How an Ordinary Person Becomes Extraordinary
An eighty-year-old man teaches us how to be great, treat people like they're dying, and a quote I'm obsessing over
Welcome to The Art of Becoming. I use First Principle thinking to explore what it means to lead a good and prosperous life by taking the more challenging path. I write about resilience and embracing discomfort in a complex and increasingly demanding world. And in the process, I try to find fulfillment, a little joy, and maybe some wealth and wisdom along the way.
I hope you join me.
What we’ll learn:
Framework: How an ordinary person becomes extraordinary.
Principle: How would you treat people if you knew they were dying?
Quote:
How an ordinary person becomes extraordinary
There is a category of human who embraces fear, pushes their limits, and put themselves in uncomfortable and challenging situations.
They are ordinary in talent and stature.
And yet, they epitomize grit and resilience, always taking the path of least resistance.
Which describes Walt Stack.
When I first heard of Walt, he was eighty years old and ran 17 miles every morning; he ended his training day swimming one mile through San Francisco Bay.
Walt was not a billionaire. He didn’t cure cancer or break any world record as a runner.
He was an ordinary man who decided to live a remarkable life.
Just Do It
I was 22 in 1988 when I saw the first Just Do It commercial.
It was 31 seconds long and featured an 80-year-old Walt Stack running across the Golden Gate Bridge. He was shirtless and waved to the cars as they passed by.
His first words were, “I run seventeen miles every morning.” And I swear the man was talking to me, daring me to match his efforts. But I didn’t know if I could.
I loved to run; sometimes, I ran about 30 miles a week. Walt did 119.
The next day I tried to run seventeen miles but stopped at eleven. The day after, my legs hurt so much I could barely crawl out a puny three miles.
Without trying, 80-year-old Walt beat me.
It took me 11 weeks to run 17 miles without quitting. Walt’s 80-year-old body did that every day, and at the time, I was about a fourth his age.
Be like Walt
I became obsessed with Walt and tried to be as good as him. Spoiler Warning: I’m not.
Walt was like a crazy and wise old uncle who did things everyone was afraid to do. But when we were alone and honest, we secretly and desperately wanted to be like him.
So, I tried.
My workouts became a bit crazy. Some days, I would push out 1000 burpees or do a 4000-rep workout. Or I did a six-hour mini-triathlon every day for 30 days—two hours of running, two hours of swimming, and two hours on a bike.
In my mind, I raced against Walt, but he was always ahead of me.
How Walt became Iron Man
Let’s start at the very end of his story.
Walt passed away on January 19, 1995, seven years after he made the commercial. He was married and had a daughter.
Those who knew Walt called him Iron Man.
In his lifetime, he would run well over 62,000 miles, compete in an Iron Man, and was an unofficial finisher of the Western States Endurance Run, a 100.2-mile race in the California Sierra Nevada Mountains. He ran Pike’s Peak ten times and forgot how many times he swam passed Alcatraz.
And that’s just some of the things Walt did.
Now the unbelievable part.
Walt didn’t start running those 62,000 miles until he was 57 years old. He thought he wasn’t doing enough with his life, so he decided to do more.
On the surface, he was an ordinary man who worked in construction. He chose jobs that pushed his body and showed off his strength.
In his sixties and seventies, Walt was a hod carrier, carrying 100-pound bags of cement and supplies to bricklayers, stonemasons, cement finishers, and plasterers up and down scaffolds and ladders in construction sites.
He was a card-carrying member of the Communist party (becoming a socialist was too small for him) and a feminist whose body was inked with peacocks, wild horses, and pretty women swimming. He loved people and told dirty jokes all the time.
He was a butcher, ship’s fireman, construction worker, and union organizer. He joined the US Army when he was 15, telling them he was 18, and went AWOL nine months later.
After jumping around the country in boxcars for several years, he reenlisted under another name, but after 30 days in the Philippines, he confessed to his crime. The Army sent him to US Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz for 18 months.
Walt worked on coal-burning ships for the next ten years, getting paid about $67.50 a month. When he was on land, he was in and out of jail. Most times, it was his fault. Once, he was beating up a sheriff in Louisiana, and the deputy smashed a brick in his face, losing all his upper teeth.
When he moved to San Francisco, he worked in slaughterhouses and then moved into construction. He was even vice president of the Marine Fireman’s Union.
Walt never did anything the easy way.
Walt’s training.
He was a badass.
His pre-race meal would be a hot dog. He would run a marathon drinking beer, sometimes finishing a six-pack before the end of the race.
Walt’s daily workout would intimidate all but the most capable ultra-endurance runners.
From 1967 until he was 85 in 1993, Walt would get up before sunrise and ride his bike from his home in Potrero Hills to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. No matter the temperature, he took off his shirt to run 17 miles over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and back again. When he was done, he swam one mile in San Francisco Bay, passing Alcatraz as he did.
After his workouts, he took a hot sauna and a swig of whiskey and then went to work.
His philosophy was, “I’m going to do this until I get planted.” It set a lifestyle few people could or want to match.
Though he loved to tell dirty jokes and show off his tattoos, Walt was, in his own way, humble. “All this work I’m doing, it don’t mean shit,” he said about his life and workouts. “I’m going to croak just like the rest of you.”
How to be extraordinary like Walt.
There are four things Walt did every day to live an extraordinary life.
First, he embraced a life-is-short mentality.
There are no do-overs and no guarantee that tomorrow will come. Walt didn’t settle or focus on past successes or failures. He lived in the moment.
Second, he did something uncomfortable and challenging every day.
Walt woke up before sunrise and ran 17 miles a day. Then swam a mile in San Francisco Bay. That’s before he went to work carrying 100-lb bags of cement all day.
Third, he put in the miles.
He did not treat life like a race. You win by showing up and giving your best every day.
Walt did not wait for the best time to start. He ran when it was cold (shirtless). He ran when it was hot. He just ran when he felt like crap.
He had big goals but also understood you complete a marathon one step, one mile at a time. He didn’t start running ultramarathons. Walt began a couple of miles at a time and grew from there.
Fourth, he did nothing small.
At 57, he chose the next phase of his life to be bigger, more challenging, and more outlandish than the first fifty-seven years.
When Walt got into fights, he fought the sheriff, not the deputy. He organized unions. He wanted to help the common worker, so he became a Communist. Walt declared himself a feminist because he believed women were equal to or better than men.
His training was like an endurance race unto itself.
Walt competed in an Iron Man, dozens of 100-mile races, ran the Double Dipsea, loved one woman fiercely for years, and had a personality bigger than a hundred men.
Walt dived into life, without thought, without calculating the risks and rewards.
The point of Walt’s life is that extraordinary happens when you get off your ass and put in the miles. And you do it every day. You don’t wait.
Walt understood that ordinary was a choice.
It was one he had never made. So should you.
A principle I’m using
If you knew the person you are arguing with was going to die, would you treat them the same way?
This principle is an adaption of a question I read in Sahil Bloom’s blog:
If you knew you would die in 10 years, what would you do today?
Recently, my daughters have been arguing. My oldest wants to go guns blazing, torched earth, and tell her sister what a complete and utter jerk she has been.
Though I believe my oldest daughter, Misha, is correct in her reasoning, I asked her if she knew her sister would die in a year, five years, or ten years, would she treat her that way?
Her answer was no. “But she’s not dying, Dad,” she said. “She needs to know how wrong she’s been.”
“The thing is, Misha, none of us know how long we have left. If you knew she was dying, the most important thing you would want to tell your sister is how much you love her. Not how big a jerk she is.”
Think about your relationships and the transitory nature of each one. Technically, everyone is dying.
Give some thought to these questions:
How would you change how you talked or treated your friends, family, or work colleagues if you knew they were dying? How would the quality of your relationships improve or worsen?
Misha has not gone guns blazing with her sister. Some things are best left unsaid. My only hope is that my other daughter would ask herself the same question.
Quote I’m obsessing over
There’s no such thing as ‘quality’ time. Time is time.—Ryan Holiday [Source]
Ryan writes that we chase huge experiences. All experiences can be wonderful. The moment we’re in right now is our best moment. Live it. Love the person you’re with. It is not that our life is short, Seneca said. It’s that we don’t make the most of what we have.
Make each moment count, especially when eating ice cream with your kids.
Thanks for reading. Make each moment count. Don’t forget. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow.
Michael
Works Cited
The hard way: Outside online. The Hard Way | Outside Online. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20081122133200/http://www.outsideonline.com/outside/magazine/0898/9808hardway.html
Rubenstein, S. (2012, February 5). Walt Stack -- workouts were S.F. Legend. SFGATE. Retrieved March 9, 2023, from https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Walt-Stack-Workouts-Were-S-F-Legend-3048124.php
The old man and the Bay - Sports illustrated vault | si.com. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2023, from https://vault.si.com/vault/1975/12/15/the-old-man-and-the-bay
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, August 20). Walt Stack. Wikipedia. Retrieved March 9, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Stack#:~:text=Walt%20Stack%20(September%2028%2C%201908,100%2C000%20km)%20in%20his%20lifetime.