[Music]
[Applause]
standing on a stage like this is one
type of challenge but my normal type of
challenge involves a lot more sweat
enormous amounts of sugar and sometimes
toenails that aren’t where you want them
to be do you remember the feeling you
had as a kid when everything feels felt
possible and you dreamt about becoming
something big when you grew up I never
had that feeling as a kid it took twenty
a year 28 years to find it I grew up in
a safe home and I learned a lot of
skills for my parents pushing limits was
not one of them when I was 25 and I
questioned my identity because I had
just finished my studies so I was no
longer a student but I struggled to get
my first real job but I wanted to have
something to do so I started running
first a little then a bit more and then
even more and after a while I set the
goal to run a marathon a marathon for me
had always been something that
extraordinary people did nothing for an
ordinary guy like me but I signed up and
there I was on the start line together
with thousands of others people were
sharing I felt good and I started and
the race went well until halfway where I
collapsed I have faint memories of two
people dragging me into medical tent and
my only thought was that I didn’t want
but continuing wasn’t an option
and eventually my thoughts cleared and I
later and I realized that I had failed
and since running was part of my new
identity
my thoughts cleared and it was like I
heard two voices in my head one of them
told me to give up running and go back
to living a comfortable life and the
other one told me to stand up again
learn from this failure and decided to
try again it took a while why I
and a few months later I heard about
something called the Ironman and ending
in an Ironman you end the race by
running a marathon but before you’re
allowed to run you need to swim four
kilometers in an open ocean and you need
to bike a hundred and eighty kilometers
can you imagine how that feels
I couldn’t for me that was completely
impossible but somehow I couldn’t get
the thought out of my head it was scary
and exciting at the same time and once I
had signed up it was no longer question
about Earth but about how and almost a
year later at the age of 28 there I was
in the water together with a few hundred
others it was a long and painful day it
hurt a lot but I felt more alive than
ever and a few kilometers from the
finish line I realized that I would do
it and then I started to cry because I
was about to do the impossible
when I got to the finish line which I
did eventually I found out that my
mother had also been crying all day
because she thought I would die the only
thing that died that day was my paradigm
of what was possible and after the
finish line I met my wife and I told her
never again I’m never doing this again
it’s way too painful
she too told me the same when we got our
son eight years ago never again and now
we have three children and I’ve done
nine more Ironman races so I guess it’s
a human defense mechanism to forget the
pain and remember the good eventually I
became quite good at this Ironman thing
and people came asking me for advice and
I noticed that it wasn’t only me that
got happier from challenging myself that
was actually a universal mercial thing
that I saw in the other people I coach
as well and that was a big lesson for me
because I had learned from the first
failure that failure can be a great
motivator and I also felt inclined to
challenge myself and I felt felt happy
when I did it and I noticed that there
were more people like myself when I was
14 looking back at that time I realized
that two things happened when I was 14
that changed my life for the better I
met my first girlfriend and I won my
first competition meeting my first
girlfriend one of the most important
things for me was to have a fresh breath
you know why yes you know why so I went
to I went around with a chewing gum pack
in my pockets all day long and my
favorite type of competition was the one
we wrote slogans for brands you know you
sent them in you could win but you
didn’t have to be in the spotlight
because I was really shy as a child I
didn’t want to be in the spotlight but I
liked the competing thing one day phone
rang at my parents house and I realized
that I had one I had one a slogan
competition with one of the shooing gum
brands and the prize was a climbing
course in a mountain with a climbing
instructor and I can still remember the
fear in my stomach because I got scared
I’d never climb mountains before I
wanted to say no but at the same time it
felt strange to say no when I had
finally worn something so I asked for a
day to think and the next day the phone
rang again I picked it up and I heard
myself say yes rising to the challenge
and I didn’t die I didn’t fall off the
cliff and I survived and I learned that
day that if you say yes when there’s
this challenge in front of you you grow
and you learn new things
and you know what the shoe in gum trick
it worked the wife I met the girl I met
is now my wife Sarah and we are together
24 years later with three beautiful
children saying yes to challenges has
during the last ten years put me through
quite a lot of scary and painful
situations like saying yes to breaking a
world record together with my friend
David running further than anyone else
during 12 hours on a thread mill we also
raised money for children with cancer to
make it more meaningful or another one
a few months after this I found out that
there was a race in Norway called the
Norseman that was said to be the
toughest trial on in the world and I
signed up
in the Norseman you’re dropped off at 5a
a.m. in the morning from a ferry in a
cold Norwegian Fjord about 12 degrees
Celsius in the water and then you’re
suppose to get back to shore
four kilometers away the only thing you
have time for is a fire on shore and I
was so cold that day I’ve never been so
cold in my whole life but somehow I got
through his swim got up on shore and
luckily in this race you’re allowed to
have a support crew and I had the best
support crew in the world my wife and
she helped me get the wetsuit off
because I couldn’t do it myself to get
me ready for the bike the bike which is
a hundred and eighty kilometers again
but this time over four mountaintops
ending back at sea level and then it’s
time to run a marathon this marathon
starts at sea level but it ends on a
mountaintop at 1,800 meters and I wasn’t
alone in the mountain that day obviously
and eventually we reached the summit
people often ask me why you may do the
same at first I didn’t know I just liked
running so I did more of what I liked
that was my initial reasoning but now I
know more because the thing I realized
was that having a challenge having a
goal having a tough goal it gave me
motivation and it made me happier and we
know that challenges and goals makes us
stronger I mean the Stoics they knew
that 2,000 years ago so that’s nothing
new but having a goal also makes us
happier and that is one of the
realizations I had and it turns out that
research
happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky who works
at the University of California actually
shows that one of the keys to happiness
is to set a goal and work towards
something so there is more I found out
through experience but looking through
happiness research I found that it’s
actually proven which explains it to me
today more and more people are sad
depressed they take pills to cover up
their feelings in some cases they kill
themselves and I believe we need as
human beings to have a mission we need
to have a purpose to go up in the
morning and work towards something we
need challenges and we need goals to be
happy and we are almost like birds in a
nest you know a young bird that jumps
over the edge even before it knows
whether it can fly only to realize that
it can’t fly so what is your nest that
you need to jump out of to find out that
you can fly last year
I stood on the start line of a race in
Bornholm
an island in the Baltic Sea the distance
a hundred miles of running a hundred
American miles 160 kilometers but the
distance was only one of the challenges
we were also supposed to climb six
thousand six hundred vertical meters
during the race while running for
marathons I started the race together
with a few other crazy people and got
five hours into the race had covered the
marathon then I stepped on a stone and
sprained my ankle and I sat down and I
realized that there is no way I can
finish this
I had three marathons to go and a
Montblanc to climb but somehow I decided
at least to get out of the forest to at
least get to the next aid station so
I’ve wrapped up my foot
and then I started to think back on Who
am I why am I doing this and I realized
that my new role my new identity as a
father as a coach and as a role model
for people around it didn’t fit with
quitting
if I tell artists not to quit then I
can’t quit myself when there is an
obstacle because a race like this it’s
like life life throws obstacle at us all
the time and we have two options either
we quit or take an easy road or we push
through the challenges but I needed some
mental energy limping there in the
forest so I picked up my phone and I
called my family my family they were
home in the sofa enjoying a Friday night
dinner and it felt like I was on another
planet but speaking to my children I
made up my mind that I would do whatever
it took to get to the finish line and it
was painful it wasn’t pretty but often
thirty hours I reached the finish line
completely broken but more proud than
because it is in times where things
don’t go perfect that we need to take
out the best of ourselves that’s when it
shows who we really are that’s why I’m
most proud of this race where things
Mitchell Anglo he saw an angel in the
marble when it was just a piece of stone
even before he started to carve he saw
potential in this piece of stone and I
see potential in people that’s why I
like this quote sometimes even before
people see it in themselves because I
believe we are created to do so much
more than we think it requires courage
and it requires hard work but we can do
much more than we think so what is your
Iron Man what is the thing that you
consider impossible but you can’t get it
off your mind and what would it take for
you to take that first step and what
would the first step be I will continue
to push my limits and hopefully by doing
so inspire you to do the same because I
believe that once we have a challenge or
goal in front of us it leaves us with no
other option than to improve and move
forward and to become the best version
of ourselves that we can be and also
having a challenge makes us happier we
know that now right so what’s your
challenge thank you [Applause]
[Applause]
standing on a stage like this is one
type of challenge but my normal type of
challenge involves a lot more sweat
enormous amounts of sugar and sometimes
toenails that aren’t where you want them
to be do you remember the feeling you
had as a kid when everything feels felt
possible and you dreamt about becoming
something big when you grew up I never
had that feeling as a kid it took twenty
a year 28 years to find it I grew up in
a safe home and I learned a lot of
skills for my parents pushing limits was
not one of them when I was 25 and I
questioned my identity because I had
just finished my studies so I was no
longer a student but I struggled to get
my first real job but I wanted to have
something to do so I started running
first a little then a bit more and then
even more and after a while I set the
goal to run a marathon a marathon for me
had always been something that
extraordinary people did nothing for an
ordinary guy like me but I signed up and
there I was on the start line together
with thousands of others people were
sharing I felt good and I started and
the race went well until halfway where I
collapsed I have faint memories of two
people dragging me into medical tent and
my only thought was that I didn’t want
but continuing wasn’t an option
and eventually my thoughts cleared and I
later and I realized that I had failed
and since running was part of my new
identity
my thoughts cleared and it was like I
heard two voices in my head one of them
told me to give up running and go back
to living a comfortable life and the
other one told me to stand up again
learn from this failure and decided to
try again it took a while why I
and a few months later I heard about
something called the Ironman and ending
in an Ironman you end the race by
running a marathon but before you’re
allowed to run you need to swim four
kilometers in an open ocean and you need
to bike a hundred and eighty kilometers
can you imagine how that feels
I couldn’t for me that was completely
impossible but somehow I couldn’t get
the thought out of my head it was scary
and exciting at the same time and once I
had signed up it was no longer question
about Earth but about how and almost a
year later at the age of 28 there I was
in the water together with a few hundred
others it was a long and painful day it
hurt a lot but I felt more alive than
ever and a few kilometers from the
finish line I realized that I would do
it and then I started to cry because I
was about to do the impossible
when I got to the finish line which I
did eventually I found out that my
mother had also been crying all day
because she thought I would die the only
thing that died that day was my paradigm
of what was possible and after the
finish line I met my wife and I told her
never again I’m never doing this again
it’s way too painful
she too told me the same when we got our
son eight years ago never again and now
we have three children and I’ve done
nine more Ironman races so I guess it’s
a human defense mechanism to forget the
pain and remember the good eventually I
became quite good at this Ironman thing
and people came asking me for advice and
I noticed that it wasn’t only me that
got happier from challenging myself that
was actually a universal mercial thing
that I saw in the other people I coach
as well and that was a big lesson for me
because I had learned from the first
failure that failure can be a great
motivator and I also felt inclined to
challenge myself and I felt felt happy
when I did it and I noticed that there
were more people like myself when I was
14 looking back at that time I realized
that two things happened when I was 14
that changed my life for the better I
met my first girlfriend and I won my
first competition meeting my first
girlfriend one of the most important
things for me was to have a fresh breath
you know why yes you know why so I went
to I went around with a chewing gum pack
in my pockets all day long and my
favorite type of competition was the one
we wrote slogans for brands you know you
sent them in you could win but you
didn’t have to be in the spotlight
because I was really shy as a child I
didn’t want to be in the spotlight but I
liked the competing thing one day phone
rang at my parents house and I realized
that I had one I had one a slogan
competition with one of the shooing gum
brands and the prize was a climbing
course in a mountain with a climbing
instructor and I can still remember the
fear in my stomach because I got scared
I’d never climb mountains before I
wanted to say no but at the same time it
felt strange to say no when I had
finally worn something so I asked for a
day to think and the next day the phone
rang again I picked it up and I heard
myself say yes rising to the challenge
and I didn’t die I didn’t fall off the
cliff and I survived and I learned that
day that if you say yes when there’s
this challenge in front of you you grow
and you learn new things
and you know what the shoe in gum trick
it worked the wife I met the girl I met
is now my wife Sarah and we are together
24 years later with three beautiful
children saying yes to challenges has
during the last ten years put me through
quite a lot of scary and painful
situations like saying yes to breaking a
world record together with my friend
David running further than anyone else
during 12 hours on a thread mill we also
raised money for children with cancer to
make it more meaningful or another one
a few months after this I found out that
there was a race in Norway called the
Norseman that was said to be the
toughest trial on in the world and I
signed up
in the Norseman you’re dropped off at 5a
a.m. in the morning from a ferry in a
cold Norwegian Fjord about 12 degrees
Celsius in the water and then you’re
suppose to get back to shore
four kilometers away the only thing you
have time for is a fire on shore and I
was so cold that day I’ve never been so
cold in my whole life but somehow I got
through his swim got up on shore and
luckily in this race you’re allowed to
have a support crew and I had the best
support crew in the world my wife and
she helped me get the wetsuit off
because I couldn’t do it myself to get
me ready for the bike the bike which is
a hundred and eighty kilometers again
but this time over four mountaintops
ending back at sea level and then it’s
time to run a marathon this marathon
starts at sea level but it ends on a
mountaintop at 1,800 meters and I wasn’t
alone in the mountain that day obviously
and eventually we reached the summit
people often ask me why you may do the
same at first I didn’t know I just liked
running so I did more of what I liked
that was my initial reasoning but now I
know more because the thing I realized
was that having a challenge having a
goal having a tough goal it gave me
motivation and it made me happier and we
know that challenges and goals makes us
stronger I mean the Stoics they knew
that 2,000 years ago so that’s nothing
new but having a goal also makes us
happier and that is one of the
realizations I had and it turns out that
research
happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky who works
at the University of California actually
shows that one of the keys to happiness
is to set a goal and work towards
something so there is more I found out
through experience but looking through
happiness research I found that it’s
actually proven which explains it to me
today more and more people are sad
depressed they take pills to cover up
their feelings in some cases they kill
themselves and I believe we need as
human beings to have a mission we need
to have a purpose to go up in the
morning and work towards something we
need challenges and we need goals to be
happy and we are almost like birds in a
nest you know a young bird that jumps
over the edge even before it knows
whether it can fly only to realize that
it can’t fly so what is your nest that
you need to jump out of to find out that
you can fly last year
I stood on the start line of a race in
Bornholm
an island in the Baltic Sea the distance
a hundred miles of running a hundred
American miles 160 kilometers but the
distance was only one of the challenges
we were also supposed to climb six
thousand six hundred vertical meters
during the race while running for
marathons I started the race together
with a few other crazy people and got
five hours into the race had covered the
marathon then I stepped on a stone and
sprained my ankle and I sat down and I
realized that there is no way I can
finish this
I had three marathons to go and a
Montblanc to climb but somehow I decided
at least to get out of the forest to at
least get to the next aid station so
I’ve wrapped up my foot
and then I started to think back on Who
am I why am I doing this and I realized
that my new role my new identity as a
father as a coach and as a role model
for people around it didn’t fit with
quitting
if I tell artists not to quit then I
can’t quit myself when there is an
obstacle because a race like this it’s
like life life throws obstacle at us all
the time and we have two options either
we quit or take an easy road or we push
through the challenges but I needed some
mental energy limping there in the
forest so I picked up my phone and I
called my family my family they were
home in the sofa enjoying a Friday night
dinner and it felt like I was on another
planet but speaking to my children I
made up my mind that I would do whatever
it took to get to the finish line and it
was painful it wasn’t pretty but often
thirty hours I reached the finish line
completely broken but more proud than
because it is in times where things
don’t go perfect that we need to take
out the best of ourselves that’s when it
shows who we really are that’s why I’m
most proud of this race where things
Mitchell Anglo he saw an angel in the
marble when it was just a piece of stone
even before he started to carve he saw
potential in this piece of stone and I
see potential in people that’s why I
like this quote sometimes even before
people see it in themselves because I
believe we are created to do so much
more than we think it requires courage
and it requires hard work but we can do
much more than we think so what is your
Iron Man what is the thing that you
consider impossible but you can’t get it
off your mind and what would it take for
you to take that first step and what
would the first step be I will continue
to push my limits and hopefully by doing
so inspire you to do the same because I
believe that once we have a challenge or
goal in front of us it leaves us with no
other option than to improve and move
forward and to become the best version
of ourselves that we can be and also
having a challenge makes us happier we
know that now right so what’s your
challenge thank you [Applause]
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