← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Nicholas Thompson - CEO of The Atlantic (50k American Record Holder) | The Simple Sport That Reveals Everything About You
00:59:21
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This is the story of the One As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done.
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B
Why is running the simplest sport?
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It's the sport that you can do almost at any time, at any moment, just by yourself. Your successes are your own. Your failures are your own. I start running very seriously when I'm about 15, and initially I do it for a love of competition, and I do it because I'm good at it, and it gives me status at high school. It makes me cool.
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He's a storyteller who turned media into mission. Nicholas Thompson is the season CEO of the Atlantic, and under his leadership, the magazine returned to profitability, earned multiple Pulitzer Prizes, and grew its digital subscription base exponentially.
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When you're running, pain doesn't work the way we're taught. Most of your pain is actually just the brain sending signals because it's worried about homeostasis. If you can reach that level of awareness of yourself, you can actually go quite a bit faster because you can push your limits.
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He also co founded the Atavist, a multimedia publishing company acquired by WordPress, and wrote the Hawk and the Dove. He runs a daily video series dissecting technology, culture, and power, reaching millions and reshaping how we think about the future.
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When your life is hard, there's something about going to the track and just running to the point where you fall over that feels amazing. We're all on Instagram all the time. We're all on Twitter all the time. We're all constantly distracted, and we fill all those empty moments with screens, social interactions, notifications. But what's interesting is at the same time that that has happened, the number of people who run marathons and the number of people who run ultra marathons have skyrocketed.
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B
So, Nick, why is running the simplest sport?
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A
Hey, Scott. It's the sport that you can do almost at any time, at any moment, just by yourself. You don't need a racket. You don't need a ball. You don't need someone else. You just go out. You don't even necessarily need shoes, though they're useful, particularly if you're on rocky terrain. But you have the ability to just go out there and do it whenever you want. And then because it's just you, you're able to observe things about yourself and understand things about yourself as you do it. Your successes are your own, your failures are your own. You understand aging. It creates mental space that other sports don't do. So my. The hypothesis of my book is that if you look closely at running and you look at what it does to people's lives and you look at what it did to my life, you can actually understand really deep and really meaningful things.
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B
Do you think that people in general have a hard time being alone with their own thoughts?
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A
Some people do, some people don't. But we all have to spend a certain amount of time alone, so we all should be comfortable. And, you know, there's this interesting phenomenon in modern life where, you know, we're all on Instagram all the time, we're all on Twitter all the time. We're all constantly distracted, and we fill all those empty moments with screens, social interactions, notifications. But what's interesting is at the same time that that has happened, the number of people who run marathons and the number of people who run ultramarathons have skyrocketed. And so there's almost an inverse relationship between how distracted we are by our phones and how much we seek sort of long distance, long endurance competition.
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B
That's very interesting. Yeah. I feel like as you describe running in such an eloquent way, and I haven't heard many people describe it that way, but it's. I've experienced it with a variety of different fitness things, but none are as. How do I describe it? Like when you run, you get into a state. I guess it's flow state or something where you. There is no distraction. It is really just you and your thoughts, which can be a good thing or a scary thing. But it's really interesting that you notice that correlation between our thoughts, being overwhelmed by social media, being constantly stimulated, being constantly bombarded with messaging and images and ideas, and our need to find an outlet that gives us back our mental peace almost.
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A
It gives us back our mental peace. It connects us to where we were. Right. We hunted antelopes on the savannah when we were many, many centuries and generations ago. I do think there's something very pure about running, even when you do it. I do it in an industrial city. Most of my running is from Brooklyn to Manhattan over a bridge with a train. So it's not like I'm off running in fields of wildflowers. So I do think that Even if you do it that way, there's a way it connects you to our ancestors and a way it connects you to the sky. I do think there are really beautiful things that happen through it.
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B
Where does this sort of. I don't want to say love for running, but need for being okay with your own thoughts and persevering through difficult times. Where does this inflection point or this major theme come into your life? When does it first present itself?
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I mean, I start running very seriously when I'm about 15. And initially I do it for a love of competition, and I do it because I'm good at it, and it gives me status at high school. It makes me cool. But I also very quickly also learned that it's a way to be outside, be in the woods, think at a deeper level, process complicated things. And so it's probably pretty early in my relationship with running where I realized, like, I didn't just want to go out and try to beat people on the track. I wanted to see if I could run to the top of Kinsman Mountain, right? I wanted to see if I could, you know, get to the next Ridgeline. And you don't do that because you want to prove anything, you know, now you might do it for a Strava segment, but back then you didn't. And so it was really about finding some kind of spiritual peace. So I think that my. My need, the mental benefits that come from running started to make themselves present then. But I think it was later in life when, I mean, the inspiration for the book came at a pretty important moment, which was, you know, When I was 29, when I was 30, I ran a fast marathon. I had this long struggle to run a fast marathon. I just couldn't break three hours. And I finally break it, and I run 2:43, and I feel amazing, right? And then shortly thereafter, I'm diagnosed with cancer. I recover. We can talk more about that, that process, that whole thing. Then for the next, like, 13 years, I keep running and I just run two 43s over and over again, just nonstop, right? And two 43 is fast. It's cool. It's great. Like, two 43 is a great time. It's objectively, like, it makes you the fastest person in your company, right? Usually if you run 2:43, you know, fastest person on your block, whatever, then in my mid-40s, I get way faster, right? And I run 229. Now, suddenly, I'm like, one of the best in the world in my age group. You start setting Records. And the inspiration for the book, the moment I decided to write the book, came when I was trying to think through, like, what the heck happened? Like, how did I get so much faster? And more importantly, clearly, I have this latent ability. Why didn't I realize it while I was training my butt off in my 30s? Like, why couldn't I have gotten faster then? Like, makes no sense. And then I had this realization, oh, wait, it's because I had only cared about at some deep psychological level, being as fast as I had been before I got sick. Like, that was the only thing that mattered to me. And so it was that realization, oh, wait, like, the things that make you fast, the things that slow you down, the things that determine how well you can do at this sport, are buried deep inside. They're not just like your cardiovascular system, your legs, they're deep in your mind. And it was that realization that led me to start writing this book.
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B
That's very interesting. So you discovered that the reason why, the reason why you weren't getting better is really because of, I mean, to put it very, very simply, sort of a limiting belief or not even like a baseline or a benchmark that, that you thought that was what you wanted to achieve. I mean, this is like, obviously we're talking about running and, and sport, but this is something that transcends almost everything you do in life.
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A
Totally. Like, it's, I don't like it. There's so many multi factors and lots of elements. But yes, it was essentially like I was not, I just wouldn't let myself get faster because I didn't care. Because all I was trying to do was prove that I was still alive and that I was like, similar to the person before he had gotten sick. And that seems to have been what was going on inside my head.
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B
Does that, what does that teach you about sort of, you know, aging into your prime? Because I think that that's something that, Well, I mean, like, I don't think a lot of people at, at, you know, 45 are trying to break records. I don't think that a lot. And, and I always t. Listen, I, I, I am a business guy and a sports guy, and I, I do tie a lot of sports performance and sports lessons back to business because I think that some of the mindset hurdles that you overcome to succeed in sports and teamwork and all these different things, ideas, they really do translate into, into, into business as well, and just life success. But I think that you're talking about somebody who's 45. I don't think they're looking to, you know, create incredibly new milestones in their career, incredibly new milestones in their. In their athletic life, incredibly new milestones in their relationship, even though I think they should be. But I think that around that age is when people are thinking, okay, you know, know, I've done it. I figured it out. I'm good. Let me coast into retirement or whatever that looks like.
- [10:04]
A
Yeah, a couple of things. So, one, I had a very good model, my maternal grandfather, who doesn't really play a role in the book. He's mentioned a couple sentences, you know, worked until he was 83 years old at the highest levels of US government, right? Like, and he just got fired all the time, you know, got fired by, I don't know, 7 out of 11 US presidents and then just would work his way back, right? So I had a pretty good role model that said, you don't stop. You don't give up, you don't go. Like, you don't say, okay, at 55, I'm gonna retire. Or at, like, 40, I'm gonna stop running. You just keep going until the end. You know, he was playing tennis with me when he was 90 years old. I would put a little, like, chair out on the court, and he would, like, sit down between points. So that's, you know, that's one element of it. Another element is, I think the lesson that I learned. There are forces that slow you down as you age, right? It is inevitable. And, you know, my. I don't know, less lean muscle mass than I had when I was 28 years old. I have a, you know, lower maximal heart rate, right? I have. There are all kinds of, like, I have a lower VO2 max. There are all kinds of, like, physiological things that unquestionably make me slower. That said, I also have wisdom, right? I've learned things about training that I didn't know before. I have learned, actually, forms of endurance through my professional life are useful for running. So you have a bunch of forces pushing you backwards. You have a few forces pushing you forward. And so I'm never going to. Even if I devoted my whole life to running, I'm not going to run 220 or 219, but I can, you know, keep. I can keep pushing back against the decline. Even better. I had this conversation with my mother. She was like, oh, my God, my reflexes are just getting worse and worse. You know, it's like every day my reflexes are worse. And I was like, mom, that doesn't have to be the case. Like, let's go out on the porch, and I'm going to throw you tennis balls. I'm like, sort of toss them to the right, toss them to the left. I'm going to bounce them, and you're going to catch them and throw them back to me. And like, we went and did that, and she's like, oh, my reflexes are getting better. And you're like, yeah. You know, you can, like, there are forces that push us in one, you know, towards decay. And you can push back, you know, not at everything, but at what you want, you know, we're not going to live forever, you know, I'm probably going to die at roughly the same energy I was going to die at if I didn't do all this running. But I'm glad that I haven't, like, given in to the forces of decline, at least not yet.
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A
Yeah, so when you're running, this is important. It gets into like a little bit of. It's almost spiritual stuff. But you have to. The trick, one of the tricks in running fast, one of the most important things, and this is a lesson I think applies across life. Pain doesn't work the way we're taught or the way we think about it when we're young. When I started running, I thought that the reason I hurt when I ran was because my muscles were inflamed or, you know, something was going wrong with my nervous system. Or like I used to think there's, like there's lactic acid buildup. Right? And the lactic acid buildup is what makes you hurt. Well, no, it's not. There is lactic acid buildup, but that's not what makes you hurt. Most of your pain is Actually just the brain sending signals because it's worried about homeostasis. And so your brain is, you know, sending signals through the rest of your body to try to get you to slow down because it doesn't think it can maintain the pace you're running for the distance you want to run. So when I run a marathon or anyone runs a marathon, you get all these weird pains, right? And you're like, three miles in, your shoulder will start to hurt, right? And on a regular day, your shoulder's not going to hurt three miles in a run because there's nothing going on with your shoulder, right? Like it's just there, right? It barely moves. But your brain is like, it's worried about running 26.2 miles on this particular day. And it's worried you've taken it out too fast. So it's trying to get you to slow down. And so it's looking for weak points. And there are all kinds of studies that show this. And so your brain is running all these calculations. How hot is it? Like, how long is this going to take? How hilly is the course? How hard have I worked? What is my heart rate? And it's measuring all these factors and it's like a thermostat. And then if those factors kind of exceed a different level, it sends a pain signal out. And so when you're running, you're trying to understand this, and you're trying to understand these different pain signals, and you're trying to understand like, is this just something I can ignore? This is like this thing in my shoulder, or is it an actual pain signal? Is it like, I've actually injured my Achilles, right? So I was running this past Saturday and something started to go wrong on my hamstring, right? And I was like, okay, is this like a real thing? Or is it just worried that I'm trying to run a 20 mile run? And that is like a really profound and deep body awareness that if you can reach, and not that I've reached perfection, but if I am at a much deeper understanding of my body than I was 20 years ago, 10 years ago, 30 years ago, if you can reach that level of awareness of yourself, you can actually go quite a bit faster because you can push your limits in part by sort of. It's like using your brain. I call it playing hide and seek with your brain, right? But the only, like, you have to use your brain to play hide and seek with your brain, but you can kind of convince yourself to go faster are obviously physical limits. Like, it's not like the perfect Buddhist can run a one minute mile, but you know, you can still do better if you have a deeper understanding.
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B
You actually set records for men 45 and up in a 50k race. Like, this is not just a casual. I go for a run on a Sunday morning. Was that done purposefully? Did you say, I never want to be 100% my work? Has that benefited your work? Is. What's the relationship between the sort of the two conflicting identities?
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A
Well, it could be a strength, it could be a weakness. I mean, I think that, like my whole life and if you look at different moments and you look at people who've evaluated me, you know, the people who like me and the people who are impressed by me and who think I'm doing a good job are always like, you know, Nick does so many things right. And the people who kind of think I'm a schmuck are like, Nick's distracted. Right. And it's a theme that goes through, like my academic life, my 20s, my 30s, my 40s. You know, there are trade offs when you have a life where you have a bunch of things you do. There are moments where your goals end up in tension with each other. What I've tried to do is to make the life work and to make it so that nobody at the Atlantic ever thinks I'm slacking on the job because of my running, right? I run to and from the office. Takes about the same amount of time as going on the subway. I'm often listening to podcasts. If I'm going to work out, obviously I'm not because I'm trying to cultivate awareness, right? I'm using running as a way that can help my job. There are things I learned from running that really help my job. There are things from my job that help my running. So I've been able to build it into my life. So I don't think anybody at the Atlantic would ever say I shirk on responsibilities. I think they mostly think, oh, and Nick has this hobby that he's able to keep contained. And one of the things about running is that you can do it at an elite level without putting that much time in you. You know, you spend. I spend what, eight hours a week running? It's a lot. But like, you could spend eight hours a week watching Netflix.
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B
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A
I'm like, that's a good question. Because obsession is, you know, I'm. It's hard to be obsessive about. It's hard to be like a obsessive polygamist, right? And so my whole life, I've never really focused in on one thing to the exclusion of others. But I am very driven and very focused, and I care a ton about doing well at my job. I care a ton about running fast, and I care a ton about being a good father to my three boys and a good husband to my wife. I think obsession, I think sort of like a modulated obsession where you really care passionately and it's just whatever the goal is. So the most important goal in my life, right, besides being a good father, good husband, the most important goal is figuring out a business model. So this amazing publication founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harry Beecher Stowe, can thrive for generations to come and play a role in helping American democracy and helping America exist as a nation. Right? That's my objective, right? I don't write the stories, I don't edit the stories. My job is to find the business model. And I am obsessed by that. I think about it all the time, and it's in the back of my head, what should we do? Are we doing this? Are we doing this well enough? Can we hit this metric? Right? So in a way, I am, like, profoundly obsessed about that, but not to the extent that it prevents me from spending a bunch of time running.
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B
No, I think I, I like that. Strategically obsessed.
- [24:44]
A
Yeah, strategically obsessed. There you go. That's that. There you go. I'm strategically obsessed.
- [24:50]
B
When you get cancer at a young age, you. I mean, To a degree, you're facing mortality. How does that change your relationship with running, your hobbies, your pastimes, your family work? Like, what does this do? What is the thoughts that go through your head when you do get cancer at a young age?
- [25:11]
A
Well, so one of the thoughts, so I got it when I was 30. You do. Suddenly you just, you question who you are and what you are because you're like, wait, if I die, what have I? Have I done anything? Have I left anything? Have I? You know, the world would be identical without me. Or at least if you're 30 and you're like, I was at 30, right? I mean, if you're some super accomplished 29 year old, it's maybe different, but it makes you wonder your place in the world. It makes you think more about the people who truly love you. You go through this moment and you also, you get to see how people react and you get a better sense of who truly loves you and who truly, truly matters in your life. And then if you're lucky and you get through it as I did, you take life much more seriously. And you have post traumatic growth. You have this thing you can hold on to. You've been to the precipice, but you've survived. And you care more about certain things and you care less about other things. And so you maybe care more about trying to figure out your place in the world of journalism and you can maybe care less about whether the Red Sox win the AL East. Right. And so you just sort of like your shift of priorities and your way you spend your time, I think changes. There have been studies that have shown that people who get cancer and survive.
- [26:44]
B
It end up with.
- [26:46]
A
They end up becoming more religious, they end up becoming closer to their family members, they end up becoming closer to their deep friends, they end up probably having fewer weak social connections and they end up more focused. Right. Like there's a kind of. They do a whole bunch of things that are very salutary for their mental health. And I think they also spend more time outside thinking about important things. You kind of remove trivia and add important stuff into your mind. And there have been lots of studies that show that it's not true for everybody. And you do have to obviously survive it and come out the other side completely intact. Right. And you can come out with all kinds of different outcomes. But, you know, when I look at my life, there are a lot of things that didn't go right in my 20s, that went right in my 30s. I mean, running is a very obvious one. But there are all kinds of them. And part of it was having had this really dark and scary experience with thyroid cancer, which is, if you're going to get cancer, it's the cancer you want to get. A very high survival rate. I was very young. There wasn't. I was terrified and thought I was going to die. But there was no moment where, like a rational doctor thought I was going to die. But you come to the other side and you're a different, more serious, more focused person.
- [28:02]
B
There was one line in your book, it was along the lines of when were teenagers were pulled by instinct. Now my emotions were those of an older man. A steady rain that formed a river, pushing relentlessly forward. So this sort of. It's just very well, very well written and beautifully worded sort of evolution of a person. And was that cancer that brought you through that evolution?
- [28:27]
A
It was a couple things. I mean, that line in the book, I was comparing two different races, and they're both very emotional races. So the first was when I was 18 years old or 17 years old, and it was the New England championships and it was the 3000 meter race, and it was for the New England title. And it was both for the individual and for the team title. And my race, the 3000, was the last race. And so it's me against my arch rival. If I win, we have a good shot of winning the title. If I lose, we have no shot. So I have to win. And I go out, I, like, fall behind, I get depressed. He gets ahead, and then I catch him, right? And then it's just this manic sprint. And so, you know, what I love about those memories is that you can just. Like when you're running a sprint on a track, you can just let your emotions out. You can channel every element of energy you have into, like, forward propulsion. And I don't think I've ever felt quite like I felt, you know, those last 200 meters were neck and neck. We're just going back and forth, you know, like, I really, like, I hated the guy. He insulted me on the track, like, three weeks before. Was the only person who'd beaten me all season. It was like, unfair. He was a postgraduate, you know, like, it just didn't. I was like, I wanted to beat the guy. And so we're going at it. I pass him, I catch him, which is amazing. And then I lose and he wins. And so I was describing the emotions of that race and what it feels like to give it all and to, like, be a young man and be like screaming inside yourself and moving on into lane two, which amazingly in track is called the lane of high hopes, which. Which is so cool. So that was the first race. And then the second race is the 50k in Oregon where I set the American record, where in that first race I crossed the finish line and I'm blackout. Like, I don't even know I've lost. When I cross the finish line, it's so close. I think I might have lost, but who knows? And then it's like. Then in the 50k, it's like I remember the end where I can see the finish line and I know I'm going to break the American record. And they've pulled out the tape and I run through and the video is kind of amazing, right? And you watch and I go through and I break the tape and I look good and then. And I remember feeling good and then I like topple over. You know, I've clearly like completely maxed myself to the exact. You know, it's like, you know, I don't know, you pull into the gas station and there's like one drop of gas in the tank. And that was like what I had done in that race, but I had done it like in sort of a steady, smooth way as opposed to that first race where I lost. By the way, I will say that the guy who beat me in that race when I was 17, he read an article I wrote about running and sent me an email and said he loved. It was so great to read about it and it had inspired him to get out and play more squash. And I'm now friends with him.
- [31:14]
B
That's so fun. The arch nemesis. No, but I think that, that. So, yes, you're right. It wasn't just cancer, but it was like this. It was just life just turned you into.
- [31:24]
A
I mean, it's a lot of things, right? There's a lot of changes happen. So I think I really like. There's sort of four things that happen at that time period. There's, you know, one, I overcome my cancer. Two, I start having children, right? So I have three boys and they're. They appear in the years after I get healthy. Third, I write a book, and I write a book about my maternal grandfather who I mentioned, who is this just, you know, phenomenal diplomat, but also just a force of nature and a model. I read a book, it's the history of the Cold War based on his rivalry and George Cannon's. And then the fourth is that I have this very intense relationship with my father and I Watch this very driven man kind of fall off into alcoholism and despair and bankruptcy and have a counterexample. If you let things slip, this is what happens. And that sort of. I start to really process that. So all of those things are happening at the same time in my life.
- [32:20]
B
That's a lot. That's a lot. A lot. One last thought on this, because I think it's a useful idea, and I think it can help people that are going through difficult things. God forbid, hopefully nobody, although probability dictates people who are listening to this are going through cancer. Some sort of cancer scare, but just negative. Negative moments in people's lives in general. You found a lot of relief in running to really take your mind away from the cancer or. But the. The. The point is running physical activity, it gave you something that would take your mind away from anything negative. Like, I'm. I'm assuming you've used it to escape a lot of, you know, really mentally exhausting and stressful situations over your life. Talk to me about what people should. What people should know about running just when they're going through something. Hopefully not cancer, but if it's cancer or anything else, like, what's the. What's the thing that running gives you that nothing else really does?
- [33:24]
A
You know, I don't know. I mean, for. I don't know if for other people, it gives you something that nothing else can give you. But there are a couple of things that can happen with running. So, one, it allows you. You know, sometimes when you're running, what you're doing is you're actually seeking the pain, right? You're like, you're going out there. And because things are hard in your life, you're just like, you want the opportunity to kind of get into ultra runners, call it the pain cave, but you want to get into, like, just a point of. There's something. When your life is hard, there's something about going to the track and just running to the point where you fall over that feels amazing, right? So that's one use, right? I don't use it that much. That's more kind of like a young person's thing, you know? But that was kind of like, what, you know, if I, like, broke up with a girl when I was young, I would, like, just go run hard, right? And, like, you know, sometimes, like, bringing pain on can process the other pain. What I use running for now is kind of the opposite. It's almost like spiritual escape. It's like, okay, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna run And I'm gonna feel this different thing, and I'm gonna be out in the universe and it's gonna be closer to meditation, right? And I'm gonna go. Maybe something hard happens in my life now. I just go out and I go run in the woods, right? And I don't run hard. I don't necessarily run long, but I go. And it's a way of, like, releasing my mind and freeing myself. And so I think people can reach that mental state, you know, that kind of dissociation. You can reach it through multiple ways. You can go for a walk, right? You can go bird watching, right? Like, there are different ways of kind of escaping and going. Maybe you can meditate, maybe you can sit quietly in a chair. But for me, it's running that gets me to that state. That's, you know, really helpful.
- [35:05]
B
The HubSpot Podcast Network is a success story partner now. Quick podcast recommendation. I've been listening to Truth, Lies and Work. They're in the HubSpot Podcast Network. Just like Success Story, it's this husband and wife team, Al and Leanne Elliot. They break down why people actually do what they do at work. So if you have a business, if you manage people, if you have to hire people, at any point, you have to listen to their show. I just listened to an episode on why good employees suddenly quit. That's an issue that we all have. And it totally clicked for me. One of the reasons they explained is why it's not usually about the money. It's about all these little promises that we as founders, entrepreneurs, managers, leaders, we break without realizing it. Like when you tell someone you just hired that they're going to learn all these new skills, but you just keep giving them the same tasks over and over and over again. It made me realize that I probably lost a lot of good people for dumb reasons that I never noticed. And hiring is one of the most important things you can figure out. So if you manage people or if you just want to understand what makes your coworkers tick, it's worth checking out. Listen to Truth, Lies and work wherever you get your podcast. Shipstation is a success story partner. You know what separates successful online businesses from literally everyone else? It's not just having great products. It's delivering an amazing shipping experience that keeps customers coming back. All of my friends that run the biggest e commerce companies, they use Shipstation, and it has completely transformed how they handle orders. They save thousands on shipping costs thanks to the Rate Chopper tool that finds the best discounts. And what makes Shipstation brilliant. You never need to upgrade because it grows with your business no matter how big you get. And they offer discounts up to 88% off UPS, DHL Express and USPS rates and up to 90% off FedEx. It integrates seamlessly with every selling channel you're already using. And your customers get branded tracking updates that keep them happy and informed. When shoppers choose your products, you turn them into loyal customers with cheaper, faster and better shipping. No credit card required. Cancel anytime. That's shipstation.com code success story HubSpot is a success story Partner now. The future of business is happening right now and you don't want to miss it. That's why you have to be at inbound 2025. They are bringing together the brightest minds in marketing, sales, business, entrepreneurship, AI for three incredible days in San Francisco, the global epicenter of innovation and technological disruption. Picture this. You are learning directly from Amy Poehler about creative leadership. You're getting AI insights from Dario Amodi, who's literally shaping the future of artificial intelligence. Here's what makes Inbound special. It's not just the great keynotes. You're going to dive into breakout sessions where you can immediately implement what you learn. And plus, San Francisco's legendary startup ecosystem provides the perfect backdrop for networking with all these great entrepreneurs, decision makers, industry leaders, peers who are actively shaping the future of business. From September 3rd to 5th at the Moscone center, you're going to be surrounded by forward thinking professionals who turn insights and ideas into breakthroughs. Don't just watch the future unfold, be part of creating it. Visit inbound.com register to get your ticket today. Talk to me about your relationship with your father because obviously he's in the title of your book. So that was something that was very important. It shaped a part of your life, a big portion of your life. What was your relationship like with him?
- [38:12]
A
He's a very complicated guy, but my relationship with him was always we had a very strong relationship. We emailed, you know, more or less every day throughout his life. He passed away seven years ago, but he's a very complicated guy where he grows up and he grows up in kind of a tough family where he's afraid of his father. He grows up in Oklahoma and his father they're on a Native American reservation. His father is president of the university there and my dad just doesn't fit in, doesn't have any self confidence and so he kind of escapes. He like learns about the school called Andover, applies, gets a scholarship and then it's this just like rocket ship trajectory for the next 10 years, right? Where he goes to Andover, is an outcast, figures it out, goes to Stanford, wins a Rhodes scholarship, Dean of students. I find these recommendation letters where they're like, Scott Thompson's the best student we've had since Herbert Hoover, right? John F. Kennedy says, this guy's going to be president, runs every political organization. He's just a dynamo. Goes to Oxford, you know, with his Rhodes scholarship, comes back with his D fill, marries my mother, who is the, you know, glamorous daughter of this important political figure. And so my dad's like just, you know, the guy's gonna be certainly he's gonna be senator, right? But then he doesn't really, like, he never gets on track professionally. And you know, from the time he marries my mother, where he would have been, you know, 26 years old, 27 years old until he's 40, he's in kind of a rut. He starts to drink too much, becomes alcoholic. He then, you know, can't really get himself going professionally, can't really write an important book. Gets stuck in all these sort of political battles inside the faculty where he's, where he's a professor. He then finally like starts to make it in the late 70s and he becomes kind of a well known public intellectual. Ronald Reagan gets elected and he's a top choice to run the policy planning staff, which is a great job. He doesn't get it, but it's right then that he realizes he's gay. And, you know, it's something he thought about. You know, it's unclear exactly when he realized that he had tendencies. He was clearly bisexual to some degree, but that where he was, his male tendencies were stronger. And so then he leaves my mother. He, you know, moved to D.C. and then he just unravels and he, you know, he starts to. He would, he would. There would be hundreds of men who. He would, you know, would come to our house and he would, you know, he said he didn't spend a night alone for 20 years. And he is, you know, they're. Many of them are completely inappropriate, right? Some of them are like violent. Some of them are thieves. Some of them are, you know, I don't know, just kind of like imbeciles, right? Like they're not the people that Scott Thompson should be with. Yeah, there's some, some who I like, but mostly like they're not really the right people for him to be with. And so then he, like the next 30 years of his life, he's a Loving father. He's fully supportive of me, fully devoted to me. He's an amazing man to talk to, right? The guy is always so smart and interesting and well read. And he's like, he's a great person to have at parties, but it's just chaos, right? And he, like, falls behind on his taxes. He makes all these bad real estate deals. He ends up in like thousands of court cases, maybe hundreds of court. He eventually leaves to Asia because he can't handle it in America anymore. And then by the end, he's running this hotel in Bali that. Is it really a hotel or is it just like, people come and sleep with the male gardeners and, you know, it's a pretty. It's a pretty dramatic story of rise and fall from, like, this little kid in Oklahoma, the, you know, halls of Washington to the rice paddies, you know, and then eventually he dies in Batangas, Philippines. So it's a. It's a. It's a. The other reason I wrote this book is because my dad's life story, whether there's a lesson in it or not, a lesson is interesting, right? Like, if I tell people, but like, they're like, what does your dad do? And they sort of assume my dad has a kind of a different story from what he does. So, you know, it's. He's a interesting guy. But what's important or what's most important is that he was completely devoted to me. He loved me. And even though he, liked, threatened to kill himself to get a couple hundred bucks from me, or all kinds of blackmail and craziness, order prostitutes into my apartment, and there's even worse things that I don't put in the book. Despite all that, we maintain our relationship and we stay in touch and we have a loving father son relationship till the very end.
- [42:53]
B
Is there a lesson?
- [42:55]
A
Is there a lesson? To me, one of the lessons was don't get knocked off track. And if you do get knocked off track and you do start to, like, lose your self confidence and you do find yourself, you know, sort of letting slip the things you care about, get it back. Like, it seemed like what happened with my father was the way he coped with his drinking problem was to drink more. And the way he coped with having drunk more was to drink more. And what you want to do is the opposite. You want to, like, you sort of cultivate a little bit of self awareness. He was a very interesting man in that he had, you know, such incredible ability to view the strengths and weaknesses of other people and could See through you and could, you know, identify. He wrote me a letter when I was 21 that foresaw a huge portion of my life. It's one of the most incisive letters that I've ever received. And how well did he know me? Like I spent two weeks a year with him, spent time with him on weekends. I read it just recently. I was like, oh my God, this man. But he didn't have his own self awareness. Yeah, I mean he, you know, what he would say is, you know, that like his sexuality, that he came of age the wrong time, that it was really hard to be. Have been born gay in 1942. Right. If you're born gay in 1982, you can come out of the closet. If you're born gay in 1922, you just stay in it. And so he was born gay in 1942 and then came out, you know, in, during the middle of the AIDS crisis. He was, as you mentioned, he was diagnosed as HIV positive, though it turned out to be an incorrect diagnosis. He would say that he, you know, just life, life gave him life gave him a DNA imposed limit. And because of his sexuality, he couldn't have succeeded professionally the way he wanted to. Like Washington would not have allowed an openly gay man to succeed. And once he realized he was gay, he could not, you know, control it. And because he hadn't been able to like be a young man exploring his sexuality when he was a teenager, he had to compensate by, you know, dating this endless parade of, you know, 19 year old guys he met on Manjammer. Like that's what he would say, which is not, I think, you know, fully persuasive. But that was his argument.
- [45:17]
B
No, I think that there's a lot of inner turmoil there for obviously. But I wonder if, and you probably know, you've probably thought of this at least once or twice before, if even though it was a, it was a good relationship and there was a certain degree of chaos in the relationship, but even though it was a good relationship, you're saying it was a good relationship, did it. You, you kind of ended up being complete 180, like a complete opposite. Like you, when, when things don't go right, you make sure that you don't lean into the wrong. You find a way to correct it. Like I see you as actually a very disciplined person, as somebody who like leans into the hard things as opposed to sort of giving way to the easier things. I think that I don't know if that's part of what shaped who you are I think for sure that there's something that comes from our parents that definitely at least imprint on us to a degree. But you seem to be a complete opposite of that.
- [46:15]
A
Well, to the extent I am, it's deliberate, right? It's like my sister. I have two sisters, older sister, younger sister. And we've all talked about, like, our fear of becoming like him and the what we do to try to not become like him. But on the other hand, like, I am quite similar to him in other ways. You know, I, you know, he was this, like, bundle of energy who was always doing lots of stuff. You know, people like people. His old friends always say I remind. I remind them of him.
- [46:44]
B
The HubSpot Podcast Network is a success story partner. Now, the HubSpot Podcast Network has great podcasts like the Ops Authority. If you are constantly putting out fires in your business instead of focusing on growth and innovation, listen to the Ops Authority host by Natalie Gingrich and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Natalie speaks about actionable strategies that actually move your business forward. So every week, Natalie shares some transformational stories from real business owners who've mastered their backend systems so they can focus on what really matters. So get your OPS in order, get your business running smoothly so you can scale and you can really build something meaningful. Stop letting all this chaos steal all of your energy and listen to the Ops Authority. Wherever you get your podcasts, Gusto is a success story, partner. Now, look, I talk to business owners every single day, and you know what I hear constantly? Scott? I love running my business, but I hate dealing with payroll. And I get it. Nobody starts a company because they're excited about calculating tax withholdings and benefits administration. That's exactly why I use Gusto myself. And the smartest business owners use it as well. Gusto is online payroll and benefit software built for small business. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Now, here's what sold me. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No surprises, no hidden fees. When you need to run that extra payroll, and when you hit a tough HR situation, and trust me, you will, you get direct access to actual certified HR experts, not a chatbot. Real people who know what they're talking about. Plus, they're the number one payroll software according to G2 for fall of 2020, 2025, and over 400,000 small businesses already trust them. Try Gusto today at gusto.com success story and get three months free. When you run your first payroll, that's three months free payroll@gusto.com success story. SurveyMonkey is a success story partner. Now look, we get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything these days without hearing about AI this or AI that. And if you're like most people when it comes to AI, you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. Sense. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people better? AI from SurveyMonkey is designed to do just that. From crafting the perfect survey, which is harder than you might think, to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns and services trends quickly. SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities makes it faster and easier than ever before to get insight from real people, helping you make confident decisions for your business. Try it today@surveymonkey.com what. What makes something so simple? And we did touch on this, but go. Go a level deeper, please. What makes something so simple become so profound and, and such a benefit to your life?
- [49:20]
A
Yeah, I think it just, it opens up levels of thought and it opens up levels of experience that, you know, are pretty hard to open up. One of the things I did in the book is I, you know, both tell my story and what running has done for me, but I also tell the stories of five other people who have struggled with really hard things in life and used running to cope with them. And, you know, the first, maybe I'll just tell her story. Maybe I'll tell two of them. The first is this woman named Bobby Gibb. And they're all people who've intersected with my life. She's the mother of a friend of mine. And she, you know, grows up and she's just, she's wired differently and she really doesn't. She just can't stand the role that women are supposed to play in, you know, 1950s, 1960s America. Like, when you can't have a credit card, you can't have a job, you just gotta be a wife. She just can't stand it's. And the way she copes with it is she's like, you know what? I'm going to do my own thing. And so she goes off and she runs across the country, you know, not directly across the country. She's in a van, but she, like, gets in the van and she'll drive. Starts in Boston and drives to the, you know, Berkshires and goes like every night she'll go and run like, I don't know, for four or five Hours, you know, and then sleep on the ground and like, look at the stars and look at the sky. And she goes across the entire country and goes to, you know, goes to San Francisco. And then she's like, you know, I kind of love this running thing. And then she goes, enters this hundred mile race in Vermont. And she was able to run with the horses. She runs 66 miles in two days. And she's just like, running gives her this way of being a spiritual being out in the world that nothing else does and helps her like escape these feelings. So then she's like, you know what? I'm gonna run the Boston Marathon. And so it's where she grew up. So she sends a letter and the organizers are like, sorry, women are incapable of running the Boston Marathon. It was this like belief, right? The women weren't able to run. I camera 1966.
- [51:08]
B
Really?
- [51:09]
A
Yeah, it's crazy. Women, like, women didn't run distance races at the olympics until the 70s, 80s, like it's, it's absurd.
- [51:18]
B
Wow, I didn't know that. That's insane.
- [51:20]
A
Yeah, it's wild. And so Bobby gets this letter back and it's like, women are incapable. Sorry, you can't run the Boston Marathon. She said, we, I just ran 66 miles with horses. And so she runs it. She likes, puts on her brother's sweatshirt and like sneaks in the bushes and then just goes out and runs a box marathon. And she runs it in like 3 hours and 20 minutes or something. And it's this. She's the first woman to run it. And so it's a wonderful story about running, helping this person, you know, find her role in civil rights, find her role in, you know, bringing freedom, bringing equality. And it's just a beautiful story there. You know, of the other five characters I mentioned, one other, this guy, Michael Westphalt. And so he lives on this tiny island, 30 people out off the coast of Maine. And there's nothing to do because it's a tiny island, you know, eating your powdered milk and staying inside. And so everybody on the island becomes a runner, right? And there's one two mile road and he'll run like 100 miles a week back and forth on the two mile road. And they end up having like population of 37 of them run sub three hour marathons at one point. And so he becomes this great runner and he runs this road race in Northeast harbor, which is a town on the mainland. And he wins it one year. My father runs it. So 1981 I think. Then 30 years later, my son runs the race. So I'm running the race. My son runs the race. And I'm watching my son and he's coming a mile left and I've finished, I've gone back to go find my kid. And there's this guy right with him who's like, arms are flailing all over the track. And I'm running with this buddy of mine who's a cop. I'm like, is that guy okay? He's like, yeah, yeah, it's Michael Westfall. And so what had happened to Westfall is he'd gotten Parkinson's. And so he had gotten Parkinson's in his, like, 40s, this like runner, carpenter, strong guy who built up all the houses on the island. And he'd had to learn how to run with it. Like, he loved running. It was the thing he did. And at first he was embarrassed. And then he learns how to like tie his hands behind his back so that they don't flail too much when he runs. And he runs, he qualifies Boston Marathon times with Parkinson's. He sets the world record for fastest marathon. Parkinson's. He's incredible. And so I spent a lot of time interviewing him about how he coped with using running as a way to deal with. I had to deal with decline. I had to deal with cancer. I had to deal with fear. He gets a disease from which there's no return. And he gets it at 49. And he knows that the rest of his life it's just going to get harder and harder. But he wants to keep running because he loves it. And it's a story about what he learned about competition, what he learned about running. So I tell those two stories. There's others in the books that are like it. But the point is there's something about this sport and the fact that you can do it. Like you can't play tennis if you have Parkinson's. Right? You can't. Like you can just go out and train and do it. You know, you can sneak through the bushes and get into the Boston Marathon course, right? Because it's just you and it's just your shoes. There's something about the freedom and the self determination that come from the sport that allow you to really reach deep places and do important things.
- [54:20]
B
For somebody who is like a high performing individual, what from work helps them with the running? What from one. What from running? Excuse me, Helps them with their work?
- [54:32]
A
Yeah, I think that concentration is really. It's something that really trans. I mean, you mentioned earlier that there are a bunch of habits, right? Like you eat well, you sleep well, you know, you learn how to like modulate your energy levels. Like there's a bunch of like, you develop this kind of stoicism, right? I'm going to go run today. I'm going to work today. I'm going to run today. I'm going to work today, right? Like you develop this confidence in building up your skills step by step, brick by brick, run by run, right? You learn like the power of consistent effort, right? And you learn that through both. But I also think that concentration really does come. You know, I've learned through running how to focus and I've learned through work how to focus. And I think the two feed each other.
- [55:11]
B
One last question about running. You've run through Times Square at midnight. You've been chased by cows and a lemur. You've dissipated like a thousand no trespassing signs. Just what was the most insane running story that you have? Not somebody else, but something that you've dealt with.
- [55:27]
A
You mean like the weirdest run or like the most.
- [55:30]
B
Oh, that's a good question. You take it however you want it. Give me the weirdest and give me the best. Whatever.
- [55:35]
A
This one, one of the points I'm making in that chapter is that like you just find time to run, right? And you just run wherever you are. Actually, I'll say. I say, like this is actually an important one. This is something I didn't even know this had happened until I was writing the book. There was a time where I went to my then girlfriend's house and she'd become my wife. But it's the first time, like meeting her parents. And I go over there and we have a big dinner. They're out living in Berkeley and I don't know, maybe I drink some wine, we have a good time, maybe we all watch a movie together, who knows. And then it's like 11 o' clock and I'm like, okay, I'm going running because I hadn't gone running that day. And I leave and my future mother in law says to my future wife, like, wait, what's wrong with that guy? And my wife is like, what you don't get is that he enjoys it. And so there have been a lot of situations like that where I just go and run in places, you know, I've run in. I. What's coming to mind is I remember once for some reason, like you remember all these roads. I remember running like a 10 mile run in this small parking lot in Las Vegas. I can't remember why I had to do it, but it was, like, the only place I could run that particular day, you know? And you just. There was. Actually, I remember I was. I ran during. There was a time when I was up in the Catskills and I couldn't leave my kids, but I had to do a run. So I just, like, ran around the house, which is, like, pretty small, but I ran, like, 10 miles in Little tiny loops around the house. You just figure out what to do. I had another time running in Vegas. I don't know why it always happens in Vegas where I was giving a speech, and it was one of those things where I show up and actually have a whole bunch of Vegas stories. Once I met a friend's bachelor party. He's going up the elevator with a bunch of people he's met at the club. I'm coming down to go running. And it's like the rest of the bachelor party's going up and I'm going out. Then there's another time where I'm in Vegas and I've forgotten to bring a T shirt. But I'm only there for, like, three hours. And I have, like, 15 minutes when I can run between meetings. And so I had, like, a winter coat. Cause I'd been in New York, and so it's like 80 degrees and I'm in shorts and a winter coat running in Las Vegas. Anyway, so the point being, like, I just love to run and will do it wherever I can.
- [57:51]
B
What do you want? What do you want? If you're going to pass on a lesson about running to your. To your three boys, what would that lesson be?
- [57:58]
A
The lesson that I hope I've passed and I don't know is that they see they can't really understand my work, right? And they can't. I mean, now they can. They're 17, 15, and 11. But, like, when they were little, they couldn't. And they didn't, like, quite know what I did. They had some sense of it. They don't really know what it means, but they can see the effort, right? And they can see the discipline, and they can see the consistency, and they can see that. It's like they can learn some of the lessons from running about resilience, perseverance, dedication, building things up steadily. And that's what I hope they get. And in a way, like, my eldest son doesn't run, but he works so hard, right? And he works so hard at his schoolwork, and he works so hard at his debate tournaments, right? And he, you know, he's clearly. Whether he's learned it from watching me run or watching me work or watching my wife, who knows? But like he's picked it up. The other two boys, like, they both run and they do it really well.
- [59:02]
B
You know, I just. One last thought. I think it's like a lesson that I'm picking up from you, like running you. I mean, like you. You say running connected you to your father, but you also use it as an escape when things are difficult. You can use it to focus on something or you can use it for meditation to get your head out of work. Like, it's just. It's like this tool really. That's. That's how I see it. It's this tool that you can apply it in different ways just to improve your life. And it's such like a multifaceted, diverse tool.
- [59:30]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely that. That's a very good way to put it because you can do. You know, there's no one thing I do when I run, I seek different things when I run. I seek meditation. I seek self intense focus. I sometimes seek dissociation. Sometimes I'm running to like, away from things, sometimes I'm running toward things. There's a lot you can do with it.
- [59:49]
B
And I think it's beautiful because I think that we keep trying to add more complexity into our lives with routines and all these different things and all these different fitness things and health things and, and they're all good to a degree. But I think that sometimes simple just wins. And that's. That's really what it is. So the book the Running Ground, A Father, a Son and the Simplest of Sports that is available October 28th. So we'll make sure this podcast goes up around the exact same time when this is live and you can get that book anywhere you get your podcasts. If people were going to just take it home, if somebody wanted to pick up this book, what do you hope they would get from it? What's the one lesson or the one idea that you really want to drive home?
- [60:32]
A
I mean, the best thing that happens is when people who don't run read it and then say they went running. That happened a couple times. Just as I would send out drafts to friends. I really love that they're like, you know, I like. I now can think more deeply about this sport and I want to go do it. And I love that response.
- [60:50]
B
I love that. I think it's just like a leading indicator to a. Picking up running is like a leading indicator to a better, happier, Healthier life. Last question I ask everybody. You kind of already, you already told me what lesson you want to pass over to your kids through running. But, but just a lesson that after going through everything in your life, you would like to tell your younger self, your 20 year old self. What's that one lesson that was really important to you that you think would help that younger version?
- [61:18]
A
Keep at it? You know, I think I spent too much time, I didn't understand then this thing. I really believe that if you do your best every day, good things happen, right? And you don't see it. Right. You don't see yourself getting better, you don't see it improving. Nothing's linear in life, but if you keep at it, you'll get there. And one of the problems I had psychologically in my twenties is that I sort of wanted the world in a minute, you know, And I like, I just sort of assumed that things would happen really quickly and like whatever success I sought or whatever accomplishments or whatever, I thought I'd be able to write really great stories as a journalist really quick. And you can't. You have to learn so much and it takes a long time. And I didn't quite appreciate the benefits of compound interest, the compound interest of daily work. And it took me a while to realize that. And because of that, I sort of would stop and start and I made a bunch of sort of dumb professional mistakes in my 20s and pretty off track. And I think it's because I didn't understand that. I didn't have the confidence. I didn't understand that if you keep at it and if you do your best and if you treat people well and you're kind and generous and thoughtful and work hard, stuff will not always, and there's all kinds of biases and injustices in the world, but, you know, things will work out better.
- [62:59]
B
Claude is a success story partner now. As a podcaster, my worst nightmare used to be going into an interview under prepared. Now Claude has completely changed my prep game. And if you don't know what Claude is, Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It is the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. Whether or not you're debugging code at midnight or you're strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. I feed Claude my guest articles before I do a podcast. I feed it their company updates, past interviews, and it helps me spot the angles that nobody else is talking about. Last week. Claude's research capabilities pulled together insights from over 30 sources about my guests industry and it helped me ask questions that always make them say great question. Nobody's ever asked me that before. Claude is by far the most useful tool to grow any business, any podcast, and really just help you extend your thinking on whatever it is you're working on. If you're ready to tackle bigger problems, sign up for Cloud today and get 50% off Clod Pro when you use my link. Claude AI/success what makes work beautiful?
- [64:09]
A
It's when the people you hire become the people you admire. When one journey ends and a new one begins. When Leaders want to be learners LHH is your single talent partner for every step, helping you build strong teams, inspire leaders, and guide careers with empathy, clarity and care. See how@lhh.com beautiful recruitment development career Transition LHH a beautiful.