Moving Is How You Figure It Out

“When I was in Jamaica, I couldn’t imagine anything I didn’t have. And just think about how powerful your imagination is. I was a good student. I worked hard, but couldn’t imagine what the future would look like. Didn’t know what this version of me that you see today would even look like.”

Durran talks about Kingston as the culture that formed him, then New York as his first home away from home. New York gave him a wider perspective on people, culture and what his own future could look like. The important idea is not simply that he moved — it is that exposure changed what he was able to imagine.

“I’ve always believed and worked from a place of do what you need to do and just be positioned and be ready. And so if an opportunity showed up, then at least I know I’m positioned and I’m ready to take it. I never want something to show up at the door, and I’m not ready. I’d rather be ready and not necessarily have the opportunity.”

Durran explains that he did not always know where the next chapter was going. His confidence came from the discipline and body of work he had built before entering the next space — not from knowing exactly what would happen.

“Nobody sees the grit, the pain, the cold days, the warm days, the days that you aren’t healthy. And then it shows up on the day. The performance is actually the easiest part, believe it or not. It is the preparation before — training for a year, practicing for a year, putting in 80 hours, 120 hours into something that you’re only gonna do for maybe 30 minutes.”

What people see is often only the smallest part of the work. This is the strongest bridge from athletics into work and leadership. It opens a useful question: what are we calling a performance problem that may actually be a preparation problem?

“Everybody still has a part to play… You’ve gotta show up as your best self or maximize your best self to contribute to any team sport. But everybody has a role. That team could lose, even if you’ve got two or three great individuals… There’s no hiding. You can’t hide.”

Nathan asks how an individual sport like track shaped Durran’s leadership. Durran pushes back on the idea that track is purely individual. Relays still depend on roles, handoffs and everyone carrying their part. Great individual performance does not automatically create a great team result.

“As an athlete… you made a bad play, you made a bad run, you’ve gotta move forward. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled out of a block or you do a relay and it’s a bad pass. You don’t have time to go figure that. You just go. You’ll figure things out afterwards and you have to keep moving.”

“I only reflect and look back when it’s time to process or learn or reset… But when you’re in the middle of the storm, you’ve gotta figure out how to survive.”

This is Durran’s athlete logic applied to life. When the race is still happening, you keep moving. The movement gives you new information; reflection later helps you make sense of it and reset.

“I’m like, well, what is a major? I see ‘Ac’ — it’s at the top of the choices because it’s all listed alphabetically. I’m gonna check this box. It says Accounting. I didn’t know the rigor of that program… And it was my senior year one of my professors mentioned working for a large firm and being a CPA. And I’m like, well, what is that?”

Durran did not choose accounting because he had a clear long-term vision of becoming a CPA. He chose it, committed, kept doing the work, and learned what the profession could become as he moved through it. Later, he talks about being positioned academically when the opportunity to enter the profession appeared.