As the Olympics move to the track, it reminds me of one of my favorite success stories.
Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile.
I found this great summary and inspirational thoughts:
I have been on a one-man crusade over the past few months – in my writing, in my public speaking, in my day-to-day encounters with colleagues – to summon a can-do spirit in these can’t-do times. Everything seems hard, from rescuing the financial system to keeping a job to just walking outside in this brutal winter on both sides of the Atlantic.
So how do I persuade people to stay positive in such a negative environment? Increasingly, I tell them the story of the legendary British runner (and gifted neurologist) Sir Roger Bannister, and his quest to run the four-minute mile. It is the right story for these difficult times, a story that reminds us it is possible to do what others say is impossible.
We all know that Bannister (who turns 80 next month) became the first person to run a mile in less than four minutes. It was in a race in Oxford on 6 May 1954. He ran it in three minutes 59.4 seconds. Bannister was a 25-year-old full-time medical student who devised his own approach to training. He was, dare I say, something of a maverick – both in terms of what made him tick and in his approach to competition.
The quest to break four minutes had been in full force since at least 1886 and it involved the most brilliant coaches and the most gifted athletes in North America, Europe and Australia. It was truly the Holy Grail of athletic achievement – for 70 years it didn’t happen, and when it did, the event defied all the experts.
Those experts believed they knew the precise circumstances under which the record would be broken. It would have to be in perfect weather; 20C and no wind; on a particular kind of track – hard, dry clay; and in front of a huge crowd urging the runner on. But Bannister achieved it on a cold day, on a wet track, at a meeting in Oxford before a crowd of only 3,000 people. He broke the mark and even his most ardent rivals breathed a sigh of relief. And once they saw it could be done, they did it too.
Only 46 days later, John Landy, an Australian runner, not only broke the barrier but crushed Bannister’s time. Then, a year after Bannister’s “impossible” achievement, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race.
What goes for runners goes for leaders running organisations and for all of us leading our own lives. Progress doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s not incremental. Whether it’s an entrepreneur, a scientist, or an athlete, someone does something that is thought to be impossible, and what was unreachable becomes merely a benchmark, something for others to shoot for and surpass.
Professor Jerry Wind of the Wharton School has written about the symbolism for business and entrepreneurship of the four-minute mile. In his book, The Power of Impossible Thinking, he offered this assessment of Bannister’s feat: “The runners of the past had been held back by a mindset that said they could not surpass the four-minute mile. When that limit was broken, the others saw that they could do something they had previously thought impossible.”
Today, we all are poised on the track, doubting that we can run and win the race when the odds seem so steep. My advice is to put yourself in Bannister’s shoes: set your own personal four-minute mile, whether it’s starting a company or changing career. Then decide what you are prepared to do to achieve it – and fire the starting gun for the rest of us to run our own race .
By Bill Taylor
Make it a great day.
Jake
