Forging a New Chapter: Do Hard Things Returns with Brian Larson

Forging a New Chapter: Do Hard Things Returns with Brian Larson

The Do Hard Things Podcast is back and we are kicking off Season 5 with a brand new chapter. After years of leading conversations on resilience, mindset, and performance, Siegfried Jay Tiegs is joined by new cohost Brian Larson, a CrossFit coach, breathwork facilitator, nutrition specialist, and movement expert.

Together, Jay and Brian are bringing you raw, unfiltered conversations that blend inspiration with real tactics to help you strengthen both mind and body. In this episode, they share the vision for the future of the podcast, the story behind teaming up, and what you can expect in the weeks ahead.

You will discover how the Do Hard Things ethos is evolving with a stronger focus on mindset, movement, breathwork, and community and how you can be part of the journey.

Whether you are a long time listener or brand new to the tribe, this episode sets the tone for what is next: practical strategies, powerful stories, and a community built on forging resilience together.

Learn more and join the Do Hard Things Nation Wellness Academy at www.dohardthingsnation.com.

Welcome to the Do Hard Things Podcast with your host Jay Tiegs, Are you ready to amplify and improve your life? Then you are in the right place.  On this podcast we have unfiltered conversation with inspiring people who take on challenges and share with us, the wisdom from their journey. We talk about how doing hard things adequately enable all of us to deal with life's struggles and challenges and ultimately improve the quality of our lives. 

Big things are happening inside Do Hard Things Nation, and I want you with us.

Want more support? Join the Do Hard Things Wellness Academy. Four coaches. Weekly mindset training, movement, breathwork, meditation, book club, and challenges. Join as a member here:
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And don’t forget—the Do Hard Things 5K, 9.11 Mile Run, and 9.11 Mile Ruck is happening in September. There’s even a virtual option—so no excuses. Sign up here:
👉 dohardthingsnation.com/events

Transcript

Welcome to Do Hard Things

Speaker 1 0:43

All right, welcome back everybody to the do hard things podcast. I'm Siegfried JT. Okay, we've got a long. I got a story to to share with you around that. But uh, hey, I'm an endurance athlete, veteran high performance mindset coach and we've spent a little bit of time away and I have, I feel like I've been in. You've watched star Wars where they got the. Uh, luke Skywalker goes to the, goes to the planet with little green guy Yoda and he's going to learn his Jedi training. That's where I feel like I've been the last 18 months and I'm finally back to continue my journey as a Jedi master and I'm excited to relaunch the Do Hard Things program and I'm here with my brother from another mother, brian Larson. How you doing, brian, good man, how?

Speaker 2 1:27

are Brian Good man? How are you?

Speaker 1 1:29

Good man, Good to have you here. Who are you?

Speaker 2 1:31

Yeah, so I'm Brian Larson. I am a certified CrossFit coach, nutrition and movement expert and just a guy who truly believes the gym is the training ground for a better life outside of it.

Speaker 1 1:44

Yeah, that's awesome, man, and together, this is the Do Hard Things podcast and it's the go-to podcast for everyday high performers who want to get stronger, you want to improve your mind, improve your body. We blend real stories, science-backed strategies, real, raw, relevant conversations to help you push past your limits, recover smarter and really gain clarity on what you want from life and help you live that life. Achieve that and live a life that you're proud of inside the gym, on and off the trail, and then on and off the in and out of the gym, and that's what it's all about.

Speaker 2 2:22

Yeah, I think that's great and I think this season what everybody can expect are just practical tools that you can actually use. Just real talk about challenges Sig and I face but we all face and then hopefully, some amazing guests, elite athletes and coaches to everyday people doing extraordinary things.

Speaker 1 2:43

Yeah, well, I think, from this podcast perspective, if you go back into the history of it, you know we've we've had the pleasure of interviewing some prominent people and also many like everyday people. It's just been like a mix of very diverse people, of backgrounds. We the aim of this podcast is always to be real, raw and relevant, and so we just tie it all together here in the Do Hard Things community. Now the latest and greatest is we're launching the Do Hard Things wellness community and in this project, this is where you get to connect in a have a community where we're going to be offering mindset coaching, challenges, physical movement, mindset, you know, personal development can feel really, really lonely.

Introducing the Wellness Community

Speaker 1 3:37

I mean, let's be real, most people are squarely plugged into the matrix and I mean I remember when I was in the military I'd come in, you know, off the weekend and Monday morning everyone's talking about football and I'm talking about, like man, I just I read this great book called Think and Grow Rich and everyone would talk about football and I felt like really lonely and so you need a place to where you can like connect with other like-minded people, fill your cup so you can go back out in the wilderness and be that lighthouse in the world, and that's what the Do heart thing, uh, wellness community, is all about. It's really about amplifying mindset and movement, and we'll we'll do a deep dive into what that means. But, um, but yeah, that's where we're at.

Speaker 2 4:22

I yeah, it's funny Cause I I kind of had the same experience of wait. I didn't watch that sporting event, I was reading some uh, what was like Joe disp, joe dispensa's book. Um, it's escaping me, breaking the habit of being yourself and people are like what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 4:32

so I feel you and I don't want to disparage anyone that engages in that, but it's just like I just felt like I was just cut from a different cloth and and it's. It can be a challenge to find like-minded people like that, but this is what it's all about yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 2 4:46

Uh, I I think like the thought from from moving forward. I it's the, the concept of as we do this. And as for the listeners, if somebody is training for the first 5k or they're setting prs, they're going for a pr in the gym, or the concept of you're just sick of settling for good enough, I think they're in the right spot. Like, this is the place. These are the things we're going to talk about and that's where we go just go from here and just and show up a little unpolished, because I think that's how we are sometimes, but I love it, it's authentic.

Speaker 1 5:35

Yeah, and I think, if it's getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and knowing that, there's another level and that's what I've always tried to find things and challenges and create a community that's scalable to everyone. Whether you're a teenager or you're someone you know just chronologically, you know, 80, 90 years old, you're still getting after, you're still looking for something Like finding opportunities to sharpen your saw through uncomfortable things, and I think that's. There's just been a lot of life lessons that I've learned from doing hard things in a controlled environment and that's how we get better. So season five starts now. Here we go.

Speaker 1 6:15

So before we dive in, what we're really going to do today, this is going to be a fairly short episode. We're kind of up against the clock today, but we just wanted to kind of briefly introduce ourselves. In coming episodes Brian is going to interview me, like do a deep dive interview, and I'm going to do a deep dive interview with Brian, and then in future episodes, brian and I are both going to co-host episodes together. Sometimes it might be me interviewing someone, brian might be interviewing someone. Maybe it's a monologue, but we're just going to kind of go with it. But that's what you can kind of expect going forward in the season. So before we get into that, I just want to make this is. I guess this would be our sponsored moment, right? So most people wait until this is feeling really rough, man, I feel like I've definitely been away from the mic for 18 months.

Speaker 2 7:04

Good, good it's authentic man.

Speaker 1 7:07

Yes, most people wait until life punches them in the face before they get serious about their health, mindset and purpose, but this is where the Do Hard Things Wellness community comes in. This is where everyday people become high performers physically, mentally and emotionally. We have weekly mindset coaching calls, training plans, challenges, breathwork clinics, meditations. This is a tribe that refuses to settle for average. So your next level isn't going to wait and just magically pop up in your life. You got to go get after it right, and so if you're looking for a tribe of like-minded people, this message resonates with you Then I encourage you to go to do hard things nationcom and check out the do hard things nation wellness community. We got merch and a bunch of other things, upcoming schedule of events but go check out do our things nationcom to learn more and uh, and that's it.

Speaker 1 7:57

So all right, brian man, it's good to have you here yeah, good to be here, man, good stuff so yeah, so we're gonna keep this episode fairly short, but, um, I guess, I guess we can just talk about. Let's just talk about how we met and what, what we're doing together. So how do we meet? How did we meet?

Speaker 2 8:15

it's through through our women. It was I don't remember at what stage, but it's been over five years now that your wife and my girlfriend have had that longstanding friendship and introduced us, and I've told you this story many times. I was like oh, after the first meeting, I had this intuition that said you're going to work with that guy at some point. And here we are.

Speaker 1 8:41

Yeah, we knew it, we had that conversation, we had very similar interest mindset movement. We're talking about coaching. I remember that you had expressed interest in being a coach and I was still fairly new on my coaching journey and, yeah, there's definitely some synergy there and we've been really good friends. And then there was definitely some synergy there and we've been really good friends. And then in this last year, man, we've both we, we we've both uh, went down the rabbit hole in our own personal development journey, uh, truly unplugging from the, the matrix I think the matrix was a documentary, but we've had some pretty deep experiences.

Finding Like-Minded People

Speaker 2 9:16

Yeah, I would agree. It's funny Cause I I, every time I watch that movie, I conclude oh, that's just a documentary, it's so true. And that whole concept of unplugging I think that's probably what the common thread that we shared is that we both were unplugging at the same time. And then those final pieces for me came in, some of our time together of just going, yeah, this is it, this is the mission. The mission is what we're talking about right now Helping everyday people get to a new level physically, mentally, spiritually, all of it.

Speaker 1 9:49

Yeah, absolutely. And so we, we, as we were talking and collaborating about what we see for the future and just serving other people. We're just like you know what teaming up like one plus one equals 10 in this situation. You know, I've got a background in endurance sports. I'm a veteran, I, you know, certified high performance coach, and then you have a deep background in, just you know, being a CrossFit coach movement.

Speaker 1 10:14

Like you're, an expert in nutrition, we're both going through this breathwork certification, which was not on my bingo card for this year, if I'm honest. It's been amazing, though, absolutely amazing, and really eager to roll it out Once again, going to the concept of rolling out challenging people and things, because breathwork is one of those things. It's an uncomfortable thing to do but the benefit of it is absolutely transformative, and we've been on this journey together and we're really eager to roll that out in the wellness community.

Speaker 2 10:45

Yeah, yeah, it has been interesting and it was not on my bingo card either, but I had been doing some Wim Hof breathing for a couple of years and love Wim Hof and wasn't doing the cold exposure which I got really introduced to recently. I knew there was something to the breath work and so when I found this training resource I just knew that was it, and it's kind of blown my mind with some of the techniques and how it's made me feel, how my body feels, how I'm connecting more with my body and my brain, like all the pieces are syncing together better than they ever have.

Speaker 1 11:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I had dabbled with cold. My first cold exposure on a regular basis was through 75 hard, and this podcast was founded on that program. But when you go into phase two, you got to do the five minute cold shower and I remember the first time, the first few times. Like this is absolutely miserable, this is absolutely horrible. Now a five minute cold plunge in 45 degree water is my daily routine. In fact, sometimes I do it multiple times a day. It's so refreshing and so good.

Speaker 1 11:52

And someone might be listening to this like, oh my gosh, you're, you're, you're. I can never do that. Well, if you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right, but I am telling you it has been an absolute game changer for me personally. And then, incorporating the breath work on top of that, I dabbled with Wim Hof. I'm like this is so uncomfortable, I'm feeling lightheaded. Why would you do this? What are the benefits? But now that I'm doing it regularly and consistently and I understand the purpose of each type of breath man, absolute game changer. Like you want to talk about Jedi mind trick, like I can get triggered by something and immediately put space between me and my thoughts and and reset my nervous system, so I respond versus reacting. In addition to it helps me in regards to my athletic performance. Like there's so many benefits which will go down on a deep dive, I'm sure yeah, it's all that.

Speaker 2 12:37

It reminds me just of the same thing you're doing in the gym. It's hormesis, it's positive stress on the body to teach it how to do something different later. And it's funny because what you said makes me think of your reaction, or that Viktor Frankl quote that says, um, oh, I always forget it in this space, or there's a space between stimulus and response, and in that space lies your freedom. Yes, and when something triggers me, if I take a step back and just go, all right, this made me feel this way, I can react this way, but I'm not going to. I'm going to react this way, and it's like all of these things teach you how to take that step back and respond differently.

Speaker 1 13:18

Yes, and it's still a work. I'm probably not. I'm a mindset coach and I'm still. I caught myself. Last week I got really upset about something. I went out in my garage and I I kicked something my wife's like what I had to go like for a walk and I felt like man, I just felt like a little child. Again it pops up, but those moments are few and far between now because of the tools. But sometimes I mean we're all a work in progress. But these tactics work and the more that you can, the more awareness that you have and the more tools that you have, you begin to really really change. And then there's moments where you're not your best self, become fewer and fewer and you can truly heal yourself.

The Power of Breathwork

Speaker 1 13:58

Yes, for sure, and something that we've talked about significantly and something I've learned about myself and my own journey is I do hard things because I mean. This mantra came from my childhood, when I came from a emotionally and physically abusive upbringing and I found cross country and I'm like man. If I just do this hard thing, you know, my life is infinitely better. And over my life, you know, being in the military, I've always leaned into that mantra, but I found that I was escaping by doing hard things, like doing these really long bike rides and these big challenges, which I love them.

Speaker 1 14:32

But what I learned about myself is and we've talked about this extensively is the nervous system.

Speaker 1 14:39

What I was doing was I was basically escaping the pain of my day-to-day life by engaging in running or some type of race, which there's nothing wrong with that. But when I was done, it was just like, well, now I'm back in my, in my day-to-day life, and I'm oh, here we go again. I'm back to, I'm just on edge in my, my, I'm in fight or flight all the time, and what I have learned is to regulate myself so I can get into, rest and digest and that parasympathetic nervous system and deregulate out of that, and I think that's the. This is where the next evolution of doing hard things I think it is prudent to get up, lift weights, run, do all the physical things, but then you need to learn how to rest and recover and and one of the hardest things I've learned is to sit in stillness and be with myself. So that's the new evolution of the do hard things communities. That's what we teach in the. Wellness is how to activate your nervous system and then how to deregulate and be with yourself.

Escaping vs. Regulating

Speaker 2 15:41

Yeah. So it's interesting because in CrossFit a CrossFit has a line that says CrossFit's the cure, and they're absolutely right for people who are struggling with different diseases like type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension. They're overweight. It's a great cure for those things if you show up and do the work. But it can also be a disease in the standpoint that when people are so committed to it, they're escaping their pain and they show up there and punish their bodies and never D or D. They they're over. They're over like activated, and they don't come into that parasympathetic. They don't get the rest. The body breaks down, yep, and so I'm.

Speaker 2 16:27

I see it in the gym all the time, people, they just show up and go hard all the time. But we are, we're not made to go hard all the time. We can't. We have to have those times where we reset our nervous system to it's all neurologic load right. If I go and work out really hard and then I have a fight with Laney or something stressful at work, my brain is just nerve fibers. Central nervous system. Load appears the same to the brain and we have to teach it how to rest and how to get into that state of relaxation too.

Speaker 1 17:01

Yeah, it's the same with my runners.

Speaker 1 17:02

It's like if I'm not running, if I miss a day, like they feel guilty about it. You know, and and that's that's where you rebound, you, you, you re rebuild stronger on those rest days and, as a as a running coach, like I'm trying to coach my runners to slow down, like have a couple of quality session days where you're either running for volume and distance or speed, and then the other days you're going on a scale of one to 10, a four, which is like a conversational pace, and then and then take your day off where you just might do some light stretching or active recovery walking and be okay with that. But it's that's hard for people's wiring, especially when you're a high performer, cause it's like if I'm not on all the time, then I'm. Then then you beat yourself up Like well, I'm lazy, or I'm not performing well, and you're like and it's just, um, it's a trap that I've fallen in through and it's not it, it doesn't serve for me, like as I hear those words, it's the concept of doing.

Speaker 2 17:59

High performers, do, do, do, do. But sometimes we just have to be meaning don't do, just sit there, just be, be present, be in your body, be relaxed. Don't do, and so there's. Both are important, but anytime you go in one direction it ends up not it's not homeostasis for the body.

Speaker 1 18:23

Yeah, yeah, got to learn to be, be at peace. And happiness can only be found in the present moment. And we were trying to run from from something or run towards something. I, you're not in peace. And I think a lot of people use the gym, I mean, as a way to, like I said, like in my own journey, like just running all the time, like it's just a way. It is a great stress reliever, but it can be we can rely too much of it to find our peace when we need to just be in ourself a little bit.

Speaker 2 18:55

So it served as distraction from pain for me. Yeah, it was the place I would go, that my, my analytic brain would shut off and I wouldn't have to feel the pain that I couldn't work through. Yeah, so I've just found now that I go and it's my place of enjoyment. I don't go there because I have pain. I go there because I really like to move.

Speaker 1 19:24

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's, that's the journey that that we have been on, and I think the um this is another thing I love about breath work is that I struggled with meditation, but breath work forces you to be in the moment because you're just focusing on the rhythm and the cadence and then it puts you in a deep meditative state. It's so good, man it is.

Speaker 2 19:45

I agree it's. It's been such a profound, unexpected experience and I'm the same way. I get on the tail end of like some of this dynamic that will introduce everybody at some point and you can't help but to slip into meditation because your body is just ready for it.

Speaker 1 20:02

It's been so amazing yeah, so so good in so many different ways. So so, yeah, we're excited about the uh, the next chapter of the uh, the do hard things saga, if you will. So we're excited about launching the uh the community. We've got our annual race coming up in september.

Speaker 1 20:21

I've got the hard copy. This is the final proof copy of the book, so it life on offense is coming out. So we're we're super excited about, you know, getting a community of like-minded people together, teaching them the things that we have learned, maybe bringing in some other experts and just helping people just dominate life, find peace and be a lighthouse for other people, because there's so many people out there numbing, distracted, trying to find peace, and we want to be a place where those people that want to make an impact can come, take a knee, take your armor off, recover, gain some knowledge so you can go back out in the world and serve, and with with clarity, and and serve those people that are relying on you, and that's what, uh, that's that's what I see the do hard things nation being all about, and I love that.

Speaker 1 21:17

Yeah.

The HARD Framework for Life

Speaker 2 21:17

And so, before you wrap up I know we'll get to this, uh, next time when I sit down with questions for you, but just for listeners who might've stumbled upon it tell people what the heart of do hard things stands for, because it took me forever to remember that and I sometimes still forget some of the letters.

Speaker 1 21:38

Yeah, so I do a deep dive on the on the book life on offense, that's what it is and hard are basically the four pillars of your life, and we need to just like a house, you have to have your four walls. These are things that you need to focus on, these with some level of intentionality each and every day. And the H stands for health, and I think health is broken down into two buckets mental health and physical health. So we need to maintain both.

Speaker 1 22:04

Affluence Affluence is your ability to generate wealth, and wealth enables you to have more options in life Relationships. Like you know, our greatest human desire is to be loved and appreciated and connected, and so understanding how to have healthy relationships is really, really important. And then, finally, the D is for development, and I truly believe if you're not learning like we are constantly evolving and learning and developing skills, and then when you develop and have amazing experiences, you grow as a person. And if you're not growing I think it's Tony Robbins said if you're not growing, you're dying. And so these are the four areas of your life that you need to focus in on every single day health, affluence, relationships and development. And that's the uh. Those are the, the, the cornerstones, to uh uh pillars, if you will, to a healthy, healthy life. Do means take action. And then the things. Well, the things are the things that truly matter. Like, are you really focused on the things that matter? Are you getting there's so much distraction in the world? I mean, are you getting there's so much distraction in?

Speaker 2 23:07

the world.

Speaker 1 23:07

I mean, dude, I went to yeah, confusion, yeah, and the opposite of clarity is confusion and there's a lot of distraction. I think when I was out of country, I went to Machu Picchu earlier this year in Argentina, so I was gone for a month, uh, outside the United States. I love our country here, but as soon as I got back I just felt this energy, like I'm plugged back into marketing and the media and just this constant drumbeat of negativity. It just it blows me away because we live in the most abundant time in human history, like we live better than than royalty did just a hundred years ago and and we're miserable, like, by and large, our country's there's a, there's a depression or an all-time high suicide rate is an all-time high. Yet we live like the most abundant time known to man. And it's just sad, it's just really, really unfortunate and I'm sorry this is, yeah, unprofessional. I didn't turn my phone off. There we go.

The Mission and Purpose

Speaker 1 24:07

I'm not editing it out, you get real, raw and relevant here. So what was I saying? Yeah, it's just sad that we have those challenges, but I don't think this the Do Hard Things community is a reminder of your God-given purpose in giving you the tactical tools, knowledge in a place where you can ask questions, gain guidance to help you avoid all that distraction, to live a life where you're thriving and not merely surviving. That's good right there. That's the mission. So beautiful. Love it, man. So any any final thoughts before we call it a day? Yeah, man. So any any final thoughts before we call it a day?

Speaker 2 24:47

No man, I I'm excited. I think we have a lot of value to bring A lot of topics people are going to find interesting. I think it's going to be.

Speaker 1 25:00

It's going to be a fun road. Yeah, man, I I'm, I'm excited. I know that I had to take a break from this for a while because after I left the military, I mean, I went through this well, all the podcast episodes about the stages of the dark night of the soul. I went through that, man, and I felt like for a bit, like, can I even do this? Am I even right for this? Like who am I? The imposter syndrome, and so, like I said, I had to go off and learn to become a Jedi in that process.

Speaker 1 25:26

You know, we definitely deeply connected in that Cause. You're, you're going through the same thing, man, and I'm like, and I feel like God's like no man, every, every time I stepped off the path, like God's like no, you got to come back, you got. There's something here and it's not just, it's not just about me, it's about just creating a community of like-minded people trying to just, you know, get out of their pain, frequency and live a life of power, live a life of clarity, live a life of abundance, because life can be tremendously hard. What I've noticed about life on this planet is that every single person has some type of cross to bear. And it's individual, it's unique to the individual. And trying to make meaning of that, and, and, and, and I don't know, man, I, I, and I know that when you, I try to do this alone and it just doesn't work as well than when you're connected with like-minded people. So that's what it's all about, brother.

Speaker 2 26:24

Love it.

Speaker 1 26:25

Good stuff, man. So that's it for this episode. We appreciate you tuning in and go to do hard things, nationcom. If you'd like to learn more, make sure you smash that subscribe button and, uh, we look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Meantime, keep doing hard things.

Speaker 2 26:40

Let's go.

Speaker 1 26:41

Let's go.