Analogy Between a Marathon and Business

Hi! Came across this interesting piece written down by our Head of Retail Banking and felt that it should be shared with people across the globe.


Find a purpose. Purpose can be a sense of achievemen or a cause. Without it you will flag off when it gets tougher. At ICICI bank, we can change India’s economic destiny. It motivates me one helluva lot.

Commit. The kalpana strategy. Wanna know the secret of Kalpana’s success? She tells everyone her next goal. I did it this time by broadcasting to all of you. Youll be surprised how much it puts pressure to deliver. Announce your business targets to your friends, your peers. Ambitious ones, not what you can reach. Watch the fun.

The other thing experts tell you while preparing.. cross train with swimming, strength training and so on. Our parallel at work, cross train by reading books, subscribing to libraries, networking..

Efficiency improves with partnership. With a partner, chances are you’ll pull along longer. I lost my training partner early on to the crowd, and paid very dearly for it. (For those of you who are not married.. get married soon.. you will last (live) longer?)

Music makes running easier. It gives you rhythm, and makes you forget the tiredness. So with work. Find the music of your work life. Something that will kinda intoxicate you; and give you the zing at work. A high all the time. Could be a great peer network.. could be continous learning.. think.. ideas welcome.

I realized that if you take a break of say 5 minutes… its very difficult to command the body to run again. You may keep your cool, but don’t let the body cool down. Restarting a cooled engine is very tough as fatigue starts setting in. The body desperately hangs on to new found comfort. Then it dosen’t stretch. Then atrophies and exits the race. We saw this happening to many around us during the race. In a busy world where only the fittest and fastest survive, ICICI just cannot afford to cool down. Weve got to keep it warm, running and buzzing all the time.

At times when the run is long and tiring, particularly at lonely stretches, .. your body says enough is enough, I’m out of fuel… lets call it off. Your ankles and knees, quite rationally, say I’m inflamed….lets try this another day. The mind thinks otherwise. Depends on who overrules whom.

People think of the marathon as an individual sport. Towards the fag end of the race, I noticed that if I stopped, people around me tended to stop. If I ran past someone, they tended to start again. At work, keep running for the team sake. The ICICI team is running the marathon right now. If you slow down, you will get colleagues around you to slow. Keep your chin up ad keep going. (Attitudes are caught; not taught : Elwood Chapman)

Stretch. If you cant run, run 7. If you think you can run 7, run 21. If you think you can are prepared for 21, run 42. And if you think you can run 42 in 6 hours, run it in 4. Its no great deal attempting what you can do. Sounds familiar at icici anyway? I can hear hiccups at Mr. Kamath’s office.. "raising the bar" has been patented there already….

A quote that motivated me:
"It’s the attitude that puts the cat in the kitten, and the stretch that puts the tiger in the cat."