By: Cory Mayo
What Is The Resilience Challenge?
The Resilience Challenge is a team building exercise to help raise funds for research for blood cancers and help support Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This challenge is about reaching your personal goals. Whether you reach 1 mile or push beyond, people that participate have the opportunity to pledge a total number of miles they will commit for the month of June. These miles can be performed walking or swimming or sprinting or performing physical activity.
Team Building
My first Week on boarding into the company, Jerry (Top Hand’s President) proposed the Resilience Challenge explaining how we as a team should try it for the month of June. I was wanting to take on a change in my life after gaining some weight post pandemic, so saw this as a great opportunity for team building and personal growth. The team assembled and we pledged our goals for June! I set a goal for reach 100 miles, which I knew would be a challenge but I was determined to push myself to do it.
Pushing The Limits
10 days into the challenge I found myself looking for opportunities to get extra miles in throughout the day. I even arrived early for a shoot so I could get a mile in before we began. Jerry definitely led the team in miles as he pledged 500! He unfortunately ran into some road blocks along the way that set him back for a few days. He ended up hurting his foot from a previous injury and let me tell you, this looked like some Night Of The Living Dead type sh**. His determination to the challenge was unmatched. He was back up on his bike clocking in miles just a few short days later.
Lifestyle Change
When making small changes to your everyday life, like taking on a fitness challenge, these can sometimes have a snowball effect on your lifestyle. I found myself getting up early and wanting to workout more. Not to mention we live in this inferno heat bowl we call the Central Valley so mornings were the best time to run. I started taking my diet seriously and really wanting to make a positive change in my life and health. The team was doing well and we landed in the top 10 overall groups for miles. This was huge since our team was a fraction of the size of these big corporations.
The Future
Overall we crushed this challenge and we hope to do even better next year and raise more money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I am continuing my workout and diet plan to keep up the momentum. You won’t find me in the next Iron Man Triathlon or winning the next Tour de France, but I think we can all make small changes in our life to improve ourselves for the better. Sometimes these challenges seem silly or gimmicky, but you can surprise yourself with how they can give you the push to jump start other things in your life.