This is how it's done
His plan was to run a mile in under 4-minutes.
His plan was to run a mile in under 4-minutes.
But what Louie Zamperini accomplished that day was more impressive than what he set out to do.
At the 1938 NCAA Track and Field Championships, just two years after making his Olympic debut, Zamperini was determined to beat the clock in this race.
The competition wasn’t going to let that happen. The other runners knew his goal and were determined to stop him.
The night before the big race, Zamperini was warned that the other runners were ordered by coaches to physically injure him to take him out of the race.
Zamperini ignored the warning.
As the race began, Louie was boxed in and surrounded by the other runners. After failing to break through his surroundings, the attacks began.
Laura Hillenbrand recounts the abuse Zamperini took throughout the race in her book Unbroken.
“The man beside him swerved in and stomped on his foot,” Hillenbrand wrote, and, “the man ahead began kicking backward, cutting both of Louie’s shins.”
After enduring lower body attacks, Zamperini absorbed an elbow to his chest, cracking a rib.
Despite the attacks, Zamperini persevered. In the final turn of the race he found an opening.
Zamperini broke through the opening and went on to pass the pack and won the race.
Zamperini didn’t achieve his goal, but despite all the violence and cheating, he managed a record breaking time of 4:08.3 and still won the race.
Our bodies and minds can be trained to deal with discomfort. Zamperini was well equipped to deal with the adversity the body faces when pushing itself to run fast.
But the fact that he was able to deal with the discomfort of racing and the pain of being physically attacked by other racers suggests that he was focused on what was in front of him, focused on what he could control.
Everyone would’ve understood if Zamperini would’ve dropped out of the race or just finished with a mediocre time. But Zamperini took the blows, he hung in there, stuck with the pack and found a way to win.
That was Louie’s separation. He endured years of uncomfortable training sessions, the pain of racing, and the discipline of living as an Olympic and collegiate athlete. He was focused on breaking that record.
So focused that the pain of getting attacked, on top of the pain of racing, didn’t keep him from finding a way to separate himself from the pack.
Zamperini found a way.
He was determined to reach the goal he was aiming for and he didn’t let anything get in the way of that.
“Obstacles,” Henry Ford said, “are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
It’s in hearing stories like this that we are reminded of what we are capable of when we have a goal, an aim, a standard we want to reach. It’s not just important to set goals, we need to keep our focus on those goals and execute.
Let’s set our focus on greatness today and see where that leads us.