What’s wrong with us : How to explain our funny urge to tire ourselves to death?

One could argue that “extreme” is a word best used to describe the 21st century: an offspring of the world of Red Bull born back in the 1990s. It seems that more and more, rightly or wrongly, we are stretching ourselves to the limits. Whether it be in terms of time or danger, living on the edge, for many, is part of daily life. Yet what motivates us to live this way? Why do we take risks and push ourselves to the limit? Why does speed take over, at times careful consideration? Could it be considered as the 21st Century’s illness? It would seem for many being fully alive is by being affronted on a regular basis by risk. 

This way of approaching life is something which does not have a neat line carefully separating personal and professional life. Our risk taking and wish to take our stamina to the next limit is something which is constantly with us in this digitalized world and perhaps indeed over emphasized. Whether you are connected to the markets on your mobile phone for work or connected to friends on an application like Strava for sport, many feel an extreme urge to push themselves to their limits: see how far they can go to increase their achievements and success. Students today are up against a lot of pressure, especially during these strange times. We asked two of our highly esteemed professors, both sportsmen in their personal lives, Lionel Martellini, Director of EDHEC-Risk Institute and Philippe Foulquier, Director of EDHEC Sustainable Value Creation Chair , Director of the Executive MBA Paris of the importance of stress, risk to survive and succeed. 

Lionel Martellini is a professor of finance at EDHEC Business School and the director of EDHEC-Risk Institute. He is an active triathlete that has completed some of the hardest ironman races, including the Swissman, part of the extreme ironman triathlon circuit, famous for its more than 5500 meters of altitude difference. OOOutttside of its triathlon 

Philippe Foulquier is Professor of Accounting and Finance at EDHEC Business School, Director of the EDHEC Sustainable Value Creation Chair, Director of the Executive MBA Paris, Academic Director of 100% online programmes at EDHEC on Line. He is an avid long-distance runner that has completed some of the most demanding trail races, including the UTMB races (MontBlanc, Usuhaiai, Oman), the Marathon des Sables (Morocco, Peru), the Diagonale des Fous, among many other ultra long distance races. 

• What kind of sport do you do and why? 

LM: I do quite a bit of endurance sports such as running, biking and swimming, which I combine in the context of triathlon races. In addition to endurance sports, I practice a lot of freeride skiing, waterskiing and more recently kitesurfing, which happens to provide some of the most exhilarating experiences one can imagine. 

PF: I mainly like endurance sports, in nature and if possible that I can combine with travelling, discovering the world. So I'm now concentrating on the ultra trail that I discovered 4 years ago and that I'm trying to practice all over the world. 

• Do you think sport can be an anti-dote pushing limits in the workplace? 

LM: This might sound a bit ironic, but I do believe that pushing oneself beyond the limits in sport is the best antidote against the risk of a burnout. After all, a burnout involves not so much an excess of fatigue but an excess of stress. I personally can’t imagine a more efficient way to diffuse stress than enjoying a fun ski ride in the mountains or kitesurfing ride in the ocean. Even a small jog in the rain can take stress out of the equation. 

PF: As I mentioned before, the extreme dimension is a mirror image of my surroundings. But finally the 250km of the Marathon des sables du Maroc are no longer extreme when I compare myself to the ultra trail of the 1000km of the Mauritanian desert. Clearly, the endorphin secreted during frequent training absorbs the daily stress and the management of the races applied to professional life allows the multiplication of projects and responsibilities 

• Both of you seem to focus on extreme endurance sport where one ends up pushing the limits of physical exhaustion. Would you compare this urge to push the limits to that of a drug addiction? 

LM: It is undeniable that endurance sports generate some kind of physical and mental addiction. I am not sure what exactly is wrong with us, but addiction must be a part of the reason why we wake up early on a winter morning to go run or bike for hours in the cold :) 

PF: Very clearly. I am totally addicted. This can be explained by the secretion of endorphin which takes you into a state of complete zenitude and gives you a great perspective on life. The longer the effort the longer the effect lasts. So I can stay in this state for a week following a 160km run. Be careful if you taste it once intensely, you will not be able to do without it! 

• When you say what’s wrong with us, your indication is that this urge to tire ourselves out and push ourselves to the limit is negative. Do you see it in this way? 

LM: Well there is certainly something a bit pathological that pushes us to test the boundaries of physical or mental exhaustion, be it in the context of ironman triathlon races for me or extreme long distance trails for Philippe. I happen to know qui a few very fit people who use extreme endurance sport as a way to deal with mental and social issues. The bad news is that you cannot outrun a severe mental health problem even if you run really fast! 

PF: No honestly, I never thought I was going there to push myself to the physical and mental limits. When one of my students in company training told me 4 years ago about his ultra trails I first thought he was an alien. But at the end of our lunch, he convinced me to sign up with him for an 80km race that was taking place in 2 months. It was love at first sight and I followed him very quickly with 160km ultra trails. Of course, 40 or 50 hours of consecutive efforts with sleepless nights are very tiring and generate a lot of doubts during the race, but in the end I don't feel like I'm doing this to test my limits. It is finally the external look of the others that tells me that it is a little bit extreme. What I am really looking for is the disconnection under endorphin in a wonderful landscape. 

• What do you see as the negative factors of pushing ourselves to the limit? 

LM: I guess one could argue that we may have a difficulty in accepting the normal pace of life that pushes us to engage in this funny urge to tire oneself out. After all, long distance races can be regarded as a (relatively cheap) way to instill some sense of (rather controlled) adventure in what would be otherwise a well-balanced personal and professional life. 

PF: Yes, I totally agree with Lionel. I have always been over-active in all areas and it is clearly the rejection of a life that is too short, too flat, and not full enough that motivates my personal and professional life choices. Ultra trails all over the world tick all these boxes: escape with exceptional and intense moments of life, in fabulous settings and encounters from the four corners of the world that are just as exceptional. 

• What do you personally see are the positive factors? 

LM: There is certainly something positive in pushing the limits on both the physical and mental fronts that can be summarized in the Ironman motto: “nothing is impossible”. Endurance sports teach you that with sheer will power you can accomplish things that may otherwise seem totally out of reach. After all, we were not born as particularly gifted athletes, and it is only because we want it so badly and we have trained so hard that we manage to complete some of these races. 

PF: Since I practice ultra trail, I approach life very differently. I will complete the motto "nothing is impossible" with "because everything is a question of mind". If at the start of the Diagonale des fous, you say to yourself, it's 10 000m of positive difference in altitude and 160km, it's abyssal. If you say to yourself "go for the first refreshment in 15km", it becomes very fun! Of course, as Lionel points out, there is no free lunch (my favourite expression in finance) and you have to train hard, but the mind remains the key beyond 80km. It has allowed me to accept and carry out many professional projects in parallel (it has even become an art of life, a raison d'être) and to divide them into small events, like successions of supplies. 

• Does sport affect the way you perform? 

LM: The practice of extreme sports is certainly for me a way to diffuse some of the stress related to a high-pace professional life. I like to believe that it gives me the energy and stamina I need for handling the pressure involved in the impact-focused research and outreach activities developed within EDHEC-Risk Institute. 

PF: Personally, it's clear that sport brings me a perspective on life, endorphin, adrenalin, escape, dreams, and finally an immense balance so that when I'm at work I can really take things into account: my professional entourage translates this as "you're always at 200% and you always see the positive side of events". This state of mind comes from sport and is a necessary condition to complete 40 hours of effort or more. 

• What would your advice be to future students as the enter the work place when faced with what you describe “this funny urge to tire oneself out”. 

LM: My single piece of advice would be: “have fun!”. There is not a chance that you will ever run out of steam if you manage to maintain a healthy dose of happy enthusiasm about what you do. Now guess what is the best way to have fun? Well one simple answer to this question is try and be useful and meaningful to others and society at large. It will give you a sense of purpose that will be the best prevention against stress and fatigue at work. At EDHEC we call this “make an impact”, and we believe in this value so strongly that we have made it our motto! 

PF: When you come out of school, you often come out formatted with the ambition to succeed in life, but soon you will find that it is harder to have the courage to do what makes sense for you. So I would conclude with a quote from Einstein: "Logic will take you from point A to point B; imagination and daring will take you where you want to go".