Entrepreneurship Lessons from Running 100 Miles

Chris Badgett offers a very personal tale in this LMScast episode that relates endurance running to entrepreneurship and personal development.

Chris worked with a running coach to progressively increase his endurance with strenuous runs, such as a 30-mile mountain run in New Hampshire and a 50-mile walk across the Grand Canyon. For Chris, the objective was to become the type of guy who could accomplish something amazing, not to get recognition or ego.

He highlights that success, like endurance, results from persistent work, resiliency, and a strong commitment to personal development by drawing a comparison between this experience and the path taken by course developers and education entrepreneurs.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badget. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m Chris Badgett and this is gonna be a solo episode. This one’s gonna be a little bit different. This podcast is all about you, but I’m gonna talk a little bit about me and this one and tie it in to your journey as an education entrepreneur, as an LMS website building person.

So I just accomplished something last weekend. A big goal. I’ve been working on kind of for two years, so I’m 47 years old and I just completed a 100 mile run. I started on Saturday morning, and then I finished on Sunday, early afternoon. So I ran a hundred miles all the way from the state of Vermont across the entire state of New Hampshire.

To Maine where I live and it was a hundred miles. There was actually a kind of a route that people do that was 80 miles. From Vermont to Maine. I wanted to do a full 100. So I actually ran an extra 20 miles before I got to the starting of the journey that I did. From Vermont all the way to to Maine.

So that was a hundred mile run straight. I did take two 20 minute naps around mile 80 and mile 90, somewhere in there just because my body was giving out and I had to reset the brain and stuff. But it’s pretty much a straight run. This was not a race, it was self-supported. Which means there was no like official race event or anything.

It was just me and the trails and the back roads that I was on. I did have a couple of awesome people who supported me in the process who would meet me at road crossings for resupplying water and food and that sort of thing. So I was joined by my business partner at Lifter LMS, Jason Coleman. And a good friend Adam Silver.

And Adam actually ran a section of it with me near the end, but for the most part it was a, I was out there by myself in the woods on trails and on back roads running all the way through the night. And some of it is in a very remote part of Vermont. So this, any distance over a marathon is known as an ultra.

So this was definitely an ultra run. It was a hundred miles. And ultra is, it’s pretty much what I did is running four marathons back to back all in a row. Now I was, didn’t start training until about two years ago. I’ve always been active. I’ve always been an outdoors person. I started training and getting into shape.

But I was in a bad place because for most of my adult life, like from age 20 onwards, I’ve dealt with chronic back pain. So whenever I would wake up in the morning, the first conscious thing in my awareness is my back hurts. And I was still very active and I did physical jobs and things, but I always had.

Struggles with my back and it was very painful for a lot of my life and a lot of my waking time. And the crazy thing is through this run is that not just the ultra at the end, but about a year ago, my chronic back pain completely disappeared from all the training and just getting in the right shape with the right muscles and all of that.

That to me is the biggest win of all this process. The a hundred mile run was fantastic. I had a great experience. Really appreciated the support of Jason and Adam and my wife Samantha, who came out to support at various parts. But I also hired a running coach two years ago named Kevin, who had worked with me over the past two years to really design the.

Running training and strength training program that I did. So that is I consider it a great accomplishment. I’m really proud of what I accomplished. The first 80 miles of the a hundred mile run was actually pretty smooth, but the last 20 were brutal. I was moving very slow. I wasn’t feeling well.

My stomach was upset. And it was very challenging, but I was able to complete the a hundred miles so that’s the a hundred mile run just happened. I have no idea, what my next goal is gonna be. But like I said, I’ve been working on it for two years with the Running Coach. About eight months ago I had done a 50 mile run that was very challenging with my wife, where we.

Went down one side of the Grand Canyon, down the river, up the other side and back, which is a very hardcore 50 mile ultra run that we did. So that was a touch point in that training. I also did a 30 mile, very strenuous mountain run over the tops of six mountains in a mountain chain in the White mountains of New Hampshire.

That was also an ultra event that I did on my own, on this journey. But in all that, there was lots of training runs, walks, fast runs, strength training, all kinds of different training. And I want to tie this into you, the listener. I appreciate it if you’re celebrating with me and proud of the accomplishment, it means the world to me.

I wanted to share a lot of the things that I’ve learned just with developing endurance, setting big goals, doing training. And the first thing is really about the foundation and motivation. So why did I decide to do a hundred mile run at 47 years old? Really I’m not motivated by the. Kind of reputation or ego of having done that.

I’m happy that I’ve accomplished that, but mostly what I wanted to do is just become the person that could do that. So there was a transformation there. Yes, I’m getting older, but I believe I’d like to, age gracefully and becoming in the kind of shape that you could do something like a hundred mile run.

Was very appealing to me just because of the person that I would become in the process. You could call that an athlete and there’s lots of different types of athletes, like for you, maybe it’s some other sport or some kind of physical physique thing or whatever it is for you, but not just like an event, but the person that you become in the process is really the main motivation for me.

I also like to challenge myself and that was quite the challenge and to do that successfully. I’m proud of that, but also I like the example that sets for, particularly my children who saw their dad work really hard and train in training, but also accomplish something that sounds impossible at any age.

So that was a big part of that. And when I was training first starting out, I’ve always been active, would go on morning walks and little runs here and there, but usually not more than three or five miles. But in the early days of training, particularly with my back pain challenges, I would have a lot of setbacks.

When you first start training for something like that with a big goal, whether you’re trying to lose weight, get big muscles, or develop endurance or whatever, you’re not gonna see results like every day at all. It takes a while. So in the early days, I stayed motivated by trusting the process and just putting one foot in front of the oth other. It’s like I mentioned with the back pain where.

Eventually I woke up one morning and it just never returned. But over the, those two years, I could see the impact of the back pain getting less and less. But it is all like in the rear view mirror where you look back and you notice, oh wow I’ve made some significant change or transformation here.

And that’s motivating even when. Day to day you’re not really noticing any results or immediate, huge wins. I particularly like endurance because I feel like you get a lot more out of it. Particularly as an entrepreneur, I’ve been an entrepreneur for something like 15 years, building my own business.

Building a company doing all the things, hiring people, building a team, charting a vision doing a lot of the day-to-day work of running and implementing and growing a business. And that requires a lot of endurance. No matter who you are, where you are, there’s a lot of seduction with the idea of.

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Get rich quick or overnight success and that’s just not the reality. The whole passive income thing, it’s a lot of active, a lot of active work. And part of that is just staying mentally healthy. So one of the ways I do that, ’cause I spend a lot of time at the computer, is I like to get outside and exercise, spend time in nature, spend time with my family, be out, be around my house outdoors.

That’s helps create a lot of balance in my life. And in terms of like small incremental improvements, when I first started training, I was doing a lot of walk run combinations, very short distances, variety. So maybe one day there’s like a short run, another day there’s a longer walk and run combination.

Another day there’s some strength training. Another day. There’s some really short hill running uphill speed work, cardio things going on. And business is a lot like that because we have to wear a lot of hats. One day we’re doing marketing stuff, another day we’re doing sales stuff.

Another day we’re building product like our courses or our website another day we’re doing other technology stuff like. Doing marketing automation or more website stuff. Another day we might be doing research or talking to potential customers or reviewing competition and things like that.

And to do all those things. The trick is not just to do all things and wear all the hats, but also to do those things over time. So one of the ways I do that in business. Is I have a lot of time blocks on my calendar so that an essential function of business does not get left behind. So I have dedicated content creation time blocks on my calendar.

I have dedicated time blocks to work with my team and support them. I have dedicated time blocks to do management type activities. So those time blocking, that time blocking approach is really effective. And I like to work in systems and routines over projects. So instead of just being like, I’m all in and I’m focusing on this one and only thing right now, until it’s finished. I will have multiple projects going simultaneously and through my routines.

I am slowly working away at all those projects which work together with each other to grow the business or further whatever initiative or goal is in place. And when I can try to systematize those things so I’m not constantly trying to invent the way of doing things. Whatever it is we’re focused on.

It’s also important, when you run a hundred miles, you learn the value of patience and you have to be patient, right? So yes, you could create and launch a course in one day. You really could do that. I’ve done that, but. It’s better to be patient and build an education company, or if you’re an agency building a website. Building agency it’s something that’s built brick by brick over time and all those things compound and help each other.

Another part that comes up during. A long run or a long decade. Building a company is setbacks, so it could be pain or fatigue when you’re running. It could be injury, but there’s business equivalence of that. You could not like what you’re doing at the moment, and as an entrepreneur. It’s really easy to get distracted and just focus on the things that you want to do or you’re excited about doing.

I call it sweeping the floor. Sometimes you have to sweep the floor. Just do something that is either uncomfortable or that you’re not that excited about. That was one of the great things about working with a coach is. I used to think that I didn’t need accountability, and I also trusted maybe too much in my ability to, come up with a plan.

But when you work with an expert like a coach. That created a lot of accountability. I didn’t have to plan my workouts. They were in an app. I knew what I had to do. And knowing that, my watch, my GPS data and heart rate stuff and everything is gonna end up on my coach’s computer, it’s very motivated to get the work done.

So if it’s raining, if it’s snowing, if it’s cold, I’m still going, I’m still getting the work done, and businesses like that. Sometimes you just gotta keep going and just do it. And having that accountability and particularly that guidance from an expert can be very helpful and motivating. And I also just want to note on my a hundred mile run, I mentioned Jason and Adam and my wife Sam, who.

Supported me in the process. They didn’t run for me, but they were there. Smoothing over the gaps, making sure I had enough water, making sure my bag was resupplied, making sure I had enough batteries that were charged for my headlamps and stuff like that because I was running through the night.

So not doing it alone, even if most of what you do as a loan, but not entirely alone is really helpful. And having a coach, a mentor, or a guide of some kind to help you in the process, either for the whole big picture or maybe just a piece. Maybe you just need like a marketing coach, or maybe you just need an instructional design coach, or maybe you just need a business coach that’s gonna help you better manage a team.

Or maybe you need like a mindset coach or some kind of psychological assistance. To help you keep your head screwed on straight and have a solid mindset. The power of coaching is very powerful and it’s easy to look at like the successful course launch or the successful business. But really a lot of the coaching and the personal development that happens, it’s all about the process leading up to those milestone events like a course launch.

A hundred mile run, or a company that makes X amount of dollars a year or has been in business five, 10 years and those sort of things. Those are just blips of time where the whole journey is really what it’s all about, and getting support in that process is really important. Another interesting thing happened to me on my a hundred mile run as I got into it.

I normally, when I run, I listen to a lot of podcasts and audio books. It’s one of the things that motivates me to run because people laugh. I’m thinking of a guy named Nathan. I ran into at a conference in England and I was telling ’em about my upcoming run and I said. He said, you sound like you must really like to run.

And I said to him, I actually hate running. Which is true in the sense that it’s painful. A lot of times I’m doing it and not the best weather. Maybe it’s raining, maybe it’s super cold and windy, or the snow is blowing, or I have something else I’d rather be doing with that time. But what I love is the, the way I feel after and the mental health benefits and the person I’m becoming in the process. That’s something that’s interesting. And then the other thing I mentioned about the, not listening to podcasts or audio books on my a [00:20:00] hundred mile run, I normally do that, but in this case.

I did not, and it was just an intuitive sense I had. Once I got into it for one there was a lot of navigation. There were a lot of turns in the trail intersections, road crossings, and I just had to make sure not to get lost. Cause you can get lost easily on a hundred mile run through the woods and back roads and all this stuff.

But more importantly, I just had this intuitive sense that I should really stay grounded in the moment. So the run took me just over 30 hours, and that’s a long time. But also when you consume information, it actually burns calories. And I know that’s true because when you study professional chess players like Magnus Carlson or whoever, when they’re in a chess match, they will actually burn an insane amount of calories when they’re playing a game of chess just sitting in a chair.

So [00:21:00] energy conservation is really important, especially when you’re doing a Himalayan effort, and I just intuitively felt that I needed to let my brain only focus on the essentials of running survival navigation and that kind of thing. But businesses like that, particularly on the internet, because there are so many distractions.

You’re at your computer, there’s infinite content on YouTube or social media. You could have a movie playing a tv, going you could be having side conversations with people around you at a coffee shop or whatever. And focus is extremely important as an entrepreneur. Sometimes the key factor that limits the success of somebody.

Is there inability to focus or stay focused? So removing distractions is really important. That’s why I’m a big believer if you’re a work from home entrepreneur, that it’s really important to set up your home office or workstation environment so that it’s very productive. There’s not a lot of distractions.

So for example, right now I can just walk up to my computer and start recording or making a video at any time. Everything’s all set up. The microphone, the camera. I can just go. So it’s set up for productivity. That was just an interesting fact about limiting the mind. And I mentioned I took a couple of 20 minute naps.

And it was like I was at the point of exhaustion, but my muscles were doing pretty good. It was more mentally I needed a reset. So just laying down under a sleeping bag on the ground and, with my eyes closed, allowed my brain just to take a moment and reset and get ready for the next 5,10, 20 miles.

That was important. So there’s an ultra runner named David Goggins who says, when you think you’re at the end of your ability, like you’re outta gas, like there’s nothing more you can do physically. You’re actually only at 40%, which is, if you think about it, that’s what a lot of ultra is about.

It’s getting past barriers, a lot of which are mental. So if you do the training and you’re, you have the condition to be able to do something or you do your business and you’ve been doing, putting the reps in, learning marketing, doing marketing, learning sales, doing sales, creating content, learning about creating better content, making more content, making products like courses coaching people one-on-one, learning how to be a better coach and, practicing coaching.

With clients and so on. Building websites, you just keep going. And if you’ve put in the reps, you’re often capable of much more than where you think your limits are. So one of the biggest challenges is not that we aim to high with our goals, it’s actually that we aim too low. Think about that and really keep putting one foot in front of the other when it comes to your business and adopt the ultra mindset.

Even if you’re not like a hardcore athlete or anything like that you can develop, you can become mentally strong and mentally endure and mentally carry on and do the work of building a business. Helping people and becoming a better person in the process. So my biggest wall I hit was around around 80 miles and that’s when I knew I could finish, but it was gonna be very difficult.

So I felt great going to, to about mile 80, and then things started to fall apart. But I knew I could continue on. I would have to walk a bunch. I would have to slow down. I would have to take some stops. And even in those moments, that’s when my support team was the most there for me to help me carry on, to help me keep moving forward.

And that’s the power of having a vision, having a mission, having people with you on the journey. That’s what motivates me at Lifter LMS. You’ll often see me sign off in my emails. It’s great to be with you on the journey, and I mean that because I see myself, our team, the lifter LMS product, we are part of your journey and we’re here to support you.

We’re here for you at mile 80 when you have a question and or you have a challenge or you’re trying to launch and you’re trying to figure these things out. We have our live calls where we help people, not just with the software, but with other ideas and strategy and things like that. So we are part of your support crew at Lifter LMS on your business, ultra Endurance Marathon, and I would just encourage you to consider, if you’re not already there, adopting an ultra mindset, which means going far.

Putting in the reps expanding your limits, expanding your comfort zone expanding your goals, aim a little higher. Do some planning. Surround yourself with people and processes and systems that can support you, whether that’s team members or coaches or standard operating procedures, or documenting how you do what you do.

All of these things come together to create the ultra mindset and to build an education company and a website and an online business that can stand the test of time. Some of the, best lifter LMS sites I love have been around for over a decade, and I see those entrepreneurs continue to learn, take forward, imperfect actions, have setbacks or challenges, but carry on.

Grow their teams become better versions of themselves, help others on the journey. It’s really awesome to see. In, in hiking I’ve done a lot of hiking and backpacking and stuff, and there’s this, there’s something we all know for those of us that do long distance hiking, which is, it’s not very crowded.

One mile from the trailhead. And what that means is if you really get out there. There’s a lot of activity and buzz around the start, but when you get out far and you get up the mountain a little bit there’s just the people out there that are going the distance and then you get really out there and you barely see many people.

That’s the ultra people and businesses like that. Whether, you’re building an agency or you’re building a product, or you’re building courses, coaching program, education company. It is fun and energizing to get out there with the people that are really doing it, that are really going the distance.

And of course we want beginners and people with goals and dreams to get started and all of that, but strap on the ultra long-term distance mindset and it’s amazing what you can accomplish. So thank you for checking out this episode, letting me tell my story of my a hundred mile run from the state of Vermont to Maine in New Hampshire, and pulling out some lessons of that are related to entrepreneurship and education and building an online company because it definitely takes a lot of endurance and, going big and going far.

I’m in your corner. I’m a champion for you and champion your goals and dreams, and it’s great to be with you on the journey.

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