Run Your Race Podcast
When I first listened to David Goggins' book in 2019, I was hooked. If he could run 100 miles without training, I thought I could do it with training! It unlocked something in me, leading to my journey into ultramarathons. Since then, I've completed multiple 100- and 200-mile races, something I once thought impossible. This podcast aims to give you that same mindset shift. Each week, we interview elite endurance athletes to inspire you to believe more is possible and push yourself to the next level.
Run Your Race Podcast
#010: Brady McDonald - Everything Can Change In 18 Months
Brady McDonald shares his transformative journey from an alcohol-centric lifestyle to becoming a passionate endurance athlete. He illustrates the incredible power of pushing personal limits through ultramarathon challenges, focusing on the lessons learned in business and personal life, and the philosophy of tackling hard things to foster growth.
• Transitioning from a lifestyle rooted in social drinking
• Founding the 'Zero to 100' philosophy
• Experiences with 50-mile and 100-mile races
• Resilience in the face of health challenges and business hurdles
• Finding balance with family, fitness, and entrepreneurial pursuits
• The importance of eliminating distractions for personal growth
• Using endurance sports as a metaphor for achieving business success
You Can Find Brady Here…
IG - https://www.instagram.com/brady.mcdonald84
FB - https://www.facebook.com/brady.mcdonald84
Website - https://zeroto100.com/
Okay, what is up everyone? Welcome back to the Run your Race podcast. We've got a great guest that's been, I feel, like a long time in the making. I've seen him on social doing 100 mile races, ultramans, all these things, and I'm excited to introduce him to you today. Today, I'm joined by Brady McDonald. Brady is an endurance athlete and entrepreneur who thrives on pushing limits and inspiring others to unlock their potential. Over the past year, he's tackled or past couple years he's tackled monumental challenges, including running multiple 100-mile ultramarathons he was just telling me one of them actually landed him in the hospital for a couple of days and has done 100 mile races Ultraman, arizona, and then also some very difficult ultramarathons, like I think it was Kodiak 100 that's put on by UTMB. So yeah, brady, welcome to the show. Excited to dive in and have you on.
Speaker 2:Let's go. Pierce, super excited to be here, bro. I've been following you for a long time, listening to your shows and YouTube and stuff when I was training for Ultraman, so it's a full circle to be here and to really get to chat with you, bro.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for that. And yeah, let's just dive into a little bit of your background and really tell me, why did you get into these ultra endurance races? Have you always been into running? What does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I wasn't always into running. I would say, like it was just been the last 18 months really, that I got really into it and it all really stemmed from a realization back in 2021 that when I do really hard things cut out the booze and push my body then I became a better person. Then I became a better person. And so how I kind of came to that realization in 2021, maybe I'll just back up to give you a little bit of my background, because I think the listeners will connect or a lot of people will connect with it.
Speaker 2:So grew up in small town, ontario, canada, and you know when I, you know my parents made, like you know, not a ton of money, very you know, like they made 50 grand, you know, for combined. And you know when we grew up at 13 or 14, that's when we started to drink in and party in and socializing. That became a full-time sport for us into adulthood. This is just what we knew. This is how we lived. That's how everybody I knew lived.
Speaker 2:I went to college for forestry. I ended up becoming a utility arborist by trade, ended up eventually realizing, about 12 years, I was running a training center that teaching thousands of people, men and women around the province, basically how not to kill themselves by climbing trees. That's what we did trim trees around live hydro lines. And so I ran a training center so teaching men and women how to do this without killing themselves lines. And so I ran a training center so teaching men and women how to do this without killing themselves. About 10 years, 12 years into that career, we realized, okay, we need to do something that's going to create more freedom versus working for the corporate man. And so we ended up becoming real estate investors. So we were working full time. We refinanced our house and came up with enough money to do one property. We bought it. We did this thing called the burr strategy, so if anybody's interested in real estate, check it out. Um, and we did that. We proved the strategy ended up turning you know that into a business where we, as we grew the portfolio, we built a team and we had, you know, always 20 staff working for us and, and so that turned into a, you know you get you end up having. We had a, you know we made, we had a big boat, we had this lifestyle that we desired. We put this on our vision board. First vision board was we're card play hard. Well, that's exactly what we got. We worked really hard, made some money and we played really hard Until 2021, it just got exhausting and I realized that I was at the top of my circle and the conversations weekend over weekend were the exact same, you know, and the people I was around were getting more fat for lack of better words, but and like more out of shape.
Speaker 2:But nothing changed and I just realized I was stuck in this place and I and I was exhausted. You know, we're building this big custom house, my wife and I, and we had two, two, two children at the time and, um, this is in 2021. And I was just like I saw some one of my friends doing 75 day hard I and I didn't know what it was. So I reached out to him. He told me the rules and I told him to my wife and my and one of the rules is that you can't drink for 75 days straight and she laughed at me. She's like there's no way impossible.
Speaker 2:You can even do that. I'm like, I know I'm scared, but that's why it's worth tackling, right. I think that's really where I got that essence of this was where the bug was started, and so I took on that thing because there's a risk of me failing. Right and I think that's a big thing for all of us is to understand that if we set ourselves a challenge and it's not worth it, it's mediocre, then there's a high risk that we'll go through halfway through it and we're not going to lose passion, lose fire for it and we just won't fulfill that goal. So our goals have to be hard, we have to have the fear that we can't do them.
Speaker 2:And so, long story short, I ended up going through that 75 days and I realized like it changed my mindset, it changed my body. You know, we took the family to Costa Rica for four months and I came back and I hung around the exact same people. And so what do you think happened? The exact same thing happened. So I went back doing the exact same habits, and but on the way home, when we came back from Costa Rica, canada locked down because it was COVID. I said to myself you know when we, when we, in November, we're going to go to the United States and we're going to scale life and scale business. And I knew at that moment I was going to start doing something hard again and I was going to work on getting rid of the booze. And so I did an Ironman, half Ironman, the very first one. I didn't know how to swim, I didn't know how to run or bike and I, you know, I could run a half marathon, but you know. So I hired a coach, I did that, I cut out the booze for that duration, but then I realized, hey, I can drink and do that, right. And then so this is kind of like still playing and trying to figure it all out. And this is at like what, 38 years old, 37 years old, like I'm a grown man trying to figure this out, still Right.
Speaker 2:And um, and eventually business got so hard, bro, like we were. We had a really big real estate portfolio in Canada at the time. We had a lot of stuff in the U? S. We got hit by a hurricane we were in. We were losing money like 300, 800,000 a month in every in all of the things going on. Recently I caught like, um, there's a lot going on here, but the recently lost my dad. He was 73 years old and he was hard on himself because of booze and I watched what he did to his body. He didn't start drinking until he was 50 and or 45, 50. And he did all that damage. He ended up dying at 73. And I, we were sitting on. This is a pinnacle moment and how I got into like where I am really today, cause I did all of those things that you told talked about in the last 18 months.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it was March of 2023.
Speaker 2:I was sitting in the back of my big boat in the in the Exumas, bahamas.
Speaker 2:Look, it looks like Instagram, right, but in the background, our company is losing all this money, or my personal bank account is losing all this money, like we are a month away from going bankrupt, and I'm using booze and alcohol to, um, like to remove the fear, right To to deal with the anxiety, to make me go to sleep, and I realized I really looked inside myself.
Speaker 2:At that moment I said you know what I see? My future, my future self, is my dad, and I also saw the pain in my children if I continued down the path that I'm going, and so, at that moment, I told my wife and tomorrow's my last day I'm ever going to drink. And so, march 7th 2023, I quit drinking forever. And um, I signed up for the first 50 miler and you know, the rest is history. I mean, everything got better, significantly, because I made that one decision. You know, um, but it took, it looked like it took two years to get to that point, to have that courage to believe that I could right so that's how I got into it yeah, that's extremely powerful.
Speaker 1:I want to get into that 50-miler in a second, but I really want to pull a few things out of that because what you just said because I think it's so powerful in that how many times are we in positions in our lives where we want to do something bigger? We want to go and do 75 hard and do something that's going to change our life and change our habits and those things and challenge ourselves. And then we maybe do them, but then we go back into the old habits because of the people that we're surrounded by, or we don't even do them because the people around us are like think it's stupid or you know whatever. And I think that's one of the things you probably experienced. That was really hard at first was like pulling away. Maybe it was different for you, but like yeah, was it hard for you to pull away from those people.
Speaker 2:I mean, entrepreneurship is a lonely world to start start with. And then, yeah, but you had me, I had to. I realized, and I think they're like internally maybe I don't know why, but I knew that I had to leave, right, and maybe that's why I came to the us, because I knew that I just if I left, I could start fresh and I could, I can shed some of the those, those you know, those people that encourage that type of behavior. I could shed some of the the you know. I think once in a while, we need to shed the people in their life, unfortunately, and it's hard, it's very hard, right, because you feel like you're letting them down. And but it was what you're doing is you're letting yourself up, you're, you're freeing yourself to become a new or bigger, better version that they don't necessarily want you to be um yeah and I think too, they.
Speaker 1:They may not, they may be doing it consciously, but also unconsciously as well. Unconscious, yeah, because it's like they're not intentionally trying to pull you down, like for, for instance. It's interesting, I think everyone should move away from their hometown for a period of time at least, and that's a big part of my story over the last three, four years is I knew that if I stayed in Columbus, ohio, where I grew up, I would not stretch myself because the people around me weren't doing those types of things. And I am just like, I'm definitely someone who goes against the grain. But also, if I'm in certain environments, I get temptation, I get, you know, pulled to drink or, you know, want to have fun and be the life of the party and these different things. And so I had to remove myself and get around people doing endurance events or at least encouraging that, so that they would almost help me push to that next level. And it sounds like you know that's what you've done over the last 18 months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so people's a huge, huge influence. I mean they can. They can influence you for the better or worse, right, and so you just have to be super cognizant of the influence around us. And the interesting so you just have to be super cognizant of the influence around us. And the interesting thing too is to think about we influence other people the exact same way, right, and that gives me a lot of power, because I once I realized that, like you know, at that moment I realized that my kids are copycats. They don't listen to what I say, they just watch what I do. And people are the exact same way, man, like, I've got a team of 18 people or 20 people working for me.
Speaker 1:They do what?
Speaker 2:I do. Right, you know, like we had masterminds. We would have you know, around this time we had a mastermind where we'd have all these Canadians fly down from Canada to the US to pay high ticket to be in this room for me for two weeks or two days, sorry, and normally we would have cases of beer and bottles of wine and and we would all have big social hour. We'd go through cases of beer. Well, when I quit drinking, I didn't, I didn't say anything, I just offered the beer still, but I didn't drink, I didn't say anything else. Nobody knew I didn't stop drinking, but obviously. But we went through only two beers, two individual beers the entire two days. So that's the influence. That's why I realized, holy, I influence people. So whatever I do gives everybody else permission to do the same right, and that changed how I do everything going forward.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. How I do everything going forward. That's incredible. And now you can go back into those environments that you came out of, too, and encourage people and show people that they can live a better life. Now tell me about the first 50 miler. Like you, you decide you're going to do this. This race Like. What was that like?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the reason why I decided to go 50 mile at that point I don't only ran a marathon in clear water and it was absolutely horrendous, um, it was I bonked at like 18, went too fast, you know, didn't pace myself, was super excited, thought I was Superman and yeah, it turned out I wasn't. Um, and I was like why would anybody ever do this again? But then I started training for an Ironman and you know this was to go over the time where I decided I quit drinking. I just started training for an iron man and you know this was to go over the time where I decided I quit drinking. I just realized I travel a lot. So iron man with the bike and swim was kind of hard to to kind of just get it all in, I guess. And so I told my coach that let's sign up, I want to do this keys 50. I saw people doing it. I saw I know it's possible and, um, because when you ran it you were just saying you ran the keys 100 in 2022. So so we did the relay with a group of five or six friends. It was amazing, it was a ton of fun, and so I saw people doing the 50. I'm like I think I can do that right.
Speaker 2:I started getting courage, I talked myself into it, so my coach worked with me and so we started. You know it was of course it's May, it's hot, but for the listeners it was that year. It was 109 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 percent humidity, and you know, I'm sure it was the same when you did. It's just insane, and you know so we all start off at nine o'clock because, you know so it's a little bit late in the day, and we were only like seven or 12 miles, I think, maybe, from the seven mile bridge, something like that, where we started. But so you get across, you have to go across seven mile bridge, something like that, where we started. But so you get across, you have to go across seven mile bridge, and by the time I was over there, I think maybe that was only 12 miles. At the end I was dying. I'm like I don't know how I'm going to get through this, like I'm like, so I, because, like you know, you have ice packs and you know You're trying to cool yourself down, shaved towels, and that was very frustrating because there's things flying everywhere and it's like.
Speaker 2:But eventually we got in a rhythm and I would take the ice, I put it over my neck and I would run for four minutes. I decided I had at that point I had to run, walk. So I ran for four minutes, walk for one. And because I can run for four minutes, I can talk myself into doing that Right. And so I would have the ice on the here when I walk.
Speaker 2:I take it, I would stick it in my groin for like 45 seconds, take it open it, dump it all over my head, and I did that literally, like for the rest of the distance. It was like a machine and you know, thankfully I'd be able to see my crew every two miles ish, two to three miles ish. So you'd reload the ice and we'd keep going. And by the time we got into Key West I was clearly delirious because I got lost. There's a couple of turns in there, that's not super obvious. So I ended up in the middle of the street in like in this in the town, and it was like a picture from the movie. I'm like, hey, do you know where the finish line is? Do you know where the finish line is?
Speaker 2:And there's this girl out the window of the tops, you know the little houses in Key West. And she's like you have to go down that way and then turn right. I'm like, okay, so, anyway, so I get to the finish line. You know, across the finish line it was 10 hours and 40 minutes ish and um, and then I laid there and we were waiting to find out what place I am. They eventually told us we're in third place and um, and we're just kind of paused and I and I it was the first time so I didn't rehydrate, I didn't eat anything.
Speaker 2:You know, it was like 10 o'clock by the time we got back to our rental. My wife started trying to feed me and I got sick. I just puked everywhere and I was like blurry, slurring my words. And she's like get in the car, we're going to the hospital. And so we get in the car.
Speaker 2:We're driving across Seven Mile Bridge and there's an ambulance there because the 100 milers are still running.
Speaker 2:And so she pulls over to the side of the road and says, hey, you know, trying to get the ambulance people to come and look at me and they're like ma'am, you have to keep driving, you cannot park here.
Speaker 2:They're like no, my husband she's like my husband is in really bad shape in the back and so they came and looked at me and they immediately got the stretcher, threw me on the stretcher, rushed me back to Marathon, florida, and so at that point I didn't know my name, didn't know my kids' names, I thought I ran in Canada, and then they did all these tests to my brain, my body.
Speaker 2:Then they did all these tests to my brain, my body, and it was weird, like when, when I think back on it, like I didn't know how bad it was, you know, but you definitely kind of have this sense of like going in and out of consciousness, of like just really like this could be the end Right, and not knowing cause it's scary and um, but then they rushed me to Miami. After that, anyway, long story, I ended up with like really bad rhabdo and D high, severe dehydration which was making the brain all wonky, and then so, throughout all these tests, they ended up finding that I've got this heart defect from birth. Which then says you can't do anything.
Speaker 2:You can't run. The only thing you can do is golf. You can't even work out and I'm like I'm just getting good, like this is. This has changed. This is the new me, right? This is I'm becoming the person I needed to become to become a better dad, to become a better husband, become a better entrepreneur, right, to be a leader in the world and the community. And now they're ripping that away from me.
Speaker 2:And that was scary, right? I started, like you know, going like what am I going to do? And so we ended up going back to Canada. Thankfully, in the US, here we can get health care a lot faster if we paid for it. So I was able to get clearance from a cardiologist and because the cardiologist said, like we don't need to stress test you, you're good. You just had the ultimate stress test. Your heart, you know, performed fine. And so you know it was immediately like what's next? And you probably get this After you do something. It's like what's next. And so then I ended up doing 29029 with a bunch of buddies. That was three weeks later. That was the big push, and then it kind of carried on from there. But yeah, it was. My wife said you're never running again. By the way, she was so upset. You could just imagine two, two kids, you know like this happened at midnight, this happened all night long in the hospital.
Speaker 1:She was terrified um so what does she think?
Speaker 2:now you know what she come around to it, or what. She did not like the idea that. So then the next was a hundred miles at running man when you're there, and so the goal that so. But when I decided that I came up with this zero to 100, like life philosophy, it's just that how I do everything and how yeah.
Speaker 2:Talk about that? Yeah, sure, so this was before I, you know, decided that the a hundred mile was the next thing, and I was just trying to connect like one of my first, very first coaches. He's a network marketer and we're trying to connect like a way that we could connect everything that I do to a philosophy. Is something that you know that's outside of Brady or real estate, it's so, you know, we work for four, four days straight on this and he's eventually he's like bro, I know you, everything you do is zero to 100. And it just clicked. I'm like you know. So it's zero to 100 properties, like because I was going down this rabbit hole in real estate because that's what I do for a business, but anyway, so that's what it turned into. It's like well, what is zero to 100? It's a life philosophy. It's the way we do. One thing is the way we do everything we move fast, we move with intention, right. We go after our goals, right. Zero to 100 is the path that we're on right. This journey to where, whoever we want to be is the 100, and we're on it. And so that's really what this is about. And then so that just turned into an easy way to talk about everything I do, right.
Speaker 2:So it was like when I decided, shortly thereafter I called my coach, actually on the way home from that trip, when we came up with the zero to 100, I called my coach. I said, chris, I know what I want to do. I said I want to run a hundred miles and I want to raise a hundred thousand dollars for children's charities. He's like bro, I don't know, he's like that's a lot of money. And he didn't question my ability to do it. He just said that that's a lot of money. It, I'll figure it out.
Speaker 2:And so you know, going into running, man, we trained for three months, you know, doing this hundred laps, this one mile loop, you know, around a horse track. Essentially, we ended up raising $85,000 for charity, right, and you know, it's just like and it's just. I think that really is a testament to the people that I'm around. No-transcript, and we just really stayed focused on that and temperatures were obviously a lot better. So she was, she's good with it, you know just. No more heat, you know. So like, bad water isn't happening. Keys went up and she'll never let me do that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to find the middle ground right. Yeah, I love that. I love the mindset of zero to 100. It's like go for it, go, set your goals, take massive action and move forward. And that's kind of like what I've used in my endurance journey is like what's the next hardest thing? That seems impossible, but I want to go after it because when it's so hard it keeps you engaged and from losing that excitement for the goal. Um, I feel like there's really two camps. There's like change everything and go after it, and then there's like make incremental changes and and and piece your way to it. I don't know if you're like a hundred percent in, like massive action only, but can you talk about that a little bit Like? Are you a big fan of just like changing everything at once, or what does that look like for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the vision can change. I think that's what the most important part is having the vision right, what the goal is, and I don't care if that's like you know, going after your five first 5k, your first half marathon or your entire five year vision of your life right like a vision board, I think is super critical. There's one just back here. We always have one, but you have to have that. So, in my opinion, if, whether it's a hundred mile race or a vision of your future life, you take that and then you start to break down, break that down and compartmentalize it into bite-sized, manageable pieces and what do I need to do today to get closer to my goal? And some, some of the things that I've just recently, more more recently, implemented. But really helps with this Cause I'm naturally always looking for improvement constantly. I'm always looking for the problem to solve, personally or in business and in fitness. Um is, uh, you know, doing diary, diary, or you know using a diary and journaling sorry, journaling and uh, that's really helped to be intentional about it because I was naturally good at it anyway, but this is much more intentional. So, you know the the exercise of reflecting on what happened today and just what can I do, setting intention for tomorrow. And that's really. You know, if you do that every day over day and have a vision of the goal whether it's a run, whether it's life then you will accomplish it Right. So I don't think like and that doesn't require upsetting your entire life, changing everything right, it just requires extreme intention.
Speaker 2:And, of course, you know when you're looking at a big goal, you know, the first thing that I'm always going to do is like, who do I need around me? Right, and because it's a lot of it's who, not how. You don't need to know how to run 100 miles. You need to find the person that's already done it right and then get them to help you. And then what other things need to be true to to give me the most chance of success.
Speaker 2:So you know, what do I need to stop doing is very important. Like, oftentimes, the things that we need to stop doing are more important than the things we need to start doing. And and this is true in any aspect of life, I believe anyway, um, whether again, whether it's fitness or relationships or business, you know the things we got to cut out, just freeze up more time for the things that we will. We are already doing well right. It allows us to focus on those things and improve. Yeah, I think it's a it's like because it can be overwhelming when you look at you know, think constantly, think about the big thing, so you've got to break the big thing into small things and then just tackle, get better, one at a time, like little pieces every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good. Now tell me a little bit about I know you started with the relay, then you did the 50 miler and, going with this concept, I mean you you focused on who, not how. Not how do I run a hundred miles. You're like who do I need to to have coach me? It sounds like you found a coach and then you begin training for this. Um, what did that process look like in in how long you trained and what that looked like for the a hundred miles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for the a hundred, the first hundred miles. Yeah, so for the first 100 miles. So what actually happened was you probably remember Jesse, it's their training for his Ultraman. I don't know if you I remember really closely more than because I didn't really I didn't think about Jesse as like an endurance guy. I always thought about just super, you know, cool dude, obviously a super successful entrepreneur. But I saw him do Ultraman and I'm like how is that guy able to do that? And I started to make the connection because I was kind of going through this personal journey in myself of realizing doing hard things, becoming a better person doing hard things, being good at entrepreneurship, you know, because there's obviously something that overlays there. So that's what got me into it. So I got super intentional and got near jesse and became buddies with them actually, and then ended up hiring his coach because I'm like whoever helped him do that is who I, who can help me do it and so I so back up.
Speaker 1:Wait pause, so you see someone who you admire, who you want to be like, and then you want to get around him. Did you like? Pay for a mastermind?
Speaker 2:or something to get close to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, you got to pay. You got to pay to play, you know, and uh, it's interesting. So, yeah, I paid, like I think it was like 10 grand um to be a founding member of all day writing company. And so we got, we got to spend time with them and like I mean, you know, we're like we chat and so that was super cool.
Speaker 2:And then when we, when we went to the very first event actually we were allowed to come to was from hell on the hill, and then I, so I met coach chris and I said, you know, like I'd like to have this conversation, I, you go after these people intentionally, right, yeah, putting you in, and uh, and that worked.
Speaker 2:And so chris was the one that really started, was the first one to really call me out on my own BS and like not putting in the training because I've had other coaches, but like online and they just they don't call you out, they put the plan in there and you know, I need I'm like a type go, go, go, like call me out, I'm hiring you for my accountability, right, I need that. And uh, he, he's great, I mean he, he's very hard, like he's, he's German and he's like harsh. And he's like there's no like fluff, there's no attaboys. Um, actually funny enough. So just on the attaboy part Ultraman he said congratulations, you're, you're, you're starting to become an endurance athlete. I like, I'm only like, anyway, but you know, that was after running up 50, 100 and then doing ultra man.
Speaker 1:He's like you're starting, uh, yeah and for everyone listening, ultra man is a race where it's a three-day race. First day, uh, 6.2 mile swim, uh, and 90 mile bike. The second day is 171.4, I think, mile bike. The second day is 171.4, I think mile bike, and then the third day is a 52.4 mile run. Each day you get 12 hours to finish all of that and then you got to come back the next morning to do the next day. So three days straight of crazy exercise and expenditure. Three days straight of crazy exercise and expenditure. And his coach goes hey, you're starting to become an endurance athlete.
Speaker 2:Good job. So I'm like it made me laugh, right, because it's just the way he is. Anyway, yeah for sure. Yeah, so that's how I ended up with Chris. And then you know how we actually ended up.
Speaker 2:So we did the a hundred mile and then it, finishing that a hundred miles at running man, I was sitting in the chair immediately after. He's like all right, what's next? And I said I think I want to do Ultraman. He's like all right, well, let's talk about it in a few weeks. And because that was what Jesse, I saw Jesse do this. I knew that if, like, there few weeks, and because that was what Jesse, I saw Jesse do this, I knew that if, like, there's a connection between him being that and having success, so that got me down the rabbit hole, right. And to meeting my coach, to doing my first 50 mile, to running a hundred miles at Jesse's event, to then decide, okay, ultraman's the next thing. And yeah, and then, kind of what happened there was like I learned that you have to have completed a full distance Ironman to qualify. Well, I hadn't, I haven't done that, right. So I said that to Chris and Chris was like, well, we know, I guess this is what we're going to. The next thing to do is right, but like a little bit of time went by, it was probably about two weeks. My wife says to me she's like Brady, when do you ever take no for an answer? Like maybe go look at those rules again and maybe apply anyway. And that's what I did, right, and I applied anyway. And I, you know you have to fill out this thing, that you know they want to really know that you're a good person, that you know you have etiquette and that you can finish it and all these things. And yeah, they, you know, five days later, they they accepted me and it was. I remember it was just after Christmas, I think it was between Christmas and New Year's last year.
Speaker 2:And back to Chris I forward, I screenshotted it to Chris and he's like well, that's really good and that's really bad. I'm like why, like my coach, chris, right, he's like well, because you know, three months is not a long time to turn you into a cyclist. He's like this, this is gonna be hard, because I'm like, you know, and and he was right, it was hard. But uh, yeah, we got done. So every time I guess back to your original question like every time my training blocks are about three months and it's not enough.
Speaker 2:Like chris, you know, I trained for three months for the 50 mile, three months for the hundred, the first hundred mile, three months for the hundred, the first hundred mile, three months for Ultraman and then the next a hundred mile. Like I, the last one I just did, you know I trained for three months but we're leading up into it and like we were two and a half months out, two months out, I'm like when are we ramping this up? He's like. He's like it's not really when you're ready, it's not when you want to, it's when you're ready to. And he's like dude, he's like we're getting serious now. Three months is not enough to train for a hundred mile properly. And so he's like it's interesting Cause now it's like it's game on time, like he's really like we're getting super intentional about it. And so you know the next, you know the next batch of training is more about actually becoming competitive in it versus just finishing it.
Speaker 1:So it's yeah, it's interesting. So what? What is the next thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So then we we ended up doing that a hundred mile a month ago and, big bear, it went pretty good. But I trained in Florida, right. So I mean, yeah, I live in Florida so there's no hills. So the next set like I've got a treadmill in the garage. That was a big change since this because I learned like I I went through 50 miles in no time, 11 hours. The last 50 miles got real hard a lot of gnarly elevation, um, bad footing, um you know all kinds of other things. So we're going to get super intentional with our training, got a treadmill in the garage. We're doing a lot of strength training right now, so we're kind of treating it like off season and then I'm gonna treat, um, I'm gonna do some like two or three trips into the mountains and do like three day, you know, just smash elevation, get a pile of. I'll do that a few times to really try to build the durability so I can move faster those later miles yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1:One thing I really want to ask you, because I feel like you're very unique in this, in that you're an extreme endurance athlete. You've done incredible things in just 18 months, but then you're also incredible in business as an entrepreneur, real estate investor and all of that real estate investor and uh and all of that, um, let me ask you this like are there any specific things that you learned in endurance that have helped you in business, and how is that? How do those two, I guess, coexist in your life too?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a really good question and yeah, I, I definitely I kind of talked to you a little bit earlier that we went through that moment, those times I mean that we were losing, like we were bleeding, like through, because the hurricane hit us and the interest rates went from sub you know, sub 1% to 7% on this big portfolio, so that you know all these properties costing thousands and thousands ended up costing 300 to 800, a couple of months where 800 grand it was insane, but then a lot of months were 250,000 with no income right Coming in. So I had to come up with that money, like selling properties really fast and like it was super, super stressful. The only thing that got me through that was endurance, training was running in um and developing the courage in the mindset that I can't accomplish things that are hard and that the only reason that I'll fail is because I quit, and so, um, that that, like that, got me through. There's no doubt you know, and, to be honest, like that didn't. So then we started a new business and you know we had this big portfolio in Canada, so we started liquidating it. Thankfully we had that, but we started this new business in the United States. Just it's called Barefoot Land Co. And so now we have 18 staff. We started building it in November of last year and we didn't get paid until last month, which was our first injection of revenue.
Speaker 2:So it didn't get. I mean, it didn't get worse, it sucked less, I would say but like to, the only reason I got through this last year without literally falling apart is because I've developed this mindset that will endure that and I and I believe that you know there's people can relate to this that there's times in life that we just that. That you know there's people can relate to this, that there's times in life that we just that changes, you know, and it's generally things that we don't want. It's going to be that financial experience Somebody dies, cancer, you know, divorce, like these things change who we are Right, and it's generally because it's really hard and it's and it's bad and you got to figure it out right, and but I personally believe that we can do that on purpose, intentionally, by doing hard things with our body, because there's constant times. I mean, you know, like the constant times you want to quit is it happens every run, you know. So you start to develop this trust within yourself that creates the belief system that you can do anything you want to as long as you don't quit. And it's it's that pattern of doing hard things, building trust in yourself, which do that. A whole bunch of times you start believing yourself and that has gotten me through business, right.
Speaker 2:But it's also the very interesting other thing is it's not just about getting through the hard times, is about who does that attract into your life, Because people are looking for people with these leadership qualities. They want to do business and work with people and be around people who have this mindset and that we will never quit. Right, like, who do you want as a business partner? Right, and guarantee you that.
Speaker 2:The guy I just hired, this guy Mason, actually you might know him, but he knows you, of course, but he, uh, you, he uh, you know he. He ran a hundred miles. He runs hundreds of miles too. I just hired him because I know that is the person I want on my team, right, and so I got some really big business partners the exact same way and purely not by selling them. It's not got nothing to do about the deal, it's got nothing to do about the opportunity, it's about who I've become, because it's your core values, right? If you're not, if you're willing to run 27 hours, 26 hours straight and never quit on yourself, you won't quit on anybody else.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. Taking endurance as an opportunity to get yourself to the point of almost quitting so many times and then pushing through that and then using that experience in life and business. Life is inevitably going to give you those times where it's awful, things are horrible, doesn't seem like there's light at the end of the tunnel, but the only way you you fail is if you quit. So, building that resilience to keep going, that's extremely powerful. That's really good. Um, now let me ask you this. I know you're a uh, your father, you have two, two children yeah, two daughters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they're 10 and 4 yeah it's great, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Two, two, two daughters. You're married, you have a business and, uh, you, you do these insane endurance challenges. So they're, they're. I'm sure you know people are like how do you do this with all the time? Like how, how do you have enough time in the day to be able to excel in all these different aspects? What would you say to that? How do you balance it all?
Speaker 2:stop effing around, right? And so when I, when I say that, I mean, like you know, I don't drink, I don't really socialize. You know I don't watch TV, I don't really watch sports, uh, you know, like I'm not scrolling for entertainment on social media, when you remove all those hours a day, if that's just two hours a day, right, do the math two hours a day times 300, and you know the number of days of the year, that is, weeks, months of your life, right? Every year that you have to dedicate to a big goal. You know, whether it's business or fitness or relationships or your spirituality, whatever, like you can get great just purely by taking those two hours every day, and that's really what it comes down to, I think you know we just have there's so many distractions.
Speaker 2:People want to do a little bit of everything they you know, and and none of that stuff adds value. So one of the big things that could, that could be kind of helpful for other people too, is that, you know, the day that I quit drinking, I made the conscious decision that if it doesn't add value to my family, my fitness and my relationships, my business, I'm not doing it Right. So that's the guiding principle and it makes saying no very easy. And you know, like whether it's to watch a football game with the boys go out and have a meeting with somebody that I mean, yeah, sure It'd be nice to have the meeting. Is it really adding value to anything right now? No, then I'm probably not going to do it, right. And so there's a lot of those things that we just do because we get invited. That doesn't mean it's the right thing. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, right. So that's how you have the time. We all have the same amount of time.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Um, and that's the thing is like time is like. Is the thing that we. And that's the thing is like time is like. Is the thing that we? It's not infinite. And so when you stop wasting it and start treating every day and every moment like it matters, all of a sudden you can accomplish very quickly whatever you want in life, and that's that.
Speaker 1:Stop doing all the you know, all the stuff that doesn't matter. Yeah, it's not about doing some specific thing in a specific sequence to manage your time. It's just stop doing the things that suck your time, that are not adding value and are not progressing you towards the vision of your life that you have.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and like, for me personally, you know I'm a morning person but I always like to say, like nothing good happens after 8 pm, which is just kind of true. And so, you know, I go to bed at 8, 830 with the girls, like I'm sleeping by nine and I am up at 430, you know 430. Nobody's up. So what do you get time to do Like? So you know, I'll usually bang out three hours of work. A sunrise will happen, a sunrise will happen. I'll go and sit in my sauna for 30 minutes, do ice bath, sauna, like, and I'll come back in. The girls will have breakfast. I'll go back to work, you know, and it's still like nine o'clock.
Speaker 2:People are just getting to work. Like there's a lot of time and if you know, because I can get my fitness in any time, like I'm so committed to that that it's not, um, you know, a worry that I would miss it for other people, if the fitness is the hardest thing to get in and there's the excuses sometimes that lean into not getting it done, I'd be getting that fitness done in first thing in the morning because it's then there's no excuse, right? So those are just a little, a couple things that I mean you have to make the good habits and your goals easy and the bad ones hard and really structure your day strategically in a way that you can win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk about that a little bit more, like making the good habits easy and the things you don't want to do, like you know, hard, because I think that's a big part of the battle is just making it easier to do the things that you know you should do and want to do, like getting up and working out first thing. If you're, you know, really trying to prioritize that. What kinds of things do you do specifically to make that happen, like the good things easier?
Speaker 2:yeah, like for a couple examples. Like I think driving to a gym although the gyms can be gyms can be great because there's, you know there's if you go to the right one, there's good looking people, the music is, it makes it can be a little bit motivating. But driving to the gym if it takes you 15, 20 minutes can also make that so hard. It doesn't happen here and there, right. And then you think about that's 40 extra minutes a day. What would you rather be doing with your time? And do you actually have that time?
Speaker 2:You start to make these excuses as to why you can't get to that gym, right. And so you know I put the gym right in my garage or do, or just get really good at body weight workouts, right, and have a 30 pound, a set of 30 pound dumbbells there's. You don't need anything more, especially if you're in the endurance world, like I mean, you can, you know you can do, you know everything you need, right. And so that's one great way that I've got the garage set up for the gym. So I literally walk into my office, do the workout, come back in. You know I didn't. You know it's easy, right, it's right there, there's no excuses. And then you know, from a food perspective is another big thing that you know people struggle with. So like, and I love sweets and I, you know I would love dessert and I will get on these bandwagons, especially when I'm training where, like, closer to the work, to the training day, I just like, oh, I get to eat whatever I want. But it's not the right thing. But I know for for a fact that my wife puts a cake in the house, I'm going to eat that thing. That thing is getting done Right.
Speaker 2:So it comes down to clearing out. You know, if you don't want that to be going to make that habit hard, so don't put that stuff in your house. You know, and you know, have the, give your kids. If you've got kids, a lot of people use kids as the excuse to have all this other stuff. Well, you know you should be the leader, right, and just make, give, give, put healthy options in the house for the kids, right. And so these, you start to create momentum within your family and if you're the leader of the family that's going to start doing this fitness thing, you will watch. Your spouse will not want to be left behind. They. It might take a little while, like it took my wife probably a year before she really got on board. But they don't want to be left behind. They're eventually going to get on board. But we need leaders, right, and so that was another thing that, if you can stick to it, you start to create this momentum, which also makes everything a lot easier too.
Speaker 2:But those are a couple examples. I mean, you could have your gym clothes very ready. That's another big reason why I've not done it many times. Right, couldn't find it on my stuff. You know, screw it, I don't have time for this, right? Um, you know, just little hacks. The realistic part about it is we're just big children. It doesn't matter what age we are, we're big kids. So parents trick their kids into doing things that they want them to do, and we need to trick ourselves. Right, we're the we're the exact same way we have to make. We have to trick ourselves into doing the things that we know we should do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good. And talking about tricking yourself into doing something. One thing I heard you mentioned twice earlier in the podcast is talking yourself into doing something. Um, what role does that play in your life, If? If that's a significant part, but I I feel like it probably is, because you said it twice and I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2:It's like you know, sometimes, just strategically, if I don't want to do the run, um, you know, maybe it's a longer one, maybe the weather's kind of not nice, there's like a lot of reasons not to want to do it. I'll say it out loud and, and and that gives you you can spend the voice inside your head. That little, you know whiny little voice inside your head comes out loud and you start to realize how ridiculous it is. Or you can also say it around certain people who will motivate you to say no, just get going, just go do it. Right, you know you don't want to be around though. The same people that give you the excuse that it's okay, but you can use that to. I do that. I'm like oh, this is the last thing I want to do. My wife's like okay, just go get it done, go put your shoes on right now, go get your shoes on. So that's one, that's one way.
Speaker 2:But like, I think, to like planting these seeds in our head intentionally with you know, for example, I kind of got the idea a little while ago that maybe I want to do the cocoa donut 250 and and because when we did rim to rim to rim last may it was. We were driving by and they were just starting it. Right, I'm like, wow, maybe I can do that. Like do you think that's possible? And you, you start to think about it. But it gets stuck in there and, like you probably have, have you had that where it's like you get this idea and it just doesn't go away. So eventually you're like I need to scratch that itch. I need to like, so I signed up for it on the waiting list and I didn't tell my wife, cause I'm like I don't want to, like, you know, scare her and like have her jump down my throat and say no, because she doesn't want me to die.
Speaker 2:And but I'm not overly committed to it. Like I'm just like I'm not sure. Maybe I'll just sign up, because it kind of gave me a note there's a waiting list. But I've now I've grown into it so much Like now I I called the charity bib guy. I sent him this long explanation Like I just raised 35,000 or, yeah, 35, 35,000 was 35 or 25,000, $25,000 for bras, for girls charity when I ran the New York city. Like I can raise a lot of money for charities, right. And so I'm like you know, I'm like it started to become more real because I've been thinking about it. I've been like visualizing myself, you know. So again, that's another hack.
Speaker 1:Write it down, put a picture of you know some, there's something that's scary, sign up for it and you know, you will eventually believe that there's a possibility that you can get this thing done right, yeah, exactly, and I think those are the things that you know you need to do like when it can't, like you can't stop thinking about it for a period of time, like that's the time to just go for it and sign up, because like there's a reason it's not leaving your mind, and also capitalize on that energy and excitement to lock yourself into that. And then you know you're going to just have to figure it out. It's so cool, man. It's so cool just to hear your story and hear you talk about how I mean I just keep coming back to in 18 months, you know you did your first 50 mile or 100 mile, or you know multiple 100 miles Ultraman, arizona and all of those things and so I think it's an encouragement to anyone at any time in your life, whether you're 60, whether you're 40, whether you're 20, you know, take the time to analyze where you're at and if you really want to be there and change things.
Speaker 1:If not. But I think one thing I would want you to talk about, as we kind of round out the show, brady, is if you could go back to yourself when you were younger, when you were, say, 20 years old, and give yourself a piece of advice so that you could avoid, you know, going down some of the paths that you wish you wouldn't have gone down, um, and, and got into this earlier on in life. Um, yeah, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Uh, there's a lot. I mean, the biggest things like that have really changed my life was, you know, from a business perspective. It was, you know, getting into real estate sooner than later. I mean, just because you don't necessarily need money, you can be resourceful and add value to somebody else's life to create that wealth at a very young age. That real estate is, you know, by far one of the best ways to create long-term wealth and that really served us well in the last 10 years. So that was one. That's one big thing. And then quitting drinking is another, is a huge thing. And that really stems around being around the right people, ultimately, and and really trying to find those people and seek them and be intentional and get around them. And and you know, like right now there's no better opportunity to do that because you know we're on social media, there's the opportunity.
Speaker 2:I just actually had a guy. He ended up crewing me for the last hundred miles and I completely randomly was introduced to him because I spoke at a big event in Canada and they're like, oh, you should follow this guy. He just ran, he's ran a hundred miles too, and and so we connected over social media, right, and he did this 700 kilometer FKT and anyway. So I was about to. You know, it was a month out from the a hundred miler and he DMs me. He's like, hey, we've got to get that training run in one day. I'm like, well, bro, I'm running this a hundred mile, why don't you come crew me? I've never met the guy and he comes out there and he told me that what he did to me, right there, was what I did to Jesse, Right. He got super intentional. He's like, yeah, I'm taking the opportunity because he knows if he gets close to me, I can help him in business, I can help him in you know whether, all these other things, Right, and that's what I wish.
Speaker 2:I did that when I was 20,. I wish I did that when I was 30, bro, you know, I just started doing it when I was 27, 28, uh, or sorry, 37, 38. I'm 40 today, so that that was another. Those are, those are the big things, bro, that I would do, and obviously do hard things. You know like we thought we were athletes when we were 17, 18 and 19. I'm way better athlete at 40 than I ever was. We don't have a mindset. I mean, you're in it, Ali, You're a young dude that has a mindset. That is so impressive, bro, and if the young people just did what you've done as a leader, you're paving the path it's super impressive. Follow your footsteps is actually what I would say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I think that's amazing. Get into real estate earlier, quit drinking and do hard things is three things that I'm hearing you say. It's so powerful. No time like the present, so that's really good. Brady, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people get connected with you and, you know, find out what you're up to?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I mean social media Instagram, facebook, it's at bradymcdonald84, on either one of those. And then also you can go to zero to 100.com. We've got swag and we raise money on there for different charities, depending on you know what we're, what we're doing. Yeah, and you know we do this thing called the zero to 100 day challenge. So for people that sort of like the 75 hard, but it's, it's a lot, it's it's more realistic for like for life and a real lifestyle change, we have accountability huddles every Wednesday, it's completely free. We have guest speakers. We should actually have you on Pierce to come on. I'd love to, yeah, yeah, and we just like you know and I'm on there, it's completely free, it's just really. That's the type of thing that helped me get on my right path and my goal is to help as many people get on their path. You know the same way.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's amazing man. I'd be honored to come on and help in any way. I can Really just thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. I'm really inspired by you and yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you, man. Likewise my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Chris All right, Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone share this. Go follow Brady and go out and run your race.