I co-won the Death Race. I wasn't the fittest guy out there. I just wouldn't quit when my body was begging me to. Turns out that's the whole game.
The Death Race happens in Pittsfield, Vermont. It's a multi-day endurance event built for one purpose: to make you quit. The course changes every year. You don't know the tasks ahead of time. You don't know how long it will last. You might chop wood for six hours, haul rocks up a mountain at 2 AM, memorize the periodic table, or hold a rock overhead until your arms give out. The race directors want to break you. That's the job.
Most people don't finish. The year I co-won, the completion rate was in the single digits.
I didn't win because I was the fastest or the strongest. I won because I had a plan for the moment when everything in my head was screaming at me to stop. Most people don't have one. That's why they quit.
What 60 Hours in the Mountains Teaches You
By hour 30, everyone hurts. By hour 50, everyone is asking themselves why they're still out there. The race isn't decided at the physical limit. It's decided at the mental one, when your brain tries to protect you by handing you a reason to stop that sounds completely rational.
"I've proven my point." "My knee is shot." "I'll come back next year." "This isn't worth it."
Most of those thoughts are lies. Sometimes you really are hurt and stopping is the right call. But the story your brain tells you at your limit is usually not the truth about what you can do. It's a negotiation. The people who finish learned a long time ago to stop negotiating with that voice.
The most important skill in endurance sport, and in leadership, is knowing the difference between "I can't" and "I don't want to." They feel the same. They aren't.
What Got Me Through
I didn't survive the Death Race because I'm tough. I survived because I had a system. Three rules.
One task at a time. If you think about 40 more hours of suffering, the math kills you. If you think about the next 100 meters, the next hour, the next task, you can handle it. I never let myself think about the finish line. Just the next checkpoint.
Never make decisions at your lowest point. The urge to quit always shows up when you're at your worst. Cold, wrecked, in pain, 3 AM. My rule was simple: I wasn't allowed to quit unless the decision still made sense when I felt good. That moment never came during the race. It came at the finish line.
Suffering is temporary. Quitting is permanent. I know it sounds like a bumper sticker. It's also true. Pain fades. What you did, or didn't do, sticks with you. I've never regretted finishing something hard. I have regretted stopping.
Same Rules at Work
Every big thing I've done professionally came from the same three rules. I was employee #1 at ZRG Partners. In the early years the business was fragile and nothing was guaranteed. It felt like hour 40 of the Death Race. The voice was loud, and the case for walking away was pretty good.
Same system got me through. One client at a time. Don't quit on a bad day. The discomfort is temporary and the result is permanent.
I've placed executives who lived their own version of this. Leaders who rebuilt companies after they blew up. Who managed boards through a cancer diagnosis. Who led through 2008 and 2020 and came out tougher on the other side.
What they have in common isn't talent or luck. They kept moving when moving was the last thing they wanted to do.
Your Death Race
You don't need to go to Vermont. Your Death Race might be a business you're trying to save, a health problem, a career change that feels impossible, or a comeback you keep putting off because the gap looks too big.
Same rules apply. One task at a time. Don't quit at your lowest point. The suffering is temporary and the result is permanent.
You've survived everything that's tried to stop you so far. That's your track record. Trust it.