The Nick Bare Podcast - 031: Mark Bell's Hybrid Athlete Journey - Conquering Powerlifting and Running

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Bell, a hybrid athlete who's shattered records in powerlifting and found new strength in running. Mark founded Super Training Products Inc., a multi-million dollar fitness business, and now hosts the MB Power Project, a leader in health & fitness podcasts. We delve deep into how incorporating running into his training regimen has not only made him physically stronger but also a better father, husband, and leader. Mark's transformative journey showcases the incredible power of moving on from past identities by having the courage to attempt new things. Enjoy the episode! Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Keep up with Mark here: IG: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell/  YT: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkBellsPowerProject Topics:  00:00 Intro 1:37 Running makes you stronger 8:29 Acquired taste for exercise 13:57 Mark’s background 20:32 Removing attachment from powerlifting 30:39 Learning to move on 37:13 Identify your blind spots and adapt 50:05 Boston Marathon prep 1:08:05 Vulnerability brings perspective 1:13:33 Power of curiosity 1:22:33 Choosing your purpose

Coming from a very competitive powerlifting background, how is running made you stronger? When I say running made me stronger, it's not literal like it made me stronger in a deadlift, it made me stronger in a bench press. What about a stronger heart? What about a stronger mind? An ability to move your own body through space more efficiently. I like to carry strength throughout my whole life into my son, all the way into my daughter, all the way into my wife, all the way into my business.

And when you build a lot of strength in your life and when you become more well-rounded and have strength oozing out of your body, not just from the weights that you lift, but from trying to carry that strength throughout everything that you do, you're left with no choice, but to feel confident and to feel strong and to feel powerful and to feel empowered all the way to the point where you're able to empower a lot of other people. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and supporting the brand. Now, I have spent the last decade plus of my life building bare performance nutrition, and we create effective supplements that you can trust to support your wellness, endurance, and performance

goals. We offer high-quality, great-tasting weight protein powders, effective pre-workouts, superfoods, sleep support, electrolytes, and much more. So if you want to support the content that we produce and the message that I am sharing through my content and on this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it if you went to BPNSups.com and you can use code Nick Bear 10 to save 10% off. your next order. So thank you guys. I appreciate you. And let's dive into the show. Today on the podcast, we have Mark Bell back for his second time on on this show. So Mark, welcome to Austin. Welcome back on the show. How we doing? Doing great. Got an early morning run in with Nick Bear. And it was great. Pretty humid out here. So it's humid. We got so wette. I actually, I just came back

from Nashville. I was in Nashville this past weekend. I thought I was going to be going to Nashville and have a break from the heat. Because we've here in Texas have had 100 plus degree days for like 30, we're like 32 days straight or something like that right now. I thought I was going to have a break in Nashville. Nashville humidity hit different. And I was,

I was smelly and I was sweaty after that run. And Steph always says, she doesn't think I smell after I run. But we got in the truck to, drive back to the hotel after I run. She's like, of all the times I've ever sat next to you after I work out, this is the smelliest you've ever been. Yep, sounds about right. You're like, I achieved something in that run today. That's straight humidity. But no, we had a good run today. And honestly, I want to spend a lot of time today in this discussion

talking about your evolution into running. You know, I was on your social media the other day and I saw you mentioned something. I'd love for you to unpack it. And you, you always say that strength is never a weakness and weakness is never a strength. And you say that running has only made you stronger. I think a lot of people would push back and argue against that. I would love for you to unpack that comment, especially coming from a very competitive powerlifting background, how is running made you stronger? Our kind of only measure of strength being meatheads is just like what you lift in the gym. And I've known this for many years and many people, probably know what I'm talking about is that you have guys that have gym strength

and there's guys that have like field strength or strength for a sport. And they seem to be like kind of different things in a way. So somebody just being able to deadlift 600 pounds, 700 pounds, somebody able to squat 600 pounds, 700 pounds. It doesn't really mean too much more than that they can do that lift. They're proficient at that lift. It's not going to give them a lot of proficient. in a lot of other areas. It might help them add muscle mass. It might help them add size.

It could help with bone density. So it can help and it can assist with longevity in some ways. But running, if you think about running, you're on one foot at a time over and over and over and over again. The longer that you run, normally, the faster that you're able to start to go. Also, you might be able to run for longer periods of time. I think that it would be in everybody's best interest, everybody's best interest to be able to run for 15 to 20 minutes straight. I don't think that's too much to ask. I think that's kind of low-hanging fruit. But what I got from running is a stronger mind, a more durable body. And I'm just having more fun than I've ever had before. Lifting puts you in a certain frame of mind when you do, I kind of call them mindsets.

When you do like a set where you just dive all in in a particular workout, maybe you do a drop set or maybe you do a super set and the burn is just crazy. and you're set to do set to 12 on both things, but you just say F it, and you do like 20 reps of each. Been there. And you get that burn and you get yourself to that point where you're like, you know,

I should probably stop. But at the same time, you're like, I know where I need to get myself to so you continue to push through and push through and push through. That's the expansion of your mind, I believe. And you can get tons of that in the weight room, which is amazing.

But I don't even know how many, people are really pushing into that. And I would encourage people to push into that when you're in the gym. But almost automatically, just by the pure nature of running, you get that when you run, especially in the beginning when you first start so much to the point where if you have zero experience running or next to zero like myself when I started, it will take you about eight months or maybe even a year or so until you even get to the point where you're like, like, now I kind of understand. Everybody's talking about running.

Nick's not crazy when he said he loved his five-mile run this morning. Whenever I heard someone say that, I was like, look at this skinny little bastard. Like, of course he loves it. Like, he's proficient at it. He's fast. You know, he probably doesn't feel like anything to them. But I didn't really understand because I didn't have a capacity for that. But when I say running made me stronger, it's not like,

It's not literal like it made me stronger in a deadlift. It made me stronger in a bench press. But I think people are missing out on how many other things it can make you stronger with. What about a stronger heart? What about a stronger mind? What about an ability to move your own body, your own body weight through space more efficiently? That sounds pretty cool to be able to do pull-ups better, to be able to do push-ups better, to be able to do lunges.

Like there's so many improvements in so many other areas that I've gotten. So to just look at a bench press and be like, oh, my God, my bench press strength went down. To me, that's not what strength is. Strength is, I like to carry strength throughout my whole life everywhere that I can, all the way into my son, all the way into my daughter, all the way into my wife, all the way into my business, all the way into all things. Part of being strong, I think, is to build a capacity and then also know when to use that capacity and when to use that effort. Almost like a martial artist who has the ability to really take somebody out at any time.

They just choose not to a lot of times. They choose not to be confrontational because they know and they don't have to prove themselves to anybody. And when you build a lot of strength in your life and when you become more well-rounded and have strength just oozing out of your body, not just from the weights that you lift, but from trying to carry that strength throughout everything that you do, you're left with no choice but to feel confident and to feel strong and to feel powerful and to feel empowered all the way to the point where you're able to empower a lot of other people. You know, you talked about when someone first starts running, it's extremely uncomfortable. And you can't relate to the people who love and enjoy running itself. They make you mad kind of. You're like, what's this guy doing? Why is he so happy?

Yeah, I don't get it. But that same principle applies to people who might be going to the gym for the first time. I've talked to so many people where, you know, I go to the gym and I'm taking my pre-work out. I'm warming up. Blood's flowing. I'm getting a pump, and I'm talking about this pump and this contraction and just like this mind muscle connection I'm experiencing. And people who have never experienced that or who haven't been practicing this style of

training long enough, they can't relate. Like a pump, like what the hell is a pump? Right. Or like, what do you mean you get this mind muscle connection in the gym? So I think a lot of times we have to, we have to allocate time to allow our mind to mind. embodied to adapt to this new stimulus to find out if we like it or not. I think all too often people stop before the adaptation even begins. And if you don't wait for that period, which is hard because that requires patience,

you're just kind of having faith in the process. You can miss out on so much opportunity. I think a lot of people see people like yourself. They see someone like myself. and they see us move from one thing to the next. And we don't really take that much time with it, or at least it doesn't look like we take that much time with it. But it still takes a tremendous amount of time.

But also you have to factor in the fact that for us to do the stuff that we're doing, for you to do a triathlon, a marathon, a bodybuilding show, they're all still within range of what we, you know, it's not like you're going to get your Ph.D. in physics. You know, like, I know for myself, like that would be something that would just require me to change every aspect of my life to even be in line for something like that. So it's like I can't even fathom, you know, what it would take to be able to do something like that. But for us to push a little harder in something isn't that bad because we know, we know what's on the other side. There are some people that haven't really pushed into some of these things.

and I would love for everybody to know and to recognize that it's going to take time. It's going to take a lot of time. And I think that I think you can treat yourself really nicely. I actually kind of think you can work out. You can baby yourself a little bit. Like almost work out as if you were training. Like how would you train your grandma? How would you train your mother, your own mother, like if she was to come into a gym or something?

train yourself that way in the beginning of whatever endeavor it is that you're doing. Like train yourself with some tender loving care. And I would have said this in the prime of my power lifting career as well. I think people had it twisted and they thought that it was like, you know, you either lift this weight or you don't. It was never been that way. I've shared the bar with people that deadlift 900 pounds and I've shared the bar with people that deadlift 135. Because I always felt like I don't really care who I'm sharing the bar with as long as they're into doing the work. That's where my focus was. And so I think it's important for people just

to understand that this process is going to take time. For you to even like it, it's going to take time. I think we have a hard time remembering that we don't like much of anything the first time that we do it. The first time that you do something might be fumbly. It could be sex. It could be drinking beer. Like people that have kids, you watch your kid drink a beer at like eight years old and they're just like, that's disgusting. Well, it takes getting used to, right? Coffee, just black coffee.

I know some people are listening. I love black coffee. It's an acquired taste. It takes a little while. It takes some getting used to. Something like running, something like lifting. These things are going to take, it's not just going to take a couple tries. it's going to most likely take a handful of months.

And so that's what you have to be, if you need to be tough anywhere or if you need to be strong anywhere, it would be in that, is that you're going to have to figure out a way to connect to the thing that you're doing and then you're going to have to figure out a way to stay connected to it.

It's a, this is a side, complete side note, but coming off of the black coffee comment, I used to be ashamed that I didn't like black coffee. So, like, I would, I would force myself to drink black coffee around other people and act like I enjoyed it because I thought drinking black coffee made me tough. And then, you know, I finally realized, I hate black coffee.

I like creamer. I like sweetener my coffee. Every morning when I make my coffee, I'm putting creamer and sweetener and that. And I enjoy it. I love it. Just a little bit, not too much. But yeah, I think we have to do things. It's a realization we have to do things that.

We enjoy, we like, and not always be influenced by what people are telling us is the way, be tougher, be harder. I want to talk about how you got into running, because you've been running for how many months now, like, consistently? It's been like a year or so, yeah. Yeah. But before we, like, really dive into that, I think we need to give context to the extreme that you're coming from. So could you briefly talk about your powerlifting background, how heavy you were, what weights you were doing? Because, I mean, you spent majority of your career up until this point focused on strength sports, not cardiovascular conditioning. Running was probably the last thing you would ever consider doing up until recently. Yeah. So I started power lifting when I was 12, 13 or so. I started lifting in my garage. My brother, brother was lifting at the time. My dad bought us some weights and I got into it. And then the local gym that we went to, I grew up in.

in Poughkeepsie, New York. And the gym that we went to had just like a bunch of meatheads. And most of them were powerlifters. And even the guys that weren't like powerlifters, they were just all into strength, whether it was a behind the neck press or a deadlift or whatever. They just, every movement they did, they had to go like as heavy as they possibly could on it.

And so I started to learn powerlifting in a very young age. Powerlifting was something that I always tried to push off and like suppress because it wasn't cool. You know, I wanted to be a football player. I wanted to be a boxer. I wanted to do track. I wanted to do all these other things. But powerlifting was the annoying girlfriend that I could never quite get rid of.

And as I got older and football stopped and some of the other sports stopped. It was just me and power lifting there alone, you know, once again. And so I decided, let me just, you know, I am pretty good at this. Let me just go all in on it and see what I can do. And so I ended up with a thousand 80 squat. an 854 pound bench and a 766 deadlift. Those are all done in competition. I pushed myself to what I felt was, you know, as far as hard as I could.

I fell with a thousand, so I did a thousand 80 squat. The next contest that I did, I was trying to squat over 1,100. My opening attempt was 185. Just to show you how finicky things are when you start ending up with those big weights, I fell with $1,085 and got very, very injured and messed up. It took me like three, four months just to be able to kind of like walk right again. I was jacked up. I remember it taking the first night after my injury.

I remember it taking like an hour and a half for me to go from a, a recliner that was in our living room to a foldout bed that was in our other living room because I couldn't go upstairs at the house that we were at it had stairs I couldn't go up the stairs to go to bed with my wife did you like did you pull a muscle or did you tear something who knows man I don't know I never once had a doctor just that jacked up I just messed everything up my foot was really swollen I I don't think I broke anything um I think I severely strained some ligaments and things like that but yeah I was messed up for a long time and so that made me kind of rethink the trajectory of everything that it was doing because at the time I was still like I didn't deadlift

800 yet I didn't bench 900 yet I didn't squat 1100 yet so there's still I'm still leaving room on the table I got to keep pushing but that fall made me um gave me a different perspective and it made me kind of re-examine and rethink and we can get into it later but that humbling uh is something that helped me detach myself mark bell from uh just powerlifting you know just being a power lifter. You know, many years of, many years of powerlifting and then that coming to kind of a screeching halt, I just wanted to get in better shape. So from that point, I started to lose weight. I was like, what are the variables I have control of right now? I can't squat. I can't do some of the things that I love. So what can I do? And that's what I advise a lot of people to do is

whenever you have a situation like that in life where you might end up with some literal cants in your life where you have an injury, an illness, a surgery, focus on what you can do and just put on the backburner, the stuff that you can't do for now. So that's what I did for a while. And then I did a bodybuilding show, got myself in better shape. And I was just kind of just, I don't know, just going on walks and stuff like that. And one day on a walk, I was like, I feel pretty good. I think I'm going to, like, jog. And so I'm on this. walk and I'm like, I'll just jog to that stop sign. And stop sign was maybe 50 feet away or something. And I jogged to it. Of course, I, you know, breathing kind of hard. I was like, wow,

that was a little more difficult than I even thought it was. I'd walk a little bit more. And I was like, let me give it another shot. Jog again. So this all started with jogging and walking back and forth, jogging and walking, jogging and walking to eventually to a point where I remember being on a particular walk jog one day. And as I was going, I was like, I'll probably never do this whole loop. This whole loop is like three miles or something. I'll probably never run the whole thing. And then one day I was just out there and I started running right from the beginning without even walking. And I went a few hundred feet. And I was like, all right, I'm going to run to that stop sign. And I got to the stop sign. I was like, I'm going to run to the mailbox. And I got to the mailbox.

I just kept going. I kept kind of tricking my mind. And it got to the point where I was, you know, quarter the way through, halfway through. And then about halfway through, I'm like, oh shit. Like I already went. I'm well over a mile, a mile and a half. Well, I bet I can do two miles.

And then I went two miles. And then as I was looking at my phone, I was like, well, there's two miles. I only got one more mile to go. I've already did more than half. Like, so let's see what we can do. And so I finished out that three-mile run. And then just when I was done, I just felt incredible. I was very winded.

I was very tired. My legs were burning. But I just kind of thought to myself, I bet you just if I just practiced that a little bit more, because I've already made such big strides where I was only jogging and walking. And now I just jog the whole thing. I was like, I bet I can kind of figure this out, just like I figured out lifting. I feel like I've been having this conversation a lot with people recently. Chad Wright, we were talking about this on the run this morning a little bit,

and Chad Wright was recently on the podcast, and we were talking about this in terms of sometimes when you so strictly attached to this identity, and it becomes your identity, this thing, this person becomes your identity, it's really hard to transition or evolve out of that identity. For Chad Wright, it was being a Navy C. This is something I have recently struggled with. It's Nick Baer, the founder and CEO of BPN. And when I step down from that CEO role, it's like, well, who am I now that I'm not the CEO of BPN anymore?

You talked about identifying as this power lifter. Was that transitioned hard when you decided I don't necessarily want to pursue this for the rest of my life? because I think a lot of the times we tie this identity to ourselves, but then there's also this responsibility that we know other people tie this responsibility or this identity to ourselves as well. So if we want to transition or evolve into something new or experiment with something different, we're not just losing our identity, but what do other people view us as now?

Do we look like quitters? Do we look like we couldn't stick it out? So did you struggle with that as you transitioned out of the world of power lifting? The fun of having that kind of strength and the fun of building that kind of capacity is that you can really just kind of mess around every once in a while. You know, I could go in the gym with no warm-up and just have five plates on the bar and start squatting. I mean, I might do something else just to get my body kind of primed. I wouldn't just go in there completely cold.

But you could do like strange and weird feats of strength like randomly. I remember, you know, sometimes some of the guys would be like deadlifting or something and a couple guys would miss and I would just go over there and like do it for a couple reps just to mess with people. And especially the younger guys just to try to get under their skin and kind of get them fired up. And so, yeah, like it was a big part of, it was a big part of who I was to a certain degree. But I've been really fortunate in a couple different ways. Number one, two amazing parents that instilled a lot of confidence in me. And from a young age, I always was like a pretty big kid. Even like it, I weigh like 225 now, but I weighed like 240 when I was in high school,

same height around six feet tall. And the peak of your powerlifting career, how? Oh, yeah. How heavy were you? Yeah, it was 330 in the peak of my powerlifting career. And so I'm down, yeah, 100, like around 110 pounds. but being a bigger kid, you know, it kind of has its own responsibility to it too.

So I think that that was actually helpful. Like my maturation as a young kid as I got older, I wasn't really allowed to use my strength. Like if a friend or something was just annoying me, I couldn't like, I couldn't just, you know, wrestle with them or like mess them up a little bit because I was a lot stronger.

than a lot of kids already at that age because I started lifting at 12. So I remember my dad one time I got into a fight in school and I, I just grabbed this kid by the shirt. It was in PE. I grabbed this kid by the shirt and I just chucked him and I just heard this like awful noise. This kid, his side hit like the post of the soccer post because he threw a ball at me,

you know? And so that was my excuse. Like he threw the ball at me. And my dad's like, I'm disappointed in you because you're not like some of the other kids. You're way stronger. And so I think because of stuff like that, I think I hesitated to attach myself too strongly to being strong or too much to being identified as only that one thing because I had to have another side to me that I guess was like sweet or more calm, you know, something that's a little different. Another thing that also happened along the way was the creation and the invention of the slingshot and having some success in business. And I think financial freedom allowed me to explore myself, allowed me to look in other spots for wisdom, stoicism.

And as I was learning some of these things, it made me kind of reflect and look at what I was doing more cautiously. And there's always also the cautious tale of, and you could apply this to any sport or you could apply this to any career. Just a long list of powerlifters that powerlifting just ran right through them. Like they were good powerlifters, but it just ran them over. And now, you know, unfortunately they can't move as well. they can't do a lot of the things that they love. They're in lots of pain every day and things like that. So I saw a lot of that stuff.

And I knew that I never wanted that for myself. And so I was like, you know what, this is cool that I power lift and it's cool that I'm a powerlifter. But I'm not going to overly attach myself to it too much because I have other goals. And also at the time, along with having an invention and gaining some financial freedom, I was also raising children. And so children are very, they're very humbling. They are, you end up learning life lessons from them every single day that they'll just, that are probably ongoing forever.

My son is 19 now and my daughter's 15. I'm still learning a lot from them and from the process of being a parent. And so it didn't matter what I lifted. You know, I'd go home and I'd tell my wife and I'd say, hey, you know, I squatted, 700 today, you know, off of a box and, you know, and she's like, cool, you can take out the garbage, you know. So having that, and that's what I really enjoy. Like, I love nothing more. My favorite part of the day is like around 3 or 4 p.m. when I know I'm going to go home and see my family, be with my family, have them refuse to eat dinner with me and reject me to go on a walk.

I wish it worked out a little bit better We could all eat together more often But usually like my daughter's doing one thing My son's doing another People have families totally understand What I'm talking about But you know that that is me I'm I'm more than a power lifter

You know And I have felt that way for a long time And I realize that I think because of the injury I think that was a huge factor That made me kind of recognized Like you can't be too attached these numbers because

this will be a never-ending cycle that you'll be involved. What's after 1100, 1200, what's after a 900-pound bench, 1,000-pound bench, it just would be never-ending. Constantly chasing the next thing. Right.

Well, it seems like you are very intentional with the choices you made in your life because I keep thinking back to the quote, lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest. And for someone who keeps showing up on the platform, and putting up these big numbers, that becomes your thing. You know, you have a product through a business that is tied to this sport.

It had to have been, I would assume, a difficult decision to not step back on the platform because I would also assume that people are asking, or when are you going back? Like, when's the next competition? When are you going for that next big number? and when you have to say I'm not, that had to have been difficult in some sort of capacity, right? No, I think because of the way that I did it. You know, I think I really truly believe in my heart that I did it. I could look back now and I could figure out better ways to have executed on it and I could put in a probably even a better effort.

But I only knew what I knew back then and I really felt like I was given everything I had. So when you push all in on something like that, I didn't want to do it any longer. I did it for as long as I needed to do it. I lifted as much weight as I could. Somebody in the gym was just asking me the other day, like, don't you want to go over there and like deadlift that weight? I'm like, no, I don't have any desire to. I was like, I'll probably never do a one-remax deadlift ever again. I'm like, I don't know.

not that I won't ever deadlift again. I like the movement. Those are all good movements, but I just felt it was important for me to like move on. Again, even just something like, you know, growing up in the town that I grew up in and anyone can say this about their hometown, you kind of just see people there doing similar things that they've kind of always done and just being kind of like stuck. They're like frozen in time. And maybe for somebody else, maybe that works well for them.

But I never really liked that. So I always wanted to kind of keep moving. Think about it's like one of the most dangerous things. It's just to not move. Like you could have the most expensive, the safest rating, you know, airplane ever. But if it's 15 years old and never moved, like you wouldn't be that confident and going for a ride in it. Right. I think that you have to constantly be moving.

have to constantly be evolving. And I think if you're not, if you're not doing that, I think you're kind of dying in a way. You look at some of these athletes or celebrities or musicians. And they have all the accolades. They've, you know,

reached and achieved all these accomplishments. But they keep going back for another year or another tour or another rotation. And with the decision to, keep going, they kind of self-destruct every other part of their life. You know, based off of what you just said, why do you think some people just can't hang it up? Like, why can't people move on? What's holding them back from that decision? While they literally watch behind them, every other part of their life catch on fire and burn down. Yeah, I think people get addicted to it. You know,

I think in the fitness industry in particular, whether it's strength or bodybuilding or crossfit, people are highly addicted. to things that are, what originally started out as like a health adventure or venture turned into a disaster at some point because people, I'm guilty, over train, overdo it, over push, over exert. And I get that and like that, I think that's fine because like how do you know where the line is? Like how do you know how hard to push if you haven't pushed over the line a little bit? So I think some of that makes sense. But not being able to let go and doing stuff to your detriment.

There's no other way for me to say it. I just think it's dumb. I just think it's foolish. You know, like I'll hear people say, man, my back is just killing me and I'm just thinking, I saw you do 405 for a set of 11. I'm deadlifted either day. You know, like, it's just, you know,

you've done so much of this for so long. Your body probably could utilize something slightly different. And I love lifting, and I always love lifting. But I think it would be great for people to start to consider, you know, maybe I should work out a little bit more the way I trained when I was young when I played some sports. Maybe I should do some ladder drills. Maybe I should catch a football. Maybe I should throw a football around or a baseball around because the dynamics of those things are so different than what you get from a weight room.

And I know people are probably disappointed. Like, I just want to go work out, bro. And I get it. but I'm only saying like if you if you're having negative side effects from your lifting, then I think it's time to at least entertain trying to do some things a little differently so that you feel better. I think you have to keep in mind the whole purpose and the whole point of working out in the first place, in my opinion, is to feel better.

And if it's making you feel worse, then something's going wrong, I think sometimes our desire to kind of hang on to this thing that we have, I think sometimes another area where people might be tripped up a little bit is they might feel like that's all they got. And I've certainly been there before. You know, I grew up, you know, in like special needs classes and thinking I was dumb. And as I gotten older and as I've gotten more mature, I kind of recognized I can look back at that situation and be like, oh, you kind of, even though you were just a kid, still chose to like believe to buy into this story that you were dumb and that you couldn't

learn certain things. And really all it was is it just took me longer sometimes to learn certain things. And it was only on certain things and it wasn't on other things. I could certainly learn things I was more interested in way easier. Maybe I got some ADHD or something like that. I'm not quite sure. But, uh, you know, a lot of this, I think people get so attached. to an identity of being strong that they don't want to let it go. So I see so many people continuing to say, you know, I just, you know, I'm going to still do the same lift and they just never back off, even with a hurt shoulder or something. I'm like, you can't take one week.

Just take one, one week pull back on your bench press. Just don't bench press for one. Like, what should I do? My elbow. My shoulder's killing me. don't bench next week. They're like, what? Like, they, they don't want to do it. Now, here's my challenge. And here's, here's something I think is really important. If you're really truly dedicated, then you won't do it. If you're really truly dedicated, you'll actually stop.

If you're really truly dedicated, you will actually take the time to stop in your runs when you need to stop. And the reason why I say that is because it's hard to stop and start again than it is just keep going. And I think that people think it's, braver and tougher to keep going. But, I mean, throw a little monkey wrench into your diet and see what happens. You know, have one, I dare you to have one cheat meal or I dare to eat just one, just eat one chip, right? When you do something like that, it's actually way more difficult than,

than you might think. I agree with that. One of the things that my wife, Steph, has identified with me or what I do. is because I like being in control of certain aspects of my life. I don't believe I'm a micromanager by any means, but I like being able to control a lot of controllables. I think that ability has allowed me to reach levels of success as I personally define them.

But what happens when I start feeling like I'm losing control of certain parts of my life is I use fitness in training and diet to control as much as possible. So if something's going on with like my personal life, family, business, and I feel like I'm losing some control or something is happening

outside of my ability, direct ability to manipulate that outcome, I will dial in my diet even tighter. I will train even more. And Steph picks up on it. She's like, I see you've been like weighing everything you're putting in your mouth recently.

What's going on? I see you've been logging more miles and spending more time in the gym than normal. What's going on? And, like, I just do that out of... That is just part of my character. It's your RX, you know? It's your medicine, right? It is, yeah.

And it makes me feel better. Yes, but I'm also a person who has taken this lifestyle that is meant to promote health and longevity and abundance to everything we do. and I've used it at certain times in my life to self-destruct, right, like overtraining, uh, counting every macro and calorie I put in my body and instead of being all in, I become all consumed. Something I've been talking a lot about this past year is the difference between being all in versus all consumed.

And if you're all consumed by your health and fitness, you are neglecting potentially a lot of other areas of your life. I think you're pulling away a little bit from your ability to be like even better sometime. I agree. I'm not saying not to push yourself. Like that's not what we're talking about here. I would say though for a lot of people, a lot of people that already enjoy fitness, a lot of people that already enjoy running. Like running is not your problem.

For me, like lifting weights, like I don't need another training session in the gym with weights necessarily. I don't mean ever. It's just like, it's okay if I miss one here. and there. It's not a, it's not a huge deal. Like, if, think again, if you were talking to another person, you were talking to a friend, you were talking to an employee, somebody from BPN right here. And they said, man, I'm just, I'm really, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty tired. I'm pretty, like, beat. And you say, well, how do your workouts, Ben? And you ask them a couple of questions. And they're like, yeah, I got to train later. And you'd say, look, man, don't train later today. You know, why don't

you maybe like get out of here like 2 p.m. or something, you know, finish up the project you're working on and get the hell out of here and go get some rest. But you'd never give that advice to yourself. You know, you got to be here until six and until the last person leaves and you're going to be here at 6 a.m., getting your lift on after you ran or whatever. And I think those are things to really, to really try to consider and just think, because again, if all things consider if you're trying to be awesome at something, which I think most people are because acquiring the acquisition of a capacity makes you usually feel really good. So when you see an improved time on your running, it makes you feel good. If you see an improvement on your bench press,

it makes you feel good. If you're just always kind of lifting the same weight and always running the same way, it might not create the same feel for an individual. And if you're considering all those things and we have to consider all aspects of training and a really critical aspect of training is some sort of recovery. Do you meditate? Do you even have the ability to meditate? Can you sit still for like two minutes? Can you be without your phone? Can you just, it can be very, very difficult. We all have blind spots, but I think it's in everyone's best interest to continue to try to circle around and try to swarm around and think to yourself, what are some of my blind spot? I would say up until maybe like six months ago, I felt like I was a person that couldn't meditate.

And then I was like, well, why do I say that about meditation? Like I don't usually allow myself to say the word can't. So why am I saying that about meditation? I never even really tried it. Let me just try it. And now through like an app that I use, I give myself like, two minutes, two and a half minutes to meditate. It doesn't get done every day. But I'm able to actually do it, able to clear my mind, calm myself down a little bit. And the same things,

I learn the same lessons with sleep. You're sleeping for five hours, five, six hours. Like, you're not as dedicated. You don't care as much about your running as you think you do. Because why are you hurting yourself that? It doesn't make any sense. And the same thing goes with my body weight. I was around 240 for a little while. I stayed there for a bit. I was stuck at like 230. I'm like if I really cared about my running, because I know that for me, it will be in my best interest just to lose a little bit more weight. So I'm like, let me bring the weight down. And now I'm more like 220. So I think that it's tough medicine to kind of take and it's tough to analyze that. But if you're not making progress in your diet, if your finances aren't getting

better, if these things are like stuck, then it means you don't care about them as much as you originally thought. It's easier to provide guidance information than follow it. That's what I've found. And a lot of the context of what I'm talking about always in my content comes from what I'm experiencing in my life at the moment. So, you know, my daughter has turned one year old. And a lot of people that follow me are also high achievers, athletes, some business owners, but some of them also have younger children as well. And I've gotten this influx of messages over the last year of people saying, you know, I'm struggling with the balance of training and being a dad and being a husband.

And my wife and I are fighting all the time because I want to do my four-hour training run every Saturday morning in preparation for my ultra marathon. And the answer to me is so obvious. Well, yeah, you may, maybe you shouldn't be running four hours on your Saturday morning, so your wife is watching the child. And it's easier for me to say that, but the reality is, like, I've been there before, and I've done the same exact thing, and parts of my life aren't going well, or there's this unsettling argument about something,

and the reality is, well, I'm just prioritizing the wrong things. sometimes rest and recovery is it needs to be a priority to get better to improve other parts of your life. There's always going to be these tradeoffs. Yeah. And it's a tough conversation to have with yourself. It's important to really communicate. You know, I do wonder sometimes like what's the communication level in a household when somebody has a question like that. Oh, my wife was really mad that I was at the gym for two hours.

You know, how often are you doing that? And have you ever had a conversation with her? Or is she just mad because she doesn't understand what you're doing? So I think that if you were to sit down with a girlfriend, a wife, a significant other, and if you said, this is what I really love to do, this is what I really enjoy. And coming up, I have a couple of goals that I'd like to really hammer out. let's talk let's get some dialogue around you know i was thinking about training like four days a week x amount of out you know you start to have a conversation and you let them get some input back and

forth and now you have a conversation and now there really shouldn't be at there's still going to be friction there's always going to be like friction one person's going to have like animosity towards another person there's going to be miscommunication like all these things are going to happen But imagine having that conversation. And then your wife or boyfriend or whoever tells you their perspective. And then they say, well, here's what I, you know, I like to do this. So now it's like you have a conversation and maybe the one year old, like now Nick's watching watching the baby, why the wife's doing whatever it is that she wants to do for a little bit of time. And now you at least had some, at least there was a talk of some kind.

also think that like why not just wake up earlier, you know, go to bed, go to bed a little earlier, wake up a little earlier. You might have to just start to develop some new habits or maybe you have to get some work done while your kid is asleep at night or why they take a nap. That's what moms have been doing forever. So I think as a guy, I think a lot of us need to kind of take note of that and to position ourselves to where we're not away from. from everybody for so long. And I think that it's very common for men to just kind of put their head down

into like, all right, I'm gonna work. And this is for the family. And then it's like, well, it's for the family, but then you're not there. Like that doesn't work great, I don't think. No. I mean, I relate to the comment so much about, uh,

once the kid gets a little older, it's a more predictable sleep schedule. Charlie's going like through this sleep regression right now where we had this schedule that was, ideal. She would wake up at like 5.30. I'd give her a bottle. She'd go back to sleep for like two hours and I'd go knock out my run. Now she doesn't wake up until I'm like mid run. It's like 615, 6.30. I can't push it back any further. I'll carry my phone with me on my runs now because I just want to have some sort of line of communication to Steph in case something happens.

So I'll be out my run and I'm like one mile in. I know I got nine. nine miles left and I get the notification from the nannot saying like the baby's up. I'm like, oh, shit. So now I'm stressed now. I'm like, okay, this is going from a zone two run. We're going zone four today. We're finishing this run as soon as possible so I can get back and help with a baby. But I relate to that so much of, you know, I've tried backing it up and just moving around.

But I can imagine as my kids get a little older, my child now, it's a more predictive. schedule. You bring up a really good point though. There's there's so many different ways to train. There's training modalities where people will train. I think Brian McKenzie. I think he recommends people to run like 10 miles. Like that's the most that they run when they're training for like a marathon. Because he does a lot of nasal breathing stuff and he has different ways to condition people. There's a lot of people doing stuff like that. They go to a track. They do some 400s. They maybe do some 800s and they're out. And it's a much shorter training session. You still are going to have to put in a lot of hours if you're going to do a marathon or you're going to do a power lifting

meat or something like that. But there are ways to, I mean, look at the old school Mike Menser workouts, the workouts that Dorian Yates did, the heavy duty style of training. That's kind of how I train now. I do usually one set, you know, I'll warm up. I do one hard set. I kind of go all in. They're not kind of going. I go all in on something. And there's nothing left to do with that particular exercise. So then I move on to the next one. I might do two exercises per body part. It's really just like one all out set and then I'm on to the next thing. It takes me 30, 40 minutes. So your workouts, you know, they don't have to, they don't have to drag on forever. And again, if we go back to, if you're trying to have a championship mindset,

championship mindset would be, don't be in the gym for two hours. Like, I dare you to, I dare you to change your habit because it's probably going to be really hard for you. And the thing, The harder the thing is, the more of a challenge it is. So for the guy that loves to be in the gym for two or three hours, try being in the gym for 40 minutes. But also, take note of how you feel because the two or three hours that you're in there could be an extra, there could be like an extra hour in there that you could use to prepare yourself for your next day, to get yourself to bed earlier. Like I love the end of my day. So when I get home at 3 or 4 p.m., I usually take a shower and I put my clothes on. But as I'm putting my clothes on, I put my clothes out for the next day.

So I like to take the day and have it be where I'm ready for the next day. Part of my morning is already taken care of. I'll get my essential amino acids out. I'll put them in a cup. I'll throw some hydration in there. And that's ready to go. So they're like, there's these little tasks that I otherwise am like, where are my socks? Shit, I don't know where I put those shoes.

Just a couple of those things. It only takes me a couple minutes. But in the morning, if it's like extra stuff I have to do along with taking a dump before I go do my run, because we know how important that is. Necessity. Yeah, a huge necessity. That kind of squares me away for the next day. So the guy that is, you know, just so addicted to training and being in the gym for a really long time, if it's starting to have negative impacts in other places in your life, then I think, you know, look into some different training protocols. Let's talk about your Boston Marathon experience and kind of your prep leading up to that and what that was like.

It was a hell of an experience, you know, I only have done a few half-marathon. so far. As you know, sometimes when you're newer to running, if you set, if you, uh, if you pick a competition to do, sometimes your improvement is like slower than you think because you're forcing you're running too much because you have a competition coming up. So your backs up against the wall. Yeah, your backs up against the wall. Maybe you didn't allow enough prep time. There's all kinds of things that can happen. Um, but luckily, you know, I had a pretty good amount of time to prep for. I had like 20 weeks. But it's hard to prep for something that is double of what you've ever done before. So 20 weeks is just like it's such a drop in the

bucket. Like 20 weeks is great if you're a runner. 20 weeks is a perfect amount of time if you're a runner. But if you haven't really done that before, now you're just dealing with a whole other ballgame. A couple of things happened to me kind of along the way, preparing for the Boston Marathon. Number one was I got hospitalized. I was doing a, like an interval run one day where I was doing like these surges where I pick up some pretty good speed. I kind of hold that speed for about a minute or so. And then I would jog for two, three minutes or so, get the heart rate back down and then go again. I was just cruising that day.

I was doing really well. I think my pace was like, I was at like a seven minute mile pace sometimes on these minute surges that I was doing. And for me at the time, that was like a minute or two faster than where I was previously. I did about seven of those. And then just something started to happen. And I didn't really know what was going on,

but I just didn't feel very good. I couldn't really identify the feeling that well. and I was like, all right, well, let me see, you know, as an athlete. I got to figure out, am I going to finish this workout? Because I got seven more of these to do. Or am I going to have to do a different style of workout? Do I need to just finish with Zone 2? Because it doesn't seem like I can sprint as well anymore.

Or do I have to just call it because something's off, you know? So I went to do another one and there was just like no, there was just like no speed there. And I started to feel like I had low blood sugar. And so I'm on this trail. And as I'm going down this trail, I'm like, I can go that way and continue to work out. Or I can go that way and basically just head to like Starbucks where it's safe, where there's people around. Because I don't know if I'm going to pass out or what's going on. Because now my vision is starting to get blurry.

I feel like cold and I feel hot kind of at the same time. And I'm like, you need to quit, man. You need to, this is over. Today this workout's over. Like your health is, something's wrong. Something's off. And so I'm like, I want to go to Starbucks and get some carbs and kind of see what happens. I had stuff on me.

I had aminos with me. I had a carb drink and stuff. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't helping. And so I go into Starbucks and I'm just, I'm shaking quite a bit as I'm like grabbing these like orange juices and stuff. I couldn't even like, I couldn't even like pay. I couldn't barely communicate with anybody. I was like, oh, there's just no way I'm waiting in like a lot.

I can't wait in a line. I need to like get this right now. So I got that. I sat down. I go to the Starbucks all the time. So I figured I can square away with them later, you know. I drink some of these orange juices and I start feeling worse. And then there's a guy there.

I said, hey man, what's going on? You okay? I was like, no, I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm doing so good. So it's pretty obvious that you were. Yeah, yeah. I'm drenched in sweat. My head's down. And as I'm talking to him, I'm talking to him as if I am just like extremely nervous.

My voice is very weak, almost as if I was like 90 years old. He's like, all right, well, I'll sit with you for a bit. He's like, I'm taking my daughter like a soccer game. I mean, he was like an angel on my shoulder that day. It was amazing that he sat there with me. He's like, what do you need? I was like, I don't know, man, water or like, I just kept kind of drinking some of this stuff. And I'm still very coherent.

I could still think and I could still talk and stuff like that. But I'm shaking so much. I'm kind of demonstrating with this glass. I'm shaking so much that I can. couldn't barely get the orange juice, uh, to my face. I got a straw in there. I put a straw in the cup and I could barely get the straw to my face because I'm shaking so much. And so I'm like, I'm going to call my wife. I think she's home. I called her. She came to the Starbucks and we were trying to figure out what to do. I said, there's, I think there's something wrong with my

blood sugar. And, uh, she's like, well, you know, if we take it to like an urgent, care or something it might be a while before you get seen because like sometimes like emergency room or something like that they won't do anything unless you got shot or something right and uh we just didn't feel like we had like a lot of time so uh i was like let's let's call the paramedics because they're they're gonna test me while i'm sitting right here just gonna prick my finger and i think it's my blood sugar you know and so they came they pricked my finger well i'm just like sitting on a stool in Starbucks. And my blood sugar was like, I can't remember right now.

It was like 180 or something. It was pretty high. And then maybe like an hour later, it was like 150. Like it went down quite a bit just from me being in Starbucks to me sitting on the gurney that they put me on in the back of the ambulance. So I was like, oh, cool. Like now it's just a matter of time I'm going to get better probably if something was weird with my blood sugar. I don't know why my blood sugar was high, but I did consume a bunch of carbs that day, but I, again, I don't, I think I just bonked basically.

I think that's all it is. It's just my body wasn't used to doing what I was doing on that particular day. And it just sort of freaked out. But a couple great things happened. You know, number one is I go to that Starbucks all the time. It's in downtown Davis. A lot of people know who I am. So that was extremely embarrassing.

And I was trying to signal to my wife to get like a garbage can. And she's like because I needed to throw something out. I'm like, and I can barely talk. So I keep pointing on like, garbage, garbage. And she's like, what? And she goes to grab like garbage. can and by the time she figured out what the hell I was talking about, I just barfed everywhere. Oh, you did? Oh, man, all over the, all over the Starbucks. Oh, inside? Yep. Oh, wow. And I was,

I was hurting so bad that for me to go from a stool, which was the same height as the gurney, basically, um, they needed like three people to help me move onto it. They're like, you're pretty big. If you fall, they're like, we're screwed. Like, big guy, we're not going to be able to help you up off the ground so you got to be sturdy for this and i i couldn't really stand my legs were so shaky uh anyway i went to the emergency room they did a bunch of testing and they're like you got robdo but um in terms of my blood and stuff like that and my urine it didn't really seem like i had rabdo they just had to call it something say something yeah yeah they had to call it something but i just stayed there for a few hours and just kept throwing up for a few hours and

that was that and that luckily never happened again. So that was one of the kind of the bigger incidents that happened. How much time did you take off from running after that? That was kind of a tough part. It was like right in the middle of the prep. And I was doing much better on everything. Times were better. I was learning the hydration and everything better.

I feel like I was like picking up on the game pretty good. You know? So I had to take like 10 days off. 10 days no lifting 10 days no no running uh all i could do is like go on some walks here and there so that was that was really tough but uh the rest of the prep went well and another thing that happened which is a much shorter story uh i was on a run i very very rarely run in the evening because as you know once you kind of get into a rhythm or schedule of running at a particular time if you run in the morning

one day and then run at night the next day it kind of like just throws things off a little bit. The time, the duration between the two runs is like short and sometimes don't feel great. So you either pick one or the other. You don't usually go back and forth too much between those things. So I was running at night

one night on a Thursday night and these women came up and they ran next to me for a minute and they're like, we saw you like two and a half hours ago. I was like, what do you training for. I said the Boston Marathon and the lady did like a double take and she looked at me and she's like, you're pretty big guy. Go do the Boston Marathon. She's like, I've run it a couple

times. She's like, you know about the hills? I was like, yep, I heard about the hills. And she's like, how long you've been running for? I was like, maybe about a year. And she goes, hey, she goes, do me a favor. She just goes, don't run the hills. I was like, okay. And then she was like, what are you way. And I was like, well, that's a personal question, you know, I tell her, 2.30. She's like, all right, big guy. She's like, I'm telling you. She's like, don't run the hills. I was like, okay. And then we talked like a little bit more back and forth. And she goes, what are you going to do with the Boston Marathon? And I said, I'm not going to run the hills. She's like, have a great night. And she took off. And I just kind of, I don't usually run into people when I'm running.

I don't usually like, I mean, I run into fans here and there or something, but it's really rare that I ever have. That's the only conversation I can ever recall an impromptu conversation with another runner that have ever had. So I took it pretty seriously. And it was obvious that she was a runner. She said she competed at the Boston Marathon before. And I was like, you know what? I don't have a lot of experience. Maybe I should take that advice. So when I went to do the Boston Marathon, I was alleviated of so much pressure because like one of the things that kills everybody are these hills. Heartbreak uh, heartbreak ridge or whatever they call it, heartbreak hill. Um, and, uh, just going into it, just knowing that like it would be okay to walk some of that. Just made me feel so much better. So I went,

I did the marathon and at like mile 20 or so is where these hills start to come in. And I put my headphones on. I'm like, I don't want to hear anything from anybody. I know everyone's going to complain. I just want to be like in this like little zone. And I jogged them a little bit. I'd walk them a little bit. But I had no problem like just taking her advice. Like don't have an ego on this.

You've never done this before. You don't know what you're in for. So let's just take this woman's advice that has already been through this before. And let's use that as some like wisdom. And so I did that. And a bunch of weird shit happened during that run. Number one is I over hydrated and I had to pee like 9,000 times. And so that was interesting because I never had to happen before.

Water and electrolytes? Yeah, yeah, water electrolytes. I was fearful that I would like cramp or I was fearful that the hills were going to get me. And luckily none of that got me. I just was like waterlogged, you know. Yeah. I probably weighed a good like six or eight pounds more than I normally would. just from pounding all the liquid.

Another thing that happened is midway through, right at the half marathon spot, my bib, the chip like went out for some reason. My, the app that I was using, like I think I paused it or something. Like I think I did some, I went to use a bathroom at one point. And something happened in that bathroom where just everything just went off the grid. And there was a lot of good controversy. on the internet. People were like, he didn't finish the Boston Marathon. It said he died out like right here. And so I was like, all right, well, people are going to think whatever they want to think.

Yeah. So as I'm kind of finishing and getting towards the finish line and jogging towards the finish line, or not even towards the finish line, I'm sorry, I still had a few miles to go. I probably still had like, I probably still had like three miles to go, but I was over all the hills. A guy rides up on his bike. He's like, excuse me, sir. He's like, excuse me, sir. He's like, We're shutting it down. And I'm like, shutting what down? He's like, we're shutting down the lanes for the Boston Marathon. He's like, so this is going to be, people are going to be driving on this now. And I was like, am I out?

Am I like eliminated or whatever? He's like, no, you can run for as long as you want. He's like, but everything shut down. And I was like, okay, cool. He's like, you know your way to Boston? I was like, I don't know. And he's like, well, good luck. And he's like speeds off.

And now like all the signs are down and everything, you know, all the signs that kind of tell you where to go. Because they packed everything up. They got rid of all the railings. All the fans were gone. There's still people like kind of near me or with me, is. And there's some people, but I wasn't like dead last, but I was back pretty far. They were on a tight chip there. They're in and out.

Exactly. For as much as it takes over that city, you would think. Yeah. Stay up for a little bit. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Leave it open for the guys like me. there a little slower.

Anyway, I, you know, go across the finish line and see my wife and stuff. And it was, it was a really amazing feeling. But I honestly, the only knowledge I have of like my time is like me figuring out like, I think I took a picture. I took a picture with my friend. And that says like the time on it. And then I took a picture with him at the end. So I have those two times of like beginning and end.

But it was like six hours. I mean, it couldn't, I don't even know if you can go any slower than that, but that's how long it took me. Great experience though. Finished it. Yeah, it was, it was awesome. It just, you know, it gives you perspective, you know, and I think that anytime you can gain perspective into somebody else's world and what somebody else does, I think it's amazing. Because it, again, opens your eyes up, opens your mind up to these blind spots that we have. some things that I have found really helpful in my life is to just take on the perspective of a friend,

take on a perspective of your wife, take on a perspective of your child. You know, what's it like for my 19-year-old son, Jake? What's it like being him? What's it like having me as a dad? Like, what does that mean? What's it like for him to deal with things that I do or say on social media? You know, and it just, it's not good or bad. It's just perspective.

You know, what's my wife's perspective? Like, what does she think of me? You know, is she frustrated because I'm not cleaning up after myself or stuff like that? And like, who does clean it up? It's usually her. You know, so how do I start to, how do I start to kind of see things through somebody else's eyes and to kind of do some of that with running? It gave me like really good perspective to do it through powerlifting for so long,

gave me good perspective. To do it through bodybuilding gave me really good perspective. So I just want to continue to have experiences. I want to continue to travel and open my mind up. There's still so many things I just feel so naive to. When I travel to other countries, I tell people flat out. I'm like, I'm a dumb American. I don't know what's going on here.

Can you fill me in? Can you just tell me like about your culture or something? And usually people are nice enough to oblige and give you some information. but there's there's so much to learn and to me that is a it's kind of ironic because of how much I struggled in school but learning is like my favorite thing to do I'm learning all the time my my car is a classroom I'm listening to podcasts or listening to a book every time I'm on a run it's an educational thing it's I do like to listen to music here and there just for the can be like motivating and stuff like that but I'm almost always listening to something that

isn't just pure entertainment. It's not just for laughs or whatever. It's a lot of times it's even watching TV. I just barely like watching TV unless it's like a documentary because I want to like, I want to learn something, learn something new and then start to try to apply it. Well, a lot of people are afraid to put themselves in situations where they are naive and ignorant because it's very uncomfortable. Putting yourself in a situation where you don't know anything or you are the newbie.

can be very vulnerable and uncomfortable. But I think the more we get comfortable with that situation experience, just the better we become. As you were talking about that marathon and being waterlogged and overhydrated, I think back to my first marathon. I think back to my first powerlifting meet. My first power lifting meet I did.

I showed up, I signed up for her. I showed up at UT here in Austin. this is probably 2014 had no clue I was doing I walk in I have my camera with me because I'm filming it

for YouTube and they go what's your rack height and I just I take my hand I'm like I usually like said it right here and like

hey no bud like go over there figure out your rack height come back over here and write it down so I'm like oh shit like I am

I am brand new here you know people are looking me like, who the hell is this guy? Why does he have a camera? Very uncomfortable. And I think back to my first two marathons, you know, going back to the whole like over hydrated situation, going to those first two marathons here with the awesome marathons, I was thinking I got to be hydrated because I don't want to cramp. I know I'm not conditioned. I know I'm not the fastest. I'm not in the best shape, but what variables can I control for the best outcome possible? And I thought

I need to drink as much water as possible to be hydrated. So I consumed a gallon and a half, two gallons of water the day before the race with no electrolytes' supplementation. So what I ended up doing is diluting my body's sodium concentration, and I cramped even harder during that race. And then I think back to my first sub three hour attempt in Austin. This was 2019, I think. And I was pacing along this guy. He was definitely, he had a strategy, he had a plan. I had a strategy, I had a plan, but it wasn't going to get me to sub three.

I quickly realized that six miles in. And again, for this race, I consumed a lot of water. I consumed a lot of electrolytes. And I had to pee so bad. Just like you said, you're going to bathroom all the time. So this guy in front of me that's pacing alongside me, I'm watching him. piss his pants every mile. Oh shit.

Just this flood of water coming out. So I'm trying so hard to pee my pants on this run. But trying to pee as you're running. Yeah. If you've never done it before. Like impossible. Yeah. So I'm trying to close my eyes.

I'm trying to concentrate. I'm just like, just pee. Couldn't get it done. So I had to stop and go to the bathroom. But like we are all, we are all going to experience these moments in life where we are brand new. and we are naive and we are ignorant. And a lot of times we are afraid of these situations,

but I've learned to truly embrace it. It's an opportunity to learn. It's an opportunity to get better. It's an opportunity to admit what you don't know. And to be vulnerable in that situation is truly powerful where you control, like, the keys where no one can shit on you. You know, being vulnerable, it puts you in a great position to have leverage. It's kind of comical in a way

You know, it's kind of fun and funny You know, it's like, look how bad I suck at this I was just working on some kettlebell stuff the other day And I was working on doing some flips Yeah, you may have seen like in Seema I've seen him doing it in his backyard Yeah, doing his backyard and doing it on some social media And there's a lot of people who are doing it

And I was just having a great time with it I sucked at it like it Like it was hard for me to like flip it and catch it and stuff And I would catch one or something like that here and there But yeah, I think it's like an opportunity to like almost laugh at yourself a little bit, have some fun, do something outside the box. And also too, who knows, like maybe the thing that you're trying, like maybe it'll be the next thing that you love. Maybe it'll be something that will change your life forever.

You know, how do you know that, you know, a bodybuilding prep or something like that or doing just trying to get into running or jiu-jitsu or something? How do you know that like something like that might, it could potentially change your life forever? What if seven years from now you're still doing it? You know, so yeah, you could feel really goofy going into the gym and you can be like, I'm not that big. Like these guys are jacked. I don't know what I'm doing. But what if it's that one thing that really causes a massive change for the better in your life?

I had Chris Williamson on the podcast recently. And one of the things he said is that curiosity. as a superpower. And it looks like a lot of the decisions you've made in your life had been a result of just curiosity. You know, the way you started running, you were on this walk and you thought, I wonder if I could jog to that next sign.

So you did. And that turned into, you know, you running the Boston Marathon recently. There's very few podcasts I listen to on a really frequent and regular basis, but your podcast is one of those. I think the reason I love listening to it is because you and the team are very open-minded. You don't have this agenda that you're pushing or this narrative you're pushing to get across.

There's not a certain diet that is the best. There's not a certain style of training that is the best. You're truly curious and asking questions and very open-minded. I'm curious, has this always been a superpower of yours being open-minded? Or is this something it has evolved over time? Because in the beginning of this conversation, you mentioned that strength is this superpower that we have to harness and use for good. And you have to be disciplined in the way that you perform acts of strength. Has the same ability to be open-minded, apply to kind of the way you approach life?

I always like to try to do my best to come at things from like a different angle. And I think that probably comes from, again, you know, as a kid, maybe feeling inferior in, like, the classroom. So I'm like, well, if I take this on this way, that's the way everyone else does it. They do it, like, more traditional. What if I kind of come from the side more and just look at it with maybe a slightly different perspective? And that's where I can be really open and susceptible sometimes to, like, maybe information that's not so great. But I am open-minded to the point of, like, let me just hear this out before I attach any

emotion to this and before I get, like, mad, because we have a tendency sometimes to get mad when something doesn't match up with, like, your ideology or the way that you think a particular way about something. And so I really like to be more open-minded, be accepting, you know, when somebody says something. Because a lot of times things are, a lot of times things sound crazy or preposterous when you first hear them. You're like, there's just no way that can't be. And then when you look back, you can also look back on things and things can sound crazy or preposterous. like the fact that we used to have advertisements in the United States about how like one out of

every four doctors recommended certain types of cigarettes, you know, or whatever the stuff, whatever the information was back then on things like that. Like not only did they say that it, you know, now it comes with skull and crossbones, you know, we know differently now. But had we not had curiosity, wait a second, is that true? Are they, are they maybe lying to us. Maybe we should, like, let's run some studies. Let's run some tests. And that's what I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan of putting things to the test. You try something out. Did it help? Is your situation any better because of that action? I know something as simple as adding in electrolytes, adding in hydration to my workouts. I mean, anyone listening to this now can just try that,

just with your running, with whatever it is you do, your swimmer, whatever it is. Sip on some electrolytes during a workout or maybe before a workout. And just you can learn for yourself. You could think all these things about salt. You could think salt's bad, salt raises your blood pressure, you can think all these things. But try a little salt before a workout.

Did it improve the workout? Did it make the workout better? So I think, you know, we can all use some more. open-mindedness here and there. I think I've had a curiosity for a very long time because even my, I always felt like I had to defend stuff,

whatever I was doing. Like when I was powerlifting, I utilized the West Side barbell method and the conjugate system. And when I first started doing that, that was not a very popular way. It was kind of more unpopular. and people were usually very negative about it.

They're like, no, you've got to be more specific than that. You have to, you know, to get better a squat, you have to do a regular back squat. To get better to bench press, you have to be bench pressing. To get better to deadlift, you have to deadlift. And Louis Simmons said something much different. He said, let's break these movements down into smaller pieces and let's try to hit these movements from different angles in different ways. and when he, you know, kind of, when I started to follow some of his stuff, I was like,

that sounds like it fits my mindset perfectly. And I do think that there is like an overlapping of matching up some of the things that you believe with your particular mindset with your particular lifestyle because there is a convenience factor to it. And I think that that happens many times over and that's where we can get closed minded because if I'm accepting of the West Side Barbell principles, well, that might mean that I'm now going to crap on all these other ideas and principles. But that doesn't actually really make any sense because there's men and women that are tremendously strong

that never even heard of the West Side Barbell method. There's many people that are really, really fast that don't train a lot in the zone too. They don't want to run that slow. I think it's foolish. I think you can leave too much stuff on the table. if you don't take the time to kind of poke around and have some curiosity about stuff

and ask, I think it's important to ask questions. I think a lot of people are afraid to be curious because of what they're going to find on the other side. Are the answers that they find or the passion and love they find on the other side? Does it go against what they preach and they practice so intensely

and share with the people that possibly follow them? Yeah. I would agree. I think that when it comes to like what some of my goals are, you know, and some of my, I guess you'd say like purpose, like if I had an overarching purpose,

um, it is to try to make the world a better place to lift. Like that's a moniker and a mantra that I've had for a long time. And if I'm going to make the world a better place to lift, and if I'm going to like improve the fitness industry in some way or, or, uh, be a contributing factor and assist and help.

I think it's in my best interest to be open-minded because, again, what if this thing that somebody's sharing with me, what if it really does help? I mentioned salt earlier. What about something like mild fascia release? I'll show you some stuff today. I think I may have showed you a little bit of stuff in the past. There's some techniques or some things that you implement into your life. You implement it into one aspect of your life. and there's things that stick around and they stand the test of time.

And with something like myofascial release, you can heal yourself. You don't have to spend all the money on going to a chiropractor or going on going to a body worker, although those things are effective and that it will help as well. You can actually do a lot of the healing yourself, the shin splints that you have, the lower back pain that you have, and who better to work on you than yourself? I think there's there's definitely like a lot of merit to that too rather than just having things done to you

that you're actually doing the things yourself rather than just taking a pill you're actually doing the things yourself it's going to be way more impactful and if you can do them with some consistency that'll even be more impactful yeah I agree Mark this was an amazing conversation

as always I appreciate you the content you put out there and you know like I said I'll reinforce the reason I keep watching your content and listen to your podcast your podcast is one of the ones I like to listen to in my early morning runs one you guys bring on great guests but even like the solo episode do you guys do or you do specifically um you can just feel I can tell you're curious and you're experimenting and you're learning and you're sharing as you're learning and you're trying these things. And like you said, some things stick

and they might stick for a period of time. They might stick forever. And some don't pass that test of time. And that's okay. You know, you try it, you put it aside, you move on. But I appreciate the time today. Thanks for making trip out here to Austin. And as always, it's been a pleasure.

Yeah, I really appreciate it. I have a question for you. Send it. In your life at the moment, do you feel like it's really important that you sort of attach yourself to a purpose? because I've found that I've run into some people that feel it's important and other people like, I don't really care that much.

But to me, I think like your purpose, I think for some people that are kind of lost, I think maybe some people that are lost don't maybe understand that your purpose is like made up. Like you get to, I believe you get to make it up. Maybe someone who's religious or something. Maybe they believe something else. But for yourself, you know, where do you kind of stand with that? I mean, I truly believe that you're not really born with the purpose and you have to choose your purpose. Like, I could choose my purpose, which I see as my vision.

Like my purpose, my vision that guides me in all things that I do. Now, my mission and my purpose are very different. My purpose is like this light that is guiding the direction and decision that I make on a daily and regular basis. my mission can evolve. So if I look at my direct mission two years ago, it was in the trenches being the CEO of BPN. And now my mission has evolved where my focus and purpose is still building BPN, but it's from a different angle.

But a priority of my mission right now is also learning how to be a better husband and a better father and a father in general. So I think your purpose, you get to choose your purpose, which comes from the way you are raised and your values and what you believe in, but your mission can evolve over time and your mission has to be meaningful. So I look at it as like if you look at a microscope, there's course adjustment, there's fine adjustment. Purpose is course adjustment. Mission is fine adjustment and that can change.

It seems like at the moment you are trying to like control or monitor your discipline because it seems like your discipline can your discipline to do certain things that you really enjoy that you want to get better at can kind of maybe burn the candle from both ends kind of thing 100%. So it's like a different discipline to like not hit the button

to like go do the things that you enjoy that fall in line with you getting better at particular thing. Yeah, I think what I'm struggling with right now in life, is realizing that my responsibilities are my priorities. I can really easily fall into the rhythm of prioritizing the wrong things, prioritizing work, and relationships, friendships, friendships, business partners, acquaintances, outside of, say, my faith, my family,

uh, being a dad, being a husband. so I'm trying to navigate I'm trying to navigate pushing my potential reaching my full potential in life but also being content at the same time and at peace with what I'm doing

I don't know if there's ever the perfect balance or way to achieve that but I'm really working on that right now when my feet are where they're at right now I am here I'm not thinking about tonight or tomorrow or the next day or then next week or a project we have coming up for work.

It's like when I'm here, I am present, I am peaceful, but I'm, I don't want to pursue that peace at the expense of losing ambition. Yeah, you can be at peace, but I think sometimes you like being at war with yourself a little bit here and there. I'm at war with myself daily. You like a little battle. But that's what pushes me. Yeah.

You know, that's what drives me. And like I said, I don't know if I'll ever find that perfect balance. I think there's a lot of self-work to do. Looks like you're telling that line pretty good. Yeah, I think. I think I've noticed improvements in you since, you know, since our friendship started a few years ago. I appreciate that. No, I appreciate that.

My wife has recognized it too, which always feels good. Yeah. But I think there's some self-work still to do to get myself to a point where I'm really proud of how I'm showing up for all areas of my life. I'm not there yet. And I'll be the first to admit that, but I'm making improvements towards. You're your own drill sergeant.

Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. And I don't think I'm the only person navigating this, this chapter and this journey. But, um, I feel very much at peace. You know, somebody that will ask me like,

what are your goals right now? I'm like, I don't have any. And some, and some of my friends who like have kind of achieved certain things and on certain things, they're like, like, right on. They give me like a fist bump, you know, and other people are like, that's so weird. Social media, you know, makes us think that there's a certain blueprint of the way we're

supposed to live our life. Oh, you don't have a 5 a.m. morning routine. You're a piece of shit. You don't have a 9 p.m. nighttime routine. You don't meditate it for two hours a day. Like, it's like, I just read this article actually recently and it was talking about how living is actually killing us. And it talks about.

how, you know, with all this information that's coming out, you realize that you really can't do anything and live without it killing you. Sweeteners are bad for you. Vegetables are bad for you. Meat's bad for you. Eggs. It's like, everything is killing us. Just to embrace the fact that we're dying.

Dying a little bit every day. A little bit every day. Let's go lift. Yeah, let's do it. All right, thanks, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm