Life Lessons From 100-Year-Olds

We asked three centenarians what their most valuable life lessons were, and also their regrets.
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5 Success Lessons I Learned From Running Ultramarathons | Michael Winterheller

1. Be consistent.

Although I’m putting this at the very top of my list, it is something I actually discovered rather late in my training (actually after having run my first ultra): Whatever you do, you need to do it consistently. This is the foundation, and it has become a crucial basic ingredient in terms of everything else that I’ve learned in this regard.

Running a few intervals or doing long runs every once in a while won’t really improve your fitness (for all non-runners, these are the parts of your training that really make you sweat), and likewise stretching once won’t improve your flexibility. You need to do these things as a consistent part of your training, again and again.

I’ve found that it is very similar in the business world: To achieve extraordinary results and be successful, you need to put in the work on a very consistent basis, almost to the point that improvement itself becomes a habit for you. Stop wasting your time with one-off efforts to change things all at once, and instead focus on weekly or maybe even daily accomplishments that will deliver consistent improvement.

2. Do the right work at the right time.

The simple act of doing work is actually pretty easy—the same is true for running. When I first started training, I basically just put on my running shoes and ran. Speed, distance and elevation gain were more or less a product of my mood and motivation on that day. While I did improve at the beginning of my training, I soon hit a wall where improvement became almost nonexistent. I only started to improve again when I started to follow a training plan and developed a better understanding of what I was actually trying to achieve.

It’s the same in your professional life: Just doing work won’t get you very far. It is doing the right work at the right time that will propel you toward success and the achievement of your goals. Create a daily list of the things you need to do that day and arrange it according to importance and overall benefit in terms of moving you forward. Moreover, get started with tasks on that list first thing in the morning. Once you have checked off the top five items, you can start to combine the other tasks on your list with whatever comes up as part of your workday.

3. Rest days boost your workday efficiency.

Rest days are a must if you want to improve your running form, and also if you want to improve consistently. In the world of sports and fitness, the need for rest and time off is well-known. Every article on improving your race time warns about the dangers of overtraining or going into a race tired.

Yet for some reason in the business world, working late, working on weekends and being online 24/7 seems like the right thing to do. Working without sufficient rest might work for a while, but it won’t take you very far in the long run. You will become tired, you will lose your creativity and your productivity will certainly fall. This is true in the business world just as it is in the world of fitness. Stop trying to be superhuman all the time and enjoy some well-deserved rest; you’ll end up being more productive and creative—more successful—than before.

4. Challenges are an integral part of getting better

During my first ultramarathon, I reached a point where I thought I just could not take another step. I sat down on the side of the dusty trail and was ready to throw in the towel. The only problem was that I was in the middle of nowhere, there was no mobile phone reception and there were no roads even remotely nearby. Anxiety almost got the better of me when another racer came by who stopped and asked me how I was doing. When I told him that I was ready to drop out of the race, he replied that this was his 19th time doing the race and he came to the exact same conclusion almost every time. But he learned to get through the rough times and was able to finish. He offered me his hand, pulled me up and told me to keep going. I was so bewildered and inspired that I just did what he told me to do: I kept running and I finished the race.

This moment is one of my top inspirations whenever I encounter difficulties in my role as a CEO. I learned to not only deal with challenges in a much more productive way, but now I actually find inspiration in them. It might sound strange, but for me challenges offer reinsurance that I am doing something new, something big, something out of the ordinary. 
So next time you find yourself facing an obstacle, keep going and then give yourself a pat on the back. Why? Because chances are that you are on the way to achieving something great.

5. Surround yourself with people who inspire you and keep you moving forward.

Training for an ultramarathon can be a pretty lonely experience. You spend most of your time running through the woods or scrambling up mountains, accompanied only by your own thoughts and inner dialogue. While I did really enjoy this time on the trails, I also learned that you can become trapped within your own limits without realizing it. This dawned on me when I started doing some of my workouts at the local running track. All of a sudden I was able to compare my speed and endurance with other runners, and I was baffled by how fast some people can actually run. It’s not that I didn’t read about fast runners or see their video clips online, but that’s a very different thing from going full out and being passed by other runners who seemed to not be struggling at all. Now I love doing my workout on the track because it helps me to surpass my own limits, and also to gain inspiration to train harder and at the same time improve my pace.

Relatedly, whenever you have the chance to meet someone successful or learn something from your competition, make it count. Stop being intimidated and instead be inspired. Use their stories as encouragement in terms of questioning your own limits. Chances are good that you will be able to think bigger, be bolder and go further than ever before.

So can you relate to this?  Please let me know below!

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You Cannot Always Change Situations, but You Can Change Your Attitude | Remez Sasson

I am sure that there are certain situations and circumstances in your life that you would like to change. Often, it is quite simple to make changes, but we let laziness, procrastination or fear to stand in our way.

You might be surprised to hear that many of the changes you would like to make are within you reach, and often, within your immediate reach.

For example, you might always complain that you have no time to read. If reading is so important to you, what’s so difficult to arrange your day so that you can find the time? You can always get up half an hour earlier in the morning, or give up half an hour of watching TV in favor of reading a book.

Do you want to learn a foreign language, swim twice a week or arrange your wardrobe? These are simple to accomplish goals, but you might always seek excuses why you don’t have the time for them. You simply do not give them any priority, and prefer to stick to your comfort zone.

Sometimes, we might encounter situations and circumstances that we are unable change. What should we deal with such situations?

If you cannot change a situation, accept it, and learn to live with it. Sure, this requires a certain degree of self-discipline and inner strength.

You might complain, resent the situation and the people involved and be unhappy. This would not help change the situation, and you will be creating suffering and unhappiness for you.

You cannot always change a situation or circumstances, but you can change your attitude toward it.

Changing external situations and circumstances might not always be possible, but changing your attitude is possible.

Read this sentence several times and try to remember it. You cannot always change situations and circumstances, but you can certainly learn to change your attitude. Instead of feeling resentful, frustrated and unhappy, you can learn to be calm, accept the situation, and not fight with it. You can try to look at the situation dispassionately, and try to find out what you can learn from it.

• Are there people you cannot get along with at work?
• Do you have neighbors you do not like?
• Is your boss too demanding?

Will you leave your job or go live somewhere else because of that?

Often, by accepting the situation, it will stop bothering you, or a solution might come along.
Various situations and circumstances could be lessons you need to learn, and after learning and acknowledging the lessons, the situations and circumstances will start to change.

If you accept what you cannot change and learn to live with it, it will stop to be an issue and stop to bother it.

When you accept what you cannot change, you save yourself a lot of energy and time, and can devote your time to better things than thinking about the situation you cannot change.
When you accept what you cannot change, sometimes, even without any effort on your part, as if miraculously, things start to change and improve.

Some people might misinterpret what I said and think that accepting situations means giving up. Others might regard acceptance as an excuse for laziness and doing nothing. This is far from the truth. Acceptance of situations that you cannot change is wisdom and not passivity, and has nothing with giving up and should not be an excuse for passivity.

You cannot change the past, and regretting and feeling bad about it is not going to change it. However, you can learn to stop dwelling on the past and move on.

If you don’t like one of your colleagues at work and you do not get along with him, anger and resentment would not help. However, you can try to be friendly and stop being resentful.

Suppose it is raining outside, but you need to go to work, go the grocery or meet friends. You cannot stop the train and you cannot fight the rain. Would you give up and stay at home, or wear a raincoat and go outside despite rain?

If it is very hot outside and you need to go somewhere, will anger and unhappiness change the weather? You can let thoughts about the weather to cause you suffering and unhappiness, and you can accept it and live with it.

When you change your attitude toward people, situations or circumstances they stop bothering you and they stop causing you suffering.

When you change your attitude, you start to feel better, you become happier, recognize opportunities to make changes, and on many occasions, the situations or circumstances you could not change, begin to change. By changing your attitude, situations and circumstances would start to change, as if by magic.

Are there any tools that can help you change your attitude? Yes, there are a few, such as repeating affirmations, practicing visualization and developing inner peace.

Let me know what you think below!

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What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness | Ro...

What keeps us happy and healthy as we go through life? If you think it's fame and money, you're not alone – but, according to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, you're mistaken. 

As the director of 75-year-old study on adult development, Waldinger has unprecedented access to data on true happiness and satisfaction. 

In this talk, he shares three important lessons learned from the study as well as some practical, old-as-the-hills wisdom on how to build a fulfilling, long life.

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