Circle of Trust

In 2010, I was living in Wisconsin. I was working all the time. When I wasn’t working, I’d go golfing by myself or just stay in my basement by myself, isolated from my friends and family. I was very unhappy in my marriage and very unhealthy–and I didn’t even realize it.

I stumbled upon the C25k program and although I had never been a runner in my life, it seemed like something I could handle. I found a community of others who discovered running later in life and motivated each other to stick with it. I signed up for my first 5k, a Turkey Trot back here in Naperville.

One night, I told my wife how nervous I was about it. And without looking up, she said, “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this. You just quit everything you do, anyway.”

I didn’t say anything, but at that moment I knew two things were true: I had given myself permission to become a quitter. And that my marriage was over.

Her words were burned into my brain along with all of the doubt I already had. 

Eventually I ran my first 5k and actually started to enjoy running. Really, I enjoyed the feeling of realizing what I was capable of with each new personal best. On a whim, I registered for the Chicago Marathon and ran that, too. 

Still, every time I went out, I couldn’t outrun all of the things I quit: Karate when I was a kid; football in high school; baseball in college; writing a book after college; every job I ever quit; all the crash diets, and eventually that marriage. 

Psychologically, there’s something about quitting that makes it easier to quit again the next time. Once you’ve given yourself permission to give up, to walk away, to lose interest, you’ve lowered the bar to climb over in the future. 

For the most part, life is OYO. And, for me, quitting became really easy to do. I was only giving up on myself—and I accepted that. 

One of the greatest things about F3 is that you can’t quit F3. When I didn’t show up for all of the Reindeer Games because my family was sick, I felt all of that pressure and anxiety rushing back. But that was self-imposed. The guys in this group were the ones giving me permission to come back without judgment. They made it okay to NOT quit. 

So, if you need to slow down, slow down. If you need to break up a set, break it up. If you need to Mash, then Mash. But don’t quit on yourself, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned about these guys, it’s that they won’t quit on you.