You're about to hold a plank.

Just 60 seconds.

You know it’s coming.

That tension in your core.

The burn in your arms.

The mental countdown ticking away.

You’re already thinking,

Now imagine you push through that feeling.

You hold on.

Maybe your body starts shaking.

Your mind is screaming for you to stop.

You tell yourself just one more second,

and you make it to 60.

You’re feeling pretty proud of yourself.

(Cheers and applause)

But then you don’t stop at 60 seconds.

You don't stop at five minutes.

You keep going for an hour,

for two hours and then ten hours.

Yep, ten hours, ten minutes, and ten seconds.

That's exactly what George Hood did

when he set the world record for the longest plank in history,

a feat that most people would not believe possible.

I met George eight years ago when he set the record,

at that time, five hours.

And I’ll tell you this,

he just looked like the definition of mental toughness.

The focus in his eyes was razor sharp and he was drenched in sweat.

He was hurting.

You could see it in his face.

Feel it in his body, but he didn’t stop.

Later I asked him, George, how do you do it?

His answer surprised me.

The plank is 90% mental.

George told me he kept his mind busy

distracting himself by focusing on the conversations in the room,

drawing energy from the people around him.

But there was something deeper happening here.

We often think of grit as that mental toughness