Anything's Possible

Remember when you were 5? Remember how you believed that anything was possible? You thought that you could be and do anything. You may have even thought that you could fly. Then, somewhere along the way, you started to lose your faith in possibilities. Subconsciously or otherwise, you absorbed the negative messages around you that said, “You can’t”, “you won’t”, and “it’s not possible”.

We are all capable of more than we know, but when we lose that sense of possibility, and begin to believe the negative messages that we find in the world around us, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We believe we can’t so we can’t. Not only do we fail to reach our potential, we stop trying.

The good news is the self-fulfilling prophecy can work in the positive direction too. Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can’t, you’re right.” If you can get to a place where you honestly believe that ANYTHING is POSSIBLE, then for you, anything will be.

We all have times in our lives when it can be difficult to believe that anything is possible. Life can be discouraging sometimes, and there are times when it feels more like NOTHING is possible. When I go through those times I find it helpful to remember the story of Roger Banister.

For those of you unfamiliar with his name, Roger Banister was the first man to run the mile in under four minutes. He ran faster over that distance than anyone ever had before. Obviously he was a very gifted and talented athlete, but that’s not what makes Banister special. Bannister’s greatest achievement wasn’t his record-breaking time; it was his ability to believe that anything is possible. Roger Banister broke the 4:00 minute mile mark in 1954. For nearly a decade the world record held at 4:01.4. Hundreds of athletes had tried and failed to break the magic barrier.

The time gained such lore that some medical professionals even declared it physically impossible for any human to run it any faster. Then in four magic minutes, Bannister redefined what was possible. But that’s not the end of the story. In fact, the great lesson for all of us can be found in what happened in the months after Bannister broke the record. While the previous record of 4:01.4 stood for nine years without a single person breaking the mark, in the ten years after Bannister broke 4 minutes, the record was broken FIVE times and the previously elusive four-minute mark, was broken several more times than that! John Landy, beat the record by a full second just one month later!

So what was so special about Landy, Derek Ibbotson, Herb Elliott and Peter Snell who all broke the four minute mark after Bannister? What did they have that the athletes who came before them didn’t? They had Roger Bannister to follow.

Those runners knew they could reach their goal. They didn’t need to have the vision that Bannister had because when Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, he made the impossible possible! What’s the lesson for you and I who, most likely, are never going to break running records? If we want to become all that we can be in our lives, we have to be like Roger Bannister. We have to believe that anything is possible.

When I decided that I was going to run a marathon, it was only seven days after my transplant. I was forty pounds underweight, had five chest-tubes jutting from my sides, had more than thirty staples holding together an incision that spanned the width of my chest, and I hadn’t run more than a few feet in several years.

If I’d told my doctors that day that I was going to run a marathon one day, they would have laughed. They may have even said that it was impossible. But I knew that it was possible. I knew that I could do it. It took more than two years and a lot of hard work and training, but I did it.

Whatever your goals are and whatever you want to accomplish whether it’s learning to water ski or to be the first person to walk on Mars, if you’re going to succeed, you must first believe that it’s possible. Once you clear that mental hurdle, anything is possible.

The 100 Year Old Marathon Runner

The Guinness Book of World Records has a few birthers, apparently.

Officials at the record-recognizing body say Fauja Singh, who completed the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon in just over eight hours earlier this month, cannot be credited as the first centenarian of all time to complete a 26.2-mile race.

Singh has a British passport that says he was born April 1, 1911, plus a letter from the Queen congratulating him for turning 100. But he has no birth certificate. His trainer, Harmander Singh, says such documents were not even made in India when Singh was born.

"We would love to give him the record," Guinness Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday told the BBC. "We'd love to say this is a true Guinness World Record, but the problem is there is just no evidence.

"We can only accept official birth documents created in the year of the birth," added Glenday. "Anything else is really not very useful to us."

Singh did not start running marathons until he was 89, after he moved to England following the death of his wife and son. He says not smoking or drinking alcohol throughout his life, combined with a vegetarian diet and up to 10 miles of walking or running per day are the secrets to his health.

"He says no one is forcing him to do it. It's his desire to do it," coach and translator Harmander Singh told CNN. "He wanted to do one when he's 100 and today's the day."

Singh ran wearing his yellow turban and a matching T-shirt with the words " Sikhs in the City" emblazoned across the front. His time of 8:25.17 was more than six hours behind winner Kenneth Mungara of Kenya, who is 38.

The Association of Road Racing Statistician already had Singh as the oldest person to complete a marathon, for one he ran seven years ago. But the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Dimitrion Yordanidis, 98, who ran in Athens in 1976.

Singh recently set eight world records for his age group in one day at a special invitational meet in Toronto. He ran the 100 meters in 23.14, 200 meters in 52.23, the 400 meters in 2:13.48, the 800 meters in 5:32.18, the 1500 meters in 11:27.81, the mile in 11:53.45, the 3000 meters in 24:52.47 and the 5000 meters in 49:57.39.

"I have said it before: that I will carry on running, as it is keeping me alive," Singh told the marathon website.

The Measure of Success

As I have worked with people over the years I have seen an amazing thing. People often get frustrated because they aren't achieving "success." There are lots of possible reasons for this, but one reason I have found that sticks out is that many people allow their definition of "success" to be driven by someone or something else.

Instead, we ought to be looking at our own, skills, opportunities, life situations, etc., to determine what it would mean for us to be a success in our own mind rather than someone else's.

Thus, the key to "success" is all in the head -- our head! We develop our own thinking about what it will mean to become a success.

The frustration comes in when we look at what someone else thinks is a success and try to attain it, only to find it elusive.

For one person, being a success may mean to make $100,000 a year. For another it may be $250,000. Another may not be concerned with the yearly income but be more concerned with a net worth.

Still another may not be motivated by money and may consider himself a success by how many street kids he gets pointed in the right direction and into a productive life.

Now the temptation would be for the person working with street kids to think they aren't a "success" because they don't make much money. The temptation for the person making $100,000 may be to think they aren't a "success" until they make $250,000. And the temptation for the person making $250,000 may very well be to think they aren't a "success" because they aren't helping street kids! And 'round and 'round it goes when we are gauging ourselves by another's measure of success.

Set your own course, and stay on course. Don't measure yourself against any other standard of success. Do what you do best and the rest will take care of itself. Being a success is doing your best, not being the best. When we get to that point, we will experience a lot more joy and a lot less frustration.