Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Luke Tyburski: Endurance Adventurer

Episode Date: October 7, 2015

Luke Tyburski has designed the past three years of his life to push the limits of what “we” think to be possible. He’s designed an event to test his mental and physical skills over the course of 12 days, which has been named the Ultimate Triathlon. He’s trained for it for 3 and half years. On October 20, Luke will be taking on a never before attempted challenge- a 1250 miles in 12 day swim, cycle, and run adventure from Morocco to Monaco; The Ultimate Triathlon. Show Notes: 8:15: Life as a journeyman in soccer 12:41: Reasoning for doing the ultimate triathlon "Once I've made up my mind that I'm going to do something, that's it, I'm like a steamroller, I just go for it and do everything I need to do to be able to achieve that." 15:44 24:15: Why he feels what he is doing just needs to be done "During endurance sports...your legs and bodies and shoulders are always going to be in pain...but for me, it's...being comfortable with being uncomfortable" 25:54 28:54: Finding the limits and why he wants people to join him on his journey "I think it's less about the miles and more about the challenge and finding the limits" 28:54 30:43: Most difficult moment in his life 37:03: Seeing where his best fit in with others 48:40: One phrase that governs his life 54:38: Dealing with his inner critic 1:04:06: Importance of mindset and mental skills in completing his journey 1:09:19: Defining success "[Success is] being happy knowing that you've done everything you can do" 1:09:25 1:14:12: Defining mastery_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. In this conversation, we sat down with Luke Tyburski, and he's an ultimate triathlete, and he's created an experience for himself to dedicate his life efforts to what he's calling the endurance adventure lifestyle. And so he's really spent his time to push and to push at a pace that is potentially changing you know the game for some folks so here's what he set out to do he's in in 12 days time he's going to go from morocco to monaco and the way that he's setting it up is that he's going to swim the gibraltar

straight which is about 10 miles and if there's current or whatnot, maybe up to 14 miles. So it's the Gibraltar Strait from Africa. And then immediately he's going to jump on a bike and he's going to ride 900 miles. And that's basically the entire length of Britain. And then for the next seven days, he's going to run the equivalent of 14 marathons. Okay. I mean, we could just stop there.

In seven days, running 14 marathons is phenomenal but to rewind that 900 mile bike ride with right before that a 10 mile ocean swim okay so what he's going to share with us is what led him to want to do this and he created this this is a vision that he's created for himself this event doesn't exist this is something that he set out to do and just as a framework iron men the iron man events are the pinnacle of triathlon events tend to be the pinnacle and and they're grueling it's a two and a half mile ocean swim with a hundred mile bike ride and then one athlete i'm sorry one marathon 26 mile run he's flipped that on its head and gone deep into pushing each one at an extreme level so he

really considers himself you know an endurance adventurer and what he's done is he set a vision and i think what what we found is a very common theme for people that have really shifted the way the world works is they have clarity of a vision. And what he did is he just looked at the world map, but he looked at it differently. He looked at it through the lenses that he's interested in, which is the adventure lens, swimming and biking and running for him. He's doing this thing by himself. Now, he's got a team of people that are supporting him, but he's going to be alone doing the endurance and the actual event itself. So there's something really unique about betting on himself, and that's part of what this journey is. I hope that you'll go check him out, and at the end of the podcast,

there'll be some links for you to go check out. But I hope you go check this thing out so that maybe you can get some money going for him because he's got a campaign. He's bootstrapped this thing together and maybe you'll be so inspired. I was. I put my money where my mouth is. I love it. It's just it's like something really fun to support and challenge people along the way. All right.

So that that's it. Let's just jump right into his story. And it takes some turns. It's got a lot to do about family, a lot to do about loving life, about struggle. And so those of you who are in the entrepreneurial framework, I think you're going to find this amazing because he's created a vision and he's chipped all in.

And that's essentially what this entrepreneur spirit is about and he's he's got incredible insight about family as well and the gifts that his parents gave him along the path so let's just jump right into it and this is a really great way to think about every day what do we do every day my hope is that you might become a little scared by listening to this as it conjures up this thought like, what am I doing with my life? Am I really chasing my potential? God, I want this for my loved ones so deeply for them to really touch this. And I hope the same for you as well. And it really comes down to taking one step at a time.

And this is really a great example of what that looks like. So enough of me. Let's just jump right into this thing with Lou Tyburski. Luke, how are you? I'm good, MJ. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing great. Thanks. Thanks so much for, you know, being interested to have this conversation and, you know, roll up our sleeves to figure if we can better understand your path and search for mastery. No problem. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, 100%. Okay, so let's just start Let me give some context to what you're doing The way I've understood it And then maybe you can fill in the gaps for folks as well

But you started off in a different sport In a different avenue than what you're currently doing And you spent a lot of time in soccer You hit a brick wall with some injuries And I think you said that you've had three injuries over the course of 11 months. Is that right? When it was at its worst, I had three surgeries in 11 months, but I battled with injuries nonstop on and off for about three and a half years. So give folks just some context of, before we jump into your endurance feat and your challenge that you're taking yourself on.

And before we unpack that, can you help people understand, me as well, the level of skill that you had in soccer and kind of what that path looked like? I've actually never been asked that question, the level of skill I had. I was okay. I played a few years professionally around the world. I played in Australia where I'm from and I went over to the States and played college over there at a couple of small colleges in Kentucky and Oklahoma and played in some lower levels over there in the States and then went over to

the UK to start with to try and sort of get onto a couple clubs over there and didn't quite work out for one reason or another and went to Belgium played a season out in Belgium which was pretty cool in the lower leagues but you know you don't have to be playing in the first divisions to be making what I like to say normal people's wages. So I was what you could call a journeyman, bouncing around the world, bouncing around Europe. And then I came over to the UK after I played in Belgium to sort of further enhance my career. And then injuries started to plague me for one reason or another and the reason i wanted to know the answer to that is because i think that people have this conception of mastery is that they are the best in the world at their thing and this is why that

the phrase finding mastery is part of it is that it's an exploration and it doesn't mean you're the absolute best in the world necessarily some some folks are and what you're doing is going to push that limit in this new feat but i want to just to unpack this process of becoming and searching and the passion and commitment required for it and it's not always pretty right i'm you know you are you are straining and struggling um from country to country to try to figure out at some point you know am i going to keep doing this am i not am i going to get a break am i going to be able to make it to the next level whatever that level is yeah in between clubs as well like you um sometimes there's a period where you're not signed with anyone and you're off contract you're not making a wage but you have to train every day to make sure you're fit enough to when you do go to a club

that you can impress so you're not making any money and at one stage I was bouncing around the UK sleeping on friends floors sleeping on couches even one night I missed the train back to a friend's place i had to sleep on on the train station on the platform because i had nowhere else to go because i was bouncing from one city to another trying to get all these connections to try and get to a trial okay so this this is the part that i wanted to touch on and i want to put a pin in it for a moment because i think most people might not be familiar with this uh this challenge that you've set up for yourself now in life which is the reason we're actually connecting so can you share exactly what you're going to be doing here in the

next two weeks of your life yeah I three and a half years ago I created a challenge I was quite literally looking at a world map thinking I just retired from football I'd signed up to this ultra endurance race in the desert which we'll touch on in a second which was a total escape from from real life after changing uh trying to find a new career to go into and I thought I want to do something big I want to do something big. I want to do something big that will put me on the map as an endurance adventurer, as I call myself. And also just something big that I can sink my teeth into. So I looked at a world map and quite literally this area of the world just jumped out at me. And it was the Strait of Gibraltar, which is from the northern tip of Africa to the southern tip of Spain. So basically the mouth tip of Spain.

So basically the mouth of the Mediterranean. It's about 10 miles wide. And then I looked along the southeast coast of Spain. And I thought, oh, that looks pretty cool. And then there was the French border. And then a little bit along the French coastline was Monaco. And at this stage, I'd only just started to sort of run properly ultra marathons about uh five months okay but you had you had this big engine in you from soccer yeah like you had a cardio engine that you were training for a long time yeah I trained my whole life to be a soccer player

and and then I like at this stage I didn't own a. I didn't own any sort of bike. I hadn't done any sort of cycling. I have no cycling background. And swimming, I learned to swim when I was three or four. And I hadn't done any swimming probably since school, actual laps. And I thought, I'm going to swim the Gibraltar Strait, which is 10 to 12 miles, cycle the southeast coast of Spain, which is about 900 to 950 miles, and then run from the Spanish-French border all the way along the southern French coast to Monaco,

which is in miles about 360 miles. And I called it the ultimate triathlon. And I'm starting just over two weeks okay so um what in God's good earth gave you the right to think that you could do this how did you believe that you had it within you to even set up such an arduous challenge that you could be a person that could attempt this? Wow. I think the first thing was I didn't want to get an office job. I didn't want to fall back and go, okay, well, I'm 28. I retired from football,

from soccer, sorry. And now what do I do? So I wanted to do something big. And I've always been one, you know, I've been leaders and I've been captains and I've been like this on all different teams. And I've always had people sort of coming to me, ask me, oh, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And up until the last couple of years, I just thought I was a people's person. But I sort of realized, well, no, maybe that's because I've actually become experienced in my life and I am a leader. And I think that comes naturally. So I wanted to set out a big challenge to try and inspire others to try and live life, which is my plan with doing the ultimate trap on. But more so, what gave me the confidence that I could do it was the fact that I didn't say I'm going to do it next year.

I'm not that crazy. I said I'm going to give myself three and a half years, and I'm going to work back. That's the end goal, and I've got three and a half years to be able to achieve that. So I'm going to work my backside off to achieve this goal in three and a half years. Now, the challenge starts in two and a half weeks. I just finished my final big training block, as I said, and I did 50 hours of training in the last six days. Am I ready? I have no idea, but I've given it a good shot for the last three and a half years.

So we'll see what happens. Oh, wow. All right. Let me see if I can unpack this a bit. You came out of a transition from injury, and so you're not knowing exactly what to do. I don't have a sense if your spirits were down or low or beat up or if you were full of vigor and wanted to get after something, but there was a transition period. And I'll ask you about the tone in just a second. And then as you're going through that transition period, what it sounds like to me is that you got really clear of something you wanted to do.

And we call that like having clarity of a vision. And once you have that vision set, then it becomes really mechanical, like what would I need to do to be able to make that thing happen? My experience with most people is they don't set the vision with enough clarity and they don't set, have enough conviction to the plan to actually do the work to allow that, what we call it dream. But it's not really a dream, it's a vision of what I wanted to see happen. And so it stays in their minds. Maybe they don't say it out loud.

Maybe they don't actually trust themselves that they could get that done. And the risk is too high to say it because if they say it and they don't do it, then there's an experience around that of failure or perceived failure. And the second is that people struggle, me included, struggle with the commitment to actually go the distance. Because at some point in time, I'm sure, I learned this from a multi-gold medalist,

that some point in time, you will face down adversity if you want to live on the world stage. And that's a double-barreled shotgun in your mouth is the way he talks about it. And yeah, I don't know. Have you faced that as well that that type of adversity yeah it's at the end of long runs or cycles in terms of the ultimate triathlon is yeah totally i when i'm tired and i stop and i think do I really want to do this and sometimes it takes me 10 seconds to convince myself and really I do other times it's not even two seconds so I do I do have that adversity and I just think to myself okay I had that clarity as you spoke about earlier that I'm going to do

this and I always have done that once I've made up about earlier that I'm going to do this. And I always have done that. Once I've made up my mind that I'm going to do something, that's it. I'm like a steamroller. I just go for it and do everything that I need to do to be able to achieve that, which does come at a price at times because I'm so sort of focused on that one thing that a lot of things in my life can be neglected. Yeah, it's that grit and that consistent determination and the process. And I know it's not clean. It's like when you meet your maker at some point and you're exhausted and you're like, oh my God, what am I doing?

That's where that phrase comes from. Like, what am I doing here? That, that inner dialogue either pulls you out of the fight or keeps you in it. And I want to unpack that for you as well, but I just want to put in context, you know, the first time that we, I learned about your project, you're essentially at the third phase of your event is two marathons a day. For seven days. For seven days. So just that alone, you know, two marathons a day for seven days is outrageous. Yeah, I know, I know.

Shaking my head, yeah. Okay, so you're going to swim 10 miles when actually if you get caught in the current, as you know, in Gibraltar Straits, or you have to stop from a shipper or a rigger, that it could turn into, you know, 15 miles easily, right? Yeah, I'm sort of banking on 12 to 13 miles realistically that I'll swim. Yeah, and then you're going to get on a bike, let it rip, and then you're going to run two marathons a day for seven days straight. And how many days total is this going to be for you 12 12 days total okay yeah so day one's a swim and a 75 mile bike and then the next four days are all between 200 and 220 miles a day on the bike okay all right so there's going to be a chance for us to unpack lots of your training, your nutrition, but most importantly, your thinking around how you've done this. To start this down the path of finding mastery, what was it about your upbringing that allowed you to, you know, really be where you are now, which is facing down something that I don't know at least anyone's ever attempted. My parents, to put it bluntly, my parents are my heroes, really,

and have been there with me through everything. I grew up with a sister, two years older. She was a star athlete of the family. But my parents were both hard workers um in a in a country town uh in in australia we had about 25 000 people when i lived there in bathurst and they were hard workers and they instilled whether it was knowingly or that's just the way they were brought up that if you want you know a lot of people talk about if you train if you do something and you really want it and you do the work that you'll

get the rewards but in real life just because you work hard at it doesn't mean that you achieve so as i said whether they knowingly said this or instilled it in my sister and I or not, but they would always say, and I remember this, that if you work hard and you really want something, then you need to dedicate yourself to give yourself a chance. Okay, and that's the difference. That phrase drives me nuts, by the way. Not the one you just said, but the first phrase, which is, if you work hard enough, you can achieve or do anything.

And you're shaking your head the same way I am. Like, what does that mean? If I want to be the world's greatest sumo wrestler and I'm 175 pounds, like, how is that going to happen? No matter how hard I work. No, exactly. So, I'm not sure if they said it on purpose but that was that was our upbringing if we wanted something we had to go out and work for it and that would give us the best possible chance to achieve it doesn't mean you're going to achieve that and my sister um had a great

career as a child and an adolescent growing up in newer sports and i was well you know people say the last one picked well i was never picked you know and it was it was brutal back then you had 20 kids trying out for the local club team in in soccer and they were going to pick 16 and it's not like these days where it's sort of uh mollycoddling where they send you a letter or you call your parents it was 20 kids on a line and the coach says, right, if I call your name, come and sit behind me. He'd read out 16 names to the four Muppets sitting there on the line, which I was always one of them.

He would say, thanks for coming, guys. Better luck next year and turn around and go and talk to his team. And the one thing that I always did every year that I didn't get picked or whenever I had a setback because you know my parents always said work work hard which I always did and give yourself the best chance so I never made the teams so afterwards I would go and talk to the coach and say coach and nine times out of ten oh Luke I never called your name yeah I know that that's fine that's cool good luck for the season but what do I need to do better to give myself a better chance next year to make the team? And that was me, I guess, implementing what my parents passed down and put into our lives that, okay, I gave myself the best possible chance.

It wasn't good enough. Now I need to talk to the guys who made the decision. What can I do better? I love it. How old were you when this was taking place uh so the representative team started at 10 so i'm imagining a 10 year old luke who's sitting with his other three buddies that didn't make the team what that feeling and experience is like and you it doesn't sound like uh you you were overwhelmed by that pain of not being good enough because that's essentially what it was as a 10 year old you weren't good enough to do the thing that you wanted to do that you found a way to to adapt and adjust

and what you just described as the essence of resiliency. Going through difficult things, feeling that pain, and figuring out how to commit to change, right? Those are two, those two C's, right? Commit to change and to do things that are challenging. They talk about the three C's of building resiliency. Go through some difficult stuff, commit to the change, and make sure that you're embracing that challenge that's coming. Sounds like you figured that out of 10. I'm guessing that was the influence that your parents either modeled or showed you how to do it, unless you picked that up somewhere else. No, definitely from my parents. You know, my dad is a builder, and my mom worked in administration,

and they were always hard workers. And if we had setbacks as a family financially or something else like i remember we had this big family holiday that we had booked you know three years in advance saving up money and we couldn't afford it at the last minute and so we didn't go for another two or three years but it was like okay that's fine we need to sort of try and make find a way and um to save a bit more money and cut a few more costs. And this was not just like for the next summer. This was all for later in the year.

This was for the years down the line. And we all pitched in to try and make it worthwhile. And then when we finally got to Fiji and we went there five years after we said we would, we had a great time. So it's little things like that that I think I picked up even subconsciously from my parents that if you get setbacks, it's okay, but just keep working, give yourself the best possible chance

to be able to achieve things. It sounds like that's the gift or a gift that your parents gave you is when they had something difficult in their life, they didn't demonstrate panic. They didn't demonstrate an irrational and emotional response to the thing that was difficult. Well, not in front of me anyway.

Yeah, right, right. So here you are now in your life, right? And you're going to face some serious challenges in the next two and a half weeks. But all that being said, you've been chasing challenge in the last three years hitting 50 hours in the last couple days of training like that that in and of itself is a deep challenge right yeah um but i think i'm not sure if we said this on air or off air but it's just what needs to be done like i don't i don't look at it you know i just finished a five day six day training block and did 50 hours of swimming, biking and running and gym work. But I don't look at that as if, wow, my God, that's like crazy, that's huge.

I look at it as that's what I need to do. And I train other athletes and I've got athletes who want to do a 10K run. And I look at their training and think it's amazing because that's what they need to do is that your inner dialogue is that the statement you make most to yourself when you're in pain or really uncomfortable is you say well this is what i need to do yeah most of the time there's probably a few profanities thrown in there as well uh but yeah it's okay this is what i need to do and then is it what i really want to do and if they if they match up then it's just suck it up and keep running or you know deal with it and keep the legs spinning on the bike and now you can't get out of

the pool after a mile because you've got to swim three. So just, you know, go to different places where you have gone in the past and to get yourself through it. So it's definitely that. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission,

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without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus they look great, clean, clear, no funky color distortion, just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay, so let's learn about that. What's been so far? My experience about things that are difficult, even in sports and physical engagements is that it's not about the body being pain, but it's what happens to our mind when our body is uncomfortable. Is that your experience as well? Yeah, it's like like doing endurance sports what i do

your your legs and your body and your shoulders are always going to be in pain you know bottom line and if you don't like that pain you won't be doing endurance sports for very long but for me it's and it's been said quite a lot it's becoming it's being comfortable with being uncomfortable and doing that is it comes from between the ears come from your mind it's the essence of adaptation right is can you stay in a space of uncomfortable long enough so that your mind your body your emotional reactions can adapt to that challenge and thereby maybe be more fluid and resilient in other challenges you know that parallel um running or swimming or biking or dealing with a knick-knack injury you know so that's the essence of adaptation and as you i mean this is just

an over said thing like what you said which is be uncomfortable being uncomfortable or be comfortable being uncomfortable but it's really hard and that comes back to the two questions i asked myself do i really want to do this well the first question is okay this is what i need to do to achieve whatever it is i need to achieve and we're not just talking about physical stuff either if you want to buy a new car and you can't afford it so the only way you can afford it is take an extra job on the weekends and you do this job and you're missing out on family time and friends time and you have to ask yourself do i really want this new car or for me do i really want to achieve this physical feat and it's yes and then okay well what do i need to do okay i need to do these extra hours at the you know workplace or i need to keep running um so

that's how i sort of get through it one of um and i hope to have him on on this podcast at some point pete nashak he basically was a master chief commander for seals team five maybe seals in uh you know special operators and he says this phrase that similar to the frankness that you're saying in you know you do basically do what you need to do he says when something matters to you you'll do whatever it takes is that same idea right yeah something matters you'll do whatever it takes yeah when it matters and if that's what you really want to do then you do whatever whatever needs to be done so then a big part of the work is getting really clear of what matters most and then once you get that work done it sounds like what you've done just said okay it matters to me i said it out loud i've got clarity of what it looks like

and i'm just going to do whatever it takes yeah okay why does this matter to you running running biking swimming at such an uh i don't know a lofty, incredibly challenging, difficult, scary number. Why does this matter to you? I think it's less about the miles and more about the challenge and finding the limits of what I potentially have, but also, as I said earlier, I want as many people as I can to come along on this journey with me to and what i'm what i'm building with with my own brand at the moment on the side of the ultimate triathlon is installing uh inspiring others into action is a good way to say because we can all get inspired by something, but actually doing something about it is completely different.

So I want to try and plant the seed in as many people's heads as I can that don't think you're limited to doing whatever society has put on you or whatever you've put on yourself because we are so much more capable than what we give ourselves credit for but it's it's a dark place to try and step out of that comfort zone and i know this so as i said it's not so much about going from morocco to monaco and and the uh and the mileage in 12 days but but it's a personal challenge. People say, why am I doing the ultimate triathlon? I answer it in two versions. The first one is to inspire others into action and to show them that they can do more than they set themselves up for.

And the other one is to test myself mentally and physically and see what I can do. Because I think it would be fun really to be honest all right fun okay and what what on the fun note speaking of challenge and getting uncomfortable what's been the most difficult thing you've faced so far and you because what's the most difficult moment in your life that you've had because you're going to need to rely my thought is you we have to know that because we're going to when we push ourselves we have to know that we've been through difficult stuff so for you what is that thing um wow uh can i answer it two part like sporting and personal personal yeah yeah so i think i think sporting was being being not picked for for those teams

every year like um it was still i wasn't till 14 that i actually made the local representative team so 10 11 12 13 you know four years I would train outside in my back garden by myself, you know, kicking the ball up against the fence till the fence palings fell off and, you know, all this type of stuff. And I took my mom and dad called me in to have dinner and then I'd go back the next year and no, I wouldn't get picked. So I think, and that shaped me a lot, which I'm sure you can see.

But so that on the sporting side of things, that's probably the most difficult thing I've had to deal with. So why did, okay, let's stop there for a moment. I want to hear the other piece in a minute, but you don't get picked. It feels pain. You're embarrassed.

And that embarrassment comes from taking a shot, showing up, letting it rip, but it not working out. Like what happens for people, my experience has been those that don't go for it is that they pretend like they don't care or they're too afraid to show that they care. So they don't go at all.

So what you did is you, you you you took a shot right as a 10 12 13 14 year old kid and then you you didn't you didn't do what most people do is stay small or go small you went actually to work so you took pain now tell me if you agree with the statement that the reason we change is because of pain the reason we grow is because we can be uncomfortable long enough i do yeah okay so that was true for you as well it's true in my life you know that's pain leads to change well it has well in my in my life and in my opinion it has to because we don't like pain so if we're experiencing pain and we keep doing the same thing the same thing over and over again yeah i can handle a lot of pain but i don't like it so i'm going to try and change something

to to not feel that pain right and this is what i think most people do though what you're doing is exceptional this is why i'm so into do, though. What you're doing is exceptional. This is why I'm so into this conversation right now. What you're doing is exceptional. And you started with feeling pain, but you kept going where most people feel pain. And that's at 10. That's what you did. I felt pain. You felt pain and you kept going. And then right now what you're doing is you're saying, I'm going to feel pain in this three year training and in this next two weeks of my life my life i'm going to feel pain but i'm going to keep going and so if we start to decode this a little bit you figure that this is my assertion is that we figure things out early and then we can um we can they set course for us earlier than we think actually but the the daily decisions that we make to reinforce that stuff in us is really important. And what I heard you saying right now is that you didn't do what most do, is you didn't get small and pretend like you didn't care and fake it like you just wanted to look okay. You kept taking risk. So that to me, I just want to celebrate that that's what I'm hearing. And I'm saying,

ah, damn, like like it gets me fired. This is why I love doing these conversations because it gets me fired up. Like, what am I doing? Well, and also I think it just came to me like why I kept going back is to what you said earlier. I had clarity in my vision of what I wanted to do. There it is. I wanted to play soccer, you know. It doesn't matter that I couldn't even make the local team

as a 10-year-old. I wanted to play soccer. I think my dream was to play in the FA Cup, so the big cup in the UK, in England, because we used to get the final on television in Australia

at like 3 o'clock in the morning and I used to stay out with my buddies and watch it but I think my dream was to play in England and to play in that

and that was my that was my goal and I had clarity in that and it didn't matter that put it bluntly I sucked

I was I was going to do the work and give myself I had clarity in that and it didn't matter that, put it bluntly, I sucked. I was going to do the work and give myself the best possible chance. And I think I was smart enough to know that, okay, at 10, 11, 12, if I'm not good enough, then it's not all done and dusted. I still could be good enough later on. So if I just keep working and then once I sort of hit sort of 15, I had like two years of, well, like my career skyrocketed. I was playing,

I made the state team before the regional team. That makes no sense. I got invited to a state camp out of nowhere, and I went there, and they said, how come we've never seen your name before? And I went, I don't know. I've never played for any other team before. And I went, okay, and I got picked for that.

So I was playing in the national championships, traveling around Australia. I moved out of home at 16 to go and play for a club three and a half hours away from my family. I went to a different school where I knew no one. But my goal was then was to play professional. And this was the first step. I was far from being a professional.

What do you think you were looking for? Was it fame and recognition? Or was it externally driven? Was it internally driven? It was internally driven. It was being the best that I could possibly be and seeing where that fitted in with everyone else. Okay, say that again.

So being the best that i could possibly be and then just seeing where that fits in with everyone else that's okay so your commitment is to explore your potential and then it's you're curious to see how that stacks up against others yeah exactly so if i became the captain of australia we went to the World Cup and we won it yeah cool great but if that meant that that was my my potential fantastic if my potential was to bounce around the world scraping by just to pay rent and put food in my mouth but I was a soccer player which was the actual truth and what actually happened then i'm happy with that people say are you happy with your career i loved it i got to meet so many people bounce around the world made no money really but that was my potential and i worked hard to achieve that so i'm content

yeah there you go and so even though you weren't uh this is this is beautiful because this is i think the path of finding mastery is even though you weren't um pele you didn't change the game which masters of craft can change the game but even though you didn't change the game you're still hunting and searching for your very best which is that part that path of exploring mastery yeah no i that's exactly right so you index more on the way it feels to become your best today than you index on comparing yourself to other people yeah totally it's all about uh you know every day i try and become a better person not just a better athlete but a better person so you know uh i don't think I've talked about this very much, but I remember this distinct moment when I was 15 years old.

And I'm curious if you can, no, I'm sorry, not 15, 16, if you can remember this. I think it might have been 15 and a half. I just got my learner's permit to drive and I'm driving and I remember driving, wondering what other, if other people thought that I would, no, I haven't even said this out loud. I'm driving and my mental occupation, even while I'm driving, I'm thinking about, I wonder if they think I look cool because I'm driving. It's awful when I think about this now, like how occupied I was as a youngster of like

thinking about what other people looked at me or what they thought of me. And did you ever have any of that? Or were you, did you have the superhuman, like this blaze? Like, no, I'm Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature.

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That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Searching for my best. I don't care what other people look at because I had to go through lots of frames to be able to drop that, to be able to say I can love people and't care what other people look at because I had to go through lots of frames to be able to drop That to be able to say I can love people and not care what they think of me As a as an adolescent and a teenager, I think I cared a lot less I'm not gonna say I didn't have moments where I wanted to have the branded jeans or have the hair cut or, you know, fit in in those type of ways,

but to sort of mainstream teenagers. But I think I cared a lot less, and I think that's come out as I've gotten older now, especially, you know, sort of I'm 32 now, especially in the last 10 years where, and I think that spills over in what I'm doing I really don't care what other people think or say if it's productive I'll listen but if it's just chatter then it doesn't really bother me but I think so it was a lot less than maybe your average teenager adolescent but there were still part of it there, yeah.

So what are your day-to-day routines that help you stay connected to pursuing your potential? Do you have any regular routines? And I'm not looking for something, I'm not, like, really. You might say, no, I have zero routines. And that's, I had routines 10 years ago but do you have routines now that help you stay connected and aligned to your vision yes but i don't always fulfill them uh in the best possible way so um i do try and i'm sure we'll get into this later as well, but maybe we can go over it now. I do try and meditate most days. Just basic stopping, breathing, listening to my breath.

And I didn't realize at the time, and it took a while for me to actually figure out that this was when meditating for me started and mindfulness started, was when I went to that state camp when I was 15. They put us in this room with 14, 15-year-old kids, 30 of us in this room. Okay, lay down on your back after a big session. Okay, you want to concentrate on your breathing. Listen to your breath in and out.

And we're all laying there and i could people were sort of mumbling and stuff and and then you concentrate on your toes clench your toes now relax and you clench your calves and go all through the body now just relax and i got into it as a you know the 14 15 year old and i remember like my buddies next to me tap me on me on the finger like as if to sort of say they want my attention and I just remember doing the old

my body was still except for one finger like Matombo, the basketball player when he would make a rejection do the wiggle the finger side to side and I just remember I didn't move apart from that one finger like no leave me alone, I'm getting into this and i've practiced that since a 15 year old um i wouldn't say on a regular basis but that's always been something i've come back to so i do

try and do that in the mornings um but also the other routine that i definitely do have is i get up and i'll have um like a glass of water with like apple cider vinegar or lemon juice or just a glass of water and that process sort of starts me. So that's my morning procedure or I'll make a cup of tea or I'll make a cup of coffee depending on what I'm doing, what I feel like and I'll be present. I won't touch my phone. I won't turn my computer on. I'll just be relaxed and actually stop and think about what I'm doing. And that sort of resets me from the night before and then gets me going.

Yeah. I'm obviously nodding my head about and grinning about knowing the value of having a practice of being mindful. And the training required for that can be pretty intense, but the essence of, and that's mindful breathing or progressively relaxing muscles, or just sitting with your thoughts without judgment, you know, whatever the training process will be. And I want to get some context, like how many minutes a day for you, but the idea is that you can be present. So while you're doing that training, it's training you to be present. And then the second part of it is, you know, right now you and I are in this conversation, either we're present or we're not. And the more skilled we are being present, the more we can be in the present moment. When we're in the present moment, that's where excellence takes place. And if we

can stitch together more moments of being fully engaged in presence, I think we touch our potential or we get glimpses of our potential. And yeah, but then pain and worry and fear and anger and frustration and distractions, they all pull us out of the moment. But how disciplined can we have in our own mind to stay locked in here and now in quiet, hostile, rugged, noisy moments? And that takes discipline. It does. And I have this routine every morning to be present, to be mindful.

But I struggle like everyone else for the rest of the day. And the last month or so, I've gotten a lot better because the Ultimate Triathlon, I'm organizing it myself and everything. So my life was very busy. But then I realized I wasn't busy. It was out of control. And it was a bit like I couldn't do anything about it and just realizing that was a huge thing and then so now I've just tried to

really be present as much as I can especially when I'm with other people or doing something that I really need to be doing so if I'm writing an email or if I need to articulate something or writing an article for a magazine or spending time with friends and spending time with my girlfriend who's you know she's been amazing on the journey that for the ultimate triathlon and helped me a lot and I really try and be present with those relationships and um yeah get rid of the phone no no electronics and just actually stop and listen and be engaged i love it and this this way that i've been living my life is from this phrase through relationships we become and it begins with the relationships we have with ourselves and nature and god or your spiritual center and so we can extend that to relationships with others.

But we're so distracted by this, all the noise of the world, that it's really difficult to get connected to ourselves first. And it sounds like, I want to get back to the concreteness of your practice in the morning. Is it one minute? Is it three, six, 12, 15, 20? What does that practice look like for you? The last three months when training has been full on, for the ultratriathlon, I'm not going to lie, sleep has come a priority just to recover.

So some days it could be two breaths, but I will be, it'll still be in bed. My alarm will go off or I've got a lumilite which lights up like the sun to wake you up in the morning. And that'll come on and I'll be awake and I'll sort of blink, get myself sorted and I'm like, okay, I need to get out running or I've got a client who I'm training, another athlete or something like that or I'll stop and have a couple of breaths and I'll be completely present for those.

But I do try and, if I can, possible, I know it doesn't sound very long, but it helps reset me about five minutes. Yeah. I mean, one of the ideas is like, see if you can just sit with breathing for one minute and then stop there. Or if you like it, keep going. For me, it takes me just a little bit longer to snap into place so it it's a you know my practice is usually about six minutes and what i found from research is that um that a minimally effective dose is six minutes for between five and eight weeks we start to see uh significant changes in both uh cognitive

psychological as well as neuroplastic functions, or I'm sorry, neurologic functions, both in brain structure, as well as electrical activity. So like that, like, that's like a minimally effective dose. And, you know, it's such a, I don't know, thing to say to talk about meditation. So that's why i call it mindfulness training like it's training your mind to be here now yeah there you go okay so enough of that i think people are deeply interested in this but i know that there's there's a few other things i want to get with you um is there one phrase that that governs your life and this is essentially like your philosophy live it oh okay unpack that for me a little bit we're you know we're here we're here for a very short time and i don't and you know one of the

reasons why i set this big lofty goal of the ultimate triathlon which is like the big centerpiece um for right now and what i've been achieving the ultimate triathlon which is like the big centerpiece um for right now and what i've been achieving the last three and trying to achieve the last three and a half years is i wanted to live my life i didn't want to go and sit in an office and work for someone else and do something that i didn't enjoy and you know the stereotypical norm of the western world is you get out you do your 40 to 50 hours a week, you come home, you do whatever you do during the evenings, come to Thursday, sort of the weekend, you go out with friends,

or you go and have a few drinks, or you go and do something with the family, and then the weekend is the weekend time. And that's cool. If that's living your life, I've got no problem with that. But because I've been an athlete my entire life my you need to go out and have a few drinks in a bar on saturday night and i drink occasionally i've got nothing against that but that's not my scene you know so i wanted to live my life as much as i could in a way that makes me happy.

Yeah, so there's alignment with your vision. And you're like, okay, if I got that vision, I'm going to live it, whatever it takes to experience that thing. Okay. And then is there a word or phrase that cuts to the center of what you understand most in your life? Oh, wow. That I understand most in my family. Ooh.

Yeah. Because they're always there. Whether, like, I live on the other side. I live in London and my parents live in my hometown. And I moved out of home when I was 16. And that was three and a half hours away. They didn't come and see me every weekend. And I moved away from Australia when I was 21.

So actual face-to-face contact time with my parents basically stops on a regular basis at 16 so that's half my lifetime but as i said earlier my my parents are my heroes and they're the ones that i go to for advice even though that i've not really had much of a relationship with them for quite literally the second half of my year of my of my life so yeah definitely it's it's family that I know that I'll always be there they're a constant I don't I don't have to have any contact with them on a regular basis, but when I do, it's engaging and I'm present and I'm excited. There you go. Okay. So it's taken some of the stuff that you've learned from training and

bringing it to relationships that matter deeply. Can I, can I get weird for you with you? Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. If, if,

if, uh, knock on wood, keep your clothes on. Here we go. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If, knock on wood. Keep your clothes on. Here we go. All right, so maybe weird's not the right phrase, but like, okay, so what, I want to get a peek inside your mind a little deeper.

God forbid, mom and dad were to pass away tomorrow, right? What would be the one thing that you hope that you would say to them today um i don't want to be dramatic about it but what's that thing that you want to them to know i couldn't have wished for better teachers of life than the two of you. Okay. Yeah. When you're saying it, you feel it right now, huh? Yeah.

Yeah, you feel that. Okay. Teach us. Teach me. And I hope you say this to your parents today. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'll give them a call. They'll be getting up soon.

Seriously. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Okay. But other than that, can you teach us that right now? What did they teach you? To be kind to others. The one thing that just popped into my head was, if you can't say something nice, don't say it at all.

But it's true, especially in social media these days. To really sum it up, I think, is to keep an open mind. And even if you're like, you know, I might seem quite stuck in my way that I want to achieve this goal. I have clarity. I have this vision but if someone comes in and goes hey you should try this and I start and I think and I keep an open mind go well yeah sure I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work you've tried if it does help you in a certain way then you take that and move on so they've always you know they've always instilled that you know treat others how you would like to be treated and to

keep an open mind about everything okay so kindness and openness the the second sounds like uh growth and being flexible and being open uh to learning. And the first about kindness as a way of going through life. I am curious if you're, okay, I want to get into the inner critic, that inner dialogue that we have, that little voice that says we're not good enough, we don't have what it takes, do you really think you can get this done? The inner critic.

Are you kind to yourself? No. Okay. Yeah, I know. Okay, so what are you kind to yourself? No. Okay. Yeah, I know. Okay, so what are you doing? I'm trying to figure that out. Okay, the reason I knew to ask that, though, is because I know that most people would never say what they say to themselves

to another human being because it would hurt that person. But you, so teach okay teach keep keep going teach teach us because you're about to do something heavy yeah it's you know i i look at the things that i've done in my life not just athletically but everything else like i wasn't a scholar at school like school was a social life for me you know i didn't really care but i went to university and got an exercise science degree to give me an ounce of knowledge about the body and whatever because i was interested but everything i would do i would i would i'd finish it and then go okay now what's the next thing because i wanted to achieve that and then it was done and it's only really been i'd say the last five or six years where the king there

there was a certain pattern amongst my family and my close friends they would say luke you never celebrate when you when you triumph or when you do something you know and i think to show how just made me think of something as a kid um to exactly show everyone how hard i was on myself i was the worst to be around if i played a bad game. Even if the team won, even if I was a defender and I scored goals, a game-winning goal, I could visualize those three passes that I either didn't make,

I passed to the opposition, or that tackle I missed time. And I would hang on to them. And I would come back from the game or my or my parents would be watching and they'd drive me home and i would be in the foulest mood we could have won 10-0 i'd be in the foulest mood and i was so hard on myself and you learned this strategy when you were 10 11 12 back in oh maybe even earlier i was like this hard on myself so let me ask you a question you learned that when you were 9 10 11 somewhere in that range young and you had a young mind and it got you good because it allowed you to work harder because you were brutal to yourself

do you think that there's a you want to keep carrying that forward or is there is there a better strategy for you moving forward i'm i'm trying to to release that in a turmoil or not turmoil but that inner critic yeah i'm trying i'm trying to relax him um and my mom used to say to me it got that bad that they didn't want to be around me. And I was putting a downer on family dinners after the game. And she said, right, you can be upset. You played great. You scored the game-winning goal and you got man of the match. And you made one bad pass.

So what? But you can be upset the day of the game, whether it's 9 o'clock at 9 or 9 o'clock in the morning. You wake up the next day and it's a different day and it's over. And that was the rules. And I had to follow them you know otherwise i got in trouble but i'm definitely the last sort of five six years there was a constant theme coming with my family friends as i said earlier and you don't celebrate what you do you're so hard on yourself and I kept hearing this quite a lot that you know it's okay to um to stop okay so can I add a thought what if you get to the end of uh this thing and you really lay it on the on the line and you do exactly what your vision is and you complete it but you've beat yourself up

internally the entire time and at the end of the race, you feel shitty. What do you think about that picture? Because I think, let me just say one more thought. What I think you're doing is you're pushing so hard that when you finally test yourself at the ultimate level, then you'll give yourself permission to celebrate. And, you know, like on the other side of this, it's easy for me to think this, but wouldn't it be a gift if you could celebrate along the way, like even just laughing at that critic because you're actually doing the thing that no one else is even trying to do. past two or three weeks that I've now got to a point where life's been, as I said, out of control. I'm training for this event. I'm training other clients. I'm still writing.

I'm trying to fundraise for this event, doing everything. And I was just so manic and I just had to stop and think, what am I doing? Do I really want to do this? And then I thought, well, how am I going to be exactly like you are? How am I going to be halfway through this if I'm just beating myself up? How am I going to get through it? And I just realized, you know what? As soon as I'm on the boat from Spain, going across to Morocco to start the swim,

all the preparation for the ultimate triathlon is done. I can't do anything else. It's finished. So for those next 12 days, and I'm telling this to all my crew, and some already know about it, and the way I'm approaching these 12 days is that's not the challenge. The challenge has been the last three and a half years to get me on that boat to start. I want it to be a celebration of the last three and a half years.

I want it to be a party atmosphere. There's going to be cameras around. There's a documentary being made about it. I always say the camera loves me, but I hate it. I love playing up to it. It's good fun. I don't even think I'm going to be beating myself up along the way or even at the end because my mentality has shifted and I've got that clarity that these 12 days, they're going to be like, they're going to be excruciatingly painful, but they're going to be fun because I'm going to have some of my best friends around me and they're going to enjoy it with me. This is part of the vision now, right?

It's a little more textured it's not just the accomplishment the feat of it and it's not the three year three and a half years of training but it's actually this can you have these two ideas is when you're going through the stuff can you wink and smile and and at at how hard this is and like have that inner dialogue that's a little bit more playful it sounds like that's what i'm hearing and yeah okay i'm rooting for you because uh you've got i don't know what'd you say you're 28 i'm 32 32 you've got you've so then you've probably got 26 years of kicking your ass really hard maybe in this next you know in this next frame like you'll be able to get to that place where you that i'm going to totally so can we do this can we like at some point during your journey if you've got uh if you can send some updates some way that i can keep track or even we could talk for 15 20 minutes it'd be awesome to capture some

of that yeah of course so along the way i'm sure we can talk this at the end but on the way it's going to be uh filmed and streamed at different times live online through my website. Really interactive on social media as well. So everyone can be a part of it. And that's what I like to do. And after a big day, we can figure out when you're... Because I know where I'm going to be every day. And I know roughly how long it's going to take me.

So at the end of the day or maybe not on the bike it'd be a little bit dangerous trying to have a Skype call on the bike but on the run maybe I could do a Skype on the phone and we could have a bit of a chat as I'm walking along on yeah so okay you know what we could do you could use me as a resource and and or you could use me as a place to share updates. Right. So let me, let me offer that to you. If you want it, if it's an, if, if you wanted to reach out to me,

you know, like I, I, I have a sense of what you'll be going through, right. From the psychology frame, use me. Cause this is like a gift.

I'd love to give back to you. And, and, or if you just want to give, give a shout out to people that I know through this podcast, then we'll do that too. So that'd be awesome. That'd be fun.

I think we should do that. That'd be great. When I've through this podcast then we'll do that too so that'd be awesome that'd be fun i think we should do that that'll be great when i've had um yeah we'll have that sort of on the phone and and then when it's time to make that call we'll organize it what am i doing what yeah what have i done to myself yeah and you know here's what i'll say it's like listen there's two ways you can place your attention. You can place your attention inside of you, or you can place your attention outside of you. And if you don't like the way it feels to be inside, you place your attention outside of you pick up, you know, the beauty, the sounds, the smell in it. If that gets over too boring or whatever, place your, your attention inside. And like, so it's, it's that cadence of back and forth that you can play with without judgment. Yeah. That would be mindful. That would be mindful, uh, adventure, you know, is the ultimate adventure that you're going on. Okay.

Listen, let me jump back into this with you really quickly. How important is mindset and mental skills to what you're doing? Obviously you're pushing your body to the limit. Like, what would you say? 70% in the mind, 30% physical. Jeez, okay. And then of that 70%, what would you say are the top three mental skills that you're working on? There's confidence, there's calm,

there's, you know, to adjust, there's having a sense of imagery, there's the deep focus and the inner dialogue. What do you think it is? The top one is imagery, for sure. I actually went swimming down the ocean last weekend, and I got out of the water. I don't do well with cold water.

And I got out, and I you know, all clenched over and my arms were stiffened up. And the lifeguard come over to check me out. And I'm like, no, I'm fine. And my girlfriend's like, no, he's fine. He's always like this when he gets out of the water. It's normal. And he was chatting to me.

And we had a bit of a chat. And I said to him, I said, look, I've gone through as many scenarios as I can. Not for the ultimate triathlon, but every day. Every day. The first day one is a swim and a bike. And I've gone through that so many times during the hours of training or by chance I've stopped and I'm having a cup of tea or a coffee or just sitting on the couch and I think about an element.

What if this happened? Oh, what if I feel this good then? You know, do I've liked to, like, I used to play in the backyard by myself. And I always laugh when I tell people this story. I used to play rugby against myself in the backyard. So I would pass the ball, sort of loft it up in the air, run and catch it, and look to, I caught it from the other side and do a little step and I'd kick and chase it and run and I'd dive and score a try. Sometimes I'd drop the ball and I would play an actual game, but it was myself.

So my imagination was always there. So I could envision these things and I think that's just gone on with the rest of my life and also in my athletic feats as well. I'll stop and i'll think about it every every crazy scenario that you could possibly think of even if it's for a second or or five minutes but then the more likely ones i'll spend a bit of time on them and i think okay so what if this happens well try that try that try that so then when i've done these these other big events that i've done in the

last few years you know my first ever triathlon was a double ironman distance in north wales in the hills and i finished that i had an amazing crew with me but i finished that and it was a bit like nothing went wrong like i do it non-stop for 35 hours and I felt pretty good and I chatted and laughed all the way. And I thought, that's not right. But then I come down to it that all the scenarios that I thought would go wrong, I'd already thought about them. So I just went, okay, what did I think about? Oh, I did it like five minutes at a time, the longer parts of your imagery, part of the skill of that is to invite all five senses to be alert. And so you smell, see, taste, touch, all of your senses come alive.

Are you good at all of your senses? Like, can you create such a lifelike image that it feels like you're actually in it? Yes, definitely. Yeah, that's when you know you've got it and you've done the work, is that you can conjure up things that you've never seen before or done before, and you can do it as if it were lifelike. And that takes time, and that's why it's an actual skill that people can do. And if it's, just to tap on that,

and if there's something I'm not sure about, I'll ask someone who has done it or who has been there. And then I'll tap into their resources. Like, I've never been to the Gibraltar Strait, but I've seen film, I've seen videos, I've seen photos. I've asked people who have swam the strait before. And I said, describe it to me. Tell me what it's like.

What can you hear? Can you smell the diesel from the tankers when you swim can you hear the buzzing of the boats i don't know if you've known it but when you swim in a lake or something and the speedboats are out you hear like a buzzing can you hear that so i've asked people because i've never never experienced that so i use that as well all right um pressure comes from myself it all comes down to... Living, loving, and family. The crossroad of my life was...

I don't think I've had it yet. That fits for you. Success. Success is... Being happy, knowing that you've done everything you can do. So you can achieve that today? Yeah.

There you go. I can't wait to hear what it's like for you at the end of this experience. Like I really am, because if you've got this thread where your loved ones in your life has said you don't celebrate your achievements, I can't wait to see what you do here.

Like if there's a breakthrough on this I'm wondering if this is going to be a total different experience at the end for you I think after the 12 days of pain I'm going to endure and finishing in Monaco I tell you what if I can't celebrate there there you go I can't celebrate anywhere. So when you're in physical pain and discomfort is maybe a more chronic way to say it, when you're in deep discomfort, call it pain, does that mean you have to be in mental pain? No. Yeah. That's the deal, isn't it?

No. it no like i you know i've ran 36 miles every day for the past three days uh with some swims in there on the back of 140 miles for three days on the bike so i got up this morning and sitting on the not to be graphic but sitting on the toilet hurt um and walking around hurt. And I had 36 miles to run. And as soon as I started to run, my legs were screaming at me. But the sun was shining. It was beautiful temperature. It was the morning. I had the whole day to myself.

Mentally, I was in a great place. I was so happy. But my legs were screaming at me. What are you doing? Stop. So just because it's physical pain doesn't have to be uh mental at all sounds like you stay stay present and or stay hopeful yeah it sounds like that is what you're doing there all right so um love um compassion my vision

potential I am Luke some people get really tricky on that you're like dude make it simple I am Luke I'm me that's it Luke with what you're doing here and what you've seen

and understood and the challenges you've been through and the struggles you've faced and the vision you've created and the commitment you've taken to to put the work in to say it publicly to let it rip to challenge yourself for the last three and a half years to hopefully celebrate here in another two weeks in in the the grind and the grit that you're going to be in the middle of what do you hope the next generation will get right or learn from you in your life or just in general what do you hope the next generation gets right to start with get outside more or get off electronics um i was lucky enough to

to be uh to be, old enough now, but young enough at the time, that we didn't have any electronics. And I wasn't allowed to say I was bored because I had a backyard with trees and a basketball hoop and loads of sporting stuff and rivers and creeks down there. So I think if the new, like the generations growing up now i think they need to stop and realize the natural beauty of the world and enjoy it and i'm not talking about

they have to go out and climb mountains or whatever but even just you know i remember with my family going down to a a pond with ducks in it and sitting there and feeding the ducks and that's some of the most amazing memories that i had sitting there and feeding the ducks and that's some of the most amazing memories that i have with my family feeding the ducks some old stale bread um say that to a seven-year-old today and be like can i take the ipad so yeah i don't know if that answered your question but yeah no it definitely does okay um you know thank you and there's one more question so thank you i know we've gone a bit over time and i'm all right yeah i'm trying to uh i'm trying to get better but i just get sucked in these conversations so um i'm i don't know i guess

i don't really care how long this goes because it's good i just just love it. But last question for you really is how do you describe or articulate or define mastery? I guess it's, for me, it's being able to confidently, through practice and experience, I guess, pass on to others like skills or an understanding of a skill or a mindset or a concept. So they can replicate it but put their own twist on it, I guess. So mastery is a deep understanding and the ability to articulate it and pass it on to others so that they can use it to explore their potential. Maybe I just asked that last part. Yeah, no, that's a lot better way. That's what it sounds like in my head but i can't

get that out i'm blaming the last five days or six days of training yeah i understand that okay yeah so basically you learn through experience and you learn from your practice something doesn't have to be sport you could be business or whatever. And you've got to a certain confident level. And if someone comes along and you see potential in them or someone comes along, then you can pass that on to them. And then they can fulfill that as well. I guess that would be finding mastery in my opinion. Thank you, Luke. Thanks, thanks mg it's been great i really appreciate it now okay so where can everyone find you and um yeah so give us the download where we

can find you where we can follow you give us your social media platforms let that rip okay so the ultimate triathlon has its own website and it's very simple it's the ultimate triathlon.co and that'll give that'll be basically where the event runs through um and then my own website is luketiberski.com which will be in the show notes, I'm sure. And Twitter, Instagram, Facebook is all Luke Taberski. And for the next six days, there's a crowdfunder page, which is helping me fund this event. Because unfortunately, I haven't, even though there's a documentary being made by a professional

about my journey from Morocco to Monaco, I haven't actually enticed any sponsors, any major sponsors on board. So I'm self-funding this through personal loans and basically asking friends and family to chip in. And my crowdfer is halfway finished, half reached the target. And basically, CrowdFunderWorks is either different amounts that you can pledge, so different amounts of money,

but each pledge you get rewards. So it's not a donation. You actually get something back. And all that money goes to helping my event. So if you're interested, if you like it, there's loads of cool different ideas that you can get from the pledge that information is all on my website as well and even if you just want to say hi you're a nutcase drop me a message on social media or my email address is

lucetuberscape gmail and it's on my all my pages as well um send me out a tweet or whatever and I always respond to everyone and get on board and live the journey with me. I will absolutely. I know you're speaking to folks that are listening. I'm absolutely going to drop some money into your account here to support you on the journey and I want to encourage folks to do the same. And it's really, what I'll just add is

I feel connected to what you're doing because you've shared and I also want to support what you're doing. I want to challenge you too. So the support is like, I can do it emotionally, I can do it mentally by encouragement, but I also want to do it financially, which is the thing that you're looking for to continue it. So I want to encourage people to do the same. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and drop some into the bucket. How much are you looking for?

I'm looking for another 3,000 pounds. So that's probably about four and a half, $5,000. Okay, okay. All right, listen, let's make a commitment. If you're listening to this let's make a commitment let's let's if you're listening to this now make a commitment like 50 bucks 100 bucks 250 bucks like we can get there yeah there's like and there's even pledges for like about 20 bucks you know um so every little look it's it's it's so cliche but it does every little bit um counts And yeah, quite literally, if I don't get this over the next sort of week and a half,

you know, it's going to be calling the bank again and saying, yeah, I need a little bit more money to get through my, get through my life and put myself into more debt. But Hey, you know, that's the way I live my life.

And all right, let's see if we can get you across the finish line in a lot of ways. So what I want to ask people to do is love you up on social, which is Luke Tyburski, T-Y-B-U-R-S-K-I. So at Twitter and Facebook. Right? Okay.

So love them up that way with encouragement and support. And then love them up with some financial resources. And let's move this. Let's be part of someone striving and going forward and be connected to that journey. And that's to all of us that are listening to this. And the last thing is I want to challenge you and I want to challenge you if I, if, if you'll allow me to, is that okay? Of course. I love a challenge. Yeah, I know. Clearly I thought it was okay. So the challenge, if I could, would be to each time you start to drop into that old habit of being brutal and critical and that part of you,

I recognize this for myself as well. I said it earlier, like, can you just wink? Can you smile at it? Can you say hello and goodbye to it? Can you pat it on its head and tell it not now? Like, can you create these strategies? And then can you maybe even smile, like remembering this conversation,

like, okay, remembering this conversation? Like, okay, Gervais, get out of my head. Like, I would love at the end of this for us to, like, have a glass of something or a celebration online to say, hey, man, how'd you do on that part? Yeah, cool. I bet there's been thousands of athletes that have said to themselves, hey Javay, get out of my head. I'm not sure what to make of that statement, but yeah, that's pretty funny. That is pretty cool.

And I accept the challenge. And yeah, and I'll hold myself accountable. When that happens, I'll ping a message or a tweet even so everyone else can see and I'll let you know briefly on what happened and how it went. I love it. That'll be fun. Okay. So last thing as we're wrapping here. Thank you.

Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you for sharing your journey. Thank you for being honest with the pains that you've shaped. I know we didn't actually talk about one of those pains, but thank you so much. Maybe we can get to that second thing that we talked about in the next conversation, but I just really am honored to be part of understanding what you're about to go do. And with that, folks that if you enjoyed this conversation, head to findingmastery.net and, you know, check us out there And Luke will be up this next Wednesday. It'll drop. And then the next part of it is if you can write a review on iTunes under Finding Mastery,

it helps us keep momentum and all that good stuff. So anyone that's listening that loved it and appreciate it, send us information at MichaelGervais.com on Twitter. No, I'm sorry, at Michael Gervais, G-E-R-V-A-I-S. Send us, like, keep me on track. I'm sorry at michael gervais g-e-r-v-a-i-s send us like keep me on track i'm figuring this out myself so i'm i want to keep growing at this so love feedback okay again luke thank you so much go kick ass brother i gotta go and call my parents and tell them thanks for being the best teachers in life awesome guess what i'm gonna go do the same all right mate thanks very much mj talk to talk soon okay thanks luke all right thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us

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