Expedition 2! World Record solo row across the Pacific for ocean plastic solutions

November 4, 2018

Inside the Endurance Athlete’s Mind

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Ever wonder how endurance athletes just keep going? Curious what techniques we use to stay focused, positive, and making progress?

Spoiler: the secret sauce isn’t muscle or fitness. In fact, the longer the challenge, the more important are your attitude, emotional awareness, and mental resilience.

I’ve been invited to give a TED-style talk this coming week on how I’ve learned to cultivate these skills over ten years as an endurance athlete.

Titled Moving through Pain: Mental Techniques to Excel in Sport and Life, the talk introduces three techniques I’m using to prepare for the UWC Challenge – techniques you can use to achieve your own goals, too.

Stay tuned for the recording! In the meantime, you can get a preview from the storyboard.

-Terence

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What you see below: Rather than memorize the talk, I sketched images of each building block. I use the note cards to recall each image, see its place in the story arc, and then speak naturally and improvise about that moment. Public speaking trick!

Full storyboard (reads left-to-right starting at the top row)
The Power to Choose (featured in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
Mantras (every warrior runs with a slogan)
Did you know, more people have been to space than rowed the Atlantic?
The miles ticked along… 110, 120, 130