I guess part of many journeys to the Bob Graham Round come via the book "Feet in the Clouds". I read it about a year before deciding I wanted to do the BGR. When you fail on something significant, it is easy to blame external factors or that you were not fit enough, but deep down you know that there is something else going on and its inside your head, you just need a word or phrase to describe it.
In the early 90's I floundered around for 2 years with little direction on my PhD [2 years out of 6, I did it while working], trying to find an angle. I managed to go through 2 supervisors and supervisor number 3. was a 1/3 time professor approaching retirement, Ian Pyle who had a long and distinguished career, he started York computing department, worked on Safety Critical Systems in industry and was a all round nice chap. After about 2 months of his term as Clive's supervisor he came out with the phrase "Engineering Decisions" which captured what I was trying to do with my thesis. While the road to a PhD was still bumpy, it was a key moment and I could hang the rest of my work on a key phrase that at least he and I understood. 4 years later the PhD was completed.
In searching for the phrase or word to really understand why I failed last time and how to get it right, there have been a few interesting things turn up. Jim Mann pointed me at the book "Born to Run" and the concept of "The Beast" and indeed this has been useful, but did not quite capture why I failed. I was re-reading part of "Feet in the Clouds", the section where he has his final successful attempt(page 304 onwards) and talks about self-deceit in the face of the daunting task ahead being his real enemy.
If I really want to know why I failed in September it was self-deceit, if I fail again in 2 weeks time, baring bad weather or an genuine accident (mine or someone else), it will be self-deceit. Once you are able to describe a problem, you can deal with it, what else do I need to know !
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