Gobi Runner is my account of why I, the CEO of a company caught in a devastating economic recession, signed up for a 250-kilometer foot race in the desert without having run a marathon before. In it I detail the emotional and physical breakthroughs and breakdowns I experienced in preparing for, training for, and running the race. It also explores my reentry into a life that was changed forever.
Besides being a personal story, this book includes the incredible tales of the other participants in the race and the lessons learned by many of us. It details what really goes on to get you through a race in such extreme, adverse conditions; these include visualizing success, owning up to fear of failure and success, taming your inner critic, befriending adversity, collaborating while competing, and learning to enjoy the journey more than reaching the destination.
I may have done the actual running, but others supported me. To my wife, Leslie, thank you for taking on more than your fair share to keep the family going and for providing so much emotional support. You, along with Montana and Jade, were with me every step of the way.
This book would not have been written if Sean Shannon and Jim McKenzie hadn’t urged me to do so, and if Steve Phillips hadn’t encouraged me to present the story at a Young President Organization event. Thank you, gentlemen.
My thanks to: Dijana Ebach for providing constant ground support, from beginning to end; Jim Warrington for broadcasting the message; my Mandrake and NEXCareer partners for their support, especially Daphne Bykerk; Mehmet Danis and Donna Carrigan for all the mentoring; my YPO forum for sparring with me over the project and kicking in some cash; Dr. Kazemi, for putting me back in one piece when my conditioning looked so bleak; Phil Delaire for training; and, finally, Ernie Votis and Luigi (Louie) Santaguida for making the trip across the world to run the Gobi, and the race itself, such a memorable experience.
National Advertising Benevolent Society team members do an amazing job of helping the community and did so through this project as well. Thank you, Mike Fenton, for supporting my vision, and Louise Bérubé and Jim Warrington, for their boundless energy and for reading and commenting on the manuscript.
Thanks to all of you who pledged and who encouraged me along the way.
With a bit of time on my hands, I was antsy, unable to be in the moment. I was tired and unsettled. I was unhappy. I wandered to a stream nearby – it was the one of the first times that there was any water close to camp. Desperate to bathe, I started cleaning my gear and de-taping my mummified upper body: shoulders, hairy chest, back, and abdomen, then my shins, heels, the bottoms of my feet, and my toes. Like an oversized duck splashing in a tiny puddle, I waded into seven centimeters of water. I had the whole stream to myself. Heaven, I thought. It was my first true moment of privacy during the race.
I filled my lungs with air, counted to eight, then pushed the air out, counting to sixteen, trying to put myself in a meditative state, trying to slow time down so I could capture a beautiful moment in the middle of the desert. The only expectation I had before starting the race was at least to complete it, and now I could almost smell the finish line.
Thirty minutes later, implosion. The universe conspired to give me what I had essentially asked for. I had checked out of the race physically by de-taping my body prematurely. And I had checked out emotionally by patting myself on the back. I had surrendered to the pristine moment. My body was happy to concur and proceeded to shut down. I became feverish and started vomiting into the river. My nose started bleeding. Of the eight toenails I had lost, two quickly became infected. My blisters started leaking again, and my chafing areas worsened as I scratched them compulsively. Each of my legs swelled to the size of a football; my calves, ankles, and feet merged into one big blob.
I realized what I had done; I had subconsciously decided I was unworthy of feeling good about the day. I had let my guard down, sabotaging my chances. Déjà vu. Why? I wondered.
I hobbled to the medical tent.
“Hi, Mr. Cankles!” said Rob, the medic on call.
I lay on the gurney, my head shaking. My daily cocktail of anti-inflammatories were twinned with a dose of antibiotics, causing unbearable stomach pain and more vomiting. After this procedure, instead of playing Euchre or wandering around to spend time with my new friends, I angrily entered my tent. Thanks to my carelessness, I now had to put my feet up to drain the blood down to my mid-section and bring my fever down.
In the tent, my feet became permanent nesting trees for local flies, with a dozen feeding on each discharging foot. I laughed, thinking about the number of times I had pursued a fly at the cottage – one annoying, buzzing insect that had the power to ruin the moment. Now I was looking at a colony of them.
“Feed away, guys,” I said.
We all have our limits and I had found mine. The tables had turned: My positive attitude was gone, small tears were flowing down my cheeks, and now I was now the one being comforted by my tent mates.
I knew a man who once said,
“death smiles at us all; all a man
can do is smile back.”
—FROM THE MOVIE GLADIATOR
March 2008
It was a perfect storm, a murderous tidal wave with no higher ground for refuge.
I had sensed it was coming but failed to connect the dots. Revenue was becoming increasingly soft versus the same period in 2007, and work in progress was declining as well. Almost to the day, we had enjoyed seven years of steady growth since the Internet bubble crash at the turn of the decade. I had bought a new home the year before, an act of over-optimism that in the past had always signaled the beginning of an economic correction. Whenever I felt financially secure enough to step up to a newer home or a second property, the economy faltered, reminding me it was time to tap the spending brakes.
I was working around the clock, like most leaders of a business – and I couldn’t come up with any strategy other than cutting costs – fast – to save our leaky business.
As CEO and largest shareholder of one of Canada’s oldest and biggest executive search firms, my job is to maximize long-term profitability. Our business model is simple: We are engaged by corporations, governments, or not-for-profits to find and attract executives to their side to help them build their businesses. As headhunters, we use storytelling techniques to draw people to us and begin a dialogue about their career. We assess them as potential candidates and start moving the right ones down a path that may influence them to leave their company and join one of our clients. We have access to opportunities that can make people’s careers; as such, we are a key strategic resource to our clients. At the same time, we create headaches for non-client organizations by taking their best people away.
Our