Using Adversity to Power Beyond Expectations | Hilary Briggs | TEDxMaidMarianWay

Can you honestly say that you’ve reached your full potential? Would you like to achieve more? Are you
curious to explore your limits and get a sense of just how much more might be possible?
Hilary is a business leader and consultant in her professional life, and started doing triathlons in her mid-50’s. She’d always kept herself pretty fit with long distance walks and cycling holidays, but had never competed apart from a half marathon in her 20’s… A combination of circumstances prompted her to enter a sprint triathlon in 2016. Seven years later she was European Champion and Silver medallist in her Age Group for the Triathlon Standard Distance World Championships…

In her talk, she outlines how she made this transformation from low-grade amateur to podium, gives you the crucial three steps in her process, and describes how adversity powered the way, which can all be applied beyond the realm of sport.

The big idea for you is not only to achieve a project, goal or challenge beyond your wildest expectations, but also how to use those tough moments to power your progress. And your challenge doesn’t have to be physical!

Connect with Hilary on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hilarybriggs, visit her website: https://hilarybriggs.co.uk or
via email: hilary.briggs@r2p.co.uk

Credits:
Editor and Video Crew: Greene King videographer Improve Beyond Expectations

Once described as “Britain’s most exciting woman executive under 40” by Business Age Magazine, Hilary studied engineering at the University of Cambridge before her corporate career and senior management positions with Rover Group, Whirlpool Europe, and Laird Group plc.

Frustrated by corporate politics, she switched to working with SME’s as a consultant and Director, mobilising start-ups, scale-ups and exits. She loves to make things happen – helping people to get into action mode and achieve beyond their expectations.

In the last seven years, she’s gained additional perspective on how to do this, learning from her own experience in triathlons. Having only started in her mid-50’s, she’s transformed herself from a low-grade amateur to member of the Team GB Age Group team, overcoming a major Achilles injury on the way! She won Bronze in the 2022 World Championships and is the current European Champion. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Transcriber: Jiwoo Park Reviewer: Walaa Mohammed It was the most exhilarating moment of my life. 24th of September, 2023. Less than four months ago at Pontevedra, Spain, in the Triathlon World Championships. As I heard the announcer. Crossing the line, we have Hillary Briggs taking second place in her age group. Yay! Silver medal. Wow.

Now, some of you might be thinking. What? Not gold. Was it an iron man? Are you the only woman that’s done this? Well, let me be totally up front. I came second. It was a standard distance triathlon, meaning 1500m swim,

40 K bike, ten K run and there were 39 of us on the start list in my age group. So no, not unique. However, here’s some food for thought. I was just shy of my 62nd birthday. I’d never done competitive sport apart from one half marathon many moons ago.

I’d not done a triathlon till seven years before, and I’d had a massive Achilles injury en route, which actually threatened my ability to walk properly. Now we’re here today talking about creativity through adversity, and I’d love to share with you the three most important learning points for my journey. And I’ll reveal

A crucial mindset shift that will help you to use adversity to power beyond your wildest expectations. Sound good? Yes. Now, I’m standing here today partly proving that you don’t need to be a superhero to do this. But that means there are no excuses.

Every one of you here could improve some aspect of your life beyond your expectations if you want to. Remember, I’m 62. It’s never too late. A bit of background now. I’ve always been pretty fit and keen on long distance walks, cycling, holidays, that sort of thing. In a nutshell, seeking out physical challenges.

I trained as an engineer, and I loved to apply those problem solving skills to figuring out how on Earth to tackle some of these challenges I embarked on as an example 15 years ago. I had the idea why not do the Pennine Way?

It’s a long distance walk in northern England, 268 miles, 430km in ten days. Because that’s all the time that my friend and I had available. Most people take about three weeks. So fairly soon, I started to put my engineering approach to breaking the challenge down, and in particular,

How to build my strength and stamina to do an average 43km a day carrying kit and be able to get up the next day, do it again and again. Result. We did it! Yay! Now afterwards and telling. Obviously dining out on the experience for a bit. Some friends were very open, said Hillary.

That’s the kind of challenge I could live without. And maybe you are one of those sorts of people and that’s fine. What I would urge, though, is that you seek out something as a challenge. There will be strong enough to allow you to do the equivalent.

It doesn’t have to be a physical challenge. So back for me, the triathlon was an extension of that process I’d already got going. It was another physical challenge, but it was about breaking it down. Okay, how do I do this? June 2016.

Eastbourne, on the south coast of England was my first event and I had truly lofty objectives. Finish. A don’t be last. I came sixth out of seven in my age group. Yay! And I was faced with adversity right at the start of that event with the swim.

Imagine this 60 people in the sea, together with waves, with strong currents. Trust me, it’s mayhem. And fairly soon lifeguards were pulling people out as they got exhausted. Drank too much seawater. It was a tough experience, but not so bad to put me off. And there were learnings from that adversity.

Not only did I need to improve my swimming technique, but I needed to seek out harsher training grounds such as the North Sea. And it leads on to my first key learning point motivation. If you want to improve at something, your motivation is going to have to be strong enough to overcome whatever

Adversities are more than likely to come your way, otherwise you won’t get access to those learnings. The motivation. Now. Soon after that, I was faced with a much more severe adversity a stupid fall off the bike. In February 2017, my fault,

Combined with an old injury and a failure to do proper strength training, meant that my Achilles was wrecked. I mean, I did such a good job they had to replace it. And I heard the physio. If you don’t follow the steps I give you, you might not walk properly again.

Okay. I could tell you that. Move my motivation way up. And sometimes, you know, when we’re faced with adversity, it could be overwhelming. So many things. Where on earth do I start ? And I’ve got a tip for you for those sorts of situations. Get all of the worries, potential actions,

Thoughts out of your head and onto a big piece of paper. Whether you mind map whatever technique you use, get it out on the head and then stand back and with a cup of tea or coffee, look at what you’ve got. Is there anything obvious that jumps out

As somewhere to start? If not, pick one thing. And here’s the beauty. Five minutes a day. Get that? Just five minutes a day working on that task. Over three months, you’ll be amazed at what you can do. Need to be consistent, but again, doesn’t need to be perfect.

9,095% is going to get you there. And even if that’s not as fast as you like in my book, slow progress is progress. And so it was with my Achilles. I was in a boot and on crutches for months , then just with a stick.

In total, 18 months before I was able to get back to running and cycling. Now during that period, you know, there was clearly lots of adversity. But what it taught me was thanks to the physio giving me instructions. I made lots of notes. I did the exercises religiously. Bus stops.

Train stations became my pop up gyms. Remember the five minutes? Use it. And so the adversity really taught me the importance not only of the discipline, but of actually doing the right things. That strength training, which I had not done before.

And that leads me on to the second key action. I’m actually learning action. If you want to improve something, you’ve got to take action. Otherwise nothing is going to happen. So back to my triathlon. Well, the first event back after injury was September 2018.

And in the triathlon, there are what we call transitions between the swim and the bike. The bike and the run. They often don’t get the attention of the main elements, but the clock is ticking. My first transition that morning. Well, let’s say this I took a whopping 15 minutes,

Double what most other people took. It was cold. I had a nice snazzy Lycra top ready to put on. Unfortunately, it was soaked by the torrential rain and it got stuck halfway over my head. My hands, freezing from the swim, weren’t able to tie shoelaces or do the buckle on my helmet.

I was getting more and more flustered and to use a vivid northern English expression, it was a complete shed collapse. But again reflecting on that adversity. I could see I needed to improve my kit, stretchy laces, all sorts of things, and I needed to seek out ways to practice.

Now, I’d heard of athletes practicing the transitions and to be quite frank, it sounded like a lot of faff. But my creativity kicked in. I thought, hang on a minute. I’m wet every day in the shower. What if I set up my transition zone in the bathroom? Yay! So that’s what I did.

And now, 30 days before a major event, I’m practicing coming wet out of the shower. I’ve got my bike, shoes, helmet, running shoes, other stuff in the bathroom. I run the sequence against the stopwatch. Now, when I said four months ago, World Championship, I got second place.

I only got that by 11 seconds. And when I looked at the race data, I was amazed. I was only there because I was two minutes, five seconds faster than the third place lady in the transitions that she’d collapse from 2018, combined with my crazy practice in the bathroom,

Powered me beyond the adversity and my wildest expectations to a silver medal at the World Championships. We’re back to 2018. I was signed off by the physio at this stage. However, I carried on with the with the action of her exercises and in 2019.

I came first in my age group in a couple of events. Wow. That was amazing. And I was just flabbergasted. I started to hear about team GB. International events, I thought, could I possibly qualify? It just seemed so far fetched. Bit of work online on the internet.

I could see I needed to be sub two hours 40 to to be competitive. At that stage I was taking about three hours ten. So my new challenge became how to get 30 minutes or more off my time. Bit by bit, I built a team of coaches because I didn’t know

That some of they they did. And the engineer. I got my gadgets. Which takes me on to the third key learning point measurement you need if you want to improve, to be able to measure what happened as a consequence of the action you took. Now, when we’re talking measures,

We’re looking at something that’s tangible , objective, and it’s what I love about sport. There’s all sorts of ways of measuring the performance, time, speed, power, weight. Ultimately. Did you win or not? Now the kind of gadgets that I use in my triathlon training.

I’ve got, for instance, power meters on the bike pedals. Now that allows me as I’m pedaling, I get a display on the bike computer in front of me that’s helping me understand what good pedaling actually feels like in the moment, which makes it easier to replicate. Do it for longer.

I’ve copied that approach for my swimming. I’ve got some geeky goggles that I came across which have got a head up display, believe it or not. So as I’m swimming, I’m getting the information. I don’t have to wait to get it from the watch at

The end when I’ve probably forgotten exactly what I was doing. So how could you measure your performance against your challenge? Sometimes when we measure performance, it may not be what we want and that can be disappointing. Point is, though, to engage with reality. What do you want to do about that?

As an example, in a race earlier last year , the European Championships, I came up in the bike section. I caught up a lady and I thought, oh, I knew on paper she was a better runner than me. I needed to get well ahead. Pushed past. Not literally, but. La Head.

Two minutes later, though, going uphill, she flies past me Whoosh! Ah! Adversity Here we go. I had a choice in that moment. Give up or give it a go. And you know, my creativity kicked in. And I imagined I was being chased by a lion. Ah.

Would you put in a bit more effort if you were being chased by a lion? Or would you think. Oh, too bad. Going to be lunch with a lion. I tell you, I just threw everything that could be coming off.

I threw everything, squeezed every sinew. I’d got well out of my comfort zone. Pushed on the bike. Kept pushing. And in the end, I won by ten minutes. Gold medal. Wow. However, the thing that really struck me was just how much more I’d got within

Me. I wasn’t hanging about on the bike when the when the line started chasing, but it was just how much more I’d got. And we all have that ability beyond what we give ourselves credit for. So I’ve shared the three key learning points of my journey. Motivation.

You’ve got to care enough. Action! You’ve got to do something. And measurement. What happened from the action. But here’s the mindset shift. It’s not just being able to react to whatever adversity comes, it’s also seeking it out. Yeah. Actively seek out adversity, but in a safe environment.

As an example, for my triathlon training, I do park runs time trials on the bike. Now in. Those are more and more focused at those incidences in the race where someone’s just overtaken me, or I’m catching someone up somewhere where I can practice getting out of my comfort zone

And getting used to that feeling of, actually, I’ve got more, much more in the tank than I thought. And yet it’s in a safe environment because if it all goes wrong, it doesn’t really matter. So I urge you to find those situations. What next for me? Silver medal four months ago. Fabulous. Great.

My new challenge though. How to get another four minutes to put me in contention for gold this year. And I want to leave you with a question. What’s the next step for you? On your journey to improve your life beyond your wildest expectations. I’m Hillary Briggs, thank you very much.