I was literally dripping sweat from my arms, legs, fingers and nose. My shirt was saturated and felt like it weighed 50 pounds. Every step hurt. There was a voice in my head that was screaming at me to stop, just walk a few steps, just catch my breath for a minute.

Approaching the Finish Line

I was about 7 miles into a 13.1 mile, half marathon race.  It was hotter this year than last year, and I was moving significantly slower.  I had heard people talk about ‘hitting the wall’, but it wasn’t something I had ever experienced.

I always trained long and hard, and had kept a precise routine and diet so that race day was a fun challenge.  I had trained so that on race day I could smile and enjoy pushing my body a little harder.  I had trained so that when I began to hear the voice I could respond by saying ‘This is what I trained for.  I suffered on those training runs so that slowing down wouldn’t be a threat today’.

But yesterday I had no answer.  I hadn’t kept my diet or my routine like I usually do, and the unusually warm winter has made it difficult to train.  And I knew it.  I knew I hadn’t put in the same work, the same preparation, and now I was paying for it.  My lungs were burning, and my mind was going blank.

At one point I was running on the solid white line on the right side of the road.  The crowd had broken apart and I could see the line for maybe a quarter mile.  Everything else went out of focus and all I could see was my feet, pounding that line.  It was surreal.  I could feel myself fading out of myself and slipping into the line.  With every drop of sweat, I was becoming the road.  Then there was a water stop and I regained some consciousness.

At mile 8 I saw my girlfriend holding a sign and yelling, and I sprung back to life.  This particular race goes over two bridges.  One is at 6 miles in and the other about 11.5.  That second one is a bear.  Last year I lost feeling in my fingers climbing it because my heart was working so hard to get blood to my legs.  But last year I set my personal record for this distance, and today I was nearly 20 minutes off that pace.  I had forgotten my watch, so I didn’t know my time, but I knew I was running slow.

I knew because a kid about 6 or 7 years old had passed me a while back and I never saw him again.  He wasn’t alone.  A very nice man named Jack from New Jersey ran with me for a little while and we egged each other on, encouraging one another not to stop.  He looked to be about 65 and this was his 40th race at this distance.  He eventually left me behind as well, along with the University of Florida women’s lacross team, and a woman who was going to turn 50 the next day.

Hopefully you’re getting the picture that it wasn’t my proudest day.  But I pushed through.  I came down the second bridge and into downtown Melbourne, around the last couple of turns and there it was.  I’d gotten up at 5 that morning, run 13 miles, and could finally see what I was running for.  There was the banner for the finish line.

From some deep place I found a little something and sped up, a little at first, and after a hundred yards or so I was sprinting.  I could see the clock and it wasn’t pretty, but I made it.  They called out my name as I came across the line, someone handed me a bottle of water, and someone else put a finisher’s medal around my neck.  Jack was nowhere to be found.

My heart was at about hummingbird speed from sprinting and I was dehydrated and tired, but I had done what I set out to do that morning: I beat my worst time ever at this distance, and I finished the race.

I did pass people who were even slower than I was, people who were walking, people who had given up.  I learn something every time I run a long race, and yesterday I lived out something I tell people every day:

Don’t Stop

There comes a day in every business owner’s mind (and for some of us that day comes again and again) when we start to question ourselves.  The voice says ‘you’re wasting your time’, ‘you aren’t cut out for this’, ‘you’re not as good as your competition’, and ‘you should cut your losses and go get a real job’.  And for some people, in some situations, that last one is the voice of wisdom.  But I submit to you that for most of you, that voice is a conditioned, learned voice.  It’s the voice of socially acceptable reason.

Reason dictates that an intelligent person doesn’t get up at 5 in the morning and pay $100 to go run 13.1 miles ‘for fun’.  But thousands of people do it every weekend, all year, all over the world.  They do it to learn something about themselves, prove something to themselves, raise money for a cause, or support someone they love.

Why do you own your own business?  Why did you choose this business?  Where is the finish line for you?

That last one is often a very difficult one to answer.  If you’re like me, you started your own business for one simple reason.  Freedom.  Financial freedom, freedom to travel, to have a family, to make your own schedule, to be your own boss.  Freedom.  But many small business owners find themselves enslaved to their business instead of freed by it.  One HUGE contributor to this is the lack of a defined finish line, and a defined route to that finish line.

Think about it.  2000 people line up in a street downtown.  A gun goes off and they all start running in the same direction.  But the course isn’t marked or monitored.  There is no police escort.  No orange cones.  They all know the basic route, but different people turn in different places.  Some run 9 miles and some run 15.  Only 50% of them even make it back to the finish line.  Of those, none ran exactly 13.1 miles.

This is chaos.  I’ve seen it in cycling events…in fact once I added 10 miles to a 100 mile ride because the course wasn’t marked and I went 5 miles down a dead end road.

That’s just not the way to do things.  They spend hours marking the course, measuring the distance for accuracy.  Police are hired, cones are places, signs are out to warn drivers of changes in traffic patterns.  It takes hundreds of volunteers and staff to organize an event like this…and it’s just running…not rocket science.

You wouldn’t just go run and say, ‘I’m going to run until I can’t run any more’.  Would you?

But that’s what many small business owners do.  They start a company without a plan.  Without a finish line or any way to get there.

So you’re sitting there, reading this bizarre article by some guy who apparently likes to torture himself and then wax nostalgic to the world about it, and you see the parallel…now what?

Now answer this question:  Where is the finish line for your business?  What is it, exactly that you want to achieve through this company?  Do you want to build something you can sell one day?  Do you want to create a recurring income that sets you free to use your time as you please?  Do you want to build a retirement for yourself and an inheritance for your children?

If so, then what is that number?

We can talk specifics later about implementation of these plans, and with your finish line in mind, a course can be mapped out, but that piece is critical.  I want to know what your finish line is, so let me know in a comment below!!

When you cross the finish line, the pain and sweat that got you there don’t seem as significant as they did an hour ago.  No one can ever take that away from you.

Written by Steve Lewis

Think of this as the map my run for your business.

• 1 hour of personal consultation with both Mark and Steve via telephone or Skype if you prefer.
• We’ll analyze your business with you, discuss your life goals, and help you to define a finish line for your company.
• Within 24 hours we’ll come back to you with an executable plan of action that will break through the wall and get you moving towards the finish line you didn’t know was there.
• Special Price of $120

This offer is for a limited time, so act now if you’re interested.

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