Success is Contagious!

My 22 year-old son recently ran his first marathon in St. George, Utah.  It is a difficult marathon - one of the qualifying marathons for the Boston Marathon.  He started out so excited, and the energy in the air at the starting line was exhilarating.  He started out the marathon strong, but only two miles into the 26.2 miles, his knee started hurting and continued to get worse.  He pushed, and tried to keep up the pace in spite of the pain.  He listened to motivating music and focused on forward movement.  He was really struggling at the 13 mile mark and was getting tired of people passing him.  He decided that the next person who tried to pass him would be his pace setter.  It happened to be a woman named Kristen.  He ran with Kristen for the next 6 miles.  They talked to each other to distract them from the pain and motivated each other along the way.  At around mile 19, my son realized he couldn’t keep up with her any more, so he said, “You’ve got this, Kristen”.  She replied with encouragement to him, he backed off, and she ran ahead.  

He continued to run and tried to keep putting one foot in front of the other trying to push through the pain.  By mile 23, he called to talk to me, his girlfriend and my daughter.  He was too tired to talk to us, but he just wanted us to talk to him so that he could finish the race.  We each took turns offering him words of encouragement such as “You can do this!”  “You are so strong!” “You are amazing!” “Don’t give up!”  We could hear him grunt and moan every now and then but he continued to push while we urged him forward.  I told him we were going to meet him and run the last couple of miles with him.  We ran up to meet him, and when he came around the corner, we ran the rest of the way in continuing to yell encouraging words to him.  It was extremely emotional when he finally crossed that finish line.  This man, my son, has been an inspiration to me since he was a baby.  He has always had a positive attitude and has always pushed himself to be his best in every aspect of his life.  

I have been thinking about what he accomplished in the marathon almost non-stop for the past four days since then.  I have related it to so many different aspects in my life.  Being a business owner is difficult.  I have to motivate myself, push myself to be better, manage myself, encourage myself, offer criticism to myself, and praise myself.  Sometimes I feel so alone, and I feel as though everyone is passing me by.  We can’t do this alone.  We need to find someone who will push us to be better.  Someone that we can keep pace with. And we all need someone we can count on to push us forward and make us better and urge us to do things that we don’t think we can do.  I am committed to help others and to ask for help when I need it.  Asking for help when I need it is difficult for me as it is for most entrepreneurs.  I believe firmly that we need to have a team of positive people that meets together regularly to encourage each other and push us to be amazing.  I hope to inspire people just as my son has inspired me.  Share your inspirational stories with me - I would love to hear it.  Success is contagious!