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Warren Pole: Ultra Running and Work

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Scott & Don

Our favorite Brit, UTMB finisher, good friend of the Mayor of Chamonix, and journalist extraordinaire: Warren Pole joins us to discuss how ultra running can teach us to be better in our professional careers. . . or can it? Warren drops Aristotle-like philosophy on the Nation Membership.

Closing Song:  “Feel Good Inc.” by Gorillaz

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1 comment
  • Excellent podcast. While listening to this, I was reminded of a story in Eric Grieten’s book The Heart and The Fist, in which he talked about the moment on the first day of Hell Week in Navy SEAL training that inspired the largest mass quitting of the program…standing and watching the sun set:

    “They quit, I believe, because they allowed their fear to overwhelm them. As the sun went down, and the thoughts of what was to come grew stronger and stronger, they focused on all of the pain that they thought they might have to endure and how difficult it might be. They were standing on the beach, perfectly at ease, reasonably warm, but they thought that they might be very cold and very pained and they thought that they might not be able to make it. Their fear built and built and built. The mind looked for a release, and the men who quit found their release in the bell.”

    In any aspect of your life, you can focus on the small pain of what’s immediately in front of you and get through it, or focus on the sum total of pain to come (e.g., how hard it is to eat an elephant) and become overwhelmed. I find that lesson repeated over and over, in book after book, in every field…for example, in writing, the story that inspired the title of Anne Lamott’s great book Bird by Bird. I found it neat that the lesson popped up here as well.

    Anyway, terrific discussion. I was hoping for something on his UTMB experience, but this was great, too!

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