The 5% Letter — 009


Hi friend,

today, I swim.

I get in at Küssnacht 5am, and by the time you read this, I am most likely already out there. 30+ kilometers across Lake Lucerne, to Flüelen. Solo. No wetsuit. No sleep. No touching land until it is done, around 11 hours later. Every kilometer for NF Kinder.


I told you last week that I was scared. The cold, and mostly the shoulder, and whether it holds. On the morning of, I will be honest with you: I still am. The fear did not disappear. I stopped carrying it alone.

For months I have written to you about how to keep going when the water turns hard. About your 5%. About taking a distance apart one piece at a time. About saying the fear out loud. Today I find out if I can live all of it myself, in cold water, for 11 hours.

Today I want one thing from you. Come with me.

You can follow the whole thing live. Watch the swim on YouTube, from the first stroke to the last. And follow my exact position on the lake on the live tracker. When it gets hard out there, and it will, knowing you are watching helps more than you would think.

This is what all of it has been for. The kids. Every stroke today puts the word Neurofibromatosis in front of a few more people, and moves us closer to a world where no family hears that word alone.

If the shoulder holds, we finish in Flüelen later this afternoon. If it does not, I will have given it everything I had. Either way, I am in the water now. Come watch.

Let's swim

Bernhard

P.S. Follow the whole swim live from 5am: watch on YouTube, track the position on the live map. Every kilometer is for the kids at NF Kinder.

P.P.S. When I am back on dry land, I will tell you what those 30+kilometers were really like. Next Saturday.

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Bernhard Hengl

A weekly letter. One idea. One challenge to make it an habit. Keynote speaker | Author | Coach | Extreme Swimmer | 5xDad | Cancer Survivor | Make 5% Your 100%

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