The Marathon of Hope
By Marc Weiss - CEO, Management One
“I just wish people would realize that anything is possible if you try.”
-Terry Fox
The story of Terry Fox is one of struggle against unforeseen adversity, powerful determination and perseverance toward a goal to raise awareness. The life of a retailer (especially in the last 18 months) follows similar parallels and during tough times, we can look to heroes like Terry for inspiration to create a path and give us confidence that we can achieve greater things.
Terry Fox died of cancer on June 28th,1981 at the age of 22. His story is powerful and inspirational. From his website;
“Terry Fox lost his leg to osteogenic sarcoma at age 18, underwent 16 months of treatment and found he could not ignore the suffering he witnessed in the cancer wards. Terry decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research in a Marathon of Hope.
He wasn’t doing the run to become famous; he wanted to create change and fund a cure for all cancers.
Terry ran close to 42 kilometers (26 miles) a day through Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. He ran through snow, rain, wind, heat, humidity. He stopped in more than 400 towns, schools and cities to talk about why he was running. He started at 4:30am in the morning, and often did not finish his last mile until 7pm at night.
On September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The cancer that he thought he had beaten was now in his lungs.”
To date, over $850 million has been raised for cancer research in Terry’s name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world. The annual Terry Fox Run has grown to millions of participants in over 60 countries and is now the world’s largest one-day fundraiser for cancer.
One man with a single vision and focus driven by a need to diminish the suffering of others. He ran 3,339 miles with his own leg and one artificial leg. I can’t imagine the fatigue and pain he endured. I think of Terry and others like him, many who will never be recorded in history that endured against all odds with the same grit and determination. Not for glory, ambition, or wealth, but to do the right thing, to solve a problem, give us hope and reassurance, and sometimes to bring clarity to a confusing moral view of the world we live in.
I am reminded of him at a time when we need heroes to guide us and remind us that we can achieve more. We can build anything, we just need to start by trying. Our journey is always a marathon and a sprint. During Covid we were forced to sprint and change and adapt to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Today we are engaged in a marathon working through issues both old and new and some challenges that the effects of Covid have elevated.
Learning new ways to buy through virtual marketplaces, understanding new methodologies and approaches in marketing, compensating and finding talented staff, which has always been challenging for many retailers but now cyclical pressures has made hiring and staff issues more complicated. Feeding product demand and changing assortments, and feeling the continuing need to pivot as the nature of competition is changing. That gnawing feeling that the sands are shifting beneath you. All of these exist but the mindset we adopt defines our future. Heroes create a path and give us confidence that we can achieve.
Terry Fox was an ordinary person who did powerful and extraordinary things. His focus was never on himself and what motivated him was to benefit others. So much has been written about being others centered, but when you focus on others, and for retailers, that means your customers, a lot of good things can happen.
In the beginning, there were no crowds or fancy hotels that future sponsors would provide for Terry and his best friend Doug and their team. In the beginning, they slept in a van and had little money. But he had a goal. He would raise the equivalent of one dollar of every Canadian citizen. He fulfilled that goal before he passed. He never quit and understood his own vision of The “Marathon of Hope.”
Little did I know when my grandson asked me to read him a book at bedtime, he would be asking me to read the Terry Fox story. The timing could not have been more serendipitous as I was too in need of a dose of inspirational medicine.
Everything we set out to do has risks, and perils. Reasons not to go forward and reasons to quit. As we continue to evolve through the changes we are witnessing, we are required to do more, learn more, and achieve more to sustain and grow.
Heroes help us create the mindset that anything is possible.
“I want to try the impossible to show it can be done.”
Terry Fox
Before he died, his Marathon of Hope raised his goal of over $24 million dollars (or a dollar for every Canadian citizen at the time). https://terryfox.org/terrys-story/
Onwards and Upwards.
Marc