“I’ve thought about becoming a runner, maybe running a marathon, just to punch my disease in the face, to prove I could do it,” I said to my cross country coaching friend.

“You’re not mentally strong enough to run a marathon,” he replied bluntly with a laugh.

It may have seemed a bit harsh in the moment, but I appreciate my friend’s honesty. The truth is, he’s right. Though I’m probably mentally stronger than he or I give myself credit for, I wouldn’t last long in the face of voluntary physical pain & exhaustion.

That fact is probably the reason I’ve never been much of an athlete. But from what I hear, in the end, that mental edge is what separates the best from the great; the legends from the pros. 

Crossing the proverbial finish line of your dream takes a different yet equally rare and equally necessary mental strength. The work of birthing your idea will be painful. It will be exhausting. There will be moments when you want to quit, where you realize you are willingly subjecting yourself to the misery. The mental edge will determine whether you give up or push through. That mental edge is what separates the starters from the finishers.

Do you have it?