At last year's talent show, Noah sang "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction. Every time it came on the radio, and well after the song had ended, he would sing it. He knew the song by heart even before the PTO announced that there would be a talent show. Despite knowing the song so well, he continued to practice in the days leading up to the talent show tryouts. Noah has been blessed with his mom's genes in the vocal chord department; at nine, while he is still in the middle of his physical development, he sings a nice falsetto and can even change keys to a lower range when he needs to.
On the day of last year's talent show tryouts, Noah only lasted a minute into the song before going deer in the headlights and running off stage, out the auditorium, and into the hall. When I caught up with him, I noticed he was visibly shaken by the experience: his eyes were threatening tears and he was trying to hold them back by sucking in gulps of air in short successive breaths. When he calmed down, he said his throat was dry and that he had been holding his breath for the whole minute before he stopped singing. At home he practiced harder, even clapping his hands over his head to encourage an imaginary crowd to clap to the beat. He sounded great, a child's lilting voice. A friend told him to try sucking on peppermint to help his mouth stay moist. But at every rehearsal and again on the night of the talent show, Noah only lasted a minute before he ran for the exit.
At the cross county trials my freshman year at Woodbridge High School, I beat out two seniors and a junior and ran the 7th fastest time overall for 3 miles: 18:48. Top seven meant that I made the varsity team. Six weeks later in a crucial dual meet with cross-city rival University HS, I ran out of my mind and raced a blistering 16:31, crushing my personal best and beating the all time freshman record by seven seconds. I was the 5th fastest runner on the team by that time, a crucial distinction since it is the first five runners who score the points in a meet. At the last race of the season I pushed myself to place 4th on the team because I ran hills better than Shad Burke.
The secret to my successful, amazing, inaugural season: ignorance. I was too stupid to know what I was doing exactly, only that I loved to run, loved training even more, especially hills and speed workouts, and that my body was allowing me to do it. It gave me uber confidence that I was the unknown underdog who was steadily improving, whose limits had yet to be tested. This knowledge made me naive and cocky: I knew I was good, but I never thought about why.
Sophomore year came and things fell apart. Successful runners will often go through a period of time commonly known as a "sophomore slump." In a slump a runner's confidence (in my case ignorance) wears off and his fear sets in, rendering him a psychologically weak opponent. Sophomore slumps usually right themselves by midseason as the runner learns to push out the fear and again believe in himself. My sophomore slump was bad. It was more like 3 years of stage fright. I would only run a 16:13 3-mile as a sophomore, and never any faster as a junior or senior. For my entire freshman year, I had been a position player for the varsity team. I was dependable number 5 because I showed up to practice, trained hard and followed orders. If they wanted me to stay on the other team's fourth guy for the first 2 miles or with the lead pack through the first half mile, I would do it. But for the rest of my high school career, the pressure of performing became too great and I psyched myself out before the starting gun ever went off.
Everyone has a choice when facing adversity: do I go for it or do I just sit back and let someone else seize the moment; can I find the will to win or am I content with mediocrity; do I push through whatever demons are racing through my mind or do I allow those demons to drag me down. For me the moment of decision usually came at the end of the first mile of a race. Good runners will toughen up at tough moments and push through. Great runners will use the tough moments to break the will of struggling runners. I had gotten so used to starting out fast that I could cruise the first mile at 4:55 and still feel great. 100 meters later, however, when my body realized what I had just put it through, and that there were still 2 miles left, it inevitably happened: I began to struggle. A great runner from an opposing team would sidle up to pass me. And for 30 seconds I would go with him, but once doubt set it that we were going too fast, and that I needed to conserve energy for the rest of the race, my body would thankfully rebel and settle back into a more mediocre pace.
There are many people the world over who have learned to beat back their personal demons and persevere. Their example reminds us to hold on to hope, to fight a good fight, to finish our course, and keep the faith (1 Timothy 4:7); they remind us to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ and endure to the end (2 Nephi 31:20). On a bitter cold Christmas evening, George Washington crossed the Delaware River and defeated the Hessian army with his own army on the brink of despair and desertion. It took Martin Luther King, Jr. three times and every ounce of patience and fortitude he possessed to march successfully from Selma to Montgomery.
When I ran my 16:13 3 mile as a sophomore, I didn't run it alone. In the last race of an uninspiring season, my best friend and teammate, Chris Finley, who had only beaten me once before, caught me the last quarter mile of the race and demanded I stick with him as we started our kick. It worked. I gave everything I had left on that quarter mile because Chris believed in me. To this day, when he rubs it in my face that his personal best is 16:12, I am secretly grateful that it is too.
Dean
Karnazes was covering ridiculous distances from the time he was in
grade school. As he grew, so did his accomplishments, and on October 18,
2005, the California native completed one of the most awe inspiring
runs of all time when he pulled off a nonstop, 350-mile run around the
San Francisco Bay area. Beginning his trek on a Wednesday afternoon,
Karnazes pushed himself for over 80 hours of relentless pavem - See more
at:
http://www.mensfitness.com/weight-loss/burn-fat-fast/amazing-feats-endurance#sthash.EoLY0caL.dpuf
Last year, Tyler Robinson succumbed to Rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He was 16 years old. In a way, Tyler is the embodiment of "Demons." The first two verses of the song are a pretty depressing glimpse into the brain of an individual who is nearly consumed by his demons. The third stanza is not a solution to the problem, but only a glimmer of hope as the depressed individual finds hope in the light that shines from someone's eyes:
Your eyes, they shine so bright
I wanna save that light
I can't escape this now
Unless you show me how
Friends and family can make it easier to face adversity. Thanks to a blessing and council from his bishop, Tyler chose not to be bitter and angry at his life's circumstances. Tyler spent the rest of his life being positive. Before he passed, he touched and inspired countless lives with his undaunted courage and his desire to spread happiness for as long as he could. Tyler's story, as well as his love for music and unfailing positivity even inspired Imagine Dragons' band members Dan Reynolds, Wayne Sermon and Ben McKee and Daniel Platzman. Really it was probably a mutually inspirational friendship. Tyler loved their music and their lyrics. He understood that, "The path to Heaven runs though miles of clouded hell" ("It's Time"). And the band loved Tyler. Here was a boy who had faced his demons and a light to others. "The real battle,"they said, "is not whether you live or die, but how you respond." At the end of the official music video for "Demons," there is a clip of Tyler dancing on stage with band. Because of Tyler's desire to help others Imagine Dragons helped form the Tyler Robinson foundation after his death.
I was able to face my demons with the help of Chris Finley; Noah had his siblings' help when he faced his.
When the MC announced that Noah would be singing "Demons," he began to shake and nearly hyperventilate. It took nearly 3 minutes of pleading and cajoling from my wife Jessica before Noah could compose himself, take the microphone from the MC and walk onto the stage. He had made it though the entire song twice in dress rehearsals: once after we had cleared the room of all the performers, and again when his younger brother Ian and I sat in Noah's line of sight directly in front of the stage. Because of the audience chairs that night, I was standing with Ian a little further back than where we had practiced, but Noah nodded at me as the song began to let me know he saw me. We had told him to just sing to Ian and everything would be fine. Halfway through the first verse, his youngest sister, Xailyn, walked up on stage and stood next to her big brother. Whether it was instinctive, or a reaction to the look of fear on Noah's face just before he started to sing, or whether it was that she wanted to be in the talent show, Xailyn's efforts began a movement that may have saved the day. The audience sighed at the adorable sight of younger sister coming to support big brother, then laughed as Noah gave her a brotherly shove so as not to stand so close, then sighed again as Noah realized that he really did need her support and pulled her close. The whole time Noah was maneuvering Xailyn into position, he never missed a word of the song. Ten seconds later, Noah's oldest sister, Maiya, joined the two of them on stage, and began swaying her arms back and forth to enlist the audience's support. At the end of the second verse, Aiylora, three years younger than Noah, got up on stage and whispered "I love you," before joining Maiya in encouraging the audience to clap to the beat. My contribution was to sing along quietly in case Noah forgot any of the words (even though on the tape, my voice comes across a little louder than I intended); and Ian vocalized his own encouragement in the form of random squawks and chirps.
There were countless times throughout the song where Noah could have called it quits and gone running off the stage, but especially when he forgot how the chorus starts at the end of the third verse. For eight grueling seconds, Noah stood speechless, gripping the microphone as he searched his brain for what he was supposed to say. I, too, had forgotten how the final chorus starts and was unable to help. But despite whatever fear filled his mind, Noah battled through it, refocused and finished the song. The audience cheered wildly and Noah received numerous accolades for his performance.
When I was 21 years old, I was finally able to put together a race I could be proud of. I was out of shape when I showed up to my first day of practice as an Irvine Valley College Laser. Those six miles may have been the longest of my live. I wasn't the slowest on the team, but I was close and it motivated me to train eight times a week - twice on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a break for Sunday - for the rest of the season. My determination paid off in Santa Barbara two months later. The first mile of the race ended at the beach and we ran a quarter mile through ankle-deep sand. I stayed light on my feet, kept my knees high, and plugged on. I pushed though miles two and three, passing people as I went, and rounded the turn for the last half mile. I had no idea I was so far out when I started my kick, but I did it anyway. At any other time of my life, I am sure that I would have lost my momentum somewhere in that half mile. But I didn't. I just kept accelerating until I was in an all out sprint at the end of 4 miles and it felt great. I even passed our third runner and then held him off at the finish line.
Even though the irony of the moment was lost on Noah, I am serendipitously grateful that he sang the song he did. One day, Noah will look back on the events of the talent show and be grateful, too, that he was able to conquer (at least for now) his stage fright. More than likely, his fears will resurface sometime down the road, but having successfully combated them once, Noah will be better prepared for whatever comes. Hopefully he will be able to use this experience and strategy to conquer other demons. I don't know how long it will be before Noah doesn't need to depend on his family to the point where they are on the stage while he is singing. One day he will be able to stand on his own knowing that we are cheering him on from our seats. I am looking forward to seeing him perform next year.
