(upbeat music) (light music) The easiest way to make an athlete worse is to take away autonomy. Your most important job is not to get them faster or whatever have you, it's to develop the joy of whatever pursuits they're doing. And if you can do that, like the rest takes care of itself. (upbeat music) You can be good. To be good you have to put in the work. What I would say is this, lots of easy running, occasionally go hard. Very, very rarely go see God. Greetings internet. Welcome to the podcast, the podcast that has devoted many, many episodes to the subject of why it's important to do hard things, which just so happens to be the title of today's guest latest book. His name is Steve Magness. And if that name rings familiar, it might be because this marks his third, but first solo appearance on the show, his first two accompanied by recent guest, Brad Stulberg. For those unfamiliar, Steve is a former elite track and field athlete and elite track and cross country coach turned author and world renowned expert on performance. In addition, Steve consults on mental skills development for professional sports teams, including some of the top teams in the NBA and has also coached numerous professional athletes to the Olympics and world championship level. And alongside Mr. Stulberg, he pens "The Growth Equation" newsletter and cohost the podcast of the same name. Today, we're gonna deconstruct a new approach to unlocking true toughness of physical and mental resilience. We're gonna talk about how to lead others to optimal performance and the path to unlocking the potential that resides within all of us. We also discuss Steve's background as a running prodigy and 4:01 miler. What he learned from his frustrated ambition to break the lauded four minute barrier, as well as the healthy mind body spirit approach to getting the best out of ourselves and those under our tutelage or leadership. And really for the first time, Steve quite candidly opens up with many never before publicly disclosed thoughts on his experience, working under disgraced coach Alberto Salazar at the Nike Oregon Project and walks us through what ultimately led him to blow the whistle on Salazar's legal doping activities. I really enjoy talking to Steve. This one is a combination of just great stories as well as actionable takeaways. So please click that subscribe button and here we go. This is me and Steve Magness. It's good to have you here. I'm excited to talk to you. It's interesting that you're here the same week that the episode with Brad went up because we've done multiple conversations with the two of you together, but this is my first crack at just getting you alone. So much to talk to you about, the new book is called "Do Hard Things". It comes out June 21st, right? Correct. So that's very exciting. Your fourth book? Yes. Four books. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Yeah. And on the heels of retiring as a collegiate track and field coach at University of Houston where you've been for quite some time. Yeah, nine years. So quite a change. How does it feel to no longer be under in the academic fold? It's freeing and strange. So freeing, because like you're out of this kind of bureaucracy that kind of controls your schedule and what you do, but also strange because it was my life for so long. And it like kind of grounded me. Well, it dovetails into some of the themes in the book, this idea around agency and having the ability to kind of control your destiny that are so tied to our ability to be resilient and successful. Yeah. It really does. And it was interesting writing the book while making this decision. Like it was almost this surreal moment where I'm like, oh, I wrote about this. I talked about how to navigate these situations where you have like one part of you pulling you to be like, ah, stay like, this is your life. And the other part pulling you to be like, this is, you can be free, like, explore this. Right, you gotta walk your talk if you're gonna be espousing this message. So here we are though. Exactly.
Yes. You had agency to get on a plane this morning and come here and fly back to Houston tonight, which is its own endurance event. That's right. You know, still got that, might not be as fast as I once was, but still got the mindset. Yeah. Well, I thought we could take an opportunity to kind of dive into your personal background in a little bit more depth because although we've touched on it in our other conversations, a, those conversations were a long time ago. And secondly, they've always just been in the context of something else that we've talked about. So we haven't really heard your full story. So why don't we just begin with you as this high school track and field prodigy and what went right and what went wrong? Yeah, let's go all the way back to what I call the beginning, which is I ran really fast in high school and I ran really fast actually early in high school. So when I was a freshman, I ran 4:21 in the mile, which at that time was like the second or third fastest freshman in the country. And I wasn't very good in junior high. I ran track, but I mostly played soccer. So I got thrown out onto the stage of like, oh my gosh, people expect things of me. But how did that leap take place so quickly? You know, I think it was just kind of a bless of puberty hitting. And then like, I actually trained, so I got kind of taken up like under the wing of some of the older athletes who said like, hey Steve, if you're gonna run cross country, like you should train. And I didn't train at all. Like I didn't do anything. So I remember the first run that I did with one of these senior athletes who said, hey, we're gonna go run five miles. And I was like, five miles. Like I ran a mile and a half race in track and that's the furthest I've ever run. And he was like, oh, you'll be alright. I get to three miles. I stop. I throw up and tell him, like, I'm walking home, this sucks. I'm done. And he said, Steve, you can be good, to be good, you have to put in the work. And that just kind of stuck with me where I was just like, all right, I guess I'm gonna try and be good at this thing called running. And it just kind of carried on. So from that moment of throwing up in the midst of a five mile run to running 4:23 or whatever it was that year, like how much time had elapsed? So that was maybe about five months somewhere in there. That's it?
Yeah. That's crazy.
Yeah. So, I mean, I just skyrocketed. Every single race I got better, better, better, better. It just came kind of naturally. 'Cause I was training. I was competing. The coaches were just like, I remember again, my freshman year, this was, let's say 1999, 2000. So a high schooler hadn't broken four since like the 1960s. And I remember my high school coach pulled me aside and said, Steve, you have the opportunity a couple years where I think you can break the four minute barrier . And I was like, I don't know what that is. And he said, go home and look up Jim Ryan. So I go home on like the dial up internet and look up who Jim Ryan is. I'm like, holy crap. Like this guy ran 3:55 in the mile in high school. Like my coach thinks I can be kind of like this guy. Okay. Let's go. Did you have a coach who knew what he was doing? Yeah, I did. He ran in, I had two coaches, one who ran in college. So he was familiar with distance running. And the one had been a track coach for like 20 years, but coach sprinters and elite level sprinters at the high school level. But he didn't know anything about distance running, but he was just like, I'm gonna help you out. I'm gonna learn as much as I can because I think we've got this phenomenal talent. Right, so these two guys are like, we got something special here. We gotta up our game. And try to see what we can make of this young Steve Magness. And fast forward to you being a senior. So senior, the funny thing is I skyrocketed. And then for the next couple years I stagnated. So my best mile going into my senior year was I think around 4:17. So only small improvements. And then my senior year, I just hit that magic again. Where every race I got faster, faster, faster, faster until I ran a 4:01 mile on the biggest stage at the Nike Prefontaine Classic against Bernard Lagat, who was the fastest person in the world at that time. And all these phenomenal athletes. Right. The goal, however, being to go under four. And it drove me nuts because I ran 4:01 there. I ran 4:01 in another high school meet. I ran 4:03 somewhere else. So I was always knocking at the door and I thought, gosh, I'm so close. Like this is here. But in the back of my mind, I always, I just kind of knew. I said, you know what, if I don't get it, like, I'm gonna crush this thing in college. This is no big deal. Like I'm at the beginning. But I didn't. So that 4:01 mile in high school remained the fastest time that I ever ran. And looking back at that period of time in your life with all the coaching experience that you have today, do you sort of cycle through, I should have done this. I could have done that. Why didn't I do this, and how much of that is related to you writing these books about how to approach your goals in a healthier and more robust way? For a long time that 4:01 and not 3:50-something, really bothered me, because running was my thing. It was what I got known for. It was what I was good at. It was what I saw other people have expectations for me as, so my secret weapon was always hard work, so I just work harder, harder, harder. And if things didn't go well, I just doubled down on that. So looking back, absolutely. Which is natural, that's a natural response. Natural response. But I think looking back, I'd say almost all of these, the books that I've written have had some like origin in the fact that I ran 4:01 and not 3 59. It's only if sort of premise. Yeah, and it's not so much that now that I want to go like back and do this, I almost think the best thing that happened to me was not breaking that barrier because it forced me to come to terms with something, which is I was narrowly focused and my entire world was running and in college, especially as I was trying to break that barrier, if a race didn't go, well, I was devastated. My world was crushed. There was no separation between identity and performance. Zero. It was, if I ran 4:05, it was Steve, you are a failure. Like you, yourself are a failure. And that was really difficult to wrestle with. And your academic career was really just an excuse to continue to train. I've heard you speak about like, you weren't really all that tapped into whatever you were doing at school and even graduate school was just basically a way to get your parents off your back so you could keep training. Yeah, so exactly. So after I finished my undergrad, I kind of bummed around for six months and just like literally bummed around, like lived off the small savings I had and trained. And after about six months, my parents were like, Steve, you have to do something with your life. Like, you're smart, you're driven, you gotta do something. So how did you find your way into coaching? So it was pretty much, I went to grad school so that I could buy myself time to keep training and figure out what to do. And then I found my way into coaching because, when I was in right before grad school, the high school coach I had had retired and they didn't have a new coach and they were gonna fill a coach, but they just kind of took their time as all high school coaches did. And it was the summer. And I was back home training, like living with my parents, bumming around, figuring out what to do. And I trained at like one park in the suburbs of Houston that everyone trained at. And I had all these high school kids who were like, we have no direction. They haven't hired a coach. Like, can you help us out? And I was like, all right, sure. And there were a bunch of really dedicated and great kids and helping them out is what launched me into coaching. 'Cause I was like, this is fun. Like I'm getting to give back. And at that time I had not as much awareness, but just enough self-awareness where I could be like, here's a couple really talented kids who had the talent to make it on the college and maybe even beyond level. And maybe I can pass along some wisdom so that they can like course correct away from the path that I took. Interesting. 'Cause another response to that, that I wouldn't judge you for would be like, I don't want anything to do with running anymore. Like I didn't achieve my goals and you could kind of grind on that resentment and just move in a completely different direction. Yeah I think that would've been a legitimate option and I think in some ways running was the only thing I knew because I just, I did well in school, but I didn't care at all about anything else. Nothing else piqued my interest, the coaching and the kind of exercise science and psychology piqued my interest probably out of selfish reasons at first to understand. But like that's the only thing where I was like, oh, this might be interesting. Yeah. So it starts out with you just of your own accord and goodwill helping out these high school kids. But how does that position you to end up as this elite guru of track and field? I honestly, it's almost like I have no idea because it happened so fast. I started coaching high school kids. And then at the same time I was like, well, I'm learning a lot. I'm just gonna put out, like in those days, like 2010, it was like, I'm gonna put out a blog online. And I just start writing about like the science and I was in grad school and the coaching and kind of intertwining each and talking about the lessons learned and that did fairly well. And then I think really that started as I was finishing up grad school. I was debating whether I should finish early, which I could, if I pressed a class and my thesis or stick around and bum around for another semester and kind of keep it going so that I could delay my real life. And then I get a call out of the blue from Alberto Salazar. So you went straight from blogger, helping out high school kids to Nike Oregon Project. Yes. I mean, that doesn't happen. Right. Like, that's wild. And you didn't have any real coaching credentials. No. And you weren't a superstar as a runner, you flamed out in high school. So what do you think sort of alerted Alberto that you would be a good candidate to join his project, which we're gonna get into, but aside from all the nonsense. What he told me at the time, and looking back, I think I'd answer this question differently, but I'm gonna give you my at the time moment, is that he read something that I wrote and he referenced it. It was like on some analyzing some training of some elite Ethiopians and Kenyans and he was like, this is great. We're looking for an assistant coach with some science background to come in and like help me out. Are you interested? And I was like 100%. And to me at that time, I thought I had hit like the jackpot. I thought I was like, this was dream job right away. This is something that I thought maybe, maybe if I worked hard, could occur like 20 years in the future. So I was on all in from all day one. And so you just pack your bags, move to Eugene, Portland. Portland. Yeah. Yes. Portland, sorry. And hence began this very interesting chapter of your life. It only lasted about a year and a half, but it impacted my entire life for the next well, it's been 10, 11 years. Right. So much has been well documented about what happened with Alberto Salazar and the Nike Oregon Project. We don't have to rehash all the dirty details of all of that, but I do want to give you an opportunity to share your perspective on what went down. I mean, you've been interviewed, you've testified, so there's quite a bit of public record out there about this. And as we were chatting before the podcast, at the same time, you've done a really good job of not of not allowing this identity of you as a whistleblower in that context to define who you are or the work that you do, which, that befalls a lot of people who have the audacity or the courage to step out and publicly denounce something that they see that is not so good. Yeah I would, I think I've handled it that way because I was keenly aware of what happens when your identity is like one thing because of my running. And I remember thinking about this before I blew the whistle as like, this is the thing, like, this could completely define who you are and you'll have no control over it. And so I've tried to be like conscious and aware of that. So yeah, I've tried to be intentional. So for people who are perhaps not that familiar with what happened, maybe walk through the evolution around you becoming aware that things were not as they seem. Yeah. So early on, as I said, I thought it was my dream job, and I think that's an important framing because when you go in with that mindset, what happens is you start to like, you look on the bright side of everything. So early on, I'd see some items that I was like, huh, that's kind of weird. Like, what would be an example of that. Very early on, like I remember it was a couple months after I got there and one of the athletes had to use some prescription drug after a race. And they had said it was asthma related. And then there was Alberto started freaking out because then, well, this drug isn't allowed in competition and the athlete was about to race again, days later. So I get a call from Alberto and he says, Steve, I need you to pick up a sample of pee from this athlete, fly it to Minnesota, drop it off. And they're gonna test it to see if it contains the drug. And this was to transpire days in advance of a certain race? Yes, and he was like, if it doesn't he'll race, if it does, he won't, we'll pull him out. And was that drug prescribed at the behest of Salazar? So this is the other interesting part that I again realized kind of early on, but kind of excused away is that a lot of the doctors who helped the team and then Salazar, who was in charge of it, the relationship was like almost intertwined, where there's several cases where Alberto would be like, this athlete needs this, which was a prescription drug, which as a non-doctor like, he shouldn't be able to, he's not a doctor. He can't do that. Or there'd be cases at the track where he'd be like, here, you need to take this. And then he'd hand someone, a prescription bottle of someone else or give someone else like a prescription inhaler that didn't belong to them that wasn't prescribed to them. So it was like a bunch of this, these things that push beyond like the normal, doctor, patient, like workings. And you're just making mental notes of these little incidents that are happening out in the open. Relatively within the ecosystem of this team? Right, and that's kind of what it was. And then I think the first time my alarm bell went off is I was looking through a scientific research report done by the man who was at formerly the head of the Nike Sports Science Lab. And I'm just perusing through it. It's on like altitude training. And I see this, the doctor's notes, the scientist notes. And it says under Galen Rupp's name, it says presently on testosterone medication. And as someone who's not esteemed and not a doctor, but I know when testosterone medication comes in, I'm like. You're like, huh. Huh. This is weird. So what do you do with that information? I mean, initially I called my parents for advice. I'll be honest, 'cause I was like, I don't know what to do. This is strange. Like I know testosterone's illegal. Like what do I do? And they're like, well you gotta confront Alberto. Maybe there's an exemptive use authorization here. You don't really know what you're dealing with at this point. Exactly. So I like get up the courage, 'cause Alberto's again, my boss, intimidating guy. And I'm just like talk myself through it. And I walk in there and I'm just like, "Hey Alberto, I need to ask you a question." And he like turns around and his kind of desk. And he was like, "Okay, what is it, Steve?" I was like, "I noticed this, can you explain this?" And he goes, he kind of has taken aback. And then he goes, "Oh, you know that Lauren Myrie, like he's crazy. He's losing his mind. Like, I don't know what this note is. Like, I don't know. Like you go take it down to the lab and see if they have an explanation." Lauren being the sports- Sports scientist. And I take it down the lab and they're like, I mean, we can look through his old notes and see that. And I'm like, okay, I'd appreciate that. I just wanna know. And that was the last I heard of it. Never got an answer. At some point, Alberto convinces you to hook yourself up to an L-Carnitine IV drip for a four hour period. So help me understand this and why that was kind of a seminal moment in this process of wrapping your brain around what was actually happening. So this was my biggest regret, and it's still hard to like, think about how, oh, I was this person who did this. And what it was was simple, is that Alberto had found some supplement that was made in the UK that had L-Carnitine that you drank, but it took like three months to work. 'Cause you needed enough to build up in the muscle. Well Alberto was a very impatient person. And we had people on the team who were getting ready for the Olympic trials in the marathon and said, we don't have three months. We need to figure out a quicker way. L-Carnitine isn't a band substance. Not a banned substance. But administering it via IV is a dubious question mark. Exactly. So what happened is the better way, which they concocted with scientists and the team doctor and all this stuff was we're gonna inject it. So that's not like drinking the thing, it'll work pretty much right away. And then we'll be good and we'll do all this stuff. Well, it was a procedure that hadn't been done before to my knowledge in this way at least. So I get a call right before Thanksgiving where Alberto says, Steve, how do you want to go? Do you feel like going home for Thanksgiving? I was like, yeah, I'd love to go home for Thanksgiving. He said, great, Dr. Brown, who was the team doctor, lives in Houston. He was my personal doctor since the age of like 15, because he's in Houston and that's who I got referred to. So I'm like, okay. And he is like, we're gonna do this procedure on you to test if this works. And if it works, then we're gonna use it on all the athletes. And this is after the testosterone Galen Rupp thing. Yes. So at first I was like, this sounds really strange. I don't know about this. So I called Dr. Brown up again. My personal doctor, I said, is this safe and legal? And he said, yeah, it's safe. It's legal. We're gonna do it the right way. I'll take your blood, and we'll make sure you're healthy. And I was like, I don't know about this. And he goes, it's safe. It's okay. And I just gave in and I said, okay, I'll do it. And it's hard in that moment. It's hard to look at myself and be like, what were you doing? Like, who are you? Like you wouldn't do. You, wouldn't sit there and take an injection for four hours in a doctor's office. But yet I did. And, I think a lot of it was, I so wanted this job to be real. I trusted the guy who was my personal physician to look out for my health. And then the other aspect of it that I haven't really talked about is that Alberto was really good at figuring out what athletes wanted or what people wanted and needed. And then using that. So what I mean by that for myself is throughout my time there, he would bounce back and forth between Steve, you're doing a phenomenal job. I'm gonna give you like a three year contract and a huge raise, and I'd be like, ecstatic. Let's do it, like great. I'm gonna be, and then he'd be like, Steve, you're gonna be the next person who takes over after I retire in a couple years. He's saying, this is yours. You're gonna be in charge of the best distance runners on the planet. Yeah. It's intoxicating. And I said- And you're like, what? 25 at this point or something? Yeah, 25. But then he would do the opposite every once in a while where it'd say, Steve, I'm gonna cut your contract down. You're gonna be six months. You gotta prove yourself and he'd go back and forth. And right before this L-Carnitine thing, there was this period that went from the beginning. And then through this, through the L-Carnitine thing where I didn't receive a paycheck for six months. How was that? I can't tell you how it occurred. But I had a contract with Nike, biggest athletic company. But I didn't get paid for six months and I'd ask Alberto and he'd be like, ah, yeah, they're just going through details. We changed some stuff. So it it'll come through, it'll come through. And I'd be like, so I'd be like, okay, it'll come through. Month would go by, I'd ask again. And this went on until right before I left and periodically he'd be like, oh Steve, do you need a loan? I'll give you a personal loan to hold you through. All these mechanisms to create dependency and enhance his ability to control you, which is really that abuse cycle. Like you give the love and then you with you withhold it and you create a circumstance where you're stuck. Exactly. And looking back, that's what I see now, when you're in it, you can't see it. You can't see it. Yeah. Yeah. That's heavy, man. That's heavy. I mean, clearly he must have had something to do with the withholding of your salary. Do you think there was an intentional act on his part to, so that he could be the puppet master? I think so. And even, also stepping back, identifying you with that decision to hire you, it's like, oh, this guy's bright and young, but also he doesn't know anything. Like I can control this guy. He can be my Lieutenant and he's gonna do what I tell him to do. 100%. And you look at it also as their team doctor was my personal doctor. Right? So there's all these like things there where it's like, I used to think, as I said at the beginning, I was like, oh, you identified me. I wrote something great, blah, blah, blah. But the reality is I was a young guy who hadn't had experience, who would see this as his dream job, who was admittedly, a running nerd, right. Who felt shorted in his own career and has this opportunity. And he probably thought I can manipulate the hell out of him. Sorry to interrupt the flow. We'll be right back with more awesome. But I wanna snag a moment to talk to you about the importance of nutrition. The thing is most people I know actually already know how to eat better and aspire to incorporate more whole plants, more fruits, vegetables, seeds, beans, and legumes into their daily routine. Sadly, however, without the kitchen tools and support very few end up sticking with it. So because adopting a plant-based diet transformed my life so profoundly. 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So there you are back in Houston, hooking an IV up to your arm. Yeah. So explain what L-Carnitine is and what it did to you. So it's a amino acid that essentially the research shows it helps us be more efficient in the fuel that we utilize. So simple terms, burn less carbohydrates so that you can save those in something like the marathon. So it makes a relatively, I mean, a big effect. And your experience personally, after this four hour drip, I mean, you said like you felt like superhuman. Yeah. I mean, I remember it is, I did testing on the treadmill, like in the lab before and after, my numbers shot up. And then just to see what happened. I got thrown in a workout with Dathan Ritzenhein one of the best American males ever. And he is doing a long marathon pace tempo run at like five minute pace or faster. And I run 11 out of the, I think, 14 miles with him and I'm not compete, like- You're coaching at this point. Yes. I'm not in that shape. I went through 10 miles faster than I'd ever run 10 miles. Wow.
And I felt fine. I could have, and I remember having this conversation 'cause it was before the Olympic trials, I could have qualified for the Olympic trials. No question asked like the next day, if I needed to. That's wild. So with that realization, how do you arrive at this place where you you're prepared to say something publicly, or to report to somebody what you're seeing. First, it took the guts to leave where I was like, this is crazy. I feel like, and I remember telling my parents this and they, I said, I feel like I'm in a cult, 'cause it's not just like the shady stuff over there. It's also like the shady stuff with like how they treated like Kara Goucher and Amy Bagley and all these others. And I was just like, this is manipulative as hell. 'Cause on top of that, anybody who listened to the episode I did with Mary Kane, she talks about the head game aspect of this, which is the other piece. I remember this was right before I left, but, I got pulled into a meeting and Alberto is going over athlete stuff and he pulls out an athlete. And we're talking about it's Alberto Darren Treasure, who was like called the sports psychologist and me and they're going over the athletes, they pull out one athlete and this athlete had just made their first world championship team. And he goes, she's too fat. Her butt's so big. She can't lift her legs. And in my head I'm like, just made her first world championship team, like she's PR and all left and right. I'm like, I'm like, okay, let me look at the data. 'Cause that's who I am a science data guy. I pull out the data, body fat testing using the gold standard like measurement. And it was something like 10, 11%, which is about as low as you can get as a female. And I say, hey, here's the data Alberto like, she's fine. You can't go any lower. And he turns to me and says, "I don't give a what this science says. I know what I see with my eyes. She needs to lose weight." And then Darren, Darren like sees the controversy, butts in, is like, "Well maybe instead saying lose weight. Why don't we give an example of what she should look like?" And Darren goes, "She should look like how about Jenny Simpson?" Who was at the time was like coming off being the world champion in the 1500, and Alberto goes, Jenny's too fat. Whoa. So in that moment I knew no science matters. No data matters. Nothing else matters except the perception in Alberto's head. And it as weird as it sounds. I remember thinking like this is like, I can't do what I need to, I can't support this. I gotta get outta here. Mm. Which is a pretty bold realization and move for somebody so young. And this is really your first job you had to imagine is he gonna blackball me? Is this gonna prevent me from being able to go coach somewhere else? How did you like handle the departure? I tried to handle it well. And initially it seemed like it was going well, we had a conversation, it was somewhat civil. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna hold you back. You're young. Like just get out. That's fine. That's a great. Couple days later Alberto flips completely, gets angry, starts sending these emails. One of which literally threatens like black balling, telling me, 'cause I was like, he was like, "What are you gonna do?" I said, "I think I'm gonna go coach in college." And he said, "Fine, great." Couple days later he says, "Steve, remember that Nike sponsors the vast majority of college track teams, college sports teams. So keep that in mind on what you want me to say to them." Wow. The reign of terror. So like that's how it left. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's terrifying. So how do you, get the gumption to speak out? Was there some other incident or act that occurred that crossed the line enough where you were like, I can't sit on this information anymore. I went home to Houston. I was fortunate. I got the college job, cross country job at Houston, which was my alum. So I knew the head coach. I knew it was gonna be fine, but I tried to put it behind me. I didn't wanna talk about it. I declined all interviews. I didn't wanna speak about it. I just wanted to move on. And that's what I tried to do. And I saw the Olympic games. I saw two Oregon Project athletes go one, two, that was hard to watch. 'Cause I knew behind the scenes what was going on. And then I saw that Alberto was in discussion with coaching this high school female named Mary Kane. And I remember at that time no one, like the people who knew anything about it was essentially my family and my best friend. And I remember calling up my best friend and being like, who also ran with in college and said, this is gonna be an utter disaster. Because Alberto treated grown women like shit. I couldn't imagine a high school kid going into that environment, having those expectations and being in that situation in my head, I was like, I was 25 and it was, I couldn't handle that at all. And it was like the worst decision I ever made. This is gonna be an utter disaster. Which is exactly what happened. Mm-hm. So off of that, I called USADA. Well, I sent them an email. Didn't tell anybody I was gonna do it. Called my parents and they said, don't, you don't wanna whistle blow. They actually had a Texas like judge, a well known judge call me up and walk me through what would happen most likely if I blew the whistle and if I didn't. And he said, look, it's probably the right thing to blow the whistle, but I've been behind the bench for 30 years and this could potentially ruin your life and get no benefit or change out of this. So one want- With Nike behind it and unlimited resources to just upend your life. Yeah. And yet you still went through with it. Yeah, I mean it ate away. It ate away at my soul. I tried to push it away. I tried to ignore it, but it just ate at me until the point I just remember thinking whatever happens, at least if nothing good comes out of this, at least people will know. And then they can make the decision that you didn't have that opportunity to make, because you had no knowledge there was nothing out there. So I wrote up an email in five minutes, hit send. And that started it. That basically said what? It was like a two paragraph email that outlined, hey, I saw this document that said, testosterone. I know they're doing L-Carnitine injections. There's a lot of sketchy stuff going on. I suggest you investigate them. And who was that email addressed to specifically? It was USADA's website. Just you saw it, like go to their website. Oh wow. I went to their website, they have a tip line and I just sent it in. Yeah. And what's interesting is you had enough foreknowledge to know what you were getting into, it wasn't like a spontaneous, like I'm just gonna send this off and I'm not gonna worry about it. Like you knew that potentially there was a hurricane coming in your direction. So how long before this kicked up a kerfuffle? So it started, it was behind the scenes, it was a lot because USADA would interview me and call me all the time and randomly and all this stuff. And then reporters at this time, within about six months, they're starting to kick the can. They're starting to call me being like, hey, I'm hearing- They're hearing it from somewhere else. Somewhere else. I'm hearing something, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And for the longest time I said, nope, nope, nope. Not gonna do it. But, I remember Dave Epstein called me and this was after a year of kind of USADA, USADA was interesting because it was like firestorm of activity, four months of nothing. Firestorm of activity, nothing. And Dave was the first person who I was like, okay, I'm gonna talk to Dave. He was with ProPublica at the time. Before all his books and all of that. Yes.
Yeah. So I started to tell Dave, he worked with the BBC and that's when I knew they were like, hey, we have behind the scenes. I said, hey, we've got Kara Goucher, other people telling our story. And I hadn't talked to Kara and I was intentional actually during the almost 10 years that this came out to really not talk to Kara. And I remember thinking, okay, if Kara is gonna like do this as well, then the story needs to be told. And that once it started going down this path and USADA was aware that I was talking to Epstein. Once it started going down this path, I knew that as soon as this came out, it was gonna be a firestorm. It was gonna be like I had to be prepared. And then specifically I remember being at a track meet, a diamond league track meet. So big time track meet and in the warmup area, 'cause I was there with an athlete. Alberto comes around, comes up to me and says, "Steve, did you see anything while you were here?" And I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about, Alberto." He's like, "I'm hearing reports like some rumblings of something." I said, "I don't know what you're talking about, Alberto." I just walked off. And I knew that I had to prepare for like the chaos that was coming. In other words, he's telegraphing to you. I know what you're up to. Just so you know, I know. Yes, exactly. And how long before the press really cottons onto this and the big stories break or did that happen with the legal proceedings? So it happened, I think I blew the whistle at the end of 2012 and then somewhere in around 2014, 2015 is when it all blew up in the press. And that was when the chaos started. But before that, like I didn't know what was gonna happen. It had to be terrifying. I had to come to terms with that I would never work in running and never coach again. That's what I had to wrap my head around. And we talked at the beginning, I've had four books, the first book, "Science of Running", which was self-published. I put it out there right before the original like piece was supposed to come out. As a prophylactic. Like just so you know, before I head into this, I actually know what I'm talking about with running. And maybe there'd be some kind of insurance policy for your career. Exactly. So that I had something else, financially, expertise-wise, something else that I was like, okay, if this all goes to hell in a hand basket, I'll be okay for a while to figure out what the next path is. How bad did it get? I mean, did they have people following you? Were they trying to dig up dirt on you and publishing false accounts in the press of who you were? Like, what was your lived experience of that period? I mean, it was, I had to get off the internet, which is much harder than you realize it is. In the modern world, but it was driving me nuts because yeah, there'd be a bunch of- You're getting dragged. You're getting dragged in the press, getting dragged, wherever I'd show up to track meets. And literally other coaches would be like, hey Steve, like good to see you, but I don't want to be near you. And I'd be like the ostracized, like person over in the corner because Nike's the biggest thing in track and field. And it was, I mean, I had the FBI show up at my house. I had reporters literally stalk me at my house and at my work. That's so crazy. All leading up to of course, this pinnacle moment of you testifying with Alberto sitting right there. It's the hardest thing I've ever done was not blowing the whistle. It was sitting there in that room. I thought I knew kind of what a panic attack was, but I didn't know until experiencing that. 'Cause I remember sitting there being like, oh my dear Lord, like, I'm about to like have to share everything, get grilled, et cetera. They're gonna try and tear me apart. And it was nerve-wracking. Like I'm an introvert by nature. I like to write. Like I do get up and talk, but it's not my thing. So it was the worst experience of my life. I wouldn't wish anybody else to have that. Yeah, to have him sitting there. I mean, was he just steely eyeing you the whole time and what was the experience of being cross-examined in that context? Well, horrible. Yeah. I mean, they're just staring you down and trying to like poke any sort of hole, twist, any sort of thing you've done or said at any moment in basically the history of your life. It's throwing whatever sticks at the wall and here you are in your head. You're like, that didn't happen. Like what in the world are you talking about? Like, this is BS, but like you, all you can do is say that and they try and confuse everything because you gotta remember at the time of this stuff, it's all stuff that happened five, six, seven, by the end of it, nine years ago, 10 years ago. And you only actually saw a couple incidents. So it's not like you were down in the basement with whatever doctor he was working with and really had hands on firsthand accounts of all kinds of stuff. So you could see how they could pick that apart and create doubt. Exactly. It's not like I had the smoking gun where I saw someone like inject themselves with a steroid and took a picture of it. Like I didn't do that. So because it was so nuanced. And because again, you're looking at people in the panel who maybe you don't have the expertise to understand what high sport and the science behind it and all this stuff. And what is illegal and what isn't. Exactly. And what's normal and what's not normal in sport. And that was really hard because I'm sitting here being like, no, you guys like, this is crazy. This is not normal. Like this doesn't occur anywhere else, but like to convey that is something else. Right. Well, you did the thing and what happened happened. And in the wake of that, have you had any direct correspondence with Salazar? Like has he reached out to you? Has he tried to contact you? No, no. I mean those guys, never. And what about when you bump into Nike people at track meets and things like that? I mean, before all the verdicts came, they'd try and intimidate me. But have they clean house since then, so it's new and different people? They have for the most part, not entirely, but a lot of them are different and gone. So it's just strange, honestly. Because in my head I'm sitting there being like, look, I'm not trying to ruin anyone's life or do anything. Like, I'm just telling you what I saw. Right, and with that, with having had that experience and then coaching at the elite collegiate level and being at all these meets and knowing these athletes firsthand, when you're watching the Olympic trials or some big track meet and you see exceptional performances, like what goes on in your mind? Like, we all wanna believe that sport is clean, but you knowing better than anyone what constitutes a legitimate breakthrough versus an enhanced breakthrough? Like, are you cynical? Like what is your lens on on sport? Not just in track and field, but like we could talk about psych. We could talk about any of the sports in which this is rampant. and there's been controversies. For a while I was very cynical and I realized that it was killing my love of something that I really enjoy doing, participating in, helping out in, and where I've come to now is I cheer on the folks and the coaches and the athletes who I feel really good about who I think are doing things the right way. And I can get maybe not to 100% certainty, but I can get close. And those are the people I watch. I cheer for, et cetera. If you're not in that group, you set a record. I don't care. And I'm not gonna ask you to name those people, but clearly I could tell there's certain individuals where you're like, okay, right. Yeah, and it's hard- With that, it has to be, I mean, it's a choice, but it still has to be a challenge for you to remain enthusiastic about the sport. It does. And the hardest part to me though, is that there were a lot of people, I kind of thought maybe this was naive. I thought, okay, I'm gonna blow the whistle. People will see all this. If it comes out, the verdict did in the favor of we were telling the truth, that well, people would see and they'd have like ethics and morals and back the good side. And like, but you still see people who go to like train with similar athletes or coaches as were part of the Oregon Project, or like kind of mesh in that environment. And in my head, I'm like, like guys, you know, you've heard my story. You've seen the report. You've seen what Mary Kane went through and Kara Goucher and there are people like, ah, like, oh no, like, even though you're like coach an athlete at that time, like, I don't care. Like we'll just blow this off. And that drives me nuts. But you can also have compassion for them. They're young people who are trying to have a professional career in a sport where there's very little money and there is still a level of prestige attached to Nike and Oregon and all of that. And you know, far be it from us to judge somebody who kind of needs that in their life. And has to find some way to look past past transgressions for the sake of their future career. I 100% get that. And I think what it tells me or what I've realized is that I was very, we all come at it from like a naive perspective and you tend to think like ethics and morals and all those things are like hard grained like in you and what have you. But I've realized is environment impacts you more than you realize, more than we count for. So I don't, I try my best, not to blame people, not to be like, oh, why are you doing that? Why did you choose that decision? Right, but you can reflect on your own decisions and why you made them at that time. And you know, that I'm sure allows you to better understand. Exactly. So I try to have nuance there where it's like, the world is not good and evil. It's not black and white. We're all capable of all sorts of good and bad decisions. And that's just reality. Right. And I would imagine in the way that you look back on that 4:01 mile and your inability to break that barrier as a gift that allowed you to become something greater, you can reflect back on that experience at Oregon Project and think, but not for that, you would've become the coach that you became at Houston. Like you could've just remained under Salazar's wing forever and never fully developed your own identity as a head coach. It shaped how I see not only like coaching, but also life. Like what is really important here. Exactly. If you asked 25 year old Steve, he would say, oh, like Olympic medals running around really fast in ovals, if you ask me after this experience, it's no, it's, I want healthy, happy human beings who can use sport as a way to challenge and push boundaries and like find themselves and like struggle in all those things. But we can do it in a way that like makes them grow as individuals. And if we do that, like, who cares if you run 4:01 or 3:55. And that mission statement then begets all these questions. Well, if that's the priority, how do we make healthy, happy athletes who can thrive in a sustainable way? Hence all of these books that you've written and all the research that you've done and all of that, which is fundamentally why we're here today. Like, I didn't know, we were gonna spend a whole hour on Nike Oregon Project, but thank you for being so candorous about that because I think there is still this, it's interesting, we were talking before the podcast, like, it's the story that doesn't go away. Like, even though you're like 2012, but yet we're still talking about this because it kind of continues to evolve. And it also is a basis point for how we think about other controversies that are similar or analogous. And it, like, won't leave you on some level, despite your desire to put it in the rear view mirror, but I appreciate you being open about it. But let's turn this to, to the new book, "Do Hard Things" and kind of what you're really interested in, which is this idea of how do we cultivate not just great athletes who are resilient and capable of optimizing performance, but ultimately good human beings and the principles that you've learned as a coach that translate into the workplace and into our personal lives, et cetera. So maybe a good place to start while we're on the subject of running. And the 4:01 mile is really what appears to be an impetus for this book, which is this other mile that you were running, where you had this vocal chord incident that made you rethink your approach to stress and your approach to toughness in general. Yeah. Yeah. So this happened when I was in college I was in the middle of a mile at Cal Berkeley running against some really good runners trying to break the four minute barrier, was running really well. And then all of a sudden after three laps or so I couldn't breathe. And when I say I couldn't breathe, like I literally could not get air in. And it sent me like, what in the hell is going on? I collapse on the ground I'm trying to figure out how to breathe. And the way you describe it, sorry to step over your words. But the way you describe it's not that you were out of your depth in terms of exertion, like you were pacing yourself and you felt like you were, hitting the mark that you needed to hit at that stage of the race. I think you had a lap and a half left or something like that. And you're like, I'm right where I need to be. So it wasn't like, oh, I've just over exerted myself or misjudged my pace. It was something altogether different. Yes, it was as if someone had like shoved something down my throat and I was choking. That's the best way I can describe it. Not like there was just nothing that could get in or out of that passage way. And what it turned out to be after a lot of testing is that it was this thing called vocal cord dysfunction, which is essentially what happens, or what normally happens is your vocal chords open when you breathe and shut when you don't. And they just kind of go back and forth. For whatever reason, my vocal chords almost flipped where the stress signal told them to shut when they should be opened. And it's this really weird kind of disorder that is more common than we think, but it often gets confused with asthma, even though it's like the opposite effect. So what happens and what the research tells you is that it generally happens in driven perfectionist type individuals who for whatever reason have some sort of trigger that like just almost makes the brain go haywire and have this opposite reaction. And what I had to learn to do from that is I was so accustomed to being like, well, how do you handle pain? You just push through, you dig deeper. You like grit your teeth and like put your head down and like go and push for it. And that would no longer work because if I did anything that caused any sort of anxiousness or tension in me that became a trigger for my vocal chords, literally shutting, and then I'd have to drop out and figure out how to breathe again. So you're forced into this situation where you have to figure out a different way to avoid that response, which is gonna require an antithetical relationship with pushing through pain and more of a Eastern philosophical, kind of letting go surrender, mindfulness driven relationship with sport in order to avoid having that kind of an incident. Exactly. And for someone who grew up again in the south around like football and sport, that Eastern philosophy didn't come naturally. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's not even like part of the parlance and you get into this in the book around kind of our unhealthy, but you know, conventional ideas around what it means to be tough in sport and these legendary stories of these mythic coach figures and athlete figures that have cemented this notion in our consciousness to the point where we don't even question it. Yeah, it's kind of wild. It's like, I like to think like every society has their and culture has their kind of like master narratives, in the US, it's like, oh, the American dream, like do all this thing, in sport, in toughness, in military and all this stuff. The master narrative is one of like push through, ignore the pain. Like don't cry, don't show any emotions. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Exactly. And you have story after story after story. And what's interesting is you deconstruct these like beginning with Bear Bryant and him arriving at Texas A&M and this legendary fable around how he pushed these kids in their summer training camp, leading into the fall, to the point where like most of them quit. But then two years later they become this reigning champion team. And the kind of mythos of Bear Bryant is born. And when you deconstruct it, you realize, well, this is all horseshit, like this isn't even actually what happened. Yeah. That was one of my favorite. My wife might actually be upset with me 'cause she's a Texas A&M grad. So it's like part of their mythos. But that, it's famous, especially in Texas, like junction boys is what it's called. Like go to the camp, do all this crazy stuff. This is how they got better. This is how they became the team that was legendary. And the reality is the year they go to the camp, they do all this crazy stuff. They went one in nine, the year they were good, only a handful of the players were actually left. What had happened is they'd gotten better players. How? Bryant admitted himself, like they paid to recruit better players to Texas A&M. But also the marketing hype of that story made it attractive. Exactly. So you can create this magnetic field out of this legend, but the truth of it was that like a lot of the, like the freshmen, by the time they were seniors, who had been there during that period of time, the stars opted out of the camp. And some of the guys that quit the camp ended up being superstars in other fields. Like they were amazing individuals had they been sort of mentored in a healthier, more appropriate way. Exactly. And I think that's what you see so much is that when we do things like throw people into the deep end and see if they survive, we lose so many good candidates. We're not developing people. And this is where it also ties into the military because people have taken it from there, is they say, oh, the Navy Seals hell week, they go through all this crazy stuff. That's a sorting exercise. That's not a development exercise. So explain the difference between those two things. So sorting is pretty simple, is they're just trying to see, okay, can you go through this rigors so that we can select you to see if you can like handle this job? So they're simulating. It's literally the initial litmus test to see if you're even a candidate to be developed into what ultimately could be a Navy Seal. It's like taking the SAT, right. We're gonna create some sort of barrier and this will help us. But we mistook it. And we took it as the development method, which if you go like people, coaches, parents, whoever they think, oh, well, the way to develop discipline and toughness is take the Navy Seals method, which is put people through some really difficult things. Like, and then they'll get really tough. No, that's not what the Navy Seals even do. If they're talking about developing toughness, they focus on more of what I'd call that Eastern side. As you mentioned earlier, where it's just like, hey, we've gotta create space. We've gotta develop the mental skills. I talked to a really good athlete, former college athlete of mine who went on into the military and now is trying for the special forces. And he put it pretty succinctly. It was like, Steve, before we go out and do all the crazy stuff, like the survival training that we're doing, we sit in a classroom, we have lecture after lecture, PowerPoint after PowerPoint, I've got a 600 page book filled with telling me how, what to do mentally and physically to handle whatever situation I'm coming at. And I have to learn and understand that. And it's only after I learn those skills that I'm then put in a place that simulates what I'll feel like and experience so that I can try those skills out. Right. To see if you're able to access that skillset under pressure and duress. Exactly. What's fascinating is how much the military gets right about this because it does dispel that kind of mythic notion of weeding out the week and the toughest will survive and how kind of rooted in science and how kind of mature and well thought out it is like it is this blueprint where they've poured a ton of research and money and resources into trying to figure out how do you develop these skills that are so critical to having a robust defense, right? That is so different than what we think. And it reminds me of the, I did a podcast with this guy, Rich Devenney, who was basically training Navy Seals. And he echoed the same thing. It's like, it's all about developing mental resilience. Like tho those other things are just tests and they get a lot of press and they're fun to talk about, but the truth is much more complicated and nuanced and has to do with psychology. And how do you inherently motivate somebody and develop a team approach to problem solving and all this kind of thing. You know, I think the way I like to think of it is the public image is stuck in the 1940s military. And the actual military is like the nation's largest, you know, employer of sports psychologist. I mean, that's true, right? Yeah. 'Cause they're just like, no, we have to figure this out. And rightfully so, because if you look at their own research when like new soldiers, special forces, like guys who have already passed the test come in, something like 94% of them experience disassociation during simulated like survival training. Which is disassociation is when your mind just kind of like slows down, cuts off, doesn't see reality for reality, the fog of war. So they see that and they're like, yeah, we gotta get this right. We need to understand how to prevent that from happening. How can we create soldiers who won't disassociate and are able to maintain their ability to think clearly and respond rather than react when they're in those very challenging circumstances. Exactly. Which is exactly what you want out of athletes. That's exactly the way you want to be able to comport yourself in other areas of your life, where you're gonna meet obstacles and duress. And I think this is an important point is it's not just athletes. It's just not just soldiers. All of us need to be able to respond and not react in our daily lives. You know, how we handle parenting, how we handle leading, how we handle inevitable arguments with our spouse or children. Like it's, we've all lost our mind at some point. But if you have the ability to respond and not just lash out, you're gonna have a better outcome and a better decision from it. So you explore this in the book and what's great about it is you do it from the perspective of the athlete or the individual. Like here's how you can develop these capacities, but also from the perspective of the coach or the mentor or the leader, who's charged with responsibility for cultivating that in people that they're collaborating with. Yeah. And I think that the most interesting part on all this is I love the in individual aspect, but on the team aspect or the organization or the cultural aspect, the same thing applies because it's like, again, we hold onto this idea of like, oh, we wanna create like resilient disciplined people. We gotta be like hard asses on them. And it's the exact opposite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very counterintuitive. I mean, you you talk about Bobby Knight. He's like these people get a lot of attention. You know what I mean? And so what happens is we start to think that that's the appropriate or correct way to approach it. I mean, my collegiate swimming coach, I've told this story before. I can't remember whether I told it with you guys last time you were on, but he was a Marine sniper in Vietnam. He was a hard ass. And he definitely came from some version of the Bobby Knight school. And he said to me one time, like I was becoming very dispirited as a member of this team. And I was not putting points up on the board. Like I was meaningless in the equation of whether we were gonna win an NCA championship, but I loved being on the team. And my teammates were very important to me. And I saw a situation in which he was leading from a perspective of negativity and fear. And he called me into his office one day, 'cause he could tell I was not happy with a speech that he had just given. And he just he wanted to know how I felt. And I just said, look, I came up with a coach who was positive and empowering and I'm not used to this style of coaching. And he just said to me, if it takes this team hating me to win, then that's what we're gonna do. And I just thought to myself, I'm not interested in being on that team, and he had successful results. So as long as you're winning, you can like rationalize that type of behavior, but ultimately it's not sustainable and you're not gonna attract that kind of talent and great talent is not gonna wanna be tutored under that type of regime. You know, fear is like lighter fluid. It looks really good. It looks like it works, but it like burns out, And it may work in the short term. Because fear is a very, is a solid energy source. It just burns out quickly. Yeah, I mean, it's our kind of most basic motivator, but what is it meant to do? It's meant to like get you to run away from the lion. It's not to sustain you over the long haul. Right, right, right. So let's move from this wrongheaded idea around leadership and toughness into what you discovered as a result of reading this book. I mean the book, first of all, I haven't said this yet, but it's fantastic. I think it's an amazing resource. Clearly you put a ton. I mean, I don't know how you found the time to do all the research in this book because there's hundreds of stories and anecdotes from historical figures. And of course all the kind of research, scientific research that validates like this new perspective on how we should think about being tough, how to motivate ourselves and motivate the people in our charge. You know, I love the research. So if it was up to me, it would probably be even more of that. But like, I gotta tell the story to keep it interesting, but I try to balance that out. But you know, it's no different than in my own running world is like, if I'm gonna go at something, I'm gonna go at it hard. So in this, like I wanted to be right. And when I'm making a claim that says, hey, like all these ideas you thought were correct, maybe reevaluate it. I better come at you with like enough evidence. You of course are aware that there's some kind of ironic joke built into that. Like this is the no pain, no gain, like I'm just gonna overtrain this book until it finally exists. As I'm dying on the writing the acknowledgements at the end. 100%, that's where friends and colleagues and family are to pull me back from the brink. So it's all premised on these four pillars. So maybe we can kind of walk through what those are and you know, how you kind of came to think about resilience. And are you using toughness and resilience somewhat interchangeably here as the pillars of like how to embody this quality. Sure. So I think the first one that I came with is that you kind of have to embrace reality. And what does embrace reality mean? It's like false bravado looks good, but it fails because like you need to have expectations in reality match up enough. So if I go into a marathon and I say, oh, I've got this, this is no big deal, et cetera. Whenever the pain actually hits, my brain's gonna freak out. And you're gonna completely fall apart. Exactly. So it it's like coming to terms with it's okay to understand these are the demands of the event. This is what I'm currently capable of. And if you can do that and have the overlap there, you're gonna be in a much better place than if you had like bravado or whatever have you. Or the insecurity of like, this is gonna be a disaster and not acknowledging that you actually did a lot of work in preparing for this. So there's a sweet spot in there and amidst all of that you do have to have room to reach like, okay, here's my reality. I know the training I put into it. I know I have an objective appraisal of how difficult this challenge is going to be. And then I still have to have permission to reach a little bit beyond that, 'cause this is the goal. Like we're all trying to exceed what we think we're capable of doing. So how do those two things like work with each other? I like to see it. I'm gonna use an historical example here. If you look at Abraham Lincoln, he had what I'd call tragic optimism in the sense that he was, you read his speeches, he was so optimistic for the future. We're gonna get this done. We're gonna free slaves. Like we're gonna change the country. We're gonna get through this. But in the day to day, in the war- Despair.
Despair. And I'm not saying you need to take it to that extreme, but that's how I kind of see this embracing reality is you need to have hope for the future. You need to say, I'm gonna stretch. I'm capable of more, et cetera, but in the here and now you gotta have it kind of overlap where it's like, what am I facing? What do I have to do? What do I need to get through this period? Because as you say in this section, when you place yourself into that stressful situation, you will be exposed. Like your mask will come off. So the more you've embraced the reality of what you're actually involved in, the less impact that stress will have on exposing your weaknesses because you've kind of appropriately prepared for that. Yeah, you come to terms with it. And biologically what happens is anytime our brain is kind of caught off guard, we tend to have a threat response. 'Cause your brain wants you to survive. Anytime we're like prepared and it's kind of within our reach, we have a challenge response, which is more kind of testosterone, adrenaline driven instead of cortisol, threat driven. So when we look at, when we think of like toughness, we often think of like, oh, just fake it, like put on a mask and you'll be good. But once that's exposed, like your brain's gonna jump to that freak out moment where it's like, oh crap, sound alarm. Like get out of here, escape, flight. Don't take things on because like we're not capable. So an example would be in an iron man when somebody's leading on the bike and they get a flat, right. And then they're all off and they're throwing their bike and throwing a tantrum and they look tough because they're doing that. But actually that's weakness, because they haven't prepared for that variable. And when it occurred, the stress reaction was to just like lose your mind or in a tennis match and you're throwing chairs because of a bad call or something like that. Yeah, and that's how most of these things happen is like from the external side, it might look tough or it might look like you care. And like, oh look how pissed off he is. Like, he cares about his performance. But to me like it's the opposite is like, well, you're just kind of sabotaging yourself. You're not prepared for the moment. You're not figuring your way through this stuff. And I think you can almost summarize the biology or the neuroscience of toughness down to like we talked earlier about, can you keep your mind steady no matter what kind of chaos is going on around you, can you keep your mind from defaulting towards that freak out reactive state? Or can you keep yourself online, rational ability to work through things and in the heat of the moment, the competitiveness, like often what happens is we default to that freak out because it's like almost overwhelming. It's this like emotional charge behind it. And embracing reality is, that's a piece here. There's so many other things that you have to practice in order to maintain your level of composure under that kind of stress. But a lot of it in my mind has to do with this distinction that you alluded to, which is the difference between kind of bravado, false bravado versus real confidence, which is earned and experience based. Confidence needs evidence. That's how you feed it. And in my generation, I think we really screwed this up because we had this huge self-esteem movement. And I remember elementary school, junior high. It's like you just get told you're great. But what the science actually shows is this is that, we don't get that like testosterone bump of like confidence, unless we've done something to earn it. What a shocking thing to say, how dare you, you're gonna get canceled for that statement, Steve, you know that, right? Probably, probably. But I think this is like, it's so central to things because like we get told the wrong idea so much and instead like we need to do the work and it's not that you have a certainty about it, but it's to know that, hey, I've prepared. Like I've put in the work I've been consistent. Like my brain knows that I'm at least maybe not gonna fall apart if I enter the arena. And how do you think about the difference between extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation and rewards in the context of developing a healthy confidence? So if you look at it, we're human beings. We're always gonna have both. But what you would like to have is the majority of your motivation should come from intrinsic, from the inside. It's should be something that brings you joy, like love all of that good stuff. If too much is on the outside, the external it's kind of like that fear almost in that same response, it can work for a little bit and it tends to work for what I'd call easy things. So extrinsic works for like, hey am I gonna get my kid to, I don't know, mow the grass. Sure, it'll work for that moment to get them to mow the grass, but won't teach them that this needs to be something that you do. How to make that motivation self generated. Exactly. And I think that's the key is like, yes, every once in a while you have to do rewards and all that stuff. But the ultimate goal is how do I take that and make it self generated? And if you can do that, you set yourself up to being able to do really hard things and be able to persist and enjoy it over the long haul. An example that comes to mind that has a lot to do with embracing reality and from whence your motivation comes, is the situation where take, for example, an objective sport where you're being measured with a clock like track and field. In my case, swimming, you are somebody who at ninth grade, you had this amazing breakthrough. And then you just got faster and faster and faster and faster. And then you plateau, right? If you want any longevity in sport, like this is in swimming, you can't when you go to workout and you're doing your intervals and you're looking at the pace clock early on, you're seeing improvement weekly or monthly. And it's very encouraging. So I suppose that's an extrinsic motivator, like I'm on the right path. But at some point, as every athlete will tell you, like, this stuff starts to plane out and you can't just go into workout every day expecting to be faster than you were last week. Like you're just, you'll go insane. And that leads to kind of what you talked about, which is like, well, I just gotta work harder, now I need to double my workload because I need to have that validation to know that I'm on the right path. So at some point you have to figure out a different relationship with how you're thinking about your progress and your improvement and your trajectory. Otherwise you're gonna injure yourself or overtrain or burn out and quit the sport. You might see this with your athletes all the time, right? Oh yeah 100%. I mean, this is why I think young, like if you're a parent, if you're a coach of high school kids or youth athletes, your most important job is not to get them faster or have them do better or higher grades or whatever have you, it's to develop the joy of whatever pursuits they're doing. Give them the inner drive and develop that over the long haul. And if you can do that, like the rest takes care of itself. If they actually love the endeavor and the process that will supersede those short term, kind of dopamine hits about where you're at. And if you look at actually the research behind prodigies or phenoms and a wide variety from sports to academics, to chess, the ones who make it are the ones who have higher levels of internal drive. The ones who don't make it, there's some fascinating research on this that don't make it are often the ones that started out internally driven because they're really good at something early on. But then because of success, fame, pressure, parental pressure and expectations, coaching expectations, that our internal drive slowly shifted. And the external is so heavy, right? It becomes an impossible responsibility to bear. It becomes a burden. And what happens over the long haul is if that becomes a burden then now you're playing not to lose. You're playing like prevent defense. Fear based.
Fear based. Instead of like, hey, I'm gonna see what's gonna happen. And honestly, from my own experience as well is when I was chasing, trying to run under four minutes for a mile over time, it inevitably became like, oh, like, there's the clock? Like, am I on pace? Or am I off? Am I on pace? Or am I off? And the moment you're off, like, it's like your brain goes, oh, shut it down. Like, we're done like stop competing. It's not worth it anymore. And that just becomes an instinctual reaction because you've trained it for so long that this number is what defines me. And that number could be in athletics or it could be your grades or your bank account, or your fans, or the number of Twitter followers. It becomes your higher power. Exactly.
You become a slave to it. Which of course begs the question I have to ask you, which is, I know you still run, but why don't you run competitively? Like you could go out there and just kill it in whatever, in the mile, in the marathon, in the half marathon, if you should choose to do so. So clearly there's an intentional thought behind why you're not doing that. Especially as somebody who didn't achieve their goal, like those are the people who end up turning into rabid masters athletes because they they feel like they, certainly part of my motivation. Like they didn't achieve the thing they thought they could back in the day. Yeah, no, 100%. It's very intentional. It's because I know that if I go down that path who I'm gonna be. But isn't there an opportunity, especially if you read your own book to reframe that and develop a healthy relationship where it's driven by things like joy and just self discovery. But what if I have that right now. And I think what I'm learning to do is I run every day. I just don't train hard. But what I'm learning to do is experience what I get outta running, which for me is about once a week I do a hard-ish workout. And then about once a month I run something pretty dang hard. There's no measure. There's no, like I'm gonna go run a 5K and try and break this time. It's I'm just trying to experience like the discomfort and see if I can get through it. And see what that feels like. And there isn't just a little bit of like fear of like, why not just Show up at the 10K. So the turkey trot, our mutual friend and my co-author on some of these books, Brad, always bothers me about this. Well, Brad asked me to ask you this. This is not surprising, but I don't because I'm in a good spot with running. I enjoy it. I love getting out there. I love just kind of experiencing it and not having any burden whatsoever. And I think for so much of my life, there was a time, there was a clock, there was a race, there was a competition. There was this and expectations than not having those and just getting to experience it. It almost takes me back to like the early days. Where I'm just kind of clueless. I get it. No, I get it. That's cool. I completely get that. Like, I don't want to ever swim in an indoor pool again, like, 'cause it just brings up. Like I did that I don't wanna wake up in the dark to go to the pool. Like I did that. Like I do it 'cause it's fun and I enjoy it and I like being out under the sun and all that kind of stuff. But I'm still competitive, you know? So there is a little, and like having something on the calendar just gives it a little bit more structure, but then it does become a thing of like, remember you're doing this for the joy, like who cares about the other stuff? You know, who knows? I'm getting up to 40. So maybe once the masters kick in it'll rejuvenate my career and you'll see me out there cranking with everybody else. But I do think if you're being honest, something perhaps you're shrouding or to look at, and maybe I'm completely off base is a fear that you have that if you were to dip your toe back into it, that knowing yourself, it could become all consuming and a distraction from the things that you currently care about. But that is the opportunity for growth also. Can you go back into it and not succumb to that? I think you're 100% correct. I mean, I think that's in there because like, again, it was so much part of my identity. And so much of who I was or am that, of course there's that fear of like, well, what would happen if I just like started training a lot? Would I go down that path where I was kind of obsessive about it? And I like to think of like, of course not like I'm older, I'm wise. Well, there's a little denial there, right. Because you're like, yeah, that might happen. So I'm just gonna pretend that doesn't exist and tell everyone that I'm really happy in my life. And I do it for the joy, when it in truth, there's like a weird dark shadow over here that as long as you don't go there, you don't really have to, you don't have to reckon with it. Yeah. No, I, 100%. I 100% agree. I think there there's definitely that there. Well, let's move to the second pillar, which is all about listening to your body. I love this one. Yeah. So I think this is again, one of those really important ones that we get backwards, 'cause we often get told like, hey ignore your feelings, et cetera, et cetera. But if you look at the science and the research, your feelings and emotions are almost like a messaging system. It tells us what's going on inside because there's no other way to like communicate that from like our muscles, brain, et cetera, to our conscious awareness so our feelings and emotions kind of send that signal and give us something to do. But the key here is we gotta be able to like communicate with it. We gotta be able to speak its language. And the athlete example, I like to give, which we all understand is that as an athlete early on, you have to learn what is a pain that signals injury and what is a pain that signals, oh, that's just like some soreness and it'll go away and I'll be alright. The same thing applies to every other kind of emotion and feeling. And my wife is an elementary school teacher and she conveyed this great story that she said her kids who are throwing tantrums always like describe them with like a singular emotion. And it's very simple. It's like, I'm sad, right? Why? Because they don't have the vocabulary or the understanding to break apart what that sadness is, whether it was frustration, whether it was insecurity driven, whatever, it has this myriad of things, they have to grow and develop that vocabulary to give them context. And if they do that, then they can't, they can handle it, when it's just like all these billions of emotions, all funnel into this one word, one understanding, of course they're gonna throw a temper tantrum. 'Cause they can't make sense of it. But in this process and using athletics as an example, there is a connection, an integration that takes place with experience where you learn over time, how to discern the difference between the niggle and the injury that requires you to stop and attend to it. And what's interesting and kind of ironic about that is athletes become so good at and so attuned to what their body is telling them. Like, I can remember as a swimmer, I didn't need to look at the pace clock if we were doing a set of a hundred, it's like, I knew exactly what my heart rate was. And I knew exactly when my finger hit the wall, like what my interval, like what, what time I did, because you're so in touch with that. But the problem with that is that despite all of that athletes can be expert at ignoring those signals. Like I'm feeling run down, I should probably, like wisdom would say like, you should like take the foot off the gas, but it's like, no, I need to do more. I need to push through this so I don't feel this way or I'm not fit or they won't taper or they insist on you talk about this in the book too, like, running a whole bunch before a race or things like that that are driven out of insecurity. Yeah. So it's not only, you have to be able to like communicate the same language, but then you have to have like the security or the quiet confidence to be able to listen to what that says. And I think that's where the expertise comes in, is it's not just being able to, oh, I'm listening to my body. My body tells me this. No, you've got to be able to discern like what's real. And then what's what I'll just call fake, and then security right from, oh, I don't want a taper because like, I'll feel like I'm training less and I'm losing fitness. Well, you're not gonna lose fitness in a week. It's not gonna happen. So it can't physiologically happen. That's the fake part. That's the insecurity talking. So you've really gotta like meld this, listen to your body, plus this confidence to be able to discern like what's true and what's not. And that puts the lie to the traditional idea of toughness. Like that idea would be like, I just train harder than everyone, but if that's coming from a place of insecurity, because you're afraid of taking a day off or allowing your body to heal, then that's not tough at all. That's just ignorant. I always like to put it as does the thing have the power or are you in control? And so much of toughness is like, do I have some semblance of control over things, not complete control, but some semblance where I can influence it. So if the thing has all the control, if I can't step away from the run, say, hey, you know what, I'm a little sick and I've got a race coming up. So it's probably better that I rest. If I can't do that without like that anxiety coming up, that should signal it's an issue that I need to be able to work with to sit with that discomfort so that the thing doesn't have the control. And instead I'm making the wise decision and taking the action. And the coach or the mentor, or the leader, has to understand how to instill that in the people that they're working with. So that's the difference between the controlling Bobby Knights out there who strip their athletes of any agency or control versus the empowering coach who understands how to kind of seed that intrinsic motivation and that true confidence where the athlete or the mentee is empowered to make their own decisions and feels like they have input into the trajectory of their career. The easiest way to make an athlete worse is to take away autonomy because like- And you think that goes back to the traditional versus the truth. Like if you just tell like, this is what you, do what I say, I'm gonna make you a champion. I will completely control every aspect of your life. Like I don't know Bela Carole and these gymnasts, or you hear all these crazy examples and you know, they're successful in some regard, those people don't tend to turn out to be completely well rounded individuals, but there are examples of that being successful. And yet that's really a wrongheaded approach. Yeah, because it's all it's doing is you're not training anything. You're training someone to respond to this single individual based on fear or punishment. But if you look at most sports, like it's not the coach isn't out there with the athlete on top of them yelling and screaming and doing all that stuff. It's the athlete out there by themselves, in their head having to figure it out. If we take it outside of sport, like you're not worried about what your kids do when you look over them. When you're there in the house. You're worried about what happens when they go out into the world, same in the workplace. So to me, it's pretty simple as like, yeah, that like dictating and controlling method might work if you're right over the top of them, but you wanna train the ability. And in order to do that, you have to give them a choice. My favorite example in the book of that is what Kerr does with the warriors when they're at the top of their game and they're winning everything. So tell that story. I think it's very instructive. So it's the middle of one of their championship seasons. And they were winning a lot. They were one of the best teams obviously. And he looks around and he says, you know what? Like, ah, we're lacking a little something. So he goes in the pregame, like shoot around in the morning and says, guys, you're gonna coach, I'm gonna step back. You run the practice, you run the game, you call everything. I'm gonna step back. And he just hands over the reins. Has anybody ever done that in the NBA before? I don't think in the NBA. There wasn't an example that I could find of just turning it over to literally players, not player coaches, literally players to call it. But I think that's such an empowering thing because what message does it send? I trust you and it's up to you. Yeah. Which is the best of both worlds. It's saying, I trust you. I have my faith in you and you guys go show me, you got it. You guys get the work done. Like I have the confidence in you. You wanna talk about in instilling trust and confidence. That's how you do it. Because that's real, that's turning over those reins. That's saying, hey, I believe in you guys. And let's see what you guys can do. I'm gonna give you the shot. And so in the workplace, the analogy would be stop micromanaging and find ways to incentivize the people that are working underneath you and provide them with agency to make decisions and choices. Which goes against our natural inclination when things are tough. And when things are going difficult. Our natural inclination is like, oh man, I've got the answers. I've gotta like control everything and do all this stuff, but it backfires. And even if you look at again, the research in the workplace is very clear. Google ran a study on teams. It's found that the number one thing in terms of team productivity was psychological safety. What is psychological safety? I can take risks to do my job. And if I fail or fall short, I still have job security. Exactly. And so much when we create the culture that is like, oh, like fear based or punishment based or fear of losing your job, that doesn't make people tough or resilient, that makes people constrict. So that they're in protective mode. They don't take the risks. They don't go for the innovation because why would they, if they did it and it fails, they lose a job. They're just trying to figure out what does my boss want me to do so my boss will approve of this action rather than what is the most effective solution to this problem. Exactly. And what you often see, and this is actually a major problem in actually education because they often micromanage and like dictate everything. Is that people stop trying, because if they know they're gonna be like micromanaged, then they quickly figure out, here are the boxes I need to check to get the job done. And anything else like isn't wanted or won't get me anywhere. So I'm just gonna fall to the level of the micromanagement. You talk about that in the context of education, teachers, they have this curriculum that's drilled down to 15 minute intervals. And basically there's no room for them to be creative and to and to really express what inspired them to become teachers in the first place. Exactly. And that's probably why we have such a crisis in teaching. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (upbeat music) Prophets walk among us. As a writer and podcaster for nearly 10 years, I've become more convinced than ever that our world is populated by scores of beautiful and brilliant people who have amazing stories to share, those that we don't know who can teach us something new and leave us all the better for the experience of their sharing. 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It's not to bulldoze through, it's to create space so that you can navigate it. Because if you look at the science, it's pretty simple. It's we tend to feel something our inner dialogue starts to go. And then based on how loud those two things are, we're pushed or shoved towards an action. And we want that action to be something good and productive, but often what it is is it's the easy path that choosing the candy instead of the vegetables, because we're just trying to escape this feeling, inner dialogue thought spiral. So how do we deal with that? We gotta slow it down, create some space so that we don't have like the momentum of those two things, like feeling intertwined and feeling like, once they spiral it's out of control and we can't do anything. So this is where mindfulness practices come in, because you're talking about like, if you're talking about an athlete, you're talking about nanoseconds. So creating, how do you create space when you're in a situation of flow and you have to just kind of intuitively move in the right direction and not react and fall prey to some kind of base emotion that's gonna make you make the wrong decision. So creating space is a habit, a practice that we can cultivate through these more Eastern influenced modalities. But at the same time, like I'm thinking about something you talked about earlier in the book, which is when we're pushed up against the wall, we have this hormonal flight or fight response. And you kind of put the lie to that in that it is not binary in the way that we've thought about it. Like it isn't in either or a thing it's actually a much more complex kind of happening that's going on there. Yeah. Your brain is predictive. So it's trying to figure out the best solution based on the history it has and then the situation in front of you. So it's not fight or flight, it's we can run away. We can escape. We can find a friend to protect us. We can like protect our young. We can like find community. There's all these variations of responses that come with it. And each has its own kind of like hormonal milieu, that like comes with it. So to me, it's about matching the right response with the right situation and how do you do that over time? You gotta train your body just like we would, or train your mind, just like we would our body to like default towards this response in these situations. So walk me through how you practice that and how you preach practicing that with the athletes that you work with? So with the athletes I work with a lot of times, I call it as let's practice having a calm conversation, which means I'm gonna put you in a situation that is incredibly uncomfortable. And then I want you to learn, to sit with it and then use various strategies, which we can talk about to figure out how to create space. Those strategies could be everything from visualize, self talk, talking out loud. It could be like zooming out and shifting your perspective, your attention, any number of things, bunch of them. And in terms of putting themselves in an uncomfortable situation, we can do that. If I'm talking runners, you can do it in workout, but you can do that anywhere. You could hop in an ice bath, you could go to a coffee shop and you're shy, and don't want to talk to your neighbor. You can go sit there and talk to your neighbor. Anything that makes you uncomfortable is an opportunity to train your mental muscle, to be able to like sit with that and navigate that. And the science shows that if you practice that, you develop a capacity to recall that under duress, in situations that aren't necessarily related or analogous to going into the coffee shop. Exactly. It's essentially all you're doing, we'll simplify the neuroscience a lot, but you have an area in your brain called the amygdala, which is threat processing area. It's like the alarm signal, right? Whenever something, your brain thinks something bad is gonna happen. Amygdala goes up, you have the prefrontal cortex, which is what I'd call like the controller. It's like the rational part that's job is to dampen down that amygdala and say, hey, everything's good. Don't have to worry about it. Anytime we can train our prefrontal cortex to send the message, hey, amygdala, sending the alarm, everything's good. Like don't freak out, it ingrains that pathway where you have this stronger emotional control, but the opposite occurs too. If you train your brain to react all the time, it's gonna react all the time that that sensor is gonna be hypersensitive, outside of all these performance worlds, what do we often do in our world of, let's say social media, we train our brains to react, our amygdala to go off, even at the slightest hint of like, oh, that was kind of off, you know? So I think we have a world and that's just one example, but we have a world that trains us to almost see everything as a threat. And we have to fight back against that a little bit. And if you look at also that threat response tends to be amplified with anybody who feels exhausted or burned out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. How does that work or mesh with flow states? So obviously every athlete aspires to be in that state where it's almost an experience of no mind where you're just in the process of doing what you do and doing it as best as you can do where a pause to reflect before responding is by definition in interruption of, that is a non flow experience, right? So in training, you're trying to acclimate the athlete to the experience of flow. But how do those two things, I guess a like an intervening event would disrupt the flow and then it becomes about like respond or react. So I'm glad you brought up this up, because this was one of my favorite topics to talk about. So flow is great. We all desire to be in flow. It's wonderful. If you're in flow, your job is to stay in flow. So whatever you need to do to stay in flow. And actually some of the research shows in terms of attention is distraction will actually help you stay in flow. Oh, really? That's counterintuitive. It is, so if you look at golfers, for example, when there're in flow, they'll often talk to their caddy more to keep their mind off of everything else that they're actually doing. If they start thinking about what they're doing, then they yeah, yeah, yeah. So it keeps you in that state. So if you're in flow in that state, whatever works there, but that's where these tools help. If you have the ability to what I call zoom in and zoom out, like distract yourself, or really dig down and get super focused. If you train that ability, when you're in flow, you have the ability to distract yourself a little bit productively, but the other part of it is we're not always gonna be able to get in flow, flow generally occurs when it's, what's called a just manageable challenge and physiological arousal levels are moderate. So if we can keep our arousal levels relatively high, but within check, we can get in flow. If for whatever reason, our nerves, anxiety, pressure, et cetera, get our arousal levels up high, super high. We can't get in flow. So we need to be able to do something when we're in situations where like those arousal levels are through the roof, and what the science and research and psychology says there is that you can enter what's called a clutch state, which is essentially, instead of flow is like letting it happen. Clutch is like, you have to make the decision to make it happen. And there it's like, you need again, similar tools, but now instead of distraction, zooming like out, you have to zoom in, while not losing your mind because you're super like, you're adrenaline's going nuts. So the clutch state also, I suspect can be trained by placing yourself in stressful situations and trying to recall these mindfulness practices to provide space. So it's something you can train for. And I love the idea between the zoom in, and you use like Frank Shorter and marathoning versus the zoom out, which is the fighter pilot that has to like take into account, like all these things that are going on because he's confronted with all these dials and switches. And he can't just focus on one thing in order to make the right decision in that clutch experience. Exactly. That's one of the things that was really fun, researching and writing about is because again, there's nuance and maybe this is what the message of the book is like the more skills or tools you have in the tool belt, the more you're able to match one of those tools with whatever situation like you face. So in the example, you just gave there, like Frank Shorter, the marathoner, had to zoom in and get really focused. If you're fighter pilot, like you have to zoom out. So you can pay attention to all these things. Because like when danger is happening, your mind tends to narrow in on the like one little beeping buzzing thing. And the research shows that even if something else is like beeping and buzzing, you don't hear it, which can be really dangerous if you're in like dangerous situation in the air. So you gotta train your mind to zoom back out, even though it's telling you, like focus on this one dial that is wrong. That's fascinating. Because if you're thinking about marathoning, like just focus on your breath, like pick one thing as a metronome to crowd out all of the pain, and whatever other things that can be distraction. So you can just execute on the one thing. But that's very different from a rapidly developing and potentially dangerous situation where you're being attacked by lots of different things. And you have to do some really rapid mind work to figure out where your attention is best placed. Exactly. Attention is a tool. It's a trainable tool. And I think too often, we just kind of let it happen, but training it happens when you're deliberate about it. So how do you train it to know when you need to zoom in and when you need to zoom out? So you're not just pray to whatever your brain wants to do, right? Yes. So here, I think this comes down to like practice, right. Is to use the fighter example. What do they do? They go in simulators, right. And they have all these alarms buzzing and beeping, et cetera. And they have someone watching and essentially coaching them up. And if you miss an alarm, what does that tell you? You needed to zoom out in that situation and you didn't because you didn't hear that other alarm there. But what if you're zoomed out and you're just hearing lots of bells and you're just taking it all in and what you really needed to do was figure out how to zoom in on the right thing. That's why they have the checklist. I mean, that's the reason, but I think in other pursuits, it's when I'm coaching runners, what often happens, and I did some research on this actually is what we focus on in practice is entirely different than what we focus on in a race. So in practice, we know we're gonna make through it. We know we're gonna get on another side. It's challenging, but it's no one's watching it doesn't matter. So what we tend to think of is, yeah, we're focused on the work, but we'll think of, oh, what am I gonna have for lunch? What am I doing later with Johnny or Susie? Like, there's more distracting thoughts of that stuff, in a race there's almost none of that. So in practice, we're training our brain to like get through this workout by sometimes occasionally thinking about like the future and distracting us, but that's not what we're facing in a race. So instead of seeing practice just as, hey, I need to hit these times on this workout to get things done. You need to see it as what's my psychological or mental goal. What tool am I training? And actually one of my really good athletes in college, Brian Brazos, went on to run professionally. He called it some practices I need to let my mind go to a bad place and then see if I can figure my way out. And if I can't, if I fall apart, then that tells me that I didn't have the right tools to use and I've gotta develop those tools. So an example of that would be what, like let's say you're doing, I don't know, 400 repeats or whatever, like just run the first hundred meters way too fast. So then you're like you would never do that in a race, but what would I do in this situation where I've overexerted too early on. Put yourself in a hole. Exactly. Like you put yourself in a hole and then now you have to like, get out of that because like, you can't just quit. You're just not gonna stop. So like, how do you get out of that situation? Which is not comfortable. Yeah, Interesting. Well, let's talk about the last one, which is the last pillar, transcending discomfort. I mean, this is sort of like the global thing, right? Like how can you inoculate yourself or that's the wrong word. How can you just create a habit of exposing yourself to difficult things and increasing that level of difficulty gradually over time? So this was probably one of the funnest sections or the funnest section, because it like pulls out from the individual and says, okay, what's the global thing, as you said, and it's kind of like surprising, but it kind of isn't, but it's like, well, if you fulfill people's basic psychological needs and you combine that with meaning people can handle really difficult things. And what are those basic psychological needs? Competency, feeling like I can make progress and grow in whatever I'm doing, autonomy, which we talked about earlier, like feeling like I have some sort of control over things and belonging, do I belong to this group? Do I feel a part of this, is this bigger than myself? And you combine that with meaning, meaning is this endeavor or this thing I'm getting through that is really hard. Is it more than just for a paycheck or for whatever it. So as a coach or as a leader in the workplace, like how do you cultivate those things so that your team can do the best they can do? So I think this is where we often get it wrong. What do we do in the workplace? We often come up with core values and slogans. We put them on the wall. And then we say, look at those things. With a picture of like a crew rowing a boat. Yeah, exactly. It's like the stock photo. And it's like, look at these things. So motive, so inspired. This is the problem. They're not authentic. People know, right. People like understand our brains can tell real from fake. So if it's not authentic, it's not going to work. So the best thing that you can do as a leader to create resilient teams is to be authentic and support people in a way that helps them be authentic in what they're doing. So if you're talking about autonomy, belonging, all of these things, well, you have to actually want those, number one. And then number two, you have to lead by example by setting the stage. And I think there's some brilliant examples in sport. One that I talk about in the book is Greg Popovich, the famous coach for the San Antonio Spurs, how does he create belonging? Well, before getting there, actually I'll tell a story. Then I'll get to there. He creates belonging by inviting all the players to these like, well thought out dinners where he takes the time to pick the food. He's a wine expert. He picks the wine, he arranges the tables in the right way with the right people to kind of create this natural conversation. 'Cause how do we create belonging? It's not through like trust falls and like random exercises. It's through genuine connection. What Popovich does brilliantly is he creates the space for genuine connection. And it's something that he's passionate about. He loves food, he loves wine. So people get excited about it. But he doesn't let them choose the wine or the food. No, he doesn't. That's true. But here here's what happened. I've worked with a couple of NBA teams and after this kind of story broke, they'd be like, Steve, we tried team dinners, no one showed up. They'd be like, you're missing the picture, the dinner isn't the thing. It can be an avenue. But the thing is, Popovich was really passionate about this and created the environment where people wanted to be and wanted to connect. 'Cause it was authentic to what he was inspired by. Exactly. Like find that thing for you, whatever it is. And it will like coalesce and help people. I'm just imagining the chief financial officer who's into birding making his team go birding with him. It might go sideways. It might go sideways. You know, it has to be something people generally like to do. But I do think it's like that passion is contagious and opens up an avenue. But the bottom line is it's again, very simple. It's be authentic. And the other thing that I think is important and that I've found in the research is that we often think that we have to like establish trust and then be authentic and vulnerable. But it's opposite. Authenticity breeds trust.
Exactly. Is you don't get that trust without the authenticity. You have to take the leap of faith so that the person sitting across from you says, oh man, like that person is taking that leap. I'm gonna do that with them. And authenticity demands vulnerability. And this is where it gets tricky because leaders and athletes have been a nerd to that idea. Like we've been taught since the beginning, don't show weakness, right. Where ultimately greater strength is mined through the exploration of vulnerability, but it's a counterintuitive principle for a lot of leaders and high achievers. Exactly. And I think the other part is, is it's like once you've, if you're a high achiever, you're a leader, you're a CEO. Like you've been taught those things. And you've also kind of grown into this hierarchy where it's almost like you have to learn how to put your ego aside as well, which is a very difficult thing. Because you're known as the CEO, this guy who has the answers, all this good stuff. And now you have to say and I'm gonna quiet down my ego so that like we can share things that might be real and difficult and hard. Because the delusion is that by expressing that vulnerability, that you'll degrade the trust that you've created. But ultimately, as we just talked about, that authentic expression of vulnerability will engender even greater trust. Exactly. But it's a risk, it's scary. It is. And that's where I call this book "Do Hard Things", because I think part of it is, and you talked about this even with myself and running is that the growth comes from the discomfort, it's in there. If you can go in there, navigate it and figure out how to come out on other side. And the beautiful thing is you see this cover and you're like "Do Hard Things", like you think you're gonna read this book about like, here's how I'm gonna go to Seal camp and make it through. And it's like, no, for any athlete, they already know like doing the hard thing is the easy thing when it comes to the practicality of the training, if anything, we need to hold ourselves back. Like that's not the issue that needs throttling. The real hard thing, the hard thing that we need to do is the more nuanced approach to all of this that requires these challenging and frightening emotions to be called forth, such as vulnerability and authenticity and mindfulness and all of this kind of thing. Exactly, yeah. The things that we think are hard, aren't actually the hard thing. That's the succinct way of putting what I just said. Yeah, exactly. So it's kind of like a Trojan horse in that regard. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the book is amazing. Before I let you go, though, there are like a couple things that I wanted to ask you about. Not the least, because it's sort of been top of news right now, which is the fact that this six year old ran a marathon last week and the internet is not speaking kindly of what just occurred. Is that the youngest person who's ever done a sanctioned marathon? I think it is, yeah. That's the youngest one. What's going on here? You know, I'm not the parent, but I can tell you, and I think Kara Goucher said this very well, this isn't gonna help the child. It didn't seem like, and I don't know. And I didn't dive too deeply into this, but it does seem like the kid wasn't really that enthusiastic. It's not like it was intrinsically driven by this kid's desire to do this. It was more coming from the parents. So if you look at it, the parents are runners. They have this thing where they do all these races with their, I think they have six children. They do the Appalachian Trail or something. Yeah, so it's a running family, et cetera, which is fine. Whatever. But if you're a six year old, you have to put your mind in that six year old, a six year old doesn't have the choice. They don't know what they're getting into, what they probably See, and it took them like eight hours to run the marathon. So they obviously weren't trained, although I don't know how you'd train a six year old, but what you see here is most likely is pretty simple. You have a kid who sees all his siblings participating in these races. You have parents who participate in these races with the family and video them for YouTube and all that stuff. And you just have a kid who probably wants attention, support, love, et cetera, like any child wants. And the path towards that looked like probably running a marathon. Right, it doesn't necessitate an explicit pronouncement from the parent. Like we expect you to do this. It's just implied because this is what we do as a family. Exactly, and that's where I think it it's really dangerous because like, again, as a parent, you have to be like, and I'm not one, so I'm not trying to speak for any, but I've seen and worked with athletes who had similar, very young experiences in running and endurance sport. And it creates this weird kind of identity cementation around things. And this weird, like this is how I get approval from my parents. And this is where that comes from. And that's a very dangerous game to play. We're not even talking about the physical ramifications of a six year old running a marathon. I just think from a psychological standpoint, that's a very dangerous game to play. And I think it's concerning and you're seeing more and more of it in the age of social media, Instagram, et cetera, where parents don't realize the expectations, the psychological baggage they're placing on their young kids from like projecting, using their children for their athletic pursuits. And I think it's important to point out that, that nobody's implying a nefarious motive on behalf of the parents. It's just the lack of awareness around this. Exactly, you see this at every sport, you see it in the little leagues, like soccer parents, or what have you, baseball parents. I see it all the time. As I said, my wife's a elementary school teacher and I get invited to these games with her and she drags me along to her classes. And it's the wildest crap I've ever seen. It drives me nuts. Just you mean like screaming parents? Screaming parents, parents of like five year olds yelling at refs. And you're just like, it's a youth soccer like or youth tag football game, like chill out. But you know, one of the interesting thing I was talking to a former, well teammate of mine. We ran on the same club team, Lindsay Gallo, who was NCAA champion at Michigan in the 1500. And she made this nice comment. She said, "You know what, Steve, I have kids now. I have a bunch of friends who used to run college at a high level. They're on the sideline and they're chilled out. They're not yelling at their kids. They're not worried if the kid wins or loses or whatever." And we had this nice conversation where it's like, I've seen the same thing because if you've been through the crucible, you've been to a relatively high level. You know what it takes, you know what the psychology is, you know that like basically, and this is me coming from me in coaching, the parent can either get in the way or they can just kind of support and allow them to flourish. And so many think like, oh, if I do this, this and this, they get in the way. But I'll tell you from a college coaching standpoint, I had more than a handful of parents and they're good people. It's not that they're bad people. They want the best for their kid. I had more than a handful of parents who I had to tell, hey, can you not show up at the conference championship? Because the kid would freak out because they have expectations. And it's not like the parent was intentionally doing that. No, no, no, no. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty crazy.
It's wild. And it is funny just being, when you become a parent and you go to all those events, like yeah, if you've come up in athletics, particularly athletics at a high level, like you're just not the person doing that. Unless you had a very unhealthy experience with that. The people that are screaming and yelling tend to be people who were not athletes or had a very frustrated experience with athletics and are projecting onto their kids some kind of unfulfilled hope and dream. Exactly. If I had one message to parents, it would be chill out. Like on your athlete. And I have this debate with my wife all the time, who was also a very, she was all American in track, in college. And we have this debate all the time. We're like, do we really want our kid to be like a runner or not just because it's like, do you want that like expectation and how would we handle that? And we're always just like, hands off, like no coaching, like you do you like, whatever you wanna do, you wanna run, great. You want to play soccer or join math club doesn't matter. And I think that's 'cause we've both like been through that crucible of like, ah, like, it's great, don't get me wrong, but you've gotta be the one who chooses to do it. Well, let me put you at ease a little bit as somebody who's been in the parenting game for a while. Like your decision as to whether or not you want your kid, if you end up having a kid to go into running is really not something you need to concern yourself with because your kid will let you know. It's like they're their own people. They don't come from you. They come through you and they're a little bit more baked than you presume in terms of the nature versus nurture thing. I love that. They tend to be very different than what you expect and that becomes your own personal kind of growth experience with them as your teachers. That's awesome. That's great advice. One final thing though, because people are gonna kill me if I don't, like I've got this elite track and field marathon coach sitting across from me and I have not even asked anything about like how to be a better runner for all the people that are listening to this thinking that they're gonna get tips for their next marathon. So maybe we can round this out with just a few thoughts on where you see the average marathon or half marathon or type person kind of go astray and where you think that their attention should be better focused. And this is obviously in the most general terms. Yeah, very open ended. So what I would say is this, I see the general marathon, half marathoner, they train too hard. They go too hard on their easy days. They overcook it on the easy days and don't go slow enough. I just got dragged on the internet over the past couple days for something I posted like last October where I posted that little clip of the Kenyan's doing their shuffle. And I was like, slow days are for going slow. And it's them running like extremely slow. And for some reason, in the last couple days, this tweet resurfaced and a bunch of people are angry or there's like a divisiveness of opinion about this, because I think there is maybe, you know more about this than I do, but there was a track and field coach who was tweeting a lot about how we over index on the slow miles and like that shouldn't really be considered training and blah, blah, blah, and a bunch of coaches piled on him and said, no, that's not true. So there seems to be a little bit of a Twitter controversy around slow days and what that means and the appropriateness of what is kind of pejoratively called junk miles, but which I think are important. So maybe a few thoughts on that to clear this up from your perspective. You're gonna throw me into the social media, Twitter mayhem. Do you know what I'm talking about though? You're aware of this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. The controversies in running, we argue over the weirdest things. So here here's what I would say is that there's no doubt in longer distance stuff, aerobic development is key. And for most of us that aerobic development takes a really long time or for everyone, it takes a really long time. And the key is how much easy running can I accumulate safely. So your slow easy days. And what does easy actually mean? So here's my, I'll give you the simple answer. You should be able to have a conversation, like we're having here. Now don't get me wrong. You shouldn't be able to like, have a conversation, not breathe, but you should be able to have a relatively normal conversation. If you start having what I'd call a texting conversation, you're going too fast. So that's how I kind of frame it. And I think if you look at that and you're doing it and again, whatever you can handle, easy days are great. Are you going to lean more than that? Of course, like the intensity stuff matters, of course, but it's like the icing on top of the cake that like is vital. Like you need it for the cake to taste good, but you don't need like, as much as you would to bake the cake, right. The ingredients to bake the cake. So to me, it's like we argue over these things and I'll give the historical example to maybe help this out is now is way back in the day, we used to argue over whether we should walk for a really long time or do interval training on the track for seven days a week. And the 1920s, thirties, forties, that was the debate, really long walks or on the track smashing two hundreds every day. Now, no one's debating that. Now we're debating over this like middle ground where everyone agrees, you have to run a decent amount of easy stuff. Everyone agrees you have to occasionally go hard, and then advice I'll leave your listeners to, which is like it's my little haiku of running, which is like lots of easy running. Occasionally go hard. Very, very rarely go see God, which means like go to the well so that you know what it means. Right, right, right, right. I think that's wise advice. My sense is that people don't have the quiet confidence that you talk about in the book to go slow on the slow days. And that's part and parcel of why this is debate like, oh, I can't afford to go slow 'cause I'm not fit enough. Or they don't trust in their training plan or their coach or what have you, or they don't understand just what slow actually means. And on those harder days and hard days, they're not going hard enough. So they're not really training the polarities. They're just kind of in this perpetual gray zone. And then they're confused when they plateau and can't break through that plateau. I think I agree 100%. I think it takes security to run easy. Like it takes the confidence. How dare you? Well, don't at Steve. Don't at me on that. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it and do with it what you will. Pleasure to talk to you. I'm really excited for this book to come out and be birthed into the world. You're doing the world a service. I think you did the right thing by graduating from your tenure at University of Houston to make yourself more available to people like myself. So I thank you for that. And I can't wait to see what this new chapter brings. The book is great. It's called "Do Hard Things". You can find it everywhere. Comes out June 21st available for, I don't know when this is going out. Maybe it'll be out, maybe it won't, we'll figure that out. And where else do you wanna have people find you? We didn't even talk about The Growth Equation. I talked about that with Brad. That's a newsletter and podcast that you do with Brad Stulberg, where can everybody find what you're putting out into the world? Yeah, you can go to thegrowtheq.com. You can go to stevemagness.com or find me on any social media @SteveMagness. Just don't don't yell at me. Getting into fights with other track coaches about zone two and the like, right? All right, well come back and talk to me again, until then, it's great talking to you, man. Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Rich. Right on, peace. (light music)
