Surrender, never, not me
Surrender is not giving up, it’s knowing when something’s not working, stopping and trying something else. Here’s two examples from my own experience.
I’m not cos Michael Phelps doesn’t
One of my big passions in life is long distance open water swimming, though for logistics reasons I train most of the time in a pool. My coach and I have worked hard on my technique and good news, I’m swimming faster now than I was 30 years ago. I’m really pleased. The big downside is no matter how carefully I breath I get chlorinated water up my nose and suffer with cold like symptoms for most of the following day, this has gone on for years. Fed up, I’ve finally surrendered to the discomfort and decided to use a nose clip. Up to now I refused because Michael Phelps doesn’t use a nose clip. I know I’m an idiot. One week, five sessions on and not a sniffle. I can breath through my nose and my eyes are no longer streaming. I’m now focused on technique rather than avoiding getting water up my nose
No result + a load of good excuses = No result
Years ago when I was a manager for a construction company one of my projects involved refurbishing living accommodation for the armed forces. The programme was tight as four hundred soldiers serving in Cyprus were due to return to the UK just before Easter and the accommodation had to be ready to house them. Simon, the UK base commander had been asking me for months if things were going to be ready and I had been saying “yes, definitely” all along. By mid February my name and reputation were on the line, at least that’s how it felt to me. Meeting after meeting my site team had been telling me all their problems and I kept firmly insisting “it has to be ready on time”. In one meeting I even explained the maths of excuses and believe me it didn’t go down well. I pressed on and tried to assure Simon, we’d be ready. He didn’t look convinced though calmly smiled and said “OK Dave, I will leave it with you”
In an apparent moment of weakness I said to my coach “I don’t think we are going to be ready”. She said “what would happen if you surrendered to that?”. I snapped back “surrender, never, not me”, and she replied “yes, though what if you did?”
The next day I was on site and Simon casually walked into the office and asked “Dave, how’s it going?”. I remember taking a deep breath, looking him in the eye and blurting out “Simon, we are going to be late”. Heart thumping I waited for the inevitable military dressing down. He looked at me and said something like, ‘that’s the most sensible thing you have said in the last year, right, we can now work out what we are going to do about it’.
Surrender is acknowledging ‘what is’, stopping, breathing and trying something else. It’s the trying something else that distinguishes surrender from giving up.