Kenyans dominate long distance running. Scientists attribute this dominance to physiological impact of living and training in high altitudes - much of Kenya is almost a mile above sea level.
High altitude = less oxygen = body produces more red blood cells to carry the limited supply of oxygen to muscles = improvement in body's oxygen carrying capacity.
Every marketer, product manager, sales person and engineer who works at a big company should go through high altitude training. Because big companies can turn people into fat cats. A fat cat marketer needs a multi-million dollar budget to hit her reach goal. A fat cat product manager can get her products built without hundreds of engineers. A fat cat salesperson can't get leads unless they are fed to her. And a fat cat engineer thinks in person months instead of person hours. Fat cats have it easy!
High altitude training drops fat cats into the jungle with no radio. It teaches people to get things done with bare minimum resources. It teaches people how to operate on a lean budgets and how to cut project plans down to meet almost-impossible deadlines. It teaches you to make projects happen with 10% of the resources you asked for. It teaches sales people to prospect and network for leads. It teaches marketers to hunt down free traffic using Twitter or a blog.
In my experience, the best high altitude training comes from working in a start-up where every resource is limited. You can synthesize this in bigger companies... especially in a recession when budgets are slashed. But if you've got fat cats laying around it's easy for the urgency that comes with high altitude training to slip away.
High altitude training is hard at first. But the body and mind adapt. And once you've adapted... you can dominate the long distance running. And in business you'll get a lot more done with a lot less.
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