Raceathlon: Run Your Life the Way You Want, but Make Sure You Are on the Right Track to Boost Your Success

By Xlibris US

We all run a race that is not taught at schools and rarely within our familieswhere it is usually a trial-and-error process that may lead few people where they want to go while most struggle daily to figure it outcalled life. How are you running yours?

After reading this book you will discover that,

You do not have to be N 1 to be successful.
Luck is irrelevant when mastering a tailored-made self.
Achieving an integral balanced life is just the execution of a strategy.
There are three major races we all run in life that impact most of our balance.
There is a simple method for obtaining multiple predictable results on a regular basis.
It is possible to do what you really like and stay happy by understanding your ideas, hopes, and dreams.

Dont let others pick your races; success, as you define it, is just a couple of miles away. Learn how to boost the way you run your life today by applying simple strategies to your unique reality without being told what to do.

The ultimate power you have are the choices you make, so you might as well build the right track to run your life the way it pleases you. Life is short, enjoy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503513211

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by G. R. Sneberger.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014919967

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5035-1319-8

                Softcover      978-1-5035-1320-4

                eBook         978-1-5035-1321-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

All images within this book are intellectual property and copyright © by G. R. Sneberger.

Rev. date: 12/01/2014

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Contents

Why You Should Read This Book

Balance Your Life

Introduction

Why Training Is A Permanent Part Of Life

PART I

Mental Preparation How To Develop A Winning Mind-Set For Your Life

Chapter One

One Simple Step Is All It Takes To Start Running, Right?

Chapter Two

How To Balance Success The Way Runners Do

PART II

Training The Strategies To Master The Three Races Of Life

Chapter Three

Training I: Personal Race

Chapter Four

Training II: Professional Race

Chapter Five

Training III: Public Race

PART III

Go The Extra Mile How To Become The Ultimate Runner

Chapter Six

Build Your Track For Long-Lasting Success

Chapter Seven

Expanded Track For Nonstop Runners

Acknowledgment

Appendix

Appendix Runner´S Wallet

About The Author

Raceathlon Series

Become A Nonstop Runner

Endnotes

For my

parents and wife,

who help me balance my world.

Success depends upon previous preparation,

and without such preparation, there is sure to be failure.

—Confucius

Raceathlon Model

Image35399.JPG

Why You Should Read This Book

BALANCE YOUR LIFE

Celebrity goes to rehab for the third time in a row just this year. Famous athlete on a murder trial for his girlfriend’s mysterious death. Popular promising singer found dead alone in a hotel room before turning thirty. Well-known tycoon under policy investigation for using confidential information to his favor, leaving millions of stakeholders bankrupt. Is there a pattern to these kinds of headlines that can be found worldwide?

As Thomas Edison said, Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think. This quotation could translate to the degree of empowerment people have in their lives in order to take action to move it forward. Considering this, it could be said there are basically three kinds of people who can be easily detected by their actions, where most dream about that ideal stage where they want to go, on a rather distant, unlikely future. A few dare to take action and figure out how to get there; nevertheless, almost none succeed to stay there without losing their lives along the way while still enjoying the run in a balanced way. Despite how we freely choose to run our lives, what is certain to everyone, is that life is short and time has become the ultimate luxury in this hectic world.

Due to its many challenges, life could be related to a long-distance endurance race against time to achieve our goals and dreams, where it may show itself as a marathon, as a triathlon, or even as a pentathlon to some people, depending on the series of tests we may face along the way. Looking at the bright side, the good thing, though, is that it only depends on us and how wisely we choose to invest our scarce, highly valuable time to get ahead.

Let’s stop now. How do you run your life? Are you prepared for it? Do you have the right training program to succeed in achieving your goals? How do you know you are on the right track to success? Time will pass whether you want it to or not, so let’s make the best out of yours.

After reading this book, you will learn that

* you don’t have to be number 1 to be successful;

• luck is irrelevant when mastering a tailor-made self;

• achieving a fully balanced life is just the execution of a strategy;

• there are three major races we all run in life that influence most of our balance;

• there is a simple method for obtaining multiple predictable results regularly; and

• it’s possible to do what you really like and stay happy by understanding your ideas, hopes, and dreams properly.

You are about to start a race that is not taught at schools and rarely among families, and it’s usually a trial-and-error process that may lead a few people where they want to go in life while many others struggle daily to figure it out.

On your mark, ready, set, enjoy!

Introduction

WHY TRAINING IS A PERMANENT PART OF LIFE

There is not much we can do about it. Whether we like it or not, we are always training for something in life—be it school, work, social life, you name it. There are courses for almost everything imaginable. Where there is a need, there is a so-called expert, or guru, eager to help you out, ready to teach you how to solve your specific problem.

What about the most important thing in life? Your life. How do you train for that? Even though life may challenge us with many races to run, after our research, we have discovered that there are basically three major ones we all share and run: personal, professional, and public. Where the first implies a self-awareness process as the foundation, the second one represents our value proposition as a brand we offer to the world, and the last one as the opportunities for acquiring learning experiences by running along others in the many worlds we run in.

To make things even more complicated, the only constant in life, as you already know, is change—especially for that fast, quite valuable, not accumulative and extremely scare resource called time. How do you succeed in performing important work if you don’t have enough time? You might have kids, friends, and many projects to look after at once. How do you master them all in a balanced way so you don’t screw it up? Some people excel in a few, but what about the other areas?

Let’s analyze life itself in general terms. Ever since we were born, we have been developing, acquiring new skills, and progressing toward a future version of ourselves, hopefully better than the previous one. It could be said that our family was our first real training school, where we learned values, manners, received love and care if we were fortunate. This is where our belief system started its formation process. After came formal education at a school you didn’t pick either. Hopefully, you kept on learning different supposedly important things that would help you a great deal when you became a grown-up.

Up until now, you’ve been living according to that—subconsciously or not—belief system that has allowed you to live and get to where you are today, making sense of events and simplifying your existence. You have made good and bad decisions that have helped you in this never-ending learning process of life. If you take some time, you may realize that up until now, you have spent a lot of time in a classroom, educating yourself on different topics in order to become a better person. Nevertheless, how have you managed to run your life if there is no formal course for it? Well … probably by following some family member’s or friend’s informal blueprint or even improvising along the way just to get by. If we were to diagram this situation, it would probably look like this:

M1.jpg

The lines forming the track represent your life as a whole and the time involved in it. Kind of like the track where you run your life, showing you your past experiences and the new ones to come. The small triangle represents where you feel you are today in your life. Now stop. What are you running after? Some people run for money, others for their loved ones or any imaginable goal as people in the world. You’ve probably been running on this track your whole life. It relies on your belief system—on the way you interpret your life, your reality. Are you sure it is taking you in the right direction?

Have you ever wondered why some people have it all figured out in their lives? A few people seem to know exactly their mission in life from the moment they are born, so running becomes easier compared to those who don’t. This minority people tend to behave like athletes, keeping track of specific accomplishments, while the majority struggle to come up with even an initial draft while they keep on running, trying to avoid thinking and facing their unclear future.

As any athlete knows, before they even think of embarking on their specific challenge, a strict, regular training program must be carefully followed constantly to get to that stage where they set their minds to. Do you have a plan to run the most important endeavor there is—your life? How do you measure your progress? This few people know just exactly where they are and where they want to go and take their lives to, so their race looks like this:

M2.jpg

As the diagram shows, there is a clear start and finish line with a specific direction to run after, where the boundaries are clearly established. Usually, these people improve their chances of succeeding in specific fields and becoming the best at something, the number 1. They don’t just waste their time on unproductive things that might keep them away from their goals, so they get there faster than others who struggle daily.

Nevertheless, is this the only way to run life if you want to be successful in what you care about? Having a clear goal in mind and committing to it until you get it is fundamental. Is persistence the answer, then? Even though it is important, as it is focus, yet it’s just part of the training. But what if you don’t get to become number 1 at something—are you a failure and an unsuccessful person? Some people might convince themselves by saying something like I value my family, friends, and free time too much to do what I please, so I’m already successful. Maybe I don’t have a lot of money or I’m not that popular, but I’m happy as I am. Let’s stop now. Is it possible that that kind of thinking keeps you from progressing to your fullest? Then again, let us ask, how do you know you are on the right track? It is enough to feel happy with what you already have? These questions don’t pretend to turn you into a maverick, but aware instead. Have you even wondered if there could be another unexplored track for you that doesn’t involve sacrificing what’s important to you today? Now stop. Let’s suppose you are at that finish line you set for your life: is there something else beyond that point? If you have already achieved your goal, what’s next? If we look at the track, it would look like this:

M3.jpg

Just as any project requires a specific detailed plan, a clear strategy, and constant follow-ups to finish on schedule, just as an athlete needs the right training program for his or her specific challenge before starting, shouldn’t you have one too before running your life in order to answer easily all these questions? Perhaps you’ve been living a life someone else set out for you, the way they thought was best for you, maybe you did it by yourself, or you might not have a clue.

Time is a scarce nonrenewable resource. Life is short, and time is the ultimate luxury, so live to the fullest. Sounds obvious, to say the least. Now the question is, how? Too many bills to pay, a lot of work to do, family time, etc. How do you become successful in all those important areas? Is there a training program to prepare that perfect track for you without being told what to do? After all, you’ve managed to live just fine up until now, right?

How about exploring another perspective about how you could run your life to succeed in all races that matter most so you don’t live just fine? But don’t believe a word of what you’re reading until you try it. Let’s go for a run and develop that track that’s waiting for you to be explored where you could succeed at life’s major areas that you care about and make you happy.

Don’t be surprised at how time flies by, how fast you are getting old, or how things are changing. Be amazed about the power you have to make the best out of your life just by changing your perspective and challenging your actual belief system that dominated you up until now. After all, success is just a couple of miles away, as you will discover.

There Is an Urgent Need

As countries keep on developing and their economic situation gets better and faster than ever before in history, our hierarchy of needs starts to move upward, as Abraham Maslow would show. In other words, our physiological needs, such as breathing, sleeping, and eating, are covered; we have reached an integral, safe condition in health, work, and family, among others; and have achieved love and the feeling of belonging to a group and have developed our self-esteem. A sense of self-actualization or fulfillment has been activated. Meaning that after having fulfilled all the basic human needs, people have the tendency to become everything a person can be to their full potential, so we feel the need for independent thinking. We start worrying about solving problems and getting the right answers.

As we keep on progressing on our lives, we start reconsidering what we want to do with it and look for new ways to get ahead. Due to this continuous search, the rather overrated self-improvement industry is booming and filled with gurus, books, quick how-to guides, hidden secrets, and appealing theories to solving almost any need. The major problem, though, is that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated because with so many schemes out there and options to choose from, it’s very difficult to pick the right tool at all. Even if we do manage to do so, we’d most probably end up blaming ourselves because we feel we could have done better otherwise. Most of these best-selling authors will try to convince you that there is a way to happiness, fortune, popularity, you name it. Even spiritual paths of their own series of products, as if there were actually one way to follow to succeed in each, particularly theirs, in an attempt to test the reader’s wit. In addition, they will strive to make you believe that their unique special theory is the only method that will lead you to success, but is it really possible if all needs aren’t alike? How come only their method is going to fulfill yours? To make things even worse, most of these experts focus their marketing strategy on one race, forcing you to neglect many others, missing the relevance of the big picture, your long-term life vision.

Now, is it really necessary to ask if there is a reason for you to invest your time in reading this book? Certainly, that is why we encourage you to remain reluctant and doubtful. It’s quite normal and perfectly fine. This way you can question everything that doesn’t make sense to you, so please stay always curious along the way. Even though most people would agree about the importance of developing a nurturing, balanced life, most don’t have a clue about how to do so. Many books have tried to present formulas, but their approach has proven to be limited and unsatisfactory over time. Most just stay on the theoretical level, making it impossible to really incorporate their ideas in reality to the particular needs of the reader, where stating the obvious or presenting common sense as a new breakthrough seems to be the common denominator in the self-help industry.

In this multitasking, hectic, challenging, and rather stressful world, there is a real need to learn how to master