Last weekend, I, Adam, spent hours running in circles.
Literally.
I was at Runningman Festival, running lap after lap around a one-mile horse racing track with business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, creators, and people who had traveled there for something more than another race.
And somewhere along those miles, I started asking people a question:
“What does running mean to you and your life?”
I wasn’t prepared for how consistent the answers would be.
Almost every person said some version of the same thing:
“My mental health.”
Then came the stories.
The pressure of running a business.
The end of a relationship.
Recovery from addictive patterns.
The weight of being responsible for employees, families, customers, and organizations.
These were incredibly capable people.
People accustomed to solving problems.
People who get the phone call when something goes wrong.
People who make decisions when there isn’t an obvious answer.
People who know how to keep moving when they’re tired.
And yet, mile after mile, I kept hearing:
Running is where I can breathe.
There Was Something Different About These Conversations
I made a point of running with as many different people as I could.
Sometimes we’d share a mile. Sometimes several.
There is something interesting about having a meaningful conversation while you’re both physically moving forward.
There’s no office.
No desk.
No title.
No CEO.
No founder.
No expert.
Just two people taking the next step.
During one of those conversations, I asked someone:
“What does running mean to you?”
She began to cry.
She shared some of her experience with trauma and explained that running had become a place where she could experience a sense of control again.
Then she said something that stayed with me.
Having the opportunity to share her experience with someone who was also taking strides forward meant the world to her.
Not someone standing on the sidelines.
Someone moving beside her.
And I think there’s something important in that.
The People in the Arena Carry a Lot
The phrase “in the arena” gets used frequently in leadership and entrepreneurship.
But looking around that horse track, it felt particularly appropriate.
These people were literally in an arena.
And many of them spend the rest of their lives in one too.
They’re building companies.
Leading teams.
Raising families.
Taking financial risks.
Recovering from failures.
Making payroll.
Trying to stay healthy.
Trying to be present.
Trying to figure out what comes next.
And when you’re that person, the advice to simply “slow down” can feel disconnected from reality.
Sometimes you can’t take a month off.
You can’t ignore the company.
You can’t stop being a parent.
You can’t disappear until life becomes less stressful.
There are seasons when you don’t have the option to stop and smell the roses.
You still have to run the next lap.
The question becomes:
How do you keep moving without losing yourself along the way?
“My Mental Health.”
That answer kept echoing in my head.
Why does running become so important to so many leaders?
I think part of it is that movement creates a place where we aren’t required to perform for anyone else.
The road doesn’t care about your job title.
The trail doesn’t care about your revenue.
The stopwatch doesn’t care how many people depend on you.
For a little while, the complexity gets reduced to something incredibly simple:
Breathe.
Move.
Take the next step.
For some people, that becomes one of the few places where the noise gets quiet enough to hear themselves again.
And sometimes, what they hear tells them something important.
I’m exhausted.
I’m angry.
I’m lonely.
I’m grieving.
I’m scared.
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.
Those aren’t signs that someone isn’t capable.
They’re signs that they’re human.
Strong People Need Places Where They Don’t Have to Be Strong
This may have been my biggest takeaway from Runningman Festival.
The people carrying significant responsibility don’t necessarily need another person telling them to work harder.
They’re already good at that.
They may need somewhere they can put down the weight for a moment.
Somewhere they can talk about the business pressure they don’t want to bring home.
The marriage they’re worried about.
The burnout they’re trying to hide.
The habits that are becoming harder to control.
The failure they haven’t told anyone about.
Or the strange loneliness that can come from being surrounded by people who depend on you.
Sometimes the strongest-looking person in the room is desperately looking for somewhere they don’t have to have the answer.
This Is Why The Pursuit Exists
I came home from Runningman thinking about why I love the work we do at The Pursuit Counseling.
We work with people who are in pursuit.
Founders.
Executives.
Parents.
Athletes.
Creatives.
Pilots.
Veterans.
Leaders.
People building something.
People recovering from something.
People becoming something.
We don’t believe the goal of therapy is to create a life where nothing difficult happens.
And we aren’t going to tell every overwhelmed person that the solution is simply to slow down.
Sometimes life requires you to keep moving.
Instead, therapy can become a place to understand what you’re carrying, why you’re carrying it, and how you want to carry it differently.
A place to notice the patterns that helped you become successful but may now be costing you something.
A place to figure out what needs to change—and what is worth continuing to fight for.
Keep Moving. But Don’t Carry It Alone.
During those miles at Runningman, I found myself telling people something over and over:
Your life matters.
Your stress matters.
Your story matters.
Your future matters.
And you don’t have to wait until everything falls apart before you talk to someone.
I encouraged people to find a therapist where they lived—not because something was necessarily wrong with them, but because having a place to process the weight of life can matter when you’re carrying a lot of it.
Running can be an incredible outlet.
So can adventure.
So can friendship.
So can doing hard things.
But sometimes we also need someone willing to go deeper with us.
Someone who understands that the goal isn’t always to get you out of the arena.
Sometimes the goal is to help you understand yourself well enough to stay in it without losing yourself.
That’s what I was reminded of while running around a one-mile horse track with a group of remarkable people.
And it’s one of the reasons we built The Pursuit differently.
We believe in doing hard things.
We believe in taking risks.
We believe in rest.
We believe in failure.
We believe in getting back up.
And we believe that the people who spend their lives encouraging everyone else forward deserve to have someone come alongside them, too.
Because it’s not about escaping the difficult parts of life.
It’s about who you’re becoming in the pursuit.
You Don’t Have to Leave the Arena.
You don’t need someone to tell you to stop pursuing the things that matter to you.
You may just need a place where you don’t have to carry all of it alone.
At The Pursuit Counseling, we work with entrepreneurs, executives, leaders, athletes, creatives, and other high-performing people who understand what it means to live under pressure.
Therapy doesn’t have to be about getting you out of the arena.
It can help you stay in it without losing yourself.
If that sounds like the kind of conversation you’ve been looking for, schedule a free 15-minute consultation with The Pursuit.
Your stress matters. Your story matters. Your future matters. Keep pursuing.