The Ultra Mindset
An Endurance Champion's 8 Core Principles for Success in Business, Sports, and Life
Travis Macy is best known as the record-setting champion of Leadman—“a sort of six-week Grand Prix of Ultra Endurance” that consists of a jaw-dropping number of challenges. This book is a fun look at the eight principles that make up the Ultra Mindset Travis uses to do extraordinary things. Big Ideas we explore include: Your new mantra, what to do when you don’t feel like it, thinking about thinking, making the choice to give up choice, and never quitting… except when you should quit (w/a great litmus test for when you should/shouldn’t quit).
Big Ideas
- Your New Mantra: “It’s All Good Mental Training”It’s all good mental training.
- You’ve Run 60 Miles. 40 More to Go. Feel Like It?!60 miles in. 40 to go.
- Thinking About Our ThinkingThe what’s and why’s.
- Make The Choice to Give Up ChoiceTo give up choice.
- Where’s Your Next Aid Station?Where’s your next one? Get there.
- Never Quit ... Except When You Should QuitExcept when you should quit.
“That’s the purpose of this book: to help you achieve your goals—whether they are in racing or in life—by sharing with you a few of the principles that have held me in good stead as I’ve logged my ultra miles through forests, deserts, and jungles. Are you looking to complete your first marathon or century bike ride? Are you trying to qualify for Boston? Are you training for your first triathlon, or ultra, or charity 5k walk? Maybe you’re trying to summon the courage to launch a new business, or enter a new career? Perhaps you just want to become a better parent, spouse, friend … person.
This book is about the Leadville Race Series and mountain biking in China and running across Utah and kayaking in Sweden and a whole lot more, because my experiences in these venues show that people really can accomplish whatever they commit to. I hope you’ll find my racing stories interesting, and maybe even entertaining. But primarily, they are vehicles to deliver tangible, actionable principles that are relevant to you and your endeavors. Principles that have steeled me, supported me, and guided me through some very long and arduous miles, in very faraway places and difficult circumstances.
Principles that I call the Ultra Mindset.”
~ Travis Macy from The Ultra Mindset
After reading Dean Karnazes’s great book The Road to Sparta, I was in an ultra mood. So, I picked this book off the ol’ book shelf and jumped in.
As it turns out, Dean actually wrote the forward to this book. (Get a copy here.) In his mid 50’s, Dean is now among the older ultra vanguards. In his early 30’s, Travis is among the younger crowd.
In addition to a ton of other jaw-dropping achievements, check out what Travis has done: “I am best known as the guy who won Leadman. This is a sort of six-week Grand Prix of Ultra Endurance that starts with a 26.2-mile trail marathon, followed by a 50-mile mountain-bike race, and then—in the course of seven days—a 100-mile mountain-bike ride, a 10k foot race the next day, and, in the grand finale the following weekend, the famed Leadville, Colorado, 100-mile ultramarathon. All of these events in the Leadman are contested at altitudes between 10,200 and 13,186 feet. The fastest overall combined time wins—which I managed to do in the summer of 2013 when I set a new Leadman record of 36 hours, 20 minutes.”
Um, yep. That’s definitely ultra.
This book is a fun look at the eight principles that make up the Ultra Mindset Travis uses to achieve extraordinary feats like that. It’s packed with Big Ideas. As always, I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
Download MP3
Download PDFThe reason I finish is commitment: before every race, during my training, I have committed to finishing. I have removed the option of not reaching the finish line. If you make a similar, wholehearted commitment— in your racing, your career, your life—you will reach your goals, too.
Get the BookYour New Mantra: “It’s All Good Mental Training”
“The idea here is that challenges are part of life. Viewing them as positive, even essential, instruments of ‘mental training’ can build, pebble by pebble, a mountain of inner resilience that will allow you to complete anything to which you are deeply committed.
These challenges and this mental training, moreover, when experienced through pursuits of choice, generate an incredible well of resolve that allows us all to persevere through the truly challenging, the mandatory bouts of suffering dished out by life. …
What do you choose to pursue?”
Principle #1 of the Ultra Mindset?
“It’s All Good Mental Training.”
Travis’s dad was a champion endurance racer as well. He taught Travis this essential lesson: “It’s all good mental training.”
ALL.
OF.
IT.
This challenge? Yep. Perfect mental training. That challenge? Yep. Optimal mental training.
It’s ALL good mental training.
That was my mantra for this morning’s meditation and hike (which is another fun way I bake in my favorite Ideas, btw).
It’s all good mental training. It’s all good mental training. It’s all good mental training.
P.S. Another way Travis frames it: It’s all good: mental training. <— That’s awesome. “It’s all good! Just some more mental training. Let’s do this! :)”
The thing I’m most proud of is my consistency.
You’ve Run 60 Miles. 40 More to Go. Feel Like It?!
“When I have already run 60 miles and have 40 more to go, do I feel like running 40 more? I love running, but of course I don’t feel like running 40 more miles after running 60! No one does. However, I have reached the point where my self-control is such that, unless I’m suffering a serious physical injury that prevents me from taking a step, I know I’m not going to stop; I know I’m going to continue on for 40 miles, come hell or high water.”
One of the things I’ve enjoyed about reading these ultra endurance books is the candor with which the athletes describe their love/hate relationship with their sport.
Imagine you’re an ultramarathon runner.
You’re running 100 miles today.
(Go you!) You’ve run 60 miles.
Do you FEEL like running the next 40?
Now, you might say, “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t feel like running the *first* mile let alone 60 or 100 or whatever insane number these people run.”
Fair enough. But, when I imagine these guys (and gals) doing these near-crazy things, I rarely stop to think about just how HARD it must be for them. And how many times they must want to give up and just go home.
But, alas, it IS hard for them. Which is comforting for me.
Whether you’re on mile #61 of a 100 mile race or on PhilosopherNote #410 of 1,000, you don’t always *feel* like running the next 40 miles or reading/creating Notes on the next 600 books. :)
BUT!
We do it because we made a commitment. We see that it’s *all* mental training and have fun dialing up the Grit + Willpower. It’s those times we push through the self-doubt and fatigue and desire to quit that makes it so rewarding.
What’s your big ultra goal? Might be raising a flourishing family, staying married to celebrate your 50th anniversary, getting your business profitable and actualizing its potential or whatever.
Hitting any walls lately?
Remember the ultramarathoner not always feeling like running the next x miles. (And, if it helps, the philosopher not always feeling like reading another book + cranking out another Note. :)
And then go do what needs to get done. Embrace the process. Take the next baby step.
P.S. Travis talks about Heidi Grant Halvorson’s great book Succeed in this section. (Check out those Notes for more on her science of success. And, Willpower 101 for putting all this on autopilot to make it much easier to keep putting the next foot in front of the other!)
How you feel is less important than what you DO. Feeling scared, nervous, and uncomfortable when you’re rappelling off that symbolic cliff is just a GIVEN. It’s the price of admission for an exceptional life!
Thinking About Our Thinking
“We know this: we know the inevitability of highs and lows. And yet, when we find ourselves buffeted by these ups and downs, we often seem unprepared—we’re either flushed with overconfidence—an almost unsustainable euphoria—or dashed on the rocks of depression.
Why is this? Why do we let ourselves get caught in the tides like an unprepared swimmer? Because we don’t think about our thinking. Thinking ahead about how you will think—how you will react—when those highs and lows come along is a key to success in both racing and life, particularly when you think about what you will be doing at a given time and why you will be doing it.”
Here’s a practical tool for those moments when you don’t *feel* like doing whatever it is you committed to doing.
It’s simple. We talk about it all the time. Yet, for some reason, we don’t implement it as often as we should. (At least I don’t. :)
Remember our Rethinking Positive ThinkingWOOP implementation intentions? You know, where we get fired up about our ideal outcome then we think about the potential/inevitable obstacles THEN (very importantly!), we think about what we’ll actually DO when the inevitable gremlins pop up?
Let’s focus in on what knocks YOU down!
What keeps on kicking your butt? What little niggly (or big-gly) thing consistently stresses you out? Run it through some implementation intentions.
When this happens, then I will do this:
When ______________ happens, I will _________________.
For me, an example would be: When I inevitably wonder if creating 1,000 Notes is the highest and best use of my time for the next few years, I will remind myself I made a decision to rock it and get back to The Process.
btw: Travis references more goodness from Heidi’s Succeed in this section. Heidi tells us that, when faced with challenges, sometimes we want to think about “why” we’re doing something and sometimes we want to think about “what” we’re doing.
Here’s how Heidi puts it: “Think about your goals in ‘why’ terms when you want to get energized, stay motivated, or avoid temptations. Think about your goals in ‘what’ terms when you are dealing with something particularly difficult, unfamiliar, or anything that takes a long time to learn.”
Short story: When we’re grinding away on mundane things that don’t require a lot of mental effort (for Travis that would be running or riding on basic terrain for mile after mile), we should think about why we’re doing something.
When we’re challenged by something super hard (like navigating while kayaking for Travis), we shouldn’t be thinking about why we’re doing it, we should put all our focus on whatwe’re doing.
For me, when I’m creating a Note or reading a book, it’s easy to flip the switch and go all in on the what. It’s in between when the niggly voice can creep up and start questioning things. That’s when I remind myself of the why (including: it’s a fun way to get paid doing what I love: reading, optimizing, inspiring, empowering; it’s a great way for me to develop my self-mastery and grit while getting a pretty solid wisdom foundation as I study how some of the best thinkers in the world see things AND… 1,000 Notes is a fun, epic target! :).
(Other key trick for me to maintain motivation is to reduce the “delay” between goals (as per the motivation equation we discuss in Solving the Procrastination Equation). When I’ve chunked down the goal into micro milestones and made them challenging yet doable, I don’t have time to overthink—I’m too busy jumbo crushing. More on chunking goals down in a moment, btw…)
How about you? How’re your WHATs and WHYs? Let’s KNOW we’re inevitably going to get knocked around and think about our thinking in advance!
Simply put, the choice to quit has been categorically removed as an option, so all I have to do is keep on going until I finish.
Make The Choice to Give Up Choice
“The 4:30 A.M. Rule is not just about waking up early to get more in during the day—as Dad did. That’s part of it, of course, but there’s something deeper here. The point of this mindset, simply put, is that when you have committed to something ahead of time, you don’t worry about whether you actually feel like taking action when it’s time to spring into action.
When the alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m., you must get up and get going, even—and especially—when you feel like rolling over and going back to sleep. The rule does not have to be taken literally; getting up at 4:30 a.m. is just an example of the kind of stick-to-itiveness it takes to succeed. The rule you apply to your own situation may be slightly different, or may involve doing a particular thing at some other time of the day or at some specific time each week. The point is, you make a prior commitment to yourself, and in doing so make the choice to give up choice.
Committing to something—a training program, a project, a job, a relationship, caring for a child—is one of the most important things you can do in life. This is where it starts. By committing to 4:30 a.m., literally or figuratively, you have relinquished other options. Getting up at a time when few others do can be a first step toward achieving the goal.”
That’s Principle #6: The 4:30 A.M. Rule.
Whether you actually decide that getting up at 4:30 a.m. will be a fun goal for you, this is what we want to keep in mind: “The point is, you make a prior commitment to yourself, and in doing so make the choice to give up choice.”
Focus here: “make the choice to give up choice.”
We decide in advance what we will do and then it’s #DONE!
As Jack Canfield puts it in The Success Principles, “Successful people adhere to the ‘no exceptions rule’ when it comes to their daily disciplines. Once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions. It’s a done deal. Nonnegotiable. Case closed! Over and out.”
As we’ve discussed so many times, when we make THAT kind of 100% truly (!) non-negotiable commitment, it’s actually *way* easier than the 99% commitment when we need to check in with ourselves to see if today is the day we get to cut ourselves some slack.
100%. Done. You made the choice to give up choice.
What “4:30 A.M. Rule” are YOU excited to implement?! What keystone habit, if you implemented it every day starting today, would have the most positive benefit in your life? Get clear. Make it easy to win a la the Habits 101 class + Mini Habits, etc. and go all in.
P.S. This reminds me of our DWYSYWD Idea from The Leadership Challenge. Remember the #1 key to leadership? It’s credibility. The #1 way to build that credibility? Do What You Say You Will Do. DWYSYWD. Commit 100%. Make the choice to give up choice. The 4:30 A.M. Rule, eh?
P.P.S. Travis talks about Angela Duckworth and Grit in this section. Impossible to get through a book like this and not get gritty, eh? Check out those Notes for more.
‘We started these events in Leadville based on two principles,’ said Chlouber when I called him to ask about it. ‘The first is, ‘don’t quit.’ That same principle applies to your work and your family and those brutal races and whatever else you do in life. The second is ‘do more.’ I’ve said, ‘You’re better than you think you are, you can do more than you think you can.’
Where’s Your Next Aid Station?
“One hundred miles. That’s a long way to run. Heck, it’s a long way to drive. It would be like running from Philadelphia to New York City and then doing 3 miles around Central Park for good measure. If you’re going to run such a distance, you sure as heck better break it into manageable chunks. Particularly since this was my first 100-mile run, my general plan was to start conservatively, not get caught up in the racing early on, and tackle the course step by step, focusing on getting to the next aid station rather than worrying about the entire course.”
Got a jumbo big ultra goal? Fantastic.
Better make sure you break that down into manageable chunks lest you overwhelm yourself. In The One Thing we talked about knocking over the next domino (+ Goal Setting to Now). In Spartan Up!, we talked about getting to the next telephone pole. Now we have aid stations.
Joe De Sena says: “The way to get through anything mentally painful is to take it a little at a time. The mind can’t handle dealing with a massive iceberg of pain in front of it, but it can deal with short nuggets that will come to an end. So instead of thinking, Ugh, I’ve got twenty-four miles to go, focus on making it to the next telephone pole in the distance. Whether you’re running twenty or one hundred and twenty miles at a time, the distance has to be tackled mentally and physically one mile at a time. The ability to compartmentalize pain into these small bite sizes is key.”
Gary Keller tells us: “By thinking through the filter of Goal Setting to the Now, you set a future goal and then methodically drill down to what you should be doing right now. It can be a little like a Russian matryoshka doll in that your ONE Thing ‘right now’ is nested inside your ONE Thing today, which is nested inside your ONE Thing this week, which is nested inside your ONE Thing this month. . . . It’s how a small thing can actually build up to a big one. You’re lining up your dominoes.”
What’s your big goal? What’s your next aid station? Get there.
Never Quit ... Except When You Should Quit
“Here’s what it comes down to: If you’re doing something you really care about, something you know aligns with your true self and highest purposes in life, never quit because you fear what will happen if you continue. Fear will be there, and that’s just part of the deal—keep going anyway. Failure is the worst possible outcome, and that’s not all too bad given that everyone who puts himself out there is bound to fail, often regularly, on the path to success. Finishing Leadman aligned with who I want to be and how I want to spend my life, so quitting was not an option.
On the other hand, if you are doing something you come to know is incongruent with your true self and highest purposes, odds are that you are continuing to do it because fear tells you not to quit. You’re afraid of what will happen if you quit. Or because other people tell you to keep going. Or because making money has somehow become more important than being happy. Or because you made a decision long ago to pursue a certain path and can’t come to grips with changing your mind. If you are doing something with your life that you don’t want to do, then QUIT. True courage is overcoming fear and spending your life in what you believe to be a purposeful manner. A year and a half later, I joke with friends that I’m ‘proud to be a dropout’ after quitting the principal licensure program. The truth is much more serious: I’m damn glad I quit something I was doing out of fear that would have set me up for a life I did not want.”
That’s from Principle #8: Never Quit: Except When You Should Quit.
How do we know when to quit and when to keep rockin’ it? That’s a pretty awesome litmus test.
If you’re doing something that’s super important to you and your purpose and are feeling some fear during the process, don’t quit. If you’re doing something with your life that you know you don’t want to be doing, QUIT.
(Travis’s line about being a proud dropout reminds me of my pride in dropping out of law school. At the time (almost 20 years ago now), it was very challenging. But I just *knew* I didn’t want that life. Although I had no idea what I’d do, I made the plunge—went through the (terrifying!) dark forest of the unknown and came out the other side PROUD of being a drop out.)
When do you feel most alive? When does your soul soar?
People often quit endeavors in which they really should persevere because they’re afraid of the enormity of what lies ahead. If you want to achieve a goal, and you are ready to commit, break the process into manageable steps.
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