Ink & Bytes
Ink & Bytes
Episode Eight - Embracing The Power of Persistence And The 20 Mile March
Whoops, I stumbled! I admit, my commitment to our bi-monthly podcast episodes took a hit, and I owe you an explanation. So here it is, no frills attached—I let laziness win and wrestled with some shiny new podcasting gear that threw me for a loop. But like a phoenix, we're rising from the ashes with a fresh start and crisp audio that'll be music to your ears. Today's episode is short but impactful, as we tackle the '20 Mile March' and the astonishing strength found in steadfastness—a message I often evangelize but need to practice more in my writing life.
Now, let's gather around the proverbial campfire as I dish out a concentrated burst of motivation for your daily grind. Whether you're mid-commute, sipping that morning cup of Joe, or pounding the treadmill, this episode is tailored to slide right into your routine and leave you charged without feeling overloaded. We'll explore how even the modest act of writing 500 words daily can snowball into something monumental. No guests joining us this round—it's just me, you, and some real talk about persistence and the magic it works on our goals. So, ready your headphones for a potent dose of inspiration—it's time we march those 20 miles together.
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Inc Invite Podcasts. Now I've been a little naughty, honestly. If you recall, I said I was going to be doing two podcast episodes a month and two blogs a month. Now I've been doing well with the blogs, but you might have noticed that there was only one episode last month, and that's for a variety of reasons. For one, I was lazy. I'm going to be completely honest, no need to sugarcoat it. I was pretty lazy. For two, I got a bunch of podcasting equipment that was lent to me by my brother, as he now rents out of space for his own podcast and he has no need for this. Still amazing equipment. So, going forward, as long as I'm able to hold on to it, the quality of my voice even though this smaller microphone I got now is really good and I use it for most of my stuff like gaming, video and streaming For the podcast, my voice should sound really good. We're gonna see how it goes, but that's one of the reasons why I took a little bit.
Speaker 1:I redid this episode 50 times because I was learning how the, the, the giant like stream deck thing worked and I was trying to figure out how the headphones worked all this stuff and I kept redoing it and for some reason my heart just wasn't in it at the time, like I just I hated it. I thought I was rushing, I thought it sounded horrible and it just didn't really feel like a good episode. And I did do a complete episode, like I recorded the whole thing and I was going to upload it and then when I went to extract the audio from the micro USD to my laptop, I noticed that the file wouldn't open. So I'm like, all right, well, I guess the universe made that decision for me, so I'm going to try again. We're going to give it another try.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking very, very briefly about the concept of the 20 mile march and the power of consistency that I'm always talking about at all times. Now it's going to be a really short episode. I'm just going to preface that now because every time I recorded it previously it was super quick. So, like the nature of this podcast to anyone who is new, or I should say, I do really short episodes when it's just me talking talking about like 15, 20 minutes, maybe less than that. That is developed specifically for you to like maybe enjoy it with coffee in the morning or during a morning drive or exercising or whatever. But we also have longer form episodes with a guest that are your normal hour, 45, two hours, hour and a half length podcast. So all of the short episodes are meant to get right into the meat and potatoes, right into the key points of whatever I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:So, while you get a really good service level view, the 20 minutes isn't enough to cover certain topics that might be a little bit more complex. Now, this one really isn't too super complex and I think you can get everything you need to out of it from just this episode. But there's a lot of literature about this and it's a really powerful concept that can benefit you greatly if you're able to incorporate it into your daily life. So we all know the frequent returners to the show and maybe to frequent readers of my blog I talk a lot about consistency and how important it is. Now I really should take my own advice in certain aspects, like with my writing, but consistency is an unbelievably powerful ability just to keep showing up to what you love and keep marching towards your goal and your career. And if you want a deeper dive into that and a more elaborate conversation, check out episode five, which is the talk about writing tips, I believe, and neuroplasticity and just some things that's true about writing and something that are false and some tips that aren't good to listen to. So if you want a really good conversation about it, check that episode out. But we really talk a lot about habit building and, just to use one really quick example that I talked about, I always use writing, so we're just gonna stick with writing.
Speaker 1:If you are a writer and you're struggling to work on your book, your short story, your poem, maybe you can only write 500 words, like I could. I can only write 500 words in my project yesterday and I was beating myself up about it. But point in being, if you only write 500 words, as long as you show up the next day at the same time or relatively close to the same time and continue writing, and maybe you get 500 again, maybe a little bit less, maybe a little bit more, but the point is that you showed up again and you picked up the pen or you started typing away on the keyboard again. Now, if you multiply that by whatever number you want keep showing up every day that 500 is not going to feel like 500. It's going to feel like 500 did. Like you know, 500 is just going to be exponentially compounding. Maybe you start to write a thousand words and then that starts to feel really easy and then you start to write. If you're writing 2000 words in a session, just good job, really good job. I can't even fathom that. It's the point being, the more you show up to what you're doing, the easier it will become and the faster you'll get at it. So that's really one example that I use quite frequently.
Speaker 1:But how does that relate to this concept of the 20 mile march? Well, the 20 mile march is just one building block of consistency and the 20 mile march is like the ultimate form of consistency. Now, before I tell you the founding story of the 20 mile march, I suppose it would be prudent to know where I heard it from. My brother passed it down to me from his leadership mentor at, I think, cornell, and it really resonated with me when I first heard it and I kind of combined it with, like I said, consistency. But the story of the 20 Mile March is a concept from Jim Collins' book Great by Choice that describes the difference in strategy between two teams of explorers in 1911's race to the South Pole. One team, led by Ronald Amundensen, covered 20 miles a day, no matter the weather, while the other team, led by Robert Falcon Scott, took advantage of good weather to march 40 to 60 miles, then rested in their tents when the weather was bad. Amundsen's team reached the South Pole first, while Scott's team perished on their return journey, 11 miles short of a vital supply depot. It's a pretty intense story, right? I thought so when I first heard it. Now, to me, when I heard it, that kind of sounds like consistency, and the 20 mile march is a steady march to success.
Speaker 1:Consistency is important. It's really good that you show up every day, but this concept kind of flips it on its head a little bit. It's important to show up every single day to do what you love, but you have to stay consistent with what you're doing every single day. So to be devil's advocate and play both sides about my writing example, if you show up and you write 500 words every single day, it starts to get really easy. So you do 1000, it starts to get really easy to 1500. Pair that with this concept. It actually seems like you shouldn't do that. It seems that you should stick with doing 500 every single time you write. That is what you should do, it's ideal, it's a dichotomy to balance.
Speaker 1:It's always good that you have the passion to want to do more of what you love say writing 2,000 words but that can lead to burnout and you might push really far in your novel. You might get an extra chapter done in that sitting. But now all of a sudden, for example when in Antarctica the weather gets bad and that team paused and waited out in their tents until the weather got better, you might experience burnout from what you love. And the more time that you sit in burnout, the less time you're getting closer to your career goal or finishing what you love making that game, finishing that book, finishing that poem. Now it can be really good that you have those bursts of motivation to do more of your 20-mile march and that's great. Never suppress that. But, like I said, it could lead to burnout if you really do that 40-mile march, like the one team did and remember they died really close to their supply depot because they were pushing too far and then waiting too long. But it could be even harder to show up and do your 20 mile march when you have absolutely no motivation or passion to that day, you have no will to do it. But in often times it's actually the most rewarding when you show up when you don't want to do it. Then you're gaining the most growth and then you're still building that habit at the same time. So, even if you don't feel like doing it, doing your 20 mile march at the minimum is rewarding Consistency, and the 20 mile march is a steady march to success.
Speaker 1:You can overtake anyone. The streamer that streams daily and for hours gets burnt out. The writer who writes as much as they can when they feel like it loses inspiration. The artist who never stops drawing as they can when they feel like it loses inspiration. The artist who never stops drawing loses faith in their art. Keep on the 20 mile march. Be like a Mundenson, not Robert. Don't overextend because you can feel like you can do it that day. Keep the same pace. And for the streaming bit of that, I feel like I could speak on it a little bit more Now that I've been streaming for about three and a half months.
Speaker 1:When I started I wasn't sure what my guidelines were, what my roadmap is, what my goals were, and I would sometimes do really long five hour streams, even one or two sixers in there, and then I realized I would get burnt out after I did that and maybe I wouldn't have my stream schedule be consistent. That's another big thing. Once I had a consistent streaming schedule and I knew what days I would stream, everything got significantly easier. People who found me knew when I was going to be streaming and I got returning visitors who keep coming back and my follower and average viewer count doubled. Once I for one, stuck to a three to four hour stream and when I had days that I consistently showed up and had marked down, once I had that sandstone growth and people noticing my content and really like what I'm doing started to become more common, because beforehand I was really just streaming to one or two friends that stuck around, but now it's growing.
Speaker 1:Consistency is really powerful. Remember when I said this was going to be a really short episode? That's all I got. That's all I got for you. We talked about it, so there's no need to beat a dead horse. I could give you constant examples. I can just repeat the same thing, but I don't believe that that's always good and I don't think that's really entertaining for you to sit there and listen to. So instead of giving you examples that are the same thing just with a different color on it, we're going to end right here. That's all you really need to know about the 20 mile march Consistency and managing your consistency. Making sure you do your 20 mile march, and whatever it is that you're doing every day, you will overtake anybody. You'll win nine times out of ten.
Speaker 1:If you remember the old story about the tortoise and the hare, it's the same thing. The hare fucking booked it. Pardon my French, he booked it. He ran, he got really far ahead and he was like man, I don't need to do anything else, I'm good, there's no way I lose. And then he chilled and then a tortoise beat him because the tortoise kept going and he never stopped and he kept consistent. So that's all there is to the story 20 Mile March. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Ink and Bites podcast. I'm really looking forward to the next one. We have another guest lined up and it's going to be a blast. So thank you again and I'll see you in the next one.
