On Tuesday I spoke to a group of bankers in England who have been feeling
the pressure of surviving during the ongoing financial turmoil. They were
not the fat-cat monsters that bankers have been portrayed as of late, rather
they were ordinary people like you and me trying to navigate a course
through the crisis.
In the question-and-answer session after my talk, one of the delegates
picked up on the core message that I try to get across in my motivational
talks. She asked me “when everything is going wrong, how do you stop making
excuses and instead make it happen?”
For the previous 45 minutes I had been making a case that there are some
people who make excuses and there are others who make it happen. But the
question forced me to think a little harder about what I actually mean when
I talk about excuses and I said: “The way to avoid excuse making is to stop
lying to yourself. When you are really honest with yourself, I mean really
honest, the excuses seem to disappear from the conversation. All you are
left with are facts and reality.”
Over the last decade I’ve been in races in deserts, mountains and The poles
where extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, dehydration and exhaustion
have left no time for excuses. It is in these crisis situations that the
importance of being honest shines through time after time. The excuses, and
of course I really mean the lies,can make the difference between death and
survival, winning or losing or simply enjoying yourself or hating every
step. Dealing in facts is the only way forward, even if it is though to do.
