What I learned from being a "noisy" runner

You are NOT the same person at all times

Hey, you look like a runner. Wanna join me and the team and have some fun running next weekend? Asked my Italian friend/coworker. I had just relocated from India to the US. I had no prior experience running (except for a casual 2-mile run once in a blue moon). The fact that someone thought that I looked like a runner was enough of a motivation for me to say Yes. Little did I know what I was getting into.

The race that I had signed up for was a 50-mile dirt relay run (called Dances with Dirt in Hell, Michigan). I had a bad habit of converting units from Imperial to Metric system. The conversion of 50 miles to 80km only increased my anxiety.

A combination of endorphins, adrenaline rush, not wanting to let the team down, and lots of self-talk gave me enough motivation to finish the race.

Dances with Dirt 50-mile run (Image credit: Greg Sadler Photography)

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I was sore for a week but that felt good! I self-judged my performance to be a bulls-eye. Long distance dirt run, steady/good pace even uphill.

Performance at my first race (Image: Keshav Sundaresh)

I signed up for more races. Hoping that this mindset would keep me going. And here’s what happened:

Performance at ten different races (Image: Keshav Sundaresh)

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My performance was scattered all over the place also known as NOISY. I had become a “noisy runner”.

The reasons were quite simple. Although I was motivated to run (to stay healthy), the unwanted variability was because I was mostly focused on my outcomes instead of putting a system in place that would help me influence better outcomes.

I used to read about other world class runners, watch live streams of marathons (e.g., Boston Marathon) but never took the interest to put together a system and follow it up with action. Not just talk. But walk (/jog and run) the talk.

After several honest conversations (+ being compassionate) with myself, I focused on deliberate planning and following a disciplined routine for at least 6 months; the quality of my performances started improving. I also had more energy than before. Is there still “noise” in my performance? Yes, there is. My intention will continue to become less and less noisy.

A deliberate system to become a better runner helped overcome the unwanted variance/noise in my performance (Image: Keshav Sundaresh)

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Among other things, this experience made me realize that I never had a system in place at becoming a better technology storyteller.

1. First of all, a large amount of my presentations and demos were not for board meetings (or keynote presentations). While I really enjoyed reading books on how to present like Steve Jobs, etc. and watching videos, a majority of the content wasn’t directly applicable/relevant to my day-to-day hustle on changing the minds of my internal and external stakeholders.

2. I never had formal training on how to holistically approach this subject. Have I learned how to use a specific tool (e.g., PowerPoint or Keynote)? Yes, of course. But knowing how to use a tool to share your ideas vs. convincing your audience to take action are two different things.

3. I started tracking noise in my performance routinely. And with tender loving care, continued to work on becoming less and less noisy. William, Kristian and Jill - authors of the Universal Principles of Design talk about Signal-to-Noise Ratio.

   “The ratio of relevant to irrelevant information in a display. The highest possible signal-to-noise ratio is desirable in design. Minimizing noise means removing unnecessary elements, and minimizing the expression of necessary elements”. [1]

Watch out for more on how to reduce noise with technology storytelling in my future articles.

Warmly,

Keshav :)

[1] Excerpt from the book - Universal Principles of Design