Wednesday. 5:12am
It’s dark in the bedroom.

The faint light emitted by the display of a cell phone illuminates the inside of a small closet. A guy is fumbling around in a drawer with socks, apparently not finding what he needs.

He’s acting quietly, only two steps away from a bed. One side of the bed is still warm, the other side is still in use.

After rummaging around some more, they guy picks up a pair of socks and quietly leaves the room.

I’ve been running for a three weeks again, training to finish half a marathon in the autumn this year. Last Wednesday during my run I learned a couple of things. One of them is that improper socks increase the chance of blisters (ouch).

Over the past four runs I have increased both my distance and speed on every run:

1. 3.5 km | 21:19 | 9.8 km/h
2. 4.2 km | 25:30 | 9.9 km/h
3. 5.0 km | 29:55 | 10.0 km/h
4. 6.1 km | 35:28 | 10.3 km/h

That’s really encouraging, but I should look out for getting overly confident. As you can see in the increase in distance, well even that increasing. First 0.7 km more, then 0.8 km and even 1.1 km on the last run. At this pace, I’ll be running marathons in a matter of weeks! (yes, that’s overconfident)

During that run though, my body was giving me signals. My stamina was not a problem, but my right knee was protesting a little. I noticed a faint irritation, a muscle maybe. Somewhat later, I began to realize that I was developing a blister on one of my toes on my right foot. Hmm, the right side again.

This week I began reading a new book Stupid, Ugly, Unlucky and Rich: Spike’s Guide to Success, and while running I was going through the “8 to be great”. Push and Persist are two of them. So I pushed myself and persisted.

Later that day, my ankle started sending me messages as well. The right ankle. Right again…

Stop right there, Lodewijk! Your body is sending messages, stop and listen, it usually has something meaningful to tell you.

The knee and the ankle.
They show faint feelings of irritation. Nothing serious, will cure with some rest. The solution is to ease the schedule a bit. Don’t overdue it, is what they try to teach me.

All irritations on the right side.
This is a sign of improper technique I guess. I’m not dividing the strain evenly over all parts of my body. Something to focus on in the next run, maybe even find someone who can train me proper technique.

Blisters.
They tell me to use proper equipment. Not regular socks, but socks made for running. Not tennis shoes, but running shoes. Yeah, I knew this but ignored it anyway. Not smart…thank you blisters.

The messages are only warnings, no injuries…yet.

Warning that I may be pushing too hard. So besides getting the right attitude and right equipment, it’s also time to learn some more about training schedules for marathons. After all, I don’t want to get injured by ignorance.

Time to learn something from the people who did this before. Successfully.

Disclaimer:
There’s a large group of people out there, that firmly believes that there is a secret to success. If you are a hardcore believer of this theory, you will regard this article as an attempt to dodge the question or a blunt evasion of letting you in on the secret. You’re probably right too. The secret can’t be freely available, because that would forfeit the status of secret and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

The secret of success, it’s a mysterious concept that appeals to the imagination of a lot of people. If it’s a secret it must be something really valuable, otherwise it wouldn’t be kept a secret. If only “they” would let me in on it, then I can be successful too. If only someone would tell me…

It’s the lazy man’s conviction: “Successful people make it look so easy, they must know something I don’t. If only they would tell me, I would be successful too.”

Why do people insist on believing that there are such things as secrets, or magic or tricks that successful people use to be successful? Wake up people! There is no secret, there is no magic and it’s not a trick! Face it: there is no secret!

…but there is an ingredient

The ‘secret’ ingredient of success is a liquid. It’s prepared with a fair amount of dihydrogen monoxide, some parts sodium chloride, a pinch of 2-methylphenol and one part 4-methylphenol. The bad news is that it can’t be bought. The good news is that you can make your own home brew.

One of the most common ways of preparing a dose is by standing up, placing your right foot about two feet in front of your left foot. Now place your left foot about two feet in front of your right foot. Alternate this while increasing speed for about 10 minutes and the secret ingredient will appear in a thin film evenly distributed over your body.

That’s right, the secret ingredient is sweat! Edison has been telling us that for over 150 years now:

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. - Thomas A. Edison

Edison does leave an opening though, there can’t be a secret in the perspiration (yuck, gross!), so it must be in the inspiration! If only I knew what was in the 1%… if only, because then… Yeah right! BS!

The 8 secrets to success (most of which are pretty sweaty)

Richard St John defined his version of 8 secrets of success. He has a short 3 minute, funny and inspiring talk about them at TED that’s definitely worth a look. In the talk he answers the question a teenager once asked him: “What’s the secret of success?”. Unable to give a swift answer to that question, he talked to a lot of successful people and defined 8 common factors that they had in common. These 8 factors are:

Passion and Ideas could be labeled as the Inspiration traits, although Ideas arguably is a Perspiration trait. Richard says: “There’s no magic to Ideas, anyone can be creative.” Ideas are generated by listening, observing, being curious, asking questions, solving problems, making connections… Yep, that’s definitely a Perspiration trait as well.

So 7 out of 8 are Perspiration, and only one is Inspiration. That’s still almost 90% sweat, and that still is the main ingredient of success.

So success is all work and no play?

No.
Definitely not!

Work, or putting in sweat, is the largest factor in being successful. You could be successful in almost anything if you just put in the 90+% perspiration, but to keep it fun and sustainable over the long run, it’s important to find something your passionate about.

Now that’s not easy to do, and a lot of people don’t know what exactly they’re passionate about. I struggle with this on regular basis myself. It’s just important to realize that finding your passion is an activity; you have to look for it actively to find your passion. It won’t pop up in your head someday, while you were waiting for your passion to find you.

And the best way to look for it, is to start working on stuff that you like. If you like to do something, feel satisfied about, have fun doing, feel proud about, look forward to something, that’s when you’re touching on your potential passion.

If you put in the 90+% perspiration on those subjects, it still will feel like a lot of work to be successful, but at least you’ll have fun doing it.