Lane 8 – Page 22 – Disney Employee Engagement Speaker

So Then What Happened?

So the second week, I ran two mailboxes a day. Third week, three mailboxes a day.

Yes, many of you have heard this before. Which is one of the secrets to excellent results – repetition. Never get tired of doing the basic, common sense things.

Stories are critical to perpetuating past success and moving to even greater success. You already knew that right?

Eventually, the goals became impossible, but their pursuit was compelling.

What’s fascinating is how intense it was to rise to the level of representing the United States at the 2009 Master’s Track & Field World Championships, without anyone knowing.

Neighbors. Family. Work. Ten years. Ten years of dedicated, relentless effort.

Invisible to everyone around me. For a decade.

Now, neighbors know. And Family knows. Yet to this day, most where I work have no idea.

And so the question today is this, “What is your impossible goal and will you persue it without any fanfare or glory, but just for the sake that it’s a noble goal?”

Lane 8 Behind the Scenes

Hello everyone. Hope you had a healthy week. It’s challenging isn’t it?

Diet and exercise. Sounds so simple.

Then why are we an obese society? An unhealthy society? Why?

Can someone help explain why this is so, and even more compelling, why we as a society, just put our heads in the sand and pretend like it doesn’t exist? Why we pretend like it’ll go away if we ignore it long enough?

It’s a grand wish that our son (9) will get and stay healthy as a lifetime goal. With Inflammatory Bowel Disease, he’s 20 times more likely to develop colon cancer than the average person.

Last time I looked, colon cancer is bad news.

Lane 8 is a metaphor for life. For trying your best to do important things – like lead a healthy life.

And it started over a decade ago, with me running one mailbox a day for a week.

As my health improved, my desire to maintain it became harder to find.

Lane 8 Is The Worst

Lane 8 is where the slowest competitor is placed. In swimming. In running.

You never saw Michael Phelps (world’s fastest swimmer) in Lane 8. You never saw Usain Bolt (world’s fastest runner) in Lane 8.

And yet Lane 8 is my goal.

This week, like most of you, there was a serious struggle to find the right balance of physical activity and healthy nutrition. Diet and exercise.

Here’s one of my little secrets. Are you interested in it?

Dream Big. Get There. Stay There.

Come up with a mantra, a saying, that will keep you focused on one simple goal.

To not give up, no matter the set backs. Ever!

Lane 8 Food Pyramid

Anyone out there disagree that diet and exercise are a good way to control and maintain decent health?

Anyone not heard of the Food Pyramid?

Okay, so these things are well-known common knowledge, right?

What’s at the base, the foundation, of the the food pyramid?

Then explain to me please, why is it that people will pick apart a sandwich and eat the meat and discard the bread?

Not trying to make anyone feel bad, I’m seriously trying to understand this. It confusing and bewildering.

Do these people know something that the rest of the scientific nutritional world is clueless to?

Prefontaine 1972 Munich Olympics

Steve Prefontaine. The son of an Oregon logger man.

Too small for football. Too slow for track. Not a sprinter. Also not fast enough to be a great miler.

But, he could endure more pain than anyone else.

He set the the National High School two-mile record. Bill Bowerman, the University of Oregon head Track Coach, recruited “Pre” and the two of them forever changed American running.

Steve Prefontaine is the only athlete, ever, which Nike has immortalized with a bronze statue. Are ya with me? The only one.

This You Tube video is the final five minutes (of a 13-minute race) of the 1972 Munich Olympics 5,000 meter final. It’s breathtaking, and awe inspiring to watch a man run the best race of his life, and finish fourth.

America thought the best was still to come and the world knew that Steve Prefontaine would return in four years, with a vengence and determination to win the Olympic Gold medal and set a new World Record.

But a tragic, late night car crash changed all that.

Carpe diem.