Win Today

#259 | Inside The Inspired: Touching My Dream In New York City

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It was a dream to be on the other side of the mic getting interviewed by Jonathan Cohen of the Inside The Inspired Podcast.

Jonathan is a champion of discipline, grit, leadership, and being a family man.

Check out the Inside The Inspired Podcast here!

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Discipline Never Really Ends

SPEAKER_00

What do you feel like you have left to learn about discipline and mental toughness?

SPEAKER_02

I feel like it's a never-ending book. The more arenas that I enter, the more that I learn something about myself, about unlocking a new level from both sides, from discipline and the mental toughness side. Learned a lot about myself most recently with this run across South Carolina, 194 miles, and that man, the the abyss is deeper than I thought. My capability is also stronger than I thought. Because that took me to places that I didn't know existed, but also showed me things I didn't know that I had. So I believe it's a beautiful question that I don't know if I'll ever have a an answer to because just like you and I were just talking about, doesn't matter what we're going through in life, whether I'm in your spot or you're in mine, where I'm able to run right now, we're gonna find whatever we can to test us to the limits that we believe are present. And then when we get there, we're gonna find what's next and what's next and what's next. And God willing, we'll continue to do that as long as we're able to. And even if it's not something of the physical realm, we'll find the next best thing. So it's an ongoing quest. But so to that point, I feel like I still have a lot to learn on both fronts.

Why This Conversation Matters

SPEAKER_02

Welcome to Win Today. This show is crafted for those who want to win in every aspect of their lives. Every week you will learn from a renowned thought leader that will share a piece of a winning playbook that you can incorporate into your life. If this show has a positive impact on you and you see value in it, please share it with somebody and leave a rating interview so we can help more people win. Well, hello from the other side of the room. This is a recent interview from the Inside the Inspired podcast that's hosted by my good friend Jonathan Cohen. This took place recently in New York City in one of the coolest podcast studios that I've ever been in, and one that many of the best podcasts in the world actually record from as well. So sitting across the room from Jonathan truly felt like a dream come true, and that this podcast and where I'm taking this in addition to the ventures outside of the corporate world with coaching and speaking are really my dream, and this was an opportunity to touch it. The more that you touch your dreams, the more that your dreams can become your reality. Jonathan is a good friend of mine, and he's been on Win Today before. What I love about him most is who he is as a leader and a father and a committed servant to others in this world. He truly practices his craft day in and day out, means what he says, says what he's going to do, and goes out and does it. He's gritty, pushes his body and mind to limits that we often will scratch our heads as to whether or not they exist, and all around class act. So the fact that he invited me up there to record with him is is an honor and something that I didn't hold lightly, I don't hold lightly, and I'm grateful that this podcast can be shared with you all today and you can experience him. So check out Inside the Inspired with Jonathan Cohen. He has absolutely incredible guests, Guinness World Record holders, CEOs, incredible people doing amazing things, and and I'm grateful and feel somewhat like an imposter that I get to be on that list now as well.

SPEAKER_00

Check it out, enjoy it and win today.

The Challenges That Test The Limit

SPEAKER_00

At this point, you've done multiple 100 mile efforts. You've run around run across a bridge 100 plus miles a couple times. Yep. Run around a track 100 miles. You ran across a state 194 miles. You got another 200 miler coming up. I know you've done challenges in the depths of the cold and in the burst of the heat with weights, no weights, surrounded by savages and soldiers and individuals that challenge you on many different levels. But what are your inputs that have gotten you to this level of mental fitness that you're at today to accomplish all these

The Promise That Fuels His Drive

SPEAKER_00

things?

SPEAKER_02

First, I have a driving force that fuels me like nothing else. If you're to if I were to summarize who I am in a sentence, is I'm a boy, I'm a man that's keeping a promise that he made to a little boy. When I was six years old, I remember answering the door to the police at our house because a normal night in my life would be playing middleman between my parents and my father who really struggled with alcohol. And that's just something that is passed down from generation to generation to the to the home that that I was living in. And a normal night for me would be often staying up till two, three, four o'clock in the morning, waiting for him to come home after a long night of drinking, and then just absolute chaos between him and my mom. And I wanted to make sure that the house was orderly and that my little sister didn't see what was what was happening. And I made a promise to myself the night that the police showed up at our house that the buck stops with me. Like enough is enough. I've already to that point had dealt with this hundreds of times, probably. I didn't know it as a six-year-old boy exactly what that meant or how to keep that promise. But I never forgot that a promise is a promise is a promise. And that's what led me into the endurance world. Really, running became this therapy and escape. But also the way that I look at it is every time I make a commitment to these races, to these challenges, I'm keeping that promise. And it's damn near impossible for me to become what I saw. Because when you're committing to training for 100, 200 mile races, it's pretty hard to do that and do well and also be engaged in a lot of non-useful activity and heavy drinking and drugs and abusive activities. And so my number one input is that. Secondly, with with running now, it's it's so it's bigger than me from that standpoint. It's also bigger than me and why I take on these challenges. It's to provide to people that are going through something infinitely harder. So each of those runs that you mentioned, the bridge runs, the run across South Carolina, and the track, that has fueled over $50,000 that have been provided to families that have a loved one battling cancer, or most recently with the track effort to uh kids that are really struggling with mental health and need additional resources. So my two biggest inputs are bigger

Community As Accountability And Fire

SPEAKER_02

than me. But then when we look at now what's the the physical component of it look like and and that applied to daily life, it's it's early mornings, it's being surrounded by absolute animals that if you're not waking up early and getting after it, someone's calling you out. Or you know, they're like, hey, what are you doing, man? Haven't seen you on Strava in a minute, what's going on? Or it it's so those are I'd say the the three things that are really like fueling everything that you see from me today.

SPEAKER_00

And what are you reading? What do you listen to? Who are these savages you hang out with? How does that impact and influence your performance?

SPEAKER_02

You know, I just I just ran with Craig Siegel. I think you've had Craig on the pod. And we were talking, we were talking about that as we were going around Central Park this morning. Like, you know, there's a group of of folks that I work out with every Tuesday, and we call it our our Tuesday speed session. Tuesday to me is like Christmas. Five o'clock in the morning. Um I'm up before the alarm, like, I mean, literally, quite literally, like jumping out of bed. Like, it is the best day of the week. And so I think that speaks to the power of who you have in your circle and how critical that is to where you're gonna go in life, truly. Because I know that if I'm not there at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, and then a lot of us work out together throughout the week, again, there's a text message, there's a phone call, there's uh probably a hey, why are you being soft in there? And you never want to get and you never want to get that. So so the community that I have, we call it Washed Up Coffee Club, is second to none. Uh, guys and gals in there. And then what am I what am I reading? What am I listening to? I mean, I'm always studying you seriously, and and everything that that you put out there. We've got a lot of mutual friends, people like Patrick, so like who we're surrounded with, we can we can name a long list of folks that were either, you know, we're I know we're constantly watching each other, but I'm always looking for what's the next best uh resource. The most recent book I just finished was The Way of Excellence by Brad Stahlberg, which I really love that one because he frames excellence as it's not a destination, but a journey. And how much, you know, we we love to talk about goals and where we're going, but the journey is the goal. The destination is just the cherry on top. And so I'm always looking for, you know, what journey am I on? What journey are the people that I'm surrounding myself, what what journey are they on? And with that, you you create this powerful formula like to continue moving forward, even when you don't want to. Like you we can manufacture progress in so many ways. And I believe that who we're with and and what they're doing is one of the easiest cheap codes for you to move forward in life.

Inputs, Attention, And Your Outcomes

SPEAKER_00

What I have come to learn, probably the most important, because attention management, we'll call it, how we feed our intuition, our internal algorithms, dictates our future thoughts, dictates our future outcomes. And when people talk about transformation or they talk about performance optimization, or we talk about how we can be the best version of ourselves, however, you really want to self-actualization, all these different synonyms for pretty much high performance. I have found that the catalyst for a lot of what triggers the growth is optimizing those inputs. And someone like yourself who has the outcomes to reflect positive inputs, I think zooming in on those for people that are striving, who feel stuck, who are lost, who are already high performers aren't taking note of what they're taking in. Because in this world that we're living in, everyone wants our attention. It's so easy to be distracted. And something I was writing about this morning and the other day is and was how it's not even complacency, it's this catastrophizing that and spiraling out that that's the easy thing to do and how you bring yourself back to center, how fast you do. And if you have to have a hard conversation, I feel like even someone like yourself, you know, you'd rather run a hundred miles than have that hard conversation. And we have to extract the lessons and the discipline and the experience from doing those hard things. We have to extract the lessons from that experience to catalyze the action that helps us drive the outcome. If it's talk to the person that we don't want to talk to about the thing that we've been avoiding, if it's to make a difficult decision about something that's super important and can create ripples in your life, in the lives of others. And a big driver in those outcomes, I mean, two of the big drivers are the input and the response. There's this formula called E plus R equals O, event plus response equals outcome. And there's two different types of responses that you can have. The events outside of your control. The outcome may be outside your control, but the responses within your control. And Jensen Wong, who's the founder of NVIDIA, obviously number one company in the world by market cap these days, talks about the first thing he does when he experiences any type of adversity or obstacle is look at what he can and can't control, as stoic and cliche as that may sound. But what are the controllables? Attention is one of them, but our response is another. And so when we look at the types of responses that one can have, it can be skillful and deliberate and on purpose, or it can be impulsive, reflexive, and undisciplined. And I believe that training that impulse and that reflex and that response helps drive certain outcomes. How have you trained your ability to identify the controllables and to respond in moments? Because you feel and you give off an aura of extreme self-regulation. And obviously, the dose of medicine that you have to take on a daily basis through fitness, through nutrition, through hanging out with the right people, through working a full-time job at Boeing for the last decade plus, all these different things that you do, podcasting on the Win Today pod, all these different things that you do. How have you trained your ability to respond in moments that may feel outside your control?

Slow Down To Audit Your Thoughts

SPEAKER_02

I look at our life as we're a walking science experiment, all of us. And with that, with the with the science experiment, just that you have inputs there, and we we don't want to make any, we don't want to create uh any any explosions. We don't want anything to blow up. So you got to constantly monitor the the inputs and the outp and the output. So with that, I say that to say that what works well for me and what I suggest folks do is like constantly audit yourself, slow down so that you can actually be present and uh to what is going on. Situation A occurred, okay. We can react instantly. We're probably gonna miss all of the lessons and whatever it is to be extracted from that because we didn't slow down for a minute, versus like when something takes place in my life now and over the years is situation happens, okay, what is this giving me right now? Because I believe that any situation in life, good, bad, indifferent, however you want to describe it, is delivering something to you. Life we have an abundance of gifts that are always being presented to us in life if we look at it through the right lens. My earliest years, up into my teenage and early adult years, I looked at everything that was happening at home and that situation I described earlier, which continued until really my adult years, as things that were happening to me. And I was quick, responsive, I was rash, I was very defensive, explosive, and I justified that by by oh, this is these are the responses that I have seen my dad do. So therefore, I'm I'm wired that way versus what I learned to do is now slow down. What is this teaching me right now? What is this giving me in this moment? It's giving me the opportunity to actually find the right people to connect, to see that holy smokes, you're missing the greatest gift you've ever been given in your life right now, that has given you now. This is why I'm sitting in front of you here today, Jonathan, and why I do all these things. I couldn't imagine going through life, like, oh man, you know, look at all this crap that happened to me and kicking my pants and living in a in a victim mentality. So I am first, I've trained myself to have a response of what am I getting? If there's a narrative that's in my mind, whether it's you can't do this or you're not capable, whatever, what makes this thought that I'm having true right now? And if we slow down to ask ourselves that question more frequently in a in a situation that takes place because situation happens, then you think I'm not capable, I need to do this. Hold on. What evidence do I have that supports this claim? Just slow down for five seconds. Most of the time, we can't produce any evidence because whatever it is that we're putting in our mind automatically isn't real. We are we are not our thoughts. So slow down, audit yourself, train yourself to audit yourself. And I've got my journal here, and I write down as much stuff as I possibly can and and study that, and that's what brings the clarity to then produce a more useful response to whatever the situation is, and ideally generate a stronger outcome if if we are able to. But that's that's how it works for me.

SPEAKER_00

There's two things that stand out from that. First is the frame of what is this training me for? What is this setting me up for for the long term or the next challenge, and interpreting adversity through the lens of how am I being set up to catalyze my growth to be of service for the next challenge or the next person or the next experience? That's been a very positive frame and effective frame that I leverage on a daily basis that helps me also stay regulated and calm whenever I go through any type of adversity. Now, dealing with all these injuries that I've been dealing with that I never really thought I would have to deal with. Just because I mean, you know how it is. When you do some of the stuff that each of us have done in our own realms, it's you feel like not invincible, but very capable. And so any setback can hit your ego, especially when the mechanism for growth has been physical output. And now I'm being challenged to reorient myself in a different way to be of service or to find growth in other aspects. And the physical efforts have been a great way for me to hold myself accountable and experience growth. But now that it's not as available to me in the same way, obviously I love what I do on a daily basis and I've had to work around a lot of things. But it's not the same as going to the extremes. It's not the same as like almost passing out from doing a thousand pull-ups, not the same as like hating every aspect of life when you're 40 miles into 50. Like it's not the same when you feel on the edge of I don't want to say the the comp but the pain cave and whatever that is, you know, relative to the person, obviously. It grows for you. I can imagine, like when you're 40 miles in, you're like, oh, all right. You know, but it's all but it's all relative, you know. And you know, for someone else, it may be four minutes into their run or their effort, whatever that is. But the second thing is you mentioned a useful response, one of utility. And that's Elon Musk like, because he talks about when he wakes up every single day, he asks himself, how can I be useful today? And bringing that utility and that frame of utility to every interaction helps also catalyze action. Because that whole catastrophizing thing that we were talking about before, oh, I can't believe this is happening to me. Like, why me, this, that, and the other. It's the easy way out in so many ways. It's easy to numb the emotion, it's easy to eat the cake, it's easy to make yourself feel like the victim metaphorically and actually. So having that disciplined response and using the frames of what is this training me for? And how can I be of service? How can this be how can I be useful? How can I audit my thoughts in a way that helps me process my emotions so I can stay calm and think of the next step? That's a process. And it sounds like some tools that have worked for you outside of the physical output that maybe could work for someone in the audience is writing, is surrounding yourself with people that challenge you and hold you accountable, reading certain texts that help you understand deeper concepts that you investigate, but maybe don't necessarily have the words that an author may have that then give you more tools to process. Also, you host a podcast called Win Today. I've had the pleasure of being on it. This has been a long time coming, though. I wanted you on the pod. I'm glad we could finally do this. What have those conversations in terms of input shaping your judgment, shaping your intuition? How have those conversations played a role in guiding your decision making?

High Performers Use Coaches And Therapy

SPEAKER_02

It's definitely reinforced some of what you what you mentioned because a lot of the guests that had the opportunity to create conversations with, you know, just like you, we like to dig into okay, what's what's what are pieces of your playbook? And I've observed that a lot of high performers that that we have created conversations with have also made reference to slow down, create clarity. And in that case, most one of the easiest ways to create clarity in life is extract from the abundance of thoughts that we have in our mind. So experts estimate that we have roughly 50,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, which is kind of scary to think about. Think, could you imagine if we were present to all of those, our minds would explode. But basically what that says is there's a lot going on up here every day between what you're actually thinking about, between what your kids might be doing, what your what your wife wants, what work wants, unexpected thing takes place. So the more that we can extract from here and actually put it down and and sit and look at it, like, okay, here's what's actually happening right now. So that has been reinforced through through those conversations. Another thing that I've really taken from a resounding theme from high performers is we're not alone. I used to think that we were alone or I was alone in and having some sort of limiting beliefs and thoughts. They're just really good at countering them. And a lot of it is by zooming out and really like taking a look at that narrative. So I thought I used to look at people, even like you, or people that we've had at we've both had Saw Hill Bloom, we've had some big names. The folks that are at the top of the chain have the same thoughts and doubts that we do. But they know how to manage them more effectively. And so I really uh want to understand what, like, okay, how tell me how you worked past this. Like, because from the outside, you see Wall Street Journal bestseller, New York Times, all these things, like, man, they got it all figured out. They they never have the limiting thoughts and beliefs. And they just they've they've got really good systems. They also, another thing that I've taken from them is I've actually hired coaches and therapists to work with, have somebody, a professional in your corner that you can leverage for advice, you can leverage as a as a thought partner. And for a while I was a little iffy about those things, especially therapy, but I will not shy away from any sort of personal investment like that ever again. So I would say those are the big things that that come out from their playbook, and they're not afraid to pay, pay to play and get professional advice that allows them to move forward. And I wish I would have done that stuff sooner.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if it was the CEO of Shopify, the CEO of Airbnb. One of those we could fact check it later, someone hold me accountable. They talked about therapy as a cheat code.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I don't actively go to therapy. I have therapeutic practices. Once upon a time, I definitely did when I was younger, but I find that when we talk about mental health, mental fitness, one of the things I talk about is especially when it comes to inputs, is this idea of a stress management ecosystem. And part of the ecosystem is conversations with people of wisdom that can be role models, that can be mentors, that can be doctors, that can be therapists, and to help extract some of that wisdom, insight to help inform decision making, especially when you have a high performer who I'm sure for all the good that we're talking about, there's a lot of negative feedback that you get as well. You're overdoing it, you're gonna hurt yourself, you're gonna hurt yourself. I know what I get, so I can't imagine what you get. And especially at the levels that you've gotten to, how have you navigated that negative feedback?

Turning Negative Feedback Into Fuel

SPEAKER_00

And how has it played a role in your performance, if at all?

SPEAKER_02

Convert it into fuel for one. And so when there has been some sort of negative feedback, that's like, all right, we're gonna bring that up, we're gonna play that track at mile 23 of the marathon. And there's your fuel to to push to push hard. So you can take that, you can take anything, I believe, that is a negative and turn it into a positive. But again, it's all have you trained yourself to be able to look through the right lens to do that? Because it's not something that if you're generally a negative person, it's gonna be pretty damn difficult to take negative feedback and flip it on its on its feet and turn it into something positive. But there's there's that. Uh, not all negative feedback that you put in your mind, like I was saying, is is true either. We can tell ourselves we're not capable. Well, that doesn't support the evidence of all the 4 a.m. wake ups that you've had and all of the hard workouts you've done, the difficult conversations you've had in the in the corporate world. So does this narrative support the journey? Most of the time the answer is no. So I'm also able to take that and think, okay, this was just some negative demon that visited me for a second. And we're gonna we're gonna show them away because it doesn't, we don't, we don't actually have anything that that supports this false claim right now. A lot of people will take that and run with it as true. There was uh a researcher, I believe his name is Robert Leahy. His book was called Stop Stop Worrying. Stop worrying worry less. And anyways, Dr. Robert Lahey. Uh people spend time worrying about 85%, like 85% of things that people worry about don't actually come true. Yeah. I can't emphasize enough to take a look at the evidence and and remember the journey that you've that you've been on.

SPEAKER_00

Hi everyone, welcome to Inside the Inspired. My name is Jonathan Cohen, and I have a quick favor to ask you. If you're getting any value out of this content, please take a second to subscribe to the channel. You help us reach more people, and you can also stay up to date with all the latest content coming your way. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll catch you in the episode. When I hear something like that about navigating uncertainty, in today's day and age, it comes up a ton because as humans we crave certainty. And when we do these difficult challenges, or when there's this adv technology's advancing so rapidly. I mean, you're in aerospace and I'm sure there's certain things you can and can't talk about, but you know, there's been heavy news about it over the last couple of years. And that environment, I imagine can also be very difficult to navigate. So when you're constantly surrounded by voluntary hardship in the form of difficult challenges and training, you go to work, there's also another challenging environment, not that stimulates growth because this is outside the bounds of my skill set, but genuine economic and and other and hardship otherwise. I'm being extremely surface level so we can be overbroad and keep the scope of the conversation going. There's a lot of tough decisions that need to be made.

Making Tough Calls As A Leader

SPEAKER_00

You're a leader within your role. How do you make tough decisions?

SPEAKER_02

One of the things that I often do is pull in my pull in my team and make sure that not every decision is originating and and ending with Ryan, because I don't have all the answers. And I recognize that in my role, even though if you look at me on an org chart, yeah, there's a lot of people below me and and on my leadership team. That doesn't mean that because Ryan's at the top, that he's the smartest guy and has all the know-how. So when it comes to something that is going to usually impact the organization, I will first sit and look at it. Okay, does this dis does this decision need to be made right now? Because most of the time it's not something that has to be made instantaneously. Jeff Bezos studied him a while back. And I thought that thinking about him during his time at CEO is Amazon, that his day must have been hundreds of meetings. And I mean, how do you keep Prime and Prime Air and Whole Foods and Washington Post? How do you how do you touch all that in a day? You must be just getting five-minute downloads of everything, kind of like Elon. And something really surprised me when someone interviewed him about his day, and he said, a good day in my book is if I make one to three good decisions that day. And if there's something that is mentally taxing at 3 p.m., that becomes a 10 a.m. meeting the next morning. So he has the awareness to know that, hey, if I'm mentally exhausted, this isn't the best time to make a decision right now. So when it comes, when it comes time to decision making, does it need to be made right now? Who do I need to bring into the mix as a as a thought leader and partner? Someone that has more know-how, expertise, is smarter than me. And then what are the potential unintended consequences if we go A versus route B versus route C? And then we sit there and look at it. Yes, it's ultimately my job to click the button, but I'm doing my best to make an informed decision at the right time in the right headspace. Because most things that we think need to happen now don't, and with the right people. Those are like the three things that I'm constantly thinking about. And then also what I suggest to my leaders and to folks that are that are in upper leadership, whatever decision you do make, what does that look like three levels and three steps ahead? Because most of the things that are probably coming across our desk aren't a here's what we need for Monday, the Tuesday thing, if it's Monday. It's probably something that is going to take effect three, six months, one, two, three, four years from now. So with that, what does that look like? And then play out the potential scenarios there, and then make the decision. And I think that goes for normal life too.

SPEAKER_00

That's amazing. I am very much of the same mindset. I think I talk to my team a lot about first, second, and third order consequences, to your point, and the ripple effects of certain decisions and what certain situations can look like in best and worst case scenarios, and assessing likelihood, also assessing risk tolerance. These are all different variables with different weights, and the speed in which we process and make decisions, it's like I don't have all this time, man. Like I can't just, you know, take out a whiteboard and go through all these things. But to your point, you talked about awareness when you mentioned Bezos around his decision making. And I think a very, let's say, you know, someone's at home listening to this right now, they hear something like that. This could go for a conversation with your spouse when you're in bed, right before you're about to go to sleep. It probably may not be the best time to talk about the hardest thing that you both are dealing with. It's probably best to carve out another time during the day when you're both level-headed and can make that tough decision, can carve out time for that hari conversation. Something like that can catalyze a much higher probable positive outcome because you're in the right decision-making headspace. And that alone can just improve quality of life as a result. And it gets lost on so many people because decisiveness is advertised as a high quality attribute. So it's, you know, make decisions, make decisions, you got to move quick, you got to move quick. And that ability to slow down. I mean, I learned this. I love using fitness as a metaphor for life. And we were talking about some of the adaptations I've had to make with my training, especially around like some of this stuff. And I've always felt like this because something that really helped me get good at strength in general is time under tension and slow reps and really feeling like if, for example, I go to a hotel gym and I've had no problem like running to real gyms and you know getting in a great workout. But sometimes, you know, the most you have is like 25, 30, 40, 50 pounds, whatever. And you could do a hit workout and break the sweat, or you could take the 50 pounds and slow it down three seconds, five seconds, ten seconds, fifteen seconds. You will feel 50 pounds like you have never felt 50 pounds before. And that's so important as a metaphor for life to understand, like it's the same weight in a different, in a different setting, but under a different time horizon, creating a completely different scenario. And so that also breeds awareness because you understand how your body moves through space, you understand the weight of a decision quite literally, when you slow it down, and in a time where that attribute of decisiveness is so highly valued, it's trained by slowing down and having that awareness. And it has to come with time. Like Ray Dalio talks about the five-step framework for goal setting. Are you are you familiar with if you haven't read Principles, you gotta read it? I've uh started Principles recently, actually. So yeah, I still go back to it, read it a few years ago, and reading that book while being at the DA's office, like a business-oriented mindset in a criminal prosecution setting. Um, it's weird how they go hand in hand, man. And his framework around goal setting is simply like identify the goals, identify the problems, get to the root cause, diagnose those root causes, analyze those root causes, and then make sure that you're designing solutions that address those root causes that you're not going to tolerate, and then execute on the strategies that you designed and then iterate and improve if they don't go well. And he's got that loop. So it's setting the goal, identifying the problems at their root cause, diagnosing them correctly and not tolerating them, designing strategies to overcome them, and then executing on those strategies to see if it works or if it doesn't, right? And so when we think about that process of decision making that you were talking about, like you have brought up a few times this ability to slow

Self-Compassion After Setbacks And Injury

SPEAKER_00

down. How do you practice that ability to slow down now? Like, I guess the best way to ask the question is what are you working on within yourself right now that you have to slow down that you're aiming to speed up down the line?

SPEAKER_02

One thing is of, and this is something that's evolved from therapy lately, is this concept of being a good friend to yourself. We move so fast in a lot of areas of our lives, and we will and we're dedicated to service. I heard someone say once, don't set yourself on fire to keep others warm. And I'd be willing to bet, just by that laugh, that you've set yourself on fire, and I know that I've set myself on fire many times. Now, would you would you light me on fire? No, and I wouldn't light you on fire because you're a good friend and you're a brother. And it wouldn't be I wouldn't be a good friend to you if I lit you on fire right now. But why am I gonna light myself on fire? You're not gonna do that, brother. Why but and and sometimes I look back and and have by saying yes to so many things, by saying, by staying in uh relationships that that probably should have ended a long time ago for too long by overcommitting yourself in certain areas of life because you believe that's the right thing to do, and you have to go through this this this mental hurdle of, oh, if I say no, does that mean I'm a bad person? And then go through all this narrative. So overcommitting, saying yes, you're not being a good friend to you. Because if I was sitting there and looking at you, I'd say, Jonathan, man, you're doing way too much. And I'm only telling you that because I love you. Still hustle, still grind, but realize here's my my view of you right now. Like you're you're so stretched in. No wonder you're in the situation that you're in. So one thing that I'm really being becoming aware of more and more and studying is am I being a good friend to myself? And I know in certain areas of my life, I wasn't. Being a good friend to myself across the board, whether it's in the in the fitness realm, in relationships, is what is, I believe, allowing. Me to show up better for people. I just blew up in a marathon two weeks ago. I was going for a 242. All of my training had all of the right signs that fitness level is there. Didn't work out, day of, exploded, mile 20. I'm literally profusely vomiting. Sounds like I'm having an exorcism. Like sounds that I've never heard come out of my own body. Like, what the hell is going on here? And finished, not even close to the desired time. And I know that a former version of me, because I was there with a lot of friends, would have been incredibly upset. And I was obviously frustrated with myself, dealt with that privately. But I was a good friend to myself in that, hey, if I zoom out as to what's going on right now, the journey was still an incredible one. There's a better version of me on the other side of these last few months that that we've gone on, have ran harder, trained harder than than I ever have. And this, even though this result wasn't what the did not support the inputs, we still have moved up a level. And it's only a matter of time. We'll come right back to the arena. We're gonna be we're gonna be A-OK, but I was able to be a good friend to myself that day, still enjoy the moment and time with people that that I love, and I know I believe rather a former version of me wouldn't. So Ryan's being a good friend to Ryan right now.

SPEAKER_00

We call that self-compassion. And I think it gets conflated with or confused with weakness. I interviewed Dr. Kristen Neff, author of a book called Self-Compassion, and she's got this different exercise that I usually share in my seminars as the me, myself, and I framework. And it's effectively this idea of there's three chairs. You're telling the story in one chair, and you have a third-party impartial observer in one and a friend in the other. And then you put yourself in each of those chairs and give your original self feedback as the impartial observer and the friend to see how the story is processed and what story you're telling yourself. I gave a seminar to the New York Law Department about a year ago, and I taught about pattern recognition and pattern interruption and pattern creation. And one of the questions was about how do you know with all the different patterns that we experience in a day, like how do you know which ones to change? And it's always interesting when you give a lecture and you get questions after, or you see people writing notes. I don't know if you've ever had this. To me, that's always the most real thing. It's like, uh, I was just reporting this, but anyway, I digress. I hope this is right. It's like not imposter syndrome, it's just like a little bit of like, hey, I think it's working. I hope I said the right thing. I hope it makes the right impact.

SPEAKER_02

There's a narrative.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that narrative, that pattern, right? And so my response was look for the highest leverage patterns. The 80-20. That if you changed one, could lead and yield to so many different other positive outcomes. And it's difficult to spot which one. But most of us know which ones intuitively. That if we changed one or two behaviors, could create so many more positive ripples. And I believe that the skill of self-compassion is one of those high-leverage pattern interrupting tools that can be used to create new positive patterns that lead to higher quality outcomes. Because in moments like especially now, where I don't have the same mechanisms to explore growth in the ways that I have before, compassion, self-compassion is so necessary because I can wake up every day not even feeling sorry for myself, but getting comfortable or complacent. And even this morning, man, like I did not eat sometimes, you know, just get through the warm-up, just get through the first set. Halfway through, kids running around, sweat's not broken, like didn't sleep right, cause kids need stuff, and hard conversations and hard decisions need to be made, all these different things, and I'm not getting that dopamine hit like I need. And that slowing down, put on some good music, it's not working, get outside, touch grass, not working, drinking water, it's not working. But I even posted about it today because I was dealing with it. Victor Frankel, man search for meaning, author holocaust survivor. Man can always decide who he wants to be in any moment, every moment. And just because a day starts a certain type of way, it's on you how it ends. Exactly. And self-compassion was a tool today that I was able to leverage to help me get through, even if it's not the best ultimate training session that I could want, even considering my circumstance. There's a difference between knowing that if what you have to give is 50% today and that's all you can really reach, then that is 100% if you're really giving it. And there isn't enough self-compassion in men today, particularly our age group, and then there's also this level of entitlement. I don't wanna overstigmatize every generation, but you get where I'm getting at. And it can be difficult for people to navigate because they either think they don't need things, they're too good for things. I know I was like that at one point. Going over to the stairmaster is very humbling these days because usually it's like you know, two hours on the road. Now it's 20 minutes on steps, and you just have to make the most of your circumstances based on what they're presented to you.

What’s Next In Racing And Work

SPEAKER_00

You have this incredible resume over the last few years. Last year, I know it was wild for you. This year has gotten off to a very hot start. I'm sure a question that you get quite often is what's next? So what's next?

SPEAKER_02

From the from the physical realm, and then going to professional. From the physical realm, I'm actually allowing myself to do less this year, meaning that there's not going to be this six-month stretch of three world, three, three world marathon majors, and then a 72-hour Spartan death race, and then a hundred hour or a hundred miles around a track. It's it's I looked back and I set myself on fire a little bit last year. So I'm not setting myself on fire this year. But that said, the challenges will will never end. So what's coming up next is Sydney Marathon in August, going to Australia. And then it's all hands on deck for uh 200 miles across the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, and that's for my nonprofit, Breaking Ribbons. We provide to families that have a loved one battling cancer. So one thing that keeps me going in those tough moments is, and I believe this is important for people to know too, is when you're in a tough moment, sometimes you're thinking, oh, my this, my leg hurts, or I don't want to get up and I'm tired and I overslept, and et cetera. You're only thinking about you in that moment. But that thing that you really want to go do, what is it for? Right? I know for you that part of your commitment to fitness, obviously you want to challenge yourself, you want to grow. But I know that you also want to set a great example for your beautiful girls. And and that's that's something to connect to. So I think about when I'm going and doing these these challenges and getting ready for this 200-mile run. I don't even think about it as running. I'm getting ready to answer prayers for somebody that needs it. And one thing to move forward is remove yourself from the equation and have something that you're deeply connected to that that that is infinitely greater than whatever the destination is or the goal is. That's what you tap into when it gets tough. Outside of that, what I'm really focused on and my my dream, like this, by the way, is I look at this as touching the dream right now. I'm sitting here, we're in New York City in a podcast in a beautiful podcast studio. I was journaling earlier about yesterday, uh, just walking around New York City about holy smokes. We are the architects of our own lives, and I want everyone to look at their life as like you're you're the designer, you're the architect. You can build and make whatever you want. And when I think about where my life is going and going back into your into your question, is with my with my mastermind community, is growing that to a point to where, hey, this this dream of exiting corporate and doing this, things like this full time and speaking and everything else I've already been doing, like is is my main thing, moving closer to that. And so with that, I've been building a support team that can actually do a lot of the things that I can't do right now in corporate to help make that more of a reality. I really do believe that between this year and end of next, that we're gonna be able to take that step. So I'm imploring a lot of resources and time and effort into making that happen because this right here is is contagious. And I'm so grateful and I think about what would life look like if this was like the norm and why can't it be? The only reason why anything in life can't be whatever it is that you want it to be, most of the time, uh pending circumstances outside of our control, most of the time, the answer is in the mirror. It's it's because of you and whatever you may be holding yourself back, whether it's a belief, something you're not doing, etc. So if I summarized everything, it's continuing to live life by design, and and that's that's what I'm designing right now.

SPEAKER_00

Ryan, I've been looking forward to this one, man. This was this was on my radar for a long time. I've been very selective, especially now with where inside the inspired has come for me that it's important to again going back to what we were talking about at the top, have the right inputs. You are one of those positive inputs in my life, and to have the opportunity to have this conversation with you in New York City, to architect it in our own way and for things to happen on the right timeline. I know we talked about a few different ways to make this a reality, and I'm glad this was finally able to come to reality in a very beautiful and healthy way. This conversation has warmed my heart, even got me emotional talking about my girls and being the example that like that will always touch on those heart strings no matter what. And, you know, I want to round this thing out with a question that I ask every guest as you know, you're an athlete, you are an entrepreneur, you're a coach, you're a podcaster, corporate professional, a leader, and

Ten-Year Advice And Final Reflections

SPEAKER_00

a brother. Ten years from now, if the future version of you were to fly and offer you some advice in order to get there, what do you think he would say to you?

SPEAKER_02

Is it cheating if I went back and and looked at the I knew you were gonna ask this question, so I wrote it down actually. I was thinking about it before before coming over. Of course, man. I would love, I would love that. Want to be prepared. So what 10 years from now, Ryan would would come in here and and say, hey, get a don't be afraid to jump a little deeper in the water. And we're when we're looking at what I just mentioned of the we'll call it the pool, right? The pool that that that choosing to swim in is the one where it's full-time podcasting, creating powerful conversations like this and connections, and ultimately to inspire people to be able to become a better version of themselves and service-oriented all of those things. If I'm being honest with myself right now, too, it's hey, you you're you've you've gotten in that water, right? But you're not swimming yet. Jump in there and realize that you're not gonna drown. And then I'm gonna tell you, hey man, how's the water feel? I'm gonna ask you, how's the water feel? Feels pretty damn good, right? So, because I know that that's where my my life is is going. And then I would also remind myself that keep being a good friend to you. You don't have to do every little thing all of the time. And sometimes to go faster in life, you have to slow down and and look at it and keep listening to the birds chirping every now and then and enjoy the present moment and be where you are.

SPEAKER_00

That's what 10 years from now, what I'd be telling myself. I love that, man. It's definitely a lesson I'm learning right now. And I'm glad you're finding that compassion because you've earned it. And if you had to run hundreds and thousands of miles in order to get there, you got there and only continued success, brother. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

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Ryan Cass

Host