Tommy Rivs: Human Kintsugi

After re-reading this blog I feel like I have to tell you that it is not sponsored by iFit, as it does read like an advertisement in places. I will say however that I am definitely a personal advert for iFit - the fitness platform is fantastic for the body, mind and soul...

I met Tommy Rivers Puzey in Switzerland in early 2020 and he changed my life! Tommy Rivs, as he is known, has no idea who I am. Among other things, he is a trainer on iFit, a streaming fitness service. I stumbled across iFit after a health issue that saw me running on a treadmill in our garage rather than out in the "real world". I fell in love with iFit straight up, it combined two of my favourite things - running and travel (albeit virtual). But it is so much more, iFit trainers like Tommy have taught me many self-leadership lessons and inspired me to run my first marathon.

After my initial run with Tommy in Zermatt, at the base of the Matterhorn, I "googled" him to find out more. I was devastated to read that he had just been diagnosed with an exceptionally rare and aggressive form of lung cancer and I followed his progress anxiously, hoping that he would somehow pull through and have a future with his wife and three young daughters.

And he did...after months in a coma and staring down death he came out the other side. Tommy had the painstaking challenge of learning to do just about everything again - breathe, swallow, talk, walk etc. He has made a comeback to iFit with his ongoing Road to Recovery series and while he may not be running at the same elite pace, the challenges and the lessons are as powerful as ever, even more so.

I need to point out that Tommy did not endure this trial alone and he is the first to give thanks and praise to his wife Steph Catudal, an amazing person in her own "write" (she is a published author).

More about Steph

Tommy is resilience personified, he is positive, grateful, humble and readily admits he is flawed, which only makes him more relatable. Tommy has inspired and educated me in so many ways as I have run and walked with him around the world, here is just one of those ways...

In Tommy's half marathon training series in Japan, he tells us about the philosophy of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art form of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer that is then dusted with gold. The underpinning philosophy of Kintsugi is that breakage and repair is part of the history of an object, it is something to highlight that transforms the piece into something even more special, rather than something to disguise.

When applied to people and leadership the philosophy of Kintsugi can be understood in terms of us embracing our imperfections and accepting that strength and confidence can be found in doing so, not only for ourselves but also for those around us.

When we walk around "looking good" we are setting a false standard for everybody else to aspire to and we feel weighed down by our own authenticity gap. Conversely if we can share our stories about the times we have felt broken, when we have failed, when we have felt not good enough, if we can talk about the things that have left us scarred, we not only put those things into the perspective they deserve as part of a lifelong narrative, but we also see how they have crafted and shaped the "us" of today. People around us, aspiring leaders and colleagues will take our lead and turn down the dial on the notion that successful leadership is about being perfect and that it is more about the connectedness and power of being real! Pass the gold dust please!

Let's give Tommy the last word, "We can choose to improve ourselves on any day, at any hour, during any moment of our lives. We are not defined by our past but empowered by our abilities to decide our futures."