No Time like the Present

Nathan Fa'ave, Adventure Sports Champion

This is a big contrast to where I spoke last week.
I was speaking to 500 students at Mangere college - I felt like I was in Apia...

I'm from Nelson, a lot of you probably own properties down there, it seems like there's an Aucklander in every street.
Locals used to pick them by their cell phones, now it's the late model VW.
Last year Nelson locals were in uproar when a NZ Herald head line read...
"Nelson - Auckland's latest suburb!".

I was down in Hokitika last month to watch the start of the Coast to Coast.
I got talking to a local on the West Cost who was complaining at how the land prices have increased.
"it's the Asians fault" - he said.
How do you figure that I asked, I don't see many Asian people moving to Hokitika.
Asia moved to Auckland, Auckland moved to Nelson and Nelson moved to the coast.

I'm here today as an athlete, I currently captain Team Seagate,
the NZ adventure racing team.

I've been adventure racing since 1999.

In that short time I have reached the pinnacle of the sport.
If Adventure Racing was an Olympic sport,
I'd have a 3 gold medals.

During my teenage years I wasn't on the best pathway to becoming a world class athlete.
I started smoking cigarettes when I was 11 years old and remained a heavy smoker until I was 17.
At 16, I was cultivating and selling marijuana.
I was in a gang and often in fights.
I spent a lot of my early life on the streets involved in crime.
Some of my mates and I made a tattoo gun and gave each other tattoos.
At 17, I was in trouble with the police and had an alcohol problem so I went to a rehabilitation program. It was an outdoor adventure course for 'youth at risk'. It was there that I found a new life.

I set a goal for myself back then, and with every mountain I climb and with every river I cross, I come closer to achieving it.

Adventure racing plays a big part in that. Let me tell you about adventure racing.

Adventure racing is a multi-day, non-stop, non-motorized outdoor team sport.
The core disciplines are ; hiking, kayaking, rafting, rope skills and mountain biking.
But we sometimes ride horses, camels, donkeys, or whatever else the people of the country we are racing in - have to climb onto. Events are held all around the world and have as many as 100 teams.

A team is comprised of four people, with one being of the opposite gender.

The racecourse is not marked, which means we have to navigate our way around the checkpoints, always aiming to find the shortest distance or fastest way.

The length is normally between 500-1000km with the winning time aimed at 100-150 hours. That's four to seven days!

There are 5 major adventure races around the world each year. The Eco Challenge races are the most challenging.
They got their start in the U.S. back in 1995, and since that first race in Utah, there has been an Eco Challenge race every year since ... in Canada, Australia, Morocco, Argentina, Borneo, New Zealand, and in Fiji in 2002.
The 2003 Eco Challenge was postponed and is aimed to take place in South Africa later this year.

So with that as background ... here are some scenes from the 2001 Eco-Challenge in New Zealand.

We had the best chance of winning that race since it was on our own home turf.

But we lost.

We came second by a mere 17 minutes.

After all that training and physical pain and you lose a 5 day race by only 17 minutes, you tend to look back ... and after the race we spent a lot of time looking back because we certainly had the ability to win.

I learnt years ago that whatever I learn in sports can be translated into real life.

So whenever I come across a situation like the one we had in New Zealand, I think ... how could this help me in life and what learning could I apply to living?

That was when I starting thinking about the topic of time, because at the end of a race it's easy to look back to see what we might do differently for the next race.

But in life, we really don't have a second chance to look back and see what we might do differently for our next life.

There are 2 certainties in life - we were born and we will die - the rest is negotiable.

Between birth and death is time - your life - so if you waste time - you waste life.

Life is precious - time is valuable.

And that's what I want to talk about today ... the value of time.

And over my career in racing, I've found there are three principles to saving time:

Principle Number One ... Know your capabilities.

This is the key to making good decisions quickly and saving time.

Principle Number Two ... Make a plan and stick to it.Planning can save a tremendous amount of time ... only if you have faith in your plan and don't get caught up in what other people are doing.

And Principle Number Three ... Make smooth transitions from one stage to another.

In a race, we go through about 10 transition stages, and how efficiently we move through these stages can mean the difference between winning and losing.

Just like in real life.

We all go through transitions, and the more efficiently we move through these transitions, the happier we'll be.

So, let's take a quick look at each one of these principles starting with Principle # 1.

Know your capabilities.

As in business, we've learned in adventure racing that having trust and confidence in your team is a huge, huge thing.
But we've also learned that trust and confidence in ourselves must come first,
because if we can't trust ourselves ... if we don't have confidence in ourselves ... no one else will either.

We lost the race in New Zealand because I thought we could do the race on little or no sleep.

Going into the last night we had not slept for 75 hours, and had covered hundreds of kilometres on foot, bikes and kayaks.

As the sun was setting on the last night my world started to change - everything seemed to be made of water.

I said to one of my team mates - "I don't feel to good, I'm feeling very strange".

Typical Kiwi reply - " you'll be right mate".

"Yeah, of course, cheers." I agreed.

Over the next hour I slipped into a state of mind that I call the Dreamscape.

I basically lost control of my mind. Everything was a dream.

I got angry with my team.

3 times I ran away and hid from them,

1 time I jumped down a small cliff.

I wanted to sleep and as far as I was concerned they were in my dream.
They kept saying to me -
"look - we are leading the Eco Challenge - this is the last stage, we have a 4 hour lead"...
...and I would reply...
"you have no right to be in my dream - this is unethical - get lost".
They slept me for 3 hours - when they woke me up I was still in the Dreamscape.
We had dropped to 2nd so my team decided to push on .
I did a 200 metre abseil in that state.

When the sun came up I snapped out of it.
I was horrified to hear what had happened. We were 3 hours behind the lead team.

We chased with all we had left, in the final 6 hours, we reduced the 3 hour lead to 17 minutes, be we lost the race.

I made a mistake - I thought I could do a race without sleep - I now know I can't.

I pushed my limits - I learnt what I was capable of ...

Know your capabilities.

As a result of that experience my team mates now trust my judgement on when I need sleep, and I have confidence in what my capabilities really are.

Because we have trust, and know our limits, we make fast decisions and ultimately - save time.

In Business, not knowing your capabilities often means self-doubt and indecision.

Perhaps you've seen situations when the decision making process consumes valuable time and a competitor is allowed to take the lead because of it.

Or perhaps you've seen situations where people take on more responsibility than they can really handle - because they don't know their capabilities well enough to admit they were not ready for the additional responsibilities, and in the long run they end up hurting themselves or the company.

Knowing your capabilities is vital to becoming trustworthy.

If you can trust yourself and your team, you should also have trust in the plans you make together and that's Principle # 2 for saving time ...

Make a plan and stick to it.

When we lost in New Zealand, we identified what went wrong, and made plans so we could apply it to the EC in Fiji in 2002.
And to build confidence in our plan, we went to Fiji six weeks before the race and spent a week there training. One of the key things we learned in Fiji was you don't run in the jungle.
The heat and humidity will ruin your feet.
On the first night of the race, we had a bamboo rafting section and then a mountain run.
We finished the rafting section in 3rd place.
But on the mountain run, teams were passing us all night because we kept our pace to a walk, because we knew that running in the jungle was a sure way to trash your feet. It was really hard to keep to our plan and remain at a walk because the whole night through teams were passing us and we fell back to 20th place.
But we had trust in our plan and we knew that we would see these teams again, and when we did, they wouldn't be running.

And sure enough, by day five, we were still walking while many others had dropped out due to foot problems.

It was extremely difficult at times to stick to the plan, but we had faith in our plan and stuck to it.

Now ... I'm not suggesting that you have rigid plans and continue along with a plan that is obviously not working.
You have to be flexible enough to change with changing conditions.
But perhaps you've been in business situations where you see companies passing you in the night and you feel compelled to race after them.
I say, fight the urge. Make a plan and stick to it. Race your race, not theirs.

I am a firm believer in making plans and setting goals.

I'll tell you about the most recent goal I achieved. I worked for 3 years as an instructor at the Outward Bound school. Second to being a Father, it is the best thing I have done in my life. In my view - Outward Bound holds many of the answers to the problems society is faced with.

When I left Outward Bound I knew that someday I would return there. Although instructors get paid, it really is charity work.

I left OB knowing that I would return but I wanted to make some money first.

Jodie my wife and I are both locals to Nelson, it has always been our dream to own a beach front property.
We tried to by 3 properties with no luck.
After our third defeat, my wife Jodie said to me that we need to change our goal, we can't afford coastal land. The worst thing someone can say to me is 'can't',
- and my wife knows this !
because all my life I have done what I've been told I can't do - and succeeded.

In the past 4 years Sport has offered me incredible opportunities that I have seized and maximised.

Last November our dream piece came up for sale. The day we moved in I could not open the lock, somebody rang the Police because they saw a coconut climbing over the gate. I'm 31, I own 2 properties and I have a great lifestyle. I loom around my friends.

Some are struggling to make ends meet.

I see 3 differences between us...

1/ I'm a happier to take risks. Risk is a big part of adventure racing, its part of my everyday life. I am used to living with risk. Many people are to afraid to take risks.

2/ Focus - nothing frustrates me more than inefficiency, I hate wasting time. With focused planning I maximise my time, I am a real list person, I make a list for each day. At the end of the day I ask myself
"what I have done today, to take me closer to my goals?".

3/ I don't put limits on what I want to do.

I saw Eco Challenge on TV in 1995.

I decided I wanted to do it, not only to finish, but to win it.

My life today is a result - of a good plan.

Now ... transitions,

Principle # 3 for saving time?

In racing, transitions are a bridge between one phase in the race and another.
For example, if we're going from a kayaking section to a mountain biking section,
we have to get out of our kayaking gear, pack it away, assemble our bikes,
pack gear for the ride and eat as much food as possible.
I can eat a can of baked beans, peaches and a can of coke - - in less than a minute.

A transition is all about organization in getting from one section to another.

Efficiency is crucial, because every minute you waste, is gone forever.

Our team is incredibly fast in the transitions because we spend a lot of time thinking of ways to become more efficient,
and how to speed up the process, and instead of waiting for a team mate to complete a task, we all help each other.

And it's much the same with life itself.

We will all go through a number of transition stages during our lives, and we can't afford to stand around waiting on someone else or dwell on what might have been.
It's best to work through the task at hand as efficiently as possible and move on.

I'll give you a personal example.

Several years ago I was diagnosed with a heart condition. Adventure racing puts a little strain on the heart so I thought I'd better get it fixed.
So I had an operation.
But unfortunately, it didn't work.
In fact, it actually made my condition worse, and it's an obstacle that I have to move out of the way every day.
My condition Atrial Fibrillation is not considered dangerous, but I have to stop if it happens in competition.
But I didn't dwell on what might have been. I simply accepted it and moved on.

In life ... if something terrible happens to you, take time to get over it, but don't waste time dwelling on it.

One of my best friends was in a tragic accident years ago where she lost her parents and her two sisters.
It was a horrible time for her but because she has friends who helped her through this tough, tough transition period, she's doing just fine now and she's moved on. In fact, she is the 2 time women's world champion kite surfer.

We are all, each of us here today, going through transitions ...
because we are growing and maturing ... and taking on new responsibilities at work and at home.
And sometimes, all we need to move on is a helping hand. TIBET.

So my challenge to each of you, to save time, not only for yourself, but perhaps for someone you love or maybe even a stranger ... my challenge to you is to become efficient with your own time so you will have enough time to lend a hand to others.

The key to winning an adventure race, is much like how you win in life,

... it's a matter of how you spend your time

... it's about knowing your capabilities

... it's about making a plan and sticking to it

... and it's about accepting change and transitioning from one stage to another as smoothly as possible.

All of these save time and make life easier. But instead of managing our time wisely, we just work harder or work faster and we end up piling more on our plates that ends up frustrating us even more.

And in the end, we're much more stressed than when we started.

Think about this ... A typical Kiwi male :
Spends about 40 minutes a day in their car
Spends an average of 3 hours a day watching television and Spends 90 % of their time indoors.

That may not sound like a lot of time, but when you look at it over a typical lifetime of 78 years, you Spend over 2 years in your car . Spend nearly 10 years watching television, and Spend 70 years out of your 78 years indoors.

Look at it another way ...

Let's say that our bosses have put a value of $25.00 an hour on our time.
If our time at work is worth $25.00 an hour, our time away from work should be at least that valuable ... so let's say it is.

That means that the three hours we spend watching television each day is worth $2,250 a month or $27,000 a year!

Is television really worth it?

In racing, like in life, there's no such thing as free time ... there's always a price to pay.

I think that time can be of more value when we use it to discover our capabilities...
...when we spend it making plans for the future ...
... and when we use it wisely to transition from one change to another.

At the beginning of my talk, I gave you an idea of what it feels like to lose a long and gruelling race by just a matter of minutes.

But when it all comes together, making good use of your time feels something like this!

You may have noticed Mark Burnett the race director in that segment. He said something at the awards I'll never forget - he said;