How to survive by working smarter, not just harder. This is the day to serve this podcast with Anthony Fungini. Well, consider those who have gone before you. I'm getting my former running coach alongside me now, or at least we agree the other day, because I have barely two and a half months before I run a marathon with my daughter, and I'm far, far, far from where I ought to be.
So he will help me raise my physical ability to make it through my next marathon. But I am also committing, as we exchange notes, to helping him manage his stresses, right, at this time in the pandemic. So he gives me the physical, I help him with the emotional mental. How do you survive by considering those who may not have gone before you, but who are best in what they do?
Work smarter. Elizabeth Edwards, whether she said she stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails. I spoke about marathons, and people did not believe me when I say that. In the marathon of life, you must find time to rest and recover.
In an actual marathon, I have found after 11 marathons that, even within the 42 kilometer race, you must find time to rest and recover, like walking through the 42 or sometimes just 21 water stops for a minute to recover, to maximize gravity, right, when you run downhill, or to run behind someone twice your size on the windy heels, for them to break the wind. Work smarter, not just harder, that need to initiate strategic responses for short and long-term wins. So we survive, again, I say this, by being smarter, not just harder. I always say there are three stages in a marathon.
The first is when I feel like a child, we all feel like children in the beginning of a race, all suited up, excited, right? The crowds are all together, some are singing, some are celebrating, some are encouraging, praying. It's a great time. And then you have the second stage when the crowds have thinned up, and you're not alongside too many people encouraging you.
That's when, as a child now, you tell yourself, at least I tell myself, this is what separates the men from the boys, right? And then the final stage, maybe three-fourths of the race, or the last five kilometers of the 42-kilometer race, when you cry out to the Lord and say, ah, my father, I need you. That's when you don't try harder, you turn over. Is this a time for you to stop trying harder, and to start turning over?
Maya Angelou encourages us. I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.