Podcast
The Brave Monkeys Speak | Adventure and the Science of Stoked
Hosted by marshall moose moore: Scientist, Educator, Online Productivity Coach, and Adventure Advocate · EN
Tim Ferriss meets John Muir and Yvon Chouinard in a podcast. The Brave Monkeys are a passionate group of lifelong-learners and biohackers who believe that adventure is a source of knowledge, and that sometimes the riskiest choice you can make is playing it safe. This show includes inspiring interviews, lifestyle design tips, biohacking ideas, and adventures stories.
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Episodes
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032 | A Neurological Basis for Stress Resilience
Nov 1, 2014Tap to summarizeInterested in the neuro-biology of how you can become more resilient to stress? Listen in. Episode 032: #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us! Get in touch if you want some citations to the research that went into this episode - I'd be happy to send out the citations. As a great, readable reference, check out 'The Hour Between Dog and Wolf' - it's a great look into the neurology of risk. Music by Big Rain courtesy of Mevio's Music Alley. 032 | Stress Mastery through Adventure Have you ever climbed or shredded on mountain bikes with those people who - by some act of ultimate willpower and control - never bat an eye at stuff that makes you wish you had worn your brown pants that day? I have encountered a lot of those people. And I always wanted to figure it out - what the Hell is their secret? Are they born with a genetically-predisposed aptitude for risk? With the ability to calmly handle anything you throw their way? The recent research suggests that while we can indeed be born with a wide range of reactivities to dangerous situations (I talked about this last episode, What adventures are you wired for?), we also have the ability to develop mental toughness through practice and lifestyle design. Surprisingly, developing it may even help us to live longer, healthier lives. Stress. Quick - what does the word make you think of first? Work? Drudgery? Relationships? Heart attacks? (yes, it has come to my attention that heart attacks are caused by stress potentially as much as by dietary factors.) Ughhh. Stress can be a good thing - it can help us grow. But today, it seems that the word is only associated with the long-term, catabolic and insidious stress we find in so many modern workplaces. Last week we talked about resilience, both personal and societal. How can we as individuals and as a community learn to respond to unwanted change in a way that allows us to continue living our core purposes? I mentioned that we would do a couple of episodes really diving into some of the science behind how to develop resilience and live a stoked life. This is one of those. What happens to us, biologically, when we are stressed? How is it that stress causes heart attacks? How can we learn to mitigate the stress response in our bodies to live healthier, longer, more productive, more awesome lives? Let’s break into it. When someone says ‘I’m stressed,’ what they are referring to is a set of conditions in their body that came on in response to some external or internal stimulus. Perhaps their company is laying folks off left and right, and they fear they may be next. 
The set of conditions that they are feeling in their body are a totally normal response to threats. If we go back to how we, as humans, evolved, lay-off’s weren’t a huge concern for cave men. Instead, a bear or lion might have been our biggest concern, or a rival tribe. These stimuli would require a great physical effort, so the stress response evolved to cause a rapid shift away from the state of everyday affairs in our bodies and brains to a state of emergency, allowing us to run or fight for our lives. Cool stuff - and it saved our asses out there on the plains. In the workplace though? Well, let’s get to that in a minute. The stress response in the human body occurs in four stages - the last stage being the differentiator between ‘good stress,’ or eustress, and ‘bad stress’ that makes us weaker rather than stronger. The first two stages involve electrical signals and are thus extremely fast. First, a small portion of the brain called the amygdala must register the stimuli (‘that’s a bear!’) and assign it emotional significance (‘I don’t like bears because they are dangerous’) before sending it out to other regions of the brain. This process takes milliseconds. The second step is for the message to be sent to the body’s visceral organs - the heart increases it’s rate, pumping more blood and increasing blood pressure in case we have to sprint away. The extra blood is sent towards major muscle groups in our thighs and arms. At the same time, blood vessels in the stomach constrict, stopping digestion since there is no need for it lest the lion actually catch us. The blood shunted away from the stomach can result in the feeling of butterflies. Tiny arteries in the skin also constrict causing the skin to be clammy and pale - if the skin was lacerated in the fight this would help to slow bleeding. The skin sweats even in anticipation of physical exertion while water is conserved by stoping salivation, resulting in a dry mouth. All of this occurs in less than a second and can prove extremely useful in getting away or fighting a threat; the downside, though, is it takes a TON of energy. There needs to be a way to fuel the process for a longer amount of time, and this is where step three comes into play. The third step in the stress response is no longer electrical - it is chemical, which means it takes much longer for it to occur - on the order of seconds to minutes. The chemicals enter the body in the form of hormones like epinephrine (adrenaline) and sustain the focused attention and energy in the body. The fourth and final stage in the stress response involves threats that last longer than a simple fight-or-flight situation. To deal with this sort of a sustained effort, the body secretes increasing amounts of “the big gun” of stress response - cortisol. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone - it is capable of breaking down energy stores in our body so that we can use them immediately by blocking the effects of insulin and turning fat and muscle cells into free fatty acids and amino acids, which typically get sent to the liver to be converted into glucose so that our body can get immediate energy. It inhibits digestive enzymes to further slow digestion, and it inhibits the production of growth hormone (which can actually stunt the growth of young adults exposed to stress). Similarly, it blocks the effects of testosterone and suppresses the reproductive tract. Finally, cortisol is an incredibly powerful anti-inflammatory which, in combination with endorphins released can dull pain. As a result, cortisol is capable of producing invigorating effects on the longer scale of minutes to hours... or even days. And this is where the problem lies - the effects of cortisol are capable of saving us from quite a bit of danger in the short term, but sustain the effects of cortisol for too long and let it reach too high of levels, and we may as well guarantee our long-term demise. Unfortunately, our bodies treat threats in the form of a fight and in the form of workplace stresses the same. Ever gotten butterflies and sweaty palms before giving a speech? Even more unfortunate is that workplace stress tends to always be long-term. So let’s talk about some of the effects of chronic exposure to cortisol, and then we will finish up with some of the current research on ways to become resilient to stress. Cortisol has been shown to effect memory and thinking - remember our discussion of the amygdala - the part of the brain that gives emotional meaning to things? Cortisol can help to imprint and store memories of threatening stimuli in the amygdala, which allows those memories to be called upon in other times of th...
Transcribe →031 | The Vertical Mind Interview with Don and Jeff
Sep 30, 2014Tap to summarizeClimbing... can you think of a more fun way to master your own personal psychology? To calm yourself down in the face of stressful situations? It not only provides useful skills for everyday life, it's also fun. Boom. Don McGrath and Jeff Elison are psychologists, professors, PhD's, and (perhaps most importantly for our purposes) climbers who put their heads together to write and publish Vertical Mind: Psychological Approaches for Optimal Rock Climbing. In this episode, Don, Jeff, and I had a conversation about the mental game involved in climbing and techniques each of us can use to improve and have more fun getting out there. So buckle your helmets and lace up your Sportiva's ladies and bros. You are listening to the Brave Monkeys Speak. Episode 031: #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →030 | Biological Reactivity and Adventure
Jul 6, 2014Tap to summarize I would be remiss if I discussed the topic of adventure without bringing personal psychology into the equation. I know it seems strange. Allow me to explain in Episode 030. One of the most important, foundational principles in understanding yourself for the purposes of personal development and growth is to understand your biological reactivity - are you inclined to seek out novelty or does doing things outside of your comfort zone make you nervous. Your reactivity can also relate to how and where you get your energy - does a shady spot in a park with a book or jumping out of a plane with a parachute give you more vigor for life? It turns out that introversion and extroversion, similarly, are mostly about this precious resource rather than just ‘do you like people or not?’. Whereas extroverts tend to actively get energy from interacting with people, introverts tend to use energy to interact with others and must rest and rejuvenate afterwards. But the intricacies of the topic go much deeper - it turns out that your reactivity and introversion or extraversion can be related, and the reasons behind these phenomena come down to our unique psychological wiring. The work of psychologist Jerome Kagan illustrates this quite eloquently. In Kagan’s famous line of longitudinal studies (perhaps made famous by Susan Cain’s fabulous work: Quiet - a highly recommended read for all human beings), children were followed from birth well into their teenage years, exposed to various novel stimuli along the way. As infants, some 20% of the test subjects had dramatic, noisy reactions to the new stimuli (which could include balloons popping or hearing the recorded voices of strangers), 40% had mild, quiet reactions, and the rest were somewhere in between. Kagan’s prediction - that the babies with dramatic, noisy reactions would turn into the quiet teenagers of the bunch - came true. Why? It’s all about the individuals threshold for stimulation. The babies that had dramatic and noisy reactions to the stimuli had very low thresholds for stimulation - they could be called highly reactive - most everything would put them on edge. On the other hand, the babies that had quiet, mellow reactions to the same stimuli had a very high threshold for stimulation - they could handle much more sensory input without going on overload. They could be called low-reactive. Among those in the field of psychology, the Hebbian version of the Yerkes Dodson Law is well known. Basically, it states that under very low stimulation or arousal levels, an individual will be bored and their performance in whatever task they are completing will be poor. As stimulation and arousal levels go up (whether by an increase in sensory stimuli like popping balloons or an increase in expectation from a boss), performance will begin to go up... to a certain point. After that point is reached, arousal level is too high (the individual is overstimulated or scared) and performance declines. None of us want to be bored or frightened, so each of us seeks out the perfect level of stimulation to create a flow state of optimal performance and arousal. Now, if you were one of the babies that was kicking and screaming when you heard the balloon pop because your stimulation threshold is low (meaning you are high reactive), then you can bet that going to a party with tons of new people and loud noises is going to put you in an anxious, overstimulated state. Does that happen to you? It happens to me. We are the high-reactive folks - the introverts - we choose to get into flow by avoiding louder parties and instead by having meaningful conversations with a close friend or going on a quiet run in the forest. Conversely, if you were one of the babies that was totally fine with new stimuli because you have a high threshold, you are going to choose to find that sweet spot by doing things that increase arousal. That may be attending a big party, or that may be leading a rock climb or skydiving. See what I’m getting at here? Now before we go any further, it’s important to note that your unique awesomeness cares nothing as to whether you are low or high reactive, an introvert or an extrovert. As Cain eloquently highlights, each have their powerful strengths, and the world needs both. Take research completed by Professor David Sloan Wilson where he dropped metal cages into a pond filled with pumkinseed fish, whom also have a propensity for finding their appropriate level of stimulation. The bold, low-reactive fish immediately investigated the traps... and caught themselves! On the other hand, other highly reactive fish would go nowhere near the traps. Wilson had to catch them using a complicated netting system from which they could not escape. Stupid low-reactive extravert fish, right? No. Once Wilson had the fish back in his lab’s tanks, the low-reactive fish responded by immediately adapting to the novelty of the situation, eating the food he provided them and thriving in the tanks. The highly reactive fish, on the other hand, nearly starved themselves refusing to adapt to the novelty of the place. All of this is not to say that if you are highly reactive and introverted you will have less success on adventures, which by nature provide novelty and stimulation (I am a total introvert). Instead, this is to say that by understanding your own unique psychology, you can begin to make choices that will allow you to push the boundaries of your comfort zone at an appropriate pace. If you are naturally highly reactive, knowing this tendency will allow you to practice beginning to enter a flow state without becoming anxious and unresponsive. On the other hand, if you are naturally low-reactive and need to seek out thrills to keep from becoming bored, you can practice assessing risk/reward in order to slow yourself down before making a hasty decision. Translate this to mountain biking or climbing: if you are the cautious, reserved type, these activities provide a perfect platform for you to begin to confront fear and develop new, positive scripts to help you push past it. You are comfortable with all but one steep, technical section of your favorite trail? Practice riding down stairs, doing drops, breathing through the entirety of hard sections, and increasing your level of comfort with technical terrain. Then, go for it. If you are the go-for-it, all out type... well, maybe begin to practice slowign yourself down so as to consciously analyze the fall potential on routes, place extra gear, and scrutinize the quality of your placements. When I was first able to achieve a flow state while rock climbing (I have a naturally-wired fear of heights), I realized that I had not only reached a crucial turning point in my relationship with climbing, but also with fear. I knew how to master it. That’s not to say I could master it each and every time it confronted me - it’s freaking hard! But it is to say that I knew how to go about doing it. This was really the spark that lit the fire that is this book. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I finally became comfortable leading certain run-out climbs that were within my ability levels coincided with the time I finally was able to commit and clear table top jumps on my mountain bike, and the time I told my employers exactly what I was looking for, on my terms. So what is your personal psychological wiring like? This is one of the first steps in developing personal resilience - next episode we are going to talk about what happens, on a biochemical level, when you are confronted with stress. And, of course, some techniques that you can use to keep your body’s biochemistry working to your advantage. Episode 030: #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →029 | Resilience
Jun 1, 2014Tap to summarizeWhether or not you believe in climate change, the world is undoubtedly changing rapidly, and disasters that come in and shake our world up (sometimes literally) seem to be happening more often. Earthquakes aside, though, in 2011 insurance companies were disappointed when after just 6 months, the year proved to be the costliest year on record - a statistic that their research tied unambiguously to climate change. I’ve seen it first hand this year in California, where a record drought has brought along with it fires, mudslides, and other disruptions. Yet, despite these clear warning signs, we as a culture do not seem to be willing or even capable of changing our rampant, often needless consumer-based way of life. Even myself, someone who constantly asks my peers to examine the amount of waste they produce from purchasing packaged foods, well I still burn gas, buy packaged foods (occasionally), and waste water in the shower (when I have access to one). So does quote “sustainability” stand a chance? Probably not. Am I wasting my time and energy promoting sustainable living? Probably. I’m just being real here - I still think people should live sustainably because it makes us happier, but we’re probably not going to get everyone in the world on board and thus save the world by doing it. Which brings me now to why I wanted to talk about environmentalism in the context of resilience. There is a parable amongst progressives in the environmental fields which describes two types of thinking with respect to environmental disaster. Here’s the parable. A whole bunch of people are traveling on a train running along an ocean cliff (let’s say the North Pacific coast). The train was only designed to hold a couple hundred people, but because the company wants to make as much money as possible, there are now multiple thousands of people roaming the boxcars. Even if the train stopped allowing passengers to board, other people want their friends on the train and sneak them on without the engineer’s knowledge. The rails below the wheels are beginning to screech. “Stop the train!” some of us start to say. “Don’t let anyone else on! Tell the engineer!” Some boxcars listen and put a moratorium on gaining passengers, but the train rolls on collecting more people and fares in other crowded boxcars nonetheless. More people rather than less are inviting friends on the train and trying to get monetary kickbacks as well. As the situation becomes more dire, the rails are irrevocably damaged and minutes from collapsing. A select group of people who until now have remained fairly quiet about the number of passengers are clearly up to something now. They know changing the course of the train is a lost cause, and they have been rummaging through emergency storage containers, first aid kits, and luggage. They have created makeshift parachutes, insulating devices, and lights. As the rails split and the train careens toward the dark oceans below, they jump. They wasted no time trying to stop the inevitable, they simply adapted to the changing situation and innovated to survive. The environmental movement, just like a lot of our mom’s telling us to be careful and avoid risks out there - or better yet don’t go out there - has adopted a risk-management system. Eliminate risks, and we have nothing to worry about. But what about when the risks are inevitable or unexpected? The theory of resilience says that risk mitigation is important - very important - BUT that the ability to adapt and thrive when faced with unforeseen, changed circumstances is just as important. Whether we like it or not, risk is a constant in life. So is change. How we respond to them - now that’s what is variable and fortunately, malleable. So what is resilience? Andrew Zolli gives a definition in his book on the subject which I quite like because it combines components of both natural and human-created systems: resilience is the capacity of a system, enterprise, or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances. Zolli notes that resilience is not just incredible-hulkifying our systems. We could create a one-inch thick bike tire that no thorn could puncture, but that wouldn’t speak to how fast you could be back on the road after one of the spokes on the wheel broke. Nor is resilience all about redundancy. It’s cool to carry extra tubes because it allows your ride to persist even in the face of a changed circumstance like a flat tire, but they are also heavy and limited. And, they only account for one problem: how many people also carry a spare chain on rides? Finally, resilience might not even refer to the return of a system to its initial state. When I broke my rear derailleur in 100 mile trail race, I repositioned my cleverly adjustable dropouts and created a singlespeed rig. After that, I never looked back - I ride a singlespeed mountain bike to this day. “In their purest expression,” Zolli writes, “resilient systems may have no baseline to return to - they may reconfigure themselves continuously and fluidly to adapt to ever-changing circumstances, while continuing to fulfill their purpose.” In a world that is changing as rapidly as the one we live in - not to mention the possibility for it to undergo permanent changes as more and more people join us - perhaps we should start to think seriously about the amount of resilience our society has - or how much resilience we as individuals have. You know what I am going to say: adventure, getting yourself out of your comfort zone, is a perfect way to cultivate individual resilience. The latest research in psychology shows that personal resilience is both teachable and improvable rather than fixed within us upon birth. It is intrinsically connected to not only our genes and personalities, but also our habits of mind. So make sure the habits you are cultivating are adventurous. With this, I’d like to start a series of episodes that explores some of the latest thoughts and research into these habits of mind. In the next several episodes, we’ll try to cover scientific topics like how risk-taking affects the hormones in your body (or, conversely and more appropriately, how the hormones in your body affect your desire to engage with risks) and what are the habits that can cultivate resilience? It will be cool. So listen in over the next couple of months. Episode 029: Links: Vicki Arroyo gives a TED Talk on preparing for our new climate. Resilience by Andrew Zolli David Phillips on Mevio's Music Alley! #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →028 | A Broken Odometer and 5 Tips for Balance
May 19, 2014Tap to summarize“The essence of socialization is to make people dependent on social controls, to have them respond predictably to rewards and punishment. And the most effective form of socialization is achieved when people identify so thoroughly with social order that they no longer can imagine themselves breaking any of its rules.” -Mihaly Csikszentmihalyl in is national bestseller, Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. I know we’re all in a minority, but I think I speak for all of us who love to get out there on adventures when I say that I refuse to believe that we have to live life at the manic, breakneck pack the world around us seems to be pushing us towards. I’m sorry I’m not sorry that I like to cook my own food, that I think my coffee tastes better when ground by hand immediately before brewing, and that I enjoy reading an honest-to-God physical book every once in a while - one with no screens or electricity involved. I like my days to feel like they went by too quickly, but the memories to appear to be long and slow. Drawn out, as if somehow in that space, that moment, time has elongated itself and slowed down, each scene lingering in my mind before meandering on to the next, marinating and bringing out each vivid detail and aroma of the place. The kind of thing you just don’t get in an office, when the days seem excruciatingly slow, but the number of moments you remember at the end of the week are virtually non-existent. I have been traveling a lot lately. When I’m not traveling, I just sit there in the city wanting to get away. I don’t dream at night, I just look out over the city skyline, listening to horns and looking at the headlights all bunched together like pearls on a string. And then I go: I find myself watching as the mountains pass by, and the semi’s roll on like stainless steel stallions to the horizon. I find myself wondering... what makes me always want to go, to get away from it all? What makes me sing along to Zac Brown, “this road’s been putting miles on my heart, sweetheart,” and wonder why my heart’s odometer seems to roll in reverse, making me feel younger and less wise so long as the miles are ticking by. Why when I finally reach those places I’ve been going do I act less mature, jumping out of the car and dancing with my stuffed animals - I mean spirit animals - and running around trying to climb on everything in sight? And if the odometer doesn’t work right, does that necessarily mean the car is broken? The answer, of course, to what always makes me want to go is that breakneck pace our society promotes. It seems that to be ‘successful’ - a socialized definition - you have to be breakneck. There’s a reason for it, too: our forefathers had one task - to make a positive change in the world by improving human welfare through economic gain. The faster they could move, they reasoned, the more economic growth could occur, which should lead to higher levels of human welfare and happiness. But that’s where it seems to me that their reasoning failed. In rushing around at a breakneck pace, they didn’t enjoy life as much. There was always just one more business transaction to make or email to send before relaxing with the people you love, or finally achieving something you always dreamed of doing. The extra money, then, doesn’t continue to boost happiness levels forever. Just consult any happiness to wealth study out there - the curve for happiness levels off after our basic needs have been met. This socially unacceptable condition, this disease of getting younger and having too much fun in the great outdoors, whether you call it dirtbagging or just plain ‘ole adventuring, seems to be a revolt against society’s breakneck pace. And my question is, are adventurers like us doing good for society? Can any good come of this revolt? I think the answer is yes. I think why not? I think slowing down our lives, asking what really makes us tick, and getting outside our comfort zones can empower us. It can help us to live environmentally connected, to live connected to ourselves and the roots of our own power. I think we should be teaching our kids to slow down, to kick off their shoes and walk barefoot. To analyze risks and make a decision on when to take positive ones and when to not take them. To dance with stuffed representations of spirit animals often. I guess that last one is optional. The challenge for me is living connected to myself and what drives me, and also trying to do the same thing our forefathers did - create a positive change in the world - while still making a living and avoiding sacrificing happiness OR contributing to the loss of our environmental resources. In choosing a graduate school to attend, I faced a conundrum. I want to make a big impact on the world by studying things that will truly influence the future of society, yet, I also don’t want to feed into the pervasive culture of work until you drop. I think - no I know - I am more productive when I can passionately engage in a problem, but also disengage from it to recharge. This is the classic conundrum faced by pretty much all adventurers. How do we find purpose AND balance in our lives. How do we teach our kids to slow down and actually see and want to protect the natural world around them in a consumer-driven, concrete world full of insidious subliminal economically-inspired messages telling them to literally buy into the current society? And lastly, how do we create resilience to change amongst ourselves rather than simply creating risk-management (sustainability) protocols. Well, I think the answers might constitute a PhD dissertation in itself. But here are a few tips. Actually, 5. Listen in here. Episode 028: Matthew Ebel provided the music via Mevio's Music Alley. #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →027 | The Bicycle Diaries, An Interview with David Kroodsma
Apr 28, 2014Tap to summarizeDavid Kroodsma, a Stanford-educated physicist and environmental scientist, decided to embark on a 21,000 mile bike tour in the name of raising awareness for the climate crisis. Can we say wow? Tune in to Episode 027 to hear from him chat about the trip, climate change, and the highs, lows, joys, and challenges of long-distance bicycle touring. #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →026 | A Partner to Take The Sharp End
Apr 14, 2014Tap to summarize Hey ladies and bros - the Brave Monkeys are back. Coming at you this time from Joshua Tree National Park, we have a climbing story. No, a life story. Wait, I'm not sure which one it is. Enjoy Episode 026: Music courtesy of Holland Hopson on Mevio's Music Alley! #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →025 | A Grand Tour
Mar 3, 2014Tap to summarize Matthew Lee created a monster of a bike ride - the 2,745 mile Tour Divide. Starting in Canada and ending on the U.S.-Mexico border, the route climbs enough quad-burning vertical to be equivalent to summiting Mount Everest seven times. At some point Brendan Leonard interviewed Matt, asking why for so many years he took a month off his job as a maitre’d in North Carolina to come out West and ride his bike an insane number of miles. “Have you heard of The Grand Tour?” he asked Brendan. The Grand Tour was a tradition, almost a rite of passage for young European men in the 1600’s - 1800’s where the men would travel and experience culture far from home. The tradition seems to still have good standing among many contemporary Europeans - just stay a few weeks in the hostels of almost any country in the world and you will find a vagabonding circuit of young Europeans traveling for extended periods of time. But is anybody in the U.S. taking a Grand Tour anymore? Or is everybody doing what they ‘should’ do: going to college, getting a job soon afterward, climbing the corporate ladder, getting a dog, having a family, buying a house, working to put kids through college and get a bigger house with a yard, pushing off retirement for just a few more years to make a bit more money, finally retiring and getting cancer a year into retirement? Life moves at a slower pace on a Grand Tour. Matt says you don’t really hit your stride with that slower pace until day three of a trip, which explains why trying to cram a whole bunch of fun into two- or three-day weekends sometimes feels more draining than fulfilling. The Grand Tour fixes that, it gives us a second to take a deep breath and look around. It gives us a chance to look inward and ask ‘What’s my story?’ It just may give us a chance to uncover our story. It certainly did for Matt Lee. Just read Brendan’s The New American Road Trip Mixtape to find out if he ever found his story. Everybody needs a Grand Tour, Matt said. What will yours be? Episode 025: #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us!
Transcribe →024 | Stop Settling and Start Living with Clark Danger
Feb 24, 2014Tap to summarizeAre you ready to stop settling and start living? To stop constantly 'playing defense' in life? Are you ready to play to go for audacious goals? Health guru and men's coach Clark Danger and I discuss the value of personal development in creating a freaking awesome life for yourself. Stop waiting for that magical day to come when you are allowed to start living the epic life you have dreamed of. Create it now. Stop settling, start living in Episode 024. Make sure to connect with Clark at ClarkDanger.com and check out his podcasts on iTunes. For those of you interested in diving a little deeper into what happens in the brain during coaching, here is a link to the Neuroscience of Good Coaching - a synthesis article of a recent paper published in Social Neuroscience. #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us! Options for Supporting the Show High Rollin' : $10.99 USD - monthly Monkey Up : $4.99 USD - monthly Let's Hear It! : $1.99 USD - monthly Why Subscribe?
Transcribe →023 | Running Out of the Cage
Feb 17, 2014Tap to summarize Call me crazy, call me masochistic, call me just plain stupid, but I decided to go on a run with Michaeline. That’s right - the Michaeline I spoke of last week - the ultrarunner who only seems to get stronger as she goes. Uhh, just hearing her name is a formidable challenge. My alarm clock rang at 6:03 (I don’t like to set alarms for even numbers), and almost immediately I heard Mikey stirring in the other room. Not 30 seconds passed before she had her shoes on and was at the door: “Are you ready yet?” “Uhhh” I groaned. I’ve first met Mikey in Freshman year of college... but I think we exchanged our first words two years later when we both worked at a geology lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. We became fast friends... and that’s when I first noticed her strange habit: she came to work after having run at least ten miles, and headed off after work to run another ten. I mean, she was on the track team and all, but still, it seemed a little excessive for running the steeple chase or a 3k race. I tried to go on runs with her sometimes, but was dropped in approximately 1.3 seconds. She did her best to make me feel good - she said she wanted to work on sprint training with me, and as a recovering football player, I knew my fair share about sprint training. So we began. And I noticed something even more peculiar about her. In a 40 yard uphill sprint, I blew her away. Again it happened. I gave her a 5 yard head start, same result. 7 yards, 10 yards. I was still passing her. The thing was, her top speed just wasn’t that fast... but she could hold it for miles. And that’s just what she began to do on this dark, rainy morning in Berkeley. The feeling of running in the rain was actually quite liberating, but as I struggled to regain my breaths, the classic old thoughts began to creep in. Why am I doing this? We veered off road and started up a muddy trail in the dark, our feet sinking into the soft earth as the trail began to ascend. And ascend. We climbed, climbed some more, and reached areas where we started literally climbing. I grabbed onto roots and clumps of grass, using them to essentially slab-climb up the trail - the difference between this and true slab climbing, of course, was the fact that I couldn’t trust any feet. Mud gave out beneath each step as I clawed my way uphill next to Mikey. Eventually, though, she found her footing and trotted on. I continued to slip and slide, finally reaching a 10 foot section that had no good roots or holds. I made a go at going straight up it quickly, but slid back down, covered in mud. Mikey had noticed my lagging and customarily turned around to run back until I met with her. I was determined to get up the section, though, with no help, so I ran towards the side of the trail, kicked off the mound and lowest branch of an innocent tree, and leapt for a clump of grass at the top of the section, just barely catching it with my hands and hoisting/mantling/rolling like a beached whale on top of it. Mikey laughed, turned, and ran on. For the first time in quite a while, I felt like the out-of-shape fat guy once again. whew. The trail flattened out for a bit and came to a divergence - one path exited from the park onto the street, and the other headed straight up. Mikey went straight for the path out to the ... well to my suprise to the street. I got hopeful! I wanted to be done now! She stopped, carefully looked at the sign facing the opposite direction, and said - ‘let’s go this way!’ So straight uphill we went. My calves were slowly suffocating. I was pretty sure they were going to need to be amputated. I wasn’t keeping up with Mikey at all. I wanted to be done running, not just now, but for good. She would run far ahead, and then turn back, meeting up with me again to sprint on ahead. This was both very nice of her and like leading a rabbit on with a carrot on a string - every time I thought ‘this is the time I’ll be able to keep up with her!’ and didn’t. It’s about time I heeded my own advice, right? I reminded myself - just find a process to focus on, and trust the process. It doesn’t matter what the rest of your body feels like, just focus on maintaining breathing only through my nose. If you must slow down, so be it. Slowly, gradually, I began to relax and run. To just settle into my rhythm. Maybe I’m being too woo-woo positive and it was actually just that the 14% grade began to gradually reverse its direction. Whatever the case, I trusted the process, and I loved it. I felt strong. I trusted the process, and it set me free. I think we all put ourselves into cages created by our own minds at times. What’s the process you’re going to trust in? Listen in to Episode 023: Music by David Phillips! Check him out! And like I said, if you have a story to tell, get on the Newsletter by entering your email below and send me the goods! #mc_embed_signup{background:clear; clear:left; 18px font: courier,Arial,sans-serif; } Ready to get out of the comfort zone and thrive? Join us! Options for Supporting the Show High Rollin' : $10.99 USD - monthly Monkey Up : $4.99 USD - monthly Let's Hear It! : $1.99 USD - monthly Why Subscribe?
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