Today’s GPP training (Monday) served as a powerful reminder of the value of failing; and, even more so, of the power of applying your failure. Of the students who attended class today, all but one met failure in at least one of the four intervals. While this may outwardly appear to be a failed day of training, it was anything but. The physiological training stimulus was still heavily present -- no one walked away without a potent stimulus for developing more endurance, strength, or stamina. And on top of this, students were given the opportunity to face failure, to attempt to outrun failure, and for most students, to deal with some level of failure.

Failure is fuel. And like any fuel, failure itself does not discriminate what it fuels. Failure, the same as gasoline, can be fuel that generates power and creates forward progress, or it can be fuel that burns and destroys. The choice is in the hands of the individual. You decide where to pour your fuel, in which direction it moves you.

This concept is familiar to anyone who understands a growth mindset. Two people exposed to the same stimulus yield different results. The individual with the fixed mindset takes failure as a value judgment, something permanent, a sign that they are worth less, incapable, or ought to quit. The fuel of failure only feeds the fire of this way of thinking, and it spreads like an uncontained wildfire.

The individual with the growth mindset, on the other hand, find the lesson in this failure. The fuel is in the feedback it provides, the direction it gives to their efforts, and the desire to change what can be changed to overcome the same failure in the future.

When you fail (and you will fail), tune in to the thoughts swimming around your head and see: where’s the fuel going?

- PS

12/12/17

• Sumo deadlift - 1rm

Then...

• 15 min AMRAP

• 10 sumo deadlift (225/155)

• 400m run