Karen Brown never stops.
The Littleton ultra-athlete sets a goal, completes it and then sets another. While training for the Ironman World Championship, she heard about the Ultraman triathlon.
“That’s a 320-mile three-day triathlon whereas Ironman is 146 (miles) in one day,” Brown said. “Ultraman blew my mind. I couldn’t figure out how anyone would do that and yet there were all these people that had done it.
“That’s part of the emotional, motivational attraction to me,” she added. “Because motivation really comes from being emotionally hooked into something.”
She’s since completed both the Ironman World Championship and several Ultraman races. Now, Brown is simultaneously training for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc in Europe in 2018 and preparing for the release of her second book called “Unlimiting Your Beliefs: Seven Keys to Greater Success in Your Personal and Professional Life.”
For Brown, limiting beliefs are pervasive in peoples lives. She first saw the ways in which limiting beliefs were affecting her own life in 2010 when she wanted to begin training for the Ironman World Championship. She would think about how much she wanted to compete in the race, and then she’d doubt herself and ultimately talk herself out of it.
Through coaching, though, she learned how to conquer those limiting beliefs and now wants to help others do the same.
“Once I learned how to conquer those and I came back in touch with that dream, I thought I’m the only one that’s holding me back from this. No one else is stopping me but me,” she said.
Brown hopes to use her writing and her athletic achievements to encourage others to pursue their goals.
All are capable of “really big things,” she said, particularly when people learn to tap into their emotional motivation and make the decision to do whatever it takes to reach the goal.
“The true magic is that that spills over into the rest of our lives,” she said.
An author, international speaker and ultra-athlete, Brown is also the founder of Velocity Leadership Consulting, a personal coaching company, and she credits her ability to overcome her limiting beliefs for her success.