‘Karen and Jay celebrate the spirit of turning adversity into opportunity!’

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Or put simply in another context, the initiative of going for a run – or possibly working out, really begins with ‘putting on your shoes.’ And ironically – whether it’s a long journey or a short run or workout, often we find that the most difficult part is taking that first step – or even putting on your shoes. This much is certain – you can’t win if you don’t begin!

Back in 2015, German soccer star Andre Schurrle (pronounced shirl) was on top of the world. He and his countryman had just won the World Cup the previous summer and his club team Chelsea, based in London, would go on to be champions of the Premier League, Britain’s top soccer league. Yet only 5 years later, Andre found himself not getting any offers from teams due to recent injuries he’d sustained. Faced with a difficult decision, he decided to retire from professional soccer at only 29 years old, a sport he’d been playing since he was old enough to walk.

We often think or hear stories about athletes like Tom Brady or Ted Williams who play into their late thirties or early forties as if they are the norm. But the reality is, most professional athletes retire in their 20’s or early 30’s as the physical and emotional burdens become more difficult as they get older. And in the case of Schurrle, the sport he’d grown to love had become to feel more like a burden than a passion. So, when he retired, he was left with an ominous question: what next? To compound everything, he retired just as the world was coming to grips with the spread of covid-19 in the spring of 2020. For months he contemplated what direction he would go in. He admitted that it was one of the most challenging moments of his life having at one point been on the top of the sports world, to then find himself at the metaphorical bottom. Not knowing where to turn, he procrastinated for months on making a decision about what would come next, fearing that making a decision would lead him down the wrong path. Yet what he would discover is that by doing nothing at all, he was only achieving exactly what he in fact feared most, inaction and stagnation.

That’s when Andre was introduced to Wim Hof, a very eccentric Dutch motivational speaker and ‘extreme athlete’ whose breathing and training exercises are used by some of the world’s top endurance athletes. Perhaps you’re familiar with him. Known as the ‘iceman’ for making cold plunges an international phenomenon, Wim Hof is a true believer in the idea that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. In his own words, “I fear not living fully”. So, Andre decided to take up training again, doing regular breath work, running, climbing in a way that was drastically different than anything he’d done as a professional soccer player. Over time, with each little step, he saw progress and growth in his physical and mental well-being. That was when finally, he decided to take on what he called the biggest challenge of his life this past winter, bigger than the World Cup challenge he said, when he would climb the highest mountains in the Czech Republic with only a pair of shorts, hiking boots, and a winter beanie. Facing winds of more than 75mph and temperatures of -10, Andre would reach the summit. "The hardest mental and physical thing I ever did! An experience that I will never forget.”

Now this is not to say challenging yourself to something like this is what we should all be doing, certainly not as we each have our own boundaries and limits. However, what Andre demonstrated is that even as a professional athlete who’d achieved the greatest honors in his sport, there was still a fear of the unknown, and until he took a first step towards the unknown, he didn’t get anywhere. Once he did, he was eventually able to reach another mountain top, in this case quite literally. Each of us has the ability to achieve things greater than we could ever imagine, yet sometimes we may ‘get in our own head,’ tell ourselves we aren’t good enough, be scared about a potential outcome, when in fact the best thing you can do is simple, take action, doesn’t matter if it’s small or large. Following his summit, Andre shared, “What I learned: my body and mind are stronger than I thought. If I put my mind and soul to it, I can do everything." This is true for each of us, we just have to be willing to take that first step.

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