills you learn might get you promoted, hired, funded elsewhere in life. Start your snowball. Read the transcript.
If you're here for leadership, especially personal leadership, you're going to hear about one of the most important things you can do to improve. What Joel talks about and how he lives are how you develop skills people think you can't learn, such as integrity, discipline, and resilience. You can, but you have to act---specifically to challenge yourself, not just passively read about or watch. We talk about cold showers, a big sidcha of mine, and one of the simplest ways to challenge yourself. If you've read about my cold shower practice and found it confusing, our conversation brings a couple experienced guys talking about it. You are your habits. Joel turned his life around with his, which is what this podcast is about. From nothing, he lived world class accomplishments, including setting records running ultramarathons and starting schools in the process. I recommend watching his TEDx talk to see how much you can change your life. If you want to affect the environment, you will face "I want to act but if no one else does it won't make a difference," in others if not yourself. Joel's life is the opposite and it looks like he loves his life more than the people who accept such lack of meaning, accepting the resulting complacency. Read the transcript.