WEBVTT
00:00:00.059 --> 00:00:08.970
Well, for me, one of the things that's the most critical is that I need to have accountability, and for me, accountability starts with committing to something.
00:00:08.970 --> 00:00:24.202
Sign up, tell all your friends, put it out there, create this power of accountability that now you know, you've told everybody you're going to do this, you've got a date on the calendar, you paid 200 bucks to sign up for this thing, like you're in, and now you've got to figure out how to get ready.
00:00:31.911 --> 00:00:33.292
Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back.
00:00:33.292 --> 00:00:35.295
This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast.
00:00:35.295 --> 00:00:42.966
I'm your host, john Gallagher, and today I've got a great guest for you, sean Hoyt.
00:00:42.966 --> 00:00:45.280
He's a beast, excuse me, and if I had a chance to meet him recently, I think the timing's been incredible.
00:00:45.280 --> 00:01:01.121
He's going to tell his story about his journey inside of fitness in his 50s and talk about a lot of things and how that relates to his leadership, but I found out as I started to do more homework that he's a beast in the Spartan world and I just actually ran my first one just a couple of days ago.
00:01:01.121 --> 00:01:05.849
So we're brethren when it comes to Spartan, but he's got a lot more that he's going to talk about today.
00:01:06.290 --> 00:01:12.751
He's a runner, a triathlete you can see on his shirt there If you're watching on YouTube and Ironman as well and an obstacle course beast.
00:01:12.751 --> 00:01:26.593
I've seen some of his stuff on his website and some of the training that he goes through and I can't wait to talk about that in terms of some of those disciplines, and he keeps getting stronger with age, so we have that in common as well in terms of being in our mid fifties, but he's living proof.
00:01:26.593 --> 00:01:37.707
Ultimately, that age is just a number and he's here to share his journey, not just on a fitness, but his professional journey as well, and how he's weaved those two things together to be successful in both business and in life.
00:01:37.707 --> 00:01:42.403
Ultimately, we can do really hard things, and he's going to talk about that today.
00:01:42.403 --> 00:01:44.966
So a great Uncommon Leader podcast.
00:01:44.966 --> 00:01:47.510
Welcome to Sean Hoyt.
00:01:47.510 --> 00:01:49.713
Hope you're having a great day and how you doing.
00:01:50.313 --> 00:01:57.037
Love that lead in, john, you crystallize so many of the things that have come to kind of be rallying cries for me.
00:01:57.037 --> 00:01:58.477
So I'm excited about our conversation.
00:01:59.459 --> 00:02:00.703
I think it's going to be a blast.
00:02:00.703 --> 00:02:02.004
I can't wait to learn from you.
00:02:02.004 --> 00:02:08.342
I feel like when I go in some of these podcasts, that I'm trying to pull it out of folks, but this one, I'm going to be learning a bunch on this journey.
00:02:08.342 --> 00:02:18.902
So I'll jump in, though, with the first question I always have with for my first time guests, and that's to ask you to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.
00:02:20.185 --> 00:02:29.668
So this story, I think, really kind of defines the trajectory I've been on ever since it happened and it really was transformative to me.
00:02:29.668 --> 00:02:31.979
I was in eighth grade, to set the context.
00:02:31.979 --> 00:02:43.693
I was growing up in Kansas City, on the Kansas side of Kansas City, missouri, and I was a very average, low-effort athlete.
00:02:43.693 --> 00:02:53.252
At the time I played on the soccer team and sat the bench most of the time, played basketball, but I was either on the B or the C team, never done any running in my life.
00:02:53.252 --> 00:03:02.324
And every year we would have to be go through this regimen of doing the presidential physical fitness test at school.
00:03:02.324 --> 00:03:15.026
We'd have to do sit-ups and pull-ups and run a mile and do all these things and get graded on it and I usually failed miserably at almost all of them and just remember feeling embarrassed, you know, at that.
00:03:15.026 --> 00:03:17.693
And I was a little bit overweight.
00:03:17.693 --> 00:03:28.888
I wouldn't have called myself obese, but I was a little chubby, you know, kind of as I was coming out of seventh and into eighth grade and so certainly no one, not even myself, thought of me as an athlete.
00:03:28.888 --> 00:03:41.207
And over that summer between seventh and eighth grade, my stepfather decided he was going to run a 5k in the neighborhood and kind of where we lived.
00:03:41.207 --> 00:03:50.382
And he somehow just convinced me to train with him and so we would start running around our neighborhood and of course at first I thought I was dying.
00:03:50.382 --> 00:03:53.850
But we, you know, for the course of the summer, did it.
00:03:53.850 --> 00:03:59.592
And then I ended up running this 5k and, like you know, much better than I thought I was going to do.
00:03:59.592 --> 00:04:26.730
And so it kind of hatched this idea in my head, this plot, that I was going to continue training, but I wasn't going to tell anybody, and my goal was that when it came to that physical fitness test in eighth grade, I was going to win the mile, and of course nobody would be expecting it because nobody would think of me as an athlete, but it was my secret quest, shall we say.
00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:51.630
And so I trained really hard and I would train around the neighborhood and I got in really good shape, lost all of that, got a baby fat and then, sure enough, when it came time for the actual race, it was four loops around the school and after the first lap I was right up with all the soccer players and basketball players and the jocks you know at my school and I could hear them.
00:04:51.630 --> 00:04:59.053
I was right in front of them and I could hear them all kind of laughing behind me saying, oh, like he's going to fade, like you know, just just give it a, give it a little bit of time.
00:04:59.053 --> 00:05:02.826
And by the second lap I could still hear them, but they were definitely farther behind me.
00:05:02.826 --> 00:05:06.134
And by the third and fourth lap, I could still hear them, but they were definitely farther behind me.
00:05:06.134 --> 00:05:07.716
And by the third and fourth lap they were nowhere to be found.
00:05:07.716 --> 00:05:30.850
And I ended up setting the school record oh wow, in the mile, which stood for about another 10, 15 years, and it just it, was transformative to me because it showed me that I was capable of transforming myself if I believed in myself and if I put in the work, and that all of a sudden I felt like a very different person.
00:05:32.540 --> 00:05:41.369
And the next year I went to high school and joined the cross-country team and ended up running the Kansas City Marathon at age 14.
00:05:41.369 --> 00:05:59.064
I was the youngest person in the race and, you know, never in a million years would that ever have been occurred to me as even possible If I hadn't have gone through that experience of doing something really hard, surprising myself, forget about everybody else, and realizing that, whoa, I can.
00:05:59.064 --> 00:05:59.846
I can do these.
00:05:59.846 --> 00:06:17.951
I am an athlete Um as long as I apply myself towards being one, and I think you know I've had phases over my life where fitness ebbed and it flowed when you have young kids and you're traveling early on in your career.
00:06:17.951 --> 00:06:21.600
But I've never really lost that feeling that I am an athlete and that you know I am capable of doing hard things.
00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:32.430
I've done seven marathons in total, three ultras now and one Ironman over the course of that long trajectory, but it all started with that experience in eighth grade.
00:06:33.321 --> 00:06:38.182
I'll start with that 5K and then running that mile and setting to you again and what I hear in there.
00:06:38.182 --> 00:06:42.266
First of all hear the affirmation right that I am I am an athlete.
00:06:42.266 --> 00:06:49.411
I love to kind of hear that and how you had to set and how that really that decision came about for you.
00:06:49.411 --> 00:06:52.742
Many times in my leadership coaching I talked to folks about that.
00:06:52.742 --> 00:07:02.884
So that moment is the why that exists there, cause you can try to say I'm just going to run the mile or whatever that means, and but I heard I heard that at affirmation is very important.
00:07:02.884 --> 00:07:04.567
I heard that mindset is very important.
00:07:04.567 --> 00:07:06.432
I heard discipline is very important.
00:07:06.699 --> 00:07:10.451
All those things are topics that we'll get a chance to talk about today.
00:07:10.451 --> 00:07:26.872
And one of the things you know people will change right when the displeasure of remaining the same where they are in this point in time you talked about that as a kid is greater than the discomfort of the change itself, the actual hard work that it's going to take to overcome that.
00:07:26.872 --> 00:07:34.439
And I think that's so powerful in terms of what you're saying because, as you said, the first time you ran to get ready for the 5K you probably thought you were going to die.
00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:35.786
When you're running that with your stepfather.
00:07:35.786 --> 00:07:41.689
That's a really cool story and you stuck with it because there was a why that existed.
00:07:41.689 --> 00:07:52.451
You talk about in some of your literature and some of your website, your what-if moments like breaking that mile record in eighth grade, the sub-three-hour marathon that you ran in college.
00:07:52.451 --> 00:07:58.071
How can leaders again taking that and bringing that into your professional career?
00:07:58.071 --> 00:08:07.735
How do you cultivate that what-if moment in your work as well and what that mentality means to live that out in your work?
00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:30.406
One of the things that I've really tried to do and I've gotten better at it, as my mindset has solidified, you know, in my 50s is really to, you know, challenge the status quo in your own mind, and there may be a way your team is doing their job.
00:08:30.406 --> 00:08:31.370
There may be a way you're doing your job.
00:08:31.370 --> 00:08:41.806
Maybe there may be a way a company is going about its operations and I think so many times we take that as a given and then we think about how can we continually improve it?
00:08:41.806 --> 00:08:43.714
And there's and I love continuous improvement.
00:08:43.714 --> 00:08:44.034
It's a.
00:08:44.034 --> 00:08:52.022
You can get dramatic results from those slow, incremental, 1%, 2% improvements, but it never changes the fundamental starting point.
00:08:52.022 --> 00:08:53.927
It just incrementally improves it.
00:08:53.927 --> 00:09:06.210
And so I've really tried to challenge myself and my team to think, okay, let's do those things, but let's also question the underlying thing itself Is that really still the way to be going about it?
00:09:06.210 --> 00:09:10.486
Are there radically different ways to do this?
00:09:10.486 --> 00:09:12.331
And I'll just give a quick example.
00:09:13.133 --> 00:09:26.140
I'm a lawyer, I deal with contracts and we've all seen contracts right, they're small print and whole sections with capital letters and pages and pages of dense text, and that's the way everyone thinks a contract needs to look.
00:09:26.140 --> 00:09:39.823
And we have our contracts up online so that our prospects can see them and hopefully accept them if they find them reasonable, but they still look very unappealing and very daunting even to a business professional.
00:09:39.823 --> 00:09:46.009
We're not selling to customers, we're selling to enterprises, but still there's no reason it has to look that way.
00:09:46.009 --> 00:10:00.442
So I decided to engage in a thought experiment with my team, which is to be like how can we take the same content and present it not as a contract in that format, but as a modern web page that looks like really good web pages that are really easy to follow.
00:10:00.442 --> 00:10:04.027
That looks like really good web pages that are really easy to follow.
00:10:04.027 --> 00:10:09.554
And we ended up working with our web team to completely redesign our contract.
00:10:09.554 --> 00:10:32.302
And now, if you go to our company's web page, a company called OutSystems, and if you look up our master subscription agreement, you'll see a very different looking contract than you've ever seen before, and we're very proud of that, because we just thought outside the box and decided you know what, if you know, we didn't make this look like a contract.
00:10:32.864 --> 00:10:33.745
Is it, is it possible?
00:10:33.745 --> 00:10:34.307
Is it legal?
00:10:34.307 --> 00:10:47.744
We had to do the research and but when you question those fundamental beliefs and usually the ones that you're questioning are the things you say aren't possible, like, well, we can't do that, or we can't do this, or I'm not capable of that.
00:10:47.744 --> 00:10:50.150
Well, why, what if you could?
00:10:50.150 --> 00:10:52.125
And I stole that from David Goggins.
00:10:52.125 --> 00:10:53.450
I'll be very transparent.
00:10:53.980 --> 00:11:03.190
He mentions that in his book can't help me, which I can't hurt me, which is right behind me, and that, frankly, that thinking was what got me to finally sign up for my first Ironman.
00:11:03.190 --> 00:11:08.312
Because I thinking was what got me to finally sign up for my first Ironman, because I had always thought that was impossible.
00:11:08.312 --> 00:11:09.255
And then I said, well, wait a minute.
00:11:09.255 --> 00:11:12.465
Like what if I break it down and do the math on the individual components?
00:11:12.465 --> 00:11:24.706
You know how much time would it take me if I, you know, did each of these three components at a relatively moderate pace and I realized, wait a minute, I'd have like two extra hours to finish under the deadline.
00:11:24.706 --> 00:11:29.634
Like, all of a sudden, I think this is possible, where I always thought it was impossible.
00:11:31.543 --> 00:11:31.965
I love that.
00:11:31.965 --> 00:11:40.094
Sean and you all started right off with the discontent for the status quo, not being satisfied with the way things are today.
00:11:40.094 --> 00:11:46.187
And look, I'm a continuous improvement guy, there's no doubt about it, and I know that there are times when innovation must occur.
00:11:46.187 --> 00:11:47.770
You know your story reminded me.
00:11:47.770 --> 00:11:50.364
You know, going all the way back to the Henry Ford story about.
00:11:50.364 --> 00:11:53.662
You know they asked him to make a faster horse car and he came out with a car.
00:11:53.662 --> 00:12:02.969
If they would, if they would ask him, you know, just to make it go faster, imagine if he would have only thought about make the wheels smaller or a faster horse and training the horse.
00:12:02.969 --> 00:12:11.711
No, we're grateful that he took that approach of just kind of blowing it up completely and, in essence, designing the automobile and making that possible for us.
00:12:11.799 --> 00:12:13.080
We have to have those thinkers.
00:12:13.080 --> 00:12:15.750
We've got to have both inside of our organizations.
00:12:15.750 --> 00:12:24.164
We've got to have those thinkers as you relate it back to being athletic again and breaking it down into those smaller goals to be able to achieve those things.
00:12:24.164 --> 00:12:31.054
I love there's so much that we could spend a time on right there, put a pin in and stay right there with those.
00:12:31.054 --> 00:12:38.269
I think you get enough points there that, as I listened to you in your mid fifties, I know you got a lot more coming in terms of what's happening.
00:12:38.269 --> 00:12:38.681
You have that.
00:12:38.681 --> 00:12:41.089
Keep that mindset of innovation inside of you.
00:12:41.089 --> 00:12:47.520
Consistency, though, is a key theme on your journey, as you have.
00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:48.462
Let's start with your training first.
00:12:48.462 --> 00:12:51.931
What are some non-negotiable habits that you've done?
00:12:51.931 --> 00:12:54.222
So, if you got Goggins in your mindset, you know you got.
00:12:54.222 --> 00:12:59.643
I know you have habits that you do on a daily or weekly basis to ensure that you're continuing to get better.
00:12:59.643 --> 00:13:05.653
What are some of those non-negotiables that help you to stay in the shape that you're in in your mid-50s?
00:13:06.740 --> 00:13:37.648
Well, I think for me, one of the things that's the most critical is that I need to have accountability, and for me, accountability starts with committing to something, and I'm a big believer in the entire Spartan ethic and kind of mindset, big believer in the entire Spartan ethic, and you know kind of mindset, Um, and the founder of Spartan talks about don't don't kind of take the view of rain of you know aim, ready fire, where you have to get ready first, Um, and then you can start.
00:13:37.648 --> 00:13:41.962
You know, just get started and then you know aim.
00:13:41.962 --> 00:13:45.620
You know, so I think it's fire ready, aim, or something like that, what he says.
00:13:45.620 --> 00:14:11.226
And I tell all my friends, like, if you really want to make change, you have to commit to something, like literally sign up, tell all your friends, put it out there, create this, this power of accountability, that now you know you've told everybody you're going to do this, You've got a date on the calendar, you paid 200 bucks to sign up for this thing, Like you're in, and now you've got to figure out how to get ready.
00:14:12.211 --> 00:14:16.283
And with the Ironman, the fact that I know I have a date on the calendar by the way, I'm training for my second right now.
00:14:16.283 --> 00:14:28.543
So this is all very front of mind because you know I wake up, I have 11 weeks to go until race day, and so I wake up every day and say, okay, like what I'm, you know, what do I still need to work on?
00:14:28.543 --> 00:14:29.869
Where are my gaps?
00:14:29.869 --> 00:14:43.028
What am I going to do every day to kind of get to the point where, over the next, you know nine weeks and then my taper, like I'm ready to go on race day, and that is tremendous, has tremendous power for my discipline.
00:14:44.221 --> 00:14:45.525
So you've got a plan that you're following.
00:14:45.525 --> 00:14:47.265
I'm sure that's going to make sure that you get there.
00:14:47.265 --> 00:14:52.629
A, you state the goal, you put your money in on that habit to make sure that discipline's there.
00:14:52.629 --> 00:14:58.769
It's exactly how we got signed up the four guys that I was with, or three other guys that I was with on the Spartan that we did.
00:14:58.769 --> 00:15:10.066
We signed up for it first and then we figured out how we were going to get there and we each developed our own little training plans to get there.
00:15:10.066 --> 00:15:18.149
But ultimately we met up that day and made something good happen, where, if you kind of talk about it and talk about it, look and I'm guilty of that we need to do one of those someday and someday never kind of happened.
00:15:18.149 --> 00:15:22.910
So I'm going to guess that you don't really have that someday kind of attitude as you're going through it.
00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:29.495
I, you know, hey, I'm human, you know, I I used to uh, I've gotten better at it there.
00:15:29.495 --> 00:15:41.957
There probably are, you know, still some things where I kind of like you know right now, for example, like travel, um, you know there are places that I want to go and I'm very eager to get to and I keep saying one day I'm going to get there.
00:15:41.957 --> 00:15:51.745
And you know I sometimes I question myself why don't I take the same approach with getting to that location that I do with, you know, running this Ironman?
00:15:51.745 --> 00:15:53.677
And you know it's a question of priorities.
00:15:53.677 --> 00:16:00.004
You have to figure it out OK, for this year, you know, given the constraints that we have around time and money and schedule, you know which of these are more important.
00:16:00.063 --> 00:16:05.327
But there are areas of my life where I don't, you know, apply that same level of discipline.
00:16:05.327 --> 00:16:07.655
And it's just, it is a matter of prioritization.
00:16:07.655 --> 00:16:11.717
You can't do everything and so you have to kind of make some tough choices.
00:16:11.717 --> 00:16:39.855
One thing about training for an Ironman or any hard race, marathon, is it really forces you to assess your priorities because all of a sudden you have much less time, free time, than you had before If you're going to do your job and you're going to spend time with your family and you're going to train for an Ironman, there's not much left over, and so I have to cut out things that I used to do, like I don't watch TV like hardly ever anymore, and there's other things that I would do before that I've kind of like for now, anyway, until this race is over.
00:16:39.855 --> 00:16:42.576
You know, those didn't make the cut.
00:16:43.618 --> 00:16:46.181
I appreciate that because that was one of the questions I wanted to ask.
00:16:46.181 --> 00:16:50.686
I mean, look, folks will say I don't have time to do all this exercise.
00:16:50.686 --> 00:17:08.617
And when you start to think about the time that it takes to train for an Ironman, I mean I knew a friend, adam, who did several Ironmans and he ended up at one of the big events, kind of qualified for one of the big events going forward, but that's three or four hours a day, no doubt about it.
00:17:08.617 --> 00:17:13.942
In terms of getting ready for that, the different training you have to do swimming, biking, running to get ready.
00:17:13.942 --> 00:17:17.633
How do you balance that out with family and work responsibilities as well?
00:17:17.633 --> 00:17:18.494
How do you make that happen?
00:17:18.494 --> 00:17:22.723
One of the ways you talked about was saying no to certain things that you may like to do.
00:17:22.723 --> 00:17:23.553
What else do you do?
00:17:24.395 --> 00:17:37.076
By the way, when I, when I find myself even saying, oh, I don't have time for that, I always check myself because I realize I do have time, I just have chosen not to prioritize that, and so usually, you know I it's.
00:17:37.076 --> 00:17:44.306
I think it's important to always remember when you say you don't have time for something, really what you're saying is I'm not prioritizing that above other things.
00:17:44.306 --> 00:18:11.171
Amen, to put this intense time into inward, towards my training, I had to make sure the time that I spent with others in my life family, work, kids you know that that time was extremely high quality.
00:18:11.171 --> 00:18:20.298
And so when you know when I get done with a ride and I'm and I'm back home, you know I'll find my wife and I'll check in and say how's your day going.
00:18:20.298 --> 00:18:25.651
You know what can I help with.
00:18:25.651 --> 00:18:26.313
You know what do you want to.
00:18:26.313 --> 00:18:26.613
You know.
00:18:26.613 --> 00:18:32.590
You know what do you want to get do with your day, um, and find out what she needs and make sure then that I'm on for her If I come home.
00:18:33.071 --> 00:18:48.876
And so the next three hours lying around, you know, like watching TV and recovering, which is exactly what my body wants to do, you know I just want to take a nap and put some TV on or a football game and just sit there for the next three hours.
00:18:48.876 --> 00:18:49.397
But you know, I don't know.
00:18:49.397 --> 00:18:54.897
If I do that, then I'm deprioritizing something that's extremely important to me, which is the people in my life that need me.
00:18:54.897 --> 00:19:09.662
So I've realized that if I'm going to do this, the things that I do, the trade-off or the might be the wrong word because it's not a negative, but the corollary to that is I have to be extremely intentional with the time that I spend with the people in my life.
00:19:10.211 --> 00:19:11.454
There's that word intentional.
00:19:11.454 --> 00:19:20.317
That is so important to be intentional with how you create that so that they don't get the worst right, they don't get the crumbs that's left over when you're done.
00:19:20.317 --> 00:19:25.045
No, I mean that is very inspiring, sean, and I appreciate you kind of going through that.
00:19:25.045 --> 00:19:28.439
Look, you're not doing this on your own.
00:19:28.439 --> 00:19:30.215
You've got family that kind of is supporting you.
00:19:30.215 --> 00:19:30.919
That goes through that.
00:19:30.919 --> 00:19:38.353
But in the fitness world, in the leadership world, how important do you see community as part of that?
00:19:38.353 --> 00:19:49.034
So tell me that type of community that it takes to continuously run Ironman and I know the community inside of Spartan World is pretty powerful in the group that we had.
00:19:49.034 --> 00:19:52.982
But how important is it for leaders to surround themselves with great people in a community?
00:19:53.589 --> 00:19:56.980
Well, I'll give the work answer first, because I figured that out a long time ago.
00:19:56.980 --> 00:20:01.260
It took me a lot longer to figure it out on the kind of fitness side.
00:20:01.260 --> 00:20:11.162
On the work side, I think I realized very early on that there was no way that I was going to be successful in my career unless I enabled others to be successful.
00:20:11.162 --> 00:20:15.653
You know, my success was going to be a function of helping others succeed.
00:20:15.653 --> 00:20:30.431
And at one point in my career I stepped into a team that I was hired as the leader of six people and I was told during the interview process that the team had the worst reputation of any team in the company.
00:20:30.431 --> 00:20:36.073
They'd done some kind of satisfaction survey or something and that team the legal team at the time scored worst.
00:20:36.073 --> 00:20:40.843
So that's why they were replacing the person that was there before and hiring me.
00:20:41.830 --> 00:20:47.554
And I got in and I figured, oh, this must be a team of poor performers and that must be the problem.
00:20:47.554 --> 00:20:51.775
But after a few weeks of working with the people I realized that wasn't the issue.
00:20:51.775 --> 00:21:06.632
They had just been held back and constrained in their ability to do their work by a manager who was very controlling and wanted every you know to micromanage, kind of every piece of it and to take credit for kind of every piece of it.
00:21:06.632 --> 00:21:10.180
And so I said I'm just going to flip this on its head.
00:21:10.180 --> 00:21:14.435
I'm going to tell these people you know, go like you know.
00:21:14.435 --> 00:21:30.913
Here's some core principles we're going to follow as a team, but as long as you're operating in accordance with those principles, like you, go out, do your work, make the calls I'm here, escalate to me when you need to, but if you feel comfortable that you know the answer, just go, do your work and be successful.
00:21:30.952 --> 00:21:38.792
And within a year, when that survey was done next, the legal team went from worst to first.
00:21:38.792 --> 00:21:40.998
It was amazing.
00:21:40.998 --> 00:21:58.019
We now were the top ranked team in terms of feedback, and I didn't I might've changed one team member, but it really was because I realized that that for the team to succeed, I had to empower and enable every single one of them to succeed and be supportive of them.
00:21:58.019 --> 00:22:09.719
If and I told them if you send me an email or a text or you call me and I've got 40 other emails, I'm going to put yours first and I'm going to get yours done first because there are six of you.
00:22:09.719 --> 00:22:12.750
If I can enable all six of you to be maximum productivity.
00:22:12.750 --> 00:22:21.337
That's six times more efficient than me doing my work, and it's I followed that maximum to this day on the work.
00:22:21.609 --> 00:22:23.977
Love that you got to have a great team around you.
00:22:23.977 --> 00:22:24.679
No doubt about it.
00:22:24.778 --> 00:22:25.500
You know even our buddy.
00:22:26.172 --> 00:22:27.034
Being a Notre Dame fan.
00:22:27.034 --> 00:22:33.076
Everybody Lou Holtz would say that you can have a great coach all you want to, but if you don't have great players, it doesn't matter.
00:22:33.076 --> 00:22:35.613
Great players can make a good coach look really great.
00:22:35.613 --> 00:22:37.820
In terms of making that happen, absolutely.
00:22:41.329 --> 00:22:45.821
Absolutely On the personal front, though, when it comes to my fitness, I think for a long time, you know, I was pretty much doing it on my own.
00:22:45.821 --> 00:23:22.292
Maybe I had one or two friends I would do a race with, but I didn't reach out to a community, I wasn't communicating really with others, I was just, you know, if I had a community, it was one or two people that I was doing all this with, and it wasn't until the last few years, partly because of social media I really embraced social media as part of my fitness and also because of a track group that I got involved with here called Belmont Track Club, in the area here, which is just blessed with some of the most phenomenal people I've ever met, and it's a big group.
00:23:22.292 --> 00:23:25.442
I mean, there's probably 20, 30 of us that are regulars in this team.
00:23:25.442 --> 00:23:33.896
And when you and now I'm also part of a community with this group called Marathon Sports here, that is just an incredibly inspiring group of ambassadors.
00:23:33.896 --> 00:23:40.862
And now that I'm to me, now I've realized that the power of my fitness comes from connecting with these communities.
00:23:41.911 --> 00:24:14.595
What I learned from them, what they learned from me, how we help each other train, how we push each other along and the power that comes from so many people supporting so many other people, people, and nothing makes me happier in this, in this world, on the kind of fitness front, than when somebody tells me that you know they were struggling, they were kind of giving up on their fitness, but then they saw something that I was doing and then they got encouraged to, like, sign up for a race or to get back to the gym.
00:24:14.595 --> 00:24:20.433
Like I hear that, you know, pretty often and it just gives me fuel to keep doing what I'm doing.
00:24:21.476 --> 00:24:24.623
Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you.
00:24:24.623 --> 00:24:33.579
Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations.
00:24:33.579 --> 00:24:41.895
If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom.
00:24:41.895 --> 00:24:45.983
Forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me.
00:24:45.983 --> 00:24:54.020
It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team.
00:24:54.020 --> 00:24:56.757
Okay, let's get back to the show.
00:24:58.871 --> 00:25:00.655
I love that and I think about that again.
00:25:00.655 --> 00:25:14.132
Just going back to my experience at the Spartan, I was so amazed at the community aspect that they create at the race the volunteers that are there at each of the obstacles that are going on and along the course.
00:25:14.132 --> 00:25:19.496
They're encouraging you, they're inspiring you, they're really motivating you to keep going and to do that.
00:25:19.496 --> 00:25:24.443
And the MCs that are there to get you all fired up, and the music, all those things that are there.
00:25:24.443 --> 00:25:32.854
I think that community can be so powerful and the fact that you again, now you have the opportunity, through social media, to be an inspiration to others.
00:25:32.854 --> 00:25:36.923
Gosh, what else could you possibly want in terms of passing it on?
00:25:36.923 --> 00:25:41.211
And making that happen is to have an impact there, and I know it's not easy.
00:25:41.311 --> 00:25:51.051
You don't have all good days when you're training You've talked about this from a mindset standpoint as well and we have troubles at work and we get into tough times when you're going through training.
00:25:51.051 --> 00:25:57.233
How do you overcome what might be those bumps and bruises and pains and push through it to make it happen?
00:25:57.233 --> 00:25:57.935
What keeps you going?
00:25:59.800 --> 00:26:24.542
I read something on social media following someone who was a lot more elite than I am I think it was one of the elite triathletes and they said something that I'm sure it's been written many times before, but it's the first time I had seen it and it said that on average, for a serious athlete who's training for a serious goal, about one-third of your workouts are going to suck.
00:26:24.542 --> 00:26:32.642
They're going to feel awkward, you're going to be slow, you're going to just feel like you're making backward progress.
00:26:32.642 --> 00:26:37.869
You're going to have about a third of them where you feel solid and then you're going to have about a third of them when you feel like it's really clicking.
00:26:37.869 --> 00:26:41.534
And you're going to have about a third of them when you feel like it's really clicking.
00:26:41.534 --> 00:26:42.134
And you know to read that.
00:26:42.134 --> 00:26:43.596
You know the elite athletes go through that.
00:26:43.596 --> 00:26:47.058
That really helped to validate, because that's pretty much what I feel.
00:26:47.960 --> 00:27:00.980
I definitely have some workouts where I just feel off and I just feel sluggish and you know, maybe I'll even have, you know, a couple in a row, but I never have like 10 in a row.
00:27:00.980 --> 00:27:02.298
You know, for every day like that I'll have a day.
00:27:02.298 --> 00:27:07.276
Like you know, this morning I got up early and went for a swim and it just felt amazing, like I just felt.
00:27:07.276 --> 00:27:12.451
You know, my form was good, my energy was good and it was so affirming.
00:27:12.451 --> 00:27:22.023
But if I go out on Monday and I have a sluggish swim, I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to say, well, what's going wrong, I'm just going to remember the rule of thirds, you know.
00:27:22.023 --> 00:27:26.788
Okay, for every one of the ones, like this morning, I'm going to have one like next Monday.
00:27:27.612 --> 00:27:30.179
So any nutrition tips that keep you going as well.
00:27:30.179 --> 00:27:32.454
That are habits and disciplines I'm trying to learn here now.
00:27:32.454 --> 00:27:38.122
That's a significant energy drain to get ready for an Ironman, no matter how you're looking at it.
00:27:38.430 --> 00:27:40.698
I'm going to answer your question a little more broadly, if that's okay.
00:27:40.718 --> 00:27:41.180
Yeah, okay.
00:27:41.931 --> 00:27:51.471
When it comes to especially Ironman training, which is in swim, bike run, I've kind of decided that it's four there's swim, bike run and recovery.
00:27:51.471 --> 00:27:53.713
I've kind of decided that there it's four there's swim, bike run and recovery.
00:27:53.713 --> 00:28:00.159
And I intentionally put as much effort into and time into the recovery component as I do the other three.
00:28:00.159 --> 00:28:05.144
And that involves stretching, it involves PT, it involves sleep.
00:28:05.144 --> 00:28:08.606
You know I really prioritize getting my sleep in.
