Stories of grit and courage: How leaders find their purpose

If asked to share our dreams with a room full of people we don’t know, most of us are likely to balk. A big part of that is the fear that people will judge us. At what point do we decide what we are capable of rather than allowing others to impose their limiting beliefs on us?

When we look at those we admire based on their achievements, we’re usually drawn to them only after their achievements have been recognised. Think of someone you would love to hang out with, have as a ‘favourite’ on your phone or just admire from a distance. Is it a sportsperson, a musician, a global CEO, a filthy-rich entrepreneur or someone you know who has achieved something pretty remarkable?

You have no doubt been drawn to them out of admiration for the achievements they have stacked up. You admire these achievements and perhaps even have a mild desire to do something similar. More likely, you tell yourself that, for a long list of reasons, you could never do what they have done. When we hold those beliefs, allowing that internal dialogue to persist, we talk down our abilities, limit what’s possible for us and forgo the chance to do or be what we really want. Is it the fear of failure in the eyes of others or our own harsh judgement of ourselves that gets in the way? Or both?

Learning to fly

For me, 2019 was a year in which I was determined to take on a couple of new challenges. Neither played any part in my professional development, and neither would lead me towards a new career. I certainly didn’t need to do either. But the way I managed them speaks to my fear of being judged should I not succeed. My first challenge was to learn to fly a helicopter. Not a plane. I hate flying in small planes. I don’t fear them, I just don’t enjoy them. The bigger the better for me.

During my time in the police, I had flown a lot in the back seat of the police helicopter PolAir on various jobs, especially when I was stationed in Tamworth. We could request their services for various jobs, and as I worked only in major crime our requests were never knocked back. It was just a matter of scheduling. I always enjoyed the physical sensation of the take-off and how manoeuvrable they were.

They just seemed like a whole lot of fun to fly. So with Claire’s encouragement I started taking lessons. I was pretty shit, I reckon. Learning to hover, which engages a muscle memory you need to develop rather than something you learn, happens to be the trickiest part of learning to fly a heli. I would return from a lesson with the instructor sure that he would place a hand on my shoulder and suggest I find another hobby.

But I kept going, sat the written exams and got my licence in 2021. Here’s the thing, though. I didn’t tell a soul other than Claire that I was taking lessons, just in case that tap on the shoulder did come and I would become known as the person who took lessons but didn’t crack it. What would be wrong with that? If I had tried and not succeeded, would anyone other than me really care? I think not. It’s not like the kids at school were going to tease me!

Learning to fly hasn’t changed my life dramatically. It is something I absolutely love and flying friends and family to a vineyard for lunch or up the coast from Sydney is something I will never tire of. Flying over the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at 500 feet is incredible. It’s a stunning harbour from any angle but better still from 500 feet.

The second thing I did in 2019  was take up ultra-marathon running, which took me into the bush for the best part of a day and night. Again, not an essential activity and I’m never going to turn that into a career — I’m probably 30 years too late for that. Having spent plenty of time riding my bike over long distances, with several 200 km plus days, including a 270 km ride on my own in Thailand one day, I thought I would give the ultra a bit of a go. Speed was never going to be my thing, but I was drawn to the longer events and the ultra seemed like the next logical step.

One of the biggest learnings I have taken from ultra-marathons is the need to manage your energy, and by that I mean the mindset that you bring to and maintain during the run. The ultra might start or finish in the dark, or it might start and finish in the dark, depending on how long I am out there. But with such an endurance event you are pretty much guaranteed to move through a number of emotional spaces. When you toe the line
at the start of the event you know you are in for a long day, no matter what happens, and when you are a plodder like me it can be a very long day.

There is incredible energy at the start of the run. Most runners will have spent a good six to nine months training and preparing, so the energy is palpable. You leave the start line in a swarm, and it’s important not to get caught up in the emotion and take off too quickly. Within an hour or two, though, you will usually find you have the track pretty much to yourself. Runners will pass you and you will pass others — for me, it is more often the former than the latter, but generally you end up with clear air around you.

You will find yourself in a grind and as the kilometres tick by you know there is plenty of hard work to be done. The energy of the start will have dissipated and the best you can look forward to is being greeted by enthusiastic volunteers at the next fuel station.

Normally, this is where I find my energy drops, and when the fuel station is a couple of hours away it can become really hard work. You may have a niggle, a blister, some hip pain, an upset tummy or all of the above. Your energy declines and then the voices in your head start telling you what a stupid idea this was.

But those times pass. The voice is filling your head with negative chat, but that too will pass. Sometimes it’s just taking the next five minutes at a time or focusing on one kilometre at a time. When you are hurting and you focus on the 30 kilometres still to run, it can feel unachievable. But, barring a race-ending injury, we can all manage another five minutes of moving forward or another five hundred metres. Working through and embracing the discomfort, we find, for no particular reason, the negative chat has ended and the dark mood has gone with it.

The right frame of mind

Kirrily Dear, an outstanding Australian, has completed some absolutely epic runs. She has a saying: ‘Fitness doesn’t determine if you reach the finish line, it only reduces the suffering.’ She would know, having completed, among a stack of other challenges, a solo run from Broken Hill to Sydney, which is a lazy 1000 km run or thereabouts. So if it’s not fitness that gets you to the finish line, and we are guessing that plays some part in a 1000 km run, what is it?

I asked Kirrily that question. If it wasn’t all about fitness, what was it about? Her response offered priceless insight. She said, ‘The short answer is the frame of mind with which you approach the task, but what specifically about mindset will determine success? If I had to narrow it down to one thing it would be your relationship with the fear and self-doubt that will emerge during the journey. All actions that you take start in your mind—you think, then do — and it’s through that process that your mind regulates the performance of your body. If your mind doesn’t believe you can do the task, then it will shut down your activity, to conserve and protect your body.’

Consider what Kirrily has done — look it up, it’s massive — and what Ned Brockmann did in 2022, running across Australia. These ultra-athletes complete these incredible feats not because they have trained to avoid the pain, not even because they are adopting a mindset that is limitless, but because they have found a way to embrace the discomfort and pain that is a part of such events.

Certainly their mindset around limitations, whether imposed by self or by others, is very different from what most of us accept. Exceptional people simply reject the limitations that most of us believe are fixed boundaries and choose to go further.

If you sign up for some wild adventure that will test your perceived physical limits, and you do so without expecting to visit the hurt locker, then when it comes time to step into it you’re unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with it. Those who are prepared know the pain will come and when it arrives they welcome it, like an annoying uncle who comes to stay, makes life unpleasant for a while but then leaves. You just suck it up and laugh at all those jokes you’ve heard before.

A real learning for me as I do more and more ultras is not to be surprised when it gets shitty. I know that each time I cross the start line there will be difficult times on the track and if I am ready for them mentally, if I accept that they are going to come, then I can just continue to move forward. Crossing the line on completing my first ultra, past the amazing crowd who line the finishers tunnel, was an experience I’ll never forget. I was tapped out, with little left in the tank, and I had been through some shitty times on the trail, but here was the finish. I had made it.

The euphoric feeling of crossing the line remains one I look forward to. I turned up for an ultra not long after they resumed following the COVID shutdowns. I had been in peak condition four months out and ready to tackle 100 km through the glorious Blue Mountains. Within that four months I had picked up COVID, got sick and lost the will and desire to train. Turning up for the run after a delayed start I was well underdone. I knew it was going to hurt more than the others. I also knew I had the choice of withdrawing at any time before or during the race should I wish to. No one but me would care or even notice.

I completed the run. Lots of it wasn’t all that enjoyable but crossing the line it made up for the pain I felt on the trail and as soon as I finished the pain was gone, until I had to walk two additional kilometres to the car.

The trick to embracing our wildest dreams or goals is we just need to start. There is a risk that we look at the end as something that is unattainable and therefore keep putting off starting or, worse still, never do. We can find plenty of excuses to put things off because the time is not right. But every time we say no to something that is important to us, a little part of us dies. We need to focus on the results and not the excuses.

One compelling reason a lot of busy parents forgo or put off tackling these adventures for themselves is time. With all the demands of parenting active kids, there’s just not time for much else. What with all the out-of-school activities, plenty of parents are doing their best just to keep afloat. A day in the life of a busy mum can be like running a marathon each day.

Taking action

I don’t pretend to know what it is like to have school-age kids anymore — mine are well beyond that — and I wouldn’t presume to preach to parents about what they should do. I have seen enough examples, though, of how the relationship between parent and child or the entire family can benefit when time is committed to the pursuit of something amazing that is hugely important to all involved.

Consider the example you are setting for your kids when they see you committing time to pursuing your own dreams. I have talked about the mums who have joined our rides and how in the preparation they have found a new, invaluable shared experience for the family as they ride and train together.

More than a couple of times on rides mums have told me that the response of their kids to mum riding with us in Thailand is one of pride. They are proud of your journey — the training, the commitment, the fundraising and seeing it all through. Being told by your children that they are proud of you is a powerful thing. Beyond endorsement and encouragement, it is different from expressions of love and probably not something we say often other than to kids under the age of 10. And here’s the thing. When mums share that story with me, guess the emotion that is gushing through their body? It’s pride and self-acknowledgement.

Hands is now approaching its twentieth anniversary, and we have chalked up a few not insignificant achievements. If you measure us in terms of dollars raised, it would be fair to say that exceeding $30 million in that time is a notable achievement. Supporting more than 30 kids through graduation at university is another.

And we can point to the immeasurable difference we have made at Baan Home Hug with the HIV kids — yes, there are some big ticks right there. I have talked with many people during Q&A sessions or after I have presented at conferences and have received much kind acknowledgement of what we have achieved at Hands. But of course it all started with that phone conversation with Gill in the kitchen. If she had asked, ‘Are you willing to commit the next 20 years of your life to the kids in Thailand, to stop these kids dying of HIV at Baan Home Hug, to lead more than thirty 500  km
or 800 km fundraising bike rides and raise over $30 million for the cause? Are you up for that?’, I wouldn’t have thought it was a serious conversation. I never would have signed up for that because I never would have believed I could have achieved any of those things.

The reason I would have thought it was crazy was I was focusing on the end, or where we are now, rather than what we needed to do in the first month, then six months then twelve months. Focusing on the start was doable. Then you blink and the next thing you know 20 years have passed and the amazing community of Hands Across the Water has flowered. Not an aspirational statement, a fact.

We have a saying on our rides: ‘Don’t ride the hills before you get there.’ I think it is a message for life. If we worry about the hills ahead, there’s a good chance we won’t ride at all or we’ll be so anxious that we won’t enjoy the experience. It is one of the few frustrating things that occur on our rides in Thailand. When those who have done the ride before talk about the hills, it can spook the new riders so they spend so much time worrying about what is to come that they fail to enjoy the here and now. The hills don’t get easier because you worry about them, but they sure can impact
your experience before you get there.

On our Coastal Ride we leave from Bangkok and ride south down through a number of towns on the Gulf of Thailand, before crossing over to the west coast and the Andaman Sea. On the morning of day eight, our final day on the bike, just 11 km out from of the hotel, there is a hill that is 4.2 km long. If you ride like you’re being chased by a grizzly bear you can get to the top in just over 10 minutes. If you take your time checking out the scenery, stopping for a photo or two, we’ll see you at the top in about 25 minutes. But here’s the thing. Riders who are new to the Coastal Ride will spend days and nights worrying about this hill, which at best lasts 10 minutes and at worst 25 minutes. I have people decide which ride they will do based on this particular hill.

Fun fact: Everyone makes it to the top of this hill, and they do so because they start. They climb onto their bike, clip into the pedals, select a low gear and point their front wheel in the direction of the top of the hill. And they get there — always.

Once at the top of the hill they often comment that it wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought it would be. Things seldom are. Yet we so often overthink them, talk ourselves down, undervalue our abilities and allow others to impose their limiting thoughts. How often are the negative judgements of others about our dreams and goals more a reflection of their limited beliefs than our ability? One hundred percent of the time, I reckon.

I have always loved this quote from T.E. Lawrence: ‘All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of day are dangerous men. That they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible’.

We need dreamers and we all need to dream a little more. As Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance, says, ‘The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do”.

So what stops us from taking action or, more important, what would we benefit from doing to give ourselves a greater shot at having a go? Because success shouldn’t be measured simply by the attainment of a dream or goal, but by the fact that we gave it a red-hot crack in the first place. Then, when we put our head on the pillow at night, at least we know we pointed that front wheel towards the hill and gave it our best.

I’ve often reflected on the journeys of successful people as well as considering my own path with the building of Hands, and I’ve found that there are similarities in approach between building the largest contributing Australian charity to Thailand and getting myself ready for an ultra through the bush. The following points may serve you well when considering committing to your own audacious goal or dream. Sometimes what’s needed is just a paradigm shift in our thinking. As Kirrily has pointed out, the body will often follow what the mind believes.

1. Understand what you need to do, create or plan to get started. The end goal may be on the vision board, and you need to connect with this as the thing that gets you out of bed early in the morning to train when the weather is indifferent. But you need to make the starting easy.

2. Measure what you do so you can monitor change and progress. Set milestones that allow you to celebrate success or simply the fact that you are still in the fight.

3. No one is going to believe in you as much as you need them to. Get ready for the doubters, the knockers, and those who don’t want you to succeed and may try to sabotage you. You need to be your strongest believer. If you leave that job to someone else and they leave, that can
   compromise your entire dream. Own it.

4. Construct shared agendas to solve complex problems. Getting a team on board who offer wisdom, counsel, backing and experience can accelerate your growth and help you avoid the mistakes that are normally only revealed in the doing. But ensure you find the balance between listening and acting on their advice to avoid having the mission drift away from your dream.

5. Be the courageous leader we have spoken about. You will need to make some tough decisions and take risks that may put it all on the line. But with risk comes reward. Remember, our greatest innovators and artists operate outside the parameters of what’s accepted and safe.

6. Know that it can take time, and the hardest part will be operating without credibility. It is easier to sell your dream to backers, investors or donors when you can say, ‘This is what we have previously done with the funds’, rather than, ‘This is what I hope to do’. You must take a lot of risk; your sponsors or donors, not so much. You will need to be patient and be prepared to tell your story a lot!

7. Regularly take time to analyse where you are and where you are going. Now you’ve launched and are in it up to your eyeballs, has your dream or vision changed? Remember that the wrong decision is better than no decision; it is perfectly fine to adjust and keep adjusting until you get to where you need to be.

8. Sometimes our greatest victories are achieved when we believe we are right at the edge of what is possible. When you think you have no more to give, you’re probably only about half way done. Find five more minutes, and turn up again tomorrow.

9. Once you’ve got there, look at how you can improve, or do more. The thrill is in the pursuit and if you don’t keep growing you lose your edge and stagnate.

Nelson Mandela said, ‘There is no passion to be found playing small and settling for a life that is less than the one you’re capable of living.’ No one else is going to make this happen for you, or if they are, is it really your wildest dream you’re pursuing or are you just jumping on board someone else’s dream? If no one else is creating the space for this dream to occur, regardless of what it is, then be the one to take control and live your life accordingly.

What I have learned

Success cannot be judged by the validation of followers we have never met. Living life well is the feeling we get when we are in pursuit of our wildest dreams. We know we’re there when we can’t describe how good it is. When those sitting life out don’t understand what we’re on about, then we know we’re probably in the right place, where we are meant to be. Don’t look to others for validation or endorsement, because there will always be plenty of people who will tell you why you can’t do it, why it’s beyond you, why you’re too old, too young, too big or too small. F**k the lot of them, I say. It’s your dream to pursue, and the best way to do that is to just start. Just take action that commits you to doing something scary and audacious.

This article is an extract from the book Leadership Matters: Stories and Insights for Leaders, Achievers and Visionaries by Peter Baines OAM.

Peter Baines OAM is the founder of Hands Across the Water.