Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - From School Teacher to Fitness Icon: What I Wish I Knew Before Quitting My Job | Brian Keane | E107

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Brian Keane’s journey is a powerful example of embracing change and conquering fear. Originally a primary school teacher in London, Brian realized teaching wasn’t his true calling and made a bold leap into fitness, despite doubts from family and peers. With his mom’s support, he overcame numerous challenges to become a three-time bestselling author, certified strength and conditioning coach, and ultra-marathon runner. In this episode, Brian joins Ilana to share how he tackled fear, turned his career around, and undertook the most daring endurance challenges, including running through the Sahara Desert and the Arctic. Brian Keane is a bestselling author, online fitness coach, and nutritionist. He is the founder of Brian Keane Fitness, where he helps clients transform their bodies and mindset for the long term, and the host of The Brian Keane Podcast, one of Ireland and the UK’s top health podcasts. In this episode, Ilana and Brian will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (02:02) From Teaching to Full-Time Fitness (09:17) Crushing the Fear of Failure in Career Transitions (12:31) Navigating Burnout While Building a Fitness Career (18:22) Balancing Passion with Business Skills (23:40) The Power of Mindset in Achieving Success (30:57) The Framework for Building Sustainable Habits (35:39) How to Overcome Comparison and Stay Focused (43:12) Tackling Ultra Marathons and Extreme Challenges (52:00) Learning from Setbacks and Building Resilience (1:00:00) Embracing Change and Taking Action Brian Keane is a bestselling author, online fitness coach, and nutritionist. He is the founder of Brian Keane Fitness, where he helps clients transform their bodies and mindset for the long term, and the host of The Brian Keane Podcast, one of Ireland and the UK’s top health podcasts. As an ultra-endurance athlete, Brian has completed several challenging races, including six back-to-back marathons through the Sahara Desert, a 230 km race through the Arctic Circle, and has also led an expedition to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Connect with Brian: Brian’s Website: briankeanefitness.com  Brian’s Instagram: instagram.com/brian_keane_fitness  Resources Mentioned: Brian’s Book, The Fitness Mindset: Eat for Energy, Train for Tension, Manage Your Mindset, Reap the Results: https://www.amazon.com/Fitness-Mindset-tension-mindset-results/dp/1781332525  Brian’s Book, Rewriting Your Story: Seven Habits to Help You Reclaim Your Power, Let Go of Fear, and Change the Narratives That Hold You Back: https://www.amazon.co.uk/REWRITING-YOUR-STORY-RECLAIM-NARRATIVES/dp/B0DWB1ZSL3  Brian’s Book, Rewire Your Mindset: Own Your Thinking, Control Your Actions, Change Your Life: https://www.amazon.com/Rewire-Your-Mindset-Thinking-Control/dp/1781334234  The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business Paperback by Charles Duhigg: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business/dp/081298160X Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-Break/dp/0735211299  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

Wow, this show is going to be incredible. So buckle up and I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. But before we get started, I want to ask you for a favor. See, it's really, really important for me to help millions of people elevate their career, fast-track to leadership, land dream roles, jump to entrepreneurship or create portfolio careers. And this podcast is all about enabling this for millions of people to see a map of what it actually takes for big leaders to reach success.

So subscribe and download so you never miss it. Plus, it really, really helps me continue to bring amazing guests. Okay? So let's dive in. You're not a tree. If you don't like where you are, you can move. Brian Keane here is a 3X bestselling author, a certified strengths and condition coach, sport nutritionist, and the host of Brian Keane podcast.

I was a teacher doing something I didn't even like. I was like, if I was sweeping the floor in a gym, I'd be happier than I am doing what I'm doing now. So I spent the next year getting my qualifications and certifications and when I was about to make the jump full-time, one of my aunties was like, you're such an idiot. You're leaving a safe and secure job to go lift some weights in the gym.

When I released my first book, The Fitness Mindset, which spent 16 weeks on the Amazon bestseller list, that auntie messaged me and said, I always knew you'd be a success in fitness. When you give new information to people and there's more data, people change their opinion. For those who are caught in the story of, well, it's more data, people change their opinion. For those who are caught in the story of, well, it's too late, I can't do that now.

The time is going to pass anyways and you get to decide what you do. Behind every fear is a person you want to be. What's interesting is separating fear into its two categories. One... Oh my god, if you want energy in today's episode, buckle up because it's going to be fire. So Brian Keane here is a 3X bestselling author, a certified strengths and condition coach, sport nutritionist and the host of Brian Keene podcast. And when he's not working, you will find him running ultra marathons in like Arctic, the Sahara, all sort of crazy things.

But Brian, you actually have a classic leap story because you started as a primary school teacher in London. So folks, if you are listening to this episode, you want to hear about somebody that did a complete 180, lean in, this is going to inspire you. Brian, thank you for being here. An absolute pleasure, Lana. Thank you so much for having me.

So, take us back in time. Let's rewind. You're studying and you're deciding to be a teacher. What happened there and why teacher? It's an interesting backstory because I did what happens to a lot of people. You normally have family members or friends who suggest a career to you, or there's a lot of people working in that space in your family and friend circle. And you think the next logical step is, well, this is what I know.

This is what I'll do. And that's exactly what happened to me. I had a lot of family members and a lot of friends who were teachers. And the obvious path for me was, well, I may as well become a primary school teacher, an elementary school teacher, never questioning, was this something I wanted to do? And I did a four year undergraduate degree in business. I did a postgraduate degree to become a teacher. I went straight into my first teaching job because of the shortage of teachers in London.

And Lana, I was in my first ever day of a year three classroom with 37 year old children in front of me. And I was about five, maybe 10 minutes into it when I thought I don't want to be a teacher. It was that soon. And the analogy that I've used on podcasts and books on my social media is that it felt like I was years climbing a ladder only to realize it was up against the wrong wall. The wrong wall. It's a horrible feeling. Everyone, when I say that, will think of a time in their life when it's happened, a

relationship, a weight loss journey, a business venture, you know, this from your history better than anybody and the guests even that you've spoken to, where pivoting isn't the right word. It's a 180. It's a complete trajectory shift. But it took me, I was four years as a teacher, nearly four years. And two of those years to cut a very long story short was working as a personal trainer at the time in a gym and in the park in London. And it came off the back of my first few months working as a teacher in London.

And I hated my first job. I didn't want to be there. It felt very out of alignment with what I should be doing. And I came home that Christmas and my mum, who was and still is my biggest fan to this day, I was having a big sob story for myself, real victim mode. I was like, oh my God, I hate my life. I hate work a big sob story for myself, real victim mode. I was like, oh my God, I hate my life. I hate work. I spent so much time, energy and money. Mom, what am I doing? I hate what I'm doing. And she said two things that I've never forgot.

One was, you're not a tree. If you don't like where you are, you can move. And then she asked me, what would you do for free? And I never thought about that question. And I never thought about that question. I just followed this path nearly on autopilot of a career. And I thought to myself, what would I do for free? I was like, I'd work in a gym for free. Fitness is a massive part of my life. I played sport. I've been working out and lifting weights since I was 13 years of age.

I was like, I would work in a gym for free. I was like, if I was sweeping the floor in a gym, I'd be happier than I am doing what I'm doing now. And thankfully the type A in me was like, right, what's after sweeping the floor in a gym? I was like, okay, fitness instructor, personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, sports nutritionist. So I spent the next year or so getting my qualifications and certifications and for two years I did both. So did you already talk to people and they think you're crazy because why would you leave or why would you even attempt to leave such a confident, secured place as teaching? And by the way, you guys, it's comfortable.

Like you have summers off. I mean, it is a comfortable thing too. It is. And what's so interesting about it, Alana, is a lot of people questioned it. But I was at a family wedding. I remember when I was about to make the jump full time and one of my aunties got really drunk at the wedding and at our whole table in front of everybody was like, you're such an idiot. She was like, what're such an idiot.

She was like, what are you doing? You're leaving a safe and secure job to go lift some weights in a gym. And I sat there right now. It's different. I'm nearly 38 years of age. You have a lot more internal confidence. You've got things to back up what you've done. But at this point, I didn't know if I was going to make this work or not. And I just sat there and I kind of cowered and it made me think, and it was

really unconscious because I'm like, yes, I didn't like that she said it, although it was really useful and actually really good fire and fuel on the mornings when you didn't want to get up every day. And it was actually really helpful in terms of a refraining. Are you going to do it to show her? Yes, that's a very hot burning coal. You know, the old adage that's a very hot burning coal, the old adage that fire can light up your house

but it can burn it down. So you need to be very, very careful what you attach your energy to. But I also thought there and then, while she's the only one that's actually said it, other people are thinking this. And that was a really uncomfortable change. And thankfully, my mom at the time still,

my anchor, my rock, she was so supportive and was like, look, just go and be happy. She always told me and my sister, if you're cleaning the street and you're happy, I don't care what you do. And I kept that as an anchor because it was weird. I started making more money as a personal trainer part time than I was making full time as a teacher, so that should have been enough proof that there was something to this. full time as a teacher. So that should have been enough proof that there was something to this.

And it also for me, still to this day, I couldn't believe people were paying me to take them through personal training sessions in the gym. I don't do in-person personal training anymore. But even working with people in fitness, whereas you had to pay me to go to school. I knew on Friday it was the weekend. I knew Sunday evening I was going back to work on Monday. And that didn't happen when I went into working in fitness. And it was such an interesting thing because at every stage,

I always think of it in the analogy I use, is it's like legs on a table for confidence. If you're setting up and doing a new journey, you know this, Alana, that at the beginning, you don't really have any legs to your confidence table. So it's very easy to knock it over. But every time you set a small goal and you hit it, you add another leg to your table, or you set a big goal, a big massive financial target or marketing target and you hit it,

and you're like, oh, big leg to the table. So if people question you then, you're like, well, it's fine. My confidence table is pretty sturdy. I'm fine. I can take these knocks from the outside. But in the beginning, you should be very careful of that. And I think when people are trying to make that leap, you have to be so mindful that in the early stages, you don't have a lot of confidence or competence, probably in the craft that you're choosing to do or the career you're choosing to go into. You have to be really careful about who you spend time with. My mother used to always tell me that if you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. And you should be very careful that if there's people around you who are

constantly chucking negativity at you, that's going to feed into you. That can bounce off in the beginning. And that's something I know now that I definitely wish I had known 15 years ago. And I love what you said, Brian, because I think to some extent that aunt or whatever, like what she expressed was what I would say to myself, right? And that's probably the hardest thing. It's not only that everybody else is thinking of it. I'm kind of thinking that.

So to some extent, it's almost like this is the hardest wound that I'm trying to heal. And she just went slam right into it. But I do want to talk a little bit about that transformation, because fear can be numbing, Brian. And I want to recognize that because I think a lot of people, it looks so easy, but you don't see what they're actually going through to overcome that fear. So walk me through a little bit, some of that fear, maybe the

initial challenges because heck, I can tell you there were a lot of challenges when I started. So take me there for a second. What's so interesting about what you just said too, Ilana, is that everybody will feel the fear. But after a certain point, you just get conditioned to feel the fear and do it anyways, it's a cliche, but it's true. But what I did in the early stages was a thought experiment, which is

just basic risk assessment 101. What's the upside of the decision I'm making? What's the downside of the decisions I'm making and can I handle the downside? It basic risk assessment 101. What's the upside of the decision I'm making? What's the downside of the decisions I'm making? And can I handle the downside? It's risk management 101. The upside for me for leaving teaching and doing this job that didn't feel like a job to me was I'm doing something that I'm getting paid for, that I would do for free, that I feel a massive calling to, a massive passion to.

I'm like, that's a big upside. The downside for me was I can go back teaching. I have a qualification. I have four years of experience. I will be in the exact same position that I'm in now. And then I ask, can I handle that downside? I'm like, of course I can handle that downside. It's a disproportionate benefit on the upside.

Most people where I see them trapped is not necessarily the fear of going back to teaching, it's the humiliation. What will people say? What will people think of me? I will look like a failure. That is what's scary for them more than going back. That's perceived fear though. I think what's interesting is separating fear into its two categories, just categories. One is real fear, identifiable threat of

something bad happening, and the other is a perceived fear. Humiliation. What would people say? What would people think? That's a perceived fear. And when you think about your perceived fears, and I went through all of those things, I had them said to me, there was probably way more people that didn't say it to me, but what's really interesting, I swear to you, Alana, I put this into the last book, Rewriting Your Story, that auntie,

who obviously didn't remember this conversation at the wedding, when I released my first book, The Fitness Mindset, which spent 16 weeks on the Amazon bestseller list and hit all the bestsellers in the bookshops that was in Ireland, messaged me and said, I always knew you'd be a success in fitness. And that is the important thing to think about here. When you give new information to people and there's more data, people change their opinion. Yet we carry their opinions and attach to them like our first born child. When in reality, people will say things and regularly forget that they've even said them.

And when you give new information, people's opinions change. When you're working through perceived fear, what will people say? What will people think? People are going to say and they're going to think what they're going to think and say at that moment in time. That's not in rock. That's not solid. That is very malleable and very likely to change. And it's not about dealing with the fear. It's about having the courage and the strength to persevere with the thing you want to do, knowing that other people's opinions will change. And that fear, perceived fear that you had once upon a time is a little bit of fuel. It's a little bit of, I need to actually go and get this done.

And I think understanding the nuance of that is really important in the early stages, especially. Take us back in time. So you're doing this thing on the side, right? And you're at some point deciding to go all in. Walk us through the first initial days. When I decided to go all in, it was ironically my ex-girlfriend at the time. I was living with my partner in London and she was a wonderful, still is a wonderful human being, not was, still is a wonderful human being.

And I remember when we were having the conversation about potentially breaking up because we weren't going on the same path, we knew we weren't going to be together forever. And she gave me a line that I've quoted regularly since. And she meant it about our relationships, but I actually took it to mean about my work. And she said that when we stop chasing the wrong things, we give the right things an opportunity to catch up.

She meant that in context with the relationship. And it was true in that context as well. But I thought about it with my work. I was like, I'm still half pregnant with teaching. I'm half my foot is in this door when I'm actually making more money as a person trainer part time, so there was evidence there that this was working. And I said, I need to go all in on this. So I gave myself a six month safety net. I said, I'm going to move back to Ireland in the West of Ireland.

I moved back in at my mum and dad, which is very humbling at 26 years of age to move back in with your parents after having gone and worked and lived in London. And I was like, do you know what? I need to do this and give this a go. And my mum and dad let me stay with them. My sister gave me her old little Toyota Yaris. One of those cars that when you close the door too hard, all four windows fall down, but it worked perfectly 98% of the time. It would get me to the gym and nobody knew who I was. I came back in 2014 to the West of Ireland.

I had no social media. I had no books. I had no podcasts. I had no name or recognition. But what I did have was I was two years working as a personal trainer. So I had got good at my craft because every master's wants a disaster. Everyone's terrible when they start. So when I started in London, I wasn't very good. It took me a while to get better at my craft because every master's wants a disaster. Everyone's terrible when they start. So when I started in London, I wasn't very good. It took me a while to get better at my craft.

Same as everything. You put the reps in, you get better. So I was already established as a decent personal trainer in terms of my craft. And what happened was I said, I'll give myself a six month window. If I'm not making enough money to move out and live in six months, I'll go back on the teaching registry and I'll get a job in September. That was the promise I made to myself. But what happened was because obviously I was very passionate about fitness. So I spent all my waking hours reading books and reading blogs and listening to things that were all fitness based because I was obsessed with that

topic. So I was getting all these different types of clients and getting great results with them. And then what started to happen was the other trainers in the gym, their clients started to see the results mine were getting. A lot of them started to jump over to me. And then I was getting referrals from my current clients for family members and friends to the point that I had to bring other coaches underneath me to clear waiting lists. And that six months went from, I might have to go back teaching to, how many trainers am I going to have to hire to actually potentially clear this waiting list?

And the beautiful thing about business, and you know this a lot, is no problem goes away. There's always problems. You just have better problems to handle and deal with. You know, having no money is a problem. Having too much money is a problem. I know which one I prefer to deal with. Having no clients is a problem. Having too many clients is a problem. Again, I know which one I want to deal with. And it was that.

And because of 2014 onwards, and it wasn't all plain sailing. We spoke right before we went on air. It wasn't the four-hour workweek dream. It was the 60 to 80-hour work week and burning out and then trying. Yeah, the grind and the hustle. And it's interesting now because I have a very good life balance. My daughter is nearly 10. She's going to be 10 the end of this month.

You know, I've got a partner who I love dearly. I've got my family that I see regularly. I've got loads of hobbies and I do my races and I still play sport for the social side. But I've got a business that's thriving over here that a lot of it is on automation at this point. I've got staff that cover a lot of the heavy lifting underneath. I spend most of my time in my desire zone versus my drudgery zone, my zone of genius, as you'd say. And because I do that, it gives me a lot of energy and I stay very nourished and it allows me to stay very high energy. And that balance now after more than a decade, now I've

got that balance. But for three, four, five years, I didn't. And it gets skewed sometimes online because we see the end results. We see the figurative after photo of somebody doing amazing in business. And they miss that actually this cost of entry was 60 hour work weeks, 70 hour work weeks on occasion, borderline burnout, breakups, not seeing your family when you wanted to not be able to spend time with your loved ones because you were either too stressed or you were working. That's a very real thing. And sometimes it's a case of, well, what's the goal? What do I want to do in terms of my career of, well, what's the goal? What do I want to do in terms

of my career, my business, and what's the timeline? Because no one says you have to do this today, or tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even next year. You can do small gradual steps, as long as you're directionally correct and moving towards the thing you want. The speed is up to you. I was 26 years of age. I had no child at this point. I had no anyone underneath me that needed to be supported financially. I was able to make this jump. I was able to make this transition and go all in. Somebody else will have a different life scenario and they won't be able to do that. But that's not to say that you can't start getting your figurative ladder up against the right wall.

Just how slowly or how fast you climb depends on your circumstance currently. And your goals and what's your must-haves and how driven you are, because I think me and you are kind of a little fanatic. So that drives the time. Understatement of the year there, Alana. But take me there, Brian, because I think one of the things that a lot of people miss, and I want to challenge you here for a second. Even if you're really good at your craft, what they miss is when they want to start their own thing, they actually don't necessarily need to be good at their craft, but they need to be really good at sales and marketing and business and hiring.

It's like it's suddenly all these things that this is not why I started. I started because I'm passionate about being in the gym, and now I'm hustling on getting ads and whatever podcast. So take me there because I think this is so different. I'm going to take us back in the time machine. When I was in London, after I got my qualifications, I went broke the first time by just not knowing how to get clients. I wasn't good at my craft and I just not knowing how to get clients. I wasn't good at my craft and I didn't know how to get clients, but I still had a little

bit of income coming in from teaching, so it was fine. The second time I went broke was the only time ever. Now, I've never gone into debt, but I've been broke. I was living in a flat in West London in the banks in the UK. If you've got less than £10 in your account, you can't even take out a £10 note. So I was having to pay my rent for my house or my flat that month, and I couldn't even take out a £10 note. So I was living with three other teachers at the time in a tiny flat in West London,

and I waited for all of them to go up to their bedrooms, and I started going down the back of the couch to get money for the bus so that I could get the bus to the bank to get an overdraft to pay my rent that month. That's when I was out. I was done. I was like, I am not doing this fitness thing. I'm not doing this personal training thing. I am rubbish at this. And the universe or God or a higher power, something randomly came my way.

And I ended up going into another school as a long term substitute teacher, tail between my legs. I'm back into teaching. This is what I'm going to do. And one of the girls in the classroom next to me was preparing for a wedding and she came across me one day and she goes, I heard you're a personal trainer. And I was like, oh no, I was like Zoe, that's something I did. I don't do that anymore. And she goes, Brian, I have a wedding coming up. I don't want to go into the gym. I'm terrified to go into a gym. Everyone will be looking at me. I just need help to fit into my wedding dress.

And I was like, Zoe, this isn't something I do anymore. She goes, please. I said, OK, fine. I was like, but I can't charge you. I was like, if you want to come down and meet me in the park, I'll take you a couple of evenings a week and I'll take you through some sessions. And we started doing two sessions a week, three weeks into it. And I was tweaking her nutrition and helping her with that as we were going along.

And she went and got into her wedding dress and was like, oh my God, my wedding dress is fitting. I have loads of energy. This is the best I felt in years. I have to start paying you for this. And it was in that moment I went, I'm not a crap personal trainer. I just don't understand business. And they are two completely different things.

They're two completely different skill sets. But like most things, when you know you have a gap in your knowledge, you can fill in the gap. And I started to work with mentors. I started to read more business books. I started to listen. Podcasts were kind of in their infancy at the stage they were around, but they were in their infancy and I was consuming information on sales, on marketing, on hiring,

on lead generation, on funnels and educating myself on that gap alongside myself as a personal trainer and a coach and every person listening, whatever industry you're in, you're gonna have the job, the craft, and the skillset of you as a practitioner. And then you have this other skillset over here, which is business related. And to neglect one or the other will mean eventual death in your business.

If you're terrible at what you do, you will get sales in the front end, but you will eventually go out of business because you won't get any more referrals or you'll constantly be bringing in new people and it'll never scale and grow. Flip that. You can be the best personal trainer, nutritionist, Pilates instructor, yoga, whatever. I'm talking health and wellness because it's the area I'm in.

I'm using examples, but if you don't understand business, it doesn't matter. You can't help anybody. So understanding those two things, I had my aha moment during that time. And because of it, I went looking into filling in the gap in my knowledge in business. And there'll be a lot of people listening who would probably be similar. There'll be gaps in one or two areas, or maybe it's all the areas. But now that you know that, you can fill in the gaps as needed. First of all, it's understanding that there's a gap, but also getting that extreme ownership, not victim mentality, but actually owning it and saying, you know what, I see a gap

and I'm going to freaking find it. Even though we're talking about entrepreneurship specifically, what you're saying right now is relevant for any leadership role. So if you need to understand, like in today's world, even if you just want to climb up the ladder, even if you just want to be relevant and corporate, you're going to need to work on your branding. You need to understand you need to look at yourself as your own company, as your own CEO is so important and not just neglect and close your eyes and put blinders

on and just do the hard work and forget about yourself. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, it's not relevant for me because I'm not an entrepreneur. Yes, it is. So open your eyes and open your ears. So thank you, Brian. But let's talk about mindset because I hear it a pattern all the time. I'm also very honest about probably a decade ago, I didn't think at all about mindset. In fact, I would think it's a little bit of BS. You know, I'm like, oh, who needs mindset?

Just tough it up. Grit it out, grind it out. Great, great, like grr, right? So talk to me about what transformed in your life to start looking at mindset. And again, this also relates to your first book, The Fitness Mindset. It's all connected, but what shifted in you? Two things, because mindset very similar to you.

It wasn't that I didn't think it was any good. I just didn't think it applied to me. I was like, I don't need that. So it was something I closed my mindset on. I'm like, I don't need to work on that. But what started to happen during 2015 and 2016 was the business was starting to grow and scales. 2016 was our first six figure year.

And from there on, it just exploded because I had figured out a few things, moved online, had an offline business at the time and was going between both of them with all in online. But when I was working with people in person and I was working with my trainers who were underneath me, what I started to see was people in a fitness context, and I'll bring this back into business in a moment, people didn't struggle to know what to do. Most people knew they should lift weights. Most people knew they should do some form of cardio.

Most people knew that they should eat healthier and maybe more protein and a bit more fiber and less McDonald's and chocolate bars. Most people knew this, but they couldn't stick to it. They would fall off track. They would self-sabotage. They wouldn't be setting a goal correctly and then would lose all the motivation, thinking that motivation comes first, as opposed to setting the goal and motivation coming after. And what I started to see was this trend that it wasn't my coaching

and my training sessions and nutritional plans that were getting the people the results. It was the mindset of not having them fall off the plan and self-sabotage. That was actually the thing that was leading to success. And when I wrote the first book, The Fitness Mindset, there's been a lot of mindset books since, but it was probably one of the first when it came to the fitness angle of mindset. I think that's probably why it did so well. I wrote the whole first half, Fitness, how you get in shape, nutrition, training,

sleep, stress, etc. The whole second section was on mindset, goal setting, feeling the fear and doing it anyways in terms of the goals that you set for yourself, not self-sabotaging. So the mindset side. And what happened there was the success of the book, and that book sold over half a million copies to date, and I've been very lucky that it's been able to serve. I never dreamt that possible. And like, I love to say I was a sage and that was a target.

My target at the time was I was starting to get put into an influencer bracket because I had a strong social presence. And I was like, I have all my qualifications and certifications. I was like, I'm a coach, I'm an entrepreneur. I was like, I'm not an influencer. And one of the ways that I was going to rise above that was writing a book. So I said, if it brought me above that and it helps my current clients, the book will be a success. That was my upfront target when I was writing it. And it ended up doing way more than that. But because of the success of that and the problems I saw people facing, I understood it, I just understand that there was a lot more to this mindset side that people know what to do, but they don't know how to stick to it or they don't

know how to apply it over the long term or whatever the insert pain point is here. The second thing was a combination of my daughter being born in 2015 and as she started to get older, something that I've done historically in the past, which has actually been very serving, is that grit, that mental toughness, that grind it out and hustle. And that's an amazing tool to have. But to the man with the hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. That will get you through an ultra marathon. That will get you through the Arctic and the Sahara.

That will get you through 60, 70, 80 hour work weeks. By the way, we already talked about that we're not going for the Sahara and the Arctic, but go ahead, Brian. Well, I never say never. We can come back to that later. By the way, we already talked about that we're not going for the Sahara in the Arctic, but go ahead, Brian. I never say never. We can come back to that later. I didn't think it would be something I would do either.

But what I started to see with my daughter was that tough love approach that I had historically been so used to myself wasn't something that made me a very good father. And as I started to soften up on certain things, I started to bring that into my approach. And it's very interesting because I still work one to one with people, a handful of people in the one to one space, because most of our programs are scaled. But it's normally people who come to me with behavioral issues around food, people who really struggle with body confidence or body image. And me of 10 years ago would have been like, just suck it up. Lose the weight, get in shape.

What are you doing? Stop eating. What are you saying? Stop eating. 100%. That would have been the early days coach of me. And that's fine for some people because your frequency will attract similar people. So I was attracting people who could take that tough love. But it made me worse of a coach. Whereas now I can empathize and take a softer approach.

So mindset for me in the early days, I thought was building mental toughness. It was grinding it out. It was hustle. But what mindset now is it's different tools for different jobs. There's days, and you know this, Alana, there's days when you're, we're entrepreneurs, but people that are listening that are executives, they're working high level jobs, there's days when you're, we're entrepreneurs, but people that are listening that are executives or working high level jobs, there's days when you crush it and you're just like, I got after it today. Good job.

And there's days when you try and crush it, but you don't. And then you're like, oh, why didn't today work? Yesterday was so good. Why didn't today work? And you end up beating yourself up. And that generally doesn't help that often when When some days you just have to go, okay, well today wasn't great. Do you know what? We'll just flow with this and we'll make it better tomorrow and we'll get after it again tomorrow. And then you sleep better, you refresh and you

go again. So it's using different tools at different stages and it's not to ease up on yourself. It's what do you need to do? For example, when I'm running a marathon or an ultra marathon, I don't bring a soft approach to that. If I'm running a 100 mile ultra marathon, there's no point me and my lady going, okay, Brian, that's enough now, settle down. I'm like, no, you've got 20 more miles to go. Keep going. That's the mindset. But there's days when, you know, I haven't been as present with my girlfriend or I haven't been as present with my daughter, or I've just been a bit switched off. There's no point beating myself up over that. There are the days that I have to go, oh, you could have been better at that today.

Bring a bit of more awareness to that and try and show up in a different way tomorrow so that you're more present. And you're just using different tools depending on the context. That's what mindset's really about versus just this one size fits all approach. If you're feeling stuck, underpaid or unappreciated, or you're simply ready to take your career and life to the next level, I have the perfect solution for you. We have a program that helps you fast-track and leap your reputation and career, become the best version of yourself, get the dream role you deserve, move up to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or even build a portfolio career.

This program helps hundreds a year, and it will help you gain the income, influence, and impact that will transform the second part of your life. Watch our free training today at leapacademy.com slash free hyphen training. The link is in the show notes. Now back to the show. I remember when we just started Leap Academy, I didn't believe in mindset initially. So I just gave the strategy, let's do this. And suddenly not everybody's taking action. I'm like, how is it possible that I'm giving all these tools and people are not taking

action? And we started bringing in mindset coaches and suddenly people were taking action. I was blown away because it took me time to realize it. But it's so interesting what you said. We catch ourselves in that spiral when things are not working out. But again, it's I don't believe necessarily in motivation. I think you alluded to it. I believe in the habits that will form the results. Right.

And I think that's really because the motivation will take you so far. But at some point you need that habit to just start forming. Right. Is that basically a lot of what you're doing too? I think that's 95% of it. You know, the old adage, a man doesn't choose his destination, he chooses habits and that chooses his destination is very true. And something I've said a lot is, tell me what you do every day and I'll tell you where you'll be in a year.

I ask myself that a lot. Because it comes back to what you're doing consistently over time. And the thing is about habit formation and I've written books on habits and you think of James Clear, Atomic Habits, you think of Charles Tooick, The Power of Habit, probably too with the framework anchor books in terms of the research on habit. So understanding that it takes 66 days to form a new habit, for the quote, the University of London form a new habit, if we're to quote the University of London, giving yourself even a runway of time to make something automatic, you need to give yourself more than two months to make something automatic that goes for your food, that goes for your relationships, that goes for your career, that goes for your fitness,

that goes for everything. And after that, it becomes automatic. What's so interesting, you've definitely seen this, Alanna, because I look at you on the outside, you look at me on the outside, people will look at us on the outside and others, and you'll go, wow, they get so much done. And that's true, but it's because of the habits that we formed that allow us to do it. And also having different filters. I think mental frameworks are so important.

Again, something that I was very reluctant to accept in the early days, similar to mindset, was the importance of mental frameworks and having filters. I filter everything through the lens of will this thing nourish me or will this thing deplete me? Everything gets filtered through that lens when it comes to everything from food to people to business decisions. Will this nourish me or will this deplete me? And if it's going to deplete me, what's the payoff?

Is it worth the depletion for a long term payoff? A book is very depleting. I've written five books, four bestsellers. But when you get the messages from people, not even the revenue or the royalties or the doors it opens, it's the messages from people going, oh, my God, I needed that. This book found me exactly where I was at. That's what the depletion on the front end and a lot of work that goes in on the front end. And I think when we're talking about

habits, regardless of what you're working towards, ask yourself, is what I'm doing today going to help me get to where I want to get to? And it's interesting. I put this up on my Instagram two weeks ago, maybe a week and a half ago, when I was studying to become a primary school teacher, I studied in St. Mary's University in London and I asked my maths professor, because maths was my weakest subject as a student. And ironically, I was a really good maths teacher because I was so bad. I understood what it was like to be so bad that I was actually quite a good

teacher in that subject. It's so true. Like, you know, when you come, something comes naturally to you, you can't bring yourself to a point. Yeah. Why don't you get this? It's like, no, I get this because I was you. I didn't understand compound fractions either. But I remember asking my math professor the question. I was like, okay, what's the best math I need to learn? Which was a very loaded question to begin with. And he gave me a very philosophical answer that I never forgot and didn't quite understand it at the time.

And he said, the best math you'll ever learn is calculating the current cost of your future decisions and what you're doing today in terms of what's leading to your future. And that's something I still do regularly in terms of my workouts, the content I create, the people I speak to, the programs I do. What am I doing today that's going to impact the future? And sometimes it's going to be positive, sometimes it'll be negative, sometimes it'll be neutral. But having a framework or a filtering process is really important for your habits because going harder and faster in the wrong direction just gets you to the wrong place quicker.

So you can form the wrong habits. Not all habits are good. There's a famous line by Seneca that the chains of habits are too loose to be felt until they're too strong to be broken. And that's very, very true. And that goes for alcohol, that goes for spending too much time on Netflix. You can have very bad habits too. So asking yourself that framework question in the beginning, who do I want to be or

what do I want to be or where do I want to go? Who do I have to become to be there or to get there? And then what are the habits that underpin that? What are the things that a lean person would do, a rich person would do, a wealthy person would do, a successful person would do, what are they doing? And then just copying that. I think it's so easy to get into the weeds of it, but just having a framework or filtering process helps from a zero to one perspective.

There are so many gems here. It is true. The biggest cost in our life is always the money we're not making, right? And if you're not deliberate about it or the achievement that you're not getting, right, there's a horrible joke that the richest place on Earth is the graveyard, right? This is where all the ideas are and all the books that haven't been written. And I mean, it's horrible, but it's true. It's such a sad thing.

But I also want to say in today's world, a lot of the things are you talked about the two months and I think patience is the hardest thing, right? Because we live in the Instagram, TikTok, whatever arena, Snapchat for my kids, right? It's like everything needs to happen now, right? And if it's not yesterday, it's today. And I think that patience is really, really hard. And again, patience doesn't mean procrastination. It means that sometimes it's gonna take time, right?

But you're still gonna need to do these imperfect steps every single day, but also not compare your beginning to somebody else's middle. Because I think that's also, it's hard to take action because you're thinking, I'm not there, so who am I? So it's all of these things together that just make it really, really hard to just put your head down and just continue to creating those imperfect steps.

There's two things that I do that really help me. And I started this in the early days. I put this into my second book, Rewire Your Mindset, and I came up with the framework myself because of that exact reason, that constant comparison syndrome of, oh, well, they're further ahead. Why will I even bother? Why will I start? The two things I do, and it's actually very useful because it ties in directly with the habit formation.

One is what I call my 97 year old rule where I picture myself on my 97 year old deathbed and I ask myself, what would I regret more? You reminded me of it there when you talked about the graveyard and all the dreams and the books and the ideas that are in the graveyard. Your 97 year old deathbed, what would you regret more? That's actually what led me to Marathon de Sabe and running through the Arctic because they were things that I wanted to do, but I was afraid to do them. Combine that with the acronym, how can I win? W-I-N, what's important now? How can I win? What do I need to do today that's going to help me move towards that? And then you can break it down any way you like in terms of month, year,

10 years, whatever. But those two things in combination can be quite useful because what happens is you start to move on the journey. And I've always used the metaphor, the analogy of a car driving on the motorway. If I'm driving 120 kilometers on the motorway, I'm not sure the equivalent of miles, 80 miles or 70 miles. When you're driving on the motorway, if'm not sure the equivalent in miles, 80 miles or 70 miles. When you're driving on the motorway, if you're focused on what you're doing, you're going to probably get to your destination.

If I start looking left and looking right and worried about what everybody is doing in the rear view mirror or the side of me, I'm going to crash my car. And business is very similar to that. If you're looking around, you're more likely to crash. And that sounds easier said than done. But it's a check in for how aligned you are in what you should be doing by how much you're looking around. I'm a focus group of one here, I know. But for me, when I'm looking at what others are doing and I go into compare and despair, and I'm looking at all the people that are ahead of me, not even contemplating the fact that there's so many other people behind me and oh,

is that a dog? Oh my God, I love it. Please let us keep that in. Sorry, it never happened before, but hey, there's a proof for everything. I love it. I love it. So I will build on the howl for anyone that's listening. Do you know what?

It's funny. I'll come back to it later because I just reminded me of the dog there. When I heard the dog, we come back to that because I want to find out more because I love dogs. But with the 97 year old rule and asking what's important now. That's a great question, by the way, to ask yourself. It's really powerful. It can help a lot. And that compare and despair when you're looking around and what everybody else is doing.

If you insist on playing that game, there's a few games that you shouldn't play. There's a great quote from Naval Ravikant that if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. And comparing is a little bit of a stupid game, although we all do it automatically because it's hardwired evolutionary. It's something that kept us alive and kept our ancestors alive. It's why it got passed down to us. But now it just makes us miserable. It doesn't help you in this day and age generally, unless you're taking inspiration. But if you are, then you're generally not comparing because they're two different things. And if you're comparing up, compare against the people that are behind you.

I have to remember, Alana, I was a teacher earning probably 20,000 pounds a year doing something I didn't even like. And the first time in 2016 when I made that in a month, I was like, oh my God, I have made more in 28 days than I did the whole of last year, or the whole of four years ago as a teacher. So you have to use a little bit of a contrast point. And again, that's relative, if it's financial, use of finance,

because it was a time some will be listening and they've been relatively affluent all through their life. Some won't have, most won't have. Most have had failures. Most have gone broke. Most have gone into debt and now they're out of it. So comparing down is useful. But when it comes to the mindset side and the 97 year old rule and what's important

now, it's so cliche that when you run your own course and run your own race, you don't tend to look around as much. And if you are, it's possibly a sign that you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing because procrastination is feedback that you probably shouldn't be doing what you're doing. You need to outsource it, eliminate, delegate, or automate it if you can in some shape or form, and then get back into your zone of genius. You talk a lot about this. The longer you're in your zone of genius, the more flow state you go into, the more you're going to get done and it's going to feel easier. The secret sauce in business, in my opinion, is find the things in business

that you find easy, that other people find difficult. Ooh, I love that. That's as close to a secret sauce as you'll get. And then it will look like you're doing loads from the outside, but in reality, you're just in flow state. But I think you said something really, really critical because it is so hard. Like, I remember when I wanted to start Leap Academy, one of the first things

that I'd done, you know, I was just like Googling and I'm like the average coach. And again, I don't really see myself as a coach. I never studied coaching. I just leaped in my career and I wanted to get more people to learn that. And then I hired coaches, right? But I see myself more as a business person. But when I search for the average salary of a coach is like $40,000 a year. This is it, right?

So it's just like, is this a good idea? I don't know. That could scare you, right? Or if you look at podcasts, there's probably millions of podcasts. Like would I start a new podcast? What is my chance? But I can't, you can't look at that because it will just stop you on your tracks. So what you have to do is think really with yourself, what is it that is important for me?

Why would I regret if I don't take action on and then just lean on your why? And I think that just so, so, so important, Brian, that you mentioned that. But I do want to take you to those ultra crazy challenges because I think I shared with you something I usually never share. It's nowhere on my bios or anything. Like when I was about, I want to say 20-ish, 25, I thought I'd going to be a mountaineer. So that was my thing.

It was not my zone of genius, so everybody's very grateful that I didn't pursue that. But I did go after all sort of really exciting peaks, and it was so exhilarating. It was so exciting. I will never forget, like, Nepal is, like, my favorite place on the planet. You know what I'm saying? Like, I loved it. But your things are a little more crazy. So take me there.

Why, how do you even train to that? Running the Sahara desert, running the Arctic. You're doing things that are just not like the rock and roll marathon. How did you even start? I kind of fell into it by accident. If I'm honest, That's some accident. Quite an accident, but it will all make sense in a moment. And I would imagine the early stages you'll connect with directly.

So in 2014, 2015, I was competing in bodybuilding shows. I was actually a professional fitness model for two years. So I was traveling around the world, magazines, photo shoots, things along those lines. And I got out of that world after my daughter was born. And I started writing my first book, The Fitness Mindset. Those two things were giving me a lot of focus at the time because they were directly building the business alongside me.

And 2017 came around, I released the book, it did incredible. And then I was starting to kind of waver a little bit. I felt, for the lack of a better expression, a little bit soft, Alana. Like I had been working really hard. I was now making really good money. I had a lot of freedom and options and choices, but I felt life had got very comfortable. And again, it's probably a psychoanalyst's dream to wonder why I was seeking out to get out of this comfort.

But at the time it felt really unnerving for me. And just by chance, I was at a business mastery event in Amsterdam and I ran into someone who became a very good friend of mine, Tom Otten. He just got an exit from Create Digital Media, the top digital media agency in Dubai in UAE. And fitness people tend to attract fitness people. I was in shape, he was in shape. We started chatting at this event and I was like, he's a good bit smaller than me, but he's clearly lean, he clearly works out. So I was like, what do you do?

He goes, I do ultra marathons. And I said, sorry, no, I was like, I'm in the fitness industry. But I was like, what's an ultra marathon? I was so far from this world. And he goes, well, it's anything over 26.2 miles. That's a marathon. So anything over that is an ultra marathon. And then he started talking to me about this race in the Sahara marathon to sob six back to back

marathons in the Sahara desert, self-sufficient. So you carry all your food and everything you need on your back. You have to carry in a bin and pump with arms, reach it all times in case you get bitten by a snake. Very, very extreme race. They give you water at checkpoints every 10 kilometers, but that's it. And if you drop your water or spill it, it's gone. You get nothing again until the next day.

So it's very, very extreme. And I was looking at him just jaw dropped, like going, that sounds nuts. That sounds insane. And I missed the whole next speaker at the event, because I was on Google going through Marathon to sob, seeing what it was like. I was like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. And then I came home and something happened that has probably happened to a lot of people listening.

And it happened to me several times before was that kind of voice in my head started to get really loud. And it was like, you're not a runner. For those that don't know what I look like, I'm five foot eight. I'm 83 kilos. I'm built like a little muscular hobbit. I'm short. I'm stocky. I'm not built for long distance running. And that voice got very strong in my head.

You're not a runner. What are you thinking? You can't do this. Fast forward three months later, I was sitting outside the gym about to go in for a workout and I was about to post on Instagram. So this is back when Instagram, the social media strategy was quote cards. They were very popular. People used to share them to comment and you get lots of viral reach from quote cards. I was putting up a quote card that said,

behind every fear is a person you want to be. And right before I went to post, I went, oh, you hypocrite. I was like, you cannot post this on your social media channels. And the conversation with Tom came back into my head. And I said, oh, crap. So I went home. I paid in full for the marathon to solve, to run to the Sahara. And I posted the quote

card and I spent the next few months, it's interesting because I never ran, that wasn't my background. I was an athlete, I played GAA, which is like a combination between rugby, soccer, basketball. So I played sport all my life, but that's a sprint sport. Very different. Very, very different. And I even remember that next day we did it in the gym. I did my normal workout, push workout, shoulders, chest, triceps.

I was like, all right, I'm going to try a run. So I hopped in a treadmill. At this point in my life, I had never ran on a treadmill. I had done an incline on a treadmill, but I never ran on a treadmill. So I had no concept of what was fast or slow on a treadmill. So I put it to 21 kilometers an hour, which is about 15 miles an hour, which is way too fast for a treadmill for someone that's not used to running on a treadmill. So I put it to 21 kilometers an hour, which is about 15 miles an hour, which is way too fast for a treadmill for someone that's not used to running on a treadmill. I nearly went flying off the treadmill,

becoming a viral sensation on YouTube for all the wrong reasons. And I said, I'm going to do three kilometers. I did the three kilometers at that speed, slowed it down slightly and nearly got sick. I got off, went back to the dressing room, Alana, and I went, Oh my God, six marathons in the Sahara is the equivalent of 250 kilometers. I'm after feeling sick after three. Yeah, a little different pace. How am I going to do 247?

Went into my head and I did what I normally do with weight loss clients, fat loss clients, body composition. I was like, all right, pyramid of pre-touristization. What's important now? Bringing back my win, my WYN. I was like, well, I have to learn how to run a marathon. I've never ran a marathon. There's no point worrying about six if I can't run one. So I signed up for one. That was August, September 2017. Then I did the Dubai marathon in January 2018, completed that and then went to the Sahara 2018 and did the Dubai Marathon in January 2018, completed that and then went to the Sahara 2018 and did the six back-to-back marathons.

It was insane because it was the only time, still to this day, with all the races I've done and challenges I've done, it was the only one that I didn't think I was going to finish until I finished it. The only one, I did the Arctic a year later and I tore my Achilles 86 kilometers from the end, running through the Arctic Circle Line

five days for 230 kilometers. And I strapped it so tight that I couldn't feel my ankle or anything below my ankle. And I pulled it behind me for 86K and finished it as an aside. So the Arctic, I love the Sahara, but the Arctic, there's the local indigenous Sami tribe. So they're like a reindeer tribe that set up these teepees and tents. And they'll put holes in the water and they'll boil the water and you have these special thermal flasks that you can stay hydrated.

And I was in a tent and there's a photo that went viral here in Ireland with all the newspapers and magazines, which I'd never really thought about this, but it'll make sense in a moment. The Arctic's about minus 20 minus to minus 40 degrees Celsius. And when I tore my Achilles, you need to be in this weird Goldilocks zone in the Arctic. You move too fast, you'll sweat. Your risk of hypothermia goes up. You go too slow.

Your risk of frostbite goes up. And when my Achilles tore, I was pulling my leg behind me. But because I was moving so slowly, the water in my eyelids, they froze. So my eyes looked like a zombie or a vampire from the redness in my eyes because they were bloodshot because I couldn't blink. So I went into this, into the tent and there was this local indigenous Samira tribe and they had their reindeer soup and things in the, while they were sitting there. And there was a medic and she was looking at me going, you're done.

She was like, your Achilles is torn. And I asked her, 97 year old rule. I asked her, I was like, okay, what happens if I keep going? She goes, well, you'll be in a lot of pain and you might finish or you'll rupture it. There are your two options. I said, okay, back to my same exact scenario when I was a teacher.

I was like, okay, if it ruptures, what happens? She goes, well, you have to be flown out of here in a helicopter. I'm like, but you can get me. She's like, yeah. I was like, all right, check my GPS, just make sure it's working. And I said, strap it up. So they strapped up my leg.

They gave me codeine as a painkiller. And for 86 kilometers, I just pulled my leg behind me and got over the finish line. And again, it sounds insane now, but several months before this, I'll never forget this moment. I did the Sahara in April 2018. I signed up to run a race in Barcelona, an ultra marathon. It was only 72 kilometers, so not long in comparatively speaking terms, but I thought I could do anything after the Sahara. I was confident with Sky High, lots of business people and entrepreneurs are about to connect to this in a moment. That success

drug, we are like, I can do anything. I'm bulletproof. So I landed out to Barcelona in what I thought was a 72 kilometer road race. It was a trail race with the start of it running up Mount Tibidabo, one of the biggest mountains in Spain. I did the 40 kilometers into it and I went the wrong direction and got lost and then doubled back and was about to time out. And I was like, this is crap. I'm done. I was like, this is horrible. This is the wettest November on Barcelona record.

I have the wrong gear and shoes. This is horrible. I hate this. I'm not doing this race anymore. I'm done. And it was only a training race for the Arctic. And then I did what happened to a lot of people who at any point in their life

quit something that they regret. I was back in my hotel room. I was washed. I was room. I was washed. I was fed. I was no longer sore lying on my bed thinking, you should have finished that. You should have finished that. And I had that realization there and then that if I go to the Arctic in a few

months from now with this preparation and mindset, I'm actually going to die in the Arctic, I really need to get my this preparation and mindset, I'm actually going to die in the Arctic. I really need to get my things together and get my head right. And it was the seeds of failure planting the tree for future success. And it comes back to what we talked about earlier with the business and the entrepreneurship. People see the finish line, Irish flag coming over the Arctic Circle line, but they don't see me in a bedroom in Barcelona questioning what I was doing and tapping out and quitting to something that I definitely could have finished if I had the right headset for it or mindset for it.

And it's interesting because you don't always see the things below the surface. And a lot of that when my Achilles tour, I thought back to Barcelona and I was like, I can't do this. I was like, I have to keep going. I can't have that feeling again. Like I don't want to be able to turn. And I was using, you know, my daughter was a big motivation for me. That pain is temporary in a lot of cases, a lot of scenarios, pain, the work

deadlines, the relationship, the ultra marathons in this case, the pain is temporary in most cases and will eventually at some point go away and you have to keep that in your mind. And I remember thinking there and then in the Arctic in this minus 30 degrees with a load of reindeer tribe people around me going, I can't go back to Ireland until my daughter who was only four or five at the time, but I was picturing when she was older that when things get difficult, you keep going. You quit. Yeah.

Right? You can't say that. Right. You can't say that. And that hypocrite feeling that I had felt before, I would have felt like a hypocrite. And again, everyone has their why. Some will have children, some will have partners, some will have something completely different. That's their why.

But if you can tap into it, it can become a superpower in so many different scenarios. Oh, my God, this is so powerful. And I think I shared with you, we had Charlie Engel on the show last year and he crossed, I think, from Morocco to Egypt under Sahara, and his story was just crazy, crazy. So you guys are in the crazy thing. But it's also interesting to see how being a father, I think a lot of times do change us as being a parent.

Right. Like it does create a different level of why it sounds like it did for you. Oh, definitely. And it's interesting because my why even for those extreme challenges has changed because in 2020, right before the lockdown, I did a 100 mile ultra marathon. So it was 100 miles without stopping. It took me 26 and a half hours. And I remember at the end of the Sahara, I felt like my confidence had gone to a complete new level.

At the end of the Arctic, I had a completely different relationship to pain and that I could back myself regardless of what the external circumstances look like. When I did the 100 miler, my knees were a little bit sore, but I didn't get any personal growth from it. And what happened, my brain instantly after crossing the finish line went, well, this feels a bit hollow. Maybe I should do 200 miles, you know, and the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, I realized then and there that the extreme side,

the benefits I was getting are now actually starting to have diminishing returns. And last year, because you mentioned mountaineering, I actually brought a group of my followers up Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in Tanzania. And that now is something you mentioned Mountaineering, I actually brought a group of my followers up Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in Tanzania. And that now is something you mentioned to Paul next year. I'm bringing a group to Everest Base Camp. It's my favorite places on Earth and I'm so excited. I cannot wait.

But what's so interesting about it, Alana, is it ends up going from a me to we. It was all about me in the beginning. And I was like, well, this is feeling hollow. I want to be able to give the feeling that I got to other people. And Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world, one of the seven summits, the last night of that is a very, very, very difficult summit. And the people that I brought with me got that experience that I got in the Arctic, that I got in the Sahara, that, oh my God, I can do anything. And I was like, this is my path now.

This is it now. And it's interesting because having a daughter and my daughter, Holly, has kind of helped skew that because the training for these crazy ultramarathons, they take a lot of time. And although I don't regret them and I love that I did them and they were a season of my life that I enjoyed, now it's about potentially bringing her on some of these as she gets older and bringing people that follow me so that I'm able to show them what it's like. So it's so interesting how it does nearly, I won't even say a full circle because it's not a full circle,

but how it tweaks and changes and giving yourself permission, depending on seasons of life, that what once made me jump out of bed every morning, which was going to the Arctic, run 100 mile or hitting these targets I set for myself. I'm like, I would love to do this. I'd love to be a person that does these things. They don't light me up the same way anymore. But bringing a group of my followers up Kilimanjaro or to Everest Base Camp, they're things now that make me jump out of bed in the morning.

And it's just consistently tapping into that feeling with your training program, with your work, with your relationships, with your life in general. If you're jumping out of bed every morning and that's happening more often than not, you're doing pretty well at life in my opinion. And I think that's so important because life is in phases and different phases will bring different must haves or different things that you want out of them. And I love that because I slept my kids in all sorts of crazy hikes. So I love that for your daughter.

And by the way, Ironman is probably your next, you know, you'll just kind of need to tackle that one. You did this, which is very interesting. I'm going to ask you this, Alana, because I was signed up to do the Ironman in 2020 off the back of the 100-mileer. So I was pairing those two things together, and it got pulled because of COVID. And I made two attempts for Ironman,

and both got canceled with COVID. And I don't know if it's the same for you, because that itch was so strong. I was like, Ironman, that sounds amazing. And because it got pulled from me twice, it's kind of like twice bitten, you know, once shy, once bitten, twice shy, like whatever the line is. I haven't quite got the, let's go do the Iron Man again. I'm like, I can't have it pulled for whatever reason again.

But I feel like it's one of those 97-year-old things that will get ticked off at some point. I think it's just a tick, honestly. Like, I don't see myself doing it again and again. But one thing that you said that I think is really important, the night before the Iron Man, for some ungodly reason, the place where we stayed actually had a massive party right next door. So we actually couldn't sleep all night. And it was just so annoying. But the interesting thing is,

and again, I was sure that it's gonna take effect. There's no way I can't now go into this whatever. For me, it's I think it was like almost 13 and a half hour ordeal, right? I can't go into this hours and hours of swimming and biking and running. And the truth is, it didn't matter. What mattered is the nights before. That night just, that was not the thing. And I think it teaches you something different.

Like now when I go into the business and sometimes the nights are not great and then you have, you know, I had my kids, this was before my kids and suddenly I had, you know, my kids and suddenly it gave a whole different perspective to not sleeping at night. Like who, so what? You know, like it was just like this whole like, so I just resonate so much with all your stories. Although I'm still not sure I will ever pursue anything like it. But for everybody listening, I would love to hear now that you've experienced all these

amazing things. If you meet Brian, that is either the teacher or even before that, what would be some of the biggest tips that you would want Brian to know that you know today? Probably two things. One, that people are going to have an opinion regardless of what you do, that you may as well do the thing that makes you happy. And two, the time is going to pass anyways. And to give a little bit of context,

the one about the opinions of others is something we touched on earlier that I probably don't need to flesh out much more. But what I didn't know 15 years ago, 20 years ago, was that whether you're living a life of purpose and passion, doing what you want to do or not, people are going to have an opinion on what you're doing. So you may as well do the thing that you want to do. The second thing is the time is going to pass anyways. And that's for those who are caught in the story of, well, it's too late.

I can't do that now. The time is going to pass anyways. And you get to decide what you do. I do a lot of breath work. I meditate a lot on my first breath and last breath. There are two things, first breath, when I came into this world, there'll eventually be a last breath when I go out.

It's all the breaths in between that are important. And that time is passing whether I want it to pass or not. And I can either do it from a place of love and freedom and service, jumping out of bed every morning, or I either do it from a place of love and freedom and service, jumping out of bed every morning, or I can do it from a place of anxiety and hurt and pain and scarcity. I get to decide that. And if I could go back, it's actually the advice I think I would have heavily

listened to because even at 23, 24, 25 years of age, the sunk cost fallacy of all the time, energy and money I'd spent to become a teacher still held me back for a few years because I worried what others would think. I worried I had wasted time and I didn't want that sunk cost fallacy. That's a very horrible feeling. That ladder against the wrong wall. When it's very difficult to figuratively move that ladder against another wall and start

climbing again, starting new is difficult a career, break up and then into another relationship a business venture entrepreneurship fitness weight loss body composition. Iron man ultramarathons difficult new things most things that are what do you know difficult to have the wind everyone would do them and we wouldn't put any value on them. weren't everyone would do them and then we wouldn't put any value on them. And that's an important thing to understand. So I think a combination of those two things, especially that the time is going to pass anyways, because there's someone listening here who's waiting for either the lights to go green, all their ducks to be in a row, or they're just stuck in the closed mindset that I can't do that now because of X, Y or Z reason. And outside of some biological and genetic limitations on certain goals, 98% of them you probably could do

because the time is going to pass anyways. Oh, that's powerful. Thank you, Brian. And how do people reach you? I mean, we'll have all the links, but in general. The Brian Keane podcast is what I love. I'm on Instagram. I do a lot of fitness based content, a little bit of mindset stuff. It's a lot more surface.

We tend to go deeper on the podcast. I like to have that little bit of a barbell approach in terms of it's super deep on the podcast, a lot more lighthearted generally on Instagram. So just where people want to check out, but the podcast for sure. Brian, thank you for a beautiful, beautiful, fascinating episode. Thank you so much again. This is an absolute ball. Really, really appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. If you did, please share it with friends. Now also if you're feeling stuck or simply want more from your own career, watch this 30 minute free training at leapacademy.com slash training. That's leapacademy.com slash training. See you in the next episode of the Leap Academy with Ilana Golanshchuk.