For those of you who missed my last post, a very brief introduction: I am Matt’s buddy from growing up in Pittsford, NY, and he has convinced me to run the marathon with him. He has often called me ‘the dumbest smart person I know.’ To back that up, I am only (ostensibly) running (in theory) the marathon because Matt has this painful race on his life bucket list, and he couldn’t find anyone else to try it alongside him. If you ask me, then, that’s kind of like a black pot calling a black kettle black, while all the shiny China from grandma (that’d be anyone not running the ‘thon) sits back, looking good in the cabinet and inclining at a comfortable angle on those plate-holder things…
But let me share with you another bit of information before you decide whether Matt’s assessment is correct: I offset this perception with some intelligent (you be the judge) tactics in two key subject areas related to this race:
1) Fundraising
2) Training tactics
For fundraising, I recently bombarded about 75 business school friends with an email requesting their help with our effort to raise $2,620 to Donate Life. I learned about five valuable thing in business school, and paid about $80k to do it, so the cost of learning a tactic associated with that request, to me, was about $16k. I can’t speak for how much everyone else learned, but they paid similar amounts, and at least they got some classmate spamming them for money 15 months later, if nothing else. So that’s that.
HERE’S THE CATCH/TACTIC: I promised each of those people I’d donate an additional $5 for each person who makes a donation to our marathon-running cause (the charity/foundation Donate Life). So far, they’ve hit me up for about $75, and I’m on the hook for $ BILLIONS untold more still (or $300, if you wanted to be picky about it…).
For Matt’s friends and family reading this…the first ten people who donate next, who I don’t know personally, I’ll also donate $5 to match the donation from each of you!!!!!
There you have it…a psychological tactic relying on feelings of guilt and shared sacrafice to get people to do something. Just cost me $16,000 for the idea! Plus $75 so far but I hope that number goes up!!
On the topic of training tactics, I’ll keep it short for now. I have learned that when it comes to something as dumb as readying yourself for a marathon, you must not only do logical things to stay in good physical health, but illogical things to challenge your body and also to keep your mind occupied. I present to you my top two such items for this week…
a) I am going to Brazil for 10 days starting tomorrow, but the training must continue. Therefore I will run in one of the world’s most smog-choked cities (Sao Paulo) at mountain elevations. Category: illogical physical challenges likely to result in black lung.
b) I occassionally do runs on park trails in my current home, St. Louis county. I have been known to take a look around, during moments of powering through pain, and point my arm/index finger to the sky at a forty-five degree angle only after I’m sure no one is looking. It is a mix between declaring myself #1, and encouraging myself to keep going forward. Category: illogical things to keep your mind occupied and look stupid at the same time.
I have some other moves in the arsenal, but I need to test them a bit more before I know they are tough enough to recommend to you. Stay posted, and I look forward to matching your donation!!
- Andy G.
P.S. If you need your own motivational video/tactic for any reason, I suggest trying this clip on youtube. Matt will like it for its Jeter reference, hate it for its Ray Allen (kryptonite to SU) reference, and like it for its Melo reference. See you in a couple weeks…
Andy
No comments:
Post a Comment