This semester has been absolutely draining, and I truly do appreciate your patience here.
Years ago, when I started running, I thought I was going to die the first day, having only managed a half-mile, if that. Then a mile became possible, and in a few months, 5 miles was doable. What I found was what was exhausting early in my career became much more manageable as I journeyed on. Fortunately, life has those surprises.
Thank you for the words, they do mean a lot. I'm optimistic that things will gather pace.
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To Richard on 2/28/24:
Now, one truth about running faster, and I think I may have used this story about myself when I first was learning how to jog. This is going back 30 years, and when I ran the first quarter mile around the community where I lived, I thought I was going to die. I was out of breath, I was sweating, my feet hurt. And then a week later, I was doing a half mile, and then two weeks later, I was doing a mile, and then I was doing 5 miles, and then in a month and a half, I think I was doing 10 miles.
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To Leo on 8/19/24:
Well, I always say to people, if you feel overwhelmed in the first couple of weeks, that's actually good news, because it means that in three or four months you won't be bored.
I've told this story a number of times, that at one point I was a regular jogger, and I remember when I first decided that I was going to go out and start to run, and I just ran in my neighborhood less than a half of a mile, and I thought I was going to die.
I was out of breath and sweating and it was just awful. And then flash forward about six weeks or so, and I was running 5 miles. And so the advice I give to leaders and managers is that it's okay to expect a lot of people. You may need to back off a little, but then you can actually press even stronger, because as people build strength and are able to be productive, they're able to be more productive. So easing up on pressure doesn't have to be a permanent thing, it can be a rather temporary thing. So for managers, that's a relief.
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And so one of the things I realized is that sometimes if you need to give people more rest, that's a temporary thing, because they can run further the next time. And so when pushing people, you may have to ease up in the beginning, but as they're gaining more strength as a team and gaining more strength as a contributor, you can push harder the next time. The amount that you can push your team or encourage your team to run faster is not constant. It evolves.
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