Marathons,Walking,Laughing,and Self-Deception

"The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn't count; building arks does."– Warren Buffett

Today’s trail run was about 10 miles and a training run for Joan who registered for her first marathon October 7^th in Susanville. During the run, I reminded her of the importance of hydration and eating about 200 calories per hour. We all know that hydration and fueling the brain with glucose are keys to success. Another component for either the new or experienced trail runner is incorporating walking while training. She has a very fast walk and that will serve her well both during training and in her marathon. I kept on reinforcing the notion that walking was good.

As a matter of fact, Secretariat and I did some easy trail runs last week incorporating walking into our program since we were both tired during the week. I do not have trouble walking especially when I have a friend that has a good attitude and likes to laugh. Yesterday he told me during our run that at times serious people were critical of his laughing. That evoked a laughing response from me and we both laughed.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal dated July 31, 2012 was about lying to self with the description that some self deception can boost power and influence. According to the article, most of us do it at one time or another. Anthropologist Robert Trivers claims that believing we are more talented or intelligent than we are can help us influence and win over others. In his book “The Folly of Fools”, he gives an example of an executive who talks himself into believing he is a great public speaker. This man ,according to Trivers ,not only feels better as he performs but increases the belief of how much he fools people by having a confident style that persuades them that he’s good.

There are two ideas regarding this idea of self deception. One point of view is that people deceive themselves in an unconscious effort to boost self-esteem or feel better. The other point of view states that different parts of the brain can harbor conflicting beliefs at the same time, and that self-deception is a way of fooling others to our own advantage. Further, some people appear to have the tendency as an inborn personality trait while others may develop the habit as a way of coping with problems and challenges.

 I’m not done with this subject and more to follow about the idea of self-deception. In the meantime, keep moving. Do not use self deception to justify staying on the couch. If you use self-deception to justify staying on the couch, you’re not going to boost power or influence but instead become sickly, old, overweight and unhealthy.