What a Parkrun Taught Me About Business Strategy, Mental Agility, and Success | IHMIY Ep 11

Now , normally on a Saturday morning , I have no trouble getting up . I've been awake much earlier than any alarm . I don't even set an alarm myself , but this time the alarm goes off , and actually it must be at quarter past eight because we ignore it and then we get up at 8.20 .

Now I already know that I am missing park run next week , and that's because the big festoon is taking place , which you'll be hearing this a few weeks after . So it'll be a little bit of a sink . But I'm like oh , like I don't even really need to go . I'm having a break next week , like I'm gonna take two weeks off or something .

Give myself a bit of a reset . Why don't I just skip this week ? We're both clearly tired . We've slept in more than we normally . Well , I have . He normally sleeps anyway . Um , but let's just leave it and put it on .

He's like no , I don't want to be the one to stop you running and I'm like , oh yeah , I'm tired too and it's a really good excuse not to . Um , don't stop you running , you need to go .

And I was like , okay , well , I'll just go , I'll accept that it's like my last one , but for a few I'm just gonna take it easy and somehow we miraculously get out the door . Normally , we're out the door by 8 30 . That's the aim . Um , we make it out the door . Normally , we're out the door by 8.30 . That's the aim . We make it out the door by 8.35 .

I mean , I'm one of these people that does have contingency time in and therefore that is always going to have a five to 10 minute buffer in it anyway . So we're set . Don't have my music , because I haven't ever been organized enough to charge my headphones . It's fine .

I have one of those Beats charger things that you're just meant to put them back in the case and it charges it , but anyway , I'm still not great at that . That's fine though . So I'm going to run with no music , which sometimes is better anyway , like , cause I don't run to music .

I listened to a podcast or audio book last week and I quite liked that , um , but I ended up having like thoughts and can't write stuff down , so like , okay , well , I'm just going to run . The only thing that I've noticed is I'm wearing a vest running top and the weather is not really vest weather , but it was the only thing I had .

Strangely , for some reason , I don't seem to have t-shirts around . Maybe they're just currently in the dryer and I haven't found them . Anyways , so I grab a vest and I've got a hoodie on over the top and I've said to Jason , like , oh , what are we going to do here , because I'm going to get too hot too soon .

So we make a plan that he's going to be at the 1K mark , not at the start , like he normally would be , to see me off . Instead , he's going to see me there and at that point I'm going to , if I'm too hot and don't want to keep it going , to take my jacket off in anticipation of handing it over . So I do that . I run the first K .

That's nice and comfortable . I take the hoodie off and that was a relief , like it's , it's not that super hot outside , it's getting quite springy , but , yes , I get hot quite quickly from running , so I didn't need it for any longer than that and it's I could put it around my waist , but it is so much easier to just give to Jason to hold it's .

You know one extra thing you've got on you . It's going to make you slightly hotter even around your waist . So off it came and there we go . So I do my 2K , just steadily going along .

I'm not really fussed about where anyone is , anyone overtaking me , whether I'm overtaking anyone else and we come to into the second kilometre , which means that we are headed into the sort of grassy section and the hill . If you've ever done chunks of parkrun , it's not even a big hill . Great Notley Parkrun , much worse .

Oh my goodness , colchester Highwood horrendous for hilliness . This is nothing . It's nothing on any of the others really . It's , generally speaking , quite a flat course . So that was great . So I come to this hill and I have . For the past few weeks I've been trying to run it and I have , and the kind of ethos and thought behind that is .

I need to make sure that I can run the whole thing , except today I don't . You know what I've done . I'm so tired . I've had a migraine over this week as well , not to factor in .

So I had a migraine on Wednesday period five during a lesson , migraine aura and I took the whole of Thursday off to recover and you know , I think that was that served me well for doing a nice job of content creation club on Friday Could show up chilled when I got back home and then went to see the 39 steps in the evening with Jason .

But otherwise it's been a very , you know , chill approach approach . So this is why I'm not going to push . I'm not right . Okay , body could still be recovering . We'll just stop right at the bottom of the hill . Uh , we'll do a good walk up . We're not just gonna stroll up , we're gonna move . What's it called stride ? No , it's not stride .

You're gonna do the thing with your arms , swing your arms , I guess . Um , as you go up and you're gonna as you get that tree I'd already set my sights on the tree you're going to run again . So I did that very short stop , as it were , and I started running again and I'm near to these guys , two guys that are running together .

One is a much stronger runner , faster runner . He's talking about oh , if you train on a hill , it's much easier on a flat . I'm like to his pal . I'm like , oh God , yeah , I know . But like the Imagine training on a hill , it does make sense , I get it . But yeah , so they're around and they were near to where I was last week and I'm like okay .

So pace wise I'm kind of in the same zone as last week . That's cool . Running along , I see that I'm at 19 minutes as I come into the 3k mark . Now , at that time I'm clearly not with it , because in my head I went okay , right , that's pretty standard . We'll just keep running , shall we ?

And I've realized in hindsight that actually means that my pace on average was six minutes 20 . That's pretty good going , that's . That's not bad at all . That means we're doing well . We've only got 2k to go . So in my head I really .

The reality is , if I'd realized that there's a whole host of things that could have gone on , but I didn't notice that massively and I just kept running . And even during the third to fourth K I'm going all right , just keep going .

You know , I can feel there's some people overtaking me and I'm like , oh , you could try and keep up with that little couple that were running together , the men . They're now ahead of me and I'm thinking , oh God , ok , I'm slower than I was last week , no worries , let's keep going . So just keep , keep on running , and not really that fast either .

Like I'm , I'm going , I'm going , but there's not a lot of intention , I am not focused . But as I come into you come through the underpass at the 4k mark . So I had not looked at the clock .

Then I've looked at the clock as I'm approaching the viaducts at Chelmsford , which means I mean we've probably done four kilometres and maybe a couple of hundred metres on that , 250 , say . I totally guess .

I'm not great with measuring metres , certainly when I'm running it , something like that , though maybe , and I've looked at the clock and I've gone , wait a second . We're at 26 minutes and my pace is roughly six minutes on a good run , if not six minutes , 30 on like a steady run , and I feel like I'm going steady .

I'm like , wait , add six minutes onto this , that's 32 . Like that's quite close to my pb , which in my head is 31 , 24 . I'm like , oh , I'm in the close realm of like doing this and I'm already part of the way into this , into this last kilometer , like if I run , run , run now , like I can make it .

So I start to increase the way that I'm running , a little bit like I've been steady for a long while now I'm not out of breath by any means . The little walk has helped me . I've been steady and sort of playing with my breath as I've gone and there's been no nothing body wise has been like all this hurts or any any distractions .

So I just start to increase my pace a little bit . Normally I'm looking for Jason because I know he's going to be on the final stretch and I didn't even clock him initially . When I come around the corner of the park and see him , I do see him wave and he says go on , sean .

So I keep running and I'm coming into the corner where you have to basically loop Central Park and you come into the final bit . Now , at this point I have no idea what the time is . All I had was what I had before , which was we're close . So we're running , we're running , we're overtaking people as we go steadily , but surely so that's cool .

And we come into the penultimate corner before the final and I look at my watch and we are on 30 , something Like we are not at 31 . We are going to be approaching it soon . So we're over 30 , 30 , but we're approaching it . So I'm like I've got to run , man , cause my 31 , 24 is so close , like I can do this .

And I have not , and I don't normally run a sprint finish ever , because why do it ? It's a lot of effort . But at this point I'm like this is the difference between it could be 31 , 31 , 24 or like 31 , 20 . And I could like either get the same beat it or just miss it .

So I'm like you're gonna have to run , go like there's no jogging or steady run . This is run and maybe a little bit of a sprint , which I did right on the final corner . And as I come through the gate it is 31 , 10 on my watch . Uh , the elapsed time is 31 , 18 , but I didn't start it .

I started it before the bell went and then paused it , so it's always a little bit out anyway . So I'm like , oh my god , it's definitely definitely more than 31 , 24 .

And lo and behold , a few hours later it's come in that it's 31 , 02 as far as parkrun are concerned , and my old previous time was 31 , 42 , longer than I realized , and I realized that that's a bit of a whirlwind tale of my run and I haven't even got to the business bit yet , whoa , it's like a whole 10 minutes that you've listened to my run .

I hope it's been interesting . I said this before on a LinkedIn post and it really intrigues me that fact that for the majority of that time I wasn't looking at how fast I was going , wasn't looking at how fast I was going , what my time was , where I was going , what I was doing . I just did it and I just bloody got on with it .

That was it , and I was actually taking what I deemed to be a nice steady pace . Don't get me wrong . I went walking and it certainly wasn't . I can't jog . It feels too hard to jog , jog , but like I'm not pushing myself and I'm not remotely aware of what the the end goal is . I in my head it's 31 , 24 if I'm running a fast run .

This , oh mate in my head . When I saw the 19 , somehow the maths in my head worked out to be like oh , this is going to be about 30 , 36 minutes . Christ knows how I'm a maths teacher . I'm really sorry everybody .

Um , great thing that I wasn't with it , because I think if I'd known that I was at 19 minutes then and I had done the maths accurately , I'd have realised that I was close because I'd have been like oh , okay , like , 12 minutes from now he's 31 . Oh , like , oh , I can do this and I might have peaked too soon .

And I think about this in business , and whilst we know that we need to keep track of the data on what we're doing , sometimes we just need to keep going with what we're doing for a little bit longer without really taking note of of exactly what's going on or at least seeing that we're on track .

I suppose it is good to know , but not letting that let us get carried away to change anything , but just being consistent at what you do . I was running and I really I thought I was running slower than I was .

It turns out that my , my average must have been around 30 , literally with the original sort of six minutes , 10 , 12 seconds , right , my last pacing was five minutes 35 . I was on my head , which is wild . I've never , I've never run a lap as quick as that . Um , not in my recent running years , as it were .

The sort of second chapter of running I did a little bit before in , uh , when I was sort of age 25 , 26 , totally different ball game .

Um , I think when we get caught up in checking stats weekly , and especially when it comes to something like sales , it can , if you're not doing as well as you think you should be or want to be , that's going to be demotivating in itself . And I've done that when I've been trying to beat this 31 42 score , even though I've had it wrong in my head .

I've been looking at the clock much more when I've been running and I've let that dictate what I've tried to do because I've gone . Oh , no , no , no , I'm behind , I need to , like , I need to move quicker , like now , and unfortunately I'm doing that like 2k , 2.5k in and that throws off the rest and it totally goes

. Obviously , you heard and I explained that the hill is something I've been trying to run . Well , hello , I just got a personal best whilst walking it because you know what . I had to take a rest so I could get my breath back and resume the rest . That's the hardest part of that course in my opinion , the single hardest .

I don't know how many metres I told you . I can't estimate very well , let's look at something nearby that I can measure against . Okay , like , maybe I have no idea this is such a pun . Maybe it's like 15 meters long , I've got no idea . It's not long at all , you know it's .

It takes a mere matter of seconds to get up when you're running and not many more seconds to walk . That's almost . My favorite part is that when I walk it I looked at who I started with and I'm like you're literally five paces ahead of me , or or so you know .

It doesn't make a big difference to walk that , and I think that's vital because I don't need to make this run any harder than I already find it . Actually , choosing when to strategically stop and not do something so you can go at a slower pace is much better if you're looking to achieve a long-term goal when it comes to business .

Sometimes that means that we don't have to be running around doing it all all the time , but actually just doing it slower , taking it easier , can then give you the energy to get on with the stuff that you do need to go a little bit more full force , or when you suddenly realize you need to move it in the final section .

You've got the energy because you haven't used it all up back in the early stages of the run or back in the early stages of your business and I share this because it is starting to be the way that I look at business . I do track my stats . I know my sales . I haven't been tracking my calls as much like I was initially at the start of the year .

I think there's some work to be done on that and that does need some stat tracking . But I'm also not letting my stats dictate stuff to me . I think that's important because there's a whole year . We're only just by the time you're hearing this , we'll be into Q2 . So we're only just into Q2 . We've basically had none , none of this year , really .

And okay , you will look online and someone will tell you that they are absolutely smashing Q1 . And like they've already hit their goals for Q1 . And they need to make their goals even more ambitious because they didn't make them ambitious enough in the start , or maybe they were ambitious , they've just managed to achieve it .

Like there's all this celebration online and hopefully you've heard a sort of very open and honest version of it . I'm not I'm not smashing it right now , but I would like to think that by the end of 2024 , I'll be able to say that I smashed 2024 .

Even if that doesn't mean that I've not had all the sales in the first three months , even if that doesn't mean that I didn't hit my target in the end . Okay , I don't know how I feel about that in terms of if I didn't hit my park . I mean , I've had a smashing year in park run already .

I think I've had two pbs is it this year and and on both occasions I wasn't trying to get the pb and any other time that I've been like , oh , I should probably try and get the p I think there's a lot to be said for slow , steady , strategic moves , and this goes for podcasting as well .

It goes for social media , it goes for content creation , it goes for so many things , and other people will be like , yeah , but there's that guy that did it in three months and like doubled their income in that time , and this , that and the other .

That is core , and there are strategies and there are ways , and I'm not saying that that's not great or successful or anything like that , and certainly not unachievable .

What I keep getting the message of , though , is that kind of not slow and steady wins the race , but so , and steady lets you get to , and sometimes you smash your goals even without really having to try without having to exert yourself consistently and constantly all of the time .

If you think that working in your business , even on your business , like 10 times more , is going to help you , I'm just not convinced that it will . What you need to be doing is slow , steady , repeatable actions that contribute to a result at the end , and maybe there is a sprint finish at the end .

Maybe there is a launch that comes at the end that really accelerates all of the consistent effort you have put in for the first nine months of 2024 . Now we're not at the end of it to know that yet , but I am fascinated to see how this year goes for me , because it's not a motto .

I have , in particular , although , saying that one of my coaches has just posted on my Facebook post that I've written about this and he said didn't want to go , but went anyway . I think that is something you've got to do .

You've got to show up in business , even if you don't want to , and if you continue to show up , creating momentum , taking action and moving yourself like a little bit closer each time , with the actions that you're doing each week , in and out , every day , that is what will get you a result in the end , I see my progress at parkrun as something

mental . I don't believe it's purely physical .

I think sometimes it's all to do with my mental agility and ability to adapt and move , and if I'm finding that I can achieve something inverted commas without trying or without having to push myself to an extreme , then maybe I need to take a little leaf out of my running book to see that the same could be said in business .

Take my gas off the pedal , commit to consistent action , like I did with Chantal the coach . To be fair , there are a lot of lessons from there as well to be said , and let's see how the rest of 2024 goes . I hope you've enjoyed my little running story and you can take something away from this today that can apply in your business too .

I will see you next week .