High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 362: Living Bravely with Dr. Justin Grunewald, Physician, Runner, and husband to Gabe Grunewald

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Dr. Justin Grunewald works at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in the heart of Minneapolis treating patients during their hospital stays. He works nights for seven to 10 days in a row, then he'll get about two weeks off. When Cindra caught up with Justin, he was in Colorado ready to go on a RV trip, running, camping and adventuring in the woods. On Episode #14 on the High Performance Mindset back in 2015, Cindra interviewed Justin’s wife, Gabe Grunewald. The fearless middle distance runner who was going after her dreams to make an Olympic team despite cancer. Gabe’s life was cut short at just 32 last year, but she still managed to make a huge impact on the running community and beyond. While battling a rare form of cancer and competing as one of the best middle-distance runners in the country, she inspired countless people to live bravely. For over 10 years, she fought adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare cancer of the salivary glands, which she was diagnosed with as a fifth-year senior running for the University of Minnesota. Despite the diagnosis, she went on to become an All-American in the 1500 meters, and after that, a professional runner who almost made the 2012 Olympic team. In this podcast, Justin and Cindra talk: · Gabe’s life physiology and how we can each learn to live bravely · How their foundation “Brave Like Gabe” started · How Gabe was able to turn a difficulty into an opportunity · Their “chance” encounter in Central Park with Chip Gaines that changed their world · An inside look at the mindset of an elite athlete HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/justingrunewald HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901  

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the high performance mindset. Welcome to episode 362 with Justin Grunewald. This is your host, Dr. Sindhara Kampoff, keynote speaker, performance and executive coach and author, and I am grateful that you are here. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place. Today we're going to be talking about living bravely, just like Gabe did. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest, Justin Grunewald. Dr. Justin Grunewald works at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in the heart of Minneapolis, treating patients during their hospital stays. He works

nights for seven to 10 days in a row, and then he gets two weeks off. When I caught up with Justin, he was in Colorado, ready to go on an RV trip where he was going to be running, camping, and adventuring in the woods. Sounds fun. Now in episode 14 on the High Performance Mindset podcast back in 2015, I interviewed Justin's wife, Gabe Grunewald. Gabe was a fearless middle distance runner who was going after her dreams to make an Olympic team despite cancer. And Gabe's life was cut short at age 32 last year, but she was still able to make a huge impact on the running community and beyond. While battling a rare form of cancer and competing as one of the best middle distance

runners in the country, she inspired countless people to live bravely. For over 10 years, she fought a rare form of cancer in her salivatory glands, which she was diagnosed with as a fifth year senior running for the University of Minnesota. Despite the diagnosis, she went on to become an All-American in the 1500 meters, and after that, a professional runner who almost made the 2012 Olympic team. When Gabe was on this earth, I had the incredible privilege of working with her as her mental coach, and I wanted to have Justin on the podcast today so you could hear his perspective of how Gabe lived so bravely and fearlessly. I got to hear her words and I got to speak to her about how she did it, but I wanted to have Justin on so that you could really get a sense of how we

can each live brave like Gabe. In this episode, Jess and I talk about Gabe's life philosophy and how we can each learn to live bravely. We talk about how they started brave like Gabe, their foundation and the mission today. How Gabe was able to turn a difficulty into an opportunity and how actually it was her first cancer diagnosis that helped her become an all-american in the 1500 we really get an inside look at the mindset of an elite athlete and what it takes to deal with the difficulties gabe experienced and then my favorite part was when they talk about this chance encounter in central park with Chip Gaines that changed their life. Justin said that Gabe's favorite quote was this, We will all struggle in life.

It's okay to struggle. It's not okay to give up. I look forward to hearing what you think about this touching conversation with Justin. Before we head over to Justin, I'm going to read today's rating and a review. This is from Laura. Laura said, Thanks, Dr. Sindra. Thank you so much, Laura.

And we would love to read your rating and review next week on the podcast wherever you're listening head over and leave us a rating and review and be sure to share this episode with a friend you can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening or take a screenshot share it with a friend or you could also share it on your Instagram stories and make sure you tag me at and Justin Grunewald won and of course brave like gabe without further ado let's bring on justin justin i am so grateful to have you on the high performance mindset podcast um i welcome you from colorado today how are you doing good thanks so much for having me i know we've been trying to connect and life has been crazy. So it's good to finally talk to you.

I'm really excited to talk with you today and just to hear more about your journey and Gabe's journey. And so maybe just to get us started, Justin, how about you just describe a little bit about your passion and what you do right now? Yeah, I mean, right now, I have a couple different passions. I like to try to stay as busy as possible. So first and foremost, I'm the chair of the Brave Lake Gabe Foundation. We fund rare cancer research. It was created by Gabriel and two of her best friends back in 2018. Probably my second passion is running, trail running, mountain running, spending time in nature and kind of exploring and getting lost. And that's kind of a highly enjoyable thing for me. And then third, I shouldn't say third is being a physician, but obviously we're in a pandemic and I really am grateful to be a physician because I feel like I get to help people. And it's a very it's something I want to do my whole life and it's something I've always enjoyed doing. and it's a very, it's something I wanted to do my whole life and it's something I've always enjoyed doing. So it's a very fulfilling job for me.

Oh, that's wonderful. So I'm hearing that you really like live your purpose and your passion through your work as a physician. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to see people that are vulnerable and struggling or just people that are sick and them putting their trust in you. So you kind of feel like you better do a good job and help them out or help them in whatever direction they want to go. How has your work changed given COVID? Like tell us a little bit about your job as a physician, who you work with, and then how your work has changed during this time period. Yeah, it's been a bit of a roller coaster. I work at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, and the higher-ups have been great at getting us super prepared. So it kind of all started March, April.

We were seeing chaos in New York. Thankfully, that never really happened in Minnesota. But come mid-May, our numbers were really getting up, our intensive care units were filling. And then all of a sudden, things really dropped off. And now they're starting to climb again, which isn't great. But it's just a very different environment and atmosphere as everyone sees outside. Like when people are always wearing masks, It's different socializing with people even. And we see a lot when we're not seeing coronavirus patients, we're seeing a lot of really sick patients that we're avoiding in the hospital. And we're seeing a lot of mental health, a lot of like alcohol abuse, drug abuse that I think is all being manifest through the same

vein of COVID and isolation and fear and worry and things like that. Yeah. How have you been coping during this time just with COVID? What have you been doing to make sure you keep your mental health strong? Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think one thing I learned from Gabriel and learned through our hardships and my hardships is no matter how bad or how hard a day is if you can kind of get out get active get your blood flowing at the end of it even if you have a terrible workout or if you have the best workout of your life you're just going to feel a little bit better it's going to take the edge off so I've been kind of running hard in the mountains, focusing on finding new trails, new beauty, and there's tons of it in Colorado. So that's kind of been my rescue after putting in long shifts in the

hospital. Yeah. I love following you on Twitter because, or where is it? Instagram? I don't know where I follow you, but I just like seeing all your running journeys. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is just for the listeners to better understand Gabe's story and also to tell us a little bit about Brave Like Gabe and the foundation. So to get us started with that, Justin, tell us how you and Gabe first met. Yeah, so we both ran high school in Minnesota we didn't know each other we both came to the University of Minnesota in 2004 as freshmen and we met it's called super block there's four dorms at the University of Minnesota and kind of the runner kids were all mingling and this first time we ever met we decided to go play a game of pickup basketball. She had on her like the general issue, long cut basketball shorts. She was stubborn and athletic and

liked to win from day one. So that kind of drew me to her. We became best friends, study buddies, and then formed a relationship and it kind of went from there. Yeah, that's wonderful. You know, when I think about from an outsider's perspective, like I saw Gabe overcome so many things in her life, you know, it was cancer three times, right? And I'm thinking about just difficult races as an elite runner. She got fourth at the trials. Right. Which is really difficult because you're so close. I think that fourth place is the most difficult place to get, you know, when qualifying race like that. How did you see Gabe overcome those difficulties and challenges? I think honestly, it was always her perspective. And even with a hard diagnosis, when you're sometimes battling the clock, knowing life isn't infinite, but it's

finite, as it is for all of us, just for some in more of an accelerated fashion but I think that really drove her to make the most out of every day and it was funny because like the obstacles in racing she'd have a terrible race like the worst race of her life and it'd be like for me I'd second guess myself it'd probably turn into this downward spiral and I'd be like I'm not fit I shouldn't be racing I need to train for two, but she'd go to the track two days later instead of PR. And it was like, she just had this short-term memory where she forgot the bad race or used it as fuel to have a way better race the next time out. And that was just how she approached life. If you got a bad day at the doctor's office, a bad diagnosis, a bad prognosis. She kind of wiped the slate clean

and said, we're going to move on to another treatment. We're going to keep running. We're going to keep living and traveling. And it was really a perfect way to live. Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I just heard you say is that she would use these, do you think these difficulties like fueled her or like do you think they helped her become stronger I mean yeah 100 but I think the craziest thing that is often overlooked because instagrams and the twitters didn't overly exist back then but her what would have been her senior year of college she was a great runner for like the normal person, but she was not an all American. She wasn't competing really at national meets.

She was hoping to be towards the front of the conference meet, but then she got a cancer diagnosis, had a radical neck dissection. It's a pretty big surgery, had a summer of radiation. And then basically took the summer off, tried to like ran into her radiation treatments 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back, which is crazy. That just shows how dedicated she was. But then six months later, she was second place at the NCAA meet, which if you asked anyone who she was the year before, no one like that new NCAA track would have known her name right wow last year we did a study Justin where we interviewed elite athletes about how they

developed their grit and all of them said that they had overcome significant adversity to get to where they are and it was like that adversity that set them up for success we weren't really expecting to find that you know that it was like they that was the thing that helped them up for success. We weren't really expecting to find that, you know, that it was like they, that was the thing that helped them get there. And that's what I just heard in that story about, you know, Gabe's senior year as a gopher is like, do you think that cancer diagnosis like helped her win, you know, get second at NCAAs? Like, and, and kind of just tell us a little bit about, like, how did you see or make sense of that in her head? Yeah, so I think, ultimately, the years leading in, she,

and I, I mean, not that, one of the million reasons I liked her was because I saw all this raw talent. I saw this woman who had more speed than any woman I'd ever seen. She was tough. We'd go for a long run and she'd hang with me just out of stubbornness. But it did take the cancer diagnosis to kind of unlock it. And for her to, the year before, she didn't dream of being a pro runner. She wanted to go to law school. But then she was diagnosed with cancer and she said, I'm going to focus all my energy on running. And that's kind of what she did. And she always had the talent, but yeah, just to unlock kind of the grittiness and the self-confidence and just knowing the urgency,

she all of a sudden had kind of changed her as an athlete big time. Yeah. So how did you see her develop that grit? You know, like I like what you said about like stubbornness, maybe it was a little bit of stubbornness, but like this ability to stick with it when it was hard, if it was a run with you or whatever that might be. I think part of the development was just her getting this very stiff filter of knowing what's important and what's not important and I think that kind of worked also in like a pain filter it's like like when you're running hard it hurts but it's like for me now and it's how I cope a little bit when I'm like running up a mountain I'm like wow that really hurts like my heart hurts I have a side ache but I'm like

it doesn't really compare to the hurt you've experienced in other aspects of life and just to be able to control that hurt and even like dive into that hurt a little bit is almost enjoyable just because it's so different and I think that's a lot of what she did she'd experienced a lot of pain we experienced a lot of pain. We experienced a lot of pain together. The day she was diagnosed, it's a day you never forget. And then you Google it and you don't read what you want to read and it takes your breath away. So I think just knowing that the pain and her training and running is going to be transient. And when you finish, it's going to feel a lot better. I think that was kind of her gritty perspective yeah and so do you mean like the physical pain that we all experience when we're running and really pushing ourselves like that helped her like embracing that pain is maybe

a little bit different than the emotional pain of a cancer diagnosis yeah because and it's so controllable not that you're going to stop mid race, but you're like, for her, she's running 1500 and it's like, I have four minutes and five seconds of this pain. Yeah. Whereas emotional pain can last and linger, but you forget about all that emotional pain while you're out there, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely why exercise can help you kind of deal with this difficulties you're going through. Totally. Yeah. There's a couple of moments that I found Gabe incredibly inspiring, you know, like every conversation I had with her, she was always

inspiring, but two moments that I remember one, I think it was on Instagram where I saw her like in bed, ready to go into surgery in the hospital. And she said like, something like this is happening today, not to me, but for me, you know, just like as a, as a way to like, help her deal with it. Right. Like she wasn't a victim. So how did you see her emotionally cope with it all? Because I think like, you know, maybe one of our biggest fears as humans is to get cancer, right? It's such a scary disease, or a diagnosis, maybe the best way to say it. But how did you see her like handle that? I think, and again, this was, she was she was is stronger than me but i distinctly remember days in the hospital where it'd be a bad diagnosis she'd never cry in front of a doctor because she

was too strong to do that but maybe if we were in new york we'd go back to like the hotel or go back to our condo and we'd cry or we'd embrace and it'd be hard but after like x amount of time she'd be like okay this is done like we're not crying anymore we're not wasting our day we're gonna go do something and then we're gonna go get like a shake or like go to a movie like we're just gonna keep living because that's all you can really do and if you let the depression the sadness cripple you you can just go lay in bed as well but she was constantly needing to move forward and i was always beyond impressed how she she just didn't want to waste any time she had and that was kind of how she looked at all these, they were all

little obstacles that may end up taking her life, but she wasn't going to look at it like that. She was just going to look at them as little obstacles she was going to overcome. And later in her life, she got to share a lot of those obstacles and a lot of ways she dealt with it. And I think she helped, I know she helped an incredible amount of people out. I know she did as well. And I appreciate what you just said about like not wasting time that we have on these little obstacles. Other people might perceive them as really big obstacles, but just the word like little also kind of shows a little bit about her perspective. And you said like how this is a great way of living. Tell us a little bit about your perspective.

Because I think everyone who's listening right now, I think their mind's blown. Like in terms of how she was able to do that. But in your perspective, how is it a great way to live? Yeah, I mean, honestly, and it's how I'll continue to live the rest of my life. But once she had metastatic disease, so in 2016, and even before this still, but CT scan, she had remorse spread out before that. But once she had a large tumor intersection in her liver, we knew she was going to get a CT scan every three months. And it might be neutral news, it might be good news, it might be neutral news it might be good news it might be bad news

but we knew every time we'd have another three months and up until the day she passed away we we still had our next three months planned we had concert tickets bought we had flights bought and we always were setting up things that were going to fill our three months with a ton of happiness and a ton of exploring and joy and running and it didn't we never looked a year into the future it's always just three months and it was a perfect way to live because and i know if you have kids and you have other obligations it's a little different but i think if you always keep something in that three month window, whether it's like a special walk, or if you're in Minnesota, like driving up the North Shore, just something like it can be trivial and small, but you still need something to keep you moving forward. And that's

kind of what we always did. Love it. You know, tell us the story about Chip Gaines and meeting him. I know Chip and Joanna have been such supporters and then that gave a train Chip for his first marathon, right? So tell us actually how that encounter happened and just that about that relationship. Yeah, I mean, I guess through my time with Gabriel and through everything that happened and all of our experiences, I stopped really believing in chance because too many strange things happen for it to be chance. But she was on a clinical trial in New York. It was around six months of immunotherapy.

And this was going to be our last visit. We didn't know before going there, but she got a scan. Her tumors had grown. So she was going to stop the trial because it didn't make sense if it wasn't doing anything to her cancer. So, which isn't good news. So we went to the doctor that morning, got bad news. We had a flight out that night and we always ran around Central Park. So I run longer distances. I did a six mile loop. And as I was going to grab her, there was a guy sitting on a bench and he like yelled at me and he's like hey you have a pretty stride and I'm like thanks didn't think twice

and then he yells at me again he's like how long would it take a fat guy like me to run a marathon and I'm like I have no idea like leave me alone he's like how long and I'm like do you mean like hours or like months to train and he's like months and I say four months so I grab Gabriel we're walking she's waiting for her GPS watch to connect and this guy yells again he's like hey it's you and then she's like oh hey Chip and I'm like oh he must be like a friend of Gabe's and he's just harassing me but it ended up being chip gaines oh my god you have to be kidding me yeah so so then they're chatting and i'm like who is this guy because i i mean she'd made me watch the show so i'd seen it but like after a hospital shift it's kind of just like happy tv where you're

like this crazy guy's doing demo day his wife's making these beautiful homes but you're not really and he looked he had long hair he didn't look like they had just stopped fixer-upper and he was looking for his next adventure in life and then they're all sudden chatting about running for a half hour and he's like I want to run a marathon and she's like oh like I'd love to give you advice and we snapped a picture he took her number and then she just did a short look because they talked so long so she had to get back and shower for our flight but she took her shirt off in the meantime and came back through the same spot and she had that big scar on her abdomen and he's like oh my gosh that's like an amazing scar like i want to hear that story so she tagged him on instagram he read all about her reached out

like a month later and he's like you're coaching me to run a marathon and I'm going to put on a marathon in Waco Texas and I want all the money we raised to go to whatever you want it to amazing so I knew that it was like a chance encounter but I didn't really know like how that actually happened. And there's no way that was chance. Yeah, it was. And he's been an incredible, he and Joanna, their whole family have been incredible ever since they came and visit her in the hospital. They actually, we had just moved before she went to the hospital and he's like, can I do anything while we're in Minneapolis? And I like jokingly said, you can help decorate our condo. And like, cause I didn't have time to hang stuff, like put furniture together. It was like in boxes and got home from the hospital

to like go for a quick run and it was finished beautifully. So they just, they're really good people and they've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the foundation through their marathon and through his own giving yeah that's amazing i remember seeing this picture in your living room that is there like a sign that says like a something like there are two ways to live your life one is so yeah so i actually we, my husband and I bought a new home last year and I bought that Magnolia sign for a living room. So I have some angel wings right next to it. That's awesome. That's a great sign. Yeah. That's Gabe's presence in my home. His little angel. I love it.

Yeah. How cool is that? And so what was that experience like in terms of at the marathon when Gabe you know I saw you were both running with Chip what was that like yeah so I mean they put on a world-class event and they continue to it got canceled this year due to COVID which is understandable but um essentially I ran the marathon Gabe ran the 5k and then they called and Chip was at like 20 miles and he was struggling a little bit I mean he it's it was hot he had a tool belt on so but we met up with them and then Gabe started running with him and he didn't walk once the last six miles while Gabriel was running with him, which was pretty impressive to see. He just kept cruising along and his lifetime goal or bucket list goal of running a marathon was finished. And he was very grateful for the

coaching and advice. And it was just a perfect day, really. Yeah, a beautiful day of two people working together to accomplish something like so beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Another time that Gabe really inspired me was her last race as a pro athlete win at the end. Remind me if it was a 1500, is that right? Yeah, 1500, yeah. Where everyone, all the runners came around and supported her. So tell us about that, that event, just from your perspective on what that was like

for her to run her final race, even though she was going through chemotherapy and, you know, it wasn't easy. And then what was that like at the end to see so much support I mean it was incredible and I think it was well earned I guess I joked with her after that she probably ran the fastest 1500 ever for someone that's on a few months into chemo I mean in like layman's turn if it was a mile she still would have run I think like 455 for a mile like deep into chemotherapy but at one when she started chemo she really wanted that season she really wanted to compete and then she even told me like it's embarrassing like I would beat these people easily and now I can't even like stay with them for two laps but she thought

it was so much more important to be that like symbol of someone who's struggling and someone who's going through hardship and chemotherapy and multiple cancer diagnoses and the applause and warm welcomes she got I think were amazing but I think they were also well earned by her just to she I mean she hated to lose that like the grit part yeah Gary Wilson her old coach he would describe her as someone that hates to lose more than she loves to win and like that's how you really find a winner but I think so it it killed her to do it and to lose more than she loves to win. And like, that's how you really find a winner. But I think so. It killed her to do it and to lose to all those people, but it was so much more important than any of the other races really she'd run. And I think that points to just like that she

did something to serve other people, you know, that it wasn't really about her running that race, like the individual accolades or the time that she'd run or the place, right. It was more about being the symbol of that. You could still follow your dreams with this cancer diagnosis, right. Or things even in chemo. And so one thing that I saw like she, that she just like lived her life for other people towards the end, like more so, I don't know if that's an accurate observation that you saw too, but she was just such a, is, was, I don't know what word to use, but is, I'm going to say is, you know, just like the way that she was so vulnerable posting and just the way that she connected and inspired other people.

What did you see as her husband, you know, towards the end of her life? And was, is it accurate to say that she lived for other people? Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because it's kind of a 180 and there's like a very distinct time when you could see it even because early on she didn't want to be the girl with cancer. She wanted to be Gabriel Grunewald, the 11th fastest American, 1500 meter runner ever. Like she just wanted to be, she wanted to be the anonymity of being a great runner and didn't want any sympathy. And she never wanted sympathy, but she realized later during treatment,

it's going to be near impossible to train. And she did have a voice and she had so much to share and she became incredibly selfless to the point that it was exhaustingly selfless but she was passionate about everything and she really like I said she had the filter to do things that were important and not do things that weren't important and she found a lot of very important things to do in her last few years yeah and selfless can you give us an example of what you saw her do yeah I mean the thing I mean in hindsight I feel terrible because I'd always we'd be sitting on the couch watching a movie or something and she'd be on Instagram for two hours never look at the movie but she's writing back individuals

that wrote her that are dealing with cancer and asking like how she ran what she did and it's just like just giving yourself up and making yourself so available when she was passing away I was open about it which I was never comfortable at the time with how open she was but then seeing how important it was to people I clearly became comfortable with it but I was like can't we just like live our own life and be like invisible but yeah but she didn't want to do. And she wanted to be like a beacon of hope. But then I get hundreds of messages in like, not even in the cancer realm, but people that are depressed or suicidal or thinking about ending their life. And they're like, I wrote your wife two years ago. I was, I had a plan to kill myself and I didn't see anything. I was so hopeless. And she took her time to write me back.

And really the next day I took up walking and then running and I just completed my first marathon and I am not on like antidepressants anymore. And I'm so happy. And she had like so many messages like that, that it just blew me away. Wow. I think that's a true, like, definition of the word selfless, right? And I think, I mean, at least what I saw is I think because she was so vulnerable, it allowed other people to connect with her and that she was this beacon of hope. So what do you think is the biggest lesson you've learned from Gabe? I mean, it's one of her quotes that will always, every time life gets hard, it comes to the front of my mind. But it's just in life, we're all going to struggle.

And it is a struggle, especially in pandemic times and like with racial injustice, with all these horrible things. So what she said is, it's okay to struggle, it's not okay to give up. And I think even at the end of life, she wasn't struggling anymore, but she never gave up and she continued to spread hope. And now, although she's not like here on earth, she continues to and she has this great foundation and she still has this huge presence in the world. So just sometimes enjoying the struggle because the struggle makes what it's still like for you, just through this grieving process of losing Gabe. So give us a little insight on, you know, what strategies did you use while she was alive to be able just to cope with all of her diagnoses and then all the things that were happening? Yeah. I mean, my honest biggest strategy when she was alive was her and her ability to kind of pull us out of a rut no matter how dire the situation was she'd say hey like we can't both cry we can't stand by all day like we're going running like we're gonna go do stuff and i think through how many times she pulled me to do that she just

made me capable of doing it on my own and it doesn't always I mean it never fixes everything and it doesn't always make everything better but it does make things a little lighter. It gets you in a different headspace, I think, and it just can change a perspective. And so many times I've found something or seen something that I needed to see, and I'm never going to see that when I'm laying in bed. Right. Absolutely. What have you done now, you know, in the last year or so to be able to cope with her passing what have you been doing yeah I mean I think I've been trying to continue to live how she or we lived um I've been running a lot um exploring adventuring we both love being in the mountains, spending more time in the mountains, being open to new relationships, like all those things. And I think it's definitely a process and there's not any one way to do it.

And some people go through it fast and people go through it slow. Sometimes it's just like hitting speed bumps in a parking lot. You're good for five days, then you can't stop crying or like, and it just happens. But in time, initially, I think I felt a lot of guilt. And I think of all the things I could have done so much better. Like, why did I even work? Like, why did I go to med school? Why did I go to residency? Those were like 80 hour weeks at times, a hundred hour weeks where I'm just a zombie taking her for granted. But that afforded us in the last few years to travel and see the world and do all these other things. So, and with time, all the guilty feelings have kind of melted into like all these beautiful experiences we've had and that's just really got better so I think if people can just be patient and it's a process and there's no book that says how it

goes but it does get better like you never stop missing that person but for me I see so many like happy images now and that I just cry less because I have so many great memories. And I'm like, wow, like that was the best life. Yeah. When you think about, I know people who are listening who maybe they are grieving right now or they're struggling in some way. What advice would you give to those people who are listening, who might be grieving something? Yeah. I mean, for Gabriel and I, we were, we are, we were, we religious people. So we have a faith and we think that, I mean, I believe there's a heaven or there's something, I don't know exactly what it is, but, and that helps me cope a lot. But I also, like I said, I don't know exactly what it is but and that helps me cope a lot but I also like I said I

don't think things happen I don't think things happen by chance so like every time I go outside it's like I'll be having the worst day and like a terrible grieving day and everything makes me just want to crumble and like and you get really bad thoughts like it can get really dark but then all of a sudden out of nowhere it's like sunny and there's the biggest brightest rainbow in the sky and if you don't like look up and look for the signs you'll never find them i had a terrible night where it's not like but you have bad thoughts like thoughts of like harming yourself thoughts of not wanting to be alive and i drove or i ran to the cemetery it's a five mile run from my house and i like couldn't get out of the headspace and i was just the run didn't help but i laid down for the first time

ever on my back like where she lays and i looked up at the sky and i'm like i just need something and all of a sudden she's buried very close to minneapolis so there's tons of light pollution but the biggest shooting star i've ever seen in my life just like it literally was like a rocket shooting across the sky and then i was like okay i can take a deep breath like i feel better so and it's just weird because i've never like it's not like i've asked for that ever before it's just weird. Cause I've never, like, it's not like I've asked for that ever before. It was just like a one and done thing. That's such a beautiful story. And I think that gives us hope, right? That people are watching down. I, I have felt a couple of times, I think Gabe's watching us somewhere on this conversation and I'm grateful

that we're having this conversation that other people can listen to. Yeah, me too. So tell us a bit more about Brave Like Gabe, just the foundation, how people can get involved, how they could donate. Yesterday I was on there and I was like, you guys got some more cool gear. Oh, I was going to wear my, my Brave Like Gabe shirt. I don't know why I forgot. Had it all sitting out ready today. But I was like, I got to go buy some new cool things on there. So just tell us a bit about the foundation and what you guys have been up to lately. Yeah. So Brave Like Gabe was started in 2018 by Gabriel and two of her friends, like I said. It's a 501c3 nonprofit. We have various fundraisers and then various people that fundraise

for us. The money we raise goes to rare cancer research. And then our kind of second mission is to keep people active spread hope both so we fund rare cancer research but we want to keep all people active we want to keep people that are diagnosed with cancer people that are depressed have anxiety ptsd substance abuse like activity helps all those things immensely and um so that's kind of our, that's my top bullet point. And then all the money we raised for rare cancers, like icing on the cake or whatever. But currently we're actually in the midst of interviewing for a new executive director, which is very exciting um so we have a 5k we put on

that became virtual this year there's a second opportunity in september we did kind of like a double june and september thing because we had to cancel the in-person and we thought in june people could use a reason to get outside and we thought maybe COVID would be dying down by September but who knows aside from that we have a lot of amazing people that just reach out and want to fundraise on their own there's a woman right now running the PCT across Oregon and she's trying to set the fastest time ever and she's raised like twelve thousand dollars for the foundation she just made like a gofundme page so yeah lots of lots of great stuff and actually other people who have lost loved ones um a woman just passed from her cancer around a week ago and in her obituary she stated like in lieu of flowers please donate to

brave like gabe and i still are like accounts email shows all the donations and i'm fortunate enough that's another thing like when i have a bad day not everyone has access to this but i like click onto the accounts email and see like these donations in like in honor of, in memory of, and like, or even if it's cause I, because I had a bad day and looked at like Gabriel's Instagram page and now I feel better. Like all this stuff comes in and inspires me hugely. And then we have our online store. It's all at brave, like Gabe.org, but we sell running apparel and then comfy t-shirts and sweatshirts.

So lots of stuff. We will be obviously paying the executive director, but we have a large, we just grew our board as well. So we'll have a large working board. So we try to really minimize any funding towards paying people. All the money from the online store goes to rare cancer research because one of gabriel's main objectives was to not have any waste we just want to be an incredibly clean foundation we don't have a headquarters we don't really have any overhead which is nice so that's important to me because that was one of her big wishes and for people to get involved they should

head over to brave like gabe.org they could get some of the gear or donate or maybe they have a race coming up that they do one thing that's people like, or I think is pretty cool, where we share something called my brave story. So people that have struggle in, it'll be expanded to basically anyone, but kind of share it. It's specific questions, you can submit it on the website, then we share it through like social media and on the website but I think it's cool to share people's uplifting stories of how they persevered and then found hope and kept going so it's nice like Gabriel was always a little uncomfortable with brave like Gabe because she's like everyone else is brave too but I think she's extra brave. So it can be brave, like insert your name here, you know, brave like Abe's just kind of the header. Yeah, that's beautiful.

And talk about, I don't, you know, like she was so incredibly brave that, you know, I just think of all the ways that you just shared with us of being able to take these difficulties and turn them into maybe opportunities or ways to move forward. Justin, I'm so grateful that you spent some time with us today. I'm glad that we were able to jump on finally. And here's some things I got from our conversation. I loved just all the stories of Chip Gaines or, you know, Gabe's last race or the story of you laying by her grave site and just getting that shooting star, right? I think all those stories just, as we listen, give us hope in our life. And I know that, you know,

in different ways, people are struggling right now, if they're struggling with COVID or just the lack of opportunities, or maybe they, they're struggling with their own health or they've lost somebody that they love, you know, and just so what, how you talked about how she just lives so selfless, particularly at the end of her life, and then her favorite quote that we'll all struggle in life and it's okay to struggle, but it's not okay to give up. So Justin, how can people reach out to you or follow you and your adventures? Yeah, I do the Instagram thing. It's Justin Grunewald or Justin Grunewald one or something. And then I don't even know what my Twitter handle is, but I'm always open. I try to always go through, I do get a lot of messages from people that are diagnosed with cancer or spouses or loved

ones and I try to respond to everyone and I think that's important just sometimes it gets backed up after um certainly like after Gabriel's birthday or day of passing, those are like days. And sometimes you just need some time off from social media. But I try to get back to anyone and people can shoot messages through the foundation and those make their way to me eventually as well. Yeah, following BraveLikeGabe.org or following BraveLikeGabe on Instagram is the best place because I think there's a lot of good inspirational, hope-filled stories on there. I agree. Justin, any final thoughts or advice that you'd give people who are listening? I think just realizing we're all going to have bad days, but there's a tomorrow.

And if it was a bad day today, it's likely going to be better tomorrow. And I'm grateful for your time. It was great to connect and chat and nice to see you. It was nice to see you. Thank you, Justin. I'm so grateful for your time today. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Sindhra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week.

So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.