339. The Bridge Between Courage And Pity
Today I saw a one-armed man walking a three-legged dog. My reaction was nothing I'm proud of, but it did teach me a whole lot about courage and pity.
This is The Best Leadership Newsletter Ever, the most fun way to learn life’s leadership lessons. My name is Jeff Matlow. I am a leadership coach.
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Today I saw a one-armed man walking a three-legged dog.
Seriously. It’s a true story.
I’m not proud to admit this, but my immediate reaction was pity.
I automatically assumed they were depressed about their physical disabilities and considered able-bodied humans (and able-bodied dogs) to be better than them.
I assumed they have a hard time in life, even in doing the daily duties that make up a day, and they live their lives feeling less than everyone else.
Did I judge them?
Clearly I did. To pity somebody is to judge them.
At least that was my first instinct.
I’m not proud of these thoughts, but I need to be honest with you about them. I need to be honest with myself, too.
And this reminds me of a story from my first Ironman triathlon race.
We’ll get back to the man and the dog in a minute.
Self-Pity Is A Heavy Load To Carry
I competed in the Ironman Lake Placid triathlon in 2006. It had long been a dream of mine to finish an Ironman distance race, and this was my first.
I was nervous but determined.
All went fairly well in the 2.4-mile swim, and things went good enough through the brutally hilly 112-mile ride. I was feeling pretty darn decent as I headed out on the 26.2-mile run.
I mean, I was tired, but I was still moving forward, and none of the bodily aches and pains were painful enough to cause me much agitation.
But when I got to mile 14 of the marathon, that all changed.
It was then that my foot stopped working. I’m not sure what caused this, but in one step, my right foot went from feeling fine to feeling like I had a broken bone. It was a strong, piercing pain. Every step was agony.
So I stopped.
I looked around to find help. But there was no one.
This was a remote part of the course. No medical team, no support vehicles, no help.
So I did the only thing I could do in this situation: I began running again.
Actually, I hobbled - or whatever it’s called when you have a profound limp and are clearly trying to avoid putting pressure on your right foot.
I ran this way, with gritted teeth, for about a mile. The pain was getting worse. The break in my foot began to break my pride. My dreams of finishing an Ironman race were fading fast.
As the next mile agonizingly hobbled by, I began to pile on the self-pity.
Self-pity is a heavy load to carry, no matter how strong you think you are.
I was nearing civilization and about to quit when I drew my eyes up from the ground and looked in front of me.
What I saw changed everything.
Even Angels Are Broken
I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen him earlier. All I know is that the universe is always conspiring to work in our favor.
So for me, in that moment, an angel miraculously appeared.
Right there, running not fifteen feet in front of me, was a man with one leg.
He was 125 miles into an Ironman triathlon, wearing a prosthetic right leg, running with fortitude and looking happier and more emboldened than I had felt all day.
That moment wasn’t just a turning point in my race day - it was a turning point in my life. I think about it often.
If he can happily compete with only one leg, surely I can manage through with a little foot pain.
I did not judge him for his weakness - I judged myself for mine.
I was wallowing in a pool of self-pity about a pain in my foot when a man without an entire leg was doing fine.
In that moment, I made a conscious decision to stop feeling sorry for myself. It may be my most important takeaway from a life of triathlon racing.
I lifted my head, squared my shoulders, and forced a smile across my face. I consciously pulled myself out of the pool of pity.
As I did this, somehow, in some magical way, the debilitating pain in my foot began to slowly dissipate. With each step, I got stronger. And happier. And soon enough, I realized that the pain I had - it completely disappeared.
Once I recognized that even angels are broken, I realized that it’s ok for me to be broken too.
Every Disability Is A Strength
All too often, we try to hide our wounds. We try to overcompensate for our weaknesses or those of our team members.
We have a natural tendency to try to hide our disabilities or fix what we see as problems in others.
The truth is that we all have disabilities. We have no reason to hide them any more than a one-armed man walking a 3-legged dog.
You don’t need to be whole to move forward. None of us is whole.
Even angels are broken.
But we aren’t having this conversation to talk about disability. What I’m really talking about is capability.
To move forward in your life, you only need courage. You only need the strength to walk out of whatever self-pity is plaguing you.
Every disability is a strength. Your challenge is to understand that, find the strength, and celebrate it.
When you judge others for their perceived weaknesses, it reveals more about you than it does them.
In fact, when I looked closer at that one-armed man walking the three-legged dog, I saw that the dog was happy. Her tail was wagging, she was smelling all the smells and doing all the things that happy dogs do on a beautiful day.
I looked more closely and saw that the one-armed man looked calm and content. I saw no pain. I saw absolutely nothing to pity.
The only thing to pity was my reaction to them.
Remember, whenever you perceive a weakness in others, it reveals a weakness in you.
So here’s my challenge for you:
Think of how you’re judging yourself.
What are you limping through that you think disqualifies you from achieving your goals?
Do you feel you’re not smart enough? Your idea isn’t good enough?
Do you feel you don’t have the time or the energy to accomplish your dream goals?
Come up with one thing you can do today to let go of the self-pity you’re carrying around.
You only need to do one thing.
Just do it.
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I can’t wait to hear about it.
Let me know in the comments below.
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