The LoCo Experience

EXPERIENCE 234 | Catalyzing Growth at any Stage and any Age with Brad Cooper, CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360 and Host of the Coaching Lab Podcast

• Ava Munos • Season 5 • Episode 234

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In this episode, I welcomed Brad Cooper, the CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360.  His was my favorite talk from the Founded in FoCo event last spring, and I was more than pleased to bring his extensive knowledge to share with our listeners!  Brad is a PhD in Performance Psychology and also the host of the Coaching Lab podcast.  We discussed his journey into health and wellness, and how he rediscovered his passion for running in his late thirties.

Brad shared the story of launching Catalyst Coaching 360 after being laid off from his healthcare executive job, and immediately set to work building a platform and training program which emphasizes the cultivation of functional mental toughness, underscoring elements like movement, diet, sleep, and connection.

Brad reminisced about his early athletic endeavors and the crucial influence of his wife and Co-Founder, Susanna, in shaping his life and career.  We ventured into topics like overcoming injuries, the significance of sound sleep, and the need for creating space for reflection.  We also delved into Brad's memorable experiences, including winning a two-person race across America after a severe injury, and we explored the future prospects of Catalyst Coaching 360 and Brad’s plans for his upcoming book on mental toughness.

I took a lot away from our time together - and you will too! - so please enjoy my conversation with Brad Cooper, CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Speaker 7:

In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I welcome Brad Cooper, the CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360. His was my favorite talk from the founded and focal event last spring, and I was more than pleased to bring his extensive knowledge to share with our listeners. Brad is a PhD in performance psychology and also the host of the Coaching Lab podcast. We discussed his journey into health and wellness and how he rediscovered his passion for running in his late thirties. Brad shared the story of launching Catalyst Coaching 360 after being laid off from his healthcare executive job and immediately set to work, building a platform and training program, which emphasizes the cultivation of fun, functional mental toughness, underscoring elements like movement, diet, sleep, and connection. Brad Reminisced about his early athletic endeavors and the crucial influence of his wife and co-founder Susanna in shaping his life and career, we ventured into topics like overcoming injuries, the significance of sound, sleep, and the need for creating space for reflection. We also delved into Brad's memorable experiences, including winning a two person race across America after a severe injury. And we explored the future prospects of Catalyst Coaching 360 and Brad's plan for his upcoming book on mental toughness. I took a lot away from our time together and you will too. So please enjoy my conversation with Brad Cooper, CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360 I.

Speaker:

Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Brad Cooper. And Brad is the CEO at Catalyst Coaching 360. He is a PhD in performance psychology. He's host of the Coaching Lab podcast and I saw his talk at, founded in Foco last spring and was like, dude, this guy should be on my podcast and share some of that smarts with our listeners. So. Awesome. Thanks for spending time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I, I'm looking forward to it. And, and we'll focus obviously on the practical stuff'cause I think that's where the rubber meets the road. Perfect. The, the evidence is important to know that it's there, but what can I do? That's what

Speaker:

matters actually do for Sure. Exactly. Well, and we'll do a lot of that and we'll also get to know Brad, like, why did you want to become so smart at this stuff? Uh, how did you, when was your first, uh, high performance athletics? Uh, engagement if you, if you recall. Hmm. Or was it a slow burn? A slow

Speaker 2:

build? Yeah. I think it's a slow burn. Yeah. I, I, I've always loved it. It's always been a part of my life. Yeah. Um, rediscovered it late thirties actually.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And I, I tell the story, I'm in health and wellness, so everybody's like, oh yeah, you've always been fit, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, through most of my twenties and thirties, we were raising kids and I would run when my jeans got tight and then I would stop running when they fit again. Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, now I'm running 50, 60 miles a week. I'm training for marathons, doing triathlons, that kinda stuff. But it wasn't always that way. It's something I, I discovered, fell in love with it and pursued that route.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Cool. Did you grow up in a fit family?

Speaker 3:

I mean, it was, was it culturally born in 66? Where'd you grow up?

Speaker:

So I grew up in Lakewood, Colorado. So just a couple hours south. Yeah. So Colorado's probably above, even

Speaker 2:

back then was above the national

Speaker:

average. And concern

Speaker 2:

about that a little bit. If you think about when the running boom happened, it was early seventies, you know, Frank Shorter ran, run the Olympic marathon in 72. And um, the book of running kind of got things going, started hitting the world. Well, I remember a weird guy in town, he would run, we'd be out shooting baskets and he'd run down and around the block and we were like, never seen this.

Speaker:

Like, this was crazy. I, I moved to Worthington, Minnesota, um, um, straight outta college. I had a job at a bank there, and I had gotten a DUI the night before I got my bank job offer. Mm. Uh, but they hired me anyway. Thank you Beth, uh, for trusting in me. Um, but I went down there without a driver's license. Wow. And so I had a mountain bike and like a big backpack that I took to do all my shopping and all my laundry and everything. And. Let's see, this was probably, it was 2019 99. Okay. Sorry. 1999. You were partying? I was back then partying like it was 1999. That's why I got the DUI and I was like the only guy in that town of 10,000 that was riding their mountain bike around that town. Even then, that was the Midwest, you know, there were 25 years behind everybody else. Well,

Speaker 2:

and as I'm thinking about it, one of the things I always think back,'cause we started our health and wellness coaching company in oh seven, and I always think back when I was 16 years old, I was bagging groceries and I fell in love with running then and it came back later, but I was trying to recruit my coworkers to go run with me at lunch. Interesting. So even at 16, I was this little kid bagging groceries and saying,

Speaker 3:

Kurt, guess what? Let's, let's just go run a mile. Let's go for two miles. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

yeah. Let's just get it started. And, and even now, like that's just interesting. And you can even see in my affect as I'm talking about it, I just love it when people start to get excited about something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It when when you start something simple. Yeah. I'm just gonna do a 5K. Awesome. First of all, never use the word just when you're gonna do something that's a big move. So we'll take that word outta the sentence, but even if you choose to start with a 5K, that changes everything because when you start to do a 5K training plan, even if it's super simple and you're barely gonna jog and you don't care about your time Yeah. You just wanna finish. Yep. You start eating better.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

You start sleeping better. Well and running. I get up

Speaker:

so much easier when you're 20 pounds later.

Speaker 2:

Hell,

Speaker:

you know, that was totally something I noticed.'cause I got into running actually for the first time really in my late thirties too, and I did some Wild West relays fun. I did the horse tooth half was my first run that actually actually trained for, that's great.

Speaker 2:

What is that year 51 or something coming up, I think. Is that right? Yeah, that sounds

Speaker:

probably so. And I, I remember that feeling, uh, of, do you know Mandy Mullen? I don't Oh, you need to, she's the organizer of the Run Winsor Race series. Okay. Which has now got a dozen races. We traded emails. Yeah. Okay. Because I've, I was gonna do a couple of her races. Yeah, you definitely should. Because, and, and what she says is anyone can run.

Speaker 4:

Yeah,

Speaker:

exactly. Almost, you know, if you can't run, then you can walk. Yep. Um, and anyone can do something

Speaker 2:

just about, almost anyone, you know, I just, as you were talking about that reminded me of a, a story. I think you'll, and our, your listeners will appreciate in probably oh 6, 0 7, whenever it was that Lance Armstrong ran the Boston Marathon. Yeah. Um, I was out there, I was running Boston and just having one of those days and I went out. Well, but then crashed and burned having some stomach issues. I started walking around Mile 12, 13 and I was just like, ah. And then this guy comes up and task me on the shoulder on a bike. He said, could you scoot over Lance Armstrong's coming through? And he had his whole cohort of runners keeping him paced. Right. And hand him food. Well I'm not gonna let Lance pass. Well, I had my company shirt on. Okay. And my marketing head kicked in and I thought the pros are done at this point.'cause they started earlier and the camera's gonna be on Lance the rest of the way. If I could just stay in front of the camera for a mile. It's free marketing. Right. So I was just like, just hang in there for five minutes. You'll get free marketing. Five minutes turned into five miles, turned into 12 miles. And I finished just ahead of Lance. Oh, that's awesome. And got, and my wife could watch the whole thing on the big screen.'cause Yeah, the cameras were on Lance the

Speaker:

whole time. Totally. Well, and it's such an intense thing. We, in the wild west, really, we call it rabbits, right? Like if you, if you chase somebody down, you'd probably do the same thing. Right? Always. And the motivation. To stay ahead of somebody that's trying to come up and pass you, there is nothing like that, uh, that motivation or a real man. Yeah. Or to reel somebody in. But for me, maybe I'm just, I'm more of a avoiding the pain than a, a glory guy I guess. But, uh, these are way, both are really special feelings, uh, but you never run faster than when somebody's trying to track you down. So, so tell me about, you said you're a health and wellness coach, so is, who are your clients, I guess? Talk to me. Yeah. So,

Speaker 2:

and, and I'm actually a coach. We have a team of coaches that work with employees around the country. We've coached hundreds of thousands of people over the last 19 years. Okay. Uh, but so you're the CEO proper, not

Speaker:

just It's me

Speaker 2:

and I do some

Speaker:

coaching,

Speaker 2:

correct. Yeah. We've got a, we've got a team and then my wife Susanna, she's the brain trust behind the coaching and Okay. All the training and the mentoring and the development of the training program, that kinda stuff. So it's a, it's a real, her strengths are where I have no strengths and we compliment each other very nicely. Yeah. So, cool. That's been a long term thing. Can you set the

Speaker:

stage, like describe Catalyst coaching then a little bit more? Yeah. Like, uh, who companies engage you and your team to make their staff healthier so they can save on their insurance Exactly.

Speaker 3:

Or, or

Speaker 2:

more so, so that's, that's valuable. But a lot of small and middle-sized companies, they're not gonna see an immediate change with their insurance, but they're gonna see an immediate change in performance. Right. So your employee, they mean it took'em 40 years to get their bad health. They're not gonna shift that in six months of talking to a coach. Right. But if they, and we can get into some of the functional mental toughness research if you want, but if they dive into the, the performance aspect of that coaching, then they start performing better at work. And the cost of that, the ROI of that is just massive because you have these employees, maybe they're only talking to a coach once a month or once a quarter. Right. But their performance is elevated. You're paying for that coaching session 30 times over, almost right out of the gate. So that's, the health is beautiful. It's wonderful. We want that. We're gonna get that long term. But the performance is where the real rubber moves the road. So you're coaching their work

Speaker:

performance as well, or is it more of a kind of a life per

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker:

So it's thrive, but they, they want thrive at work too. As part of it.

Speaker 2:

Even if they don't, if they improve their wellbeing, their, their things they're focused on at home. If they're a better dad, if they're a better weekend warrior, if they're a better husband, that has to play over into work because you're a better person. You're bringing more to work, you're more rested, you're more engaged, you're more excited, you're ready to roll. Versus punching that clock, counting down, the hours hanging in there. Now it's time to go,

Speaker 5:

right? You're,

Speaker 2:

you're in like, it's just a different mindset when you're engaged versus, I mean, think about the word engaged. When you get engaged, for those people that have been married at some point in their life, you are on a different planet, right? And that's the same thing with your life, your work, your marriage. As a parent, you're on a path as an executive. Once you're engaged.

Speaker 3:

Everything changes.

Speaker:

Hmm, interesting. So you really like, almost like a group, group health insurance plan would try to attempt to cover the health needs. You're trying to cover the, the mental toughness and wellness and kind of just be an active coach for these large and small teams sounds. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We call it health, wellness, and performance. So interesting. A lot of times you start with the health because you're not thinking about wellness and performance when you can barely get through the day. Hmm. So we may start with the health elements and then from there, once we built that foundation, now we're gonna move on to wellness and wellbeing. And then once that's there, boom, that now we hit the performance, dig it. But all along the way, as you improve your health at that automatically improves wellness, automatically improves performance and it continues to build. I dig

Speaker:

it. So you credited your wife with really being the Oh, she's a genius. I was. She was there when? When this, we started. Started, I guess. Yeah. And was she coaching you in your performance before then, or like No, we were, talk to me about that evolution of the starter. Maybe set me the stage of Sure. Yeah. Where

Speaker 2:

you were. So in oh six I was a healthcare executive, physical therapist. She's an occupational therapist also as a licensing counseling. And they sold our division to another company and I was laid off. Oh. And I'm like, necessity is the mother intervention.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I, yeah. I didn't have a business plan sitting in a file folder. I, I was like,

Speaker 2:

ah, now I had a good severance package. But the downside of the severance package is I was not allowed to go manage healthcare facilities. So unless I wanna give it the seven package. So I'm, I'm sitting there going, I can do anything in the world except what I know. That is a beautiful challenge. It's a blank canvas moment. It's a blank canvas with pressure. Right. Because you got a year to figure this out. Yeah. Then, so that's how it started. We originally, I, I was in the triathlons at the time. Okay. And I was sitting down with this career coach, so they provided as part of the severance. And my plan was to promote the idea to some big company of a chief wellness officer. Now keep in mind, oh seven. Mm-hmm. Today. That makes sense. Yep. Back then, people were like, oh, what wellness what? Blah, blah, blah. And as we were talking about, we put the resume together, the cover letter tied all the background, et cetera, into it. And then I looked at'em, I said, wait a minute. Why would I do this for one company if I could do it for 10 or 15 companies? Right. And why would I hire me in an executive role when they could bring somebody from the outside to do it less expensively and more effectively? Yep. And Kurt, he reached across i'll across a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. He just shook his hands, reached over and said, we're done here. And we launched the company 28 days after I was laid off. Wow. We got very fortunate in a lot of different ways. Wow.

Speaker:

Well sometimes when things are supposed to happen they just kind of come together completely. Um, and was your like wife actively involved with creating like curricula and things like that and you were the pretty face and the sales guy? I

Speaker 2:

was the ops guy and I said, sweetheart, can you create a coaching model again? This isn't a thing back then. Really hard. Yeah. I was around. It would've been easy. Yeah. I mean a crappy model at least. Or if there were any coaching companies. Right. But back then there really were, couldn't even rip anybody off hardly. Yeah. So she jokes today about she out of necessity, built it from the ground up. Yeah. She went through, went through a bunch of courses, pulled some things together. We found some amazing people that were looking for this kind of opportunity. We went through the certification process and Wow. Built it from there.

Speaker:

What a cool thing. It was amazing. Um, so you said you were doing triathlons at the time? Mm-hmm. Um. Talk to me about your, your athletic journey like that restarted in your late thirties. Yeah. I And when was this? Was circa wise.'cause I don't, are you older than me? Younger than me? I can't really tell. I'll be 60 next year. Oh, you're way older than me. Ah, look at this folks. I'm 51. Well, I'm glad you couldn't tell. Well, people usually think I'm younger than I than I actually am. And so you're like way, that way. You're like prematurely gray. 39-year-old still. There you

Speaker 2:

go. There you go. Um, so I volunteered at work to participate in this triathlon coaching thing that they were working on. They wanted somebody to try this out. So I was like, I can run a little bit, I'll, I'll try it. Yeah. You just run back, borrowed a bike di you know, like didn't know how to swim all this stuff and made it through that first race. Ended up signing for the escape from Alcatraz race was my third race. Okay. And that motivated me to learn to swim.'cause when you know you're gonna be swimming from the island of Alcatraz. Exactly. So I gotta learn how to swim. So that got me motivated there. And then I. Just fell into it. Qualified for the Hawaii Ironman World Championship soon thereafter. Wow. And fell in with a group of guys. I mean, this is the iron sharpens iron. Yeah. A group of men that were very good triathletes. We'd go up to the mountains and train once a year. Fantastic. Amazing guys. And we would just push each

Speaker:

other. And probably some guys were extraordinary swimmers. Correct. You know, and they were willing to share into that. And other guys were extraordinary bicyclists and they could teach you how to like stay at the right pace to not go out. We would go up

Speaker 2:

Friday night, we'd run 10 miles or whatever, eat dinner, get up the next morning, bike 120, swim in the afternoon on Saturday, get up Sunday morning, uh, go for a long bike run in the afternoon. Like it was three days of just. Camera session each other. And it was amazing. Like I loved it so much. I have to

Speaker:

confess, I've never actually pushed myself that hard. Like even when I was training for the horse tooth half and the wild west, I was like, you know, I had to run some 5, 6, 7. Mm-hmm. 1 1 8 mile long leg. But my longest legs when I was training would be like eight miles. Mm-hmm. But I had, you know, so I was never really fully prepared and trained up for the,

Speaker 2:

for the task. So let's talk about your sentence there. You've never really pushed yourself that hard. And I think that's a, a, a, a process people go through. Hmm. That causes them to miss out'cause they making

Speaker:

themselves to do it

Speaker 2:

because of the push is not the key. Exactly. The whole, and I have all the

Speaker:

joy in it too. Actually. When I was, like, when I first started running, I was running with a group of Tuesday night. Mm-hmm. Uh, kids that would go to the trailhead afterwards. Mm-hmm. It was part of the incentive.'cause you meet some people and,'cause that's what I like more is people than running. Sure. Um, and I was probably like. 25th place out of 40. Mm-hmm. When we started, even though I was younger than a lot of'em, and not slimmer than a lot of them, but within like six months I was rocking like 12th. Yep. 10th. Yep. You know, and it was really cool to, to see that progression. And the guy that got me into running was 10 years older. Mm-hmm. And is still a good friend, John. And like, I passed him, you know, he couldn't keep up with me anymore, which was pretty cool, you know? Um, well, and that's the

Speaker 2:

key. It's, it's find the pull instead of look for the push. I think that's one of the myths. The book I'm working on right now is called The Toughness Myth. And one of the myths is discipline, motivation, grind it out. Yeah. No, those, none of those work. No matter No. How miserable it is. Yeah. Push through.

Speaker 3:

That's, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2:

It makes for good social media. It makes for a horrible life. Find the pull. And the pull may already be there. Yeah. And you just need to tune into it or you may need to bring it in with you into it. It wasn't there before. You bring it in or you find something different. Yeah. So find the pull, don't depend on the push. Interesting. The push is short term. The push can get you started, the pull maintains it and

Speaker:

makes you great. Hmm. The big thing I took away from your talk, uh, that I've still actually, at least once a week I think about it, is the automatic better choices. The A, B, C. Yep. Talk to me about that. Like, is that your wife came up with that and uh, you've just been sharing it around, or like, tell me about the evolution of ideas.

Speaker 3:

Yeah,

Speaker 2:

I, it ties into what we were talking about. I think a lot of folks depend on motivation. They depend on discipline or they fault themselves for not having enough discipline or enough motivation. Blame and shame kind of. Exactly. I don't, I don't need discipline. I don't need motivation because it's automated. If it's Monday, I know I'm running. If it's Tuesday, I know I'm in the gym. I don't, I don't debate it. I don't get up and question it. I don't say, well, I wonder, should I do track today? Well, yeah, it's Tuesday. I do track on tu. That's just who I am and that's cur, that's one of the keys is when you change from what I do to who I am, everything changes. When it's your identity, when you go from, I run to, I'm a runner. Yeah. Everything changes. Yeah. When you go from, I do a podcast to, I'm a podcaster. Yeah. Everything changes. I always

Speaker:

work out on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I'm a fit individual who works out. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Ing identity

Speaker:

is so critical and people miss that. So let's talk to me about education. Mm-hmm. Where did the PhD come in? Were you already a Smarty pants or did you start Catalyst and then kind of went back to school to get even smarty pants? Well, I,

Speaker 2:

I think this will be encouraging to folks'cause I struggled through school. I have four college degrees. So I have a bachelor's in biology, a master's in business, a master's in physical therapy, and if a PhD in performance psychology. Okay. And I've, and I'm not a super smart guy. I don't memorize Well, I've gotta really dig in so folks don't, don't. Put yourself down if you struggle. It really was a struggle for me to get through physical therapy school. I really struggled to get that biology degree. I could not memorize like a lot of my peers could. So for me it's curiosity. I, I was 50 when I went back to the PhD. Is that right? So I, I didn't need it for my job. Your business had been running for 10 years already. Nobody cared whether that D or not, nobody cared. No, nobody, it. It didn't increase earning potential. I was just super curious about this concept of mental toughness and all the baloney that we're seeing on social media, and was there some way we could study what really matters and help bring that to people that are single moms or professors or students or athletes, or in a practical way that anyone can implement, not just for a video that they can post on Instagram.

Speaker:

What, uh, can you like, boil down your like thesis? It sounded like you, to me, it sounded like you had a theory that you wanted to test and have enough motivation and resources and pressure to do a really good job of testing it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I had just come off of a, a series of events, um, that resulted in some good results, but some confusing in the midst. So people are like, oh, you do this, you must have really good mental toughness. I was like, well, sometimes, and sometimes it's terrible. Like sometimes I'm a total wimp and why is it, and it's not blood sugar based and it's not sleep based. Like what are the things that are causing that? So that's what I wanted to go back and study is why is mine so far up and down and then. How could that be applied to anyone for the things that matter to them, whether or not it's athletics? Yeah. Maybe it's their profession. Maybe it's their leadership. Maybe it's their, their studies. Maybe it's their parenting, maybe it's their what, whatever. So that's what led to that element. And yeah, I could, as you got to hear for an hour or so, um, I could speak on it for four days, but the, the core element of the functional mental toughness model, it's a triad. So it's three pieces. It's thrive. So that's all the things around move, be active. Doesn't mean run. It doesn't mean do triathlon. Lotion is lotion. Yes. Fuel don't diet fuel. Fuel is the eating is fat, satisfying the tongue fueling, satisfies the body. Hmm. When you go into each meal saying, am I fueling or am I eating? You change. You don't need a diet if you will go with that strategy. Interesting. And ask yourself, am I fueling or am I eating?

Speaker 3:

And sometimes you just wanna eat.

Speaker 2:

Sure. You're, you're out for a fun day. You're doing something fun with friends. Right. That's totally fine. This, this, I want a lo of cake. This. It's not every time. Exactly. It's not really fuel. Exactly. But generally speaking, am I fueling? So that's the second part of the thrive. There's rest, people underestimate, sleep like crazy. It's getting better. We're tuning into it a little bit. Yeah. Yep. And then connect those relationships. So that's the thrive piece. And then prepare are those things that you can do where you're practicing, you're putting yourself in the right situation, you're callousing your body or your mind. Sure. For that critical moment we call it. And then activate is when you're in that critical moment, you know how to pull those things out and change the game. So it's thrive, prepare, and activate. And right there in the middle is the FMT Bank or functional mental toughness bank. And our whole goal with that bank is fill it up. Don't create, draw what you need, need to kids. Exactly. Yep. And then when you need it. Access it. Interesting.

Speaker:

So that's the, that's the core of it. That's the core of what your thesis ultimately became. And, and exactly. That was our model. And what has, how has that changed your business, I guess? Or was it, was it just reaffirming the things you'd already been preaching?

Speaker 2:

Kind of? Yeah. It brought the performance piece in at a much higher level. So we were focused on health and wellness for the most part. I see. And then we brought this in and, and Kurt, it was so fascinating'cause a lot of these type A folks, a lot of these executives, they would set up their coaching session and they'd, they'd say something like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I should sleep and eat better and exercise. But what's the real secret? Like what,

Speaker 5:

what's the easy

Speaker 2:

button? Really? Yeah. Gimme, gimme the, the next level stuff. I'm a, I'm a high performer. I want that. And when they realize the evidence shows, if we focus on the basics, our mental toughness elevates. Suddenly they went. Oh, oh, I'll be a better negotiation. That's a, that's a different, yeah, exactly. Right. So I'll be a better exec. I'll be a better leader. I'll be a better, you know, creator, entrepreneur, et cetera, et cetera. If I do these essentials, let's talk about the essentials. So that was really exciting to be able to have a model that shifted the way people looked at the core elements that they'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good for my employees, that's good for my family, that's good for my kids. Yeah, but for me, I want that secret. Guess what buddy? The secret

Speaker:

is these. So do you guys have like a suite of engagement styles? Like you'll do like a series of workshops in one company, or is it It's one-on-one virtual. One all virtual. It's one-on-one coaching. So the

Speaker 2:

employer will say, Hey, we want to have. Our, all our new employees go through a year's worth of coaching. Oh, cool. Or we want all our employees to do four sessions a year just to tap into what, and, and it's confidential and it's not telling what, trying to achieve the spinach, it's not telling'em to become runners. They don't your nose, it's what matters to them. Yeah. Yeah. What, so one person may be stressed out, one person may not be sleeping, one person may be struggling with their teenage daughter and they're trying to figure out how to have a better conversation. One person may be focused on leadership, one person with their athletic pursuits. So it's whatever matters to that person. The coaches coming alongside, not telling them what to do, but drawing out what matters to them. Yeah. And how can we help them in their setting, in their situation, their pursuit. Yeah. Whatever that happens to

Speaker:

be.

Speaker 2:

Pursuit, background,

Speaker:

history, all those things. It a one around 5K or a 10 K Exactly. Will still help you with that. Absolutely. And then do, does Catalyst have like a framework that all your coaches work with? I guess this is kind of built on what you, we've been talking about already in some regards.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So all of our coaches are nationally board certified health and wellness coaches. Okay. And I'd say two thirds'em are trained as specialists in function, mental toughness. So that's, that's the background. But we have never given our coaches a script. We've never given them a checklist. It is coaching private engage. We are coming alongside you. Interesting. And it depends on what you want to do. We're not gonna ask you about blood pressure,

Speaker:

be eye or something like that, or, uh, could be anybody or whatever. But I mean, in, it sounds like the coaching, like as with most business owners, I've seen a lot of awesome coaches and I, and I've had some, everybody's some coach, right. And I've, yeah. I've met some miserable ones that I would never hire to coach me to do anything. Totally. Uh, they'll derail my life probably, you know? Totally. Um, and so, but the way I hear you describe it, it's almost like you just, you kind of. Do the coaching, as long as you're hiring the right coaches, it's kind of like giving an eye exam or, um, doing a, a, a blood pressure check or whatever. You know, here's how we gather, here's how we, and I'm sure there's personalities and there's a lot of things around

Speaker 2:

people may have heard. Phrases like intrinsic motivation, motivational interviewing, temperament. Everyone's a coach, right? You go on LinkedIn and every fourth post tell you what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Well. That's your first clue if your coach is telling you what to do. They're not actually a coach, they're a preacher, they're a teacher, they're a soapbox, stander or whatever. Our coaches don't tell you what to do. Yeah. That's that's not, and sometimes that's confusing to you, them what you wanna do kind of more. Yeah. Yeah. And then we talk that through. And it's amazing. We, we also, the Catalyst Coaching Institute trains people that want to be coaches. And so the second day of their initial training, we do a coach, the coach where you've got a mentor listening in with a brand new, like they're not even coaches yet. Right, right. But they have the basics, the essentials, and they do a 25 minute coaching session. And you would think, well, this isn't gonna do any good. They don't know what they're doing. They've been knowing this for 24 hours. Sure. Kurt, it stuff happens. Yeah. And it's so amazing. True. And they're like, oh my God. So that's your first test for listeners that have a coach or think about a coach. If your coach is telling you what to do,

Speaker:

they're not a coach. I like that. I, it's kind of an interesting litmus in some ways. Like I've. I've met a lot of coaches that were almost born to become a coach. You know, and probably that's your, your target market for who you're trying to train and equip. And especially the ones you hire to work with you. Um, and there's others that are like, well, I struggle on a bunch of things. I maybe I can be a coach.'cause that seems like a really lucrative business model if you can get it ramped up. Um, and there's a distinct difference. Like I can, I feel like I can tell the difference usually. Yeah. But, um, you probably, that's probably a big part of your business is hiring the right people for those seats and Well,

Speaker 2:

we've been fortunate, and Susanna gets credit for this too. Our average coach has been with us 10 to 12 years. Wow. So when you see people stepping into the coaching world, yeah. They've probably been doing it in a year or two, if you're lucky. Yep. And our coaches have coached thousands of people. For a

Speaker 3:

decade or more.

Speaker:

So a lot of times they're already established and good at it before they even come along. You No, no, no. They've been with us Oh, for 10 to 12 years you started? Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. We have coaches that have been with us since we started in oh seven. Like it's amazing. It's so fun. And again, credit to Susanna, but it is, it's awesome to, to get our team together and look around the room and think, huh? She started in oh seven, she started in oh nine. He was there in oh eight. Like, it's just, yeah, it's

Speaker:

cool. So is that, like, if, if you were, I think our, a lot of our listeners are business owners mm-hmm. In Northern Colorado here. And if you're like giving that, that framework you just kinda shared, is that kind of like penciling out a plan? Is that where to start? If you're that person that's like the type A that is AER but isn't giving themselves enough space to move and fuel and connect.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I

Speaker:

You mean as, I mean, do a plan first would be a starting point. Do you do a plan first or just do, I guess is so are we talking

Speaker 2:

a coaching conversation or a tip for somebody that's listening, saying, yeah, I'm, I'm off kilter. I need something to get back on. That's, that's more what I was saying. Okay. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So someone catches me on the street, they're like, you're the wellness guy. I'm struggling. Where do I start? And I know nothing about'em. Is that kinda what we're setting up here? Sure. Exactly.

Speaker:

Yeah. Well, and they're, and they're like one of our listeners, they're, they're business owner, a business leader. They, so they're go, go, go for time. They're go, go, go. They don't make enough time for fueling properly sometimes, and they don't make enough time to sleep as much as they should. They don't make enough time to connect with their, mm-hmm. Maybe even with their wife and their kids, like, they'd like to'cause their business is, you know, business is more challenging now than it was. When there was a bunch of free money flowing around in the economy after COVID. Right? Sure. And so it's been a more challenging environment for many people. Busier, at least. I would, I would

Speaker 2:

suggest, and this is not true for everybody, but I would suggest create space for 20 more minutes of sleep.

Speaker 5:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

Start there. Hmm. Because we know the data, if you are sleeping more, you're more likely to eat better the next day.

Speaker 5:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

You're more likely to get a little activity in your day. If you have a poor sleep, you're less likely to, Hmm. You're, and it's so easy to let the sleep go, to push through. I've got one more project. Yeah. Gotta do. That's fine. But I think people lie to themselves too. Yeah. They tell you they're working 15 hour days. If I were to follow them, or 18 hour days, if I were to follow them around for 18 hours, I can promise you they're not working for 18 hours. Nobody's got a brain that can handle that hardly.

Speaker:

They're screwing around their Facebook, but they tell themselves they, they're screwing around on their Facebook. They tell themselves and looking into their email without actually doing anything for four hours. They blame

Speaker 2:

artificial restrictions for not making the most valuable choices. So they say, I can't eat well, okay, so let's go to a business lunch and lemme see what you order. Because it doesn't take any more time to order a big salad with salmon, right? Than it does the junk. And if it doesn't start with salad or end with salad, um,

Speaker 3:

I mean, it's just, so that's, that's such

Speaker 2:

a low bar. Like, come on folks, stop messing around and just automate your lunch. But Brad, I just, I miss cheeseburgers when I don't eat them. That's fine. As long as you're willing to say, I'm okay performing at 70% of my capacity. And if you're okay with that, then that's fine, but don't look me in the eye and say, I wanna be my best. Possible self and then say, but cheeseburgers are more important than being my best possible self. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with a cheeseburger. Sure. But if you're having them every time you go out for lunch, there is something wrong with the cheeseburger. Right. Especially if you're 30

Speaker:

pounds

Speaker 2:

overweight already, it,

Speaker 3:

it, it doesn't matter. Or 10, it's,

Speaker 2:

it's not the right, it's not the macronutrients. We need to be the best we can be. Hmm. So decide, I guess maybe it comes down to that, make a decision. Hmm. If your, if your most important thing in your life is your tongue, fine, live that life. But if your most important thing is being the best version of you possible, then decide that. But don't tell me one thing and do the opposite. So

Speaker:

here's maybe a confession of sorts. Like, I don't necessarily wanna be the best version of me possible. I wanna be 85% of that because it seems like too much work to be the best version of me possible. How about that? You're honest. You're honest. That's

Speaker 2:

fine. So then you could pick and choose and I would still say. Lean into those cornerstone, we call'em the cornerstone. So move fuel, rest connect. Yeah, move fuel, rest. Connect. Lean into those, look at those. Do a gap analysis on'em. See if you're always needing an alarm to wake up. Or if you wake up without an alarm, see what your eyes feel like at three in the afternoon. See what your energy's like. All those kinds of things. Yeah. And if you're good, alright, we checked that one out, so that's fine. But you're being honest, most people are not willing to say, I'm okay not being the best version of me. Yeah. They say I wanna

Speaker 3:

be better, I want to be the best. I wanna be the great leader I want, but I also want three glasses of wine at night. Right. They don't mix

Speaker:

Fair. I think. Yeah. Where for me, um, move is one of the things I struggle with.'cause it takes a lot of time to get, well, let's talk about it. The right amount of exercise.

Speaker 2:

Okay, sure. Let's do so the right amount of exercise. I think that's a penalty for people because they, they hear these things. They seem'em on social media, you're supposed to do extra amount. We call it move. We don't call it run, we don't call it bike. We don't call it travel on, there's a timer attached to that move. Exactly. So if you're throwing your step counter on your phone or your watch or whatever, and you, you look at it and you go, huh, I'm walking 1200 steps a day, that's a problem. But, but let's not say, oh, I'm a failure if I don't get 10,000 steps. Right. 10,000 steps. Is the, the, the right amount is it To me, if you're walking 1200 and we can get you to 3000 success, you're gonna see some change.

Speaker 3:

You're gonna see some change. Interesting.

Speaker 2:

So let's not, let's, let's listen to the words we're choosing when we, I, I mentioned the, just earlier when you say, I'm just this role, or I'm just doing this exercise, stop. You are doing this exercise. You're not just running a mile. You're running a mile. Yeah. You're not just an administrative assistant, you're an administrative assistant. You're not just. Getting a associate's degree, you're getting an associate's like, awesome way to go. That's a first starting point. Let's build off of that. But don't use the word just because it puts

Speaker:

you down.

Speaker 2:

I can go on and on about different word choices.'cause that's a big one. Yeah. Okay. People, people penalize themselves with their, we become the words that we use for our own life. And when you say just you're putting yourself down, when you say, I'm too busy, you're wrong. You're not too busy. Busy. And, and, and there are exceptions. So the person's out there, they're the single mom, they're working two jobs, they're driving their kids to 17 different things. Yes. You are simply busy. And this is a, a. Difficult time of life, and I'm sorry you're going through it right now, but most of us, most of us are not busy. We're choosing to overfill. Hmm. And when I say I've been busy, my brain goes, wait, I'm making bad choices. I've added too many things. This doesn't fit. I'm not prioritizing. So you, you look at words like just, or busy or there's endless ones, but listen to what you're saying to yourself because your life is built around the word you choose. I

Speaker:

remember what I was gonna say earlier. It was, so there's a, there's a marketing agency in town here, old Town Media, and they're always saying this 1% better every day. And I'm like, that's totally unsustainable. Like you can't get 365%, but. Like that. Comparing yourself more to your yesterday self and less to your quote unquote ideal self maybe is helpful or talk to me about, but that seems more like pushing or you're pushing yourself. Well, we use the phrase

Speaker 2:

better than yesterday. Yeah. Okay. All the time. Yep. And that's exactly what you're talking about. It's comparing you to you. It's not saying Brad, compared to courage. Well, he's not living up to Kurt's standards, sir. No one cares. Yeah. You're not as smart as me. Yeah. I'm, it's, am I better than yesterday? Yeah. And that's not sustainable. You don't do that every day. But if we focus on can I not get eight hours of sleep that they recommend, but right now I'm getting five and a half. Could I get five and three quarters? Okay. Could

Speaker 3:

I get six? Can I just make some

Speaker:

tweaks? So that's still really a pull, not a push. It's a pull to better you, you're trying to pull yourself to the better. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And, and then you're, you're tuning into. Wow. I was a lot more alert today, right? 20 more minutes of sleep. I found myself flipping through Instagram a lot less because I wasn't bored with work, right? I was focused, I was engaged. So yes, one builds on another, builds on another, and then we get into the FMT model and we can go into prepare and challenge threat and self-talk and all these cool things that takes you next level. But let's get the foundation in place first before we try to create a trampoline off of that.

Speaker:

Talk to me about, um. Like meditation. Okay. And stuff like that. Is that a part of either your life or is that something that you think people really benefit from in a way of, like, I was thinking where does that fit? Is it part of the sleep or part of the, it isn't really part of that foundations, but it seems kind of relevant.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So meditation would be a strategy that some people might want to utilize. Okay. Um, other folks might want to utilize prayer. Other folks might want to use quiet journaling. Other folks might wanna sit out and listen to the birds. So the, the phrase, it's move fuel, rest connect, not move fuel, sleep connect. Okay. So that would fit, fit into that. It's creating that space to let your mind. S settle. Right. And then if you are a journaler, maybe collect some valuable insights that come out of that, or simply having that chance to dial it back. Yeah. Or if prayer is important to you, making that connection. Yep. Yep. So all of those options fit under that umbrella.

Speaker:

Perfect. That rest really helps to define it for me and, and bring that more clear. So Totally. Thank you. Yeah. Um, what else? If there's things that you want, like people as a pocketbook tip, uh, things to reflect on, if they're, if they're trying to make that change, is there things that you'd want to

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I think

Speaker 2:

one easy, another low hanging fruit would be this idea of critical moments. So if you think back to what we briefly talked about with the functional mental toughness bank Yep. We're wanting to utilize, to draw too much for the good stuff, the important stuff, and not. Not wasted on the dumb stuff. So, so like arguing the internet with people isn't good. Call beneficial to me. We're not getting a lot of benefit outta that one. Um, so identify your critical moments. What, as you look at your week, let, let's, let's use strategic caffeine is kind of a fun one.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

It's, it is very practical. It, yeah. Yeah. Almost anyone can do it.'cause almost all of us drink caffeine at some point. Drink two cups

Speaker:

in the morning. There you go. One in the

Speaker 2:

afternoon. So we'll talk about that too then. Um, so let's say you're a two cup a day person. You drink it before 10:00 AM and Thursday you've got a big budget meeting where you've gotta be on three cups. Well, I would say go to one cup Oh. A couple days before and then that day, ah, pop in that third one and time it, you don't ever want to do any of these strategies blindly.'cause you don't wanna be sitting in that budget meeting, having to go to the. You don't wanna be sitting in that budget meeting with your stomach hurting. Yeah. So we need to practice these things with other smaller tasks. Smaller. So you're being real about the

Speaker:

strategic caffeine. Absolutely. Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I'll use it. I'm doing a half marathon Saturday. Yeah. And I will use it strategically. I know how long it takes to kick in and I will time that. And then I'll time again. Yeah. Mid race to take a gel with cap. So you're not talking about a race, you're talking about a budget meeting. But it's the same concept.

Speaker:

Yeah. You know that methamphetamine lasts way longer. Right. Just kidding. Probably drug test gets the rules. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Especially if you're gonna win a big prize. Um, I want to talk about the future. Like are you developing new things? Are you any big changes in the future that you see? For Catalyst, we're really

Speaker 2:

leaning into the performance side. Okay. Because we see such a need and we see so many pretenders in that area. Okay. Like we said, everyone's a coach. Right. No one really knows what they're doing. Right. And we have the experience, we have 20 years, et cetera. And then we've got the, the FMT. Well, a lot of credibility on the performance side. Exactly. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. So I am working on a book now. I don't, I can't commit to date, can't even show title, but it, the title is Toughness Myth, unlocking the Science of Sustained Success. So it's bringing that evidence to the forefront and it's, it's it, my hope is that we can shift the mindset of all the, and I won't name names, but all the social media, you just

Speaker 3:

gotta grind

Speaker 2:

it out and life sucks, but that doesn't matter. Matter names here. So I think people know names we're naming here, but in any case. There are practical, functional ways that we can make this work, that anyone can put it into place. And so I want to get that into a book format that anybody can access.

Speaker:

So anybody that wants to be an endurance runner or a triathlete or things like that, a professor, a student can pick it up, a

Speaker 2:

mom, a, it doesn't matter. Whatever your area is, you can improve your mental toughness to increase the outcomes that you're seeking.

Speaker:

And if they love the book, then ideally they tell their boss to bring this guy in. Yeah. For to help everyone. Well, we're gonna

Speaker 2:

start offering coaching to the public relatively soon. So we've never done that in 20 years, but we keep getting requests and so probably in the next two months individuals can reach out and say, we would like to, I, I would like to hire you guys to be my coach. Which isn't a big deal.'cause all your coaches are one-on-one coaches. They're already there. Right. Exactly. It's just shifting

Speaker:

the model that we've never pursued before. Right. It's always been through employers. Well, and probably you've got enough. Uh, gravity, I suppose. Right. For that to work. You know, you don't have to spend a hundred thousand dollars marketing, Hey look, we're doing now for individuals. People know us. Yeah, exactly. When you're ready for a catalyst, you know where to find this. I dig it. Um, should we talk about the podcast at all? Sure. Um, how long have you been doing the, what is it called again? The coaching lab? Yeah. Seven years. Oh, wow. So you and I are similar in that, that area.

Speaker 2:

You're, you're, you're a og. You're more than me even in this marketplace. Yeah. It, it's, uh, it's been amazing. We, our, our, the reason we started it was kind of like the reason for the book and the, the PhD is there's so much baloney out there in health and wellness, and I wanted to try to shift the equation more towards what does the evidence tell us? What do we know is happening? Not what are the headlines, what are the fads? Let's chase those fads. So we've had. World's top researchers on every subject from sleep, to stress, to fitness, to whatever. We've had some of the top athletes in the world. Ryan Hall, one of the greatest runners in the history of America. Yeah. Uh, Croy Alexander, Chrissy Wellington, four time Ironman World champion. Wow. So a lot of amazing athletes and then great authors, David Epstein, Tom Peters, Wendy Wood, you name them.

Speaker:

Are there some things that your guests from the podcast have shared with you that sparked a whole new channel of thought for how we can maybe deliver our services, our coaching to some of our clients or anything like that? Anything come to mind? Probably

Speaker 2:

not from the business side, but I'm constantly integrating tips from them and then trying to, I, I see myself as trying to be a funnel, so, um. Reading constantly. We have 1500 books on our bookshelf at home. Um, I write a substack, uh, series on, on bringing the stuff into a written format versus a podcast format. And it's, the guests give us a peek into, and it's, as you know, from doing this, you get to talk to the best and brightest in the world. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's so kind of them to take the time and share that with you. And my mind is just blown. I mean, these people are, I barely feel like I so much smarter than me to read

Speaker:

anymore, you know? Oh, it's, I listen to a few podcasts and meet my guests every week, and I just

Speaker 2:

kind of get a lot of learning already. It's amazing. Yeah. These people are incredible and most people don't. Know about the research, right? Most research studies, I don't know if your listeners know this, but most research studies that are published in international journals that have taken two to five years to put together are read by an average of like 70 people. It's amazing. So they're happy to get on the podcast to talk about

Speaker:

it. Right? Right.

Speaker 2:

And and I'm happy to say, say their tool, this matters in

Speaker:

my substack. It's like, sure. You can put a link to that in there. Of course. Totally. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. Like this matters, this is important. We, we interviewed, it'll hit in a couple weeks. We interviewed somebody the other day about a, a tool very inexpensive that can lower blood pressure by nine points without medication. It's just a little breathing thing you do twice a day. Wow. It's unbelievable. And nobody knows. Like I didn't know about it until six months ago.

Speaker:

Right. Oh, that's interesting. And then I reached

Speaker 2:

out to the researcher that's done a lot of background and I'm talking to him. I'm thinking, I'm doing it for my running. That's amazing because it also benefits your VO two max. Oh, sure. But when he was talking about the blood pressure, I'm like, how do doctors not know this? Right. Because there's so much for doc. Our son's a doc and there's just so much that you gotta keep up with. You can't keep up with everything. And so that's our job. You and me. Yeah. Yeah. To get that out there so people can say, Hey Doc, what about this$65 tool I can do? Yeah. That might allow me to lower or get off my blood pressure meds.

Speaker:

Yeah. Boom. Let's do it. So, um, can I look like far ahead, like you're 60 now. Do you have any almost notions, almost 60. Do you have any notions of like, having a, a successor for the, a coaching catalyst or anything in the future? Do you wanna work five years? 10. You're probably wealthy. It's a enough question that you can retire anytime. I,

Speaker 2:

Suzanne and I have talked about this at length. Um, we are decreasing our hours. Okay. Uh, we have. A team of people that we've, we've promoted a couple folks into Amazing. Where they're, they're incredible what they do. So as long as they keep doing what they're doing, that, that's gonna work out well. But we've talked about do we, do we sell it? Do we close it? Do we turn it over? So it's the employees. Yeah. We love what we're doing, so nobody need to worry about it yet. Yeah. When, when we get up in the morning, if, let's say it was off the table tomorrow, sure. I could go help at Habitat for Humanity. It's a amazing organization. I would have fun doing that. Meet some, meet, meet people. But we've spent 19 years building a platform that matters. We spent 19 years creating a model that's making a difference.

Speaker 3:

Why would we not want to keep doing that? Yeah. I don't know. Now

Speaker 2:

maybe we don't wanna do it 70 hours a week, right? Or 40 hours a week. Right? Right. But at this point, what we've landed on is, yes, we want to decrease the hours we're spending on it. We've got two grandkids now. Our kids are all in Northern Colorado. Yeah. We love, love, love the time with them. I love to train, but

Speaker 3:

we're

Speaker:

just fortunate getting to do a cool thing's. What what I do with myself, kind

Speaker 2:

of. Yeah. We have plenty of things we'd wanna do, would it? But, but this matters, and that's so important for life. It's the pull that you require. It's the pull. Great. Yeah. Good callback. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about, there's four, we call'em the four catalysts. There's four catalysts in life and usually you end up trading one or more of them for another one. And it's time, money, health, and purpose. So people give up their time and their health to make more money. Or they sacrifice money for purpose. Sure. Or they give up. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you end up picking two at maybe three if you're lucky, but usually two of the four. Yeah. And you sacrifice the other two. And if we can get ourselves in a situation where we're able to, not optimize, but manage, get some time back. Four of those some,

Speaker:

yeah. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Well I think we're both blessed in doing things that we, we love. Yeah. You know, even local think tank and the podcast for me are both things For sure. That I really appreciate. Yeah. Um, I think I want to call a short break and then we're gonna jump in the time machine back to, to little Brad. Sounds good. See what he was up to. And we're back. So, um, now is the time when we traditionally jump in the time machine, um, 5-year-old Brad. That was

Speaker 2:

high tech sound effects everybody. Yes.

Speaker:

Yes. If, uh, if you didn't notice Yeah. I could be one of those guys that That's right. Practice a lot. Second career could be a pull. That's right. Could be a pull. So, uh, are you a Colorado guy? Always. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Grew up in Colorado. Went to grad school at Washington School of Medicine for physical therapy. Yeah. Do my PhD in, in the UK actually. But

Speaker:

we're grew up in Colorado. We're, we're sticking on 5-year-old. Brad, what was, what was your, what was your setting, because we talked about 16-year-old right? At the grocery store? Yeah. Lakewood, Colorado. Um, okay. All Lakewood spent

Speaker 2:

almost my entire through high school. Okay. Went

Speaker:

to CSU for undergrad. Alright. Um, talk to me about your family situation. You got, uh, brothers, sisters, one younger brother. Okay. Um, what was your folks doing? Were they entrepreneurs, accountants, accountant.

Speaker 2:

So opposite. Yeah. Right. We joke about, I thought I was gonna be an accountant. That was my first degree. Interesting. The plan at CSU. Okay. Okay. It was very good that I, oh my God. Did not know that. Oh God, this is terrible. That was not for me. Me too. I love numbers. So numbers work for me. They make sense. I can do it in my head, but I don't like that element. My dad was very good at it,

Speaker:

but that's not me. That was me too. Kind of like, I was really good at math, but accounting, like I've trained to get a c uh, those first rounds. So what did you do? So

Speaker 2:

I thought I was gonna be,

Speaker:

oh, you said biology? PE coach. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then I found this thing called physical therapy.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

And learned that I needed to get a degree in biology. Okay. And I was not good at science. Okay. But, and this kind of takes you back to the five-year-old Brad. The one thing that my folks really, I mean, they were good parents, but the biggest single. Thing that instilled in us, my brother's the same way is you work. Hmm. You work hard. Yeah. And so we were mowing lawns as kids delivering paper routes as kids bagging groceries at age 16. Like we, we didn't always play well. Yep. We didn't always enjoy all our time, but we got things done. Okay. And that's probably a thread. If we pull this thread, you'll see that continue to come out. Um, so I just dove into, okay, I guess I gotta get a degree in biology. I'm just gonna do whatever it takes. Yeah. And

Speaker:

dug in. Yeah. Were you athletic already? Like as that five, 10, 12-year-old kid? You said you started running real, it wasn't, you weren't really active until later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I loved basketball growing up. Okay. Uh, I was the number one singles player in high school for the tennis team. Alright. Um. So, yeah. So you were loved, loved to run, but I wasn't good. Nobody knew I was on the, I ran for CSU for a year, but nobody knew I was on the team.

Speaker 5:

So

Speaker 2:

you were on the back of the pack sometimes? Back of the pack. Always injured. Trying to overextend myself. And that's, that's probably what led to physical therapy school is I was injured constantly. Oh, interesting. Because I had the engine. Yeah. But I didn't have the background. And so stress fracture after stress fracture. So I go run with the leaders for a while and then get hurt. Huh? Be in the training room for three weeks, four weeks, come back, get hurt. So that led to physical therapy school.'cause I didn't even know what it was, but I'm in the training room all the time they're talking about. So it's interesting how that ties together. Well I'm

Speaker:

starting to wonder to myself if high performance athletes are almost like. Uh, doctors of themselves a little bit are curious enough about their own bodies that they can pull up short a little bit when they start to get close to that stress fracture or things. I've definitely heard a lot of high performance athletes talk about rehabbing and stuff like that, but I also, I suspect that the really elite ones can keep themselves out of trouble.

Speaker 3:

I don't know.

Speaker:

No. As you think about you don't know when an injury is gonna happen necessarily, or, well, and, and one of the, I don't know. I was just curious. I found myself curious. Hadn't really thought about that before.

Speaker 2:

One of the interesting research studies on mental toughness is oftentimes not our model, but the traditional model of mental toughness, you oftentimes have more injuries because you stupidly push through and say, I'm just gonna do this anyway. Yeah. When, if you'd had some wisdom, which I've lacked many times in my life Yeah. And said, well, I'll just do. Three more miles. Yeah, three more, four hundreds. Right. You know, whatever. Had I backed off

Speaker:

my knee just hurts a little bit, you know, I'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. I won't be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I've had nagging calf injuries mm-hmm Over the year. I've had a compound fracture from a motorcycle crash in high school and when I get injured a lot of times it's this's it, this cast gets kind of twitchy or whatever and I can feel it failing, you know? And if I, if I back off of it and, and just walk home that day and don't go out the next couple days, you know, and then I'm probably be okay, it'll kind of come back or whatever. So I, so I dunno, I was just curious if that was a common trait of people to be able to detect that, but it sounds like, I think it's all over the board. Your way isn't even really industry standard. The, the toughness correct way is more pushed through, is functional. Yeah. Is more common still. Right. So, um, so you were kind of. Doing your thing, becoming a physical therapist. Did you fall in love along the way here too? Yeah. Find a cute girl at CSU or something.

Speaker 2:

And there were a lot of cute girls at CSU, but uh, my wife, I saw her from across the room. She was helping with a job fair or something, our blood drive. And I remember we were in line waiting for our turn to give blood or check out jobs or whatever. And I remember leaning over from my friend Julian saying, I have got to meet that woman. Like that is the most beautiful smile I've ever seen in my life. And eventually we had one class together. She's occupational therapy on physical therapy. Okay. We had one class together. Neuroscience. And you shot your shot? That was our, yeah, I shot my shot and it worked out and I was head over heels from. The go, like I had a ring within six weeks. I made a lot of mistakes in rushing things. Right, right. But man, I was head and still am, head over heels with her 33 years later. And how did

Speaker:

she respond to your head over heels

Speaker 2:

ness? She is much wiser than I am. So she was, let's take my time, gather a little more information to Yeah, let's the, the jets here buddy. Uh, but she liked me and eventually we got married. It's been 33 years now. Nice. And where was she from around here too? Colorado girl? No, no, she, we, so we met at Wash U, so she came from Arkansas. Oh, okay. Came north. Yep, yep. And I came from Colorado. You west came north and west a little bit,

Speaker:

yeah. Okay, gotcha. So that was during your, your graduate degree time? That was in grad school. Okay, cool. Yep. And 33 years you said already or coming 33 years. Alright, congratulations. Yeah. Um, and do you guys have kids too? We have three kids. Okay. 30,

Speaker 2:

28 and 26. Okay. Two grandkids.

Speaker:

So you've got an empty nest for a few years now? Empty nest.

Speaker 2:

Nest, yeah. We live on 35 acres here on the west side of town. Nice. And oh, I love it. Moved here. That, uh, dog

Speaker:

Australian Shepherd, but no, no cows or llamas or no goat milk for you guys? Not yet. Maybe after you, uh, have a next chapter. I dunno. We'll see. Really your thing. There's no strong pole there. We'll see. Chickens don't have chickens, don't you? We'll see. They're just targets for coyotes and Exactly. Owls. And we do have that. And raccoons and foxes. Exactly. So, um. For you, what is a normal day like? I'm sure you have a lot of different days. Mm-hmm. But when you don't have like an engagement going, like how do you spend your, your, your weeks even if, if it makes it easier to blow it out a little bit?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I run about 50 to 60 miles a week. Okay. Three

Speaker:

hours in the gym, 10 hours at a chunk or something like that? Or 10 miles.

Speaker 2:

I mean, yeah. Pro it's five days of running, so I average 10 to 12 miles a day. Okay. Yeah. Uh, usually with a long, like a 16 to 18 mile day. Eight mile day. Gotcha. One push day and a couple easy ones. Exactly. Okay. Uh, three days in the gym, we built a garage gym, so that's very low friction. I just walk out my door and it's right there. Um, and that's like a legs day and a chest day, kind of like normal folk or? Yeah. It's more of a broad base. Okay. To support the running and the fact that I am turning 60, that your strength reduces 1% per year after the age of 40, all things being equal. Yeah. We don't have to allow things to be equal. Right. That's your choice. Yep. That's not my choice. So, um, so that, I'll, I'll jump on the bike once, once a week, just as a recovery spin on a Wednesday. Um, work-wise, I, I like to journal in the morning. Um, my face is very important to me, so I may read some scripture, read some other types of informational insights from some author commentaries or whatever. Exactly. Um, yeah. And then I'm at my desk, um,

Speaker:

doing the things. Doing the things, all the things that need to be done. Yeah. Uh, how about that face? Was that, uh, with you from the, uh, early childhood or It's spent most

Speaker 2:

of my life. Yeah. I, I think I've. So Susan and I talk about we want to grow old together, not get old together. Okay. And, and I think that's a, an unusual thing for people, whether it's in their faith, in their life, in their careers, it tends to shrink. We tend to glean onto things that we are like, Ooh, I like that. So I'm going with that the rest of the way, west, rest of the way. And I think whether it's our faith, whether it's our fitness, whether it's our travel, whether it's our relationships with other people, connections in the community, we, we want to expand that circle. And so we're constantly reading different books and stretching and going, ah, that's different than what I grew up with. That makes a lot of sense. So it, it's molding all the time, but yes, it's been a part of my life my entire life. Fair enough. Yeah. How do you put that in

Speaker:

action in the community? Do you have a mission? A lot of different ways, mission pursuits?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. We're, we're part of a, a church family Mill City church here in Fort Collins. Okay. Yep. Love that. Um, I run a, run it, I lead a men's group. We call it an FAC. It's Friday afternoon club. Okay. And it's, it's for second half of life. So we're, it's, we call, not, not done yet, and we're talking about what does this second half look like? So it's a bunch of guys 40, early to mid forties through mid sixties. And I just put together some different, yeah. Early forties, you gotta be a little bit

Speaker:

pessimistic. Right.'cause that would mean you're only like 84 by the time you're gone. Well, second

Speaker 2:

half of life. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If they average, average but you're early

Speaker:

42, you're like Sure. Yeah. Probably in the second half of, I'm almost there. I think I'll jump in with these old guys and see what happens.

Speaker 2:

But it's, it's been fascinating. Cool. We've been doing it for about a year and the conversations, Kurt, it's just, it's so interesting. So many people are in the same boat. They're, they get to this phase where they've done all the right things.'cause your life is somewhat scripted from age five through 60 or so, if you're fortunate or, or 40 could be at, right. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, of, you know, you go to school, you graduate, you go to the next school, graduate job, get a better job. Job, you get married. Wife. Wife with kids. Yeah. Kids, a house, a car, whatever. And then all of a sudden you wake up in your fifties and sixties and you go, right, this is what I've dreamed of. And that's terrifying. I don't know what to do. Yeah. Interesting. So that's our

Speaker:

conversation. Huh. And it's been so interesting. Well, it's, I don't know if you've. Taking the time to look up local, think tank or what I do for my day job at all. Um, so it's a peer advisory organization. I don't know if you've like, heard of Vista or CAB or those kind of things. So we do that. Yeah. And, and except the, the difference in our business model is our facilitators are business veterans that have kind of been there, done that don't need a job. Perfect. And part of my great joy is that it's so purposeful, fulfilling for them. Yeah. Like, you know, idle hands of the devils playground and stuff. And it's just so, you know, they don't wanna start another business necessarily, but they don't want to have nothing to do with their brains either. And so it's a really,

Speaker 2:

they're stepping into something they do well. Yeah. I think that's, that's one of the encouragement and you've done such a good job with that, with what, the way you've set this up is people end up filling their time. I need

Speaker 3:

to stay busy. Everyone tells me I got to stay busy. Right. No, that's not the answer. Find this and live out of that.

Speaker:

Yeah. So I dig it. Um. What more would you wanna share? Uh, from a like, family perspective or growing up years? Any formative, um, elements, you know, members of the family. I wanna shout out to Uncle Joe'cause he was the only one that ever ran in my family.

Speaker 2:

You know, I, I think that work thread is probably the biggest constant that it, it was, it was valuable and yeah. It's now a struggle because as we talk it's harder to turn when you're turn to producing. Yeah. Yeah. For 60 years your measures are on. How do you turn that off? Yeah. Yeah. So that's an area that, that I'm trying to figure out. And I'm grateful that my folks got that rolling and I could have used some more balance. Maybe that's your

Speaker:

next thesis is, uh, how to turn that motor down a little bit. What It's, I think, I think I'm done with college. Fair enough. Do you wanna play the ping pong ball game? Sure. So there's three, or I have you grab out three of these balls. All righty. And, uh, you can just grab'em and, and hold onto'em. And I'll take this back. Each one is connected to a random question on my list, and so, all right, everybody, we got 16, 30, and 10, so look out. Okay. We'll start with 16. Who has had the most significant influence on your life? Oh, that's easy. My wife, Susanna, is, I already knew the answer

Speaker 2:

to that one. Yeah, it, it's, she and I are incredibly different and I was on an interview the other day and, and kind of similar type ish question came up and yeah, I, I'm in love with her, but I also have so much respect for her and she. It brings the best out of me. So, yeah. Yeah, that's

Speaker:

a pretty inspiring thing to have about a person. That's pretty cool. Right? Yeah. Um, what was the next one? 16, 30. 30 and 10. 30 and 10. Describe your first

Speaker 2:

kiss as 30. Well, that is not too exciting. I can remember it. Um, Missy, no, I can't remember the person's name. I'm gonna get in trouble if I mess up the name. But it was your typical, because that's, I hear about it anyway. At, at the a party, at the front table, I mean at the, at the door after date. Okay. And just quickly, I think I missed and I don't think she was much better. And so we kind of stumbled through it and we're like, all right, there you go. We got one.

Speaker:

So yeah, it was nothing to write home about. That's good. Um, what's a hobby or skill you've always wanted to pick up but haven't yet? Maybe something to fill some of that time that you're gonna be freeing up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I, I love music. I played the saxophone growing up. Okay. Um, we've got a piano and I've kicked around. Okay. You maybe at some point pick that up. Would you wanna

Speaker:

maybe be like in a old guy band? There's a lot of old guy bands, especially with doctors, uh, and stuff in them around Fort Collins here. I don't know. You probably know some quick question.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It, it's, it's there, but it's not there. It's not So it's not pulling you yet, it's kind of hanging around

Speaker:

Yeah. As a maybe, but maybe when it's more important. Exactly. Kinda. I dig it. Exactly. Um, do you wanna talk about any current events? What's going on in the world today?

Speaker 2:

I

Speaker:

mean, the

Speaker 2:

obvious one is we're, we're, we're stuck in our tribes. Hmm. And I think that was one of the challenge questions I asked the guys in the FAC group last week was to draw a pie chart of your community. Hmm. And then think of. How many or what percentage of those individuals in your community are part of your tribe? So your faith community, your fitness community, your educational, same, your, and how many are outside your tribe? Sure. Because we're so engrossed in our tribes that we're not listening to anyone outside of our tribes. And it's so valuable to sit down with people to disagree with you. Yeah. And be curious. Not sit down with them to debate'em. Sure. Not to sit down with'em, to change their mind. To be curious

Speaker 3:

and say, Kurt, I don't understand how in the world you could believe that, but I want to know why this

Speaker 2:

matters to you. Yeah. And then shut up and listen. If we could do more of that, I think we'd really,

Speaker 3:

I think things would get better.

Speaker:

Maybe I wonder about it a little bit. I. I consider myself a little bit tribalist. Like I try not to have too many flags. You know, I, I've got the American flag in my, on my front of my house and in the back of my house and on one of my fences. Um, but aside from that, I'm a little bit, you know, I'm definitely conservative. I'm a libertarian kind of going way back or whatever, if you want to like, think about base. Sure. What always made sense to me, um, but I'm not, like, I was just listening to kind of an update on that, uh, mom Donny guy, the, the socialist Marxist guy. Mm-hmm. That's probably gonna be New York's next mayor. Mm-hmm. And he's pulling away and like, I don't know, like some of the things I've definitely heard him talking about even recently is like, oh boy, that's a different tribe than the one that I right believe in. And I think, you know, as an economics, I was an economic student. Okay. And like the risk of the financial Yep. Epicenter of the world leaving New York City within. Or even going to Tokyo or something crazy, you know, um, is high unintended consequences. Yeah. The unintended consequences of a, of a, a tribe, like his winning the, the mayor's race in a city of 20 million is significant. Right? Yeah. No doubt. Potentially. Yeah. Uh, especially when you rely on tax collections on rich people as much as New York does. Exactly. Exactly. Any reflections on that? I mean, like what? Like listening to him, is that gonna improve it really? Um, as

Speaker 2:

there's some reason why he's resonating, right. And so I think the listening may not change my perspective in terms of economics, but it would be valuable for me to understand at least why he's resonating with 50. Why is he resonating 50 people?

Speaker:

Exactly. Well, there's something's to that, a lot of it, right? Like

Speaker 2:

well, and, and I think it's the have and haves. Not totally. We, we've created, it's not. A little, if you look at the seventies and things were not great in the seventies, let's not pretend they were Sure. But in terms of the differentiation from between the haves and have nots financially, it was very different than it is now. Right, right. And that's probably a big part of why it's resonating so much is when you, well, yeah,

Speaker:

when you don't have anything. I wonder what the, I guess, you know, when I think about people in New York, I kind of think about like really young, smart, upwardly mobile people that want to, you know, get rich on Wall Street or whatever. And so, but I guess there's probably also like generations and generations of people that grew up a hundred percent in the rough neighborhoods and stuff, and they don't see much more of a path than we do. They're voting too. And real estate is, is unattainable for anybody that grew up there. Yep. Kinda like it is here in Fort Collins, but worse.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker:

So intriguing. Yeah. That's a, and so I guess to turn it to, and I know your health and wellness and performance coach, not an, not an economist, but like, is there things that the country really can do to help make it easier for those, um, youngers Like I've, you know, that, that feel Yeah. That be a fun conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I, I think in of one is super interesting. So in of one, in a research study is not dependable because it's a one-off. So it's saying in of one means, one example, okay, we're gonna take Brad, we're gonna do these things, we're gonna try some things and we're gonna measure the outcome of doing that. Whereas a a an actual study, you've got a sample size of 50 or 5,000 or 40,000 and a meta-analysis looks at multiple studies and collects all of those together and says across all these studies. So that's meta that, so that's, it's kinda like three tiers. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the in of one. Conversation is super interesting. It, and somebody's gonna challenge me on this, so let's have this conversation sometime. Yeah. It's the local experience, but the, I think almost anyone could improve their lot by making a few key decisions.

Speaker:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Now it's much easier to complain about it. It's much easier to say, well, the economy. Right, right. Well, the housing. Yeah. Well, the job situation, well, the blah. Okay, that's fine. Generically for the country, for your city, your region, whatever. But let's talk about you. Yeah. Your situation. What are you doing with your day? What are you doing with your education? What are you doing with your finances? Where are you spending your money? Mm-hmm. Where are you spending your time? Where are you investing your energy? And let's take you, let's take this one person. Mm-hmm. And let's try some specific things with more wisdom instead of just whining. Mm-hmm. And I bet your life turns out pretty good. So on a global level or on a, the

Speaker:

aggregation of all those people,

Speaker 2:

I get it. There's a lot of problems in the world, right? But for Joe or Sally, I think we can help their life get better if they're willing to do those things versus just whining about it.

Speaker:

Yeah. We'll end the result of all those things is that, and what's kind of encouraging about that is you've probably, you mentioned you've coached tens of thousands or maybe hundreds over thousands, thousands of of people right now. Right? And in some percentage of them, right, you would probably overstate it for a, you know, some significant percentage of them. They've actually got significantly better outcomes at work, at home, in their bank account, in their retirement account, in their satisfaction with life, right? And so if you take a bunch of NF ones times 330 million, right, or whatever, then then things actually do get better.

Speaker 2:

Well, and even if you just take a handful of'em, because then people see'em and they go. Huh? Wait a minute. They, they're doing really well and I'm not, yeah. What are they doing? Oh, oh, okay. So,

Speaker:

and does that end of one, kind of get back to that move fuel connection? It might, it might, like, maybe thats your starting point. Those four things is a good place to start.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. If you're struggling or looking at your finances and, and, and just, you know, college is getting a lot of, we're in a college town here, it's getting a lot of, oh, it's not worth it. Right. Right. You know, it's overpriced. Yep. It, it's expensive. I get it. But there are options. And the pro, I think the, I think we could fix the college situation for many people, not everyone, but for many people by requiring that the individual and the school sign a one page business plan. Before they start getting tuition that says, I know what I'm gonna make when I get out. Right? If I do this, this career right. And I understand what my payments are gonna be, because you have these Totally. It's just stupid money, right? Like I get if your parents are, are trust, you know, they got all this money for you and they're gonna spend 300 grand a year to send you to x, y, Z school, that's fine. Sure. You, you won the lottery.

Speaker:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But if not, don't tell me about, oh, it was my dream to go to x, y, Z school. I don't care.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

It's a$300,000 cost that you cannot pay. Right. I don't care if you want a Ferrari. It was your dream. Can you buy a Ferrari? If you can't, then don't buy the Ferrari. Buy the thing that you can afford. Yeah. Go to the community college for two years. Transfer in. Mm-hmm. Pay tuition for two years instead of four years. Do You're probably right.

Speaker:

If you get, if you can't work, pencil it out on the back of the napkin. Exactly. It probably doesn't work. I was thinking about my wife actually. She's got a degree in social work great at CSU. Great degree. She got outta college and immediately made$23,000 a year or something for, you know, 10 years or something. But thankfully, thanks Dale and Suzanne. Her parents, they paid for most of her college expenses, but had she leveraged herself and borrowed$90,000 to get her five year degree in social work. Right. Um, and then went to go live with two other girls making 23 grand a year in Fort Collins. She'd have been starving to death. Totally.

Speaker 2:

I, I mean, my folks got me through undergrad. Okay. At CSU. Right. Grad school's on my own. Many of my fellow students, we all were taking out some loans. I worked as, as we talked about from day one and to save for this, so I was able to cover one year of grad school, but the second year I did need loans. My fellow students, many of them were getting this loans and they saw it as free money, right. So they were buying a new car. They were staying in a, I slept on a mattress in a floor in downtown St. Louis with two other roommates. I, and so did my roommate, like Right. We made that choice. They made choices. Yeah. And, and then when, when I graduated, I ate potatoes every day. I would build, you know, crazy meals in a crockpot that I could get 15 meals out of. So it'd cost me 80 cents. I would ride my bike to work whenever I could. Right. So that, and, and we paid off that loan within two

Speaker 3:

years.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Interesting that some people are still paying off. Sure. So it's, it's, things are hard. I get it. And I'm in a spoiled situation in my life right now. Things have worked out pretty well. Sure. But in of won it folks,

Speaker:

what can I do differently today? Yeah. Well and one thing is spend less every month than you earn.

Speaker 2:

It's pretty straightforward. You

Speaker:

know, even if it's a hundred bucks. Exactly. 50 bucks. Exactly. Your life will change in six to 12 months if you start saving a little bit. Yep. Need to have or nice to have. Yeah. Big difference. Right? Too many, too many Nice to haves. Yeah. Uh, being, being spent on. Um, I'm ready for the loco experience if you are. Alright, let's loco baby. That's a crazy experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners.

Speaker 2:

The first one that pops in mind about a decade ago, a buddy, in fact many of you probably know him, Jerry Shemel, the announcer for the Colorado Rockies. He sent me an email and we knew each other, but we didn't know each other well, he sent me an email and said, you want to grab lunch sometime? And I literally thought he was selling some multi-level marketing thing on the side. Okay. But I was like, he seems like a good dude. Sure. So we sat down, he, it was worse. It wasn't multi-level marketing. He had had this dream of doing the two person race across America where you race on a bike. Two people. Oh, tandem bike from, no, no, no. Back and forth. So one of you on, one of you on, yeah. Yeah. Kinda like the Wild West relay where it's Forth. Forth. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And you start in San Diego, California, you, you end in Indianapolis, Maryland. And it is a 24 7 race. And he had this idea of, I want you to be my teammate. What'd you think about

Speaker:

it? And like, did you know him from that time you were elite training for the Triess and stuff like that? Not really, or I knew because you weren't even that kind of a vice clip. Right. Knew you were a runner.

Speaker 2:

Mostly I was a triathlete. Right. And he knew that. He heard me speak once and he heard the story of doing Conan and that kinda stuff. Okay. He's like. He can at least train, he's not a cyclist, but he can at least train and he's at least ridden 120 miles, even if he hasn't ridden 3000 miles. So he asked me, we are at a place in life where like our kids could be on the crew. So we, Suzanne and I talked about it and we decided this is a once in a lifetime. Yeah. So I said, let's do it Jerry. We got the sponsors, we started building the stuff. We started training and six weeks before the race I was out doing some time trial work at Chatfield Reservoir down south. And on the third, it was three by 10 mile. I remember it like it was yesterday and the ground was a little bit wet. And I remember when I turned around I thought, oh Brad, be careful. Don't wreck. You're only six weeks out from this race. Yeah, well I took off on the third one and there are a bunch of geese in Chatfield, like there are sure reservoirs all the time. And I'd passed thousands of geese in my life and one of them took off. Into my bike. Oh, no. And I woke up the EM Sure. T was there. Um, oh, dang. They like, I woke up

Speaker:

and they brought me too. Oh, so you're like going past these geese at speed.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I was 30 miles an hour at that point.

Speaker:

Yeah. Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, I've done that too, but never thought that one, like fly into my, they don't,

Speaker 2:

that never happens. I've done it for decades, like yeah. A lot. So I had broken eight bones. Okay. Uh, my pelvis, three ribs, holy crap. My clavicle. And we didn't know if it was gonna work. Jerry was literally phoning people like, coop may not be able to do this any chance. Who you GT. Right. So they, they, they did surgery on the cla. So

Speaker:

hair lines

Speaker 2:

or are you putting

Speaker:

pins in here

Speaker 2:

and stuff? Uh, had surgery the next day. Okay. I, I had some nice connections. We were coaching an orthopedic center in Denver and so I called one of the orthopedic surgeons that I knew. I was like, what? You know. Gonna need some of your Titan. I need some help. So they were great. They got me in the next day. They got surgery on the clavicle. By having the clavicle with that, that metal in it, it separated the ribs enough that I could lean down

Speaker 3:

into the aero bike

Speaker 2:

and get in position about three days later. So I'm back on the bike. We didn't know about the pelvis yet, and it was uncomfortable. So we did an MR. I found the pelvis was fractured, but it was not displaced. Oh. So the, my medical docs, there were three of'em, a physiatrist and two orthopedic surgeons. They huddled up, looked at the MRIs, looked at the x-rays, looked at the bone scans, and they said, okay, here's the deal, Brad, you can ride, but you have to ride indoors because if you slip on some sand, this thing is just gonna shatter. So for the last six weeks of training. Wow. I was in our basement on a trainer. Oh. So that sucks. And, and I would do. Oh boy. No, I don't, I don't mind it. You don't mind it? Okay. No. I mean, yes, I'd rather be outside. Right. Um, but that did get feel a little crazy. And then six weeks later we were racing. We took off from San Diego, California. We ended up winning the race. They did a movie about it. Whoa. What's the movie? Godspeed. The Race Across America.

Speaker:

Alright. I'll definitely watch that. Yeah. It, it was cool. It, I'm like, I'm imagining x-ray because I'm not an anatomy guy. I'm not a physical therapist, but a pelvis is almost like a moose horn or something. Mm-hmm. Across your body. Right? Yeah. So you had like a big, you have a three crack fracture. It was like ready to Oh, a couple, but as long

Speaker 2:

as I didn't bounce or fall or anything like that. Land on your hip in any way. Exactly. Oh, dang. It would stay in place. And you won. We won. Yeah. How painful was that? People ask me that. I didn't really think about it. Yeah, because I had six weeks. So again, good fortune had it happened two weeks before. Couldn't have done it. Yeah. Had it happened 10 weeks before, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but six weeks I wa But, but Kurt, that's what led to the mental toughness stuff, because I wasn't where I wanted to be physiologically because I couldn't train at the same level had I not had that wreck. Sure. So it became more of a mental challenge

Speaker:

than it

Speaker 2:

would

Speaker:

have

Speaker 2:

been.

Speaker:

Interesting. By the way, I don't know if you've listened to it, but there's a podcast that Joe Rogan did with some famous actor that got run over by like a snow removal machine or something. It got all mangled up. And then came back in like 18 months only because of a amazing training regimen and stuff. And you, if you haven't heard his story, you would probably enjoy it. Interesting. I can't remember his name'cause I don't care about stuff like that. Yeah. Really. But the story was great. Yeah. Uh, your podcast is called again, the Coaching Lab. The coaching lab. And that is, uh, what, occasional weekly, monthly? Yeah. I think we've had

Speaker 2:

360 episodes so far. So, okay. So you're ahead

Speaker:

of me. I'm at two 30. You'll be like 2 33 or 2 34 or something like that. Um, so yeah, you're actually, you're outpacing me. Besides, you're not only ahead of me, you're outpacing me. You're pulling away. But we both love it, so I'm glad with that. Great opportunity. Thanks for being here. Yeah, it was fun.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Curt Bear

Host