Dean’s story is fascinating and exemplary. A sample of how much we can change if we decide to do so. Also a sign that it is never too late to do it.
His real name is Constantino Karnazes, but he is known worldwide as Dean and being a young athlete with a truly extraordinary performance, he fell into the clutches of certain types of absorbent and harmful habits that are usually acquired with adult life putting a lot of what is important at risk, until a surprising and painful conversion happened.
On the night of his 30th birthday, a supposedly successful Dean in his highly paid executive position ordered a party drink from a bar counter. Some friends arrived, they ordered more drinks, the toasts were repeated, when suddenly a beautiful woman approached and Dean, being a married man and absolutely drunk, was on the verge of provoking with a supposed celebration, a chaos of his family life.
Miraculously, before anything he could regret happened, Dean paused to go to the bathroom. Confused in front of the mirror, he left the bathroom and instead of going back to the bar he left the bar and started running dressed in the office clothes he was wearing; He ran south through the night without stopping, halfway through he took off his pants and continued running in his underwear, kilometers and more kilometers, until he found himself at dawn, sober, physically more injured than ever, but with an unmatched mental clarity, renewed , 48 kilometers away from the bar where the conversion took place, calling his wife to beg her to come by him to the telephone booth from which he dialed. This is how he set his course and launched the career of one of the most well-known, popular, amazing and interesting ultramarathoners in the world.
Born in the United States in 1962, to Greek parents, his career is a string of significant activities around his physical and mental capacity: he ran 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days, he ran without stopping or sleeping 560 kilometers, he is a highly valued lecturer and a writer of books who have broken sales records, to name just a few of his accomplishments.
He refers that success is living exploiting to the maximum the potential that we as human beings have, both physically and mentally. I would dare to conclude and at the same time share that for me, success means living as he says, making the most of our capacity, and I would also add, that successful is the one who from his worst failure makes his best triumph, that is, how successful he is. the one who falls and gets up, as many times as necessary. We can all bring about our miraculous conversion, it’s just a matter of deciding and like Dean, start running.