me in the Sahara Desert so I want you to
picture that in your mind I want you to
imagine just how hot that is it is
literally like opening an oven when
you’re cooking a meal the heat just hits
you and you go car I want you to imagine
the as a helicopter goes over me
sideways at about a hundred feet above
me the reason I’m there is I’m in the
toughest footrace on earth the marathon
day Sabah it’s a 250 kilometres across
the Sahara on foot and I’m carrying
everything I need for me for the entire
week in a rucksack on my back I’ve got
goggles on I’ve got a mask up around my
face keeping the dust and the sand out
of my eyes and the wind can be up to 40
40 miles an hour while you’re trudging
through the sound and through the jeans
all around me while I’m smiling and
working my way through the desert are
other people in this race who are having
a miserable time and in fact on the
first day of that race a hundred people
out of the thousand were timed out and
didn’t make it to the last checkpoint
there were people all around me who were
over the edge and having a miserable
time and yet through the middle of it
was the non athlete smiling listening to
john mayer on his headphones and i think
i was eating chicken curry from a freeze
dry bag during that race and since that
race I’ve begun to get an idea of what
it is sometimes that perhaps gives me
the edge over other people when I do
these kind of extreme events and so what
I did was start to think about that
during that marathon day solve the race
and sins and that’s become a central
idea which is something that I want to
share with you today a lot of you when
you think of over the edge a lot of
people think of kind of epic pictures of
people doing epic things so you might
imagine me crossing a desert or as a
diver somebody that would be diving on
dives that I’ve done in Egypt where I
might be three hours from the surface
but the reality is that those moments
those epic pictures those epic moments
and those epic moments you see lots of
people doing we’re not over the edge
we’re anywhere but near the edge and the
edge is actually a very very when you go
over the edge it’s a very very ugly
place to be I would have a slide to show
you but unfortunately i don’t but over
the edge is ugly it doesn’t often end
well and it’s not glamorous so the idea
that i started to form was what is it
that i put together that means that
often when I do these extreme events I
don’t have a problem so I started to
think about what it was that gave me an
edge sometimes when I’m in these
competitions were often with races with
people that are much much better run as
than I am and I realized that one of the
things that I used to do was a series of
control failures or controlled tests
that allowed me to fail epicly sometimes
in in hilarious ways but not when it
really really counted and those little
series of little tests and little
failures and little problems meant that
on those days when it really really
counted those days when you have that
little word with yourself just before
you do something okay come on Evans this
is it this is really important now don’t
mess this up you absolutely nail it and
you don’t have a problem if I take you
back to a year before this race the the
moments that I started doing these
failures happened mainly in February and
februari is a significant thing and I’ll
explain why in a little bit but februari
is just before when this desert races in
april so i started doing lots of tests
of kit and food and shoes and things
went epically wrong I broke bags I broke
trainers I broke every piece of kit you
can think of my record was one hour 40
minutes before I broke a piece of sports
Curt and testing and what Baquet what
happen with that in my head was I
started embracing what I started to call
them at failure februari and that’s the
that’s the message that I want to get
across to you today is
failure februari the good news is it
doesn’t have to be in February and the
failure is not necessarily a negative
thing it’s actually a positive thing
every time you have a minor failure in
life you say okay well what did I learn
from that and how can I avoid from that
from happening again so I broke
everything in training and I mean
everything including myself I went out
did nighttime runs ran into trees by
mistake got a better torch as a result
and so when I went out to the desert I
was smiling and listening to john mayer
on the headphones and having a pretty
good time most of the time while people
around me who hadn’t tested things who
hadn’t embraced a failure februari
concept had a pretty miserable time and
it became apparent to me that you could
actually see these people because
they’re rucksack was completely clean
their clothes were really good their
trainers had hardly been running so they
hadn’t tested anything so they weren’t
giving themselves the best opportunity
so when I got back from the desert when
I finished and I did finish I’d survived
I didn’t die in the desert and I was
asked to be an administrator on a
facebook group for desert runners and so
I wrote a blog blog about failure
februari and I put that on the internet
and I directed some of the people from
that group to go read it and what
happened was brilliant about a week
later my facebook feed filled up with
hashtag failure februari and there were
some glorious failures there was one
there were two people that went out and
got hypothermia basically and got taken
they were picked up by their parents
these are people that were like 40 years
old their parents had to come out and
rescued him from the south downs way
there was one guy that posted a photo of
his trainers he got them really wet on a
two-day run and he put them on top of a
radiator a really hot one to dry them
and the inner soles to the side and he
posted the picture the next day with a
hashtag failure februari because the
insoles have got super hot and it shrunk
to about that big and he now had a 55
kilometers adieu that day with insoles
that leo what was even funny it was and
I would have put the slide up touche but
that person was me oh we’re off okay so
we’re going to just get ahead to where
we should be okay that’s what over the
edge looks like
okay okay it’s not pretty I’m in the
wrong clothes I’ve got far too hot I’ve
actually got a fractured leg in that
picture and but I carried on running for
another 36 miles so my point earlier was
about over the edge and how it looks so
let me take you forward so this is my
big idea and you can see it’s not very
big this was just to recap very quickly
this was my first failure februari this
is me running in a heat chamber at
Kingston University until I got so hot
they pulled me out of the chamber I
won’t tell you where they put the
thermometer okay sad times and but you
can see I’ve got pictures of broken bags
broken trainers everything there I broke
everything you see me tweeting sometimes
quite annoyed at companies going I’ve
had this bag for days it broke but the
point was that bag didn’t break for me
when I was in the desert when it was
important that’s the blogger oh and this
is pretty much where we are now so this
is failure februari and this was
suddenly my feed on facebook and in fact
you can see I’ve protected the innocent
there on the top right Lili is me and
that’s my shoes with these cells half
the size that they should be but the
point is I won’t ever do that again and
the other people here we’re talking
about epic failures they’d had a
miserable times and kit with a broken
every single person in that group that
was posting about failure februari got
it they completely got it instead of
being angry and upset of themselves and
feeling like they’d failed they knew
that every failure like that was a
failure that wouldn’t occur when it
counted okay couple of weeks ago I
decided to broaden my horizons as a
runner and I decided to do some obstacle
course races being me rather than just
looking for a nice easy one I did do a
centre inflatable 5k but we’re not going
to count that because that was just good
fun I signed up for a thing called the
nuts challenge in Dorking not far from
here and it’s rated as the toughest
obstacle course race in the UK so very
typical me I thought you’re going to do
a race do the hardest one um it’s eight
hours it’s a slog through cold water it
has 400 obstacles and the attrition rate
is horrendous only about one in four one
in five people that start it
finish it so I only have a one in five
chance of finishing this race and
despite that I signed up what I did in
February was embrace failure februari I
sought out an army instructor who
happens to pace very high on this course
and knows this course like the back of
his hand and I sort out private tuition
with him with a small group of other
people and I had some epic failure
februari moments there’s an amazing
video I’m not going to show you of me
trying to tackle a nine foot wall for
the first time and I literally bounced
off it but two or three sessions later
and flying over that wall because I know
exactly how to do it there were these
cargo nets that you climb up and at the
top I’d be kind of wobbling over the top
and then let myself down the other side
and and this guy Michael would say no no
put your hands here and forward roll
over the top and the first time I said
there’s no man I’m doing that but a
couple of sessions later forward roll
over the top super super quick two days
before the event I met up with Michael
and did one lap of the course in exactly
the clothing I wanted to wear to keep me
just warm enough but not so warm I
couldn’t move very easily and it meant I
knew the course exactly in my head so
when I turned up two days later when the
weather was atrocious I went out there
and I was the best that I could be
because of all the controlled failures
I’d done prior to that I did the eight
laps I actually qualified for the World
obstacle course race championships in
Canada by mistake and that wasn’t really
my intention i just wanted to kind of
have a go but my point was that fit of
about 250 people that set out only about
60 was finished that course and i was
one of them was it because I was the
fittest probably not was it because I
was a brilliant obstacle course racer
knew but had I embraced failure febrian
so this is all very well but most of you
guys I assume don’t do stupid long runs
every weekend and disappear into the
unknown so how is this relevant to you
and my answer is that it’s very relevant
to you and what I want to do is give you
a couple of examples of how you can
embrace failure februari
if you’ve got that crucial job interview
that you might be going for instead of
doing a bit of a google search on the
company and turning up and winging it
what’s to stop you doing the route that
you need to do to travel to get to that
job interview checking that the parking
is okay or that the tube or the train
isn’t a nightmare so that you ensure
you’re not going to turn up flustered
what’s stopping you from ice being a
little bit creepy and looking at the
people coming going through the building
and getting a gauge for how the people
in that company dress so that you’re not
overdressed or underdressed there’s lots
of things you can do in advance to
minimize the chances of things going
wrong on that moment when it’s really
important that it’s absolutely bang-on
for you and you can argue that you could
apply the same thing to that crucial
first date that you want to do you know
everybody’s got a story of a first date
from hell that’s just gone to pieces but
instead of booking somewhere and hoping
everything goes okay there’s nothing
wrong with going there the week before
to a restaurant where you might meet
somebody and find out that actually
thursday nights is kids eat free night
and there’s food halfway up the walls
and actually you can’t hear it word that
you’re saying or but the romantic table
in the corner is actually by the door
and the door opens and shuts and you get
a cold blast of air every 20 seconds so
you can embrace failure februari and all
those things that you do there are
challenges that you face during the day
that are important if they’re that
important you can embrace fail if every
fire so we come forward to now and I
just want to show you how I’ve still use
of a leaf every now I’ve stupidly signed
up for a 625 mile footrace continuous
foot race this year through most of the
you gay as far as I can tell it’s
obviously quite tough because no one’s
actually ever finished it so
interestingly we get to februari again
and because nobody’s ever finished it i
started in February going out and
running all the sections of the course
it’s called the Monarchs way mnemonics
way ultra so here’s the tweet of me
you’ll notice it’s in February and I
went out and did a 200 kilometer weekend
self-supported sleeping in a bitty bag
and i can tell you i had some epic fails
on the way things went horribly wrong
actually only made 150 kilometres
therefore some of you might say well
150k still pretty good but for being it
was a bit of a failure but i learned
from the stuff that i learned out there
now there are going to be guys on that
race this year that a better runners the
me that have been further with more
experience but my failure February’s may
just give me the edge maybe I’ll have
record the entire route no one else on
that race this year will have run the
entire course there are epic numbers of
areas where it’s difficult to navigate
where you get lost I calculated that for
every 10 hours that I was running I was
making an hour and a half of mistakes
and navigation that adds up to an entire
day of the race lost that I won’t have
when i do this race so as a
self-confessed non-athlete i may well
have given myself the edge over people
that are much more experienced too much
fitter than I am may also not come as a
bit of a surprise for you that I embrace
failure febri in other places so when I
got asked about doing a TED talk the
first thing that I did was download a
book by the guy that created TED talks
on how to do a TED talk and I emailed
Sophie and said so if we just made me by
the other people and I wanted to make
sure that my my talk was as relevant as
it could be on the day and in keeping
with what some of the other people
talking about I literally failure
februari my own TED talk and you’re
seeing the end result of that literally
now this is me here yesterday the reason
I tweeted this was to make a point to
you guys about failure februari I even
came and had a look at the venue
yesterday so I knew exactly what to
expect when I came here I knew for
example that they were going to put a
radio mic on me and I don’t normally
were about so I’ve deliberately worn a
belt today because I found out that I
needed to it would appear i should have
asked some questions about overhead
power points and whoever you something
but you know what i’m going to take
today as a learning experience and the
next time I do something I get to tell
people about the time I did a TED talk
and it all went wrong yeah so for me
it’s another it’s a failure februari
it’s just happens to be in march this
time i guess my point is it’s fantastic
showing you photos of me crossing the
desert and telling you how amazing is I
can easily tell you these great stories
but what I really want to do is inspire
you to go out and do amazing things but
I want you to come back with both your
legs yeah over the edges really
it’s terrible and it won’t encourage you
to go do stuff again I’d like you when
you do these epic things and these
exciting things and also these these
things in your normal life that that can
be a challenge I want you to be the best
person you can be at those bits so I
want you to embrace my little control
failures and my failure februari concept
so that you don’t go over the edge at
the very moment that it counts thank you
very much [Applause]