WHOOP Podcast - Being All In: What it Takes to Avoid Quitting with Army Ranger Lisa Jaster

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

On this week’s episode, WHOOP VP of Performance Science, Principal Scientist, Kristen Holmes is joined by Army Lieutenant Colonel Lisa Jaster is a soldier, an engineer, a wife and mother, and a trailblazer. One of only three women to graduate from the first integrated United States Army Ranger program. Lisa is also the author of Delete the Adjective, where she details her time in Ranger School and how “there is no quitting.” Kristen and Lisa will discuss taking the risk of Ranger School (3:45), signing up for Ranger School (7:40), life in Army Ranger School (11:08), when Lisa felt her most vulnerable (16:44), females in the military (20:34), the power of shedding labels (23:36), applying lessons from Ranger School to everyday life (25:52), takeaways from Lisa’s book (30:26), how Lisa uses WHOOP (34:38), doing the hard things in life (40:45), developing the mentality to accomplish difficult goals (45:45), advice to your women (48:36), and what Lisa is obsessing over (53:10).Resources:Delete The Adjective  Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome back to the WOOP podcast where we're on a mission to unlock human performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of Woop. This week's episode, Woop VP of Performance Scientists, our principal scientists. The one and only Kristen Holmes is joined by Army Lieutenant Colonel Lisa Jaster, a soldier and engineer, a wife and mother, a trailblazer, one of only three women to graduate from the first integrated United States Army Ranger program, one of the most difficult combat training courses in the world. Lisa was the first female Army Reserve Officer to become Ranger qualified. Lisa is also the author of Delete the Adjective where she details her time in Ranger School and how there is no quitting. Kristen and Lisa will discuss the Army Ranger School. Lisa talks about why she signed up. the difficulty and when she felt her most vulnerable.

The power of shedding labels, takeaways from Lisa's book, delete the adjective, how Lisa uses whoop, developing a strong mentality. Lisa talks about how she pushes herself through disciplines like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And Lisa's advice to young women

on pursuing their passions. She says it's about going all in. Great message from Lisa Jaster. The holidays are coming up, and if you've got someone in your life who is obsessed with their health, fitness, tech, sleep, and always finding the ways to feel their best, whoop makes the perfect gift. Check out whoop.com slash gifting to learn more.

If you have a question once you answered on the podcast, email us, podcast to whoop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Without further ado, here are Kristen Holmes and Lisa Jaster. Lisa, your story of being one of the first three women to earn, the coveted Rager tab is just absolutely incredible. You know, as I read your book, Delete the adjective, a soldier's adventures in Rager's School. I kept thinking about this concept of renewal. John Gardner, he's one of my favorite thinkers. He was the Secretary of Health, Education of Welfare under Lyndon Johnson.

And in his writing, he explored this concept of, tough-minded optimism and how the future is really shaped by people who actually believe in the future. And like your book made me reflect on how frequently these qualities of renewal, vitality, optimism, you know, get just absolutely buried under the weight of tradition and history. And, you know, military and kind of hospital systems actually came to mind immediately And I think what people might not really appreciate is when we don't believe in our future, you know, vitality diminishes. And I think the second order effect of that is the, you know, flexibility gives way to rigidity

and creativity fades. And there's this loss of capacity to meet challenges from unexpected directions, which is obviously pretty important to be able to do in a military setting. So I think renewal at an institutional level can only really happen when there are individuals who are willing to take risks. And I'd love, you took the ultimate risk, really. And I'd love to start there. You know, did you feel like this was a risk? And I just would love to, yeah, just get your thoughts on how it all started and in the context of risk. You know, Kristen, thinking about it from an angle of risk is very different. Not a, not a way I've looked at it

previously, mostly because I think one of the reasons why I was able to succeed, 19 women started, three of us graduated. And I think one of the reasons I was able to succeed is because what was my greatest risk? I had a great full-time job. I already had a pretty solid military career. I had a super supportive husband, have, not past tense. I have a super supportive husband. I have two good kids that, you know, love me and support me. So looking at it from a risk standpoint is interesting because I think sometimes being 37 when the typical graduate was 23, 24, I technically was risking more, but I had already risked more in the past. And I'd seen what taking the leap does, what positive impact you can have if you put yourself out there.

And I had the privilege of qualifying for the fittest games. It's a Texas-based CrossFit competition back in 2019. It was after Ranger School. And no, it was, I'm sorry, 2016. And I qualified for it. And then the competition was 2017 very early in the year. And one of the games level, competitors that was in my age group, kind of made fun of me because there was a workout that included a weight I had never picked up off the ground before. And she did it like 15 times. And I did it three times. You know, my body basically imploded underneath me. It just, it was, it was awesome. And I'm crying with joy. And she's sitting there saying, hey, the coolest thing I just saw is that you had no problem embarrassing yourself because we're in a stadium. You know, there's

people 360 degrees. My husband looks over at me. He's like, I'm not sure that's a compliment. And, you know, she's, we're holding each other. And it's, it's exactly what you're talking about. Like, what does risking it all in front of people right here and now bring to tomorrow in the next day and the next day? And my daughter at one point in time has quoted that incident back to me, you know, and you think about that little micro story versus six months at Ranger School, you know, there is definitely risk leading towards a better future, a more integrated future, more talent being accessible to the military, to even, you know, different environments because the discussion doesn't stop with the military.

Now the discussion moves into law enforcement and first responders and where can we start pushing these physical boundaries if we stop, if we stop bucketing people. I heard a conversation with, with, I forget which podcast who was on, maybe the Jedbird podcast, I think, with Fran. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, it was an awesome conversation just to like listen to you guys go back and forth, two peas in a pod, you and Fran.

But what he, he mentioned that, you know, they're, you know, not long ago, you know, a high-ranking military official was very adamant about women not being. a part of our Armory Ranger School. And he was very, very adamant about that. That was not going to happen under his watch. Can you talk a little bit about what changed and just your experience and I guess enrolling in Ranger School? But maybe just talk a little bit about what kind of shifted, I suppose, and what was that process like to actually, you know, kind of sign up and you know, make that first step, I guess. Yeah. The chief of the Army Reserve in 2017 or 2015 when I graduated actually asked me. He said, you know, Lisa, why do you think you're the first reservist

female to have graduated from Ranger School in 2015? And I don't know, sir. I knew it was a leading question and he's a sir. So I just kind of sat back and said, I don't know, sir, you know, teach me. And his response was because nobody was allowed to try in 2014, 2013, 2012, exactly your point. And what changed, I think, is I give a lot of credit to those women out there who were doing combative activities, whether you're talking about MMA, one of the people I really look up to, and I don't know where as a person, I don't know anything about our personality, but think of what Ronda Rousey did for the combatives. world. I mean, how amazing. First female in the UFC Hall of Fame. I mean, she broke boundaries. Women and the way they have performed in the Olympics. It used to be the women's sports were the gymnastics and the really, really, really physical, but not necessarily something a lot of men are doing. Now, the women are starting to do well in wrestling. We had our first U.S. female

win, the gold in wrestling a few years back. And then to look at CrossFit, CrossFit has been huge. I no longer do CrossFit. I do hit training. But look at what CrossFit has done with how people envision women. Bodybuilding and all of those physique type competitions had existed for a long time. But even those women would say, I'm looking to build an aesthetic. I'm not building functional fitness. And now you have reels being made, quoting Joe Rogan about,

but I want a woman who can move a couch. So what has happened is with social media and with the women who are out there doing it is we're finding that there's a lot of people who can. And it's not a gender issue. It's really people can. And when you see so many people out there being fit, posting reels, I actually love following the whoop page

because I love when people screenshot their workouts. And I'm like, ooh, look what he did. And I'm on my bike trying to see, ooh, I wonder if I can get that high on a bike. I know I can sprinting. And it's this culture of acceptability with regards to fitness. And fitness had been the barrier in combat arms. Everybody just assumed women couldn't. Well, you know, no woman could ever do a pull-up before she trained doing pull-ups.

But now that you have women normalized doing pull-ups all the time, you see women doing those kipping pull-ups. and doing sets of 30. I did sets of 30. And I'm, again, I'm 45. So, you know, it's possible. And strict pull-ups and all of those other things come from that as well. And it just, to make a short story long and to answer your question, Kristen, is we just needed to start seeing it for us to believe it.

Wow. I love that. Give us a little bit of a background in terms of just what actually is Army Ranger's school and what makes it so difficult and so well respected, you know, because it's not just in the U.S., but it's respected worldwide as being, you know, the most rigorous school. So I think my favorite stats are it's a nine-week school. On average, if you're in the nine-week school just for the nine weeks, you never recycle, you just go straight through, you walk over 200 miles carrying a pack that averages 60-plus pounds.

some days you're doing 90 plus you sleep on average let me quote it correctly the website says your average work day is 19 and a half hours and that's for nine weeks that's two and a half months give or take and that's that's the just mentally getting through that there's a physical aspect to it but you're eating two meals a day most of the time those two meals are back-to-back. A lot of times you'll eat one meal at 3 o'clock and the next one at 3.30 just because you get 30 minutes of sleep that night

and that's what happens. So you're looking at ingesting 2,400 calories, sleeping less than three hours on average because if the workday's 19 and a half hours, we're still talking, we have to do showers, we have to change, we have to actually get into the bed to sleep. So, you know, you think about all of those things put together

and there's a extreme physical aspect to it. And that's one of the reasons why it's so respected is because they make us tired, they make us hungry. And then they say, hey, I need you to lead troops through the woods, through somewhere you've never walked before. There are no paths. There's no guidelines. There's no beacon at the end.

These people are strangers. They're also tired and hungry. You have to get them to do what we want you to get them to do. and also you have to do combat operations at the same time. So you're firing blank rounds. You're having artillery simulators shot at you. And so they're making this high stress environment where it's extremely physical. You're doing it for nine weeks.

And then you're getting graded on your ability to lead people who are in that same deprived situation as you. And just to give an example of it's about a 50%, sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's lower graduation rate. a lot of people who graduate are graduate on their second or third attempt but on my first day there day zero just shy of 400 people showed up shaved their heads packed their two duffel bags kissed their families goodbye got an airplane went to fort benning georgia um now called fortmore went to fortmore and and said hey i'm going to do this and that was day zero 25% of those people that did all that didn't make it to breakfast on the first day. What?

So that's... What happened between men and breakfast? Just change your mind? Like just... So, you know, there's paperwork. We lost one person due to improperly filled out paperwork. And then that first night, you get a couple hours of sleep, you wake up, you don't have any food, and you have to take a physical fitness test.

And some people had just never done that. Now, as a mom of two, I had pulled lots of all-nighters and had to perform the next morning like babies don't care that you have a full-time job. So I actually think being older and being a mom was an advantage. Let me not kid you there. But it's, you build resilience when you yeah, yeah, as a mom. There's no question. Yeah, heck yeah. But that first day, you do a physical fitness task called the RPA Ranger Fitness Assessment. And it's two minutes of pushups, two minutes of sit-ups, five-mile run under 40 minutes, and then six dead hanged chin up. none of those individually are difficult, but when you're high stress, you're in a brand new

location. People were flying in from all over the nation, but even all over the world and taking this test. You know the standards, but I mean, a push-up where you're hitting your chest to the ground 49 times is not what most of us practice in the gym. We do these little arm movement things. And so to have somebody sitting there when you're in a sawdust pit looking over your shoulder making sure you're touching the ground each time it's it's a different you're held to a different level and yeah 25 about 25 percent didn't didn't make it to breakfast that first day and is that because they didn't pass the fitness test like is it some combination okay so just folks who literally couldn't do 49 pushups on top of and there's a running component and a pull-up component

and what's the fourth component? Pull-ups, chin-ups. Chin-ups. Yeah. And I was really surprised with the five mile run you know five miles under 40 minutes is hard but it's not yeah it's not doable for a lot of people but with the stress of everything going on and it's a route you don't really understand and you're not you don't have your GPS and you're not you're not watching your own pace you just have to you have to be trained well enough to know okay this is about an eight minute split and and a lot of people just just were passing out or puking right as they were hitting that finish line and and couldn't make it onto the next stage. That's wild.

Like what, you know, during those 90s, I read your book, so I know, I know some of this, but for our listeners who might not have read your book yet, you know, just talk about when did you feel like your most vulnerable and, you know, kind of at what point during the program? And did you actually ever consider quitting? So most vulnerable was in mountains. So there's three phases. You have your first phase and your second phase is mountains. There was three of us left in the program. There were three women remaining. Chris Greist and Shea Haver moved on to the third and final phase and I was held back in mountains to redo it. And up to this point, part of my, not all of my, but part of my motivation was to change people's minds about women,

to show people that, because even if Chris and Shea did it, they were in their 20s. I'm in my 30s and not my early 30s. Like I'm 37-year-old mother of two. I turned 38 two weeks after graduating. So I'm touching on 40. And, you know, I know there's plenty of powerful women out there that can do this. But now the barrier was going to be broken by somebody other than me. So I had to dig deep and say, hey, do I still want to be here?

Does it make sense? Like, Chris and Shea are going to be the first woman to graduate. What am I doing? I'm away from my home life. And because I was an active duty army, I was also away from my work life. So every day I was gone, I was damaging. Not that I was working for Royal Dutch Shell, not that Shell would have negatively thought of me because I was serving the country, but it was a volunteer.

school. I wasn't progressing in my job. For a while, my pay wasn't going real well because I was a reservist. So the army wasn't paying me and Shell was taking away money because I wasn't coming to work. And so there's all these stresses on me. So I would say that's the most vulnerable time, but it was a quick transition. Immediately following that, I went in the line, made a phone call home to my husband. And he, while I was in line, actually, somebody asked. a question and it was a really it was a really simple question he had he had some rubbing spots from going commando and he wasn't sure he was going to be able to carry on because it's it was in a painful location and I gave him a piece of random advice

that somebody without that appendage shouldn't have known and he's like how do you even know to do that and I said oh it's just a mom thing like you just think of these kind of weird solutions to weird problems as a parent. And he laughed and he actually was interviewed about that months later. And he talks about that story, which I think is hilarious. But it was that moment where I went from, hey, should I even be here to, wait a second, here, that guy will always remember me. And next time he's in a combat zone and somebody said something like, hey, women don't belong here, he's going to say, no, they can add value, whether it's that story, whether it's me doing as many pull-ups as him

or anything else. So to answer the other question, did I ever think about quitting? I'd be lying if I said I never did, but I actually held a quote of Rhonda Rousey's, of course, in my head the whole time. And she had said in a TV show at one point in time, never let the quit in. Once you give quit real estate in your brain and it's got its foot in the door, it can always nozzle its way in. So I fought really hard to never let quit have some real estate inside me. That's amazing. How do you feel like just understanding kind of the military, like how did the three of

you graduating kind of renew the military? You know, and, you know, did it, did it renew the military in a meaningful way in your opinion? So I've been in the Army. I was, I went to West Point Cadet Basic training in 1996 was commissioned in 2000. I have a five-year break in service, so I am very junior to my commission year peers. What that means is my peers who stayed in are all 06s. They have 23 years of service. I have 17 years of service, 17 and a half, and I'm an 05. So I'm one rank below most of my peers. Not that big of a deal. But I left the military. I left active duty for a reason. And at one point in time, I felt like it wasn't for me anymore. I missed it and went back in.

But graduating from Ranger School gave me a voice. And so I had the honor of attending the President Obama's last State of the Union address as a guest of Michelle Obama. And during that process, I was pulled to the side by all of the joint chiefs of staff, all the military leaders that were also at the, the same, uh, state of the union address. And I'm, I'm in the side room and I, I have a conversation with general Millie at the time who was chief staff of the army. And I said, sir, what can I give back to the army? Like, your army's given me a lot. Just to your point, it's very invigorating to, to accomplish something you never even thought you were going to be allowed to try. And to save you the long version, he ended up,

saying, I need you to be visible. I need you to be public. And that kind of, it turned on a light bulb for me because he was showing me that I now had a voice and I could be influential. And I could use it. I could stick my head in the sand like an ostrich and just ignore it. Or I could, I could be bitter. There was a lot of things I could do now that I had this voice. And there are things in the army that need to change. There are things in the military that need to change. There are things in society that needs to change. And I think now that I have a voice, if I can use it for a positive message, specifically with regards to the military, because that obviously is an area that I know more than in other arenas. If I can use that, and in my case, I'm using

it to say, Christian, we're having this conversation. We met because I'm one of the first females to have graduated from Ranger School. I want to delete the adjective. I want it to never be a big deal when women break barriers because there are no more barriers to break. So I'm going to take my voice and my newfound passion thanks to the military and say, delete the adjective because adjectives describe us. They do not define us. Yeah. That's a great segue to talk a little bit more about your book. Like, you know, what was the first label or Barry you were able to shed during Ranger School? The visible one is being a female. We had to keep a quarter inch of hair while all the guys had to shave their heads. So no matter how much I lowered my voice, no matter how much I walked

like one of the dudes, I always stuck out because not only that, but you can't tell now because again, I'm about to turn 46. My hair is getting a little bit not as red, but it was really bright red. So I had bright red hair and everybody else has a shaved hat. So obviously I stuck out as a female. But as soon as we stuck with everybody on the five-mile run, as soon as we ran to the chow hall, did the same chin-ups as everyone else, knew the same knowledge, the female thing kind of only was important to the general public.

People not at Ranger School cared about that. People within Ranger School just cared whether or not you could carry your own load. but being older and being a mom was a label that people just couldn't get past it because my classmates i mean it's unbelievable like i you know it's just this year like holy shit what it's amazing thank you so yeah my classmates were younger than my issued gear like my duffel bag i had had that duffel bag longer than some of them had been a lot and and so to sit there and and have these be my peers, I was the same age as some of their moms. And so they really couldn't get over the idea that mom or Aunt Lisa is sitting right

next to them, you know, cleaning a squad automatic weapon. Just a little hard, cognitive business there. Yeah, exactly. You know, you kind of have gone through this just seminal kind of experience. and how do you, you know, what are some things that you take from that experience of going through registered school that are kind of with you in everyday life? You know, are there, is there, you know, just kind of principles that you kind of carry around, like that you transfer to your kids and to your husband and to the people close to you and to the world? Like, you know, what are some kind of

things that you just are like, wow, I learned this and this applies so directly to everything that I do every single day? I think we all talk about communication. And you can see. graphics, you can see charts, people love talking about communication. The truth is when you are in a really stressed out situation with everybody was alphas. I mean, there were no betas, there were no omegas, everybody was an alpha that I was around. But, you know, some of them were 22. Some of them were from different backgrounds. Some of them were combat guys and some of them were mechanics and cooks. So you did have a difference of personalities, but there was a huge age gap. And, And so one of the things I definitely learned with regards to communication is how you send the message

matters. So speaking to be heard is kind of the note that I've taken from Ranger School. It's easy to be dictatoral, especially as somebody who was a field grade officer in the military, if I say something, people just do it. Sometimes if I say something, people have secondary and tertiary actions that I don't even want, but they automatically do it. I'm senior. Like, oh, well, if Colonel Jaster said this, these are the other things we need to do. So I've learned that, hey, when I'm communicating to somebody who's generationally different from a different background, different cities, different town, especially when they're degraded, when all of our EQ, like our emotional intelligence drops significantly when you're

sleep deprived. So you have to communicate in a way that they can really hear you without having to translate much. And so with my kids, my husband and I know he's going to listen to this, but my husband and my daughter are so much alike and they're clashing. And they will get mad at each other. And I can't say this to my awesome husband because, you know, he's 51 years old and he's the adult in the relationship. But I will look at my daughter and say, you need to listen to your dad with your dad ears on. So think about translating like old Star Trek type. translation ears, but think about what he thinks he's communicating to you versus what you want to hear. And then when you speak to him, don't make him translate and use his Tori ears.

Let speak to him using your dad mouth. And so that's kind of the lesson that carries over. The other thing I really learned that I never thought of is having kids was something, I married the man of my dreams and he really wanted to have kids and I was okay with that. But being separated from my family, I realized that for me, the next generation is my future and I want to invest in them more. And obviously it's in the, in the aspect of my own children, but even in volunteering to coach cheerleading and right, because you go to Ranger School and then you coach cheerleading. Totally makes sense. But even in volunteering and being around other kids, And the future, it's really important to take that time so that your legacy doesn't die and so that you're not 60.

And when you stop being the person you thought you always were going to be because you're on the far end, you're heading towards retirement, you're still able to add value to society and community. So I think being a mom is more important to me because I went to ranger school, which is a odd lesson to learn. Oh, that's phenomenal. Yeah, I mean, just talking about like your legacy, you know, I have a daughter and, you know, she's very committed to going into the military and, you know, just I don't think you probably realize, you know, the impact that you've had on this next generation, you know, to know that it's possible, you know, to compete at these elite schools that have been exclusively male for so long as, you know, to, you know, to compete at these elite schools that have been exclusively male for so long as, is really empowering and it just totally, you know, lifts the ceiling in a way that I think is so important for our society in so many ways. So, yeah, just I'm going to continually thank you. But in terms of just kind of wrapping the book, which I really hope folks read it, because it's, it's so empowering and a beautiful, I think, reframing of how we think about kind of norms and

labels in society. And what is your kind of general hope for folks who read the book? You know, what do you, what do you want them really to get out of it? So, so I'm going to back up a little bit to Kristen, to you talking about your daughter. I think one of the hard things for me is going to Ranger School is very visible. It was on in People magazine and all the newspapers. But your first question, like, how did we get ready? How did it become okay to now integrate? And it was all the work that other people have put in. And so I want to go back to all those women who are in STEM, yourself included, and it's not as visible, but it is so impactful. It is so hard for my, you know, my daughter is 11 years old and she's five foot nine. She's almost five

foot nine. She's huge, right? And I'm not, I'm not inspiring to her. But to see her grandmother, who's six one who played volleyball and is still playing tennis to see people who are she always prefers to go to the female veterinarian and it's not because it's i'm not taking my kid to the veterinarian i'm taking my cat to the veterinarian with my daughter just just to clarify i'm a little redneck but not that bad but you know just because she likes to see those people out there you know breaking through barriers and making that change. So I got stuck on that and headed backwards. You had a different question for me that I didn't answer. No, no. I was just really, yeah, just wondering kind of what your hope is for folks who read the book, like, what do you really want them to take away

and carry forward? Yes, thank you. And I think when the book came out, people thought this was a resilience book for women to be inspired. And if it is, that's fantastic. That is not my target audience. My target audience is, and because you've read it, you know, it's those guys in there that I've never met a Kristen or a Lisa or a Chris Grice or a Shea Haver or somebody who wants to get their hands dirty. They want to get into the research, into the mud, into whatever it is that's non-stereotip

typically male or, you know, stereotypically male. They've never met somebody like that before. The book is an opportunity to introduce people who have absolutely fantastic women in their lives that aren't like us to someone like me. And that's the goal. So I hope that people pick it up and maybe they see a little bit of themselves in the book. The response I've gotten from the military community has been pretty fantastic. I've had a few men who were either ranger instructors or were at ranger school, read it and say,

oh, wait a minute, I could tell that exact same story. You didn't go through anything different than me. I'm like, yeah, that's the point. And he's like, well, that's cool. I'd work with you. I'm like, that's the point. So that was really what I hope that people get from it. And if you get a little bit of inspiration, that's great.

But hopefully you don't focus. on all the times that I curse. Yeah, I feel like that's just part of the territory. And those people just need to get over it. Lisa, when I met you, gosh, it was a couple years ago now. Or last year, around this time last year, yeah. I remember when I first saw, I was like, oh, my gosh, Lisa, Chastro's wearing a loop. I remember reaching out to, like, my team, like, she's has a poop part.

I just thought it was, I know, I know. I just thought I was like the coolest thing. I'm like, this is like the tip of the spear in terms of like badass humans. And she's like, of course he's wearing a woo. Of course. Yeah, it was just an amazing moment. You know, you have this really, obviously like super inspiring kind of health and wellness journey.

And yeah, I just would love to know, like, you know, how do you use your whoop on a daily basis? Like, what does it inform for you? Well, most of the time it's, honey, leave me alone. I need to sleep more. Yeah. So my biggest failure is in the sleep. But I travel.

I do a lot of keynote speaking. I do leadership development. So I work with companies, which means I'm always on the road. And one of the things that I didn't expect to get out of wearing my woup, but have is it helps me understand when I've depleted myself and I've made myself vulnerable. So I know that I'm like about once every five to six weeks, I got to take a day and just chill. And that's been, that's been true since I left. my mother's house. Like every six weeks, I would take in a complete day and I need nothing but

popcorn and watch movies and I wouldn't leave the house. And the whoop is telling me why now. I didn't, I did it, but I didn't know why. And then as as high performers always do, you push through until you can't. So what ended up happening is about my birthday when, you know, you get the day off and everybody spoils you. Christmas time when you go back and see your family, summer vacation when you're somewhere else. I got sick every single time. And it was my body thing.

Yeah. So now I use my word and I'm like, look at me. My heart rate variables drop significantly. I'm probably really vulnerable for sickness. So maybe I'm going to drink a little more chai tea, do some low grade cardio instead of going out there and blasting my whole doing,

a whole body workout. I'm going to take a nap. I've started taking naps because the whoop has told me to every once in all I'll post on threads or X or whatever all those social medias are now. Whoop is telling me to go outside. I'm going to agree with it. So, but yeah, so it does, it does lead to behaviors and it's not as many athletic behaviors as I thought it would drive as much as it's teaching me how to recover better. Yeah, I love that you mentioned, you know, kind of those moments where you finally get to let down, you know, where you end up, you know, kind of getting sick. And it actually, there's a actual scientific term. It's called the letdown effect. And it usually comes during exact time that you describe, you know, during weekends or

vacations or holidays or, you know, big transitions, like a move or a job change or retirement. And and it's really kind of what's happening mechanistically is that kind of acute stress is going to impact your immune system. And then, and that's actually what, you know, obviously what's leading to the illness. So, but I think, I totally agree. I think WOOP is so perfectly positioned to ensure that you don't ever get in that, get in a position where you have that let down effect. Yes. You know, like you can kind of stay ahead of the letdown effect. Because you want to, when you're on a weekend, you know, a weekend or you're on vacation or a holiday, like you want to be able to enjoy it, right? And, you know, you don't want to be sick. And, you know,

I think people understanding that, hey, we don't have to live a life where we're burning the candle at both ends, you know, in such a way that we get so run down that when we finally have a chance to relax, we actually get sick. Yeah. And I think that's, that's, I think to your point, like, you know, I think that's a great use case for whoop, you know, to kind of help prevent those moments where you allow yourself to get really vulnerable, so vulnerable that you actually get sick. So yeah, that's really quick. Another interesting tie on to that is what stresses you out. And, and I, so I do Brazilian jihitsu. I absolutely love it. My training partners will actually look at my loop data when we're done rolling and be like, ooh, I pushed you the hardest.

Like, it's actually become kind of a funny thing because I've got the armbands, the sports bras. Like, I'm trying. Amazing. And so I did jiu-jitsu in the morning. And then I went to one of my son's wrestling tournaments. And I noticed that my heart rate during his three one minute, or his three, two-minute matches got as high or almost as high as my three, five minutes where I was getting crushed by a human. and yeah i had never calculated that into my personal stress been like oh why am i so tired i'm just i'm just lazy and no it's it's that stress of other things it's so true it's the same my heart rate when

my son is playing ice hockey it's such a you know it's so fast-paced they're so good it's you know but it's just it's pretty brutal you know and i'm just so scared he's going to get injured you I, but, but it is funny. Like I, it's, it's like, it's a workout for me, just watching him play ice hockey. Well, let's talk about BJ for a second, because I, I roll too. And, you know, it makes me love you that much more. Oh, well, you know, it's funny because I think, you know, people are like, why do you know, it's, why do you do it? And, you know, and I think it's, you know, having, it's just really hard, you know, and there's, you know, when someone's trying to, like, break your arm or choke you,

like, you know, and they weigh 50, 60, 70 more pounds and you do, like, that is a position that you're not going to, hopefully you don't find yourself in real life. But I think when you can overcome that and survive it, you can pretty much do anything you want for the rest of the day. Like nothing, like pretty much nothing is going to fix me, right? Like I, you know, people talk about the cold water. I'm like, yeah, I do that for immune, but that is not hard. Like, have a 100, you know, a 200-pound, like, dude sitting on you trying to break your arm.

Like, then come talk to me. No, not to compete about, but I'm just saying, you know, I think when you talk about like doing hard things, so maybe let's just talk about doing hard things. Because I think there's a lot of value in doing hard things, right? And things that like push you out of your comfort zone that, you know, require you to use parts of your brain that you wouldn't otherwise use, challenge you in ways that you wouldn't normally be challenged. And I think actively seeking those opportunities is an important part to, you know, vitality and renewal. And, you know, I think, you know, I can kind of go on and on about it.

But I'd love to hear your perspective on the utility of just generally doing hard things. Obviously, a range of school. But I think when you think about how do I abstract that down into my real life, you know, BJJ is probably a really good example of continuing that theme. Well, I'm going to use a totally different example, right? My husband owns a business. he owns a financial advising firm and they're going to go through something stressful and he was talking about the way his business partners were reacting to it and he said you know i don't know why

i'm not getting as excited as they are and i said nobody's getting shot at so we have these life experiences he and i are dual military and and so we literally said okay we make this decision somebody could die nothing we're going to he's going to do in the financial advising world is going to result in the end of human life. And so when you get to that point where you've got a frame of reference, I think of my infant son when I tried to cut his hair the first time and he screamed as if I was giving him stitches. But I was just cutting some hair.

He had no frame of reference. So if you don't do those hard things, BJJ is such a great example because not all of us can serve in the military. Not all of us can be law enforcement. God bless those men and women in uniform. Like not all of us can do those things. So how do you challenge yourself? This morning, this very morning, there's a group of four of us that got together at 6 a.m.

And rolled because I couldn't roll. All of us had to work today. So from 6 to 7 in the morning, we trained together. And we had a very detailed discussion about the fact that our fight or flight was activated several times throughout that morning. And just like you said, I feel like I can deal with anything. But on the flip side, I know if somebody attacks me in the parking lot that I don't know that I can defend myself. I don't know that my jiu-jitsu is enough to break contact and get safe. But I do know that I will physically be able to think through the attack, which is something I couldn't do before I tried to do something hard because I have that in my head.

well, if Ronnie, 225 pounds, can try to choke me, this guy choking me isn't different. He's got ill intent, but he's still going after my neck. So, yeah, you know, and there's lots of hard things. And most people are untrained, right, Lisa? Like, I mean, we have a huge advantage because we're trained, right? So, I mean, I feel pretty confident that if you come at me untrained, you know, it's not going to take me long to get you in a compromise position. Yes. you know, where I can do damage.

And I don't know, like my kids, until they start school sports, had to do Brazilian jih Tijuana and wrestling. And I wish, and it's not a BJJ advertisement, but, you know, as an adult, as from what I've seen in the world, I loved my stand-up fighting styles, but I've never, ever seen anyone do a one, two, three, kick punch. We've. No, you're on the ground. We're You're going to, as a woman, you're going to be on your back. Like, that's just the reality. And you need to be able to fight from your back. And you need to be able to think through that situation so that you don't just get scared

and free up. Yeah. So, yeah, I think BJJ is a great way. There's lots of other ways out there. I know it's very uncomfortable for a lot of people. But if there's any way you can get comfortable being uncomfortable, BJJ is the way to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think you tap into like a really important point just around the autonomic nervous system, you know? And I think modernity is kind of set up in a way where we don't, we can avoid stress. Yeah. You know, I mean, we have a fridge full of food and, you know, we've got, there's like a lot of comforts, right? Like we've got temperature controlled homes. And so I think it's kind of a real thing that we actually need to induce, I think, some, some stress in order to improve our resilience. For sure. So, yeah, I think there's a little. a lot of ways to do that, of course, you know, to kind of create the ormetic stress.

But, yeah, I'm obviously a huge fan of BJJ as a path as well. But I think you mentioned wrestling, too. I mean, that's another, you know, it's just a grind on so many levels. You know, I think if you can make it, yeah, and I love that it's now, it's being offered to women. Actually, my alma mater, University of Iowa was one of the very first, you know, to kind of create a wrestling program for women. So really proud of that.

But yeah, wrestling is just this next level. Yeah. You know, just mentally, being able to kind of get yourself in a position to indoor ranger school, right? Like that's like a whole, a whole other level. But I guess I'm wondering, like, what did you learn from ranger school in terms of like your mindset or mentality

that you feel like has really translated into kind of your day-to-day life? I think I've readjusted my expectations for myself. At Ranger School, they say things like you're a strong ranger or a smart ranger. To graduate, you have to be both. Let's be honest. But when you look at even our armed forces in general, even if all you know about the military is what you've seen in the movies, is you kind of see there's the people

that are pulling, pushing, lifting, running, carrying stuff. And then you see the surgeons or the leadership who's doing the strategic planning and moving the puzzle pieces around the world. They're literally playing chess with humans and units and equipment. And so you have your thinkers and you have your physical people.

I think what Ranger School did is it helped me be okay with the fact that, yes, I am physically fit. Like, I am. But that's not my greatest asset. So in the military, when you go in the field, you wear a Kevlar. That's the brain bucket, but hard, hard piece of equipment.

And there is a spot for night vision goggles on the front of the helmet. In that spot, I have a placard that has my rank on it. And so I posted a picture online and somebody was making fun of me and said, oh, you're not an operator. And because of my experience in Ranger School, I really was, yeah, I'm not. I'm not. If I'm out there and I'm the person engaging the enemy as an 05 in the United States Army, then who's doing my job? Because my job is between the ears. Being physical fit is awesome. But that's not my job requirement. My job requirement is to be able to move those puzzle pieces and make sure the right assets are in the right locations at the right times. So, I think it took me going through something really, really hard to release the fact that I want to be the biggest badass in the room. And I do. I still do. But I have to adjust and say, first, I have to do the things that only I can do. And so if you're, you know, taking it into corporate America, if you're the owner of the company and you work, I'm an engineer and you go out there and you swing hammers, it's really cool for you to help construct that building. your guys will respect you for it, but if that's how you spend eight hours of your day,

who's doing the designs, who's doing the stress calculations, who's making sure that the permits are submitted? No one. And so being respected by your guys is okay, but more importantly, is doing your job in accomplishing the mission. What advice would you give a young girl who is interested in, signing up for ranger school. I would say whether you're signing up for ranger school or you want to be a stay-at-home mom, I will give you the exact same advice. Be all in. Don't be, if you're going to be a stay-at-home mom, don't be one of these moms who has a cleaning lady. God bless those of you who can afford it and do it. But if you're going to stay home with the kids, don't have somebody else

cook the food, have a nanny, and have a cleaning lady. Like, take pride in whatever is in your domain. So I say it that way because a lot of people think that I don't respect, like, I don't think being the woman boss is the only route. I think being a woman is so much cooler than being a dude because I could be a stay-at-home mom or I could be a structural engineer. Either way, I'm okay with it. Guys, it's a little weird when they're the stay-at-home dad sometimes. Like, hopefully society is getting better at that. We need to change that. Yes, we do.

We do. That's just the other side of the coin. Yes. But I love that we can be either. So no matter what you're going to do, I'd say be all in. So let's say your daughter wants to go to Ranger School. Hey, when you go on to Ranger School, the best part about being all in is you have to shave your head. And the minute you shave your head as a woman, like all of us take pride in our hair.

Even if we aren't very cosmetic, savvy, we still like, yeah, we still take pride in it. It's part of the identity. Yes. When you shave your head, you are definitely all in. So they force you to do that. But I think when I say be all in, when I decided to go to Ranger's school, I wore a weight vest from the time I got home till the time I went to bed. And the reason why is my legs being an office cat, my legs hadn't gotten used to or had got had become unused to being on my feet all day. So I wanted to be on my feet all day with that extra bit of weight.

I wanted to make sure I'm not going to get shin splints for running all day for the first time. So, you know, your body needs to get used to it. So my way, when I say be all in, I'm saying wear that weight best from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to sleep. Be okay with shaving your head. Be okay with wearing boots, which aren't really pretty, but your feet have to get toughened up. So incorporated into your entire life. And as somebody who was a reservist, so I did Army part time one weekend a month. I had two kids.

I had a good job at Shell where I was working a minimum of 60 hours a week. I was living in Houston, so I have two hours probably in the car every day. And that doesn't include my kids going to their practices, swim lessons, everything else they were doing. So, you know, to train up for something like Ranger School, it's not a, okay, minute, you know, hour, 5 a.m. to 6.30 a.m. I'm training for Ranger School. It's I'm awake. I'm training for Ranger School, which means when I was walking, my daughter to daycare, which was less than a mile away, she was on my back inside of a backpack. Or when I was going for a run, one of my kids was in a stroller. If I was bike riding, my kid was, or if I was running, my kid was bike riding next to me.

You know, you have to, when you go all in, it means it has to become part of your life. You don't give up your life for your goals. That's not sustainable. And that also doesn't go back to what you were talking about. Like our future, you have to believe in our future. part of that is including everyone else in your community into your values so the people at my gym would change their workouts and we would do workouts that helped me get ready for ranger school it didn't matter to them whether they were doing pull-ups or not but i needed to do pull-ups so

every day we did pull-ups and you know you just make it a community effort and really and really be all in there's no way else to say it be all in i love that And then I think it comes down to, you know, then you need to think more clearly about what you say yes to. You know, if your framework is one where, hey, if I say yes, I am all in. And that totally, that's a difference. You know, I always think I, you know, I tell my kids, I'm like, don't tell me you're going to try. Like, try and presuppose this failure. Like, let's just be really clear.

Like, you're either going to do it or you're not going to do it. And if you say you're going to do it, you need to think clearly about what you're committing to and whether or not you want to make that commitment. And you're welcome to say no, but don't tell me you're going to do it. You know, if you're going to do it, you better be all in. And I love that so much. Yeah, that's perfect. Lisa, what are you obsessing over right now? So we're going to go back to being an advertisement for whoop.

I am obsessing over trying to get a decent night's sleep. So the car is coming to pick me up for the airport at 4 o'clock tomorrow morning. Of course, my whoop is telling me I should go to bed in the next 20, minutes to get a full night's right between yeah totally it's totally but if i could get consistent sleep so i'm i'm about to turn 46 my body's changing you know not to get into too many intimate details but i am definitely not sorry we love those details i am definitely in the pre-menopause peri whatever it's called i'm on the far side or i'm starting down this okay and so everything that worked for me for the last 45 years

literally within like a two-month period of time completely stopped working. Like, God, that's insane. The food I was eating, I was like, wait a minute. I've had the same five egg whites with one cup of steamed vegetables with a quarter cup of sharp cheddar cheese with Lowry season salt and a waffle for breakfast every day for probably 10 years. And now it makes me feel awful and bloated. So I eat the same thing, but I eat it for lunch. And it's so what am I?

assessing on it's how do I maintain a high level of performance with one being okay with the fact that my body is completely changing and two not letting it change excessively because it's really easy to give up so yeah I have become a hawk on sleep I mentioned her before we got on the call but my my friend Alison Brager also your friend has been on this podcast but you know she's she's huge sleep and the impacts of sleep, Ranger School definitely taught me that I could absolutely lose my mind and start imagining things when I don't sleep, right? So if I can fix my sleep and then I can figure out the proper nutrition, because I know how to work out. But also working out at 46 is not the same as working out at 26 either. Yeah. It's just I think the proportion of time you spend

in cardio versus strength. And, you know, I mean, you probably bias more to a lot of the strength type workout the workout anyway you know so you're ahead of the curve in so many ways Lisa yeah so I can imagine like your symptoms are going to be a lot less egregious than someone who you know has never trained and isn't you know thinking about their nutrition and the way that you are or you know but yeah I definitely will say obsessing over sleep is is is the place to start don't don't get anxious about the sleep well so good to have you Lisa and just you know truly like I feel really grateful to get to talk to folks like you who are just literally changing the world. And, you know, I think the impact that you've had on this generation and generations

of all you is just, yeah, it's hard to quantify. But yeah, you've just been an absolute game changer. So thank you for everything that you've done. Thank you. I mean, what you're doing is huge. It impacts me every day, the research you work on. And I think that's fantastic. Yeah. Well, good. Well, thanks so much, Lisa. And folks can find you on Instagram. I know there's a lot of fake Lisa Jaster. Lisa Jaster's out there. So you need to find the real one. The real Lisa Jaster. What's your handle? It's Lisa A Jaster. All one word. Lisa A. Jop. Okay. Perfect. All right. Thanks for coming on, Lisa. It was so fun to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Kristen. Big thanks to Lisa Jaster for coming on the show to share her incredible story of determination.

and lessons on breaking barriers. Reminder, the holidays are coming up, and if you've got someone in your life who is obsessed with their health, fitness, tech, sleep, and always finding the ways to feel their best, WOOP makes the perfect gift. Check out Woop.com slash gifting to learn more. If you enjoyed this episode of the Woop Podcast,

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