How Heidi Durflinger Runs Her Business Like An Ultra-Marathon

When EF World Journeys CEO Heidi Durflinger signed up for her first ultra-marathon, the prospect of running 75 miles in a Spanish desert seemed overwhelming. So she intellectually set that number aside. Instead of approaching the incredible effort as one big job, she broke it down into more manageable steps. Not only did this make training more feasible, but it allowed her the chance to celebrate each small win along the way.

“When you break that [mileage] down into smaller bites that you work towards, it becomes achievable,” said Durflinger in a recent podcast interview.

She’s right. No author writes a book in one keystroke. No musician completes an album with one strum. And no competitive runner finds the finish line in a single stride. For Durflinger, to run competitively means to stay focused on the journey and to celebrate the progress you make. Then when each mark is achieved, she simply extends the goal out further.

“In my marathon training,” she explained, “I’ll suddenly realize, ‘Wow, I just ran 13 miles and I felt fine, and then I ran 15 miles, and then I hit 20, and I’m still feeling great.’”

This strategy applies to the way she approaches her role as a leader in business, as well. Whether she is running 75 miles in the desert or guiding her team at EF World Journeys, Durflinger’s secret lies in strategic, incremental progress. Breaking down a goal into smaller portions and celebrating the victories in smaller moments remains key to sustaining the objective. As a leader in the workplace, she knows that behavior works.

For example, during the 2020 pandemic, it quickly became clear that no one was going to solve the problem of the shutdown and get the world back on track overnight. But instead of wallowing, Durflinger pivoted. The CEO found a new goal to tackle. Durflinger, who learned the value of culture at a young age when her parents hosted foreign exchange students in their home in Belleville, Kansas, is acutely aware that there is an emotional quality to her work. Travel isn’t a product. It’s an experience that requires personal connection.

“[We were] a travel company that [couldn’t] help people travel at that moment,” Durflinger said. Unable to perform their normal duties, the company found other ways to contribute. “We made wellness calls to our customers,” she explained. “Just to check in on how they were doing.”

She made it clear to her customers that they were not merely transaction points on some ledger or spreadsheet. Instead, she worked day in and day out to strengthen her business’s relationship with the people they did business with. “It’s important that we hear our customers, connect with our customers,” she offered.

Of course, Durflinger isn’t the only business leader who approaches their role this way. Indeed, any major undertaking requires serious foresight and endurance.

Just as in matters of business, when you’re running a race, even the strongest competitors can “hit the wall” from time to time. But when that happens, explained Oscar Munoz, an avid runner and the former CEO of United Airlines, it’s important to push through. You can’t let the wall impede your progress. In that way, he said, you must make it simply another marker to speed past. “You have to know it’s coming,” Munoz said in a recent interview, “and you have to know it’s going to pass, and you have to keep busting through it.”

Durflinger accepts that challenge, too. In 2024, when the World Journeys CEO participated in the 120km Marathon des Sables in Spain, she placed 99th overall and 42nd among women in her age group. The seemingly impossible trek took a remarkable 28 hours to complete. But that’s how it works. Just like the construction of the great Roman Empire, nothing incredible happens overnight. It takes time. It takes small steps that, when you finally look behind yourself at the totality, have made for an incredible journey.