← Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Nick Thompson on Grit, Growth, and the Miles That Matter | EP 683
01:06:58
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- [00:01]
Sleep Number Salesperson
Why choose a sleep number Smart bed.
- [00:02]
Blue Apron Customer
Can I make my site softer?
- [00:04]
Nick Thompson
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
- [00:07]
Sleep Number Salesperson
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- [00:31]
Nick Thompson
Tonight's meal tilapia surprise with boiled cabbage. Begin cooking steps one through 50 now.
- [00:36]
Blue Apron Customer
Are you kidding me? Making dinner shouldn't feel like doing a thousand piece puzzle with Blue Apron's new one Pan assemble and bake meals. The hard part's already done. Pre chopped ingredients, zero stress. Just assemble, bake and enjoy. No complicated steps, no mountain of dishes. Try assemble and bake today. Get 20% off your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more.
- [01:01]
John Miles
Coming up next on Passion Struck, the.
- [01:04]
Nick Thompson
Other thing that's really important is this principle called cognitive offloading. And so that's the principle whereby once you start to rely on a tool, a technological tool to do something, you get worse at it. So you use a calculator all the time. You forget how to do long division, you use ways, you forget how to navigate.
- [01:21]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
That's fine.
- [01:22]
Nick Thompson
Who cares? It's better to have a calculator do long division than we do long division. But when it comes to thinking and writing, I don't want to get worse at it. So I don't want to rely on an AI for it.
- [01:31]
John Miles
Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week I sit down with change makers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Welcome back to Passion Struck, episode six, 683. I'm your host, John Miles, and I am so grateful you're here. Whether you're a longtime listener or joining for the first time thank you for being part of this growing movement to live more intentionally and unlock the power of mattering. If this show has ever given you clarity, courage or momentum, here's how you.
- [02:39]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Can help it grow.
- [02:40]
John Miles
First, share this episode with someone who will find it meaningful and leave a five star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps more people discover passionstruck and become part of this movement for intentional living this week we're continuing our series the Forces that Shape Us, where we explore the unseen dynamics that define how we live, lead and connect. Earlier this week, Claude Silver helped us rediscover the power of belonging and emotional bravery at work. But there's another force, one that threads.
- [03:11]
Nick Thompson
Through all of them. Endurance.
- [03:13]
John Miles
Because the way we move through struggle, uncertainty and self doubt shapes who we become. To explore that, I'm joined by Nick Thompson, CEO of the Atlantic, longtime journalist.
- [03:25]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
And author of the Running A Father.
- [03:29]
John Miles
A Son and the Simplest Sport. Nick's story isn't just about running. It's about how movement helps us make sense of challenge, legacy and the search for meaning. His journey through racing, fatherhood and leadership mirrors the one so many of us are on finding rhythm, meaning and endurance amid chaos. In today's conversation, we explore what running can teach us about failure, focus and perseverance. How discipline becomes a language for self respect. Why endurance isn't about toughness, it's about trust and how to find your stride.
- [04:01]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
When the path ahead feels uncertain.
- [04:03]
John Miles
My hope is that by the end of this episode, you'll see your own challenges differently. Not as obstacles to avoid, but as invitations to grow stronger, slower and more intentional. For deeper reflection and companion prompts, subscribe to the ignited life@theignitedlife.net it's where I share tools and insights for building resilience, purpose and meaning, one intentional choice at a time. Before we begin, a reminder that my upcoming children's book, you, Matter Luma is now available for pre sale. Links are in the show Notes It's a story about courage, kindness and the ripple effect of one small act. A message that resonates deeply with today's theme of persistence and purpose. Now let's step into episode 683 with Nick Thompson. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and.
- [04:52]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
- [04:55]
John Miles
Now let that journey begin.
- [05:02]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I am absolutely honored and thrilled today to bring you Nick Thompson, the CEO of the Atlantic. Welcome, Nick, to Passion Struck. How are you today?
- [05:10]
Nick Thompson
Oh, thanks so much John. I am thrilled to be here. Delighted to talk with you.
- [05:14]
John Miles
You and I have something in common.
- [05:16]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
We both grew up in our childhood, at least a part of it in Chicago. And then, as I understand it, you attended Andover.
- [05:24]
John Miles
What was young Nick like?
- [05:25]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Were you curious, rebellious, driven?
- [05:29]
Nick Thompson
I was pretty driven. I was pretty curious. I was rebellious in a little bit rebellious in high school, like a little bit anti the system. I had hair down to here when I was at Andover, which sometimes surprises people. My kids laugh when they see my yearbook photographs. But I always had. I think one of the things that my father gave to me, for better or for worse, but I think mostly for better, was a drive to succeed at the thing I was doing or to really try hard. It was so, like, deeply ingrained in what he believed was right for life. That came to me and certainly had that when I was in high school.
- [06:09]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Speaking of your father, I understand he loved to run. What's your earliest memory of watching your father do that?
- [06:15]
John Miles
How did it make you feel about him?
- [06:17]
Nick Thompson
I was born in 1975, and my father started to run in the late 1970s. And this is the great American running boom. When the Complete Book of Running comes out and you look at registrations for marathons, they skyrocket. And my dad at that time was in a little bit of a rut professionally, not living up to his early promise. He was struggling with alcohol, and he starts running, and it gives him a feeling of self confidence. And so in about 1980s, when I was five, he would take me out to run and we would go and we would run around. I was living in Brookline, Massachusetts, and.
- [06:48]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
We would go and we would run.
- [06:49]
Nick Thompson
Out the door around the block. I remember running a mile with him. I remember running to this place called Pine Manor College. Having had children, I can't quite square my memories with running like two or three miles with my dad, with being five or six years old, because I can't like. But it must have been that because he left when I was six and a half. So I have all these memories of running with him. I must have been running a couple miles with my dad when I was 5 years old.
- [07:14]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
My running actually started when I was in seventh grade. I had a paper route, and I had it for a few years before that. And it was an afternoon paper route. But what I was finding was I wanted to play with my friends and stuff. And so walking the route wouldn't give me enough time to get back and study and play with my friends. I started to run.
- [07:36]
Nick Thompson
That's awesome.
- [07:37]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Or jog the route. And I grew up Being a heavy set kid. And so it was also my ticket to getting skinny and getting healthy. So yeah, that's how I started into it and it really became a huge passion for me.
- [07:52]
Nick Thompson
For a lot of people, it's. They come into. Some people come into running because they joined the track team. Some people come into running because it's like a good way to get around. Right. You like all, I don't know, Kennedy, right. Like runs to school, but Ethiopia, Kenya, or people run for efficiency. My father's father used to hike seven miles in like the Arizona dry lands to get to school. That gets you in shape and you learn about fitness in part because it's gets you around.
- [08:19]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, I mean it certainly does that. And where growing up where you did and then going to Andover, you certainly had to deal with different conditions. I had to deal with them when I was in Pennsylvania too. And I remember having to go out in the sleet, the snow and funny enough, those were some of my favorite runs totally. Just because it made you like notice more or it was just different. I don't know what it was about it, but I almost looked for it forward for moments like that completely.
- [08:49]
Nick Thompson
It increases the intensity of the run. If you go out and it's 100 degrees or it's 3 below or it's pouring rain, you feel more. It just, it heightens your awareness, it heightens all of your sensory perceptions and makes you more present in your run. It's. There are times where I like to run where it's like nice and cool and there are times where I like to run where it's just madness out there.
- [09:10]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Before we dive into your book, which is the main reason for you coming on the show today, and the book's name is the Running A Father, a Son and the Simplest Sport, I did want to ask you a question about technology, given it's something you're also passionate about. So I have a ton of listeners who are Gen Z, like my son who's 27. Yeah. And my daughter is 21. And they all come to me with career advice because they're struggling right now in a lot of different ways where to put their attention because they're all very fearful of what technology is going to do to industries. And I wanted to ask you, since you're kind of in the middle of this, what would be your advice to someone who's coming out of college or a young adult right now?
- [09:57]
Nick Thompson
They have some obstacles and they have some advantages. So one of the obstacles is like we're seeing unemployment Rates shift up for young people. And it seems, based on the data, that is partly because of AI. The bottom rung of career ladders is getting knocked out. Companies are hiring fewer people because AI or AI agents can do the work that young people traditionally do. Right. So higher up the career ladder, we're seeing very few effects of AI. Lower down the career ladder, we are starting to see those impacts. So that's works against young people. Right. But working for them, they actually know how to use these systems because they all grew up using them. Right. Ideally, they have used AI as a tutor, not as just a thing to do their homework, but they understand these models at a deeper level, so they should be able to learn the skills. And it comes with AI. The lesson, I think, for young people and the lesson for future careers is that no one can foresee how AI is going to change businesses. And I don't know exactly which industries are going to change. I can give you a hypothesis, but I don't know for sure. But what I do know is that it's going to be jagged and it's going to input some industries and some professions here than others. And so the skill that you're going to need to cultivate is the ability to be flexible. Right. To be able to move and to shift. Right. And it expands our capabilities. Right. If you're really good at design, AI also gives you like a little bit of ability to code. If you're really good at coding, gives you a little bit ability to design. So individuals are going to have a broader skill set. And so what you should cultivate if you're young, and this is what I would tell my kids who are a little younger than yours, come out, focus on what you're curious and passionate about. Right. That's the thing. If you love it, you'll figure out a path to success, be flexible and understand what AI is doing, because people deeply want that. Every company wants people who are AI native.
- [11:42]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
100%. Okay. And I have to ask you just one other question.
- [11:45]
Nick Thompson
Sure. I love talking about this stuff.
- [11:47]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Since you are right at the epicenter of writing, obviously, and I'm an author. I know one of the things in all my writing, and especially being very involved on substack, is the impact of AI on. On kind of authenticity of writing.
- [12:05]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [12:06]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
What are your thoughts in this space?
- [12:08]
Nick Thompson
Well, it's a huge question both for me personally. Right. Someone who's just written a book and someone who's CEO of the Atlantic, where we have lots of writers. My view is that AI is A tool that can make writers much more productive and much more efficient. Helps research, can help sorting through notes. It's a very useful quick editor. It's not as good as the best human editors, but it is a good quick editor. Right? Like I've written the substack post. Please identify any parts of this post where I use redundant language, repeat words, or have unclear phrasing. Right? We should run all of our posts through that. What I don't use it for is I don't use it for writing, right? And I don't use it for writing for a couple of reasons. One, it's not a good writer. Two, there's some interesting legal implications, right? If you were to go into substack and say, hey, OpenAI, write a post for me in my style. It's not clear that you own that post or whether the chatbot you own owns that post, right? And eventually there'll be court cases and be settled. And then, most important, like a people expect it to be real and to be you. And I think as time goes on, there's going to be a real premium on authenticity and no one's going to trust people who use AI to write. So don't do it for bad, possibly illegal, and it breaks the trust bonds. I just went, for example, I went and read the entire audiobook of the running ground. It took me like, I don't know, 13 hours or something to go and read it beginning to end. I could have used an AI voice generator and have it sound pretty much like me. But I think it's important to do these things and do it as us. And so can I say one more thing about this? The other thing that's really important is this principle called cognitive offloading. And so that's the principle whereby once you start to rely on a tool, technological tool, to do something, you get worse at it, right? So you use a calculator all the time. You forget how to do long division, you use ways, you forget how to navigate. That's fine. Who cares? We don't better to have a calculator do long division than we do long division. But when it comes to thinking and writing, I don't want to get worse at it. So I don't want to rely on an AI for it.
- [14:11]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I find it almost impossible to avoid AI at this point because no matter what you plug into Google or any search engine, it's using AI on the back end. But I use it in many ways that you just described. It's a great way, as I'm Trying to think of a framework or a way to explore a topic before I write it, to test out different ideas and get tonality and how readers will perceive it, how they'll feel, stuff like that. But you're right, it always tends to repeat itself. It always tends to say things that I've heard a million times before. So I find, like when I'm writing.
- [14:47]
Nick Thompson
I want to be unique.
- [14:48]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I want to say something that's different and more profound than what's. What I've read out there. So it's never going to do that for you.
- [14:55]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, I think you're using it the right way. You should definitely use it right. It's amazing. You just got to be careful.
- [15:02]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Let's get back to running. I have to ask, and maybe I'll give you mine. What's the most meaningful mile you've ever run and why that mile?
- [15:11]
Nick Thompson
The most meaningful mile it will be when I was summer, when I was 17 years old going into senior year in high school, and there was a mountain called Kinsman Mountain in the White Mountains in Franconi, New Hampshire. And I was a tennis instructor there as my summer job. And I remember trying to run up the mountain and I couldn't and I kept turning around, right. You like, you'd run up like I was like two miles and there's a right turn to go to Bald Knob and a left turn to go up Kinsman. So you run two miles up there and if you want to sort of chicken out, you go to Bald Knob, you look at the view, you come back, or you can turn left and try to go up Kinsler. And I kept like, during breaks, you know, two hour break between teaching the kids tennis, I'd go run and I'd go and I turn left and then I would eventually get too tired and come back, back. And so there was a moment when I actually did it and I got to the top, right. Maybe my third attempt, I was like, oh my God. And I'm using that as a mile. Probably took 30 minutes. So it's like an extra long mile. Minutes. But it was the first time I'd really summited a mountain. And I think it opened up something spiritually and opened up like a connection to the sport. So even more than running a fast mile, even more than setting a record, even more than winning a race, I think it was maybe that is the origin of my passion for the sport.
- [16:38]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I love that story. My most meaningful mile also happened about the same age. I was a little bit younger than you at the time. I Was a sophomore in high school, and we had a really good team that year. Ended up winning a state championship, in fact. But we were in the county meet, and we were. There was another team in the county that was also very strong, a bigger school than us, so they competed at a different level. But during that race, at about the two mile mark, I was attacked by a Rottweiler who took out a big chunk of my leg. And I remember at the time I was running, I was in second place on my team. The person who was the fastest on our team, you might know his name.
- [17:21]
Nick Thompson
Keith.
- [17:22]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Dan. Yes.
- [17:24]
Nick Thompson
That's cool.
- [17:26]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Huge marathon runner.
- [17:27]
John Miles
Yeah.
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John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Of course, he was ahead of me, but one of my teammates, we ended up winning the county championship, but it was probably the first time for me that I stared at that much fear. And it was really a defining moment because I realized at that point that I could overcome setbacks.
- [17:44]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, that. That's a very intense story.
- [17:49]
John Miles
Yes.
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Nick Thompson
My God. Yeah.
- [17:53]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So your father was really brilliant in pioneering the way you describe him. But do you also say he was turbulent and there was a period of time when you were around five years old, five or six, where your family was breaking apart. Can you talk about that moment and what it meant to him and what it meant to you?
- [18:18]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. So my father, he was brilliant. He grows up in Oklahoma. He then gets a scholarship to Andover, Stanford, wins a Rhodes scholarship, Oxford, comes back, marries my mother, and he's extremely successful, but. Or extremely successful as a very young man. Extremely promising. Maybe it's John F. Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy is like, this kid's gonna be president before me. He like, big photograph of my dad in Life magazine when he was 20 years old, which is bonkers. But he comes back and he comes back with his Rhodes scholarship, and it's like, a little harder to. He doesn't get elected to the senate when he's 29 years old, and he struggles and has a hard time finding himself. By the late 1980s, he's approaching 40 and he's starting. He's like. He comes a White House fellow, right. He's a sort of a young Cold War hawk. He knows he's lined up for a pretty good job in the Reagan administration. But it's at this moment when he also realizes he's gay. And he. To some. I don't know exactly when he first knew that. I don't know. It's not like it's an on off switch. Right. So it's not. It's like a light. It's like you're gay. You're not gay. Clearly he's bisexual and he's on a spectrum of sexuality. But he, like, realizes that he's gay and he leaves my mother, moves to Washington, begins dating men. And also, it's not a smooth transition. Right. It's not like he, like, goes into, like, monogamous, long term relationships with appropriate people. He goes into these, like, utterly chaotic, totally inappropriate relationships with people he picks up in Dupont Circle. And he also blows up his life financially. He can't manage his money, blows up most of his old friendships. It's just an incredibly chaotic period in his life. And obviously my parents divorce and he's gone. And I don't know all that's going on. I don't even know he's gay. Right. I'm six years old. But that was a real transition for him. And from that moment on, his life was defined not by his professional successes, not by his ambitions, not by the roles he played in government, though he did play interesting roles in government. And he did actually have a. He does. He is the, I believe, the first, first Senate approved, openly gay government official. He is. He's a civil rights pioneer in some ways, but he's also just like absolute madness and chaos for the next 30 years of his life.
- [20:40]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
My roommate at the Naval Academy was actually a Rhodes scholar. And I always thought Dave was going to go into politics. Didn't turn out that way. He ended up becoming a Navy seal and now he's an environmental attorney. But I. That's where I always thought he was going to go.
- [20:54]
Nick Thompson
Well, it's being a road squad is hard. Right. You get this stamp on your forehead and it's great because it, like, gives you access to all kinds of things. But if you don't live up to your promise, it can be really tough.
- [21:05]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Yeah, I would think it's the same thing as if you win the MacArthur genius award.
- [21:10]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. If you're forever a genius and then like, your new work is law. And people are like, dude, hang tight.
- [21:15]
John Miles
We've got more from Nick Thompson coming.
- [21:17]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Up right after the break.
- [21:19]
John Miles
Thank you for supporting those who support the show and make it possible. You're listening to Passion Struck, part of.
- [21:33]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
The Passion Struck Network.
- [21:34]
John Miles
All right, to this inspiring conversation with Nick Thompson.
- [21:39]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Having interviewed Angela Duckworth a couple times, I understand why she got it. She's definitely living up to it. Well, your father's diaries, as I understand it, ended up in your possession. Was there something that surprised you the most about what you discovered there?
- [21:55]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, definitely. They ended my possession like He. He moves away from the United States. He abandons his house. His house, like falling down in Virginia. This old farmhouse he owned. He's living in Southeast Asia. Complicated reasons. I go to the house, big filing cabinet out front, like a snake in one of the drawers. Take the. Leave the snake, take the cabinets. And then a few years later, I realized that in the cabinets there, his diaries. What most surprised me, I went through and I read them all after he passed. What most surprised me was his relationship with his father. And I didn't really know Frank Thompson, my grandfather. I had known that he had played a important role in my dad's life. My dad often said that he could only run a fast marathon after his father died. But the diary entries are, like, all. They're basically two subjects in my father's diaries. Alcohol, why can't he stop? And then his father and his relationship with his father and, like, how hard it is and what happened. Letters, they wrote. And also, somewhat ironically, his father's drinking and why can't that guy stop? Which you would've thought would've been a good lesson for teaching my dad to stop drinking. But I was surprised by both the depth of his feelings towards his father, the prominence of his feelings towards his father, and then most by the fact that the sins of his father were all sins that he directly repeated and imposed upon me. Like, he. Psychologically, the things that he most complained about his father doing in the 1970s, with one very important exception, were things that he would then later do in his own final years.
- [23:30]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So for you, do you think running initially was a way to hold onto him or to get some distance from him?
- [23:36]
Nick Thompson
For you it was both. Both, totally both. And initially it was all a way to hold on to him. It was. It was a sport that he'd introduced me to. It was a sport that we did together. When I would travel and see him, we'd run together at all ages. First, he was, of course, much faster than me. Eventually, I was faster than him. It was a great sport for father, son bonding. When he died, it was a way to hold on to him and to mourn him. Right. Think about him. The fact that it's a sport where you can focus, devote yourself to specific goals, excellence, achievement. That, of course, was something he taught me. But this is a man who, like, very much lost his discipline, lost his focus. And I believe that running is a way to keep your discipline and keep your focus. And so I keep running in part to honor him and remember him and in part also to not be Become him.
- [24:25]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So if you had the opportunity to run one more mile with him today, is that what you would say to him?
- [24:32]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, first. Yeah, totally. He would love hearing that and he would like maybe fight back a little bit. But if he'd been drinking, he'd fight back a lot. But we'd have a good conversation. We always had good conversations and good arguments.
- [24:47]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So I want to move on to your journey, becoming passion struck in your running career. So like many people who run marathons, I think one of the first things that anyone wants to do is to aim for the three hour barrier.
- [25:01]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [25:02]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
For you, early in your running career, what did that three hour barrier mean to you? Why was it so important?
- [25:07]
Nick Thompson
That was the line that was like you just. I kind of. What you said, like you I've either run a three hour marathon or you have not. Like it just seemed like that was the cutoff and the only cutoff that mattered. My dad had wanted to break that. He'd run 3 hours and 41 seconds or something like that. He just missed. And I had watched him run that race when I was seven years old. So it was like deeply implanted in me. That 25959 is good, 30001 is bad. Right.
- [25:31]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
That was.
- [25:32]
Nick Thompson
And so in my 20s, I tried over and over to run a three hour marathon. The first one I did, I was like on pace and then I bombed out, ran 318. And second one, I think I got closer at 3:06. And then I got a flat tire on my way to the third one. And the fourth one I dropped out. Fifth one, I like was on pace and then like totally bombed out and ran a 343. So I think it was maybe my sixth one or might have been my sixth or my seventh. Where I ran, finally ran 2:57.
- [25:58]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I have to ask for you, when you're doing the marathon, where do you. What mile range do you find is the hardest? For me it was always around the 18th mile mark.
- [26:09]
Nick Thompson
18, 19. Back then. Back then it was like 21 through 24. But I was. Cause I didn't know how to train. And I believed this. The insane thing that they teach people coming in the marathons, just run 20 building up. It's all you need to do. Don't run more than 20. The last 6.2. They'll take care of themselves on race day. That's the worst advice. Run more than that. If you run 20 in your training, you will die at 20. Why does everybody die at 20? Partly you run out of Carbohydrates. And partly because all of these race books tell you just to run 20 miles anyway. So I would always die the later part of the races, now that I'm much faster and I understand the race better. The hardest part is like staying calm at like miles 4 through 10 and not. You can tell yourself a million times, right, I'm going to run this pace, this heart rate range. I'm gonna stay behind this person and I'm not gonna go ahead a bit. And then you're out there and people are cheering and you feel so good and it is easy to go a little fast and then, kapooch, you're done. And so that to me is like the first. That's you suffer more and you hurt a lot more in miles 18 through 25. But the trick, right. The moment where you're going to succeed or fail is earlier.
- [27:22]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
It absolutely is. So you then join. If my history is correct, you. You then join a New York running club.
- [27:30]
Nick Thompson
Yep.
- [27:30]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Where you end up setting a more audacious goal. Goal for yourself of trying to hit 240.
- [27:37]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [27:38]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
And you weren't successful at doing that for a while. Maybe you can talk about that journey.
- [27:44]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. It's funny, I tried forever to break three hours and like, finally broke it. Then I'm. Then I get like way faster. I run 243 and I'm like, okay, I'm break 240. And then that takes forever too. That also takes seven years of just repeated failure. Yeah. I kept running 2432-432422-42245, 245, 246, 243, 242. I just couldn't do it. And I eventually cracked it. Philadelphia Marathon. It was the year. Can't remember what year it was. It was the year of Hurricane Sandy, which I think was the year of the election. So that would been 2012, and the new York Marathon was canceled. So I ran the Philadelphia Marathon and I cracked 2:40. And I thought that would be the fastest I'd ever go. I would have been 37. Pretty psyched. It's very hard. It's almost like when you set a goal and you miss it, it becomes easier to miss it the next time. And I just got in a. I couldn't break through physically in those prime years. I couldn't break through and go much faster.
- [28:38]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I think that's a good stopping point because if you're someone who's listening to this and they're maybe facing that same mental block that they have, whether it's running or some area in their life. What would your advice be to them?
- [28:52]
Nick Thompson
I think what I didn't do, the reasons were buried pretty deep psychologically and they dealt with the sickness I had. But for someone who hasn't gone through the medical stuff that I went through in that same period, the trick is to like, you have to figure out a way to force yourself to go at a speed that you don't think you can go, right. And that's really hard because you have to use your mind to make yourself do a thing that your mind thinks you can't do. And I tell this story about when I was in the book. I tell the story about when I was 15 and I was running track and I thought I could only run two miles in 11 minutes and 30 seconds. That's where I ran like 11:30, 11:40. And then I enter this race where I don't know the size of the track and because of that I don't know how fast I'm going. And I run, end up running 10:48, which is much better. In my 40s where I started, I figured out how to crack this barrier and then some. It was partly by convincing myself that a six minute mile wasn't fast. And to do that, I went out on the track and I would run 200 meters at 4:30 pace, right. Just to get used to seeing fours on my watch. And I'd go and I'd run two mile repeats at like 5:30 pace just to get used to being much faster than 5:59, right. I had to like at a deep level convince my body that running a six minute mile was not fast, it was slow. And it's a very hard mental process. And whether you're trying to go under a 6 minute mile or 8 minute mile or a 440 mile, you've got to figure out a way of getting past those mental limits. And the same thing applies at work. Like sometimes you just have to set a goal that seems impossible and push to it. I this thing that you think is going to take you five days, right, and you're going to just do it in a day. And you learn different habits, you learn different processes, you learn better ways of not wasting time. This, in a way, it happened to me. I remember this is part of the book too. But it's a pretty relevant story because it's quite similar. It was the day of the Boston Marathons. I worked at the New Yorker at that time, Amazing magazine, loved it. And I was the editor of the website, and I edited and I managed and had lots of confidence. And I was like, you could give me a story. And I was absolutely convinced I could make it better. I could put it on the Internet. I could help spread it through our audience. What I did not have confidence is that I could write or that I could write quickly. And Boston Marathon happens. Sorry, bombs happen at the Boston Marathon. It's 2013, and David Remick, who runs the New Yorker, one of the greatest journalists of our lifetime, comes into my office. He's my boss and he's, nick, you're.
- [31:22]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Going to write about this.
- [31:23]
Nick Thompson
I was like, no, David, I got other things to do. I'm an editor. I, you can't do this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these excuses, all these reasons why it's not right for me. And, oh, this other guy, he's a runner and a writer. Like, why don't we get. Like, we're a commie. David, shut up. And he, like, he says to me, he doesn't say, shut up. He's way too gentle nice for that. He, like, listens, but you can tell he's, like, rolling his eyes and he's like, nick, this is what's going to happen. You put down your phone. I'm going to walk out of this door. Office. I'm going to close the door, and in one hour, I'm going to come back, I'm going to open the door, and when I do that, you're going to take a story you've written and you're going to give it to me. And then he walks out, closes the door. An hour later, he comes back and you. I did it, right? And, like, basically it was this forcing mechanism that was like, you have to do it. Stop thinking about your limits and stop thinking that you're a bad writer or stop thinking that you're incapable of writing quickly or doing this particular thing, because you can't. And so sometimes you need a boss or a teammate or a coach to force you into that uncomfortable position.
- [32:28]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Now, there are, like, limits.
- [32:29]
Nick Thompson
If he'd said, I'm going to come back in 12 seconds, like, I couldn't have written the story in 12 seconds. Right? You need someone who actually knows what you can do. So he was the right coach and the right manager at that moment. Other people have been the right coaches and right managers at different moments who have forced me into uncomfortable situations, which is how you improve. Do you think?
- [32:50]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Part of that? And thank you for sharing. It goes back to your father's line. Never take on mice when you can take on tigers. Yeah, that's what it made me think of when you were talking about it.
- [32:58]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, it was an email he sent me back when I was a kid.
- [33:04]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Nick, I want to go back to this period of your life. Because I have found that anything that's ever been worth accomplishing in my life has taken far more effort, and I've encountered far more setbacks than I ever possibly could have imagined. And long before you broke 240, you were faced. You mentioned it. A health crisis that stopped you in your track. You heard the one word that no one ever wants to hear.
- [33:36]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [33:37]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So you describe that in the book as like the. After getting that diagnosis of thyroid cancer is like the worst year of your life. Can you take us back to that moment in that period? Because it wasn't just running. I mean, you. There were a ton of things going on in your life.
- [33:56]
Nick Thompson
Yeah, it's everything so. Well, a lot of stuff is going on in my life at that moment. I was 30 years old. I've just been married, which is important. I had been in a professional rut and was like, coming out of it. Had just gotten a good job. And really, I had been in a professional rut for 10 years, and it just like gotten the job that had pulled me out like two months before. And then I'd run this awesome marathon. I'd run a 2:43 marathon. And so I went to go see the doctor right after the race. I supposed to see the doctor before the race, but I didn't want to. Cause I was worried he would tell me not to run the race. Cause there's something wrong with my knee, which is not the best way to operate. But it's the way all runners operate. And so I go and see him like a week after the marathon, and he puts his hands on my throat road, does the stuff. And he like, sees a little nodule, right. And says, we have to get that tested out. And I like, whatever. It's whatever. But then over time, it becomes thyroid cancer. And then they have to operate. Actually have to operate twice. See, it's a little bright, but you can see I have the scar a little bit like a necklace right there. And this made me confront mortality in a way that was quite different. I was 30 years old. I was healthy. I'd never had sick as a baby, but I'd never been sick in a real way. And I was convinced I was going to die. I wasn't doctors and rational people look at the numbers, know that a healthy 30 year old male gets their thyroid cancer is almost certainly going to get through it. But you go through radiation treatment, you spend all these hours like lying on the floor just feeling the worst. And then you come out to live in isolation for a little while. You come out, you can't walk, you're just too beat down and exhausted. And it had been right after like it was inextricably tied to my running because it had been right after I had run this awesome marathon. Right. You would spend all these years trying to break 230 and then you 243 and you're like, I'm on top of the world. And then you're like, no you're not. And so it was a big shift. And so then I came back, you. Eventually I got healthy and figured out then dose of levothyroxine that I was supposed to take to modulate my internal systems, get back on it and get back to running. And it was really important to run another marathon once I was healthy. And I came back to the New York Marathon two years later. So in 2005, I ran the New York Marathon in 2:43:51. In 2007, after all that, I run in 2:43:38, which is pretty awesome.
- [36:22]
John Miles
Yeah.
- [36:22]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
What did those 13 seconds mean for you?
- [36:25]
Nick Thompson
When I started that race, I wanted to break 240 just because basically every race I want to break 2:40. And I ran on pace to try to run 2:40 like I wasn't trying to. But when I remember coming, it's, you've turned, you run down like Central park south come to form a circle, you turn into, turn back into the park and you're running up towards Tavern on the Green and you're running to this beautiful place that's like profoundly important in my memory. It's where my track team used to meet. It's where my aunt uncle used to live. Aunt and uncle used to live. This is awesome part of New York. And I'm running up there and I'm like looking at the clock and I'm like, oh my God. I'm like on the exact same time as two years ago. And I just. The emotions when I crossed that finish line were when I realized that I was faster than I'd been. Even though I hadn't run 240, even though I was hadn't run the race. Exactly right. And all that, that was a very profound moment that I'LL never go.
- [37:16]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So I want to go back to your sickness just for a second, because I think it's an important point. You write that we don't think about death most days, which means we also forget we're alive. And that line really struck me. For someone who's listening today, what practice helps you remember you're alive on the ordinary Tuesday?
- [37:37]
Nick Thompson
Partly running. I mean, like running reminds me and Parkinson's running is so tied up with my sickness, I don't think about my sickness often. I do think about it often when I run and there. So there are a number of things that just remind me that I'm here for a short period of time and it matters. One, of course, is having children and being with my children, thinking about them and their options in their life. Same sort of questions that you and I were discussing with your kids a few minutes ago. Running is a practice that helps remind me of that. And then just whenever I see beauty in the world, whenever I saw a dance show the other night with my wife, it was just amazing. And I think it triggers a feeling of being alive in a way that when I was in my teens and twenties, I appreciated art and music and life maybe in ways that were deeper. The spiritual highs, the emotional highs that you'd reach. The kind of the emotional meaning I could find in music was young man's mind versus an old man's mind. But I didn't associate it as much with being alive as I do now. And I think that's a function of having been through my sickness.
- [38:34]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
For those who listen to the podcast, you might remember an episode I did in episode 670 with a gentleman named Joel Beasley, host of the Modern CTO podcast. And the reason I'm bringing this up is Joel talks about the importance of setting ceilings for yourself. And he was telling me when he started Modern cto, we set the ceiling for him that he ended up breaking seven years later. So he decided that he wanted to become a stand up comedian. And so now he's setting a ceiling that for him, success means that he's going to sell out MARTA Madison Square Garden someday. So that's.
- [39:13]
Nick Thompson
Oh my God, that's awesome.
- [39:14]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
That's the ceiling he has set.
- [39:16]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [39:16]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
You were at this ceiling of 240 for a while. And in fact, I heard you say on another podcast that the people in your running club started to call you.
- [39:26]
Nick Thompson
Mr. 243, which I know, that's so annoying. I mean, they weren't wrong. But like, well, I love this story.
- [39:33]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So you get approached by a major brand who is doing an experiment on can they take people who are amateurs, not professionals, and change their performance trajectory? And man, I would love for you to talk about this because I found this so interesting.
- [39:48]
Nick Thompson
I know it's crazy in retrospect. It's this whole trajectory of my running life changes. I get this email from a Combs executive at Nike, guy named Matt, Matt Neller. And he's like, hey, at that point, I'm the editor in chief of Wired, right? So I'm not exactly. It's not like they take my name out of a hat, right? You know, I cover Nike and. But they know that I run. And I had written a story about their new shoes in the New York City Marathon. And he sends an email like, hey, we're starting this program. We pair elite coaches with non elite runners. You want to be part of it? And I like, legit, almost didn't write them back. And I didn't write them back for a few days because I was like, oh, man, running is getting old. Do I need to do this? It's a selfish sport. If I spend enough time on it, I really want to have to deal with a bunch of like elite coaches trying to coax a little more speed out of this. Broken down. I was whatever, 43 years old and I like didn't write him back for. I'm very fast on email. But I didn't write him back. And then he wrote on the Monday or Tuesday. And then that weekend it was my 25th high school reunion. And I go out and it was like super intense because a lot of my friends on that team died. I had one of them in his early 20s, like died while like on a stage before, like fell off the stage and died. I had two of them who like, died from cancer. One of them was struck by life. Just had the worst. All the different cohorts in my life. This is the cross country team of Andover, when I was there, has just had the most misery. My closest teammate, the guy who like beat me at New England, the guy I trained with, goes to college as a top runner, Williams, and then has given a cancer diagnosis and given like a 5% chance of survival. And he makes it and becomes a doctor treating people. But just the tragedy that befalls this group. And so I'm like thinking about that and I'm going for this run where I go and run this route up whole tail that we all. I used to do. A friend of mine had just died, this guy Tim, really close to me and it's been a year since my father died, and there's something about the intensity of the emotion. And I remember on that run, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna try this. I'm going to try it. I'm just going to try to be more intense. I'm going try to be a little bit like I was as a high schooler. And then I was thinking about my dad. I was like, what would my dad say if I had been offered this chance to get much better? So I write back, finally, maybe it's on that Monday. I write back to Matt. I'm like, okay, let's talk, right? And so then Matt begins this process. The next step. He organizes a conference call where I get on the phone with three coaches, one of whom's Joe Holder, who's a expert in motion mobility. Another is Brett Kirby, who's this, like, mad scientist, spiritual leader. He, like, designs a lot of the programs for La Kipchoge. And then there's Steve Finley, who's, like, a coach who go on run the Brooklyn Track Club. He becomes epic coach. And I talked to the three of them, and they're like, okay, tell us about your running. I'm like, well, I'm this old guy. I have this intense job, nickname, Mr. 24 3. I'd love to run. Love to. I told my goal. My goal is to run better than 2 hours plus my age in minutes. So that meant run faster than 2:43. And they would later tell me, they listened, and they're like, what's wrong with this dude? You can go so much faster. And so they have this conversation in the background, and they're like, look, given what this guy has done, given his training, given his natural ability, like, we can get him faster. And so they put me on a program, they start training me, and then everything shifts.
- [43:09]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So Coach Finley tricked you past a mental cap. For listeners, what's the practical playbook for bursting a ceiling that looks like data but is actually belief?
- [43:19]
Nick Thompson
That's like, the best anybody's ever said. It looks like data, but it's actually belief. That's so good, John. That's so good. I love it.
- [43:27]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
I told you, I'm a writer. That's good. Beautiful.
- [43:30]
Nick Thompson
No AI could write that. So he basically decides that he needs to convince me that I can fit myself into a younger man's body and that I can be as strong and fast as I was when I was 18 years old. And so he starts having me run faster. Like, he has me go to the track and run 400 meter repeats, which I haven't done since college, has me go out there and run like fast miles. And he's starting to just reset the calibration in my mind about what is fast and what is slow. And he wants me to run 2:38. Basically wants me to run 6 minute miles. 6 miles 237 12. He wants me to run that more or less. And so we start to. He doesn't tell me this is what he's doing. He only tells me later. He's trying to convince me that I can do these things that I couldn't do. But he's not telling me directly. He's not saying, nick, you can run at 2:37. Let's go bro. No, he's just like setting these schedules that slowly are shifting my perception about what I can do. And he's setting them at exactly the right way so that I'm hitting them and succeeding and I'm like feeling like I'm accomplishing them. And he lays out a Google Doc with a schedule. Joe tells me what to eat, tells me the cross training to do. Brett observes from a distance, but then weighs in on these sort of deep physiological questions about. Of course, because I'm a reporter and a journalist, I'm always like, explain what happens to your mitochondria as you get older. Brett's there to talk through everything. And I started seeing getting faster, right? I start like running these faster mile repeats, Start hitting these workouts I haven't hit before. I do really well in a race. I'm like, huh? I run the Aspen Marathon part of a workout. I'm like, wow, I did that pretty quickly. It's up and down mountains. Not a fast time, but impressive finish. And then I go out and I run the Chicago Marathon and I run it in 2:38. And then I come back and I'm like, you know what? I feel good. I'm gonna run the New York Marathon four weeks later. And I run that in 238 too. And I'm like, huh, something's shifting. And then I'm like, you know what guys? Then the Nike experiment ends. Like Nike experiment was supposed to run to end of the Chicago Marathon. I think those guys like Brett, Joe and Steve were probably paid to like train a cohort through the Chicago Marathon. And then I'm like, steve, can we keep going? And he's like, yeah. And so then he trains me, trains me for more.
- [45:48]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, one thing that I really wanted to ask you about is so you hit 229.
- [45:53]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [45:54]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
But after you do it, you wanted to get right back at it.
- [45:58]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [45:59]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
And this is how I really got injured in running. My coach at the Naval Academy, Coach Al, like, never gave us a break and ended up just pounding us into the ground. And on top of everything else at the Naval Academy that you have to deal with, my body just started collapsing on me, and it was terrible. So there's definitely this rest that you need to take that oftentimes you don't want to. What convinced you to stop, and what did you learn from taking a pause?
- [46:29]
Nick Thompson
So I run those two 238s, and then I come back in the next spring, I run 234. And then the next fall, I run 229. And that's the fall of 2019. And so I run this 229. I've had this, like, magical sequence right where I've gone. I've taken, like, 15 minutes off my time in a year, and I finished the race, right? And I'm like, all right, 2:29. And so I don't think I've ever admitted this before, John, so I'm giving you some breaking news here. I didn't even admit this to my wife or my kids. It's so embarrassing. I finished that race, and I'm like, I think I can qualify for the Olympic trials, right? Which is like 219 a year, right? And. Or 218, right? And for those of you who aren't runners, like, it may seem like 229 isn't that far from 218. Like, it's phenomenally different, right? Like, even at that moment, I could run two miles or three miles at the pace. Like, people don't quite understand. Like, I'm a very good runner. I could not keep up with the marathon leaders for, like, more than 400 meters. Like, they go so much faster. And so I finished the race, and I'm like, steve. And I think I wanted to run it because the. I can't remember the qualifying window, but I was like, maybe I'll run the CIM marathon in eight weeks. And I was like, steve, maybe we can make a program to try to run, like, 219 in eight weeks. And he was like, nick, he didn't say, you can't do it. And if I had said, we have to do it, he probably would have done it. But he's, look, I've been watching you, and I'm looking at you, and I gotta tell you that the night before the marathon, every other Rice we've run. I've known you're gonna get it. I can't tell you. I've known you're gonna get it. I've known you're gonna get it. He said, But I looked at you and I was worried before this one, he's like. He looked skinny, he looked worn out, looked like we'd gone to the max. And he's like, you don't need to go to try to run a 219 now. You need to sleep. And so it's interesting, right, because what he had done in both cases, at the beginning, he had reset my expectations to make me go faster, because that was rational. And at the end, he reset my expectations. No, you can't actually do that. You're not going to run too nice. You're not thinking. All you're going to do is wreck your Achilles or whatever. And so he gets me to dial it back and slow it down. And then a couple months later, we start going. And then I get in the best shape of my life, since it's then the winter of 2020, and I was assuming I was going to go faster than 229, but then we have Covid. So everything gets reset.
- [48:44]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, one of the phrases that I caught in the book is, pain is information, not truth.
- [48:49]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [48:50]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
And I think you got this from running ultra distance races. How did you teach yourself mid race or midlife to tell yourself how to figure out protective signals from genuine red flags?
- [49:04]
Nick Thompson
Every runner struggles with this. But it's so interesting as this is partly from talking with Kirby, it's partly through reading a lot of the literature, but as you get deeper into the sport, you realize this phenomenal thing, Right? It's a theory. It initially began with this guy Tim Noakes called the central governor theory. But the theory, which I believe absolutely, is that most of the pain you feel in running is not strictly physiological. It is psychological. And what's happening is that your brain has expectations about what your body can do, and it believes that in the given the current temperature conditions and your current level of fitness and your heart rate and your body heat and everything else it's measuring. If it worries that you're going to head out of homeostasis and go to an unsafe spot, it sends a pain signal. Right. And that is useful because your brain is trying to protect you. Right. It's an evolutionary signal. If you are, it knows you're going to go run 100 miles across the savannah. It has a sense of how hard it is to run 100 miles across the savannah. If it's too hot, it's going to send a pain signal. And where that pain signal appears, it's not quite random, but it's not related to where the most exertion. Right. You might feel it in your elbow. Right?
- [50:08]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Right.
- [50:08]
Nick Thompson
And your elbow does nothing when you run. You might feel it in your digestive system. Right. You might feel. You might feel it in your calf. Right. So you get all this pain. That is information, but it's not real. On the other hand, you might actually have torn your Achilles. Right. And so your Achilles might hurt. Not because your brain is sending a signal that you're about to lose homeostasis. You might have literally torn it. Right. You might have broken your femur. And learning when you run, like, what is real and what is not. I just went through this on Saturday where I went out and I was like, my hamstring was hurting. I injured my hamstring playing soccer with my kids, like, a while ago. And it's hurting. When I was running and starting, I was, all right, it's gonna clear up. I'm good. And then like, eight or nine miles in, I'm like, this is just body worry. I'm good. And then 10 miles in, I'm like, oh, my God. I can't move. I have to walk home. So probably would have been useful for me to recognize this at mile six. They're. And so they're just all pretty good at it, but I'm not perfect. And recognizing, like, what is real pain and what is not is what prevents you from getting injured. It's what allows you to go faster. It's a very complicated process, and it's, like, a huge part of becoming a successful runner.
- [51:20]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Yeah, man. I remember, especially in critical races, I. My mind would always have that crossfire debate.
- [51:27]
Nick Thompson
Yeah.
- [51:28]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
When I am trying to push myself to some place that I've never gone before. And sometimes I lost the debate, and sometimes I won the bait.
- [51:37]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. Yeah. Every runner knows this debate. Like, part of your brain is like, stop. Part of your brain is, no, I'm still going. And you have it, and you keep going.
- [51:48]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
So what? Because I think this is applicable to life, too, because we do the same debate in any goal we're trying to chase. What have you learned to get yourself through that debate and come out on the other side of it? Positive.
- [52:00]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. Sometimes you just can't do it. Right. So we'll say that. But let me go tell you the story about a race I just ran. So the last I guess maybe two races ago was the Lake Warog 50 miler. And I was trying to set the American record in the 50 mile run for men over 45, which means running 635 pace for 50 miles. And I did it and I was right on pace with a little head of pace through like mile 35. And I felt great, right? And I'm hydrating well, I'm eating well, it's a good day. And then 35 start to feel it, right? And the first thing you do is you try to push it aside, right? It's okay, right? Like steady, like you're doing it right? And you just concentrate. It's like a form of meditation. You're trying to like, you know what, I'm just going to stay in my mind. I'm going to concentrate, I'm going to relax, I'm going to push this pain aside. I'm going to think about different things, right? All I'm going to do is I'm not going to worry that I have 15 miles to run. I'm going to reset my expectations because my brain is sending these signals because it's worried I can't run 15 more miles. I was going to try to convince myself that this is just a race about getting to the next mile or the next aid station or that telephone pole, right? And so you've reset what you think you're trying to do, right? Or you reset it like there was another person. There's a guy I have lapped, but he like, good. He was like highlighting people. I was like, dude, can you do me a favor? I'm trying to set the American record. You look like you're fine even though I just lapped you. Will you run with me at 6:30 pace? And he's like, yeah, dude, let's do it, right? And so I like run behind this guy 6:30 pace, right? And so I'm like holding on to him and then he gases out at about mile 42 and I'm going back to like high five and the stuff he does. And so I'm still on pace at mile 42, right? And I've held on. And so then I'm like, oh boy, right? And so then I'm like, okay, now I'm going to focus on my mantras, right? So at least like things I think about when I'm running to try to push the pain aside. And the main one I do is I like think about 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1- 2, 3. And so I'm like putting the emphasis it's like a drummer putting the emphasis on my right foot, then my left foot, then my right foot, then my left foot, right. And I'm, like, trying to keep myself balanced and, like, straight and steady, but also just trying to calm the mind and shut everything out. And so I'm, like, doing that. I'm, like, trying to think about other moments where I've succeeded. I'm trying to think about other things I've done that are hard. And I'm doing what I can, but to no avail. I. I, like, started to slow. I was in agony. I pushed so hard. And I actually crossed 50.0 miles ahead of the second American record. Sort for one age group, and not both age groups, but the. The loop course. You can't run perfect tangents. So I ended up finishing and missing both records. I tried. I wasn't. I was not able to overcome whatever signals were going on in my body. But, man, did I try.
- [54:42]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Man, I love that story. So I understand another race. You finally win the race you vowed to win as a kid, and then later you pace your son through his own breakthrough. What did those two finish lines teach you about things like pride, pressure, and letting your own kids tell their own story?
- [55:01]
Nick Thompson
Oh, I love that so much. So, yeah, there's this race I spent. When I was a kid. I spent all this time in this place called Northeast harbor up near Acadia national park in Maine. Yeah, I was just there. Oh, really? Yeah. Right, right. It's like the best place in the world to run. Like, these carriage trails.
- [55:15]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
It's gorgeous.
- [55:16]
Nick Thompson
Yeah. Honestly, like, if I were to. If I didn't have a job and if I were just a runner, I would move there. So there's always a race. Sadly, it's been canceled. If anybody listening wants to restart it, that would be God's work. But when I was a kid, there was always this five mile race that would end in town. And I remember watching it as a kid. My dad ran it one year, and I remember just vowing I would win it and, like, making this pledge while I walked around my backyard as a child. And then I tried to, and I couldn't. And I, like, ran it when I was undergraduate. I was really strong and good. I came out third or fifth. I ran it, like, a bunch of times, and I never won. Then in the summer of 2019, summer where I would end up running, I would run 229. I pledged that I would win, and I did. Right? And I win, and my kids are there at the finish line cheering and Everybody's exciting and you know who, who cares? It's like a local road race, but you have to be fast to win. Like they're good people who run that race. And so two years later, it's canceled the next year. But 2021, I come back and my son, my middle son who's then 11, is like, you know what dad, I'm gonna run it. Awesome. And we train together and I try not to put pressure on him, right? They may dispute this, but I do my very best to. My goal as a parent is to be available for them anytime they want to do something. And if they want to push themselves, they want to get good at something, I will help them, right? They want to get good at chess, I will play chess with them every night, but I'm not going to tell them to play chess, right? If they want to get good at soccer, I will train with them every night, but I'm not going to tell them to go practice, right? And so he wants to get better at running. And so I go out and I take him to the track and he gets better and then we go out and we. He runs the race. So I run, I finish, I think I come in third that year. And then I circle back and there he is like mile to go, he's trucking, doing a running 9 minute mile pace as an 11 year old. And I get with him and I like tell him, listen to his breathing and I run about a little bit with him and I like tell him to actually I think I have to tie his shoes. At one point his shoe gets untied. But I try to help him focus and like he speeds up, accelerates and then he like guns it to the line and his cousins are there cheering and it was an amazing experience for him and a great experience for me to see him do something to sport and love it. And like he and I Now, he's now 15. On my 50th birthday we went out and ran. I wanted to run a sub 5 minute mile for my 50th birthday. So he went out and paced me for the first 1200 meters of it. We'd go to the track and we'll do eight by 400 where I'll lead one, he'll lead one, I'll lead one, he'll Lead one. It's awesome. Yeah, it's so cool.
- [57:46]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, I want to end talking about Michael Westfall. You write that Michael says there's more to running than just beating people. He then goes on to say, I realized that When I was 58, yeah. What did Michael change in your understanding of things like excellence, dignity and community.
- [58:03]
Nick Thompson
And what they mean? And Michael Westfall is a hero. So this race, the Northeast Harbor Road Race, when I'm running with my son and we're finishing, I was with this guy, my training partner out there is this cop guy named Judson, Killer runner, right? He, that year where I came in third, he came in second and we, I see this guy, I think at that point in the race he was just ahead of Zachary. And I was like, Judson is okay, right? He's like running, his arms flailing all over, like circling up, right? And Judson's like, that's Michael Westm, man, he's a legend. And I was like, what? Okay. And then run with Zachary. Zachary ends up finishing just ahead of this guy. And so like Michael Westlaw. Who's Michael Westlaw? And I look up and he had actually won the Northeast Harbor Road Race the year my dad had run. And so I say to Judson, I was like, where's this guy live? What is this story? And so I write to him and I'm like, hey, my name's Nick, I love running. You finished just ahead of my son. I'd love to come talk to you. And so he has this incredible story. He grows up on this island, Cranberry island. And it's this little island off the coast of Maine. So there's Mount Desert island which is off the mainland. That's where Acadia is, that's where I was. And then off of Mount Desert island is Cranbrath. And it's got a year round population of about 50. And there's one road, so it's two mile road run through the middle of the island. And then there's like little off roads and beaches and grows up there. And like when you grow up on little island, like not enough kids to go to high school. His mom has to get power of milk. His dad like works in Boston. Monday through Thursday, comes up Friday, Saturday, Sunday, mom is like raising the kids and the little house, I can't remember, they didn't have electricity. They're in a tiny island off the coast of Maine and there's not a lot to do. And so everybody runs and there's like a population whatever, 40 or 50. And seven of them become sub three hour marathoners, which is crazy. And so Michael becomes this awesome runner and he runs229,228. He's this great runner, wins all these races in Maine. He's Also a carpenter, strong man. Like, he's. He builds a lot of the houses. They're all these sort of affluent families who come for the summer and the people who live year round. And he builds the houses for everybody. He builds his tennis courts. He's flowing like rock gardens. GRE Island's awesome. And he builds a lot of it. And he's the caretaker for all the homes. And then when he's, like, 49 years old, he gets this sort of shake in his shoulder, and he's like, what is this? I'm sore. And then eventually realizes he's got Parkinson's, right? And so then his arm starts to flail, and he gets the symptoms of Parkinson's. We've all seen Michael J. Fox. We've all seen the consequences. And at first, he's embarrassed, right? He's this strong guy who builds the island. These are his customers. Tries to hide it. And then he's like, I'm not going to hide it, and I'm going to run. And so he learns to run with it, right? And he, like, ties his hand back with string and he learns how to, like, handle running with Parkinson's. And he's phenomenal. I think he runs, like, a 3:16 marathon with Parkinson's, right? In his 50s, right? He comes in, like, the top of his age group, competing in people who don't have Parkinson's. Like, it is amazing. And so when I go and see him, he's in his 60s, and I get on to get off the boat, and I go up and there he is, and he's like. His arms are flailing all over the place. I brought my eldest son, and we go and we drive with him. We get in the car, and I'm like, oh, my God, right? This can't be safe. I brought my child, and I'm like, you know what? This guy knows this island. I'm going to just trust him. And so we talk about his life. We talk about what he learned. We talk about his embarrassment initially, and then his. His pride and learning how to handle it. And that quote, it was him describing what he got from running. And when he was young, he just wanted to beat everybody, like, everybody, right? He wants to run and win. And you ran 2:30. He wants to run 229. You run 229, you want to run 228, right? And then once you get Parkinson's and once it's a little bit like my experience with cancer, but you multiply by a hundred, he starts to really fall in love with the community that comes from it and the people he meets. And like other people who are struggling with different forms of Parkinson's, different kinds of medical treatments, different kinds of reactions. And he travels around talking to people, running, racing. He learns that he has to run with support because he might fall, he might need. It's very hard to get a water cup right. There are a lot of things that are hard when you're. Control your body. And he just becomes this amazing runner. He sets the world record, I believe, for fastest marathon by someone with Parkinson's. And he keeps going and going, and then eventually he can't go any further. He can't do it anymore, right? He becomes too sick. He goes through a treatment that gets him more control, but he can't really run. Except who went out to see him this summer. So five years after I first saw him, or four years after I first saw him, and I bring my youngest son this time. And my youngest son is also a great runner. He's now 11. We go out there and we talk for a while. I'm just catching up, like, the book is already done. I've written about him, and I'm just seeing him because I like him and admire him. And then he's, well, let's go for a run. And we go out and the three of us go and run a mile on that road on Cranberry Island. And he's one of those people who. I just. I feel blessed.
- [63:05]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, I just have to ask you one and one last thing, and you can answer it quickly. But given his story tomorrow morning, a listener who's heard this wants to start. Maybe not running, but their own version of it. What's the smallest, most durable step you recommend, and what would you say they should stop doing that's been capping their own ceiling?
- [63:28]
Nick Thompson
They just should go out the moment they want to go out. That's the beautiful thing about running, is you get to decide and you get to control. You want to play tennis, you need someone else. You need a racket, you need a ball, you want to run, and you also need to reserve a cork. You want to run, you can just go. You turn the knob, right? And so whatever's limiting them, whether they don't want to run because it's hot, they don't want to run because they don't have the right shoes, or they don't want to run because their knee hurts or whatever, they're worried about something like, let's go out, run around the block, run 5 minutes, run 10 minutes, or walk 5 minutes, walk 10 minutes. Try to identify the thing that's holding you back and making you not want to do it. And one of the reasons I think this. One of the reasons I wrote the book is because there's this realization that, like, you really can just do. You really can just run. Just you. Like, it's all on you. There's nothing else. There's no one out there is stopping you from running, that you don't need to rely on anybody else. Like, you can run anywhere, right? If you like. I've done long runs. I've run 10 miles around a parking lot, right? You can go and run wherever you are. If I run, I have run when it's 110. I have run when it's negative 10, right? You can go out there and you just make something. Michael Westfall said, I was like, how many days? That I was like, how many days did you not run because of the weather? He's on an island right in the middle of Maine. It's like, how many days did you, like, not run because it was icy or the snow piled up front of the front door, you couldn't get out or stormy or tree come down? He's like, never. It's just a choice. And so that's one of the beautiful things about running. So just take advantage of that. It's one of the things that makes this sport so special. So whether it's running, whether it's walking, it's going out on your bike, whatever it is, just go try to do something that's like a little further, a little faster, a little more intense that you've done before. Awesome.
- [65:18]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Well, Nick, such an honor to have you today. What's the best place that people can go to learn more about you and your work?
- [65:24]
Nick Thompson
So I'm on nick thompson.com, i'm CEO of the Atlantic theatlantic. Com. I'm all over social media, usually at nxtompson. You can see all my runs on Strava. I post a video every day about AI and tech on LinkedIn, so I'm all over the Internet.
- [65:39]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Thank you so much for joining us, and congrats on the book.
- [65:41]
Nick Thompson
Thank you so much, John. I'm so glad that you like it. I'm so glad you read it. It was a real pleasure to talk with you, and it's a real pleasure to meet your audience.
- [65:48]
John Miles
That's a wrap on today's conversation with Nick Thompson. What I love most about this episode is how much it reminds us that endurance isn't just physical, it's emotional and spiritual. Running for Nick was never just about miles, it was about meaning. Here are three reflections to carry forward as you get through the rest of your week and your weekend. First, pain is information, not truth. Sometimes what feels like a limit is really an invitation. Second, growth happens in the space between resistance and renewal. And lastly, the most powerful finish lines aren't the ones we cross, they're the ones we create within ourselves. If this episode helped you rethink your relationship with effort, struggle or discipline, consider paying the fee by sharing it with someone who needs encouragement and leaving a five star rating or review. You can find the companion workbook and takeaways for Today's episode@theignitedlife.net where I share reflections and science backed strategies for living a life that matters. And don't forget to check out our YouTube channel at JohnR Miles or our clip channel at Passion Struck Clips Next week we're starting a new series for.
- [66:53]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
The month of November on the Inner.
- [66:55]
John Miles
Irreplaceables, Resilience and Emotional Mastery. We'll be joined by Dr. Zach Seedler, Global Director of Men's Health Research at Movember, and together we'll explore the evolving crisis of men identity and mattering and how redefining masculinity could be the key to our collective healing.
- [67:12]
Guest Speaker (Unidentified)
I think with anyone, if you're going to get up each and every day and do something that really matters to you, that you have a sense of purpose and meaning around, it has to resonate on a personal level. It has to light your fire one way or another. And really, there are many different interweaving narratives that led me to where I am today. The more I reflect on it through conversations like this, I pick up different threads along the way that really turned me into the man that I am and led me down the path to doing the work that I do.
- [67:46]
John Miles
Until then, stay resilient, stay curious, and as always, live life.
- [67:50]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Passion struck.
- [68:04]
Nick Thompson
You.
- [68:07]
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- [69:01]
John Miles (Co-host or Interviewer)
Experience.