After reading my reflection about hitting the wall at mile 24.5 during my first marathon, my friend Leroy White asked me five powerful questions about leadership, guilt, exhaustion, and purpose. His questions made me think deeply about what that moment actually meant.
Here are my reflections.
1. Who Are We Really Running For?
At mile 24.5, my body was breaking down. The cramps were real and the moment felt surreal. Up until that day, the longest distance I had ever run was 22 miles. Everything after that felt like a blur.
If I am honest, I was still trying to prove I deserved to be there.
Running a marathon was monumental for me. I believed I could do it, but belief and experience are different things. In that moment, I was pushing through both.
Leroy asked how we tell the difference between living in purpose and running to escape survivor’s guilt.
I believe guilt can be the starting point, but it cannot be the destination.
Guilt can lead to conviction.
Conviction can lead to connection.
Connection leads to purpose.
Many of us who grew up in difficult environments carry survivor’s guilt. But when that guilt becomes conviction, it begins to shape purpose.
Purpose is where responsibility replaces guilt.
2. Staying Present When Your Mind Lives in the Future
As a visionary leader, my mind naturally lives in the future. That can be helpful, but it can also cause me to miss the present moment.
The truth is simple. The present moment contains the information needed to build the future.
When I focus too far ahead, I miss what is happening right now.
I often think about vision and sight. Nearsightedness affects farsightedness. If you cannot see clearly up close, your long-distance vision becomes distorted.
Leadership works the same way.
If we cannot deal honestly with what is happening today, our vision for tomorrow becomes blurry.
In hard moments, I have learned to sit with the pain instead of trying to escape it. I journal, reflect, and ask honest questions about what I am feeling.
Patience means waiting without anger. And waiting time is not wasted time.
3. The Fear of Admitting Our Limits
During the race, I had to negotiate with my body.
The fear I had to let go of was the fear that my body might stop.
When I saw my friends Ronnel and Corey, I knew I could keep going with their help. Without them, I would have had to ask strangers.
That meant confronting another fear: asking for help.
Part of my struggle came from dehydration. I had been given information about hydration but had not fully applied it.
But there is a simple equation I believe in:
Information plus experience equals knowledge.
And the application of knowledge is power.
Leroy also asked if it is possible to be an elite leader and admit you are at your limit without losing credibility.
I believe integrity—doing the right thing even when, and especially when, you could do the wrong thing—actually strengthens leadership.
Vulnerability connects people. When leaders admit their limits, it invites others to step forward with their strength.
Sometimes integrity does not cost you your seat at the table. It causes people to help lift you higher in it.
4. When the Work Feels Unseen
Leadership often involves doing meaningful work when no one is clapping.
When that happens, I rely on two things: vision and faith.
Vision is seeing what has not happened yet.
Faith is trusting what you cannot see.
My life mission is to live a life of significance by serving millions and bringing people into a relationship with Jesus Christ, starting with my wife Kelli and our daughters Mackenzi and Mackenna.
That mission keeps me grounded when recognition is absent.
Another gift in my life is a small group of people who genuinely care about me. Care requires capacity, and not everyone has the capacity to care deeply. But when you find people who do, their support becomes fuel.
Over time I have also learned to value progress differently. Since 2014 I have journaled almost daily. Those journals allow me to see growth that was invisible in the moment.
Pastor Charles Jenkins once described three seasons of life:
Running Season
Reaping Season
Reciprocation Season
The running season is when the work feels heavy and progress seems slow.
The reaping season is when preparation begins producing visible fruit.
The reciprocation season is when the impact of your work begins to return to you through others.
Eventually, the cycle returns to another running season. Growth always moves in rhythms.
5. Completion Over Perfection
Before the marathon, I made a decision. If I had to get in the back of a car to finish, I would.
I wanted to complete the race, but I also wanted to finish without serious injury. If things had gone badly enough, I would have studied what went wrong and trained again the following year.
Thankfully, with Ronnel and Corey beside me, I kept moving forward.
That moment reinforced an important lesson about excellence.
Excellence means meeting expectations.
Extraordinary means doing more than expected.
Extraordinary often leads to exhaustion. Excellence sustains progress.
Doing your best practically means three things.
First, understand what is expected of you. Many people exhaust themselves trying to exceed expectations they never clarified.
Second, know your capacity. Capacity includes your time, energy, and emotional bandwidth.
Third, execute consistently. Excellence repeated over time produces extraordinary results without destroying you.
Capacity must also be managed.
You identify capacity by paying attention to what drains and fuels you.
You expand capacity through learning, discipline, and rest.
You protect capacity by learning when to say no.
Final Thought
At mile 24.5, I was not running perfectly.
I was tired. I was cramping. I was questioning everything.
But I kept moving.
Leadership often looks the same way.
You may not feel strong in the moment. But if you maintain integrity, stay connected, and stay committed to your mission, you will eventually cross the finish line..
And when you do, you will realize something powerful.
The wall did not stop you.
It introduced you to the people and the purpose that helped carry you through it.