I've come to believe that physical endurance is one of the most empowering activities a person can choose, regardless of whether you finish first, last, or not at all.
That belief didn't come from winning anything. It came from getting my ass kicked—repeatedly—in environments that didn't care about my intentions, my confidence, or how well things had gone before.
Endurance has a way of stripping away performance theater. There's no audience once things get hard. No shortcuts once fatigue sets in. No negotiating with the terrain, the weather, or your own physiology. What's left is a very simple question: Can you keep going, and can you think clearly while you do?
That question turns out to be deeply transferable to life, work, and leadership.
Planning Matters More Than You Think — Until It Doesn't
Every serious endurance event starts with a plan. Nutrition. Pacing. Gear. Weather windows. Contingencies. You don't show up to something hard without having thought through how you hope it will unfold.
And when the plan is good, it pays off.
You feel it early—your heart rate stays under control, your energy doesn't spike and crash, and you move efficiently while others burn matches they'll need later. Good planning buys you margin. It gives you optionality when conditions change.
But endurance is ruthless about exposing bad planning.
Bad pacing creates cascading failures. Poor nutrition decisions don't just cause discomfort—they cause mental fog, poor judgment, and emotional volatility. Gear mistakes that feel minor at the start can become major liabilities hours later. Small errors compound, and once you're deep enough in, they're expensive to fix.
The discomfort that follows bad planning isn't theoretical. It's physical. It's immediate. And it doesn't care what you thought at the start line.
That feedback loop is brutal—but it's honest.
The Plan Only Gets You to the First Wall
Here's the part endurance teaches that most people miss: even the best plan only gets you so far.
At some point—sometimes early, sometimes deep into the event—conditions change. Weather shifts. Your body reacts differently than expected. Someone else's mistake affects your race. Something hurts that didn't hurt in training. A river is rougher than forecast. The climb is longer than it looked on paper.
This is where empowerment actually begins.
Because once the plan breaks, you're no longer executing—you're thinking.
You start making decisions in real time. You collect data: heart rate, breathing, energy levels, terrain, time gaps. You reassess assumptions. You adjust pace, nutrition, strategy. You decide when to push and when to protect yourself.
Endurance doesn't reward blind grit. It rewards adaptive intelligence.
You learn that resilience isn't just about suffering—it's about responding well to suffering. About staying curious instead of panicked. About solving the next problem rather than catastrophizing the whole distance still ahead.
That mindset changes how you approach everything else in life.
Finishing First Is Optional. Finishing Changed Is Not.
One of the most powerful aspects of endurance is how it reframes comparison.
Out there, it becomes very clear that finishing first and finishing last are often separated by circumstances, not character. Weather. Experience. Timing. Resources. One small variable can radically alter outcomes.
What is consistent is the internal journey.
Everyone who finishes something genuinely hard has faced the same moments: doubt, bargaining, frustration, self-criticism, and eventually clarity. You learn where you cut corners mentally. You learn what stress does to your decision-making. You learn how you talk to yourself when no one else is listening.
That self-knowledge is the real reward.
You don't come back empowered because you beat someone else. You come back empowered because you now trust yourself more in uncertainty. You've seen what happens when things go wrong—and you've seen that you can still function.
The Things That Kicked My Ass (and Taught Me the Most)
There are a handful of experiences that made these lessons unavoidable for me.
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Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon, USA (2024)
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Yukon River Quest, 715 km, Canada (2022)
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Bryce Canyon Ultras, 50 mile, USA (2021)
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Antelope Canyon Ultras, 50 mile, USA (2020)
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Zion Ultras, 100 km, USA (2019)
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Saranac Ultra 6er, USA (2018)
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Mont Blanc, 15,771 ft, France (2016)
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Mount Kilimanjaro, 19,340 ft, Tanzania (2016)
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Annapurna Trail, Nepal (2014)
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Mount Kinabalu, 13,435 ft, Borneo (2013)
None of these were about proving toughness. They were about learning how to operate when comfort disappears.
Why This Transfers to Everything Else
Endurance has shaped how I think about work, leadership, and life more than any book or framework.
It taught me that:
- Planning is essential—but never sufficient.
- Discomfort is information, not failure.
- Data matters most when emotions are loud.
- Agility beats stubbornness.
- Finishing well often means changing the plan, not clinging to it.
Most importantly, it taught me that empowerment doesn't come from control. It comes from competence under uncertainty.
You don't walk away from endurance events feeling invincible. You walk away feeling capable. And that's far more useful.
Because life, like endurance, rarely unfolds according to plan. What matters is whether you can keep moving forward—thinking clearly, adapting intelligently, and trusting yourself when the route inevitably changes.
And that, to me, is the real power of endurance.