The Nick Bare Podcast - 037: The Mindset Of A Marathon World Champion - Ken Rideout

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Joining the show today, we have Nashville local and Chicago Marathon age group winner Ken Rideout. Ken shares valuable lessons from his remarkable transformation story - overcoming a chaotic childhood, working on Wall Street, and a drug addiction that derailed his life. This episode is packed with practical steps to develop mental toughness, overcome defeat, and win. Enjoy! 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 Ken here:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/ken_rideout/ Topics:  00:00 Intro 1:22 Becoming a world champion marathoner 9:02 Developing the fighter mindset 13:48 Impact of our upbringings 20:59 Handling failure and defeat 27:40 Protecting your passions 34:45 Benefits of therapy 45:47 Objective vs. subjective outcomes 54:44 Ken’s work ethic 59:18 Finding appreciation in life 1:14:36 Gobi Ultramarathon 1:41:04 Dealing with negativity 1:54:27 The happiness equation

Money can't buy this. Money cannot buy the feeling of doing Last Man standing. Money cannot buy the feeling of running a 248 marathon in Buffalo. Like, you know, the expression, a rich man has a million problems. A sick man has one. So to not be like using this body and this life to like challenge yourself and experience these things,

you're like leaving so much on the table. But when that stuff's happening and you're in the fight, it's like, I'm alive. Like I'm doing it. I'm like squeezing every ounce of, juice out of this lemon that's life. 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 Ken Rideout back for another episode. What's going on, brother? Oh, man. Thanks for having me. I'm honored, flattered, humbled to be here. I mentioned this to you before, but the first time we did the, um, the pod together. And I don't mean this offensively. I just wasn't familiar with the brand.

I had known your name in passing. And we did the interview when that thing came out, your listener base is savage. They showed out the love that they showed me and like the, the feedback I got social media was mind blowing. I mean, it was as big as anything I've ever done and I've done some like decent media stuff. But so thank you for doing that. And thanks for having me back again.

I'm incredibly honored to be here. I think the message resonated with a lot of people. And, you know, especially with your background of addiction and then, you know, the different jobs you've held and experienced and then being a, very talented runner at 52 years old, being a husband and a father. I mean, you just ran a sub-230 marathon at Chicago a few weeks ago. How'd that feel?

After that race, so that was the age group world championships. And after the race, in the days prior when I got to Chicago, I don't think my wife realized it was the world championships and how significant it was to me. Because the first time I ran it, I think I talked about this on the show, a guy, beat me in London by less than a minute, but he started in a different corral where he shouldn't have been. And it was like very underhanded.

Like I know he did it on purpose. So I wouldn't essentially, I wouldn't know he was in the race when the different corrals merged together around three miles. Similar to New York, there's so many people in London that all the different start areas

merged together around three or four miles. And all the age group athletes were meant to be together. So three miles in. I can't even see the people behind me. I'm leading the age group athletes. So I'm like, oh my God, I can just, I'm going to dial in my effort and just try to get to the finish line and hold off everyone. I can see them come by because we all have numbers on our front and back to identify who's in the age group.

And no one passed me. And again, at the front of the race, when you're running 229, there's not a lot of people going by you. Like, once you get established in the first couple miles, it's pretty steady. Occasionally someone might go by and you might pass someone else. So he didn't pass me. And when I finished the race, I was like, oh, shit, I think I did it. I think I'm the world champion. This is in 2021.

I looked at the results, saw that I didn't win, went on to Strava, like a forensic detective, and tried to figure out, when did this guy pass me? And when I looked at the map, I could tell he started somewhere else. I was so upset because it's just, it was underhanded. And then he ran the first three miles, all three miles in like 15 flat. So he was running a five-minute miles. someone who can, and we averaged 540, someone who can run a 540 mile for a marathon

isn't running the first three miles in five flat. It's just insane unless, of course, you want to get off the front, you know, the expression in running out of sight, out of mind, and you don't want me to know you're up the road, which is exactly what he did. Anyway, I digress. It's a ballsy move.

I die. And the organizers, I was like, listen, I know no one else cares about this except me and him, but I care. You know, I spend how much. money to fly to London, stay there for a week, all the preparation, then to, like, not get a fair race with the guy. I was just, I've gone back and forth because I don't want to sound like a cry baby, but at the

same time, like, come on, man, show up, like, show up on the style. I'd be like, hey, I'm here. I'm going to kick your ass. Let's do this. That's how competition is meted out. And so anyway, this two years later, now we're doing, the race was in Chicago, and I don't think my wife realized so when after the race she's like oh my god you did it are you happy and i was like i don't think happy is the right way i feel relieved i wanted this so badly and when it happened i was

just like the weight of the world off my shoulders because for two years i've been like i have to fix this i didn't feel like i got a fair crack and um yeah if you want to hear this it's a crazy story two guys got off the front and ahead of me but for marathon runners they may enjoy this story the guy who it last year, I wasn't in the race. It was in London again. And the guy who won it ran 225, a Belgian guy, which is three minutes faster than I've ever run, which is insanely fast. Like, I don't think on my best day I can run that fast. So I knew that guy was in the race. And then there was an Australian guy who'd also run 225. So in my head, and I found this out like the day before the race, I was like, oh, I was already kind of defeated. And I think we do this a lot of times in life.

It's like you mentally quit on yourself before you actually start throwing punches. And sure enough, I started in the American Development Corral, which was like a special category at Chicago, which was right behind the pros. So I knew that those guys weren't in front of me. So we take off and sure enough, the Aussie guy goes by me at like two miles and he's running like a pro. I'm like, oh, shit. If that guy runs like that, he's going to kill me because I can't stay with him. with that pace. He was running like 525. And so I let him go and I just said, you know what, let me see if I can just give my best effort, see if I can run a PR and just stay honest and

stay like on the gas and just be true to myself, if nothing else. And at 10 miles, the Belgian guy went by and I'm like, oh man, third place. I don't even care. Like if I couldn't win, I didn't really care about the placing. So at this point, I was like, let me just, let me just at least give my best effort. Maybe I can run a PR. And it was like the, the universe rewarded me at 21 miles who do I see stretching his hamstring on the side of the road but the belgian guy i'm like oh shit i'm in second now second not too bad but i'm in my mind i'm like there's no way i'm going to the other guy's probably already done 24 mile mark i see the guy coming back towards me very slowly so i'm just gaining on him very very slowly you're still running though yeah so i run up on the

ozie guy but i as i'm coming up on him he doesn't know i'm right behind him obviously at this point i kind of to catch my breath for like five to 10 seconds, get a deep breath. You wanted to say something? No, and then I just put it down. When you pass someone in a race, you have to put it down with authority. Like, just put the knife in them.

Don't even give them hope that they can stay with you. So when I ran past him, I was legging it. And once I got a little bit of a gap on him, I kind of glanced back. And he was kind of slowly fading. And I just put my head down and was in a full sprint for the last two miles.

Do you think he mentally gave up? I think that those two guys were worried so much about each other that they really, that they probably thought I have to run the best race of my life to beat the other guy, neither of them thinking about me. And I think that they literally pushed the pace so hard clearly that they blew up and they ran and they didn't run negative splits. I ran 11408 and a 114-58, something like that. And yeah, they clearly didn't manage the effort.

But they were both, they're both clearly better runners than me. But on that day, they just, didn't execute and I did. And it was just, oh, so much better feeling than doing the passing versus getting past. I think I'm going to mention this in our last episode. So for anyone who's watching or listening, go back and listen to the first episode that Ken and I recorded. But I just rethought of this as you were talking. You are the fighter of runners. Like when I, when I hear you talk and I watch you run, you run and talk like a fighter. And I'm sure you see, you talk. see it and feel it, there is this shift in evolution in the running community that's been

happening in the last probably specifically two and a half years. Historically, runners have looked and acted a certain way. Thinner, I don't say weaker, but more quiet, not as aggressive, and you had more like combat sports fighting football, stuff like that. And there was never like this cross between the two. I think we're starting to see this cross between the two. For a lot of people that run, I think myself included, I'm running,

like when I sign up for a race, when I'm running CIM here in a few weeks, I'm going for a personal record, personal best. I never go out to run a race to try to win or beat people. But you come across as very competitive. I'm curious when and where or why do you think

that competitive nature, was born. Well, I think a lot of it comes from insecurity, right? But I think people think of insecurity as a weakness. I realize I have insecurities and part of those insecurities show themselves as like this need to win and need to validate myself. I think a lot of people that have suffered like trauma, especially childhood trauma, feel like endurance sports is a way to demonstrate to the world how tough you are. And maybe even to yourself because, you know, when you're a child and you've been like victimized or mistreated, it's that feeling of like helplessness as a child now has completely reversed itself where I

almost feel that I'm so confident and protective of my physical being as well as my emotional state that I'm like very confident and protective of that and when I show up to a race just like Michael Jordan in the last dance I have to create enemies around me and and have a villain to like face either whether it's other competitors or even myself you know that that being said I try to treat everyone with a lot of respect but I'm also like a bit of a dick before the race I'm like and raise, I mean, I view it as a fight. I know no one's getting punched in the face, but it's very similar to a fight in the mindset that, that, that, that's required.

I know no one's going to punch my face, and I actually use that to my advantage. When I'm suffering, I keep reminding myself, no one's going to punch my face or choke me unconscious. I can take so much more than what I'm going through right now. Because when you are in a cage or a boxing ring and you're tired and the other guy's coming on strong, that fear is a. a fear that unless you've experienced it, you can't describe it to someone. When you're just like, I can't barely hold my hands up and this guy's trying to kill me.

And that's when you're faced with the decision of do I silently quit and just kind of like either get knocked out or take a standing eight or do I realize that this is, it's go time. Like that fear kind of lets you know, oh, it's time. This is where I'm supposed to be. Like it's time to do what I've been training to do. So that's a long-winded way to say that, yes, I think of it as a fight while I do realize I'm not going to punch anyone and no one's going to punch me. And the minute the race is over, I'm like, the second I crossed that finish line, I'm out of

that mood. I love everybody. My wife teases me because she's like, you're such a dick before the race. You're like, all moody and pissy. And the minute you cross the finish line, like, we can't even get out of here. You're like hanging out with everyone, talking to, everyone like all the moms want to talk to you and I'm like yeah man I'm so the relief and the the lightness that I feel when it's over especially if it's important to me because you know how it is

if you've been trained in 10 or 12 weeks for an event when that thing gets here I'm like prior to the race I'm like man I got a lot of time and energy invested in this I hope everything goes right and you're trying to control everything you can control but um yeah there's a huge emotional swings on race day for sure. I mean, that's why I love race day. You can't, it's really hard to recreate that feeling anywhere else. Yep. Because you know the pressure that's been created over weeks and months and hours of training.

You sacrifice time away from your family, sacrifice time away from your kids. People might have traveled. You spent money like you're here to get a job done. I think being able to flip that switch and turn it on and off, or at least being able to control. the switch is a very powerful skill. And I had this realization actually a few months ago. I talked about it in the podcast with Matt Boudreau.

We were talking about this. I think I had this interesting dynamic growing up between both sets of parents where my mom's side of the family, they were very warm, empathetic people. Caring, you'd walk into my grandma's house, she'd pull you in, she'd give you a kiss. She'd have candy and snacks and all the food. for you. That was like one side of the family. Other side of the family, my dad's side,

they were dairy farmers in central Pennsylvania. So like they were always stressed down about the weather and the crop yield and the animals. And it was, I don't always say a colder environment, but it wasn't as warm. It wasn't as inviting. And like you were there to get a job done. You were milking the cows in the morning. You were milking the cows at night. But watching the two dynamics of families, growing up taught me how to be warm and empathetic, but it also taught me how to, hey, there's a job that needs to get done and work matters.

And somehow, I don't know how exactly, but I was able to learn how to take both sides of this family and flip the switch, control the switch. But I think it's extremely powerful to be able to do that. I think a lot of people can't, because you have to have a side of you that is

unrelentlessly working, just throw down and put in work and kill yourself. through the process. But if you stay in that mode, you're going to kill yourself through it as well and everyone around you. On the other side, if you're too empathetic and soft and easy all the time, you're not going to accomplish anything you want.

So being able to control that switch is powerful. Do you think you have the ability to control that? I like to think so, but I mean, I'm sure if my wife was here, she'd probably be like, no, he's definitely a little bit too aggressive at times, especially with the children, just in terms of how I parent, you know, I mean, my kids don't get spankings, but they, you know, I treat them like they're my roommates at time. I'm like, guys, who, who left all this stuff out here? If you don't put away your own stuff, that means either me or mom has to do the work of six people. Whereas if we all just do our own work, like, so I try to rationalize with them

all the time and sometimes a little bit too rough, but to your point, I don't argue it's just discipline now. Yeah. Oh, there's serious discipline. There's no tolerance for like laziness. But my wife is very soft on the other hand. But yes, there's a strength in being able to control that. And I think that I think that I can do it not very well. But I definitely recognize that without that, you know, intensity for anyone. You don't get to experience the wins. You don't get to win a race without going all in.

I was telling someone this the other day. Imagine if you train for 10 or 12 weeks. Like in my case, I trained 10. or 12 weeks and then you say, oh, Ken, I'm going to get into running and I'm just going to train a few days a week and you get to show up and just win and you run faster than me. It kind of diminishes everything that I've done. It's almost like you have to earn the right to run these times. And it's so, it's so well earned that it's almost impossible for someone to show up and not put in the work and get there. It's like in jiu-jitzo, I was telling my son,

once you have X amount of experience, a new guy cannot show up at that sport and just come in and ragdoll everyone. Maybe someone who has wrestling experience, but let's just take someone who has no experience. If that was possible, it would kind of diminish the whole training process, that if someone could skip the whole line and you're two years into it and they come in and just throw you around, it wouldn't make sense, but the reason Jiu-Jitsu is appreciated and it works is because it's impossible. Once you have a certain level of understanding, someone without that understanding, they can't do anything with you. You grab onto a black belt in the street and you are going to be

either unconscious or have a broken arm or leg in the course of like 60 seconds. No question about it. Unless something, you know, freakish happens like you land a lucky punch or something. But there's a reason that's that practice in particular works is because it's undefeated. You can't. And that's the same thing with hard work and training. It's like you can't just pop up and say, hey, I'm going to start a supplement company and we're going to be better than BPN in six months and they do it. And it just doesn't happen. There's no shortcuts to certain levels of success and fitness. And but to your point earlier about the different, the different sides of your family, I kind of, that's one of the big disappointments in my life as a child. I didn't have that. My grandmother

was soft and loving, but she was also like a tough Irish woman inner city drinking beer, and she was tough, but she was loving. But it wasn't warm and fuzzy. And then, you know, we lived in a, at times with my grandmother and my mother's brother, my uncle, who was a lifelong heroin addict. So from my earliest childhood memories, there were junkies around all the time. And it wouldn't be unusual to see grown men. You know what it's like for a little kid to see two grown men fighting. To me, that was like fairly normal occurrence in the city where I was living in. Like real fighting.

Real fighting. Like people are getting really hurt. Like, you know, it was, it was crazy. I saw a guy chase another guy with a hatchet in the city. It was, it was, I couldn't even imagine my kids being exposed to it. But it was, to your point about being able to straddle both those worlds. My entire childhood, I knew this is not how I'm going to live. I can't wait to get out of here.

It was just full of anxiety and anticipation of getting to the next stage in my life when I could move out. And then, like, just for context, my brother and stepfather were inmates in the same prison where I ended up being a guard the week after I graduated high school. So that was, like, provide some, like, you know, context to, like, what this household was like. It was, it was normal for people to go to jail. And to, but even as a kid, I was like, what?

It was like, I had some insight that there were. other people living a normal life, although I didn't have firsthand experience or knowledge of these people. I just knew that there was a better way in a strange way and just had blind faith that I would figure it out. It was, I was racked with anxiety, but when I got out of there, I was like, oh, I knew I would get out of here. See you guys. Yeah. Never coming back. I do want to hear, you know, from your perspective, where you learned your work ethic. But before we dive into that, I'm curious being a very competitive person, obviously when you win feels really good. And you can be on this high and you can flip that switch to be bubbly and taking photos with everyone.

What happens when you don't win, though? How do you personally react or take that? You know, like anyone, you would just be disappointed, but I keep it in perspective. I'm like, you know, damn, that, okay, didn't happen. I mean, that happened in Berlin. I was like in the best shape of my life last year. I was like, I'm going to have a great time this one. Started with the pros, you know, started standing behind Kipchogi.

It was unbelievable. And I just went too hard too early. And, man, oh, my God, did I blow up? Oh, my God, did I blow up? I ran 2.35 and, like, literally, I crossed the finish line. It was like, medic and just dropped. And they dragged me off the finish line. I was in terrible, terrible shape because I just fought so hard to get to the finish line

have to go in too deep. At what point did you realize you went too deep? Oh, dude, once the minute I realized, probably like 15 miles. I was like, oh my God, what have I done? By 20 miles, I was like, please, God, let me just get to the finish line. It was like I was going in reverse. That's a shitty feeling. Horrible.

And I go back to the room and, man, it's embarrassing to even admit this. But when I was talking to my wife, I just like lost it and started crying. And she's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I'm just so, I'm getting emotional thinking about it now. I'm like, I'm just so fucking disappointed. And I, in a weird way, I feel embarrassed. She's like, what are you embarrassed about? I'm like, I'm just embarrassed that I like didn't have the discipline to execute this plan.

Like, I knew better than this and I did it anyway. And, you know, she was having a hard time understanding why I was so emotional. But I was like, I just wanted to win so bad. And I had so much time and energy invested in this to have. to sabotage myself just disappoints me and like, oh, saddens me. And two weeks later, I ran 229 in Chicago, though, which pissed me off more because then I was like, I knew I was in good shape to be able to bounce back two weeks later and run that fast. Tells me how much fitness I had.

But you have to roll with the punches, man. You have to keep it in perspective at the end of the day. I know no one cares about this race except me. Like you would describe earlier on race day, like you're nervous. You're amped up. And I always remind myself, no one cares except me. But guess what? I care.

And you should care. You should care about some things in your life. You should care about your mental and physical health. You should be able to have something that only belongs to you and not my children and not my wife. This is me. I'm a person too. You don't have kids and then turn off your, you don't fail, cease to exist.

Yes, you love your kids and yes, you provide them with their children. everything you can, but not at the expense of abandoning yourself and especially not your physical and mental health. When people start making excuses to skip some kind of training, and I'm not suggesting every day. I'm like keeping in moderation, but if you always have an excuse to miss your workout, well, if you don't take care of your mental and physical health, eventually someone else will take care of it for you. And I want to prolong that process. I don't want my children to have to take care of me. So it's my obligation. We're all born with one responsibility. Take care of yourself. Yeah. Most important thing. So that's how I view the training and stuff. And on race day, yeah,

I care about it. But I also know it's not important to anyone else, but it's important to me. And my opinion matters when it comes to this stuff. That feeling of being embarrassed because you didn't execute the plan properly. I felt that in in Buffalo, 2022. I was going for a sub-250. and I ended up hitting it. I did 248. But it was like mile, I want to say 21, 2021. And I went out too hot in the beginning.

I knew I went out too hot. But I was feeling good. And I was like, I can hold this. It's a common mistake. And my coach was even like, he's too hot, he's too hot, he's too hot. And mile 2021, a few miles leading up to that,

I could feel the pulsing my hamstring. I was like, there's a cramp coming. Yeah. I know it's coming. I just don't know when. I just got to get to the finish line. And then it seized up. And I stopped running.

I had to stop for a second. Damn. It's amazing that you were able to stop and still run as fast as you did. Well, the words that came out of my mouth, I mean, there were women and children next man. I will never, like, I let things come out of my mouth that I, like,

they must have thought you were me. Exactly. They probably still remember that. Because in my head, I'm like, I trained so hard for this. And I'm about to throw this away because I ran undisciplined. Yep. It's not that I wasn't, I didn't put in all the work, but like I put in all the work to just

personally throw it away because they didn't follow the plan. And then quickly in my head I said, I'm going to run through this, whether my hamstring ribs off my body or not. So I started running and it just loosened up on its own. Yeah. Thank God. It's amazing how that happens, right? With injuries.

I've had this a million times where something is nagging me and I'm like, not just during a run but in general and I'm just like I'm just going to ignore this and just keep training and people are going to be pissed if they hear this but it's amazing how much shit just goes away mine always goes away like this past week this whole prep I did the stupidest thing where I did a 100 mile ultra marathon the weekend before starting this marathon prep crazy so obviously going in a marathon prep I've I had all these overuse injuries yeah but what I found is like you'll have something, I'll have something where I literally am finishing a run and it feels like it's tearing off my body.

But it happens frequently and it's happened so many times that I know give it three, four, five days, it just goes away. So an issue that I had last week that I thought was like game over is gone right now. Yeah. It's funny that all of these things for the people listening, like, I feel like if you're in this kind of club of like endurance athlete, As someone who's like trying to like not just run, but like be competitive. It's like all of this stuff is so familiar to other people,

the feelings of being at a race, the elation of being done with a race, the injuries. It's like I feel bad for people that don't have something like this in their life. They're just going through their lives. The highlight is their little kids flag football game or the baseball game and you have nothing that belongs to you. And it doesn't have to be running or even sports.

It could be guitar lessons, language lessons, a PhD course. Like, whatever it is. But that has to be something that, like, gets you excited where it's just for you and not just living vicariously through the children. I think that's very dangerous. And that's another reason why I have my own outlet, athletic outlet, because I only stress to my children. Because I think a lot of people ask me all the time, like,

how are you with the kids with your sports? Because they expect that I'm like, rah-rah, sis, boom-bah, sports, everything for the kids. And I do love sports and I wish they could all be Olympians and professional athletes. But I also know that's not realistic. So the only thing that we ever stress, and I say it so much that the kids tease me, they're like, dad, please, enough with the effort bullshit. Because I'm always like, the only thing that we care about is effort. If you're trying your best buddy and you strike out every time, all good.

I just want to know that you're giving your best. Because the kid who doesn't try hard, we can all look at him. You're like, that kid's not even trying. He might as well not even be here. It's wasting his time. but when you give your best effort, even if you don't play well, you're like, did everything I could. And that's all you can ask.

So that's what we stress and that's kind of like what I try to demonstrate to them is just like, give your best. And I hope everyone in their life has something that lights them up. Definitely. I did this bodybuilding show this past spring. Congrats, man. That was crazy. I watched your transformation.

I'm like, geez, this guy looks like an alien. It was crazy. That process was wild. And what I didn't expect come show day. because, you know, there's so much adrenaline that that is built up with, say, a race. Like, you tow the line for a race. You're a different person. Yeah.

Like, there is this mindset that you are so focused and dialed in. There's no distractions. It's one of the most peaceful and just focused moments you can experience. I didn't expect that for a bodybuilding show because you're not actually going out to perform. All the work's already been done. You're stepping on the stage. So I get pumped up backstage. I'm starting to get super excited.

Yeah. About to walk out under the lights and I feel super pumped. Like the best conditioning I could have brought in. And I feel good, but like I don't have that pre-race jitter type feel. Get out on stage and the announcer calls me to the middle. Meaning if you get called to the middle for your class, it means that you're in first. Yeah. For like where they're placing you.

And as soon as they moved me in the middle, I hit my pose. I had that same pre-race jitter feel where I was like, fuck yes. And it was like, is this feeling where it's almost like a jolt of electricity goes through your body? But that is so addictive. I need to keep experiencing this. I cannot lose this. You don't want it too often or too frequently because if you do, it's not as beautiful as it could be.

But you get that hit every once in a while and it keeps you going. The downside to getting that chills of electricity is the downside that it doesn't go well and you dealt with the embarrassment that moves you to tears. And it's like that fear of the unknown is what keeps you on the gas and training like it matters. And if you don't train like that, you cannot beat the guy who's willing to die to win. Figuratively, I obviously, when I say that, people are like, oh, that's a bit extreme. I don't mean really die. but you know what I mean where you're like holy shit

could I faint from running this high like could I drop I'm always like well let's see what happens because I'm not going to stop but you can't beat that guy who wants to put in that kind of effort with a half-assed effort very rarely does someone have genetically gifted enough to show up and beat the guy who's like all in at this last last man standing race I did in September there were two guys there that were projected to win

I went into that race. I wanted to do 100 miles. I didn't want to kill myself because I knew I was going to a marathon prep. But going into it, you're like, you don't know what kind of competition's going to be here. You don't know what the field looks like. And got there,

and there were these two guys. The one gentleman was like the reigning champ for the last couple years. The other guy was a runner-up the previous year. And he just got done with Moab 240. And he was running every lap because last man standing is every,

every hour on the hour you repeat repeat 4.2 mile lap and this guy just looked so strong he was dialed in he was letting people pass him he didn't care and uh i was running up next to him at one point and i said hey uh how far are you going today he goes he looks to me straight in the eyes says all the way i love he ended up winning and i was like man like this guy wants it yeah and he's gonna get it because he wants it that bad. He's willing to die on this course to be the last man standing. Someone asked me, hey, about a race that one of the races that Chad Wright won, the Navy seal, and they were like, hey, you should do that race that Chad did.

I said, not a chance. They were like, what do you mean not a chance? I said, because I know that Chad and I will both die to win and I don't want to die. Because that doesn't look fun to me because I know what's going to happen. And I'm not looking for that. Is that the race that's not here in Tennessee? Yeah, what I'm in Midstate Mile? Yeah. That's a wild one.

Yeah. Any of those races where you're just like, let's just see who can like withstand the most torture. I want to just, I'd prefer a measure of like speed and in design. I like a race where it's like we can beat each other up, but there's a finish line. Yeah. The unknown like the show alone. I'm working on a concept for a show with a group called Wheelhouse Productions in spoke studios. and they produce pawn stars Duck Dynasty, but they also produce alone.

And when I was meeting with them recently in New York, they're like, dude, you know what we have alone? Would you ever be down to do that? And I looked at the guy and I'm like, aren't we friends? You know, I have no man skills. I couldn't catch a fish to save my life. Like, I'd be dead in a week.

Why would you even suggest that? But to me, that's the most intimidating thing ever, like being out in the woods and you don't know when it's over. You just hope that they come one day and like, you're the last man standing. You win. But that to me is, the most intimidating competition on TV or that I've seen alone.

So you like knowing where the end is and it's getting there as fast as possible. Exactly. For me, that's, that's, that's my motivation is that I know that I can train to get there as quickly as possible. I can control that. Being able to just sit quietly with myself, first of all, it's hard as hell. One day of alone would be a lot for me. It's one thing that I've been trying to work on.

And I went, in January, I went to a. place called on-site workshop. Actually, me and my wife were just talking about this. We want to go. It was not easy or fun, but it was certainly life-changing in terms of looking at yourself and understanding like what's going on with you, what you've been through kind of processing things that you may not have processed in the past. Like I went there, they didn't think I had trauma.

I just knew I could be happier. And after the first day, I did an individual intensive. It's called it was four days. They take your phone. You had roommates. It was, I mean, I was driving there like I was driving to the electric chair. I was like, man, what have I gotten myself into? Why did I do this?

And you are out in the middle of nowhere in the countryside in Tennessee. Is it like a week long? Four days. You get there on a Thursday, leave on Monday and turning your phone and everything. But it's very much group atmosphere. Having gone through N-A narcotics Anonymous and like A.A., I was familiar with like support groups, 12-step. meetings it's it's not that but that provides some context and background to kind of it's a very

supportive group environment so let's there might have been like 40 or 50 people there so you have like group meetings in the morning and in the evening and then you're with your therapists if you're in the individual intents of just me and the therapist in a room much like the studio for um three or four hours in the morning three or four hours in the afternoon then you have evening stuff and uh you just do a lot of work on yourself and looking in the mirror and there's nowhere to hide. Like you confront yourself and all your insecurities, deficiencies. Yeah, it was life-changing for me. It really was.

I've been in therapy since I've left there regularly. Before, I had been in therapy off on and off, but to me, going to see a therapist once a week was like putting a finger in the dyke. I'm like, dude, I need, I need like an army of people to come in here and help me. Going to like, going to therapy once a week, to me was like running once a week. I'm like, that ain't moving the needle. That ain't going to do anything. But going to this place is like a crash course and like going to like a training camp in Kenya

for running. Because when I left there, I was like, oh shit, I've got the tools. Now I just need. It's critically important that you have a plan when you leave. It's not like you just go in, get tuned up. You leave and you're like, I'm good. You leave with a lot of understandings and a lot of learnings that you want to like expand upon through continued therapy.

That makes sense. So you have to have a maintenance plan and protocol post those four days. For it to be successful, you should absolutely, if you're going to spend, I think it was $10,000 for four days and no insurance. So you had to, it was out of pocket. I'm like, if you'm going to spend $10,000, you should have a plan. for how are you going to carry on when you get out of there? Otherwise, it's like tuning up your car

and then going to the track and beating the shit out of it and be like, yeah, it's still finally tuned, you know, after you just smashed it up, like raced it like it was stolen. That's kind of how it is. It's like if you're going to go and do that work, it's, they don't put a spell on you and make you a different person.

You get an understanding as to why you're maybe behaving the way you're behaving if there's things you're trying to fix. And then when you leave there, It's like you have to keep continuing the work and doing the, and putting in the like, and practice the things that you want to improve upon, whether it's sitting alone by yourself, meditation, you know, continuing to read about the topic that you're in particular. I mean, everyone has their own reasoning for going there. And it's, I mean, when people share their stories, some of the stuff that is shared is just like,

I was telling my friend Eric Decker, who was there with me when we left, and I've talked to him, he's cool with anyone knowing that he's there. But we would leave after the afternoon session in the evening session. And I'd always say to him, I'm like, dude, I feel like we should be hugging each other, jumping up and down. We, like, we don't have any basis to be complaining about everything, anything. And I obviously say that in jest, but we would both laugh because when you heard some of the stories in there, you were like, thank you.

You know, it's like, when you hear someone else's problems, you're like, I'm so thankful for the problems I have. Right. it puts it into perspective. Big time. But I would highly highly recommend it. I know other friends that have gone to the Hoffman Institute. There's a bunch of these like Paul Conti has one who's friends with my buddy, Andrew Huberman.

And I know a bunch of people have gone to Conti's one out in Oregon. Same type of thing like a four to seven day trauma healing center. And it's trauma healing center, I think puts the wrong connotation on it. It's more like just an intensive psychotherapy. retreat where you just get to work on yourself and kind of I say selfish but it's not like selfish in the traditional sense it's like I'm here to work on myself and that's it and everything else all other distractions are removed it's been on my

to-do list for me and my wife it's not necessarily I don't even say selfish because like when you take care of yourself you take care of everyone else around you what did you feel like when you left what was the outcome were you happier were you more you more more optimistic? So much more happier and optimistic, but at the same time, like, I think I cried the whole way home. Just like thinking about how much more difficult I made things on myself, just in the day-to-day

interactions, nothing like, no, there was no traumatic events. But like with my wife in particular, I'm just like, you know, being married and having four children, when you get married, prior to getting married, you're hanging out with your best friend. Everything's cool. We go vacation whenever we want, sleep in. you know, hang out together and privately whenever we want. When you have four children, it's like now you're running a deadly serious business together

that needs 24-hour, 24-7 staffing. Someone is always on duty for the first, like, I don't know, four years of a child's life. They can't eat or poop do anything without you. So when you make that transition from that dating, marriage, you know, basically like single or dating into this family life, it's a massive adjustment. it. And, you know, your life is never going back to what it was. And I'm not saying that to complain. I'm just, sometimes I think people are afraid to point out the obvious because, like, I don't want to make it sound like, I'm not happy to be a family, man. If I didn't want that,

I wouldn't be in this. But I'm telling you, it's not just an easy, like, I mean, you know, you have children. It's like, your life changes. And some people are like, it's the greatest. I'm so happy. And I am. But there's also things about it that are very challenging. And I think that when I left there just realizing how much of the workload I put on my wife and without even knowing it because she's good at it and she would stay at home mom so I just would like defer to her for everything she would get up with the kids and my rationale was well I got to get up and go to work and you can stay home and catch some sleep when you can and I think that even when I would behave badly meaning like was short or frustrated she always picked up the slack and would never

abandon our relationship, if not for me, for our family. And she just, she did so much work to keep things together that when I left there, it was all so clear to me that I was like, man, I'm so sorry that I've been like, haven't been the best partner at times. And while I felt sad about that, I also felt like, okay, I can't drive looking in the rear view mirror. I'm going to acknowledge and address everything that needs to be addressed. but then I want to move forward and try to fix this because we can't you can't hold on to these things

and again not that I did I would never did anything like that warranted a a breakup per se but it was just like little selfish shit that you as a guy you can get into the routine of doing I'm like I'm so tired I'm going to bed and the kids haven't had a bath they haven't eaten and I just took it for granted that my wife would do it because she would and she loved it And I was like, it wasn't natural to me to be like the mother hen that she was. And but that wasn't an excuse. And having to look myself in the mirror and accept and acknowledge my shortcomings was not easy. It's not easy to talk about it now, you know?

Like, I don't come here. I'm not telling people this with a sense of pride. I'm ashamed of myself, but I'm telling you this because maybe someone hearing this is going through the same shit. Or like you said, maybe someone's thinking about going to. the onsite. These are some of the insights that I was able to gain from being there. But, you know, listen, life isn't a fucking pleasure cruise. You're going to have wins and losses. You can't deny the losses.

They're there. You have to look at them and understand. Like, you can either lose or learn. You can lose. And, okay, I took a loss there. I better at least get something out of it. Figure out what I did wrong. What can I do better? And, yeah, that's what on site was for me is to, like, process some of the losses and try to take some kind of silver lining from them. And it worked.

It was, it was freaking crazy. I mean, our daughter was born just over 15 months ago. So it's been a massive life transition for me. Oh, yeah. I've shared a lot of the stories. Like, one of my goals with my content is sharing what I'm experiencing. When she was born, I quickly realized how selfish I used to be and how I would neglect my wife and I'd put my priorities before her priorities and I would justify it in ways of well I have the

business that's right and I have these obligations and like this is just what I have to do and I would justify it to myself and I would I would assume that the people in my life and the environment would comply based off my wants and needs and it was a big eye-opener when my daughter was born so I've been trying to navigate this since then. And it's been extremely challenging. It's been, it's been very rewarding, but I'm learning a lot about myself. And I have a whole new perspective on life and work and building a family. I feel like before I started investing in my relationship, before my daughter was born, I was living on like the first floor of the house. And then when my life changed, I found like this door that went upstairs.

I didn't know there wasn't upstairs. Like, holy crap, there's a second floor on this house. And I'm sure at another stage I'll find like there's a third and fourth and fifth floor. And as I was preparing for this conversation today, I relate to a lot of things that you talk about in your training, your mindset. So like what I'm about to describe here, I'm curious, your thought. want to, but like, this is kind of something that I experience myself. There's a lot of goals that I set that I can define as a winner or loss based off of an objective outcome.

A race. A run for the day, business revenue and goals, the amount of money you make in a position. Like, that's, you can quickly look at hit or miss, hit or miss, hit or miss. But then there's parts of your life that are more. subjectively measured, like how you show up as a husband or a father or a friend. And sometimes I avoid some of those subjectively measured parts of my life. And I lean more heavily into the objectively measured parts of my life. Because I know if I hit or miss.

And I heard you talking about on Rich Roll actually explaining how like you need to get your daily run in. And if you don't get that daily run in, It throws you off your schedule and, you know, through that conversation, he did challenge you and ask you some hard questions. I'm curious how you approach life with goals that are objectively measured versus subjectively measured. I'm also curious how on-site may be shifted the way you focus in your life in that way. But do you struggle with the separation of those two? And you sometimes lean more towards the ones that have a hit or a miss because you know, if you won or you're lost.

Yes. That's a great question. And yes, Rich, it's funny that you pointed that out because my wife said to me, wow, Rich is a really good interview. He picked right up on that because what he said was true. I thought that was great. Yeah. And I think I acknowledged in the interview.

I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. I don't profess to have the answers. I never, one of the things about social media is, you know, different friends who are very savvy at social media. I say, oh, you should share more stuff and talk more to the camera. but I feel so uncomfortable and narcissistic when I do it because I feel like who am I to preach to anyone? I'm just like everyone else.

I'm wrestling with the same emotional duress and distress that everyone else is and I'm just, I've been running fast so that's getting attention, but that doesn't nullify my other responsibilities. You can't just be a good runner and shit at other things. And I, you know, yes, I struggle with all those things. I don't think it shows up as much in, uh, with my friendships, for instance. I, I cherish and value my friends.

Like the people that are close to me, like, I'll help them bury a dead body. Like I, the downside of that is I expect other people to feel like that to her. When they don't, I'm like, I just go bad on them. You know, I don't have any gray area. My wife teases me a little time because she's like, it's love or hate with you. You either love the person or hate them. I'm like, pretty much yeah, that's true. Um, but I've been much more conscious of this.

that coming out of onsite for sure and trying to keep more of a steady state with my emotional swings with regards to everything and friendships in particular is not to get too that like too deep into the like to expect too much from people but also not to like you know overwhelm someone else with kindness if that makes sense it's like they're my friends okay if you need something I'm here for you I don't I'm not doing a good job of describing it but it's like of managing expectations and managing my own emotional swings high and low. But definitely, definitely the running has, that's one of the things I worked on at onsite is like, what am I doing this for?

Is it really for me or is it a way to like demonstrate, you know, I'm good at something? And there's certainly an element of that of me saying like, look at me, I'm good to make up for maybe some of my own insecurities or feelings of inferiority. complex. But like I said to Ridge, I'm like, listen, compared to where I was and considering the way I was behaving as a way of coping with those feelings by getting high, like, I acknowledge that this might not be perfect, but for right now, this is, I'm coping with all of my shit the best way I can. And this has, um, it's worked to a certain extent, but it's not a, it's not a cure all and I'm certainly not a finished product in the sense that I know I still have worked to. I'm

I still, I still, you know, see my therapist. I still try to do the work that I know is required to be as, as good a person as I can. But we're all doing the best that we can, or at least we should be trying to do the best we can. And that's what I try to do. And it's easy to get lazy and neglect certain areas of your life. But the running is one thing that's, like you said, measurable that I just refuse to compromise. It's almost like, I feel like if I take the day off.

Not that I ever really want to. I enjoy getting out there and exerting myself. I love the feeling of being done with it. But I feel like if I take a day off, it'd be like the first day of a bad habit, the first day of a new habit. And just sticks then. Exactly.

Maybe the second day will be easier. Yeah. I think sometimes people try to act like they have all the answers they have it all together. Yeah. No one does. Exactly. We're all trying to figure it out.

And I think when I realized that, it empowered me a lot to make more decisions. We're all in the same situation. We're all just trying to navigate this life. That's right. And the obstacles we're going through. So a few months ago, um,

life got really chaotic with just business and navigating being a new dad and the move from Texas to, to Tennessee and planning for that. And I wasn't planning on running CIM, but it was a really stressful day for me. And I was like, you know what? I'm signing for CIM.

I signed up for CIM. And before I even talk to staff, I was like, I already signed up. And she said, you know what you do when, like, you feel like you don't have any control of your life is you do something that you can be in complete control of? So I sign up for this race because she knows that when I'm in a prep for a race, I feel like I'm in control. Yep. I can control my training and my diet and I can track progress.

And I know, like, the structure of my workouts leading up to those a couple months before race day. And when I'm in a prep, I feel like I'm in the most control of my life. Yeah. And the day I signed up for CIM was a day where I felt like I had zero control in my life. And my wife picks up on that. Yeah. You know, the people that we love, like, they know us better than anyone else.

That's right. And they see right through us. That's right. But to your point, when you have something on the calendar, it's like there's no more gray area. I know exactly what my day is going to look like for the next 10 weeks or at least I have a rough outline. when I don't have anything on the calendar, it's like left to chance. It's like waking up without anything on your calendar.

If there's nothing on that calendar, you can easily get lost looking on the internet, watching the news, watching sports, and the next thing you know, you're like, oh my God, I just wasted three hours of my day. When I have something that matters to me on the calendar, if nothing else, I know for 90 minutes to 90 minutes

to two and a half hours, I'm going to be dialed in focused in training. And then in the evening before dinner, I know I'm going to spend 30 minutes like doing some strength work because you can't have one without like to me you can't have one without the other you can't just do endurance work without doing strength work especially as you get older i feel like that's been like one of the things that's helped me immensely in terms of staying healthy is to maintain like a balanced physique and a balanced approach to training that even if the

fitness the weight lifting i think a lot of people think of it as purely an aesthetic exercise i'm just doing this to look good a lot of people do And when you abandon that thought and recognize that it's functional strength training and I'm doing this to be better at running, even the pushups, pull-ups, like all that stuff, I just convince myself that it's not for aesthetics. It's for functional strength. That was like very almost freeing for me because my whole life I thought of weightlifting as like purely aesthetics. We have to do this to like look good. And that's a hard training for aesthetics is incredibly hard. it's like a bodybuilding show where you have like a measurable end date and there's a specific

goals it's hard just to be like I'm just going to go to the gym so I look good that's I don't think that that's very sustainable and I think that's where a lot of people struggle with weight management and body issues is that they think that the weight lifting is purely like an aesthetic endeavor I mentioned this earlier and I wanted to bring it back up but you talked about how growing up, you were around a lot of people who weren't really driven or focused and they were fighting. And, you know, I'm curious, as you often say, work works. Yep.

Where and when did you learn a work ethic coming from, you know, an upbringing where it might not have been as appreciated as it is now? Yeah. When I was like a child, like a young child, I can remember being outside in my driveway, shooting hockey pucks against the fence. I had weighted pucks. I would, at one point, I saw Bobby Orr did an exercise where he had taped a bunch of like nuts and bolts to the end of his stick just to make it heavy.

So I'd use a heavy stick. Like my earliest memories, I just always remember thinking of how can I get better at this? and I mean I remember in like grade school jogging and like you know going jogging down to the local track and running around the track without any real understanding or knowledge of what I was doing I was just like getting in shape I was just like all I wanted to do was playing the NHL so everything revolved around hockey through you know until I got to high school and when I got to high school I was playing with a bunch of guys that would eventually go on to play in the NHL in Boston there was just it was high high level hockey and at At some point and around in high school, the people that would go on to play in the NHL, they just separated themselves from the crowd. It was just like they just got better and I didn't. And it was so frustrating because we did the same exact things. We trained the same amount.

And that's why I think when you get to that high level, like, why do some people go to Division 1 football and then another handful of those people elevate and make it to the NFL? And the difference is so massive. Like when you talk to a college kid who's playing in the NFL, the speed difference from college to the NFL is astronomical and that the talent level every single person is good in college there even in division one there might be a few players that are weak what i was saying earlier about having that work ethic is when you have that kind of talent and you have the attitude that i'll die to win that guy can't be beat like to get to a certain

level you need some genetic gifts like you're not going to be a wide receiver in the NFL if you are even in grades, like my children, they're just not fast runners. I'm like, guys, we have to think of another approach because we are never going to run like the guys, like receivers in the NFL. I try not to discourage them, but I'm like, just think because they play flag football with kids that can, that are speedsters. And I'm like, you see how fast that guy runs? If someone can catch it just as good as you, but he can run like that, it's going to be hard

to make that up. because if you don't have those fast switch muscles, you can't train to get to that certain level. You know what I mean? There's certain genetic gifts that you can't train for. All you can do is think about how this, you know, you can certainly be quick. Quickness can beat speed,

but that comes with a level of intellect. There's a lot of like strategizing around that, like a Julian Edelman type who's not a burner, but he's so quick and crafty. But, yeah, I just, I always knew that I had to work hard to get out of there. I wish I had a simple answer for you, but I think about it often myself too as like,

I had no reference to what I wanted to do in light. Like I had no necessarily role model. I mean, my dad would come and pick me up. My parents were divorced and he'd take me to sports, but he was like, you know, initially working at like a supermarket warehouse, distribution center. Then he worked at like a laboratory type thing, but like a blue collar type job. So it wasn't like I had role models or examples of what I wanted to do. And if you had said to me, oh, go to New York and work in finance. I don't know if I said this the last time I was on the

show, but it would have been like telling me to go be an astronaut. I was like, how am I ever going be in investment banking. I have a degree in sociology from Framingham State. I didn't even take a finance class. I always believed if I can get a chance, I can figure it out. I just got to get my foot in the door. And I've did that in a bunch of different steps along the way in my career of trying different financial products and different kind of financial roles. Do you think Wall Street had a big impact on putting work into perspective? Because the CEO we put in place of bare performance nutrition, Kat Thomas, me and her talk about this a lot where you might not know what hard work looks like unless you've ever been surrounded by it.

And Kat come out of college, she was a traitor for Goldman in London. And she explains and kind of paints a picture to me of what that looked like and just the pure chaos and the amount of hours worked. And I think if you've never experienced truly hard work, you don't know what to measure it up against. And a lot of people have never done hard work. So like what's hard for them is in perspective or relative to others. It might be hard work, but like it's really not hard work. And I think a lot of people actually don't know what hard work looks or feels like.

And a lot of people never will. No, that kind of work that you're describing when you're a banker like a Goldman is just, it's you you can't understand it unless you've seen it firsthand it's just savage the the work ethic and um the workload and if you are a step behind coming out of school and you don't have a fundamental understanding like for instance if you don't know it uh Microsoft Excel like a wizard you are going to be in for the like I don't even know that you could survive it was like so much of the work for the traders and the more like banker types I never had that role I was in marketing and sale and always had customers, so I kind of skipped that process.

But, yeah, those, they lived at the office. I mean, it was, it was miserable. And the justification was if you can get through, let's say, five to seven years of grinding and you're actually like, and you actually have some acumen, like, you'd be rich. But at what cost? And for me, at some point, I was like, I just can't keep doing this. I have to figure something else out. This is.

But when you're in it, you're like, what else am I going to do to make a million dollars a year with the skills that I have. None. You know, it was like, it was incredibly daunting and intimidating, but the best decision I ever made was to, like, have the guts to get out of that rat race. And when I've done interviews and talked about this in the past, the response from current traders and salespeople on trading desks,

it's always been like, man, I want to do that. And how did you do this and how did you do that? I say, there's never the right time. You're never, the stars are never going to align. and you have to just decide, I'm making a change and do it and roll the dice and bet on yourself. It's the only way to do it is to like, almost like the only way to learn how to swim is to jump in the water and figure it out on the fly. That's kind of how it was for me and that's kind of the way it went. And thank God it worked out.

But I made it work, but I didn't have a choice. And I had four children and it was incredibly, incredibly stressful. But I was like, no, I don't want to keep living like this and I'm not ready to die. So I better figure out a plan B and I just created my own. It's the hardest thing to balance, I think, is the balance of being present and happy and focus on relationships and life as a whole and living. And on the flip side, it's the ambition to work and grow and just like get after it. I don't think I'll ever find that perfect balance. I go through seasons where I'm leaning heavier into one, then I lean heavier into the other.

and if you lean too heavy into one side for too long, it affects you personally and the people around your life. And are you to point in your life now where you're still balancing those two or do you believe like you've kind of graduated to another level? I have a pretty healthy balance. But, you know, with any of this stuff,

you're always questioning, you know how it is. If you sold your business for $100 million, you'd be like, could I have gone $200 if I waited another year? It's that constant questioning of could I be doing more? So on one hand, I always feel like there's more to do. On the other hand, especially after Onsite, I'm like, you know what? I can't control those feelings. I can't control what happens tomorrow.

If I don't enjoy today and something happens to me tonight, I'm going to be so mad. Because really at the end of the day, like the book from Eckhart Tolley, the power of now, I think that's incredibly powerful. It's like it's easy to get caught. obviously you have to focus on your career and have a game plan and like really be dialed in with where you're going but you also have to take a minute to take a deep breath and enjoy where you are right now and at times I do this frequently I would say to my wife like man look how lucky we are it's the truth we're healthy everyone is good could we have more stuff yeah but what would that

What would that change? And I don't know if I mentioned this to you the last time I was here, but when people talk about money can't make you happier, I mean, I had no money, then I had a lot of money and became a drug addict. And I'm here to tell you that if you're happy, you'll be happy with money. If you're unhappy, stressed out, pissed off right now, you'll be the same person with money. It might take a little while, but you'll settle into the default setting that you're at right now.

I promise you. You know how it is. I mean, you've worked hard, had money, and like, do you feel like I'm 10 times happier than I was? Or is it just, you just have a different socioeconomic status, but you're still the same person? That's how I feel about it. And it's like knowing that, having gone through that, one of the benefits of being so old is having that experience to know, okay, yeah, I'd love to have more money and I'd love to have a fancier house. But at the end of the day, is that going to make me happier? because at the end of the, I tell my, I tell my kids all the time, you have everything.

We have a basketball hoop out there. We have a pool that we can use at the club. You have a movie theater in the house. I have a gym that is like as nice as any commercial gym I've ever been in. It's like a dream come true. But if I don't take a minute to recognize those things and like physically call them out, I can easily forget about that and be like, oh, everything sucks. This stinks.

This didn't go right. So everything is catastrophic. And it pisses me off when I get into that rut because it's not warranted when I, like I said, at least once a week I'll say to my wife, we are so lucky. And I say my friend Jesse Isler said this one time and it just sticks with me all the time. I have what a lot of billionaires and rich people don't have and that's enough. I have enough. Like, you know, I would love to have more and I'm far from like good if I stopped working.

But right now, today I have enough. all my kids have shoes. There's food in the refrigerator. Everyone's healthy. There's no like, you know, warning sirens going off about anything in my life. My, like, dashboard has no warning lights on it. And I'm just, I appreciate that. And I have to make a conscious effort to take a second to appreciate it.

Like when I came in and saw your lobby with the murals painted and I couldn't help but to say, like, man, do you ever just think, like, I did this? I have the luxury to be like, yeah, I'm painting. I'm paying someone to paint the mural. It's not good enough to have a white wall. I want a mural there. That feeling is like, it's easy to take that for granted and walk past it every day and be like, not a cool painting.

But if you don't take a minute, I'm like, damn, I did that. What a luxury. Let me take a minute to enjoy this since I went out of my way to get it done. I think that a lot of people do that. You just, I just can't wait to get a Ferrari. Then you have a Ferrari and you're like, oh, I hope it doesn't get scratched up. How, what are you doing this weekend? You know, and it's like the Ferrari is forgotten about it.

But when before you got it, it was so important. And that's, I don't know, that's, that's one of the things that I focused on a lot since, certainly since the on-site visit. But I've tried to be more present and enjoy like the power of now than I had in the past. And that all kind of ties into the finance thing. It was like, when I was working in finance, I never had so much conflict with people. And that's the thing about working on your own and doing the things that I'm doing now is like, yeah, there's a lot of stress.

Like if I don't work, I don't, if I don't kill something, I don't get to eat, you know, like a hunter. And when I was, but I say to my wife, like, man, it's so nice not to have conflict with people. When you work on a trading desk, man, I got news for you. If there's 10 guys there, eight of them were assholes. It was, it was terrible. There were some people that I love, don't get me wrong,

but there's some also some people. If I ever see them again, I'll punch them in the face. I can't stand them. There was a woman I worked with at. My first job was just the worst person I've ever been around in my life. I can't wait to like write about her in my book. I'm serious. She was awful.

This woman like went out of her way to make me miserable all the time. Like she treated me. She treated me the way I felt. I felt like I shouldn't be there that I was like uneducated. And I was like a dummy from the inner city. And these were all polished, you know, Ivy League execs with beautiful pedigrees, professional pedigrees. And then here I come like the like beat up often like just a mess.

I didn't know how to, my suit sucked, everything sucked. I was broke. I was so broke. And this woman, it's like she saw all of my insecurities and prayed on them for no reason. And she was the boss. It was just like, oh, her name was Megan. I can't wait to write about her. But she spends a lot of time on Reddit.

She's probably a big Reddit author. Just an awful, awful person. And I can't wait to tell the world about her in my book. Well, I mean, there's a lot of people to talk about the fact that, there's a threshold of how much money you truly need to be satisfied. And anything above that doesn't create incremental happiness. Over the years, as I've made more money and grew in my businesses, I haven't become more happier.

It's oftentimes created more stress and more issues. And, you know, I've learned that. I become very aware of that over time. Clear example is my dream car that I want is an old restored Bronco. I just think they're super cool. They're cliche. Yes, everyone wants them, but like it's a badass vehicle. And sometimes I sit online and there's this site that I want to order one off of.

And I sit there and you can like press submit to start the process. I know exactly what you mean. I think will this like this will this. be really fun. It'll be really cool once it gets delivered. But why actually be happier having this vehicle? Or is it going to break down? I'm like, I have to take it to the shop. And only one guy in town can fix it. Exactly. Is it going to cause more issues for me? And every time as I think through this, I eggs down to the website and I'm like, I'll come back to this tomorrow. Dude, I know exactly what you mean. But I'm really, I'm really appreciative and grateful that I finally

have gotten to a point to realize that what we want doesn't necessarily, always equate to what we're going to like. And once you're following this path and this routine of constantly wanting more and more and more, what's the inability to become satisfied? And that just leads to a life of unhappiness. 100% when my children will ask me for like my, my oldest son, they're really into shoes because I'm really into shoes. So they're like, like Air Jordans. They're just into it. And my son was like, dad, I got, I found these new shoes. I really want them. their LeBron's, I'll pay for, I'll pay for some of them. And I just looked at them.

I'm like, dude, you have two brand new pairs of Eric Jordans. And I just bought you like a pair of John Moran basketball shoes because you have basketball trials. What are you talking about? He's like, I know what I really want these. I said, dude, you can't wear all these shoes. I get it. You want a lot.

And, but you don't get everything that you want. Like, you have to learn to be, to appreciate what you have. And it's a very hard lesson because they don't want to know that. Their brain doesn't work like that. They're just like, I want this. But we're pretty. disciplined with the children in terms of like giving them what they need but not necessarily everything that they want and having a teenage girl man has been like literally the hardest thing

I've ever done my daughter used to be like we were besties she would come in the bed like I'm gonna snuggle with you dad and watch TV now she's 13 she's got braces she's starting to become a woman I'm like come on sit in a bed with me let's watch TV she's like uh dad that's weird I'm not gonna sit on the bed with my dad I'm like you were just in here last week she's like I know but that's just too weird and she's got makeup I'm just like, come on, man. But she's the one, she's like, can I get these Lulu Lemon shorts? I go, I'll buy you these ones from the gap.

They look exactly the same. They just don't say Lulu Lemon, and they have $40 instead of $70. She's like, no, I want the Lulu ones. I said, okay, I'll pay 40. You can pay the difference out of your own money. And she's like, okay. But it's so, I mean, I remember being like this as a kid myself. You want what you want, and they want name brands.

And there's so much pressure to, like, conform to what the friends are doing. But, man, it's as a parent, that's one of the things that I find very challenging is watching them make do silly things and wanting them to behave like adults but it took me 50 years to get to the point where I don't need what everyone else has like I'll tell it why do you want the same exact white crocs that everyone else has why don't you get these awesome like cool Reebok shoes that are different and people will love those and she's like no no no no I said because you don't want to be the trend setter you want to be the follower and then my wife's like will you leave her alone and I'm like all right I

I surrender. I can imagine how it's challenging. I'm thinking back to just the amount of personal growth that I've had over this last decade. And you finally reach a point where, like, you want to share all this growth with everyone. And then your kids grow up and you're like, oh, my gosh, I have to wait decades before. They understand what I've learned. That was how I felt coming out of OnSight is like, let me tell you all the stuff I learned and you want to save everyone.

You know, you're like on a, you know, you're on Cloud Night, on a. high like let me tell you how much insight i just gained but you have to realize like everyone's not on your journey everyone's not you you realize quickly no one they're not as excited as you are to hear to get this insightful information and it's the same thing with kids you know i just i don't know i think you just do the best you can and hope for the best and just stick to your guns and have discipline like i said when this comes to the stuff they want i'm like yeah sorry dude no can do not getting it what if i pay for it myself i'm like you're still not getting it you have to learn that it's You don't get everything you want.

It's like I come back for my morning runs. You know, you're on that run. You have so much clarity in your mind. You're thinking about all these ideas. I get back into the kitchen. My wife's with Charlie getting ready. I'm like, Steph, I got to tell you. Like, I just thought of this, this idea and it's going to change everything.

She's like, hold up. Just like, let me get, let me get my coffee ready. But you got to understand. I got to paint you the picture of what I'm about to explain to you. Just chill. The one thing that I wanted to mention to you about with regards to the training and doing the things like signing up for events and the bodybuilding show and all these like challenges that we've both undertaken over the years is I really believe this without signing cliche is that like you can't really get to where you want to go without ever being uncomfortable. If you're always comfortable, it's hard to grow. How can you learn something new if you're not uncomfortable at times?

trying to learn this process. And so like in April, I said to my wife, a friend of mine said he was doing this Gobi March race in the Gobi Desert. It was a 155 mile race over six days. So it was designated distances each day, stage race, self-support. I mean, you had to carry your own food, everything that you needed for a week minus water and a tent. And a buddy said he was doing it. and um who's the president of equinox actually scott daroo and i was like dude i think i can win that race and he's like what you're crazy have you ever done an ultra before i'm like no he's like have you ever like do you know how to have you ever gone camping no i've never even run with a backpack i don't know anything but if these guys are doing it like why can't if they did it why can't i do it like i'm

fit fitness is like the universal language and long so long-long-sure i said to my wife yo Am I crazy to think about doing this race in Mongolia? It was right after Tokyo and I was like, had good fitness. And she's like, well, you always talk about, because I said, I'm so nervous. Like, I don't know if I want to do it because, like, I could fail miserably. And she's like, you're always talking about doing things that make you uncomfortable. Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and do something that you're actually scared to do? And I was like, I'm doing it.

And then I was telling, I was teasing Rich Rollies. He gets so angry when I share this story. But I texted him and said, Rich, I'm thinking. thinking about doing this, Gobi March, what do you know? And he said, oh, man, this claimed many an ultra runner. Be careful, man. I think someone even died there once, which they did. And I was, all I heard was, dude, be careful.

That race is too tough for you. I was like, I'm doing it. And I told another buddy, James Davies from Deutsche Bank. He's like the CEO of Deutsche and North America, like high-ranking banker. And he's done, been thinking about Marathon de Saab in Morocco, the famous one across the desert. And he said, man, if you could get top five or top 10 at that race, that would be super impressive. And I remember just being like, top five, dude, I'm fucking winning. What are you talking about?

And he laughed. Like, dude, come on. You don't even know anything of what you're doing. It's a huge, like, experience is a big factor. And I was like, yeah, I'm doing it out of spite. And then, of course, I signed up and I was like, oh, my God, what have I got myself into? I don't like camping. I don't know how to do.

I don't have any of those, like I said, man skills. Like I don't I know nothing I set up I had a one man tent There was communal tents that I ended up staying in But at first I was like oh I'm gonna bring my own tent Sleep in my own tent They transport the tent for you Because when when COVID started

They gave people this option So I was like I'll bring my own tent Find a little hack where I can like be quiet by myself Dude I tried to set the tent up And of course my wife's like You should set the tent up and do a couple dry runs Sleeping it one night to see what it's gonna be like I'm like man

I'll I'll try to be like try it. Finally, the day before I left, I set the tent up. It was a mess. It was like so small. It was literally like a coffin. And I was like, oh, I'm not, I'm going to see if I can get in one of these communal tents. I hope they'll let me in. And sure enough, the first night, it freaking rains sideways. If I was in that one-man tent, like all of my stuff would have been soaked like 10-4. Oh, it was, it was, it was insane. And I, uh, I went there and did the race and won. It was, it was, it was incredible. It was like the most rewarding thing I've ever done

because I was super out of my comfort zone. I didn't know. Nothing about it was enjoyable. I hate, I'd take three showers a day. I hate being dirty. I hate being wet. We would cross like five rivers every day. I hate when my shoes are wet.

Soon as the stage would start, you'd run across a river. So you're soaked constantly. And that was an example, though, of like actually doing what I know to be right, but it's so much easier to just say it versus do it. And I just felt like for no other reason than to prove to myself that I am who I think I am, I can do this.

And if I say I'm going to do something, I'm showing up and showing out, I want this. And it was, man, it was so rewarding, much more rewarding than any race I've ever done. But you want it. Yeah, it was insane. It was crazy. Six stages, six days. each day has an allocated amount of miles. So stage one, 21 miles, stage 2, 28 miles, stage 3, 24 miles, stage 4, 50 miles, stage 5, 24 miles, stage 6, 6 miles.

Explain to me how you win that. Is it based off of calculating time? Okay. So you do, say stage 1, day 1, you do 21 miles. When you're done, you rest the rest of the day before the next. next day starts. Correct. We're at a camp,

where in, like, they move the camp each day across the gobi. So, and every day is in, like, you know, like, almost like a different climate.

There were stages where we were set up in a mountain. Some we were set beside a river. Some days we were in, like, the middle of a sand dune. Just imagine all the sand. Every time you go out of the tent,

back in the tent, the sleep, everything's covered in sand. In the first day, 21 miles, I, um, you know, going to sleep the first night, they drive us out to the desert,

to the out into the middle of nowhere on Saturday. So Saturday night we sleep out in the tents first night. I'm with three women. It was, man, it was just looking back at it's so funny because we're in like a little tent, like a, you know, four people can fit in the tent side by side. But there's, they're women. So you only have the whatever you're carrying. So I had a change of clothes and a camp clothes.

So I had like a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. and then you had to have certain requirements like tights long sleeve shirt down jacket because it would get cold and um i remember that for us and then i was like hey uh girls i'm just i'm gonna change out of my race stuff or or out of my camp clothes to get ready for the morning i'm just i'm gonna stand over here and just change and by the like the second or third day they're like ken you don't have to tell us anything else do what you got to do like no one's looking at you and i'm like i'm just trying to be respectful, but it was like, it was as close to being like a military operation without being in the military. It was like, everyone was all business. There was no like mucking around. It wasn't like,

hey, let's play, um, freaking cornhole tonight at the campsite. It was like, get done with the stage. And some people would take 12 hours to finish the stages. It was, it was, the terrain was rough. There was no, you weren't on roads. It was like, go through the woods there and there were pink flags and you'd just be running through woods up the side of a mountain down through a sand dune every day was like different the course was dramatically different and it was always on like un unsure of footing it was like grass sand rivers mud the first day ended in like a dried out river bed the water was gone from the river bed but it was like ankle deep mud and watching everyone flipping and flopping as i fin i came in fourth that stage.

And I was like, oh my God, they were right. I'll be so lucky to get top five at this point. I'm getting killed. And I was like, those guys that beat me, they shouldn't have been able to beat me. And as I'm standing, and we're up on it, kind of like elevated up on this little plateau.

So you can see the people coming as they come through. It was like 125 people. So as they're coming through and they're coming in, and everyone's covered in mud. I fell down like once or twice, but just briefly. But some people were like rolling around in mud. They couldn't get back up.

Because remember, you also have a 20 pound backpack at least. It's awkward trying to make adjustments for this pack. Is that your food? Food mainly. Food, clothes. You had to have certain safety equipment. So you had to have like a whistle, a mirror.

So maybe you had like five pounds of mandatory equipment. Sleep and bag, a little bit of clothes. The jacket took a lot of space because, you know, you'd roll it up and tight. And then it was food. So like MREs. And they were like, you know, they weighed a certain. I was burning 10 to 12,000 calories a day. and eating 2,500.

And that's all I had. So if I ate more, I'd be out of food for the next day. And you were carrying food for that whole six-day, six-age trek. Wow, that's a lot of food to carry. It's crazy. You have to be very strategic. But, you know, again, experience counts for so much.

Some of the people had it so dialed in, like a lot of their calories were in a form of oil, like coconut oil. And I was like, oh, damn, what a great idea. What were you eating? Just MREs. Like, again, didn't know anything. I bought a bunch of them tried a couple, like the day before I left.

And it was like, ah, these will do. Just figuring like, ah, one week I can hold my breath. It was like the actual Army MREs? No, it was like a camping version of it. Like, R.E.I type. Yeah, exactly. Like, there were different brands. And it was like, you know, rice and chicken, chicken casserole,

macaroni and cheese, that type of stuff. Processed food. But then the second day was 28 miles and I blew out everybody. I just took control. I literally was just disciplined from the beginning. I let the, there was a Swiss guy and an Israeli guy that were really good. They were the competition.

And I let them go early and just stayed steady, just by myself, not even worrying about anyone else just thinking, okay, I got to run 28 miles. I'm just going to run 28 miles as fast as I can without going too fast, right? So I was running negative splits most of the time, and slowly they came back to me

and slowly they faded away. And I was like, oh my God. And then I was like, oh shit, I can do this. I think I can win this. And then just shit happens along the way. My backpack ripped. The nylon strap ripped completely off the pack. So now my backpack is like, if I don't fix this, there's no way I can finish.

It's too heavy to carry it without it being optimized on my back. And now the strap is completely busted off, ripped in half. So I just jerry rigged that together the next day with zip ties. And then into the third stage was all through sand dunes, just like ankle deep. sand up like, you know, the equivalent of like a double black diamond ski slope made of sand. So at times I was going up this sand dune. I'm like, I can, this can't be right. I'm going in reverse.

There's no way that everyone's going to survive here in like 10 people dropped out there. And the worst is if you dropped out there, they couldn't even come and get you with the like Ford Raptor trucks and stuff there to get you with a camel. Oh, dude, it was crazy. So that stage, I came in second, but I was now eight minutes behind. going into the fourth day, the 50-mile stage, and on that 50-mile stage, I took control. Like, me and the Swiss guy were just duping it out,

and eventually he was like, I can't go on. How close was he to you at the end of all of it? Oh, two hours. Oh, it was two hours. So, but in this 50-mile stage, we were pushing the, I was pushing the pace. We were both, I mean, we were so far ahead of people. You couldn't even see them when we were up on a mountain.

You couldn't even see them back five miles at like 35 miles in, but he just started to slowly deteriorate. And I'm thinking like, all right, I got him. I'm going to get him. And, uh, but now he's like, yo, I don't feel good. I'm, I got to, I got to sit out. And I'm like, no, dude, you can't sit down here. The, the, the, the checkpoints are about nine miles apart, maybe less, but in that context.

And you had, we had water bottles that we could refill at these aid stations at the checkpoints. So we both had our two full water bottles and, you know, whatever else we had. And as we're going, he's like, man, I'm, I'm struggling. And I'm like, all right, let's walk. We'll walk and run. Because at this point, you're racing, but you're not like trying to kill him. We're still in it together. We're in two guys in the middle of the Gobi Desert, Mongolia.

It's a long distance, too. I'm not going to run away and leave the guy in duress. If he was just like, go ahead, man, I'm struggling. Like, do you think I would have kept running? But I could tell he wasn't all right. So he's struggling. He starts sitting down. I'm shielding him with my.

It's hot. I'm shielding him with my body. dumping my water on him. I'm like helping him out big time. And I don't say that to be like, hey, look at me. I'm a hero. But that's what happened. It's the reality of the race. It's the reality. It is what it is. I'm not looking for like I don't, I don't need to like create false bullshit to make myself feel better. It's just the fact of what happened. And eventually, thank God, a support vehicle came by and was like, yo, I was so pissed. I was like, guys, where the F have you been? Someone's going to die out here. And you guys aren't even all like coming back and forth. We've been out

here for like an hour hoping to see someone and the dude's struggling here can you guys help so they came over started like showering him with cold water and stuff because the whole time we had no one had cold water the water was just in bottles so they'd we'd get to the camp and they'd have big kettles where they would boil it to put in the MREs other than that there was just water on the ground in five gallon um jugs that you could fill up your bottles with and it was never cold so um they started taking care of him but now at this point I was feeling great but now I I've been recovered for an hour. I took off like a bat out of hell.

It was like a cartoon that was practically like dust flying up from my shoes as I just tore ass like all the way in for the last 10 miles to get to 50 miles. And at that point I had maybe a 90 minute lead and it was like magical. I was like, man, I did it. But I still had the next day a marathon to run in the last day, six miles. So on the marathon stage, it was just wild man. At times it was like thunder and lightning. We're running and like wild horses are running.

beside us, cows, sheep, bedouin people like nomads out in the desert. It was, it was insane. I wish I could have enjoyed it a little bit more, but I was so much in that competition zone that I didn't appreciate as the beauty that was around me. Again, like power of now. I wasn't living in the now. I was like, I got to get to this finish line as fast as I can.

And so the last marathon stage, the last long stage, me and the Swiss guy were basically together. and then on a steep down. He was like a mountaineer. So on the descents, on the climbs, we were pretty much together, but on the descents,

he was so much technically faster. It's just like mountain bike, and it was like a skill. And he got a little bit away from me on the downhill with a mile or two to go and beat me by like a minute. And, uh, but at that point,

there was only a six mile stage left. And, uh, it's funny. I was like trying to stay focused the whole time through the finish because there was so many things that could go wrong. And, uh, there's a South African guy, Killian Ryan, he says to me on the last day,

like, dude, you did it. You got a 90-minute lead. Six miles. You can, like, walk you want. You're going to let someone else win this stage? I was like, absolutely not. Not, would you? I go, why would I disrespect the leader's jersey

and everyone else by not giving my effort? I'm racing to the death. Like, where, it's on. And then really, the only guy that could really run with me was the Swiss guy. And, dude, we got into a freaking drag-out brawl. We were sprinting through the town. It went up and over a mountain and then into this little,

into like a, not a village, but a city in Mongolia. It wasn't as big as Ulan Batar, but it was like there was a fortress in the middle where Genghis Khan used to rain. It was so cool, like a walled city. And we were just running through this like little city. It kind of looked like a scene from like Kabul, like Iraq or Afghanistan, where it's like you see the little town

and it's like just a town in the middle of the desert. So we were just tearing. Aaron through the town and I just got a lead on him and just kept it and ran into the into like the the fort I guess with the lead finished and I was like oh thank you God and they had pizza and stuff there and it was like yeah oh man the feeling of relief was insane I couldn't believe it I can't believe it now talking about it like holy shit I did that I just feel like I was so out of my element like I had no business winning that kind of race I don't have those kind of skills per se I was never like an outdoors person.

Even watching it in real time as you were doing on social when it was being documented, just seeing you running with like a pack in hiking boots and a hat, you know, like a big like a bucket hat. I was like, this just looks so different.

But I was never like, Ken's not going to win this. It's like you could tell you were so focused on on the mission, on the win. Yeah. An ultramarathon is something that if people want to get out of their true comfort zone, half marathon, full marathon, yeah, it's going to be challenging.

But an ultra, especially a longer distance ultra, so much can go wrong. Oh, yeah. Like, you are truly adapting on the fly, you know, how are you going to monitor and handle nutrition? What happens when your stomach turns? Your feet are like getting absolutely destroyed. Your legs are heavy. You're in and out mentally. emotionally, highs and lows.

So if someone true wants to be challenged and put themselves through a level of discomfort, it's like, go sign out for an ultra. Go sign out for, you know, the Gobi Desert. I would never do it again, but I highly recommend doing it. I'm glad that I went there and won so I don't have to feel like I got to go back and right or wrong by, you know, coming in second. I mean like, oh, I was so close. But to your point, part of the beauty of that race is knowing things are going to go wrong.

So when the backpack ripped and I zip tied it and then it ripped again, I basically cut a hole through the bag, pulled the strap through tied a knot. And when I got to the next stage, people were dropping out left and right. And the worst part is when you drop out, there's no escape hatch. There's no emergency exit. You're with the traveling circus until it's over. The whole race. Yes.

So like you don't have to race, but you're sleeping in the tent and going from stage to stage. Like you can volunteer or you can just be a passenger. Oh, that's miserable. Miserable. I would like, dude, you'd rather be dead than like you have to drop out and just ride in the bus and watch everyone else compete. And the other thing is, like you mentioned how your feet getting jammed up. The first day at the medical tent, the first day, second day, I would go by the medical tent just walking past. And the people's feet looked like they had walked on hot calls.

They were so, I mean destroyed. I'd never seen feet this messed up. But I couldn't help but to look at some of the people and this is one of those things when my wife, why don't you just mind your business? I'm like, I couldn't help it. I'd be like, did you train? This is so irresponsible. You just showed up with no experience and your feet are destroyed. Like, what did you?

How can your feet be that jammed up if you've been training to do this? It didn't make any sense. It was like they just turned up and we're like, oh shit, there's a race tomorrow all in the desert. Can I get in? Like, your feet clearly aren't conditioned to do this. Like, I mean, dude, no skin left on the bottom of their feet. After like 21 miles.

And I expect after 21, yes, but after 28. after the second day they were really messed up keep i mean listen i had chafing all over my neck and back i mean like where it was bleeding like like bleeding not just roughed so i took tape like elastic thick tape that the doctors had and i sprayed adhesive onto the cut which was incredibly like painful and then i just stuck the tape right onto it so like i couldn't i didn't take it off until the race was over but man And when I pulled that table off, when the race was over, it was literally like, I don't know, someone's ripping all the hair out of your head one at a time. It was, it was awful, but there was no other choice.

And around my waist, where the backpack was holding on, it was just rubbed raw. Took weeks to go away. It's still scars. But when you're in that mode of just like, yo, it's go time. Yeah, bleeding, but it is what it is. And I fell down the second day when the bag ripped, I fell down and, like, I cut my elbow real, real bad, but I didn't know. So as I'm running, I must have been like wiping the blood off my elbow unbeknownst. It was like dripping down. And then I was tucked, must have been

touching my face. When I came through, they were like, oh my God, what's wrong? Because I come through like, yes, I won. And they're like, Ken, what's going on? What's wrong? Where are you bleeding? I'm like, I'm not bleeding. They're like, you're definitely bleeding. And the woman held up her phone and was like, showed me like the mirror look. And I was like, oh my God, my face definitely isn't bleeding and then I realized oh my elbow's bleeding it was it was not a big deal but it was like it was funny because I come in just you are covered in dirt blood and sweat you know coming into the finish line everyone is so dirty and there's no shower and they're like don't use the water to shower you're trying to be conservative but I was like I don't care I go behind my tent and dump water on my

head and try to clean myself off every night so I could at least get into my sleeping bag and not feel completely disgusting but all that stuff was like that's that was part of the challenge is like, you know, running system checks on your body every single night, making sure you're fueling properly, trying to pick up food here and there, like someone would drop out and it would be like a pack of friggin, it would be like seagulls around their bag trying to get a free meal. And inevitably enough people dropped out where I was able to pick up a meal here, a vacuum sealed bag of sardines from another guy that, like, I'm like, oh my God,

like I'm not necessarily a sardine guy per se. I would never think to buy that and have that for a meal. But when the guy was like sardine, all I thought was, oh shit, those are super rich in a bunch of nutrients and they got a ton of calories on me. Salt too. I just took them down like it was going out of style. And, you know, some of the people, if you're not into sardine,

you're like, dude, what? I'm like, yeah, if you tell me it's nutrient dense, I'm eating it. Right. I'm fueling. It's like worrying about, like, what a gel tastes like in a race. How are those gels? What?

It could have been like actual motor oil. If you tell me it will keep me going in the moment, that that's what I'm taking. Which is the most effective? That's the thing with doing things that are challenging and hard and uncomfortable is people love the concept and the idea of it. Yep. And then as soon as you get into it and you have to assume that there's going to be collateral damage along the way.

Oh, yeah. You're going to fall. You're going to be bleeding. Your stomach's going to hurt. Your feet are going to hurt. But so many people, as soon as the collateral damage, which is the same thing, assumed starts. It's like, I'm out.

I'm out. Well, that's like part of the uncomfortable part. That's part of why you signed up. You know, like that's where you grow. But so many people, as soon as you feel that damage, oh, pass. That's the gift. The gift is, can you deal with this? Because if you can, the feeling you're going to have,

the feeling I have when I pulled into that airport, got through security and was sitting finally in the, the lounge getting ready to get on the plane in Ulan Batara to connect through Seoul back to the U.S. I was on cloud nine. I could have been on a freaking beach in the Bahamas. I was like, I did it. I won. I'm clean. I'm about to get in a first class flight home. I was so happy. It was like as happy as I could be. I was like, I did it. I accomplished all the goals. And while it was happening, like you said, I've got cuts here. Every time I start to sweat, it's burning everywhere because I've got open like sores everywhere from all like chafing.

But that's the gift is like, that's like literally. And again, I just said, I hate being wet. I hate being dirty. But when that stuff's happening and you're in the fight, it's like, I'm alive. Like I'm doing it. I'm like squeezing every ounce of juice out of this lemon that's life. I'm doing it. I'm living.

And that's kind of how I feel about all this stuff is like, man, there's so much cool. shit that you can do in so many cool experiences that money can't buy this money cannot buy the feeling of doing last man standing money cannot buy the feeling of running a 248 marathon in buffalo or or the feeling of winning a bodybuilder show you can't buy that those are the things that matter in your life having an awesome family having a relationship that you're proud of all the things that you want in your life are free and i know it sounds cliche this guy's full of shit i can hear the haters already, but it's the truth. I guarantee you, if you ask someone who's rich, when they're sick, would you give up all the money to be healthy? 100% of the time, they're going to say yes.

When you're sick, you know, the expression, a rich man has a million problems, a sick man has one. All you have to do is be sick for a few days to be like, holy shit, am I lucky to have the things that I have. So to not be like using this body and this, this life to like challenge yourself and experience these things, you're like leaving so much on the table. There's so much cool shit to do if you can just get over the fear of failing. If failure wasn't an option, if failure wasn't a potential outcome for doing that race, then I wouldn't have been doing a race. I would have just been going on a hike with a bunch of buddies. And that's not challenging. Like, I can do that tomorrow. The, the, the, the, the, the gift in doing these challenges is that it's testing yourself

against others. And it's, for me, getting, going there and trying to win these events. It's not all about winning. Don't get me wrong. I like, but that's what forces me to see, how good can I do this? How fast can I do this? I don't have to win, but I want to. and I just don't understand when people don't have these kind of things on their calendar or on their radar what they're doing with all their time I just feel like they just don't realize

what kind of experiences are out there if they're not out there like pursuing these things and challenging themselves when you have successful outcomes you win a race you set a PR like the gobi desert do you allow yourself time to sit and reflect and enjoy the win or is it already what's next i have had to make a conscious effort to

like really enjoy it like the goby one that's something that i've gotten so much enjoyment out of when i think about it when i'm by myself even when i think about it right now i'm like man i did it i'm so proud of myself i'm like i really am um but a lot of times unfortunately as you know the losses sting so much more than the wins create happiness it's like those the losses are so much heavier. It's like I was telling you earlier, if there's 200 wonderful comments under an Instagram post, the only one that I see is the one asshole who's like making crazy accusations or trying to disparage me in the comments. And I always think like to the haters, I'm always like, man, your parents must be really proud of you. Like, hey, guys, guys, look at this comment I left.

I shit on this guy. I don't even know on the internet. Look at the comment I left. I told him what a loser he was. I'm like, dude, if you called me and said, Ken, look at all these shit. And I'm like, shitty comments I left for someone. I'd be like, dude, are you all right? Why would you even waste your time leaving a negative comment? Like, move along, unfollow. Keep it scrolling.

It's crazy to me. So I've tried to do a better job of like tuning out the noise so that I can't enjoy the accomplishments and the wins without worrying about what other people think about. Yeah, you won, but XYZ, I'm like, this fucking guy. Some people, I can walk on water and they tell me I can't swim. So at some point you have to like have thicker skin and I'm guilty of that myself.

But like I was saying, it's like like with the wins, the losses sting a lot more like the shitty comments on Instagram. But it shouldn't be that way. And I wish it wasn't. I mean, it's unfortunate. I think about this often. People need to poke holes in others to feel better about themselves. And I think it's it's been hard for me to experience this as a. I've built a business and a personal brand over the last decade because I try to put myself in their situation.

And for me to have to go on someone's post and write something negative or pull someone apart and down, that would take so much effort and so much hate out of my existence that I don't personally have. I can never imagine myself doing that. so when I see somebody commenting that, I assume that someone like me with my same mindset and perspective. It's like, man, I must have really did something wrong to piss this person off. That's the thing though is because we feel this way that when someone says a negative comment, I'm like, holy shit, I would never say something like that. So I wonder what's going on.

Someone left a comment the other day that said, I'm in your age group now, mother F or I'm going to give this shit a try. And I thought he was like, I couldn't help it. I normally, my friend Jellyroll is like, Ken, when you acknowledge the haters and you don't acknowledge the hundred people that said something nice, you're insulting everyone. That is true. I feel bad about that as well.

And I usually don't do it both to this guy. I was like, excuse me, buddy, why are you talking to me like this in the Instagram comments? I don't think we know each other, but have I offended you? And the guy immediately was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I guess the way I wrote it sound like, I'm, I meant it respectfully. I'm a big fan and I was like oh okay thanks man appreciate it but I was like and it just kind of hit home like what an idiot like my interpretation isn't even necessarily right sometimes

you may think someone's being totally negative but maybe they just don't know how to express themselves the same way I do it's like when I have a debate with my wife or a disagreement and she's mad that I like handle something a particular way I said I'm sorry that I don't solve problems the way you do we're never going to see eye to eye on like how we would react to different situations. And that's, that's one of the biggest conflicts in life that we have with friends,

partners is like, you and I aren't going to handle the similar situation the same. Look, some of it, yes, someone comes in here and it's like, I'm beating everyone up.

You're like, we're going to be like, all right, well, let's go. We can't just sit back and watch this. But, you know,

someone leaves a comment like that, you and I might react to it differently. You might be like, no, no, the guy's being nice. He's clearly like a fan. Whereas I'm like, what the hell is this guy

having to go at me for? What did I do? You know what I mean? So I think that that's a big part of it. It's so much gets lost in context. But I do try to like ignore the negative comments as hard as it is. But that's that's a flaw with myself that I have to work on. It's something that I actually talked about at onsite is like worrying about the opinions of others. I don't, I don't want to be concerned when I know that what they're saying isn't true. Someone's disparaged me in a way where I'm like, I know that that's not true. So why should I care? I mean, it's so hard to, uh, to, read like emotion through text on on social and it's what makes like the communication aspect hard is I might write something and in my mind as I'm writing it I'm saying it with like I'm being

funny but it comes across as like arrogant it's like I'm laughing as I'm writing it and the person receives like do what's wrong with you I'm like oh no man I was just joking with you like yeah do you not read my mind that's it That's a great point. And my wife will say sometimes I'll post something about the kids and she'll be like, the way you're writing it, I'm just telling you from like a third party, it's almost like,

look how great my kids are. And there's a lot of times I'll do something, ask her and she's like, no, I wouldn't. And then I take it down. Because I'm saying it kind of like as a goof, like kind of like ingest,

like look at these little bad boys doing this. And I do this sometimes. But then I don't, it's not being read in my tone. And sometimes I'll post stuff like that with my own content of like, win or die trying. I might say it like, you know, kind of like, oh yeah, dude, when or die trying.

But I think sometimes when people read it, it comes across very aggressive. And I told Rich this, when Rich Roll was like, oh, I didn't want to meet you because you just came across a super aggressive. I'm not doing that intentionally. I'm not trying to carry myself like a, you know, like a killer. I think sometimes the way I say it is the way I speak in written word, it doesn't come across the way I intend it. And it comes across a lot more aggressive and kind of alpha than I intended to be and that I really am.

I'm like to think I'm pretty balanced. And I think sometimes people think I'm much more aggressive and assertive than I am. Yeah, the way that I've tried to navigate that is by the overuse of exclamation mark and emojis. So I'll text my one friend, Nikki Cass, add these exclamation marks in there. and then he'll send me a voice message back repeating what I said in the way that he reads it. Like, hey man, what's up? Is that the kid on Instagram?

Yeah, he's funny, right? Yeah, he's funny. He does the Italian, uh, imitates his dad. Yeah, dude's hilarious. Oh, that guy is funny, man. Yeah, so he'll send me this voice message, just like, give me shit. I'm like, Nikki, like, I just add these exclamation points.

So I'm, I'm trying to show you that I'm interested in the conversation that we're happening and I'm enthusiastic, but I'm not overly excited. Yeah, that's funny. I have to give you credit because I do this a lot. Like when I see social media personalities and influencers, my default setting is to immediately dislike them. And I don't know why. Maybe it's they, like I'm jealous that they have social media presence that I don't.

But like my friend Matt Choi is a perfect example. I have a lot of runner friends that are like, you're friends with Matt Choi? I'm like, let me guess. You don't know them, but you don't. don't like him because he's on there making noise on social media. By making noise, I mean making moves. Like he's out there.

And they're like, yeah, he just comes across like, you know, like anyone who's talking to the camera can easily, someone who's insecure like me can be like, oh, they're so narcissistic and they think that they're important and like anyone cares about their message. Then you get to know the people and I'm like, no, no, no, Matt Choi. And same with you. I'm like, dude, these guys are awesome. They just have the confidence to put the message out that they want to share. they have the confidence to share the things that I should be doing myself and I'm leaving

money on the table by not being able to do it and get over my own insecurities. And as a result, people that are insecure like me can't see through that unless they know the person personally, which is unlikely that they're ever going to get to know them if they just keep up this wall of like disliking people that are like doing impressive things, even if it's on social media. Social media gets a bad rap, but I think it's the great equalizer. You no longer have have to go to Hollywood and kiss ass and do the things that people used to have to do to get a break. Now, like, uh, that show Insecure with Issa Ray on, on HBO. She had a HBO show called like, like, Insecure Black Girl or something to that effect. But like, that's a perfect example of someone

who's like, I'm a creative. I want to create content and be an actress. But trying to get out there and be like get noticed by insiders seems like insomitable. I'm just going to post my own shit on YouTube and eventually when it's good, they find you. Just like my friend Jelly Roll, he was posting his music on like, I don't know if it's SoundCloud, Spotify, whatever. And eventually he hit one and people were like, oh shit, this guy is good. Next thing you know, he's like wins four country music awards.

When I moved here, I tell him this all the time. He couldn't get arrested. He was like, we went to WWE, sat down in the front and like three people asked to take a picture with him. Less than a year later, he sold out the fucking Bridgestone Arena and is like, we're flying on private jets to the next show in Huntsville together. It's just been insane. But he was able to do that using the tools that are available to everyone. Social media, YouTube, if you have something to say and you believe in yourself and you want it, like the way I want to win a race, the world is like never been so accessible to everyone.

Whereas 30 years ago, unless you figure out a way to get the people in Hollywood to pay attention to you, you ain't doing shit on TV. That's like last night, we went to, uh, we've been going to a lot of shows since getting here to Nashville. And we went to this one of us called a songwrite club, which essentially is where songwriters and new artists can come and perform the music they've been working on in hopes that a producer or people are going to share in it and it blows up. And these are artists who might have been performing their craft for years and years and years. And, you know, you go to these things, not expecting to see, like, crazy talent. Yeah. We went last night and it was, like, extremely talented artists. You don't have huge platforms.

You don't have huge record deals. But they're putting themselves out there. And they're showing up and they're trying. And, like, you know, they're going to get discovered because the right person sees it or their right. video takes off, but it's through repetition and repetition and repetition. That first song, the first video might not hit, but, you know, video 100, song 62, like, that one might hit. So it's putting in the reps, it's putting the work, and then allowing these platforms to

create exposure that we didn't have years and years and years ago. And when people see you doing that, though, it's like, it's so accessible. But when some people, when people see you doing it. they're like, why am I not doing it? And they start to hate what you represent in them. They hate about you what reminds them of themselves. And like, your buddy, Nicky casts a perfect example. Like, that guy could have been, you know,

pick any white-collar job, like a salesman at Xerox and just been the funniest guy in town. But because of social media, we know how freaking funny this kid is. And he's literally created a career for himself. I mean, with the following he has, he probably makes a good living just on social media. I mean, he's good. He's funny.

And without that platform, I'm sure someone like him would have figured out a way to get in front of an audience regardless, but that social media platform just allows him to get in, like, immediately. As soon as you stop posting that, people start sharing it, it's like, it has like a snowball effect. And I just love that we're in that stage in, like, media or technology where everyone can have a fair chance. There's no excuses.

If you don't put something out there, you shouldn't be surprised about the results you don't get. The opportunity is truly unlimited right now. 100%. And that's scary to people. Me too, because when I think there's so much opportunity,

why am I not a billionaire? It's like if you get caught up comparing yourself to others, it's easy to like get caught in that vortex. You have to just appreciate what's available and lean into it and figure out what it is that makes you happy. Because chasing,

you're either working on making your own dreams come true or someone else's. There's this author that I love, Arthur Brooks. And he has a book that was very powerful for a part of my life. It's called From Strength to Strength. And he writes in the article or the Atlantic. He has an article in the Atlantic that I love reading. But his happiness equation, and he also teaches a class at Harvard. on happiness and it sells out every semester.

The happiness equation is enjoyment plus meaning plus satisfaction. Now enjoyment is not pleasure, but it's an intersection of pleasure and higher consciousness. Meaning is purpose or significance. Satisfaction is the balance between what we have and what we desire. I think a lot of things we talked about like today are all encompassing around those three things. Yeah. But you have to have those ingredients, enjoyment, meaning, and satisfaction.

If one's out of balance, you might lose part of that level of happiness. But like we don't see in any of those things, materialistic goods. That's right. Money, status. Those don't bring happiness. It's the purpose and meaning and enjoyment of what we do with our lives. Well, you know they did that longevity study at Harvard, like the long, if someone just studies, longevity study, Harvard, you'll see, like, they measured all these different metrics

over like 100 years of people in Cambridge Mass, at blue collar, Harvard grads, like a cross-section of the society. And they found that the key to longevity, to live in a long, healthy life and happy life was community, having relationships with other people. It's very accessible if anyone wants to, like, check this. But the key takeaway was that people who had a strong sense of community, strong family ties, and it had a lot of relationships live the longer, healthier life. That was the key. More so than access to medical support or health care, diet, everything, community trumped everything. With regards to what you were saying about pleasure earlier, it's like, man without purpose will distract himself with pleasure. I think about that

often because I lived that life for a long time. I would distract myself with getting high. It was like an artificial, short, euphoric window that I could have a few times a day. The problem was the periods in between the euphoria were so far down deeper in that depression hole that I was in before I got high. And it just became like a vicious cycle. And now not only was I still having to deal with all the emotional turmoil that got me to start using drugs because I wasn't taking drugs to get high, I was taking drugs to escape the way I was feeling in hindsight.

And now I not only had to fix what was wrong with me to begin with, but now I've got this effing addiction problem that isn't going away on its own. And like these kind of drugs, you don't just stop taking them in your Gucci. Like I'm addicted to these drugs. Like I'm going to be sick for like the next two weeks. And I mean really sick. And, you know, that's like I said, if when you don't have a purpose and you don't don't have a higher calling and in some direction in your life, you distract yourself with pleasure.

Yeah. Well, Ken, I appreciate the time today, the conversation. Absolutely motivating and inspiring, follow on social and just seeing you get after it and kick ass. And I'm just waiting for the day you run a sub two hour marathon. You're probably going to make 70 years old and they're crushing sub two. So I'm ready for it. Yeah, I wish.

Well, thanks for having me, man. I'm happy that you're here in Nashville. I'm looking forward to spending some time with you and your wife. It's nice to have some more members of our tribe. It was me and Todd Anderson and a few other guys like Andrew East and Eric Decker. It's nice to have another like-minded ass kicker in town. So welcome to Nashville. And thanks again for having me.

It's like a huge honor, honestly, to be here. Yeah, I just got my sauna installed. Cold plunges on the way. I was at Todd's house like two weeks ago, doing contrast. So once my whole setup's in, I'll have the whole crew over and we'll do some, some hot cold. Let's go. One of the nice things about being here is it's such a small place.

Like we went to the UFC fight a couple weeks ago, me and Todd. And he's like, hey, my friend Walker is coming. And I'm like, okay, cool, cool. Hey, this is Walker. I'm like, oh, what's up, man? Chilling, hanging. And Todd or either Todd or Walker posted a picture. I was in tag me.

My phone blew up. They were like, dude, you're with the captain of the Nashville football club, like the local soccer team. I'm like, we have a football team? I mean, we have a soccer team? And they're like, dude, that guy's like a superstar. He's like playing against Messi. I was like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed.

The next time I saw him, I'm like, dude, I didn't realize you were on the football team. I'm sorry. I must seem like an idiot. He's like, oh, no, no, no, it's all good. It was refreshing. It is a small talent. Yeah, for sure. It's cool, man.

It's real cool. But anyway, thank you again for having me and looking forward to spending some time with you in Nashville. Thanks, again. Appreciate you. I don't know.