Steve the Owl's Blog

As many of my faithful readers know, one of my big goals is running my first five-minute mile before my 35th birthday. So, for Spring Break, I sought some inspiration by reading about the effort for the first four-minute mile. Last year, I wrote about the first four-minute mile, but I learned a lot more about the effort after reading The Perfect Mile: Three Athletes, One Goal, and Less Than Four Minutes to Achieve It by Neal Bascomb.

Failure to Success

One of the things that was so interesting to me about the pursuit of the four-minute mile was that it largely resulted from disappointment at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. Roger Bannister of England was one of the favorites to win the 1500 meters (about 120 yards short of a mile), John Landy of Australia was the brash newcomer, and Wes Santee of the United States was a young runner from Kansas upset about being limited to only one event by the AAU, and that event was the 5000 meters, his weaker event. Santee and Landy didn’t even make it to the finals, and Roger Bannister, who was stunned to learn that the number of rounds for the 1500 meters increased from two to three. (In major events such as the Olympics and the World Championships, there is a set number of athletes allowed in the finals. Currently, the 1500 meters allows 12 runners in the finals, and there is a certain number who get automatic berths in the next round based on their position in each heat, with others getting wild-card spots.) Going into the final lap, he was as close as second, but he was exhausted from the extra round, and he finished fourth.

A Surprising Victor

The chase for the four-minute mile began in earnest in December 1952 when Landy ran a 4:02.1 mile in Australia. This was the fastest anyone had run the mile in ten years, and it was even more impressive because Australia largely ignored track, and even finding a standard four-lap-to-the-mile track was difficult. Most of the experts thought that his run was a fluke, but when he ran some other top runs in early 1953, people knew he was for real, and he was considered the man to break the four-minute mile. However, the one who got the job done was Roger Bannister.

Unlike Landy who was a front-runner, Bannister was a kicker, and he tended to run efforts with pacesetters to try to set the record. (His English record of 4:02 in 1953 was invalidated because he ran a transparent effort to a paced mile, where two runners ran 60-second laps to push him through the first three laps, while one ran 90-second laps to pace Bannister after falling a full lap behind, through the next half-lap.) However, he ultimately won because he knew that Landy had kept coming close, but just missing the record, he decided to go to Finland and make his go for the record there. Knowing that he didn’t have much time, Bannister decided to make his attempt. Here is the video of history in the making on May 6, 1954:

The Real Perfect Mile

What is so interesting to me about The Perfect Mile is that the real “perfect mile” was not the first mile under four minutes, but the first race between four-minute milers, and the only time every four-minute miler on the planet ever raced: the 1954 Empire Games, known at the time as “The Mile of the Century,” and now more commonly known in running circles as The Miracle Mile. This is because Bannister’s world record only lasted six weeks, and many considered Landy’s record far more impressive because he set his own pace and was not driven by a group solely dedicated to getting him the record. Both knew that, regardless of who had the world record or who broke four minutes first, the one who history would remember as the best would be the person who won this race.

On August 7th, the two runners lined up at the start. This was a classic race in many senses of the word because it was a study in contrasts: Landy was the gritty front-runner while Bannister was the kicker waiting for his moment. Races between a good front-runner and a good kicker are legendary because of the battle of wills. The front-runner’s only chance to win is to run from the front and wear out the kicker so much that he/she loses the kicker. The kicker’s only chance is to survive the blistering pace and be close enough to make that one big move. What would happen when these two great runners would face each other? It was truly a Miracle Mile:

What inspires you to success?

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Tomorrow is another day! Scarlett O’Hara, Gone with the Wind

Yesterday, I posted about the difference in expectations when one sees progress and what can happen when we see improvement, but not as much as we had hoped. I came to this realization after disappointment at seeing that my pace didn’t meet expectations, even though it was much faster than it was when I tried the same workout only a week earlier.

Back to the Grind

As has been part of my schedule for the last few weeks, I ran intervals (800 meter repeats at a little faster than 5K pace with a recovery in less than the time of the run) on Monday and repetitions (repeats at roughly mile pace with a shorter recovery) on Tuesday. So, after Monday’s disappointment, this meant that today was a huge test to see if the improvement was there to the extent that I thought was there, which would be a good confidence booster for the pursuit of a five-minute mile.

One of the things that worried me a little about this one was the fact that my speed just wasn’t there at the end of my workout yesterday. Because today was a faster pace (albeit for 400 and 200 meters at a time rather than 800 meters), this was a huge concern. My workout on these days involves 4X400 meters, 4X200 meters, a 200-meter slow jog recovery between each individual run except for the one after the last 400, which is a 400-meter slow jog recovery, and a one-mile slow job recover after the last run. I run the last at each distance where I want to be by the end of the season, and the others where I am now. That meant 400′s of 1:40 and 1:36, and 200′s of 49 and 47 seconds.

So, I went into the first run with some nervousness, but I simply reminded myself that this was only 25 seconds per 100 meters, and this wasn’t a big shift from what I’d done before. (I’d had 400 meter repeats under 1:38, so I knew I could do it at least once.) I kept to my plan, and the first one passed in 1:39.90, just under the goal time. I ran the second in 1:38.56 and the third in 1:39.62, meaning that I’d gone under the pace, but not by much. Then, it came time for the fourth one, with my pace going to 1:36. I knew that it would be close going into the last 100 meters, and much to my relief, I crossed the finish line in 1:35.61, for a combined time of 6:33.39 and, most importantly, a big boost going into the next step.

Then, it came time for the 200-meter repeats, which were a little bit faster, but still at almost the same pace. I more than pleasantly surprised myself running it in 46.88 seconds, a little bit faster than my goal for the last repeat. The next two weren’t quite as fast, but I still hit them in 47.41 and 47.68, respectively. I had one repeat left. I knew that I needed to run each 100 meters in 23.5 seconds or less. The first 100 meters was at about that point, but I didn’t know how much speed I had left as I ran for the end of the run. Finally, I saw the finish line directly under my foot, and I hit the stopwatch. I was tired, but when I looked down and saw that I did it in 45.67, I felt relieved that I had met all of my targets, and the exhilaration of finishing a goal when its outcome was in some doubt.

This reminds me of the need to always focus on each day at a time. Rather than focusing on each disappointment, remind yourself that each day is a new chance to turn things around. If you aren’t happy with where you are now, you can always turn things around.

What goals have you met recently that boosted your confidence?

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One of the most interesting ideas in Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker is the idea that one’s income and one’s assets are controlled by an internal thermostat: if you feel uncomfortable with either success or failure, you will automatically increase or decrease your efforts in order to meet your expectations, or you will go so far as squandering money if it is more than your internal wealth thermostat will allow.

I thought about this in a couple of other contexts, each of which are huge parts of my life: academics and running. I know that there have been times where people have had classes where they just look at their situation, and they say to themselves, “Just give me a D for done, and I’ll be outta here!” In addition to the motto “D for done,” another one that I’m familiar with is “2.0 to go.” However, what would happen if a straight-A student was getting a 2.0 for the semester at the mid-term? He/She would probably be a lot more determined to do better and would hit the books until, if not getting back to a 4.0, at least has a solid academic performance.

This was reinforced today when I ran my speed workout. For the last six weeks, I’ve been building up my speed in my workouts to prepare for a 5K road race and a one-mile track time trial in April. Most of those workouts had been an unmitigated success, often exceeding my goals for that particular workout by several seconds. Then, I had what felt like a breakthrough on Saturday. While running a tempo run (a run right at the point that is the dividing line between an aerobic and anaerobic effort, which is roughly ten-mile pace) for three miles followed by three miles of easy running on the track, I ran the first three miles in 23:09, a per-mile pace that was actually faster than I wanted to run next month, which told me that I was in much better shape than I had thought, and my first 6 mile run in less than one hour (57:11) in nearly six years. When I got home, I looked at my pacing, and it said that my VDOT (oxygen capacity) was a 43 based on my tempo pace. This translates into a 5K of 22:41 and a mile of 6:41. So, because I don’t have the endurance to run a 5K at the same effort that I run a mile, I decided to try to hit that 22:41 in two weeks, and build my VDOT to a 44 (6:32) or a 45 (6:25) for the mile run two weeks later.

Today was my interval day, and for my interval runs, I do 800-meter repeats with a 200-meter walk recovery in between. I always like to do the last run at my goal pace and all of the other ones at the pace I’m at now. This meant that I would do the first four in 3:32 or less and the last one in 3:24 or less for the last one. When I ran the first one, I felt like I had to push hard at the end, but I finished in 3:30.03. So far, so good. I ran the next two in 3:31.02 and 3:29.80, so it felt like this would be another run where I easily exceeded expectations. However, for the fourth interval, I just missed the target, running in 3:32.54. I was disappointed, but this was barely a half-second over my goal time, so I decided to try to walk a little slower to get ready for the last run. However, about 300 meters in, I tried to pick up my pace, and it just wasn’t there. I tried again in the last lap, but with all of that effort, the best I could do was a 3:28.58, a full 4 1/2 seconds slower than my goal time.

I’m not sure if this means that a 44 is more realistic than a 45 (I’ll probably know for sure when I do my last two workouts before my road race on the 9th.), or if I was just having an off day. However, I was very disappointed by my effort. Then, when I went to look at my times for the week before, I ran a total of 48.65 seconds faster than I ran the five intervals the week before, or 9.73 seconds per 800 meters, and while I finished above my goal times for the last two runs, the total for all five was still three-hundredths of a second faster than my cumulative goal for all five. This is because I had must higher expectations for today. Then again, if it weren’t for those higher expectations, I would be underperforming when it really counts next month.

When have you noticed that you were performing better than you were in the past and found yourself disappointed, and what did you do about it?

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The Crystallization of Desire into Action: The Sixth Step Toward Riches- Napoleon Hill

Welcome to my weekly series on Napoleon Hill’s personal development classic Think and Grow Rich. This week, we will be discussing the seventh chapter of the book, “Organized Planning.” In previous chapters, the book talks about our desires, and it has methodically built us up to use our imagination to see a vision to fruition. This week, we will learn about the efforts necessary to put a plan in order.

Find a Plan That Works

One of the most interesting lessons of this chapter is the idea that we should not completely wed ourselves to one plan. Each plan that we make is based on our accumulated knowledge. Therefore, it only makes sense that there are going to be times that the first plan is missing some key element, and that’s okay. It’s okay because there are times where knowing what doesn’t work is just as important as knowing what works. However, if you’ve never tried before, you won’t really know what doesn’t work.

For me, I am a critical juncture myself. I know that I’ve come to realize that investment might very well be my path to fortune, and that work and network marketing is what will give me the seed money to put my plan of investment into action this summer. However, my biggest question right now is with the world of network marketing. My original plan was to find a company and take it to the top. However, I found out about a contest at Temple University that gives seed money to people with the best business plan, and I’ve been kicking around an idea for a new company for a while. So, I decided to give that contest my best effort, and I’ve even put some things in order for the plan should I win the contest.

I think that this is an example of looking for not letting yourself get down if you aren’t the millionaire your upline told you you can be by now. Maybe a company isn’t right for you. Maybe it is, but you haven’t developed the marketing skills that you need. This is what I think is so great about the world of electronic media today: you can write your plan and keep it for records, but you don’t have to start all over again if you want to change your plan.

I am not talking about seeking every opportunity that comes along, because if you do that, you’ll never be at something long enough to get good at it. However, you must take an honest look at your plan and decide what is working for you, and what you need to change. You can only do that if you have a plan. The only way to truly understand if that plan is working is to have a group of likeminded individuals who can give you an honest assessment. (This is another chapter of the book, but it is foreshadowed here.)

What is your process to making your plan and determining if and when it should be amended?

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As some of you may know from previous posts, I make an effort to keep regular work coming in because I see my business not as an opportunity to stop working, but to have the ability to work doing whatever I want. With that in mind, I thought I’d give you an update about something that happened today.

A False Start

A few weeks ago, I was offered a job working for a group to fight poverty. Unfortunately, the campaign ended the week before I was supposed to start, so I would have to wait until a new campaign started, but no later than May. Then, a couple of days later, I got another e-mail, so I thought that they’d found a new campaign so I could get started after all, but they accidentally put the wrong date on the e-mail, and my job would start in May after all.

I Don’t Wanna Wait

So, after waiting for a while, I decided to see if there were any jobs available that I could do until this other job started in May. Yesterday, I went looking for jobs based on The Other 8 Hours suggestion to find a job where you are working a dead shift so you can work on other things (such as night shifts at a hotel or low-traffic shifts at a fitness center). Then, today, on my way home from class, I saw that Temple was having a job fair for people looking for part-time or summer jobs. When I got there, I found the company that hired me for work in May. Then, when I talked to the woman there who runs the office, she told me that they have another campaign (this one for environmental causes) starting next month, and a longer-term one after that.

This reinforced to me the idea that we must make an effort in life. After all, it is easy to just sit back and wait for things to happen, but if I would’ve done that, I would miss out on the opportunity to do something that I enjoy and get paid to do it a month sooner. I’ve seen some advice that talks about trying to let things happen, but I think that there are times where it is much better to go out and work to make things happen instead.

How has your initiative been rewarded?

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I don’t know how much you pay attention to the Internet trends, but one of the biggest sensations, for better or for worse, online right now is “Friday,” a song performed by 13-year-old Rebecca Black written and produced by Ark Music Factory, a company devoted to finding the next teen star a la Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus. As of the time I type this, it has received over 39.5 million views on YouTube (when my wife watched it last night, it was at 35 million, so it may very well hit 50 million by the end of the week or 100 million within a month), but it became famous when Comedy Central’s Daniel Tosh posted an article critical of the simplistic song lyrics. So, as I think about this song that I probably won’t be able to get out of my head for a while, I have been thinking about what this teaches us about Internet etiquette and about poise under fire.

Where Do We Draw the Line?

Probably the most shocking thing about this whole thing is the fact that there were people who told a 13-year-old girl that she should kill herself or get an eating disorder to look pretty. Regardless of how you feel about the song, I think that it is safe to say that no one should say that kind of stuff to another human being, especially a 13-year-old girl. Looking at the Daniel Tosh article, I think that he handled things in a much better way. If you’ve ever seen his show Tosh.0, you will know that his humor often falls in the NSFW and “Did he just say what I think he did?” category, but I think that he showed some restraint in his blog post. He called his post, “Songwriting Isn’t for Everyone,” which very clearly puts the onus of the criticism on the people who wrote the song and auto-tuned her voice into something completely unrecognizable. To me, this says a lot: there is a lot to criticize about the song, but Tosh does not get personal here. His criticism is focused on the lyrics.

Also, I think that the fact that Tosh is not anonymous tells us something else about hiding online: he knew where to draw the line, because people knew exactly who he was. Sometimes, I think that the anonymity of the Internet leads people to say things that they would never say in polite conversation. So, I think that one of the rules of online conversation (especially when the subject is a child) should be to only say things that you would say if people knew who was saying it. Also, can we draw a distinction between being critical of someone’s art and being critical of someone else, and think about it even more when the subject of criticism is underage?

Poise Under Fire

With this in mind, I think that something that is inspiring about this story is the response of Rebecca Black herself. I saw an interview that she did for Good Morning America where she talked about her experience. She was excited about the fact that millions of people have watched her video, even though there were a lot of people who didn’t like it, and she admitted to being hurt by some of the more extreme comments. She kept everything in perspective and acknowledged her singing abilities by simply saying,

I have talent on some level. I know I’m not the best singer in the world, but I’m not the worst, either.

I think that this is something that is good for people to remember. Chances are, no matter what you do you, there will always be someone better and there will always be someone worse. To me, this is comforting, because it says that you can just do your best, and when you do that, and work to get better, you can accomplish great things, even if it doesn’t involve 40 million people watching your video. Here is the segment where she talks about her experience and the response from viewers:

What are rules that you try to keep when thinking about Internet etiquette?

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“That’s why we do books and cassettes and videos. You never know which one will get through to someone.”- Jim Rohn

Recently, I’ve been listening to a Jim Rohn CD set while driving and running errands around town. The above quote comes from this set of CD’s, and there is a part of me that finds it an interesting statement on technology that he talks about cassette tapes rather than CD’s (The recording was made in 1992 when the phrase “book on tape” rather than “book on disk” or the more technology-neutral “audiobook” was in vogue.), I still think about his larger point about using different media to get the message across.

Different Media Involve Different Responses

I remember the famous statement that those who watched the 1960 Presidential debate on TV thought that Kennedy was the winner while those who listened to it on the radio thought that Nixon was the winner. While there is now some doubt over whether or not this is true, I’ve also heard that the majority of Americans in the early 1990′s who got their news primarily from TV supported the Gulf War, while a majority of those who got their news primarily from print sources opposed it.

Then, I started to think about a couple of books that I have where I also have the audio version of the book: The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson (abridged audio) and The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale. Each of these books are valuable in each medium. However, I think that it is interesting the way these books read considering their medium. The Slight Edge was originally meant to be a book, and the audio was an abridged version done as an afterthought using a professional reader. The Strangest Secret was originally an oral work. Earl Nightingale gave a weekly pep talk to reps at an insurance company, and one week, someone asked what he would do about the speech when he decided that he wanted to go on vacation, so he made a record and gave it to the people in his office so that it could be played in his absence. Eventually, word spread about the record and it was distributed to a wider audience, becoming a book much later.

The Slight Edge has a lot of charts and graphs, and The Strangest Secret has blurbs, but not a lot in the way of evidence of something that was conceived as a book at its creation. (There are some examples where the book tends to use more concise language than the recording, but I think that this is an example of responding to the medium.)

That being said, each of these works is great. Why does each one work in such a different way? I think that they work because they understood the importance of medium for their message. Jeff Olson uses a more visual approach, while Earl Nightingale relies on a sonorous baritone delivery. They also work because some people are more visual learners, while others are auditory, and still others are hands-on, and that’s okay. Each medium works in a different way, and this is why it is important to develop a multimedia approach.

The Discipline to Expand

I have made several efforts to expand my video presence, but all told, I have done four videos for my blog, and one video welcoming people to my YouTube page. This is because my learning style is far more visual and text-oriented than it is auditory. Then again, I know that not everyone learns that way. For this reason, I want to work to expand my video output. Whether it is weekly or biweekly, I haven’t decided yet, but I do know that the medium is the message, and I encourage you to think about why you have your preferences for getting your message out.

Which media do you prefer to get your message out, and why?

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Hi, everyone. I wanted to write you tonight because I am excited to let you know that I am appearing on another guest post. This time, I’m appearing on my friend Karen Marrow’s blog reviewing the book Happy for No Reason by Marci Shimoff.

Do you remember the “Debbie Downer” sketch on Saturday Night Live? In this sketch, a woman named Debbie (portrayed by Rachel Dratch) would respond to any conversation, no matter how upbeat, with something that would take the air out of the room. Have you ever known people on the other end of the emotion spectrum? People who, in the words of the theme to The Mary Tyler Moore Show “can turn the world on with [their] smile?/ Who could take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile”?

In his book The Power of Attitude, Mac Anderson talks about the importance of attitude in creating the life you want. In his book, one example of this in action is going to a newsstand and talking to someone who is so happy that she made him feel excited about getting the paper. Another day, he saw someone who seemed irritated to have to deal with a customer, and didn’t even look up when handing him his change.

I’ve seen this in action myself when I go to class. Temple University has security guards posted in front of the elevators in each of the academic buildings. When I have afternoon classes, the people who are there when I normally go to class seem in a hurry to check everyone’s ID, but on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the security guard is nice, always has a smile on her face, and seems like she’s glad to see everyone who comes through the doors. Which one do you think I look forward to seeing when I go to class?

Here is a short video that tells you about The Power of Attitude and how you can put it to work in your life:

The Power of Attitude

(NOTE: please assume that the author of the post has an affiliate relationship with all third-party product links on this blog.)

The Workshop of the Mind: The Fifth Step Toward Riches- Napoleon Hill

Welcome back to my continuing series on Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich. In this part of the series, we will be focusing on the chapter dealing with imagination. The previous chapters of Think and Grow Rich laid the foundation for seeking success and what will make it possible. Once you have the foundation in place, then you can develop your imagination to put these parts together and figure out exactly how to work toward success.

The Power of an Idea

Frank Gunsaulus, a young minister, one day had the question of what he would do if he had a million dollars. Suddenly, the idea came to him that he would start a college to train young people. However, more then than now, a million dollars is a sum that is out of the reach of most people. The next morning, he thought about  what he would do with a million dollars, and feeling that he was called to let people know his vision, this was the topic of his sermon. The next day, he heard from one of his parishioners, Philip Armour, who did have that kind of money and gave him the seed money for the college. Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology) was born.

Looking for Your Imagination

Perhaps you have thought about some ideas but you haven’t been able to put them together for one reason or another. If this is the case, perhaps your imagination will get the fire going that will ultimately connect the parts of your idea and make the glue that will turn them into a fully-formed idea that can get you to your dreams.

In what ways have you used your imagination to meet your goals?

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