MARATHON MINDSET OFF THE TRACK

I hear marathon mindset and the number 332 pops up.

Three hours and thirty-two minutes, the longest 3:32 I can remember.

Soooo long it felt never ending, but it all worked out after twenty-six miles.

If things don’t work out, then it’s not the end, which is often a problem.

Overall I think impatience rules the world we live in.

For example my wife made breakfast the other morning with one of the grandkids after an overnighter.

There were aprons and bowls and flour and eggs with the little mixer in the middle of it all.

No pop-tarts this time.

When we sat down with our plates of blueberry pancakes I asked, “Can you say give me a fork and knife?”

After a little practice we recorded a video of a little kid saying what sounds like, “Give me a fucking knife,” and sent it to the parents.

Back in the day the whole thing would have taken a month to shoot film, develop it, and send it in the mail.

You needed a film projector too.

Now it’s all done in a minute with pushing a button and sending a text.

Millennials know the speed factor.

We were just talking about dial-up modems, middle school, and downloading on Napster and I realized they might be the last generation to understand the marathon mindset.

Things take however long it takes. The trick is to avoid trying to speed things up and make it even longer.

 

Timing

Maybe you feel like life has passed you by, forgotten? Do you?

Good, so we can agree that it’s a normal feeling.

Baby boomers have been passed by, passed over, and passed around enough to know it’s not a permanent feeling.

Passed by for not putting money into a new companies named microsoft and nike, only to have it happen over and over with every phase of life.

Look, there goes Facebook, but bitcoin is still hot.

Sure you missed out on the big hitters, but they weren’t sure things starting out and who had money for anything but living life?

Feel like a loser yet? Keep going.

The best way to claw your way out of a loser-hole is by trusting yourself.

You never hit a home run but still like baseball.

Never scored a touchdown but still like football.

Can barely hit the rim from the three point line, but you still like basketball.

Swing the bat, spike the ball, step back and stay in the game. Here’s how:

First you get some education on the game, enough to understand the strategy and goals of whatever game it may be, then what?

Ease on in. You don’t have to make a big splash, superstar. Test the waters.

 

Marathon Mindset, Not Death March

Success can come early, late, or not at all.

It all depends on what success means to you.

You want to be the richest man in the world?

Hob-nobbing with the famous and infamous is your dream?

Where would you start. If you’re going to be rich you need something to sell, either a product or service.

Or your time.

Hang around famous folks long enough and you might learn more than you want, lose respect, and then you’re stuck with them sucking the life out of everyone and everything.

Why not focus instead on where you are and who you spend time with instead of those crazy celebrity dreams that creep into your head with every edition of Access Hollywood.

For me it’s a chance to get on the floor and play with grandkids and work my special magic where I bore them senseless.

We do repetitive things with legos and drawing and puzzles until they look for a change, then we do that.

They’re too young to know the feeling, but the older one has a new word in ‘annoy.’

I help them with the correct usage.

After a few laps around the house, they stopped and picked up a huge book I left out for them, Janson’s Art History.

I sat down and held it while she paged through black and white images and color plates.

It lasted half an hour, which is about twenty-eight minutes longer than I expected.

We shared a marathon mindset that I’m happy to continue.

How do I do that? By finding interesting things to see and do while they’re still a receptive audience.

 

Me: I have a great idea.