Keep Climbing to Stay on Top

Continue climbing, even though you have already reached the top of the mountain. I know, this sounds redundant. After all, you have already made it to the top. You are as far as you can go, right?

No! This is the difference between those who have a great game, a great season, from those who have a great career. The climbing never stops.

You see, if you climb to the top and stay there, assuming you have gone as far as you can go, then others are eventually going to reach you. Sure, you may have set a new standard for what it takes to be a champion, but eventually everyone else is going to match that standard.

For this reason, the climbing never stops! I should say, for a select few – those individuals who are on a relentless pursuit of being everything they are capable of being plus everything everyone else said they couldn't or wouldn't be – for them, the climbing never stops. There is always more to do to get better. Even if it appears like they have made it to the top or that they have nothing left to give, they will indefinitely continue to give more and more.

For the common person, I want to try to break down what this looks and feels like. The common person simply isn't used to this kind of "pushing themselves" to greater heights. When the common person reaches the point to where his mind says, "This is as far as I can go," the common person concedes to his mind, and thus he stops. It is at this point the common person says, "There is nothing more I can do. I have given as much as I can possibly give. I have nothing left. This is as far as I can go." But to the people who are at the top of _________ (insert any athletic or life endeavor here), those words do not exist in their vocabulary.

What do those "uncommon" people do instead? What is their mindset?

To answer that question, I will use the life of David Goggins as an example. David Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL who transformed his body and mind and became the ultimate endurance athlete in order to raise money for the families of several of his friends who had died in a helicopter crash. Take note of this point: when Goggins made this decision, he was overweight and out of shape.

The first thing he did was Google "the 10 hardest things to do to raise money." One of the challenges that popped into the list was this race called the Badwater 135, which is dubbed the "Worlds Toughest Foot Race." It is basically a 135-mile race in the middle of the desert in the middle of the summer in 100º+ temperatures, beginning at the lowest elevation in North America and finishing at the highest point of elevation in the United States.

Goggins called the organizer of the Badwater 135 and asked what he would need to do in order to qualify to be in the race. The answer: run a 100-mile ultramarathon race in less than 24 hours. The problem was that there were only two 100-mile races occurring before the Badwater 135 and one of those was just four days from the time he made this decision. Keep in mind that at this point in time, Goggins was 280 pounds, out of shape, and had never run a marathon, much less a 100-mile race!

His response was, "I'm going to do this." He trained for four days and then entered the race. It was a one-mile track and he needed to run around it 100 times within a 24-hour period, at 280 pounds. By mile 70, he had broken all of the small bones in his feet. He had liver failure and began to urinate blood. Everyone, of course, assumed that he would be dropping out of the race at this point. However, Goggins finished the next 30 miles. Peeing blood, with all the small bones broken in his feet, having never run a marathon before in his life. He finished the 100-mile race.

This alone sounds like a freakish phenomenon. Right?! But, just two weeks later he decided to push himself even more by running the other, second 100-mile ultramarathon. Of course, he had to run with his feet taped up due to the small bones still being fractured.

A couple months later Goggins was able to enter the Badwater 135. Now, get this. Having been out of shape and having never run an ultramarathon in his entire life, Goggins placed 5th in the world in the Badwater 135 – running 135 miles in 120º degree heat from Death Valley to Mount Whitney.

Three months after completing the Badwater 135, he completed the Ultraman World Championship Triathlon and finished 2nd. Before this race, he had never competed on a bicycle in his life nor did he even own a bike. He rented one for the race.

One year later, Goggins set a course record at the Gold Rush 48-Hour National Championships, beating the previous record by 20 miles. This is a challenge to run as many miles as you can run within a 48 hour time period. How many did Goggins run? 203.5 miles.

In this 48-hour race, by hour 23 Goggins had torn one of the quadricep muscles in his leg. He approached one of the directors of the race and asked, "If I stop now, can you just take my current mileage as the final number for all 48 hours?" The director replied, "I am sorry, we cannot do that, you have to finish the entire 48-hour race or else it will be a disqualification."

Goggins' response was, "Okay, Roger that!" He then taped up his leg and ran another 25 hours with a torn quad muscle.

This is not a super-human. It is just a person who has developed an UNSTOPPABLE mindset. He said that he tells himself constantly, "Whatever pain I am experiencing right now, there is someone else in this world at this exact same time who is going through pain that is much, much worse. Therefore I will push through it."

He pushed through things such as, once he was in a 150-mile race in very cold weather and contracted pneumonia at mile 90, but finished the last 60 miles of the race with pneumonia. The following year, he wanted to go back to that race because he was unhappy with his finish time, and that year he ran the exact same course in the exact same conditions, and he ran 150 miles in 33 hours, breaking the course record.

There are many more amazing feats in the list of David Goggins' accomplishments that I could mention, but you probably get the idea and the point. One last thing I will say about him is that he was born with a heart defect that had gone undetected until later in his life. Basically, there was a hole in his aorta, causing his heart to produce only 75% of the blood that a normal-functioning heart pumps through the human body. He had to have surgery to have this condition repaired, and was told he could not run for a period of time until this was repaired and healed.

So, since he couldn't run, Goggins logged back onto Google and found another way to raise money. He would attempt to beat the world record for the most pull-ups in a single day. Within 17 hours he did 4,025 pull-ups, breaking the world record.

You are probably thinking to yourself, this is just a freak of nature. This dude must just love pain. He is one of those weirdos who loves exercise. He marches to the beat of a different drummer. Nope! He is just like you and me. You would think that such a person would have an undying passion for exercise, and perhaps some kind of unusually high tolerance for pain. Wrong! Ironically, David Goggins has a hatred for running and also for cycling. His wife has said of him: "He hates running. He hates riding the bike. I'm here to tell you he's angry every morning he has to do it..." but, "He realized that in order to gain the attention to raise money, he was going to have to suffer."

You might have heard or read this before, as it is a pretty common saying among Navy SEALS. But I believe it is actually David Goggins who is famous for making this claim: "When you think you are done, you are only at 40% of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit we put on ourselves."

The 40% rule has become a concept that is used by Navy SEALS to increase mental toughness and a drive to continue on, even when your mind is telling you that your body can do no more.

I don't know if the 40% rule is a scientifically proven fact or not. However, I suspect that the 40% rule is the reason why even though most people hit a wall at mile 16 during a marathon, they are still able to finish the 26-mile race. They still have more left in them even though their mind has said, "That's enough, we're done."

Let me ask you a question. How do you respond to your own mind when it tells you, "That's it. That's as much as I can do."

This is something that is true for all of us. When you think you are done, you are only 40% done. We all have this portion of our brains that, when we begin to feel pain or fatigue, it wants to turn off. That is because the role of our brain is to keep us alive and to keep us safe. So, when we start to feel pain, our brain says, "That's it, we're done. Let's call it a day."

The 40% rule says that when you have hit that point (in whatever it is you are doing), you are only at about 40% of what you are truly capable of doing. How often do we actually push ourselves beyond that point? Think about it, that is only 40% of what you can do. Imagine what you will accomplish once you get past that point; then you will really begin to see what you are made of!

Come back to the question we asked at the beginning. What do those uncommon people do differently than everyone else? Those people who seem to accomplish more than others? Those people who are clearly at the top of the mountain?

They live their lives beyond the 40%. They are always pushing through. They always go a little extra. Bottom line, they DEMAND more from themselves. They stop listening to themselves, especially when their mind is saying, "Stop!" They push through, demanding more from themselves because they know they have more to give, even though it doesn't feel like it.

Think about this principle in relationship to our teams. Why are some teams good one year but down the next, while other teams seem to have success year after year after year. They are not just a winning team, they are a winning program. What is the difference? The 40% rule.

Every team lifts weights. Lifting weights and off-season conditioning is no longer something that is done by only those who have extra resources. Every team lifts now. Every team trains in the off-season. Every team conditions. Every team practices and prepares. It's not that you simply DO those things. It is about what STANDARDS by which you are doing those things.

Coaches, push your teams beyond the 40%. If they truly want to be the best they can be, you will find out really quick, and each player will probably have a hard and sobering decision to make when they come to the realization that their team is going to be demanding greatness from now on. No more cutting corners. No more excuses and taking the easy way. Demand greatness!

Friend, you too can do more. You CAN do better. Don't listen to your mind when it begins to make excuses for why you can do no more than you are doing right now. Push through. Live above the 40%.

Demand greatness! Keep climbing to stay on top.