For a long time, I thought I had to make it by myself—to protect myself from rejection, disbelief, and discouragement. That belief kept me moving forward until I reached a point where everything I could do alone had been done. And then there was more to the process. Then I needed people again.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment I decided to engage in long-distance endurance. It doesn't need to be triathlon. It doesn't even need to be sport. Endurance is a process you commit to indefinitely—longer than a few minutes, an hour, a season.

To me, this is the biggest thing I've committed myself to. It came after I gave up on short-term commitments—those driven by the need to prove something to someone.

The moment I needed people

When I signed up for a half Ironman, I felt confident I could survive it. But I definitely needed people. I needed at least one person to come with me to the venue—because it's just not a one-person thing.

When you go to races, you see it: this is a family sport. Every athlete carries at least one more person with them. That is beautiful, profound, and revealing.

If you want to go far, you need a support system. You need someone—even if they don't fully believe in you—to be concerned about your well-being, perhaps even scared about what you've set yourself up for, and still willing to join you just to see what happens.

They don't have to believe. But they have to want to be there.

We are not self-sufficient creatures

You can be extremely talented and hardworking. But we do not talk enough—in our society of individualism, capitalism, and me taking care of me—about how you cannot escape the reality that we are social creatures. We need one another.

Even if you think you are independent, if you really reflect, you will notice that the things you achieve, the way you go through life, are made possible by many people being kind, merciful, and willing to lend you a hand.

That might leave you with the impression that you did it all by yourself. In reality, many people came your way to give you a hand.

Self-sufficiency is completely impossible, unnecessary, and unhealthy. It's a desire driven by extreme fear—and by a story that led you to believe the only way forward is by yourself.

No one walks alone

If you look at the people who've walked a very long path, and you go deep—not at the final results or how the story has been presented, but at the journey itself—ask yourself: Who were the people on this journey with this person?

If you count them, you are going to see there were plenty.

Sometimes, in the beginning, you are alone. Absolutely. Probably because you're also pushing away the people who can help you. But sooner or later, if you persist enough, you're going to realize that you need others—and actually, they need you too.

Because throughout your entire lonely journey, people have been observing your process, observing your moves. And even that act of observation is proof that you haven't been completely alone.

Champions need themselves and they need others

I mean champions here not only in the sense of those who make it to the podium, but those who appreciate the process so much that they know they need others—their experiences, expertise, criticism, opposition.

These are all dynamics you have to balance for completeness to come, for growth to occur.

The importance of the team is immense and undeniable.

The Support of Others