How To Succeed Like Kobe Bryant (Even If You're Getting A Bit Old To Play Basketball)

(originally published September 22, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

Kobe Bryant is one of my son’s heroes. Not surprising, since my son eats, sleeps and breathes basketball. My son first became enthralled with the sport as a little boy when we lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, the birthplace of basketball. We made the pilgrimage countless times to Springfield’s Basketball Hall of Fame to learn about the legends of the game. At first, I was the one explaining to him who was who – Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson. He figured out who Michael Jordan was on his own.

Now the tables are turned. My son is a teen, playing for an elite youth team sponsored by Jerusalem’s professional basketball team. He knows every player, past and present, who ever dribbled a ball for the NBA, along with all of their statistics. He knows most of the players in the Euroleague too.

My son has his heroes, the players who stand out in a sea of formidable talent, the role models who never stop trying to improve their game long after they’ve reached the top. Kobe Bryant is one of them.

Kobe Bryant has become my hero too. As a 50-year old amateur runner trying to rack up five marathons this year, Kobe has taught me that age can sometimes be an advantage.

The scene is the 2012 Olympic Games held in London. The U.S.A. Olympic team included the best of the best of the NBA. Of all the superstars on the team that year, Kobe Bryant, at the ripe old age of 33, was the most senior. He had a full decade on many of his teammates, who had taken to calling him “OG” – Original Gangster.

As related by his personal trainer, Tim Grover, a reporter asked Kobe whether he thought he could learn anything from his younger teammates.

Kobe’s got to the point right away: “No.”

The reporter pressed, “You know everything?”

“I don’t know if I know it all,” Kobe responded, “but I know more than they do.”

The younger players had a level of quickness and energy that an older player would find hard to match. But Kobe had years of experience working meticulously on every detail of his game. Kobe had tested every play in real time in hundreds of games and thousands of scenarios. That’s something no younger player could ever bring to the table.

Or, as Tim Grover bluntly put it, "A veteran player knows that his maturity and experience and seasoned instinct are priceless compared to that of a kid with fresh legs and a ten-cent head."

Youth, of course, can have its advantages. But Kobe Bryant was on to something when he flatly asserted that youth had nothing to teach him. As true as this may be of professional sports, where the agility of youth truly can make the difference between winning and losing, it is that much more true of our more sedentary daily pursuits.

Ironically, we live in a culture that increasingly worships youth at a time when the less young are able to age more gracefully, and perform far better for more years than ever before. All of the "sixty is the new fifty," "fifty is the new forty" and "ninety is the new eighty" is true. A generation or two ago, many doctors would have urged a 50-year old like me trying to run five marathons in a year to forget it – surely, there would too many medical risks.  Yet, not only am I not unique – I have found plenty of people well beyond fifty for whom running marathons is a routine matter.

I have nothing against youth – I even tried it once when I was younger. Rather, I think we are missing something as a society by looking too longingly at youth and failing to appreciate the gifts that only older people have to bring to the table.

In some fields, like high-tech, forty is over the hill and even thirty might be pushing it for some new start-ups.  I have several friends who have been laid off in their fifties. With no one willing to hire them at that age, some have used their considerable experience to launch thriving businesses and become successful consultants. The consultants are often sought out for their wisdom by companies who would never hire someone that age for their own staff.

Paradoxically, as age discrimination becomes more rampant, we have a larger and larger cadre of older workers who have a lot of value to offer and still have plenty of energy to burn. I have come across articles claiming that age and experience don't matter. Typically, they compare a smart, energetic young person who can learn a new job quickly with a lethargic, burned-out, older employee who hasn't learned one new thing on the job in the past twenty years. Of course, it's a false comparison – there's no shortage of young people who don't care about their jobs, and it's not hard to find older people who are still enthusiastic, learning and growing.

A true comparison would be between an enthusiastic young person and an enthusiastic older person. That's the Kobe Bryant scenario, where the younger person has much to learn from the older person's experience. So why the articles? Conveniently, most of them just happen to be written by young people with little experience to offer.

With youth comes speed. No matter what I eat or how much I work on my form, I don't run as fast as I did twenty-five years ago. But I run better. I run smarter. I run with more insight, greater awareness and fewer injuries. That's why I could run a 5K in less time at twenty-five, but at fifty, I can run five marathons. I've lost a bit of speed, but I've gained a lot of perspective.

We all have gifts to offer the world. Like Kobe Bryant, if approached with the right mindset, the gifts we offer can become greater with the passage of time. Virtuosity can come with youth. Greatness takes more time.

As Tim Grover, Kobe's trainer, says, "The greats never stop learning."

_________________________

I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!

50 Ways To Count Your Blessings

(originally published September 13, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. People from many backgrounds read my blog - Jews, Christians, atheists, agnostics, runners, swimmers and couch potatoes. Since being Jewish is central to my life, but not to the lives of many of my readers, I wondered whether to acknowledge Rosh Hashanah in my blog post this week, or simply write as I usually do about running, goal setting, and moving beyond our limits.

I opted to do both. What follows relates to Rosh Hashanah, but can apply universally to anyone from any walk of life.

Rosh Hashanah is, among other things, a time for deep introspection - who we are, what we’ve done, where we’ve succeeded and where we’ve come up short, what we must change in our lives and how we wish to move forward. The process contains a hint of the quality of secular New Year resolutions people make on January 1 (and usually break by January 31). But it goes much deeper. Although one can certainly resolve at Rosh Hashanah to go on a diet, drop ten pounds, and the like, Rosh Hashanah is much more about transforming oneself from the inside and looking at the big picture than it is about any particular short-term goals.

Rosh Hashanah serves as a kind of reset button - whatever lurks in the past, it is time to start over and embrace the life we are supposed to be living. Rosh Hashanah is not just the start of the New Year, but a celebration of the creation of the world - it is a time when Jews acknowledge God as the Creator of all and re-create their own lives in consonance with all of creation.

Before you can move forward, however, it is critical to acknowledge what you already have. When you are grateful for what has already appeared in your life, it is far easier to accomplish new things, develop new character traits and move beyond whatever is still lacking.

Many people, when they acknowledge something good in their lives, will say “I am lucky to have X.” In Judaism (and several other religions), one says, instead, “I am blessed to have X.” There is a world of difference between the two. To be lucky implies that things just happen. You were in the right place at the right time, nothing more. To be blessed, however, means that you were given something. You have something for which to be grateful.

Judaism even has a tradition of saying at least 100 blessings a day - the goal is to be constantly aware of the blessings we receive. In that spirit, and in the spirit of beginning life anew on Rosh Hashanah, I offer 50 people, things and experiences that have been a blessing in my life.

Why 50? That should be obvious - this whole blog is about celebrating life upon turning 50. So here are my 50 blessings - not in any particular order, certainly not meant to be an all-inclusive list, and definitely not all of equal importance:

1.    My Health. All of us take our health for granted, at least some of the time. We don’t appreciate being healthy until we’re sick. I am blessed with good health, which enables me to do all the things I do, and of course, to run five marathons this year.

2.    My Father. My father passed away in May, following a long illness. As I discussed in a previous blogpost, he had so many wonderful qualities that have helped shape who I am and the life decisions I make to this day. I miss his presence. But I feel blessed to have had such a loving relationship with him and to have had his example to guide me.

3.    My Mother. I am blessed to have a wonderful mother who also has set a great example for me throughout my life and continues to do so. I am blessed by our frequent phone conversations and regular visits.

4.    Living in Israel. Jews have yearned for almost 2,000 years to return to the land of Israel, and to live freely there in control of their own destiny. For many centuries, living in Israel was a dream for so many Jews that could not be fulfilled. I am blessed to be able to live in the modern and thriving state of Israel, to walk in the same places that Abraham, King David and many others walked, and to build a life here for myself and my family.

5.    Growing Up in the United States. As grateful as I am to live in Israel, I am also grateful to have grown up in the United States - a country with nearly boundless opportunity, a leader among nations, a country of nearly limitless diversity and beauty - and the best ice cream to be found anywhere.

6.    Coffee. Perhaps not on the same level as the previous five, but nonetheless, coffee is a blessing. There is nothing like the aroma and taste of a good strong cup of coffee first thing in the morning.

7.    Good Wine. Wine tends to be a blessing toward the day’s end. But it is still a blessing - especially so because drinking a glass of wine has health benefits.

8.    Chocolate. Unlike coffee or wine, chocolate has no time restrictions. It is a blessing any time of day. For all you chocolate lovers out there, this one needs no explanation.

9.    Beethoven Symphonies (and all other great music). As William F. Buckley, Jr. once remarked, “Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.”

10.  My Wife. Do I need to explain why my wife is a blessing? Should you need an explanation, I wrote about it here.

11.  My Son. One of the very greatest blessings in life is children. I have been blessed to watch my son grow up, to watch his passion for basketball flourish, to watch him mature into a wonderful human being, and best of all, to still have a great relationship with him even though he’s a teenager.

12.  My Daughter. Ditto for everything I said about my son - except that my daughter doesn’t play basketball and she’s not quite a teen. I am blessed to watch her develop into a wonderful young lady.

13.  Watching a Sunrise. Words cannot describe the transcendent beauty of a sunrise, the colors that leave one breathless, the feeling of hope that a new day has dawned, the feeling that all (or at least something) is right with the world. And for those who have experienced a sunrise, no words are needed.

14.  Watching a Sunset. Ditto - just going the other direction.

15.  My Home. I am blessed to live in a beautiful house on a secluded street - a path actually, with no cars. I enjoy eating in our beautiful kitchen, playing piano in our beautiful living room, and sitting outside drinking coffee (please see blessing number 6) surrounded by beautiful plants and trees. There is nowhere else I would rather call home.

16.  My Brother. Not everyone has siblings. My father didn’t. My wife’s father didn’t. I am blessed to have a brother, to have shared a childhood together, to speak on the phone and get together in adulthood, to always know he is there.

17.  My Relatives. As the saying goes, you can choose your friends but not your relatives. I have relatives I would choose anyway. From New York to Virginia to Florida to Texas to Illinois to North Dakota to Connecticut, there are people I am blessed to call family.

18.  My Friends. Yes, you can choose your friends, and I seem to have chosen well. I’ve always been the type to have a few close friends rather than many superficial ones. Quality is always better than quantity.

19.  My Neighbors. I really do think I live on the best block in the world. There are just over twenty families on my block - representing nearly a dozen countries, a full range of professions, and unlimited smiles and acts of caring.

20.  Traveling in Europe. I have experienced London, Paris, Budapest, Prague and Geneva. All beautiful, all historical, all wonderful. Not everyone gets to travel. Emerson may have thought that travel is a fool’s paradise - but it is a paradise, nonetheless.

21.  My Feet. Yes, you read that correctly. We rely on so many things that we never give a moment’s thought, until we can’t use them. Feet are one of them. Because of my feet I can run marathons, hike in the woods and walk with my children. Running these marathons for the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled, I’ve seen people who don’t have feet or legs. They accomplish amazing things anyway, but that just makes me appreciate my feet that much more.

22.  My Eyes. Eyes are another one of those little things we take for granted. With our eyes, we see great art, sunsets, our loved ones. We use our eyes to read, to build, to take in everything around us.

23.  Being a Musician. I started piano and clarinet when I was twelve, and I never stopped. I played clarinet professionally for several years. Although I no longer play professionally, being a musician is as much a part of me as breathing.

24.  My Music Teachers. I have been blessed to have had music teachers who not only taught me how to play an instrument, and how to understand music deeply, but also served as role models for life. I would not be who I am today without them. When you examine the experiences of people whose lives are on an upward trajectory, almost inevitably a caring teacher is in there somewhere.

25.  New England Music Camp. Tucked away on the shores of a shimmering lake in central Maine is a place that can only be described as magical. I was blessed to spend three summers of my youth there. Those summers helped shaped me and I often go back in my mind to that camp and that lake.

26.  My Grandfather’s Watch. When my father passed away in May, I received my grandfather’s pocket watch. My grandfather received it as a boy, back in 1913. The watch still works. My father would wind it dutifully, as a way of keeping the connection to his father. Now it is my turn to wind the watch and continue the chain.

27.  Time to Myself. Everyone needs moments of calm, moments they can call their own. I treasure every one of those moments as a blessing. Sometimes, those moments simply keep me sane. Sometimes they allow me to reflect on what is ultimately important. Sometimes they relax and refresh and enable me to enter the world anew.

28.  Reading. Through reading, I can learn new subjects, gain fresh perspectives, travel new worlds. What could be better than that?

29.  Writing. Writing has made it possible for me to publish my life story, to tell the stories of others, to inspire, persuade and inform. I am grateful for that ability and that opportunity.

30.  Springfield, Massachusetts. Springfield is the home of Dr. Seuss and the birthplace of basketball. It was also where I lived for four very pivotal years almost a decade ago. Not every place can be called a community. I was blessed to live in Springfield at a time that made it possible for my family to move in new directions and become who we are today.

31.  Jerusalem. While Springfield may have been a stopover, Jerusalem is forever. There is no city on earth like Jerusalem - no city with Jerusalem’s rich past or hope for the future. I am blessed to live just seven miles from this spiritual center of the world and to walk its streets often.

32.  New York City. If I had to pick a city beyond Jerusalem that I couldn’t live without, it would be the Big Apple. I was blessed to grow up just a short bus trip away from New York, to study music there in high school, and to have visited its parks, museums shops and neighborhoods more times than I can count. There is only one New York.

33.  Airplanes. Yes, even airplanes are a blessing. Airplanes have made it possible for me not only to travel, but to visit my family frequently even though I live half a world away.

34.  The Beach. Like sunrises and sunsets (numbers 13 and 14), you have to experience this one yourself to truly understand. The calm of the waves, the sweet salt smell of the air, the rhythm of the tides, the grittiness of the sand, the warmth of the sun. There’s a reason that beachfront property is so expensive.

35.  Efrat. I am blessed to live in a town where, like the Cheers song, “everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.” There is more caring per square inch in Efrat than any other place I have ever experienced. And the weather’s pretty good too.

36.  Childhood Memories. Some things we don’t appreciate until later on when we’ve gained some perspective. Only as an adult did I recognize all the fantastic childhood experiences I had - experiences that are now part of me for a lifetime.

37.  Pets. A cat sitting in your lap. A dog snuggling beside you. Unlike many people, pets love you unconditionally. And we all can use a bit of unconditional love from time to time.

38.  Living in These Times. For most of recorded history, people were shackled by the circumstances into which they were born. Only in modern times can we choose our profession, where we live, our goals, our destiny. Only in modern times can we traverse the globe, access virtually any information and use technology that can help us accomplish virtually any of our ambitions. Today, what we take for granted, kings and queens of previous centuries could not have even dreamed.

39.  The Internet. A subset of living in these times, but important enough that it is a blessing unto itself. With the internet we can write blogs, read the news from literally anywhere, learn virtually any new skill or subject, listen to historic performances, communicate with loved ones anywhere on the planet, start a business, and numerous other things I’m sure I’m forgetting (and yes, we can also use the internet to waste time posting what we had for breakfast on Facebook - but the choice is always ours).

40.  Food on the Table. Another one of those blessings we tend to take for granted. I have never had a time in my life where I have lacked for food. Often, I have had too much of it. I’m keenly aware that, sadly, that is not the reality for many others on our planet. The more with which we are blessed, the greater is our responsibility to help others gain those same blessings.

41.  Smiling. Smiling has to be the greatest invention known to mankind. When things aren’t going the way I want, I always have it in my power to smile. Recent studies have shown that our external body language actually impacts our internal state - both mentally and physiologically. Smiling can even lower your heart rate following a stressful event. What a blessing to be able to go from “down and out” to “on top of the world” just by moving your mouth muscles.

42.  Laughter. If you’re still not feeling great after smiling, laughter will almost always get you there. Some studies show that laughter can help you relax, boost your immune system, release endorphins and even protect your heart. In his famous book, Anatomy of an Illness, Norman Cousins relates how he conquered a serious and supposedly irreversible disease in part by training himself to laugh.

43.  Breathing. Of all the things we take for granted, breathing tops the list. Yet, while we can exist without water, food and even Ben and Jerry’s for extended periods, the same cannot be said of breathing. Every breath we take, literally, is a precious gift of life.

44.  Being Jewish. Many equate being Jewish with anti-Semitism, bagels, or B-level Catskills comedians. I see being Jewish as a great blessing - one that gives me access to one of the oldest and deepest spiritual traditions on the planet, one that gives me a sense of purpose and a sense of destiny.

45.  Great Views. Our world contains infinite beauty. Some - like the Rockies, Norwegian Fjords, or Caribbean beaches - are obvious. Much of it is less so. But beauty is there around every corner - if we just know where and how to look.

46.  GU. Runners of any reasonable distance know exactly what this is. For everyone else, GU is an energy gel designed to give a boost to athletes when they need it most. GU is not only easy to digest, but comes in wonderful flavors like Caramel Machiatto, Espresso and Chocolate Peanut Butter. GU might not seem like a blessing to you - but trust me, around mile 22 of a marathon - it’s a big blessing.

47.  Shabbat. Along with smiles and laughter (numbers 41 and 42), Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) has to be the greatest invention known to man. And unquestionably a fantastic blessing. One day a week to unplug, to be unchained from technology, to ponder the deeper reasons why we are here, to connect with family, to have a special space we can call our very own.

48.  Crisp Fall Days. The brilliant colors of the autumn leaves. The sweet smell in the air. The crisp feel that is not quite summer and not quite winter. A blessing I wish could linger on much longer.

49.  The Ability to Strive. What makes us uniquely human is that we can imagine a tomorrow that is better than today, and we can choose to make that tomorrow a reality. We are blessed by our ability to choose, to grow, to strive, to progress, to build our tomorrows from the ground up.

50.  People Who Care. No matter where you go, and often when you least expect it, there are people who care - people who will go the extra mile for you without expecting anything in return, people who will ask how you’re doing and genuinely mean it, people who will drop everything just to help. This is, perhaps, the greatest blessing of all.

_________________________

I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!

The Big Secret to Getting It Done (Whatever "It" Is)

(originally published August 6, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

I woke up before 5:00 this morning. I am not at all a morning person. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I’d like to be a morning person. But I hate mornings. I’ve tried all kinds of strategies to get out of bed and avoid that snooze button. I’ve put my alarm clock clear across the room so I would have no choice but to get out of bed to turn it off. I’ve set two alarms. I’ve tried stretching immediately upon awakening. Breathing exercises.  Mind games like telling myself I only have to stay awake for 5 minutes and can then go back to bed if I want (I usually do).

I wish I could to say I’ve figured it out. At best, I’ve had mixed success. Most mornings, that snooze button is too tempting to resist. I aspire to be a morning person. But I’m not.

Yet there I was, out of the house and starting a two-hour run long before the sun had thought about making an appearance. And wondering how I pulled it off.

I think I know how I pulled it off. I had no choice.

My neck of the woods saw an extreme heat wave this week, making day time running unsafe and unwise. I usually run at night, when temperatures have begun to taper. But this week, the heat was so intense that even a night run would have been grueling.

If I wanted to continue my marathon training schedule, my only option was to get up very early and try to beat the sun. But I’m not a morning person. It’s hard enough to get out of bed when that alarm goes off. To attempt getting out of bed with the thought that I will soon be running up and down hills is a setup for failure.

But I got up just the same. I have no doubt I would have been more comfortable lying in bed for another hour. But then I wouldn’t be doing what I need to do to get in shape for these marathons.

I managed to do this once before, toward the beginning of the week, creating a sense of hope that I could pull off this early morning routine for as long as the heat wave would last. Only two more runs this week, I told myself. But then the next day, that snooze button worked its magic. And the day after that.

This morning, I found myself staring, not only the snooze button, but prospect of a week gone by without doing what I must to get in shape for Marathon number 3.

So I got up. I ran. I lived to tell about it. And now, I only need roll out of bed before the sun once more this week.

I’d like to write something flowery about how less than ideal situations can create new opportunities. Because I had to run in the early morning, I got the chance to experience the calm stillness of my town before it awoke. I got to see a beautiful sunrise over the mountains. I got to start my day knowing I had already finished my run.

I did enjoy the quiet and the sunrise and feeling of accomplishment at the beginning of the day. Still, I would much rather have enjoyed a little more sleep than get up at a crazy hour. What I did learn was, I think, much more valuable.

I did it because I had to, because I had no choice if I was going to accomplish the goal I have set for myself. All of us can accomplish exponentially more if we think we have no choice.

When you have a 7 a.m. flight, you just get up in the middle of the night, at a time you would never consider otherwise, so that you can get to the airport on time. If you don’t, you’ll miss your flight. More dramatically, we’ve all heard the stories of the slender woman who manages to lift a car off the ground to save her baby trapped underneath. She has no choice. If she wants to save her baby, she lifts the car. She doesn’t stop, as she would in any other circumstance, to consider whether it might be too heavy.

We don’t need a crisis, however – or even an early morning flight – to go beyond what we perceive to be our limits and accomplish things we otherwise would not do. A friend of mine has just started work on a second book. The book will require hundreds of hours of research, poring through archival materials in a foreign language, and then another few hundred hours of writing. That is in addition to the work required to get an agent and publisher and promote the book. He has a full-time job, a family, and a robust side business. How will he pull this off? I don’t know how, but I know that he will. Because he did it with his first book. As he said to me, “When you have the bug to do it . . . .”

Most of us don’t live this way. We think we have time. There’s always tomorrow. But what if we decided that we simply must find a way to achieve those dreams we’ve always had?  If we felt we had no choice, we’d find a way. We’d get up early. We’d do the work when we’re tired. We’d cut something else out of our schedule. We’d get creative.

As the famed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein once said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time."

When we stop to consider it, we really don’t have a choice, and we don’t really have enough time. We have one life. We can accomplish what we want with it – or not. If we want to achieve our dreams in this lifetime – then we have no choice and limited time. And we’ll find a way to get it done.

Living a life based on achieving our dreams is much more inspiring than retreating to the comfort of the moment. I’m going to try it. I might just get rid of that snooze button once and for all.

 _________________________

I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!

Three Reasons You Could Achieve So Much More (No Matter How Much You're Doing Already)

(originally published July 9, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

Running five marathons in a year has become my metaphor – my symbol of going beyond myself, beyond my perceived limitations, beyond the obstacles I had previously thought were insurmountable.

As I train for Marathon number 3 (which will likely be in Athens in November), the metaphor of the marathon is beginning to spill over to other areas of my life. (Although, to be candid, after around mile 20 of a 26.2 mile marathon, the notion of “metaphor” fades away as every muscle in your body tells you in no uncertain terms that this is not symbolic, but very real – and a little painful). When I ran Marathon number 1 in Jerusalem back in March, I wondered if I was a bit crazy to think that I could actually run not one, but five marathons – not during my lifetime, but in the course of one year.

I may be a little crazy – but not to think I could run five marathons in a year. Now that I have two under my belt, run within seven weeks of each other, the idea of running five no longer seems at all daunting. As someone who for years wouldn’t dare run more than three miles, then worked up to a 10K, then, with some trepidation, a half-marathon, and then a marathon, and finally, multiple marathons – it’s starting to hit home how many things I could likely do that I never thought possible. 

Not just running. Everything. Learning a language. Becoming financially independent. Traveling the world. Writing a few more books. Even getting up early – and even getting through that perennial pile of papers on my side of the bed/

It’s all possible.

And this, dear reader, applies to you, too. Whatever you’re doing, you’re capable of more. We all have goals that we preface with “I wish I could . . .” “I’d like to . . .” and “If only . . .” Those goals are (with few exceptions) all possible, as long as you find a way to remove the obstacles that begin with “I could never . . .” “I can’t . . .” and “It’s too hard for me to . . .” Often, the internal blocks are more formidable than the external reality.

How do I know this? As I’ve trained for these marathons, I’ve not only experienced it personally. I’ve also discovered numerous people who have achieved the seemingly impossible.

So here are three reasons – three living examples – why you can accomplish more than you think:

YOU CAN RUN AS FAR AS YOU WANT

You want to get in shape - but it seems too hard. You say you're too old for this. Or you've been sitting on the couch eating potato chips for so long that it's difficult to change now. You might think twice after watching Fauja Singh.

Fauja was born in India in 1911. A birth defect prevented him from walking until he was five. In his late 80s, distraught following the death of his wife and one son, and in his own words feeling "more dead than alive," he took up running. In his 89th (!) year, Fauja ran his first marathon. Ten years later, he was still running, becoming the first 100-year old marathoner by completing the Toronto Marathon. And that wasn't his last race. When he finally stopped running at age 102, Fauja said:

"I have retired because given my age, my body has deteriorated a bit, but retirement hasn't slowed me down. I lead a very active and healthy life. I walk for three to four hours a day, play with kids and do all my day-to-day chores myself. I might have continued to run for another year but I realized I had to eventually retire one day."

This is coming from someone who began life with a birth defect that prevented him from walking. So, the next time you feel like you don't have the energy to exercise, think about how many years Fauja Singh has on you.

YOU CAN LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU WANT

Maybe your goals aren't athletic. You'd like to go back to school or learn a new skill. But it's just not possible - family, time constraints, and the older you are, the harder it is to learn something new.

Tell that to Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport. Earlier this year, at age 102, she received her Doctorate from Hamburg's UKE University Medical Center. She was supposed to have sat for her final examination for her Doctorate nearly 80 years ago, but was barred from doing so by the Nazis.

Dr. Syllm-Rapoport is a neonatologist, and wrote her thesis on diphtheria in 1938. Of course, medical science has experienced a few advances since then. To help her fill in the gaps, friends Googled the developments in diphtheria of the past eight decades.

Following her exam in May, the Dean of the medical school described Rapoport as "simply brilliant. We were impressed by her intellectual alertness and speechless over her expert knowledge, even in the area of modern medicine."

Now, what was that you were saying about how you'd like to learn something new but it's just too hard?

YOU CAN BECOME WHATEVER YOU WANT

Perhaps whatever your goal, you don't think you have the experience or the knowledge. You don't have the connections or the finances. You don't know what you're doing and you can't imagine how you could see your way to success.

It's time to imagine differently.

Just look at Kathy Delaney-Smith. Growing up in a working class Boston neighborhood, she rose to become one of the most celebrated coaches in women's college basketball. Only - when she started coaching, she knew zero about basketball.

When Delaney-Smith applied to coach the women's swim team at a Massachusetts high school, they hired her with the stipulation that she would also coach basketball. Starting with no knowledge, she read every book and attended every clinic she could. And she rigorously applied what is known as the "act as if" philosophy - with herself and her players. Over the next decade, she coached her team to 204 wins and a state championship prompting a call from Harvard.

Famous for its academics, Harvard is hardly an athletic powerhouse. Yet, Delaney-Smith plowed on with her "act as if" method, prompting Harvard's women's basketball team to go from a 4-21 record when she arrived to "acting as if" they could win the NCAA tournament in the first round from number 1 seated Stanford (and actually winning it).

Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Delaney-Smith applied the same "act as if" philosophy to her disease, never missing a practice no matter how she felt, and ultimately making a full recovery.

Now, what was that goal you said you were sure you could never accomplish?



Not everyone wants to run a marathon when they are 100 (or at all), or go back to school in their later years. Not everyone wants to become a top basketball coach. But every one of us has goals and dreams that often seem too big for us. Every one of us has a vision of greatness hidden away somewhere.

If you don't think you can, look at Fauja Singh, or Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport, or Kathy Delaney-Smith. Or the literally hundreds of other equally inspiring examples I've come across over the past few months. Or the amazing people at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled (whom I will feature in an upcoming post).

Robert Kennedy, echoing George Bernard Shaw, once said, "Some men see things as they are and say, why. I see things that never were, and say, why not?"

Whatever you think you can do, you can do much more.

_________________________

I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!

How Not to Run a Marathon

(originally published June 15, 2015. My original blog, on Wordpress, was hacked in early 2016. All of the original posts, through January 2016, have been re-posted here on Blogger.)

St. Petersburg promises to be an amazing marathon. I won’t be going.

I had planned to go. I had planned that I would run my third marathon of five in this picturesque “Venice of the North.” I had anticipated strolling through the stunning Hermitage Museum and Peter the Great’s Summer Palace. I envisioned staying up to experience the “white nights,” that narrow window around the end of June when the sun never sets on this far northern city.

But I won’t be doing any of that. June 28^th will come and go, and 4,000 runners will make their way through 26.2 miles of St. Petersburg streets – without me.

Sometimes, to quote the over-quoted John Lennon, life happens while we are busy making other plans. My plan had been to run the St. Petersburg Marathon. Life happened differently. Sometimes, life is like that.

St. Petersburg - where I won't be running a marathon

When I first decided to run five marathons this year as I turn 50, I did two things. First, I questioned my sanity. Determining that I was no less sane than before I set this crazy goal, I proceeded to step number two, which was to research the marathons that are out there, and decide which ones I might want to run.

It turns out there are a zillion marathons out there. Marathon running has increased exponentially in popularity, and every city of any size – and even some of no particular size – hosts a marathon. I developed a few criteria for picking my marathons:

• They must be either an easy drive or an easy and inexpensive flight from my home in Israel. This means running Israeli and European marathons (there may be one American exception to this – more in a future post).

• They must not be on the Jewish Sabbath. Since Shabbat is a day of rest for me, this means finding marathons on days others than Saturday. Fortunately, there are many non-Saturday marathons – mostly on Sundays.

• Each marathon should be in a place I actually want to visit. So the Manchester, England marathon is out (nothing against Manchester, although the one time I was there, all of those bleak scenes from Charles Dickens novels came to mind). The marathon in Siberia is out. The marathon in northern Finland is out. 

The marathons should ideally be evenly spaced throughout the year. This has turned out to be a challenge – at least in Europe. Most European marathons, due to weather considerations, are held either in the fall or the spring. Very few take place in the summer (except, for example, the one in northern Finland). This has necessitated grouping my marathons together in the fall and spring, creating a greater challenge for myself to run multiple marathons within a short time frame.

Until now, my plan has gone according to plan. I ran marathon number one in Jerusalem in mid-March. Marathon number two was in Geneva in early May. And then I planned to run St. Petersburg less than two months later.

I hesitated, however, to register for the St. Petersburg Marathon. According to Kayak, Expedia, Travelocity and a host of other sites, this was not the inexpensive flight I had expected. Probably because the ‘white nights” are peak tourist season, the price was almost double the usual rate. But the people at Kayak (or rather, the algorithms at Kayak) assured me that there was a 70% chance of the cost going down if I waited.

Meanwhile, although the St. Petersburg Marathon registration would close after 4,000 runners signed up, by this point only about 400 had registered. So, waiting to see whether the seers at Kayak were correct seemed the prudent course to take.

That was in mid-May. Then, on May 21, after a long illness, my Dad passed away (see previous post). His death hit me hard. I traveled to the U.S. for the funeral, and was out of commission for over a week.

Toward the end of May, I checked in again. The prices had not come down, and now Kayak was backtracking, claiming trends were too erratic to predict which way the prices would go. But far worse, over at the St. Petersburg Marathon web site, three words flashed ominously from the home page:

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

I gazed at the screen, wondering just how 3,600 runners could have signed up in a bit over a week for a marathon that was still a month away.  It all seemed a bit unbelievable, so much so that for the next few days, I would check back to see if there had been some mistake and they had re-opened the registration. No matter how often I visited the site, however, the words

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

would stubbornly appear. Meanwhile, over at Kayak, the price had gone way up and they were urging me to buy a ticket immediately before it went even higher.

I guess the Hermitage will have to wait. But I still need to run marathon number three. So I researched what other marathon I might run in the late spring. All that came up for Europe were a few marathons that either were on Saturday, or were in middle-of-nowhere places I was less than enthusiastic about visiting and wasn’t even sure how I would get there if I wanted to (northern Finland, for example).

This leaves me no option but to run marathon number three in the fall. I’m not yet sure which one – but several look like fun (a word I use sparingly when referring to a marathon).

That hadn’t been my plan. But sometimes, we have no choice but to change our plans. Sometimes, whatever our goal, the path is blocked, and we need to find another race to run. The key is to stay focused on our ultimate destination, no matter which route we must take to get there.

I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. Not running the St. Petersburg Marathon has its advantages. While I won’t see the Hermitage, I’ll get to see great sights in another nice city – still to be determined. I had decided I would run five marathons within a year. Had I run St. Petersburg, I would have run the first three marathons in three months. While I believe in thinking big, there’s no reason to overdo it. By not running a marathon now, I can devote my mental energy to reflecting on my Dad, as I wish to do, rather than reflecting on making travel arrangements and beating my last marathon time.

Missing one marathon is pretty trivial in the scheme of things. For many people, far bigger plans of far greater consequence have been derailed. When I think of the people at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled, for whom I’m raising funds as I run these marathons, I realize every one of them has had to find a different race to run. Whether missing a limb or confined to a wheelchair or some other physical disability, each of them has had to confront a “Registration is Closed” sign barring their path to physical wholeness. Every one of them has had to take a sharp detour they didn’t ask for and didn’t expect.

What is truly amazing is how many of them have found a different race and made it their own, traversing it with a persistence, dignity and drive that most people without physical limitations would be hard pressed to match.

Surely they offer inspiration for the rest of us the next time our own path is blocked.

_________________________

I am running these five marathons for the amazing children and adults at the Israel Sport Center for the Disabled. We have set a goal of $5,000. Every donation of any amount makes a difference. Click here if you want to help us get to the finish line!