Leading Team Nika on the World’s Toughest Challenge in Fiji, Jeff Bates is a true testament to owning your experiences and just making lemonade out of lemons. 

Here are some life lessons Jeff has taken from the race: 

1. Impermanence is the sport of endurance racing.

You hit a point in races where you feel you’re at your lowest point and then realize that your body can and will actually come back from it. And you wouldn’t understand that’s what happens to your body unless you've gone through it before. Most endurance athletes would tell you they feel way better than they did hours, or even minutes ago. So whatever you feel right now will no longer be the same a little later. It goes minute-to-minute. 

2. Quitting doesn’t mean failing.

This race is about you against all the demons in your head that say you can't finish this. And it’s going to be difficult once you let those demons start to take control of you. So there has to be this mindset shift of not taking yourself out of the race, but instead, just letting the race take you out. That being said, quitting doesn’t mean you’ve failed because although it’s disappointing, these lessons are going to stick with you forever. Either you win or you learn. And it's not what happens to you, but rather, it’s what you make of what happens to you. 

3. It takes a different kind of leadership.

It's almost easy to get people to follow you when it's their job or when you're paying them. But in the Eco-Challenge, you have to get your team to follow you because you have common goals, because they believe in you, and because they trust you. And that’s difficult to do if everyone on the team has a type A personality and they’re all successful and used to being in the lead. This race takes a different type of leader and a different type of mentality than it does just to be at an office job being somebody's boss. It takes a lot more to get somebody to really follow you with their heart and they're at their deepest, darkest, lowest moments to still have faith in you.

If you want to learn more about Jeff Bates’ takeaways from the World’s Toughest Race, check out the Tales of Toughness Podcast on https://gosonja.com/podcast​.