At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was informed by her doctor that she had epilepsy. Her father, Jim Wilson, is an avid morning jogger. One day, as she smiled through her braces, she said to her father, "Daddy, I'd really love to join you on your morning runs every day, but I'm afraid I'll have a seizure."

Undeterred by her daughter's concerns, her father reassured her, saying, "If you do, I know how to handle it, so let's go for a run!" And so began their daily routine of running together. It turned out to be a wonderful experience for them both, and remarkably, there were no more seizures while she was running with her father.

After a few weeks of this newfound freedom from seizures, Patti decided that she wanted to take her running to the next level. She told her father, "Daddy, what I really want to do is break the world's long-distance running record for women."

Patti's father's unwavering support and encouragement helped fuel her determination. Together, they pushed themselves further than ever before, setting new records and achieving milestones along the way. Their shared passion for running became a source of strength and inspiration for both of them.

In the end, Patti achieved her lifelong dream of breaking the world's long-distance running record for women. But more importantly, she proved that with the right mindset and support from those we love, anything is possible.

Her father checked the Guiness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles. As a freshman in high school, Patti announced, "I'm going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco." (A distance of 400 miles.) "As a sophomore," she went on, "I'm going to run to Portland, Oregon." (Over 1500 miles.) "As a junior I'll run to St. Louis." (About 2000 miles) "As a senior I'll run to the White House." (More than 3000 miles away.)

In view of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply "an inconvenience." She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left. That year, she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read, "I Love Epileptics." Her dad ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong.

atti's classmates got behind her in her sophomore year, building a giant poster that read, "Run, Patti, Run!" The poster has since become her motto and is the title of a book she has written. On her second marathon, en route to Portland, Patti fractured a bone in her foot. She was told by a doctor that she had to stop her run as there was a risk of permanent damage. "Doc, you don't understand," Patti said. "This isn't just a whim of mine; it's a magnificent obsession. I'm not just doing it for myself; I'm doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others. Is there a way I can keep running?" The doctor gave her one option: he could wrap it in adhesive instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it would be incredibly painful, and he also informed her that "It will blister." But despite this warning, Patti told the doctor to wrap it up.

She finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the governor of Oregon. You may have seen the headlines: "Super Runner, Patti Wilson Ends Marathon For Epilepsy On Her 17th Birthday." After four months of almost continuous running from West Coast to the East Coast, Patti arrived in Washington and shook the hand of the President of United States. She told him, "I wanted people to know that epileptics are normal human beings with normal lives."

I told this story at one of my seminars not long ago, and afterward a big teary-eyed man came up to me, stuck out his big meaty hand and said, "Mark, my name is Jim Wilson. You were talking about my daughter, Patti. Because of her noble efforts, he told me, enough money had been raised to open up 19 multi-million-dollar epileptic centers around the country.

If Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform yourself in a state of total wellness?