"Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; for it will become your destiny"
What could you create in your life if you could take control of the way you think?
Yair Kellner - His thoughts saved him
Yair Kellner is a good friend of mine with a story that is quite extreme. I want to tell his story because sometimes it is good to go to extremes to really make a point. Yair is one of those rare people that loves to push his mind and body to the limit. His passion is cheating death which he did so beautifully only a few weeks ago in Alaska.
By day, the mild mannered Yair teaches up-and-coming trainers and educators in Melbourne, Australia, which is how I met him. He seemed to be normal enough, that is until he told me about the race he was planning on doing.
The race is called the 'Iditarod Trail Invitational' and is a 567km bike ride across the mountains and through the glaciers, snow drifts, rugged terrain and punishing weather conditions of Alaska. The temperature ranges from 5 - 45 degrees celsius below zero with a wind chill that makes life in these conditions challenging to say the least. Whilst it is supposed to be a bike race, the reality is that it requires pushing a heavy bike, laden with supplies through often knee deep snow for over half of the race!
The rules are pretty simple. There are 12 checkpoints that must be passed through before anyone can finish the race and no external assistance is permitted. That is pretty much it! There are general directions, but no predetermined course and you have to carry your own food, supplies, clothes and protection from the punishing conditions. There are two opportunities for food drops on the course.
Yair basically had to navigate his own way from the beginning to the end, through each checkpoint, resting only when he needed for 567km in extreme conditions! Oh, and the other minor detail was the risk of a nearby volcano erupting at any time just to add a bit of spice to the adventure! I can actually think of better ways to spend my time; sitting in a hot spa drinking a cocktail is one, lying on a warm tropical beach is another! But this event is something that excited Yair! Yes, he is officially a lunatic - but a lunatic that I respect very much!
On Sunday March 1, 2009 at 2pm 45 competitors, including Yair Kellner set off on the 'Iditarod Trail Invitational'. Just over half of the starters actually finished. The actual start time of the race was a deliberate challenge for the competitors to have to navigate at night. This is not a down town city with street lights on every corner - it is dark! Yair, the crazy man, decided to really get into it and went non stop for the next 17 hours straight, navigating over lake and river systems at night in temperatures of 45 degrees below! This is no small feat - in fact during that first night 8 of the competitors had to drop out because of the conditions. Some of them had their eyes frozen! Whilst the physical preparation needed for this race was crucial, Yair states that the key is the mental preparation. You may have heard me talk about this before!
Yair arrived at the first checkpoint, slept for 2 hours, ate a lot of food and then set off again for another long 14.5 hour straight effort until he got to the second checkpoint where he had a good rest and feed. This good feed included 2 litres of coffee! This is not something that I would recommend you try to get through a tough day at the office!
He left this checkpoint at 10:30am on a beautiful sunny day and rode & pushed his bike, with another competitor until 6pm where they stopped to rest. At 7am the next day Yair set off again and not far after starting he came across another competitor vomiting in the snow. Yair stopped to help and discovered that this man's food had caused his sickness and so Yair selflessly offered most of his food knowing that when he got to the next checkpoint there would be a food drop. The sick man gratefully accepted.
The Wrong Turn
Not long after this the weather started to take a turn for the worse and for a reason that he himself doesn't quite understand Yair took a wrong turn. He ended up in a forest and eventually arrived at the side of a mountain. Something just didn't feel right to him, his intuition told him that he was off the track, but he kept going down a steep slope. At the bottom he noticed a trail, which later he found out was that of someone who had got lost on a snow mobile and had to be rescued. He knew because of his navigation skills that he was in the right general direction, but he was in a canyon. It would be possible to keep going the way he was, but very difficult and so he decided the best thing to do would be to turn back. Sure, he would lose some time, but it was the best long term move - especially as he had given away most of his food to the ill man earlier in the day.
A Deadly Dip
As Yair was heading back over an ice bridge, it collapsed and he and his bike fell through the ice and into a creek. Now this may not sound like that big a deal to you, but the next few minutes and the decisions that Yair made were the difference between his life and death. The water was so cold that if he didn't get out within a minute of two, his muscles would have seized to the point where he would have been unable to grip anything to pull himself out.
His first attempt failed as the ice kept collapsing around him. Time was running out and he not only had to get himself out, but just more importantly he had to get his bike out because it had all his supplies and protection from the cold. If he couldn't get out he would have frozen to death, but if got out and couldn't get the bike out he would have died anyway. This was serious stuff!
Yair told me that under normal conditions his bike was so heavy that he couldn't lift it on his own. In this situation, however, his thoughts and focus was only to get his bike and himself out of the creek. He kneeled down in the freezing cold water, grabbed his bike and with 'super human' strength he not only lifted it but threw it out of the water and to safety. Then he hurled himself out of the creek.
Focus on Solutions
The immediate danger was over, but he was far from in the clear because he and his clothes were soaking wet in sub zero temperatures. Within a short period of time they would freeze if he didn't act swiftly. He could have panicked and worried about his dilema but again his thoughts were focused on solutions. His best chance of survival was to get out of his clothes into a dry sleeping bag as quickly as possible. He dragged his bike to solid ground, took off his clothes and quickly got into his sleeping bag - once in the sleeping bag his clothes were ice blocks, which he had to thaw.
Yair explained that mentally his world shrank. He could have thought about how cold he was and the severity of his situation, but he chose to focus only on those things that were critical to his short term survival. He focused on starting a fire and making a warm drink, which took his total and uninterupted attention for over and hour. He then focused on thawing his clothes, so one at a time he dragged an article of clothing into his sleeping bag for it to thaw! This took a few hours of his time and focus.
His focus was then shifted to how he could make the tiny amount of food he had last (after giving most of it away). He knew that it would be a day or so before the organisers of the race would realise he was missing, so he really had to mentally prepare himself fo several days of survival before he would be rescued! After a small amount of cheese he tried to sleep. The next day his focus was on continuing to dry his clothes so that he could attempt to move to a place to be rescued.
The next day he decided he had to get out of the canyon as his food supply was dangerously low and there was no way he could be found where he was. He got dressed and dragged his bike to the bottom of the mountain and prepared for a tough ascent. Tough it was - with every attempt to move himself and his bike up the slope he would fall back to where he started! It is incredible to think that in his state of mental and physical fatigue where most peoiple would have given up, Yair continued to focus his thoughts on solutions.
He took things off the bike and up the slope in different stages. Then it was just him and the bike and the only way to get it up the slope was to use the pedals as crampons or ice axes - pretty ingenious for a man in his circumstances! For the next 4 hours he edged up 500m and finally reached the top with all of his gear. Once at the top he had to push his bike through knee deep fresh snow - which was exhausting. He actually had to lift the bike out of the snow and place it to move forwards. This is how he spent the next 6 hours; frozen, tired and starving but focused on survival!
The weather started to get stormy, and so he dug a snow cave and buried himself in and out of the ferocious and freezing winds. By now Yair realised that the search party would be out looking for him and so he should be found in the next two days. So he had to keep his thoughts in his little world until then. He kept himself busy and his excitement for the next two days included; turning over every hour, drying his clothes, eating a small slice of cheese every 5 hours and singing songs to himself!
The weather finally improved so Yair moved to a place easier to be seen by air and he put some signals in the snow. Soon after he heard an aeroplane in the distance - he jumped to his feet and waved his arms frantically, but they didn't appear to notice him. As he turned back to his camp, so did the aeroplane and it was heading towards him, in fact right over the top of him as he continued to try to attract their attention. Maybe they thought he was just waving to them to be friendly as it disappeared again! But finally it re-appeared and as the plane was directly overhead something was thrown out.
In the excitement of being seen, Yair could have easily taken his eyes of the object thrown from the plane and not seen where it landed, but even in his state of hunger and fatigue his thoughts and focus were on survival as he watched the object land and went to get it. It was a note that said "stay put we are coming back with snow mobiles".
Rescued
Two hours later the snow mobiles came. The rescuers expected to find Yair barely alive after 4 days lost in the snow, but he was fine and in fact offered to make them a cup of coffee! They couldn't quite believe it - as I said the man is a lunatic! He enjoyed his rescue flight over the Alaskan ranges and even though he didn't finish the race that he had started he was pretty happy with what he achieved over the last week! So the day that started lost in a snow cave ended sitting in a cafe in Anchorage, Alaska chatting about an incredible experience and planning his next flirt with death!
Control Your Thoughts
This is an abbreviated, but true account of Yair's story and I have not even had to exagerate to make it sound more dramatic than it was! As I mentioned at the beginning of this post it is an extreme story but with a powerful message. You will probably never be in the same kind of life or death situation that Yair experienced in Alaska and your thoughts may not make the difference between short term life and death, but they certainly will over time.
What do you focus on? What destiny are your thoughts creating? Yair's thoughts created an inspiring story of success and achievement. Other people in the same situation may not be alive to tell the tale. Deliberately direct your thoughts to what you want and anything is possible- just as Yair's story so dramatically illustrates. Where you are today in your life and where you will be in your life is largely determined by the way you think and what you focus on.
Stop wasting time and get up and move firmly in the direction of your positive and passionate thoughts!
I would like to thank Yair for sharing his inspiring story with me and he and I would love to hear your thoughts and contributions
Keep dancing!
COME AND HEAR YAIR TELL HIS STORY AND LEARN SOME AMAZING LIFE LESSONS AT THE SAME TIME ON MAY 21.
What: Yair Kellner - Into White
When: May 21, 7:45 for an 8pm start
Where: East Melbourne Library, 122 George St
Cost: $5 (profits going to RSPCA)
Booking: Go to www.andrewjobling.com.au
2 comments:
What an inspiring story! I have just got over my small time issues!
Thank you
The quote from Mahatma Gandhi that starts your blog is a wonderful mantra for all of us. Yair's story is extraordinary and inspirational...makes our minor struggles seem positively ridiculous. From now on, when I decide I need to take massive action, I'm not going to say "yeah", I'm going to say "Yair"!!
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