The Brutal Truth About Discipline Most People Avoid - Ken Rideout

You went from opioid addiction to worldclass endurance athlete after the age of 50. What flipped the switch for you? — I grew up in a broken family, lots of violence. My brother is a lifelong heroin addict and criminal in and out of prison. My first job out of high school to pay for college was as a guard of prison. After a few months of that, I just slapped someone in the face and they fired me. But when some of the clients at Enron heard about this, they're like, "Oh, I like this guy. He's crazy. " So, I got a job making twice as much money within 2 days and very quickly went from being poor to being very rich. If you think that money is going to make you happy long term, you're kidding yourself. As someone who was poor and then had money, when I had the money, it created just different stresses in my life and it created this imposttor syndrome where I felt like I was one mistake away from losing everything. And that fear of having money and losing it was far worse than the thought of never having it. The only opinion that really matters to me is my own and the people that live under my roof. The famous longevity study on happiness at Harvard, they studied all these people for 100 years and the only thing that mattered for everyone was community and relationships. — What do you think people need to know then about discipline? You're not going to get what you want without discipline for the most part. The thing that you're avoiding the most in your life. That's exactly what you need to do. All of your anxieties are typically caused by things that you know you need to do, but you're putting it off. What is your selft talk like on days where your own performance isn't up to your standards. — Doesn't have to be. You have to show up and do the work. Do the workout. Do it to the best of your ability. The quality of the workout is not what's important. The work is what's important.

important. — Well, Ken Ride Out, welcome to the show. How you doing? — Thank you for having me, brother. I appreciate you. No, I'm super excited to have you on. We've got a bunch of mutual friends and uh your story was not one that I was all that familiar with prior to, you know, the email uh hit in my inbox where I got to learn more about you and your back your fascinating background and uh I'm super excited to um learn even more in person and celebrate your new book, The Other Side of Heart. — Thank you. — But let's dive right in. So, you went from opioid addiction to worldclass endurance athlete after the age of 50. What flipped the switch for you? — Well, just to give the quick origin story, prior to becoming an opioid addict, I was a pretty welladjusted kid. All things considered, I grew up in a really like rough up rough um blue collar inner city background like in a broken family, lots of violence. My brother is a lifelong heroin addict and criminal in and out of prison. My first job out of high school to pay for college was as a guard in a prison. My stepfather had previously been an inmate there. My brother would end up being an inmate there multiple times. Thank God after I wasn't working there anymore. It's funny when I was working there, it was a guy called Mickey Ward who they made a movie the fighter about. And um he fought out to God three times like legendary fighter. He was a guard. He was a I want to a corrections officer. The prison community attacks every anytime I say guard, but it's for like the layman is a guard, but I was a correction officer. Mickey Ward was a correction officer and his brother Dicky Ecklan who was played by Christian Bill was an inmate. So, it was not uncommon for the guards to know, for the corrections officers to know all the inmates because we all grew up together and most of the there were like one mistake away from being inmates themselves. They just hadn't been caught doing anything yet. But it was a really like rough place. Soon as I started working there, I realized I have got to get my [ __ ] together cuz I just wanted to go to college, play football, play hockey, and I had no like I had never even considered what am I going to do when I get out of college. That to me was the final stop on my journey. And then I started realizing like I can't work here forever. This job sucks. And like I could end up getting killed here. It was dangerous. Long story short, I went to New York as a pharmaceutical sales rep for like six months. Met a bunch of guys working in finance. Got hired as um and a trading assistant on a institutional sales trading desk, uh trading commodities, electricity specifically. And again, long story, but you know, when you're the junior guy there, you're getting bullied, getting hazed by the older guys, which is crazy. I'm boxing for the New York Athletic Club. I've worked in a prison. Like I wasn't the kind of person that would get bullied necessarily. I wasn't really a tough guy, but I was definitely not a victim. — And um after a few months of that, I just slapped someone in the face and they fired me. And — but the when some of the clients at Enron heard about this, they're like, "Oh, I like this guy. He's crazy. " Like, so I became I got a job making twice as much money within two days. Became like a senior trader. Was re was trading for Enron and all these big institutions. and very quickly went from being poor to being very rich. And as crazy as it sounds, and I tell people this all the time, if you think that money is going to make you happy long term, you're kidding yourself. And I get it if you've never had money, but I'm telling you, as someone who was poor and then had money, when I had the money, it created just different stresses in my life. And it created this imposttor syndrome or fraud complex where I felt like I was one mistake away from losing everything. And that fear of having money and losing it was far worse than the thought of never having it because I didn't know what I didn't know. Now I knew I like this and I don't want to lose it. But I had no real confidence or adult skills. I didn't have like necessarily mentors or role models growing up. So when I quickly um I my career ascended so quickly and I got hired by Caner Fitzgerald to go to London and run European Asian um European and Asian commodities trading. — Wow. So I'm in and right before I went to go to London and I was intimidated like in that field if you're the best salesperson or the best trader now you're the desk manager of other men. I'm like I have no leadership skills in that in this in the formal sense. I mean I can I know how to like kind of lead from the front and be aggressive but I don't know how to like diplomatically lead other men. And I was just a fish out of water and I knew it and it was intimidating. I had a minor ankle surgery. Got prescribed some percoets. And when I took those percoetses, I was like, I have no anxiety whatsoever. I feel I couldn't feel more confident. I mean, it was delusional and crazy. And people probably thought I was arrogant and nuts, but to me, I was like, "No, I'm great. I've never been so confident. " And um that started like a 10-year odyssey of just using — prescription painkillers around the clock every single day, like 30 to 50 percoetses a day for 10 years. — A day. — They I mean I had to take a couple of them. I had spine surgery about a year ago and they put me on my ass. — Yeah. Well, like anything, you grow like you build a tolerance to the point where even five or six of them would just like get me like feeling nice for a few for like 15 or 20 minutes and then two or three hours of like counting the clock down until I can take some more. — Wow. — That was horrible. It was like I was trapped. And like I said, prior to this, I was like a pretty welladjusted person. I was I liked myself. I was like confident. And now I had destroyed all of like my natural confidence and all of it became just a facade. So I was either high and happy that I was on these drugs or ideulating on suicide because I knew I was digging this hole deeper and deeper. And very quickly I realized, oh my god, I can't stop taking these pills. When I do, I'm deathly sick. Cuz when I moved to London, I didn't bring them with me cuz I was naive. I was like, I'm just going to stop when I get there. And I got so sick that I couldn't really get out of bed. And I had someone in um Boston FedEx me a huge bottle of Oxycontton. And once it got there, I was like off to the races. But now I knew I was trapped. And then I eventually found a shady doctor in London that would supply me like anything I wanted for money.

— I mean that's got to be one of the hardest addictions to break. — Yeah. — Right. So how did you break it? — Yeah. And it's funny, you know, when you say like a world-class athlete, I think of all the things that I've ever done in my life, that is by far in my mind the most impressive and the mo and the most difficult even though it was a self-induced, self-inflicted wound. I am very hard on myself about what I did to myself. Um, the first time I mean I, you know, like anyone when you go through this, it's very hard to get sober and stay sober. So, the first time I got sober in London, I just like white knuckled it. I just locked myself in my apartment. And it was like I'm called in sick for a week from work and just was sick. Losing weight, not sleeping, sweating, freezing. It was hell on earth. Got sober and then I started going to NA meetings like you know on Narcotics Anonymous and um found a good groove over there. Eventually I worked at Kenner during 911. So when 911 happened, we lost all the employees that I worked with in New York, my counterparts. and credit derivatives was the most lucrative business at the institution and my trading desk in London was making a lot of money and I was doing a good job trading commodities and they were like, "Hey, come back and take over credit derivatives. " But if you can imagine, I have a degree in sociology. I barely understood commodities trading. I just knew clients and could get trades done. And now I'm trading like structured credit products, basically like derivatives or options on fixed income instruments, correlation trades, basket trades. They it was so over my head, but I was like, I'm just going to fake my way through this. And I did. And I end up making even more money doing that. And then the financial crisis hit before I came back. Also, Enron went bankrupt. So my business in London was getting destroyed. And at the same time 9/11 happened, which is why they took me from commodities to credit derivatives. Now I get into credit derivatives. It's going really well. I'm an interdeer broker. So I'm brokering trades between banks, but I've always done this. Every job I've had, I'm like, what's the next step? This is a good job, but it's not necessarily a career being an institutional broker. But if I could get on a trading desk at a bank, typically you have to go through the whole like um associate program. you rotate on a desk. You have an MBA from Ivy League schools. It's a very competitive field. But because I had relationships with hedge funds and big institutions, I skipped the whole thing and became like a senior salesperson trading these complex instruments, selling them. So there was traders, my clients would tell us tell me what they want to do. I'd tell the trader and then the trader would price these particular instruments. So all I was doing was relaying prices and maintaining relationships, which is why I was able to kind of fake my way through this. — Fake it till you make it. — Yeah. And it was I mean it was so incredibly lucrative. Like all the stuff that blew up during the financial crisis is what we were trading. So until it blew up, it was like people were making like tens of millions of dollars. The bed, the desk was making hundreds of millions. And you know, it was great until it wasn't. And then I had just gotten married. Um was living in a big beautiful penthouse apartment in New York. and everything fell apart and I was like, "Oh my god, like I might go bankrupt. " I and I just figured my I worked my way out of it. I went back to Caner Fitzgerald, funny enough, which was like going back with my tail between my legs. But that was the kind of job where you could make you could eat what you kill. So you could make money right away, — which I did. And during the crisis, there was a lot of uh price dislocation. So opportunity to buy and sell stuff way off market because things were whipping around and the prices were so volatile. So it was like a perfect storm this time of good things happening. So I was able to survive this crisis and then I eventually got a job with credit agricultural selling vanilla corporate bonds. And at that same time my wife and I had been married a few years. We got matched to adopt a daughter from Ethiopia. And at that point I was like if I don't get sober I'm going to kill myself. I'm not going to live like this. I just I'm disgusted with myself. I genuinely had like contempt for myself, but we're living in this beautiful high-rise apartment in New York. By all outside measures, everything looks great. I was exercising, but not like fanatically or not obsessively. And um I went to an outpatient detox on my own valition. I never got in trouble for drugs. I never had a problem getting drugs. And um they basically put me through like a medically assisted withdrawal week of you know riddlin to stay awake during the day. Xanax to go to sleep. It was it was bad. But if you could get one week sober off the opioids, you could then get a shot of a drug called Vivitrol that was like an opioid receptor blocker. It attaches to all the opioid receptors and you can't get high. — So no matter what you could shoot heroin, you wouldn't it wouldn't affect you. It's like methadone. Sorry. methadone is like weaning you off of the drugs and then you if but you have to be off the subutex methadone everything for a week which is what most people can't do. So I got to the week got the Vivitrol shot and um that changed my life. We adopted my daughter. I started to exercise obsessively almost replace one addiction with another. And um that's when I started to see like massive improvements in my performances. Like initially I was doing triathlons when we only had one kid, then two kids, and I could get away with training for like five or six hours on Saturday and Sunday, but eventually my wife was like, "Yo, what are you doing? Like this is crazy. You're missing everything. " — And um around that time, we moved to LA. Um and I just started running. So we live in the Pacific Palisades and I just run up in the Santa Monica Mountains every day, 10 miles minimum. And uh around 2017 18 I started to win races. I mean I knew I was getting better but then I won the Malibu Half Marathon a couple times and then in 18 I won the Pasadena Half Marathon which was like 9,000 people finished in the Rose Bowl on KTLA. I was like oh my god I'm like running into the Rose Bowl. I'm like I'm gonna win this race. This is crazy. — Wow. — And it was shocking. And then I really started to get aggressive at that point.

— You have like a superhuman level of grit. It's like incredible. Do you think grit that level of grit that you've displayed throughout your life thus far? I mean, is that something that you think you were born with or is that something that you've built? — That's a great question. And I would say I was talking to my middle son is very timid. He doesn't he loves sports. He's very good, but he doesn't want any contact. He doesn't want to get hit. be hit. And I was talking to him the other day and he was like, "Yeah, I'm scared, of course. " Like, and I was like, "You know something? I was always scared as a kid, too. I just hit it really well. And what I said to him is, "Everyone is scared to a certain extent, but the people that get really good learn how to do things even when they're scared. " And I would say that if I've done anything well, it's like doing things, really difficult things, being comfortable with being scared. But I definitely trained myself to be tougher. I wasn't always tough. going through the addiction and [ __ ] really like thickened my skin cuz I was like I had been around losers my whole life and now I was one of them and I was like I cannot believe I've done this to myself. I've got to make up for this and I've got and I you can see me I don't have any natural special gifts. I'm not naturally huge. I don't have like big muscles. I'm just very average. But the one thing that I can control is the way I think about everything. And the nice thing, if anyone's listening and thinks that I have anything that they want, everything I've done is available to everyone. I have just convinced myself that I'll die to win and you'll have to kill me to beat me. And a lot of people say that, but very few people demonstrate it. And I think if I've done anything well, it's demonstrating like, no, yeah, I will literally all die to win. — But I couldn't compete if I didn't have that mentality. So on one hand, it's a blessing. On the other hand, it's a curse. But it's like I heard Tom Brady talking the other day and I'm not trying to compare myself to Tom Brady, but he said that when he would every day, even in practice, he was a psychopath and he was like that was the only way I knew how to win. So I was thinking about that. I'm like I couldn't be here doing this interview with you if I didn't adopt some kind of psychopathic tendencies when it was time to like go dark. And you have to get to that dark place to push yourself to the brink of like collapse to get to the finish line of a marathon as fast as you can cuz like the last typically the last like 5 to 10 miles you're thinking like I'm going to collapse. — And I know it sounds crazy to some people and that's cool. Some people are made to be participants, but for people that want to be competitive, that's the only way I know how to do it is to like put it all on the line and like I said, it's available to anyone. But I definitely have like conditioned myself to adopt that mindset and mentality. So, I think that the silver lining to all of this or the uh the light at the end of the tunnel to this whole story is like anyone who wants to do this can do it. I don't have I was not a good runner. I was didn't run in high school or college. I didn't even run competitively until I was like in my late 30s, early 40s. — Well, what does the word balance evoke for you? Because it seems like you've lived a life that was pretty tilted towards the extremes. — Yeah, I have no balance at all. My wife would be like, there has to be a balance here. And I'm like, do you want to I don't know how to maintain the lifestyle that I have without being out of balance. So, we could do that, but I don't think we can have the thing. And my wife is not materialistic. She doesn't have fancy handbags. She couldn't care less about money. She just likes what she just likes to like have a nice comfortable house and I'm like I don't know how to get to where I'm going without focusing all my energy on whatever is at top of mind right now. So if it's like I've got a race coming up in a few weeks, I have to devote a lot of time and attention to that to the extent that even when I go to races and people like oh do your kids come and watch. I'm like race that's like work. It's like I'm going to take like the uh you know medical boards or the um the bar exam. I can't have distractions when I'm there and I'm a jerk. I'm like until that race is over I'm like it's all about me for the few days. So I just go by myself and if I'm traveling and I stay in a hotel by myself and typically don't even leave the hotel. I just — Wow.

— Yeah. — Is it obsession or is it just passion? Oh, probably a little bit of both because I I'm super passionate about it, but I definitely have replaced one addiction with another. But I said to people like, "Listen, I don't have all the answers. Like, do not take advice from me. I don't know how to tell people. " It's like people asking me what running shoes they should wear. I'm like, "How do I know like what is I don't ask the Daytona 500 winner what tires he has on his car so I can put them on my, you know, pickup truck. " I'm like, "You have to figure out your own way. So, don't take my advice, but for me, this is the only way I know how to stay sober. And one of my addictions had me wanting to kill myself and hating myself and living in a constant shame storm. And the other addiction has me here talking to you about my new book. And I'm like, but I'm also not oblivious to like being a create I'm not I don't I think I have a very healthy relationship with my family, with my children. And at the end of the day, the only opinion that really matters to me is my own and the people that live under my roof and they seem to like me. So, I'm trying to like that's at the end of the day, the only thing, you know, when the famous um longevity study on happiness at Harvard, they studied all these people for 100 years and the only thing that mattered, the under the overriding theme for everyone was community and relationships. And I think about that all the time. And I love my friends. The people who are my friends, they know if like they call to me as someone's coming to my house to beat me up. I need help. Some people are going to be like, "I'll call the cops. " I'd be like, "I'm coming right over. " You know what I mean? Like this and if you have a few friends like that, you're very lucky cuz most people are like fair weather friends. So, I value and cherish and love my friends and my family and consider myself to be a very good friend and that's probably more of an obsession than the exercise or anything else is maintaining quality relationships. — Super important. I'm a super loyal friend. Um, — everyone who's mentioned you to me that I when I told them I was doing this, they loved you. Every everyone spoke very highly of you. — Thank you. Wow. You should know that. — That's flattering. Yeah. No, I um I I value my relationships and I'm not always I will say I'm not always the best at nurturing them, but I'm incredibly loyal. So, if anybody ever in my life needed anything or, you know, the idea of losing people from my life is very something that's very painful to me. It is super interesting the your archetype, you know, like I don't know Rich Roll all that well, although we're friends, but you know, I know that he's come from a similar background of addiction, and he was able to funnel that, you know, whether you want to call it addiction or obsession or um unadulterated passion, you know, he's transmuted that into this passion for endurance sports. Yeah. As have you. And pretty much every great performer that I know. I mean, in a way might from the outside be considered obsessed, but it's that level of obsession that drives them ultimately to be, — you know, at the top of their tops of their field. — Yeah. No, I agree. And uh the one thing I love about Rich is like he's so introspective that once he was done with his endurance journey, he kind of moved on to the next chapter. I think he's like very into being a creative. I think in a perfect world, he'd love to like write um screenplays and write books. I know he's working on another book, but a lot of people when they meet when I tell them that I'm really good friends with Rich, like I love Rich, he's a good friend, they're always a little bit surprised because they're like, "Wow, I wouldn't imagine you and Rich to be friends. He's a lot more um introspective, a little bit more reserved, — but I think that's why we get along because uh we respect each other's differences and um you know, he's a special guy and uh he's been incredibly kind to me. I wrote a blurb for the book. — That's amazing. Yeah. I think you just have to I think like obsession kind of um has this negative connotation to it. But again, I think like to be at the top of your field, you do there is a level of obsession that you do have to adopt. Um you know, I mean, I'm obsessed with the work that I do, the research that I the rigor that I put into the research that I put out to my audience. Um I know you know I have many musician friends and they approach their craft with the same kind of you know obsession that you're talking about. What is it about your

about you know maybe it's your upbringing maybe it's just your brain that has driven this level of obsession that has led to success in so many fields. I mean whether it was in business now it's in running. Um maybe you could sort of unpack that for us. Yeah, I wish I had an easy answer for you, but I think it's a combination of all the things that I've been through. I'm sure that there's an element there of like wanting to like the young kid trying to like vive for my dad's affections. My parents were divorced, so my dad would come and get me and take me to hockey. That was the only thing we ever did together was go to sports. My mother was not into sports um at all and was remarried to a guy who wasn't into sports. So, that was a place for me and my dad. And then when sports ended, that's when the drug addiction kind of filled that void. So getting back into running kind of like gave me some purpose. And I I hate to think that I'm like still this young kid vying for someone's attention, but I would be it would be naive to not think that there's like something to that. Um, and I'd also say that it whereas the drugs and my addiction put me into this shame storm and made me feel terrible about myself in ways I can't imagine and that I could have never imagined. The running has given me some pride and uh it's kind of balanced out some of that shame that I had dealt with. And I also think now there's an element of like look, we all have one main responsibility whether we like it or not and that's the responsibility to take care of ourselves. Like your number one responsibility in life is to take care of your own mental and physical health. No one's going to tell you what you can eat for breakfast and lunch and dinner. No one's going to tell you have to work out and you see it all the time. Like people that are just completely neglect the greatest gift in life and that's their own body. Like we're no one's getting out of this alive. And if you don't maintain like the vessel that you're traveling through time in, you're gonna get exa you're gonna like reap exactly what you sow. So it's a combination of things, but I don't like I said a lot of times I wish I had an easy answer for people be like this is what you do. So I think the book really outlines like don't listen to what I say. You don't have to take advice from anyone else. I'm just going to give you some colorful stories about some of the challenges that I've dealt with and how I overcame these challenges. — Well, you said a few really important things. I mean, that it was uh it provided a purpose for you, a sense of meaning, that it was at least early on in life there to fill a void. — Yeah. — Um I think that's super common. I mean that's that's a common thread that um that I would say is something that I can identify at least in the interactions that I've had with other you know super successful people um you know and and personally like I can relate to as well like I prior to the work that I do when my mom got sick I mean she was the inspiration for all of it. I would say that I probably my purpose in life felt to me very undefined at that point until I realized what my greater calling was and um and it was communicating health science as a result of this like awful thing that transpired in my life. — Yeah. Um I my wife has just um gone through breast cancer. She was diagnosed in September, had a massctomy in November, and is now cancer free, getting ready for reconstructive surgery. But — that's just a perfect example of like how fragile life can be and how important it is to take care of yourself. And um I don't think that anyone that people admire, Elon Musk, Andrew Huberman, thought leaders in every field, they're all kind of crazy and obsessed if you see them behind the scenes. It's funny. People always want their end result. No one wants the work that comes with it. — Everyone wants to win a race, but not everyone is going to get up and I mean, for the last 5 years, I've run 4,000 miles a year. So, average of like 10 and a half plus miles every single day with no days off. — No one wants that, but everybody wants to like win a race and or whatever winning is to them. like and it and winning is fun, but it's funny like when you get to that level of obsession, I can I won uh the Myrtle Beach Marathon the day before I turned 50 and I called my wife and of course I went by myself to the race and I'm like I won. She goes, "How how was it? I won. " And she was like getting uh emotional and starting to cry and she was like, "You don't sound that happy. " I'm like, "I ran 230 high. Like I think I could have run under 230 there. " And she's like, "You ran fast enough to win. " And I was like, you're right. So, it's as important as it is to be obsessed, it's also very important to enjoy the journey and enjoy the the victory. And that's something that I haven't done well. And like I said earlier, like I don't have all the answers and I don't think that on the surface anyone would necessarily want to go through the things that I've gone through. It's like I heard Elon Musk say recently about his own success in the money. He's like, I don't think anyone would want my life. And there's an element that of that I feel about myself is like no one would want to go through this. I don't say anything in this book in a like braggadocious way. I'm not here like, "Yeah, man. I'm awesome at running. What do you want to know? " I'm like, "No, no, I'm tortured and dealing with some bullshit. " But along the way is my way of coping with that has allowed me to win some like impressive endurance events. You know that it what you just said reminds me of a meme that's circulated sometimes in bodybuilding circles and the joke is so when does the body dysmorphia stop? Yeah. — And then the second part of the meme is that's the funny thing. It doesn't. — Yeah. No, I think there's an element of body dysmorphia for anyone that's really into it. I'm sure you can relate too is like sometimes I feel like, "Oh man, I'm so overweight. " And other times I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm so skinny. " Someone said to me the other day, "Wow, you look like you lost a lot of weight. " I was like, "Oh, you couldn't have said anything more painful to me. I'm not trying to be skinny. " But if I were too big, I'd be like, "Oh my god, I got to lose weight. " So, I think that there is, look, I think the difference with a lot of this thing, these things, body dysmorphia in particular, is some people just aren't comfortable admitting any kinks in the armor. Whereas, I'm like happy to point them out because I figure the more the quicker I can identify the problem, like try to work on solving the problem, which I haven't always done well. Like I would have issues with my wife and be like, "I know this is my fault. I did this. " And she's like, "Pointing out the problem doesn't fix it. You've been pointing out the problem for the last several years. Fing do something about it. " And it's a good point. And I would say that in a lot of ways having taken extreme accountability for yourself is at the very least the first step towards like recognize this has to be fixed. Now you've got to actually fix it. I interviewed a guy called Nick Bear recently. — I love Nick. — Yeah. Oh, he's the best. He's had me on his show a bunch of times and been really helpful um to me personally. And um he was saying the same thing. He said he had an eating disorder as a child. Like went to eating disorder clinic. Like we just released the interview on um Wednesday um a couple days ago. And uh he was like, "Yeah, this body dysmorphia. " But you can see it when you talk to him. It's like I'm not it's not I'm not trying to be offensive. It's like, yeah, anyone who's really obsessed with this kind of fitness journey, I think has a level of that. But I think there are a lot worse things that you can have, a lot worse uh elements you can have. Um, but like I say, it's like sometimes you don't get one thing without the other. — Yeah. No. Amen. How do you will yourself

to the pavement on days where motivation is lacking? — I mean, you've said you run 10 miles every day. — I've already done it today. I didn't want to do it. It sucked every step of the way. I wanted to stop. But that's a great um question and observation. And I would say that that's where and again I don't want to sound like corny or like just rattling off cliches, but it's just discipline. It's like as you can make it as complex as you want or as simple as you want. It's just discipline. It's like have some pride. Make some commitments to yourself and recognize that all of the gifts that come with discipline. If I take a day off, maybe it leads to two days off. And you know, my biggest fear in my life right now is the thought of being mediocre. Like I said, we're no one's getting out of here alive. I don't want to go through life and be like, and also ran at a horse race. Like, you know, the two, four, and five were first, second, and third. Oh, eight and nine horses were there, too, but no one knows like that they were in the I don't want to be like that. And maybe that's another issue I have to work on and I'm not immune to the fact that I have plenty of issues. And I talk about in the book going to um spending a week at on-site workshops which is like the Hoffman Institute or Bridges, you know, it's like a 5-day intensive impatient um psychoanalysis, psychotherapy um facility, trauma healing center. And that was much harder to me than um going to Mongolia and running across the Gobi Desert in a race. But just like with the running every day, when I know I have to do something, it. And it's like people ask me how was onsite. I'm like, imagine you had back surgery. How was back surgery? Back surgery sucked, but I'm glad I did it because I'm better now. — That's what all of this stuff eventually is. It's like, yeah, it sucks running dayto day, but guess what? It's got me sitting here talking to you and uh again, I'm like super honored to be here. — Oh, of course, man. What do you think

people need to know then about discipline? Um and how to cultivate it in their own lives. — Again, I wish I had like a witty like strategic answer that people could be like, "Oh, yeah, I could do that. " But like my like when I talk to my kids or people that are like I'm tight with my answer is like very blunt like cut the [ __ ] and take responsibility for yourself. — You're not going to get what you want without discipline for the most part. You want to get a PhD. There's probably a lot of people that are able to do a lot of things. They're just not willing to put in the work. Yeah. Like — you want to be a neuroscientist? Most people can probably do it. It's going to be easier for some people that might have a natural gift for intellect. Like there is a road map to do anything you want in life and especially with like AI and now YouTube you could get a freaking PhD just on YouTube courses everything that you have ever wanted is readily available especially with AI so it's like how are you willing or able like there's a big difference like most people are able to do a lot of things but not everyone is willing to put in the work and I think that you know like um Ryan Holiday The obstacle is the way. The thing that you're avoiding the most in your life is telling it. It's that's exactly what you need to do. All of your anxieties are typically caused by things that you know you need to do, but you're putting it off. You know, you've got to call uh this guy to get this tax situation worked out or this medical bill is wrong and it's stressing you because they're saying you owe this much money. I'm only using medical bills because I've got a gazillion of them from my wife's cancer. And it's like I've got all these like bills like all these things where I'm like this is wrong but I have to call them and I got to talk to 55 people be before I get to the right person. But I'm like I know if I do this the rest of the day is going to be so great and if I don't do it I'm going to wake up tomorrow again knowing oh I got to call those people. That's how I think about that's the simplest way I can describe discipline is like pay me now or pay me later. But there are things in your life that you know you have to do. Either do them or let the like work pile up. Same thing with addiction. I'm in a hole of addiction. You're in a hole. Stop digging. — First step, stop doing the thing that you know is causing you problems. It's like dos and don'ts. I know I've got to do something, so these things to get there. The first thing you need to do is stop doing the [ __ ] that's preventing you from doing the things that need to be done. — I've heard it said that discipline is deciding between what you want most and what you want now. — Yes, that's perfect way to describe it. you want to be a winner like there's whatever it is you want to be the best electrician I was talking to my kids about this they were like talking about college and this and I was like listen there's something to be said for being a builder if you like carpentry if you like electrician if you want to be a plumber and with that you can be the plumber that makes you know 50 grand a year and is coal whatever like whatever your journey in life is that's cool I'm not here to like criticize any but I'll tell you something else there's someone who's going to build a plumbing empire and run the like biggest plumbing company in California and be worth a billion dollars. There's no barrier for entry in this country. You can be anything you want to be. And most of the time it's available for free if you're creative. So that's what I mean about discipline. It's like you can be a plumber, show up and do the bare minimum. Cool. Or you can be like the go-getter that's like, "No, how can I I've got so much work. I'm going to start outsourcing it now. my own shop and I'm going to hire other people to do it. Maybe I'm going to hire 10 guys that just want to show up and get paid. But every, if you think of every field, car washes, there's people that are car wash magnets. There's other people that have a car wash that they're just getting by. — Only you can decide. And the key to most of that is having the discipline to do things that the other people aren't willing to do. — The discipline. Wait, say that again. The discipline to do things that other people aren't willing to do. — Yes. And and for the most part, everyone knows what it is. It's like if you want to be the best runner, I told people for the longest time all I did was run more than everyone else. I wasn't good when I started. I just ran more than other people. I got myself without a coach, without knowing anything about formal run training down to a 233 marathon simply by running 10 miles every day. When I felt good, I'd run as fast as I could. I didn't have any rhyme or reason. I didn't do track workouts. And then on the weekends, one weekend day a year for uh week for about 12 weeks, I'd go down to the beach and I'd run a 20 mile progressive run. So I'd start out pick comfortably and I'd slowly just turn the screws and ramp it up and finish at like, you know, 530 pace and literally drop into the sand feeling like how am I even going to walk back to my car? — But anyone can do that. And I and just from that discipline alone, I ran a 233 marathon in Tucson in like 2017. Then I hired a coach and got down to 228 in the first after 12 weeks working with a coach. I went from 233. And when I ran 233, I then ran 234, 235. I just couldn't get faster. Hired a coach and 228 the first time out just by fine-tuning the training specifically to train like a professional runner.

— Wow. Yeah. Talk to me about the what is the mindset? I'm always interested in the mindsets of champions such as yourself. Like what is your selft talk like on days where your per where your own performance isn't up to your standards? — Yeah. No, that's a great question because it doesn't have to be. You have to show up and do the work. But I've done for before I hired a coach, I could never run as fast in training as I would in a race. In a on race day, I would just like rise to another level where I was like, I can't believe I'm running this fast. But when you're doing work workouts towards a marathon, so let's say you're training for 12 weeks and you've got two workouts a week, like one is on a track, one is on the road. So you're doing like three miles at race pace, a mile recovery, pace. Many times those workouts suck. I look at them, I'm like I honestly I'm like I'm barely running under six minute miles, which I get it sounds fast. Everything is relative. So disregard the times for the people listening that's like, "Oh, he's a jerk. That's crazy fast. " Not if you're trying to run like a 210 marathon. Like to the pros, they're running 140 miles and doing their workouts close to like, you know, sub five minute miles. So, all that to say, if I'm trying to run a five, my best marathon is 539 per mile for 26 miles. So, if I'm trying to run three by three miles at like 545 pace, then a mile recovery and I'm trying to do it. If I'm barely getting under six minutes, I'm like, how am I ever going to do this on race day? Why is this so hard? But like anything with experience, you come to realize the quality of the workout is not what's important. The work is what's important. It's like if you're trying to write a book and you're journaling and you read the journal, you're like, "This this doesn't make any sense. I sound like I'm a special needs. This is crazy. — Doesn't matter if the book comes out the way you wanted to. " So, if you try to overanalyze the uh what do they say? Major and the minors. You're wasting all your time. — Do the work. Do the workout. Do it to the best of your ability. You know, if you're trying hard, like if I'm trying hard and the times stink, I'm just like, "F it. I'm just building resilience. " Same thing if it's snowing, raining, and I can't do the workout. I'm like, I do not want to be out here in this rain, in this snow. But you know what? I know most people aren't going to do it. So, I'm one day ahead right now. And I really tell myself this. It sucks the whole time. But I convince myself that like I'm doing something that other people aren't willing to do. Even if it's not true, which is the other thing that I would say is very important to people. Your own selft talk doesn't no one else has to believe it. You don't even have to believe it. When I show up to race, I'm like, when I was raising money for the asset management firm I worked for here in LA, we met with a bunch of placement agents, big prominent agents. They were like, we don't think we can raise money for this. You guys have never had a discretionary fund. Why do you think you can do this? And I said to the guy, I think I'm going to win the effing Boston Marathon until someone beats me. Why would I show up to any endeavor thinking I'm going to lose? And yeah, it's crazy. I know. I don't obviously I don't think I can win the Boston Marathon, but in my mind I'm like imagining greatness. I'm like, "Yeah, I'm killing everyone. " And obviously there's that other voice that's like, "Oh my god, you're going to embarrass yourself. You told everyone you were doing this race. " But I only need this voice that's saying, "We're going to kill to be like 1% louder than the beta. " And as long as I can have that guy more present than the negative loser, and I've been a loser, so I know that voice. And I'm like, "No, you're a loser. You have done us no favors. get out of here. And I literally go through this. And one other thing that I'll say that has helped me. — I tell people all the time, you will never escape the feeling of quitting. That sting of quitting will last with you for the rest of your life. And I can tell you that cuz I know cuz I quit first time I qualified for the Iron Man in Hawaii. I was so happy to get there. It was like, you know, for a 40-year-old man, it was like who was obsessed with triathlon like a lot of the other triathlon nerds. I'm like, I'm gonna qualify for Kona. I'm new to triathlon. It's a huge accomplishment. I get out there, bring my wife. I had two kids at the time. She's standing on a Leehy drive on the run course. I come running down. She's recording and I'm just like, "Cut, I can't do it. I'm getting killed. It's too hot. " I told myself every excuse under the sun to justify quitting. and I walked back to the transition area like a dead dog loser. Got my bike humiliated. But that changed my life. That was when I was like, I will never ever do this again. I will never disrespect myself, the race, the other people. Someone else could have had this spot who would have showed up and died to finish. And I went back the next year and did like a 939, which is pretty fast for an Iron Man. And um matter of fact, to qualify for that race, I finished like fifth or sixth overall at Iron Man Wisconsin. Won my age group. I mean, I almost won an entire Iron Man. — But if I didn't quit, I wouldn't have had that. But I tell you right now, I never want to feel when I think about that feeling I had in Hawaii quitting. Like I if I think about it too much, like I'll start getting emotional and on the verge of tears cuz I'm like, how did I do that to myself? Cuz I can't escape that feeling. — It's not like, oh, I won and I made up for it. No, but you also quit and it's never going away. So I all of the things that I'm telling you, I'm telling you and the listeners from experience when I tell you the sting of quitting lasts forever, I'm telling you cuz I know I'm not like making [ __ ] up and telling people like what they want to hear for like Instagram grills. This is the reality of my life. And I'm just sharing the stories here that hopefully other people can read and be like, you don't have to be perfect. It's never too late and anything you want is on the other side of hard. Everything is hard. You want to start a podcast? Cool. A podcast. Perfect example. Anyone can do it. No barrier to entry. Why are some [ __ ] and others are awesome like yours. It's like that platform is available. Anyone who wants to try, come on in. Water's warm. And it's like same thing with like I was saying earlier about the plumber or the electrician is like there are people in every field that are going to rise to the top and make a massive career for themselves, make a lot of money and there are other people that are going to be like losing money doing it. What's the difference? Obsession, drive. It's not like you showed up and you're like, "Oh, I'm a savant at podcasting. " No, you figured it out. You got the lights right. You got the cameras right. You work with the right people. It's just to me it's so elementary. It's like it's available. But the question is, what are you willing to do? — If you think you're going to fake your way through being a podcaster, you you're shoveling [ __ ] against the tide. — Oh, no, you can't. But it is funny because when I remember distinctly when I launched my podcast, I didn't think that I was going to be any good at it. I remember having these thoughts that that there were already enough podcasts, like did the world need another podcast? And I launched my podcast in 2018. — Yeah. — Almost 10 years ago. I launched mine three months ago and have all the same feelings. And then at some point a couple people tell you that they love it and it's one of their favorite podcasts and I'm like I'm going to trust the people that are listening. I'm not going to listen to the voice in my head telling me to like don't be an idiot. There's already too many podcasts like this that people have written a million books. So did I. Someone's going to write the freaking next massive bestseller. I mean someone some author out there is going to write the next Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Mhm. — Do you know that this book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I only know cuz my kids have read every single one. Like, we probably have 50 of these books and they're all like hardcover books. And I'm like, I start to ask my son who's 14 who's into this kind of stuff. Like, how many books is that guy sold? He's like, hundreds of millions, do the math. Like, if you make three or four dollars on every book and if you're that level of author, you can go into the publisher and be like, I want half of all the sales. No, I'll self-publish it. Yes or no? Right? And all of a sudden you're like, "This guy's probably made a billion dollars writing books that he loves that he was probably doing for fun. " — No, it's amazing. I mean, it's like there's like there were already plenty of love songs before the Beatles came about. — You know what I'm saying? Like — Exactly. — Nobody is going to be able to filter the world and this experience that we call life through your eyes. Yep. — Like you are like a fingerprint. Like nobody is you. — That's right. And so, yeah, I think like it's crucially important to understand when you're doubting yourself. I mean, like, you know, nobody's doing the genius life. Like, the genius life is a this is a I feel like we're filling a niche unto itself. It's where it's equal parts informative, rigorous science, but also it's fun, it's entertaining, it's cool. We don't take ourselves too seriously. — Yeah. When I was looking at your past guests, I'm like, "Oh my god, you funny thing is you've had a bunch of my clients on there. I represent a bunch of the doctors you've had on like Amy Shaw and uh Vonda Wright. We do work with all of them. And uh I was like, "Oh my god, am I getting over my head here? " Like no one's asking me to talk science on anything. Same thing in finance. No one was asking me to build financial models or uh run uh financial analysis. They were just asking me, "Hey, can you raise this money? Can you connect me with this person? " And I was just had a knack for doing those kind of things. But yeah, man. This is it's never been a better time to be alive. You want to be an actor? This like that actress Issa Ray who did Insecure. She was trying to be an actress and was like, "You know what? F this. I'm going to make my own YouTube show. " The YouTube show becomes a hit. She's now a big star on HBO. She's like a legitimate actress winning awards. Like Mr. Beast. No one was looking for that guy in Hollywood. Now he's like making the most viral content ever. And it's like what a time to be alive. Whatever it is you want to do it. The world has never been more accessible to everyone and anyone. — Yeah. And we love to complain about things like social media and the algorithms and — you know the negativity and that's you know I think it's like social media is not above reproach like the algorithms could be tweaked like — you know the fact that negativity tends to go — you know so viral relative to content that's more positive. Yeah. — Like that's a problem but still like we live in such an incredible time. like we're all so plugged in. We've got access to the world's knowledge at our fingertips 24 hours a day. And also like AI, I mean, if AI isn't a the a friction reducer, like a way of reducing friction. — Yeah. I mean, you could be living on a farm in Iowa and literally and be like, I'm obsessed with um video editing. And guess what? If you're truly obsessed and can do good work, people are going to find you. Whereas, you know, 20, 30 years ago, you got to have to move to LA, work as a waiter, pray to God you get in with the right people, and it's like, — not anymore. You talked about um

how everybody has like an inner negative Nancy. You called it the inner beta. — Yes. — How do you make sure that the inner beta stays in the back seat where they belong? — Like I said, I've been a loser. I've done everything wrong in my life. I've made every mistake and I can tell you that my life has never been better when I let the alpha drive. And I think a lot of times though, I want to clarify that alpha a lot of times has a lot a big negative component, a connotation with a lot of people and like toxic masculinity is like a real buzzword. I mean, I don't buy into any of that. I'm raising three boys. I'm like, we need to be kind, but we also need to be boys. like there's a time and a place for kindness and there's a time to be like rough and tough and sometimes we're not looking for fights but when it's time to fight like if you're not ready for that kind of you you're going to get run over if you don't know when to stick up for yourself and be tough and it's just the reality of life and I know some people are going to be like oh this guy's crazy but like okay — no but women also have a have an inner alpha you know it's not as like — we don't associate the alpha with with women the way that we do with the alpha male But like my mom was an alpha. — That's right. — You know. — No, I think there's never been a better time for women too. I think that um you know looking at the US women hockey team, right? I think that just watching those girls kick ass. Like I loved it. I loved every bit of it. I loved it as much as the guys. And I have a daughter too and I tell her we're not victims here. We don't know. We don't get pushed around. Like we stick up for ourselves even when it's uncomfortable. And it is uncomfortable when you're getting bullied and you're getting feel like you're getting taken advantage of. But it's like a classic the classic expression, right? If you let someone take something from you today, they're going to take it again tomorrow, maybe even more. At some point, you have to stop that. It's like at my first job and their guys are bullying me. I'm like, "Not today, sucker. " — And I slapped the crap out of him. — Wow. — I mean, it was terrible decision and probably could have ended very badly, but I was like literally I got fired. But I'm like, "Oh my god, I've been fired from my job. " That what I thought was the biggest mistake of my life ended up be becoming like uh was something that became the source of my life turning around. The people that heard about it were like, "Good for you for sticking up for yourself. I want to do business with you. " And I wouldn't recommend slapping anyone, but sometimes people need to be slapped. — Yeah. Women are uh bad [ __ ] Like if you're not an you're not an alpha, you're a bad [ __ ] Be a bad [ __ ] — Yeah. Well, my wife just went through it. I mean going through sounds like a bad [ __ ] — She man when she got that diagnosis there were many nights the first week where we just like cried and uncontrollably where I we didn't tell the kids initially and I'm standing in the kitchen and I just like start crying like I'm not a big crier and my kids are like yo what is going on mom? Why is dad crying? He left the room and eventually you know obviously we told them but then eventually I said to my wife one night we're sitting there and she's all done and I was like you know what I'm sick of this [ __ ] I'm like, I'm not I'm done with the like wo is me [ __ ] We need to like toughen up right now, both of us, and recognize that we you don't have to want to be in a fight, but when the fight knocks on your door, you have to be ready to fight. Otherwise, you're just going to get run over. And I said, we need to get tough, figure out what the game plan is, and attack. Fighting defensively is not the answer. We need to go on the offense, figure out what our options are. And I mean the scientific the medical community and the medical advancements is so incredible. We went in for a meeting and um at St. Thomas Ascension in um Nashville and Andrew Huber reached out wanted to connect me with the Stanford um oncologists and Dr. Dawn from Mayo Clinic. I mean all the best oncologists in the world got in touch. Thank god she had stage one cancer. And I felt a little silly cuz I'm like I love everyone for reaching out but like we went into that St. Thomas ascension. And they're like, "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to get this appointment, that appointment. We're going to do this massctomy. " And it just happened so quickly. I was like, "I think we're good with these people. They seem to like know what's going on. " And they everything that they said they were going to do, they did. Everything they said was going to happen happened. Massctomy. They got it all out. She didn't need chemo. And now she's just waiting to get the reconstruction. And it was like, it seemed like in the blink of an eye, but when we were in the storm, it felt like everything was coming apart. But you know the expression, you never come in the come out of the storm the way you went in. We came out of the storm so much tougher for having gone through it. And I said to her when we were having that talk, I was like, you need to be an example to the kids, to your friends, to other people that have gone through this, how what toughness looks like cuz crying ain't going to help. — You know, feeling sorry for ourselves ain't going to help. Yeah, it sucks. I wish this wasn't us, but thank God it is us because we can handle it. And that's the mindset. And she was like, "Okay, let's go. " Wow. No, she sounds truly like a badass. Um, how do

you protect your sense of purpose when you know, for example, if something were to happen and you were suddenly forced to hang up the sneakers and you couldn't run, you know, like purpose has to be an inside joke. — Yeah. I tell my wife asked me that all the time. I said, I'm going to be a Mast's world champion swimmer. She's like, what if you can't swim? I said, "Can I do pull-ups? Do my arms work? " I said, "I don't know. I'll find something. " And then I said, "If nothing else, I don't know. Maybe I'll become a philosopher. " — Wow. You are a fighter. — I What are you going to do? I'm like, I don't want to roll over and die and I'm going to die eventually anyway. I want to go out being like, "Yeah, I tried everything. I did it all. " It's like when I did the picture on the cover of the book is from race in Mongolia called the Gobi March, which was a 155 mile 6day stage race across the Gobi Desert. And I was talking to the my friend who was the CEO at Equinox, Scott Daroo. He's now, funny enough, the CEO at um Iron Man. And he was asking for advice about running and just chitchatting. And I was like, "What's the race you're doing? " He's like, "I've always been like I liked adventurous travel. I haven't done a ton, but I like the idea of exotic places like Mongolian. " And he's like, "Oh, I'm doing this race blah blah. It's in five weeks, four weeks. " It was close. And I was like, "Dude, I think I can win that race. " I'm looking at online. He's like, "Have you Have you Why would you say that? have you ever run an ultra marathon? I'm like, no. He's like, what about running with a backpack? Cuz it was self-supported. So everything you needed for a week was in a backpack. Think about how all the food you'd need for six days if you're running like 30 or 50 miles a day. — And you got to run with that pack on. — Yes. I mean, 90% of it I wouldn't when we were up steep mountains, you'd have to like power hike. You couldn't really run. But I mean, I ran the majority of this thing. And I mean, I had I was chafed everywhere. My I had like no skin on my shoulders, my hips. It was a mess. But Scott was like, "You should email the race director. I bet they would love to have you. " And at that point, I had been in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times described me as the best runner in the world over 50 or marathoner, which was humbling. I'm sure there's a lot of people that were faster, but on the days when the race happened, I was the fastest. It's like winning the Olympics, but there's someone else has the world record. I'm like, I can't control who shows up. I can only race the people that are here. So I, long story short, the woman let me in. They were happy to have me. I showed up there in Mongolia 24 hours before the race started out in the desert and we were in Ulan Batar and they bust us out sleeping intents. I've never slept in a tent. I I'm a baby when it comes to travel. I want to stay at the Four Seasons. I want to fly first class. I've like I've been poor my whole life. I don't want to be like that anymore. And uh it's funny because my wife would be like, "We're going taking the kids to Hawaii. " She's like, "I I don't want the kids to fly first class. " I said, "Okay, I'll tell you what. I'll buy the first class tickets or I'm not flying to coach. I'll sit in first class, but I don't want to feel guilty. I'll give you guys the money, the difference, and you guys can spend it. And she's like, and she asked the kids, they're like, "We all want the money. " I was like, "Okay. " I said, "I'm not going to feel guilty and be like a jerk who's like, "Oh, the dad's in first class, but I'm not I don't want to do that. " — She'll buy herself a Birkin bag. — Yeah. Oh, she would. She in a million years if you gave it to her, she'd sell it on eBay. She would never. So I show up there, get on to the race the first day. I get trounced cuz I didn't I wasn't acclimated and I didn't know anything. All the racers there were like really experienced adventure racers. And then the second day I won the stage, but I was still down by like 8 minutes. And then on the fourth stage, it was me and the there was a Swiss guy who was really strong, like mountaineering type guy, very stoic, didn't say anything. It was just him and I alone on a 50-mi stage. And around 40 miles, he started to like waver and fall apart and then started to like really struggle. So I basically was like giving him first aid, giving him my water. You could get water every like 5 to 10 miles. But what you had is what you had until you get to the next checkpoint. And there's no you're in the desert. There's no like there's no people watching. There's no support people. There were trucks that would go through the race course like maybe once per day. And thank God after this guy sit he's like I'm going to sit down. I'm like dude we need to get to the next checkpoint. Like you can't stop here. and they came by, thank God, after a little while and rendered first aid, took care of him and then I was like later and took off and I won that day by 90 minutes and that's when I won the race. And to the guy's credit, like that was like say the race started Wednesday morning in the 50 mile stage. We finished Wednesday night. We don't race again till Friday cuz most people need a whole day to get through 50 miles with this backpack. I got there at like 5:00 that night. So I had a whole day of hanging out in this camp which was the worst part cuz I was like, I just want to get this over with. But that kid came, that Swiss guy came in, rested all day, got up the next day, and the fi the last hard day was 26 miles over some mountains and with like a mile or two to go, he just ran away from me. And I'm like, I cannot believe this guy's back from the dead. But I was so far ahead at that point. I want I had already locked it up. — But it was a great there's great stories in there. Insane. — My backpack ripped on the second day in that picture. I'm wearing a woman's backpack because she dropped out and like let me use her backpack cuz mine the strap ripped off. — Wow. Everything you want is on the other side of hard. And you choose your hard at the end of the day. That's right. — I mean, life is hard. Launching a podcast is hard. Writing books is hard. Running across, you know, the desert um with a 90 lb backpack on. I mean, that's pretty damn hard, but you choose it. — You know what else is hard? Being mediocre and underachieving and living um an unfulfilled life. knowing that it's over, being, you know, elderly and thinking like, I could have done this, I should have done that. Like, that's a feeling I do not want to experience. I want to be like, "Oh, no. I tried everything. I left it all on the field. " And you don't have to win at everything. Like I said, I've failed at so many things and failed miserably, but I just keep coming back for more. — Well, such an inspiring story, Ken. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you for writing this book. People should I mean, definitely check it out. It's a great That is a great photo of you on the cover as well. — Thank you, brother. — I'm super glad we got to connect. Um

I've got one last question for you, but before we get to that, uh where can people pick it up? Where can they find you on social media? — Everywhere you buy books, so Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you can go to my website, the other sideofhart. com. Uh I also recorded the audio book myself, so it's available on audible. com for the Audible crowd out there. A lot of people I know like to listen to books while they um run. and I have a podcast called Ride Out the other side of hard and Instagram can ride out. — Love it. Well, I'm super excited to ask

you this question that gets asked to everybody on the show. What does living a genius life mean to you? — I think you everyone has their own interpretation of what a genius is, right? I don't consider myself a genius at running, but I would suggest that my results as a master's runner um indicate someone who was bestin class. So, and this is something I tell my kids all the time is like whatever you think about yourself, it's the truth. You think you're a genius, you probably are. If dope, you probably that too. So, don't waste time with the negative selft talk. convince yourself we're all a genius at something, even if it's just surviving. — Amen. Beautifully put. Thanks again for coming out. — Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate it. — Likewise. Thank you guys. Share this episode with friends and loved ones. Check out everything you want on the other side of hard. And uh follow Ken. He's a fascinating and inspiring character. And I will catch you all on the next episode. Peace. Hey, if you like that video, you need to check out this one here. And I'll see you there.