Reaching A Billion People With A Message

What am I talking about? I’m talking about walking out my front door, starting running, and don’t come back home until I have run the circumference of the Earth – a little over 40,000km.

Not only that but to warm up to run such an expressive distance, I am currently running 2,500 km across the UK in support of the UNICEF Ukraine Crisis Appeal. Once I complete the UK run, I will start running through Europe, then onwards to the Middle East, South East Asia and finishing in the USA. There’ll be philanthropic events and workshops to teach mindful running and active meditation.

There will also be research conducted by the University of Westminster. All in all, it’s going to be a busy few years. But to understand why that’s happening, we have to start at the beginning. We have to talk about Childhood Trauma. About my sons. And about focusing on the next 15 minutes.

Mission To Reach a Billion People With My Messages.

I had a few traumatic experiences when I was younger. They had a real and profound effect on me. Only, I didn’t realise it at the time. In fact, I didn’t even realise it until about 30 years later. I was going through a tough time and started my first running challenges in Asia to resolve my mental health issues. A deep spiritual transformation led me to the realisation that I had unresolved traumas from my childhood that continued to affect me every single day. And these manifested themselves in me through stress, anxiety and overwhelm.

I started learning about it more, and I discovered a wider definition of trauma and that as a parent, if we don’t heal our past traumatic experiences, we will pass it on to our children.  It was at that moment I learned I was repeating the cycle of what my parents passed on to me and what their parents passed on to them. And that upset me. So I decided that would change. That the cycle would stop with me. That my sons would be inspired to live a better life.

Worldwide Childhood Trauma

During one of my previous challenges, I was running through the Philippines, and I came face-to-face with childhood trauma, and it nearly broke me. It was heartbreaking. I was running through Manila, and the sights I was seeing were terrible. I saw kids running around naked, looking in trash cans for food and sleeping alone on the streets.

I couldn’t cope with it and left Manila. The gulf between the rich and the poor was so extreme. And I just couldn’t stand to see these children in so much pain. Especially while others lived in such luxury. Don’t get me wrong, the Philippines isn’t the only country with this problem. I’d just never seen children living like this before. I felt guilty about leaving afterwards. That I should’ve stayed and helped.

But in reality, there wasn’t anything I could do really. It is a problem which is too big for me to resolve alone. But I did decide there and then that I would do my bit and try to help. 

My Message.

Throughout my running challenge, I will be conducting over 100 philanthropic events to raise funds for UNICEF so they can continue their work of keeping children safe. We will also be building trauma-informed communities. I believe that there is a lack of awareness of childhood trauma and how widespread it is.

Childhood trauma isn’t just about physical experiences. It’s not just being beaten or abused, or even being bullied. It’s all kinds of trauma. And there’s a great chance you experienced some too. Childhood trauma is any experience that leaves you feeling vulnerable and then follows you through life, affecting you as an adult and how you deal with things.

Running With The Flow

Running 40,000 km sounds difficult and it will be. After all, I will be running 75 km daily, four-time per week, for the next 3,5 years. But I am more than ready for it than I was for my previous challenges. During running 5 million steps and 11,000 km through Asia, I discovered the state of Flow. I was using mindful running and active meditation to unlock peak performance. I was in full Flow or in the Zone, in other words. And with this, I found I was able to crush it in all areas of my life.

What is Flow, you might ask? Flow is being entirely focused on the task at hand and losing focus on other external stimuli. For me, it’s born out of the fact that I only ever focus on the next 15 minutes when I’m running. On the next 2.5km. I never focus on running 75km a day or on my speed. I just keep myself present and focus on the next 15 minutes.

This then enables me to focus on tasks for hours at a time, and I rarely got distracted. I was simply riding the wave of productivity, I found that this new mindful way of working started to positively affect the other areas of my life too. I was happier, I was more creative and I was resilient. I was in peak performance. And when I started to share this experience with people they were extremely curious.

I ended up being a keynote speaker at Universities across South East Asia. Presenting my experiences and teaching people what I was learning. And eventually, the University of Westminster got involved.

Groundbreaking Research With The University of Westminster

They want to understand what is happening. How am I able to be so productive and perform at such peak performance. How my mental health has massively improved, and how I’m achieving this despite putting my body through such extreme exertion. You see, most people struggle with short attention spans and low productivity. And this affects businesses and people because we now work in a service-based economy. Where knowledge is king and our brainpower is our tool.

Having A Positive Impact On A Billion People.

Reaching out to a billion people with my message is symbolic. It demonstrates that our lives have no limits. If I manage to inspire one person a day, that is a life worth living. Because ultimately, that’s the point of life isn’t it? To have a positive impact on those around you. For me, I want to be an inspiration for my sons. To show them it is possible to live a great life.

Whereas for you it might be about being the best leader you can be, writing that book you have always wanted to write, or simply being more in control of your emotions. Whatever your goal is, it all comes down to the next 15 minutes. And the next 15 minutes. And the next 15 minutes…

It will be great if you share a link to the fundraising page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tomasz-drybala

Other links:
My website: https://www.tomaszdrybala.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomasz_drybala
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TomaszDrybalaFlow