| 04 August 2009
The beat of African jungle drums were blaring from the set of giant loudspeakers. You could feel the pulse of the music reverberating against my whole body causing my own pulse to rise in anticipation. I was a part of a group of about 1000 keen and not-so-keen participants who were being lead outside in to the early Hawaiian evening. A large full moon, showing itself above the silohuette of the palm trees just seemed to add to the primal nature of what we were about to put ourselves through. We were about to face a 50 feet fire walk and my senses were alive to the extreme...
The group were corralled to a large grassy area at the front of the hotel. Expecting to see the faint glow of hot coals, we were introduced to a large bonfire spitting 12 foot high flames into the clear evening sky. It was as if it was trying deliberately trying to display its strength and power in an effort to scare us into backing out. I have to admit, it was a bit intimidating at first but no-one wanted to be the first to back out. “Welcome to the fire walk experience,” announced the lead instructor. “In just over one hour you will be walking over 50 feet over red hot coals from this fire.”
After the initial hoots of enthusiasm and bravado, we returned to the conference hall where it was down to the serious business of learning the proper technique to walk safely over hot coals...
Without trying to teach you how to fire walk (I will leave that to the professionals who have the insurance cover) the key to a successful fire walk is to learn how to stay in control of your body and your mind. It was a supreme test of keeping focussed on what you were doing when in extreme circumstances.
The final exercise they did in preparation for the fire walk was mental rehearsal. For about 20 minutes we visualized walking up and down football fields of hot coals. I realized the significance of this when we returned outside to the ten 50 feet paths of hot coals glowing in the night.
Rather than be intimidated by the sight of these coals, I actually caught myself saying with relief, “Phew, it’s only that far.” The mental conditioning of dealing with a much greater challenge made this task seem a lot more doable.
As instructed, we paired up with a firewalking buddy to help us make sure that we were mentally switched on for this task. I looked around and saw a whole groups of excited Americans head-butting each other, slapping their faces and yelling and screaming to motivate themselves. I shook my head and chuckled as I looked for a more laid-back, Australian approach to motivation. I went up to Cheryl, a school teacher from Newcastle and looked her in the eye and said, “Are you ready for this?”
“Yep,” she replied in her typical laconic manner. “You ready?”
“Yep,” I replied.
“Well let’s do it,” she said as we got in line.
When it came my turn Cheryl said, “Just take the first step. The rest will take care of itself.”
I launched into action with one of the most powerful adrenalin surges I have ever experience.
I followed my training, walking briskly and lightly across the coals while I was focussing my gaze on a palm tree in the distance. I was yelling “Cool moss! Cool moss!” to prevent any unrelated internal dialogue from distracting my focus. I was eight steps across and then it happened...
I lost my focus.
Struggling to believe the reality that I was actually walking barefoot over hot coals without feeling a thing, my curiosity got the better of me. Instead of saying,”Cool moss! Cool moss!” I chose to briefly glance down as I placed my left foot forward on the burning coals and asked myself, “ I wonder what it feels like?” In hindsight, it wasn’t one of my better moments but what next happened blew me away.
As I placed my left foot down on the coals a searing burn greeted my left instep. I now knew what it felt like. It was bloody hot! And I still had 30 feet to go. The intensity of the burn, jolted me back to the correct focus that I had been taught. Amazingly, for the rest of the fire walk I didn’t feel a thing.
As they hosed my feet down at the end to ensure that I didn’t have any burning embers stuck between my toes I quickly checked my left foot. When returning to the better light of my hotel room I inspected the damage closer. There was one small superficial dot of a scorch mark on my left foot (that disappeared the following day).
What amazed me was that I only got burnt during the split second when I lost my focus. When I regained my focus, no other burns occurred despite the fact that my feet would have become hotter and hotter as I progressed. It was a powerful demonstration to me of the power of your mind or more specifically, the power of a focussed mind. It suggests that a mind focussed on health can help protect your body to some extent.
The fire walk experience is also a powerful metaphor for business: Lose your focus and you may get burnt. If you ever happened to get burnt, regain your focus quickly.
Probably the most powerful lesson from the fire walk experience came when I returned home to Australia and told people about my experience. 90% of people wouldn’t believe me initially. The most common response was, “You can’t do that without burning yourself. Rubbish.” I was amazed.
“You don’t understand,” I would reiterate. “I have actually done it. And so did my wife and so did a thousand other people.”
But many people still viewed my story with scepticism. And why were they sceptical: A few years earlier, a prominent local Aussie Rules football star, Nigel Smart missed half the season due to badly burning his feet in a pre-season training motivational exercise. (After viewing subsequent video footage (which they have now taken off the internet), I can see that Nigel committed the error of stomping on the coals. This dramatically increases the time in physical contact with the coals, drastically increasing the skin temperature).
So the lesson was: Don’t pay any attention to what “they” say. If one person fails at something, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. If you want to do something that most people say that you can’t do, go and ask people who have done it and learn from them.
The reality is that walking correctly over hot coals for 50 feet does not heat your skin sufficiently to burn it. Your skin isn’t in contact with it for long enough. It is like throwing a hot coal up and own in your hand. The beauty of the exercise is that it looks a lot worse than it is which it is an ideal test of how you use your mind.
Some people, who did believe my account, thought that my experience was to due to some innate ability: an ability that they didn’t have. “I wouldn’t be able to do that,” was the common remark.
“If your child was about to fall off a cliff and the only way to get to her was by walking over a bed of hot coals, would you do it?” I would ask.
“Yeah sure,” was the reply.
“See, it is not a lack of ability from stopping you. It’s just a lack of motivation,” I replied. “I was just stupid enough do it because I wanted to learn more about how the mind can affect the body.”
For some of us, it takes such an extreme experience like walking barefoot over hot coals to truly understand that it is not our ability that limits us but it is our thoughts. If you ever catch yourself at work saying, “It’s impossible. It can’t be done,” it may pay to remember the fire walk experience.
