5 things I learned while walking 335km (210 miles)

 Summary

At the end of August 2021, I spent 11 days walking an average of 33 km (20 miles) under the scorching sun. I climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and slept in the open trying to reach Santiago de Compostela, where the shrine of apostle St. James is located. The lessons I learned helped me re-evaluate my own framework for peak performance.

Transcript

I just completed one of the hardest
things that I have ever done. And I learned a lot

that I think can help you in your entrepreneurial
experience. Let's get to it.

Hello everyone, Leon Castillo here, CEO & Founder
of Selfmastered, which is a company that

specializes in peak cognitive performance for
entrepreneurs and business leaders. If you're new

to the channel, consider subscribing because we
release a few juicy videos every week to help you

crush it with your business or in your career. So
today, I want to discuss something that has been

incredibly powerful as an experience and have
taught me a lot about what performance actually

is, and how does it apply to the entrepreneurial
experience. So I just completed the Way of Saint

James, which is a pilgrimage, a Christian
pilgrimage that leads to the tomb, to the shrine

of Sain James, which is one of the Christ's
apostles. And this is a networks of roads that

cover whole Europe and I decided to do the
original Road, which goes from Oviedo, which is a

capital of Asturies, a region in the north of
Spain to Santiago, about 335 kilometres, which I

covered in 11 days, that's about 220 miles that I
did 20 miles every single day. And I believe I

have learned a lot about myself and about
performance. And today I want to share with you

what are the five tenets that I believe you need
to keep front and center in your mind, if you want

to, over time, become a top performer.

So, First thing that we need to do when trying to
achieve something difficult, something hard,

something that's actually outside of the current
limit of our abilities is too narrow focus. And

this is so important because most people love to
boil oceans love to take too much time to do too

many things. So in the end, they do not drive
effective progress across anything meaningful. So

the first step is always to narrow focus. And
during the Way of Saint James, this was the first

thing really that I had to choose because when I
was about to start the Way of Saint James, I was

approached by a newspaper in Spain to write like
an article to be published right after I came

back. So in my mind, there was a possibility of
walking 32 kilometers per day and then in the

evening or at night, devote time to writing. But
thank God, I'd said no to that, because if I had

not narrowed my focus and only focused on
surviving the road, I would have done a very poor

job. If I had tried to write the article at the
same time that I was walking the Camino.

So that's #1 narrow focus, when you narrow focus
enough, then you get to to increase intensity,

when you only have one thing to do, you need to
increase intensity, you need to give it all out

you do not you cannot half-ass, any effort, you
need to go very hard. Because when you push hard

enough, you go past the activation phase, and you
start you start stretching the limits of your

abilities, or your skill set or your character or
your mental models, right? So narrow focus, and

then really go very intense to whatever it is
you're trying to achieve. In my case, during the

Way of St. James, the only thing I could think
about was surviving the road - I had blisters and

injuries on my feet from day one, because I
normally do not walk 32 kilometres and about six

or seven or eight hours. So I had blisters all
over my feet, I had trouble walking. And once I

get to the hostel in the end, because you don't
really have hotels here you have hostels, the only

thing I could think of was healing myself. Taking
care of myself. So my focus was survival. And I

was intensely focused on making sure that the
goal, which was get to Santiago in time was

achieved because normally, people do not take 11
days to achieve this. They take 13 or 14. So we

were pushing harder than the average person. Which
leads me to #3 which has increased your standards.

So today best performance has to be the minimum
performance tomorrow. That's how you become better

every time. If you have data to actually go watch
your progress and understand how well you're

performing, then use it to solidify performance
improvements over time. That's how you become

inevitable. That's how you get to your goals
because you're constantly becoming better and

creating compounding growth. From your efforts in
the Way of Saint James, in my case, it was, how

can I walk faster than I walked yesterday? How can
I get to the first pitstop in the day? With less

with sensation of tiredness? Is it? Can I hidrate
myself better? Can I eat differently? Can I use a

cap to protect me from the sun? What can I do so
that I do not suffer as much during the day,

right. So that's number three. Really up your
standards day by day, week-on-week work on

becoming the best self every day, which leads me
to #4 Momentum, take care of momentum, protect

momentum, never curtail the momentum, the positive
inertia that you're building, it is very easy to

check some random new site or some social media
when you are trying to focus, very easy to just

stop in a small village and drink a beer just to
refresh yourself when you have only covered 4, 8

or 10 kilometres, you'll still have 20 kilometers
to go. In my case. I never did that, because I

understood that I was suffering by walking every
day. And if I stopped, it would be so difficult to

start again. So I minimize any interruption any
distraction, and I really kept the momentum up.

And over time as time passed, my injuries went
down, I had fewer blisters, and I was able to

sustain a higher rhythm and walk faster. So when
the Prime moment of the trip came when was the

last day in which I go over 40 kilometers, about
30 or 32 miles, I was ready because I had been

walking 10 days an average of 30 kilometers 32
kilometers. And I had all the training, I have not

break the chain, I was ready. And this applies to
your entrepreneurial experience: so if you are

having great weeks or great days, do not
compromise them don't get wasted on the weekends,

don't check whatever social media or Twitter or
whatever during an intense deep work session,

really sustain high performance and sustain the
positive inertia and momentum that comes with it.

And finally, the #5 Update your mental models, you
will never achieve anything you do not believe is

possible. And this is probably the single best
predictor of entrepreneurial success. Every time

we coach somebody, the first thing we look at is
the scope of their possibilities what they think

they can achieve, how able or willing they are to
review their belief systems and create a new

possibility in their minds. And I have a very good
story about this because this was incredible for

me to see it in action with myself in the Way of
St. James. So picture this. I've been walking for

nine days at this point. I am in Lugo, which is a
city in Galicia (North of Spain) which is 100

kilometres away of Santiago of our destination. So
I've been working 9 days I have blisters all over

my feet. I'm extremely tired, and I have been
sustaining 4.5 kilometres per hour rhythm. I have

10 kilos in my bag. So obviously I need to carry
everything and like all the tents and everything

that I sleep in with me all my clothes and stuff.
So that's 10 kilos. So I've been doing for two 4.5

kilometres per hour for nine days. And when I get
to Lugo I met a guy. He is about 60-65 years old.

And he tells me that he has covered 60 kilometres
that day. So twice the number of kilometers that I

was covering myself twice and he is double my age.
So what's going on here? Well, he was obviously

better trained. He went, he didn't carry much
weight, and he woke up at 4am started walking at

5am until 3pm. So that's 10 hours. I met him at
3:30pm. And if you if you make the average he was

doing at six kilometres per hours. That's
impressive. That's like four miles an hour. That's

very fast.

And that's when I understood that I was limiting
myself. I could not believe that it was possible

to walk that fast. I've never tried. So the next
day, I decided to start walking at six kilometers

per hour and you bet we did it. We started
progressing much faster. And in the end, in the

same amount of time in seven hours, which is what
we did on the first day and we did in the last day

in the first day of the trip or the pilgrimage We
did 30 kilometres in 7 hours in the last day we

did 40 kilometres in 7 hours. So by updating my
mental models, by sustaining my momentum, by only

being super focused on finishing the pilgrimage,
healthy and alive, by refining my standards, I had

to become better day after day. My performance at
the end of the pilgrimage was incredible: 40

kilometres (about 32 miles in one day), walking
with blisters and injuries and stuff. So this to

me is obviously related to the entrepreneurial
experience. Remember that Elon Musk said that

intrapreneurship is like chewing glass while
staring into the abyss. It is difficult, it is

painful, but it's highly meaningful if you pull it
off. But how can we ensure that the odds of

success are higher than average? Well, by keeping
these five principles: 1. Narrow focus, only do

what you need to do, 2. Refine your intensity, up
your intensity, really go all in all out. And

then, of course, 3. Up your standards be better
than you weren't yesterday, every single day, make

the conscious effort and track yourself use data
to become better every day. Then, 4. Sustain

momentum. This is a race. So make sure that you
sustain momentum, don't break the chain and keep

it up. And finally, of course, 5. Update your
mental models, make sure that you believe you can

do it. Because if you believe and you put all the
necessary effort to make it possible, you may

certainly have shot. And if I covered 335
kilometers (about 220 miles) in 11 days, I am sure

you can do it too. And you can achieve whatever
goal you set for yourself. So I hope this was

useful. Please let me know in the comments. Like
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