190: 3 Ways Triathlon Taught Me to Live My Best Life

ELLA: 00:00

Hey, everyone. I'm doing something I've never done before. I am recording a podcast episode live and on video. So here's the deal. I want to talk to you today about something I've been dying to talk to you about for a really long time. I ran my last triathlon a couple of weekends ago, and it was only my second one this season, actually, because I spent most of the season traveling and missed, you know, many of the races that I would normally do. Now, for those of you who don't know what a triathlon is, it's a swim, bike, run event in that order. And for those who don't care, that's okay too, because that's not really what today is about. But as I do these things, every time I do one of these things, I have the same thought pattern in my head the entire time. I follow the same agenda, the same itinerary mentally that I do every single race. And this last one was no different. It's how I engage my brain to distract myself from the pain of what I'm actually doing. And it goes something like this. During the swim, I'm narrating to my husband the entire time. No, he can't hear me. No, he's not right next to me. But sometimes he's doing the actual race, the same race. And sometimes he's not. Sometimes he's just there to watch me. But because swimming is something that we both share in common, I'm sort of narrating to him the whole time about, oh, I wasn't expecting it to be this choppy. Or, oh, I just got kicked in the face. Or I just, for some reason, have a running dialogue with my hubby the entire time. In the bike, though, I'm a lot more present. I'm in the race. I'm looking at the scenery. I'm looking at the people. My head's in the game. I'm thinking a little bit about what I'm going to do to survive the run, and I'm timing my nutrition, my eating, and my drinking. The bike's fun. I actually really, really enjoy that. It makes me feel like a kid. The run. Oh, the run. The run is where my head game needs to be the strongest. I was not built for speed. I was built for comfort, not for speed, right? The run is my most challenging event, for sure. And whenever I'm doing it, I am Engaged fully elsewhere to distract myself, and I don't know if this will surprise you or not But whenever I do the run in a triathlon in this case for the last race It was a 10k the distances can vary of course, but this was an Olympic distance triathlon I was running a 10k after having swum a mile and biked. I don't know maybe 26 miles Then I had to run you know 6.2 miles and it wasn't easy But it was similar to experience I've had before because the entire time I'm doing the run, I'm talking to you. Now, that might surprise you or sound a little weird, but the truth is the entire time I'm doing it, I am thinking of things that I want to say to you or share with you. And this is every time. And this last race was no different. But what I'm doing differently this time is I'm actually sharing some of it with you, and I have never done this before, but I wanted to just share with you some of the big ideas that come up for me when I'm doing these things and things that I want to share with you, and that's what today is about, okay? So today is about three big ideas that occur to me, and triathlon is just the metaphor, okay? This is applicable to business, to life as you know it, and you don't need to know how to swim. There's no swimming required, okay? This is a metaphor for life that we're gonna jump into here. So, I am on the run, waxing philosophical, trying to distract myself, as I said, and I'm sorry. This is what happens when you do it live. I would edit that part out, but I can't, okay? Here are, we'll just skip to the punch. Here are the three big ideas that I wanted to share with you coming out of the last race, okay? All right, the first one. Have you ever heard that expression, a jack of all trades and a master of none? Have you heard of that? Is that familiar to you at all? A jack of all trades and a master of none. That is literally how I do almost everything. That describes my business career, my personal life, my hobbies like triathlon. I am not particularly great at anything, but as it turns out, you don't have to be great at anything to be really good at something. Now, chew on that for a second, because The fact that I'm not really a great swimmer, I'm a decent swimmer, I'm not a great cyclist. You can tell when someone's a great cyclist. I am not in that club. And I'm not a great runner. As I've said, I'm not particularly gifted in any of those three. What I do and the only talent, if I have one, in this arena is that I can do all three of those events in the same day. back-to-back, right? And that's a thing in and of itself. So what's the point here? The point is that so often we take our thing, we take ourselves out of things because we think we're not good enough to do them or we look at a space we want to go into in business or in social media even or some service you're trying to start or some new thing you're trying to do and you're like, Oh, that space looks so crowded," or, who am I? Why would I be special enough? Like, what do I have to say? What do I have to bring to the table? And I'm saying the real power is in asking yourself, where can I stack two or three or four or five things that I'm pretty good at to be really good at the combination of those things? Does that make sense? Where can you be great at what combination of things? So for someone, you might want to be, you might be a health and wellness coach of some kind, right? Like it feels like everybody is. When you are one and you want to make a living that way, it feels like everybody and their uncle is a health and wellness coach. So it's like, Oh my gosh, that space is so crowded. What can I possibly bring to the table? What do I have that's new in this space? And the truth is what you have that's new is whatever unique combination you can bring to the table. Maybe you speak another language or two, or maybe you are particularly adept at or have an affinity for postpartum moms or women over 40 or people who are really, really busy with their business and their careers, but they're trying to fit fitness and wellness in. These are all different layers that you may engage with that you can bring into your unique combination, okay? So when I looked at the podcast world, I started off mostly talking about fitness and health and wellness, and I wasn't special in any of those categories. I wasn't even certified in any of those categories. I wanted to work with people one-on-one, and I wanted to start the podcast and talk to people, and I thought, you know, I'm not qualified to do that. But what combination can I bring to the table? By the way, this is in retrospect. I cannot pretend that I identified this going in. It's much easier to identify in retrospect, but I hope it's useful to you. I can now say, anyway, that I am not certified in fitness or wellness or I'm not a certified nutritionist, but I have my MBA. I'm certified in business, so to speak. I have a keen interest in personal development and habit formation and how our brains work and how we limit ourselves through self-limiting beliefs and self-limiting dialogue and the creation of habits that don't serve us and I started layering the things I was good at the things that I was interested in and the things I was deeply interested in learning more about and Creating a stack where now I can work with people one-on-one Not as a health and wellness coach, but as a life coach, 360 degrees of that person's life and work with people who want more of what they want and less of what they don't in a way that is unique to me, that nobody else can do because it's not me. They can do them. So what I want to ask you is where are you unique or uniquely interested or uniquely interesting? And how can you combine those skills to be the best stack, the best package that is you? Don't limit yourself because you think you're not qualified to do something. Challenge yourself and say, where can I stack my skills and what combination can I create? Okay. It works in life, it works in business, and it sure as heck works in triathlon. Okay, let's go to number two. Number two is a little bit meta, so stick with me here. Okay. I would consider myself a competitive person. Maybe not in the traditional sense, like I can lose a board game without flipping the table. And I don't feel competitive with my peers or with other people. I feel competitive with myself and even overly critical with myself in certain contexts. And that is something that I've done a lot of work on, even in the sport of triathlon. And so now I've learned many times, I'm not afraid to show up and compete, but sometimes I don't, or I can't, and I'm not ready to. And I show up anyway, by the way. And I want to point out There is room for both. There is room to show up and want to compete in any area of life, and then there's room for showing up and running your own race, okay? So I think it would be a mistake to demonize the competitive spirit and also suggest that, you know, everything should just be, you know, go with the flow and see how it turns out. Like, I believe there's room for both, and you don't have to, but really here's my point that I want to share with you. And this last race, I hadn't trained, I hadn't prepared. I mean, I tried to stay fit, but I hadn't trained as I normally would and would like to for a race of that distance and of that caliber. It was a really big race. It's important to me, but it's just not a season where I'm able to devote an enormous amount of time to triathlon training. That is not the season that I'm in right now in my life. Okay. So I knew when I showed up to this race that I was running my own race. I was not even competing with my own personal best. I was there to enjoy it, to soak it in, and to like really have the experience. I have to remind myself sometimes that like no one's paying me to do this. Who am I kidding? Sometimes you're just there to do the thing. You know, you paid to do it. Sometimes I have to give myself that little pep talk. But what used to happen is, you know, sometimes I'd show up to compete, sometimes I'd show up to do my own thing. And what used to happen, though, is that I would do that, but then on the course, as people were literally passing me and beating me, so to speak, It's actually very hard to tell because you're only competing against people in your age group But when people are sailing past you and so on and so forth it can really feel disheartening especially when that person is like 11 Or 75 but whatevs you know stay humble okay, so in any case I would still self-flagellate, right? Like still beat myself up mentally for not showing up and kicking A and taking names, right? And I have learned and I have learned by getting curious about my tendency to do that. I have learned a lot about how silly that is. And what I mean is competing in spaces where I haven't sought mastery is really naive at best, but really self-defeating at worse. Okay. So if I hadn't trained and hadn't prepped, why would I let my brain go into autopilot on shame and self-flagellation and beating myself up over something? Okay. So here's what I mean. Let's take this, let's elevate this up to life or to business even. Okay. Choose the areas or the thing where you want to be elite, the thing that you want to master. Compete there. Nothing wrong with that. You want to be the best at something? You want to be elite? Then compete. Look at other people who are doing it really, really well and learn from them. Study their habits. Study their actions. Study what they are doing and then challenge yourself. How can I do better? What can I do more of or less of? Let's say you own a small business. Do you want to be the best? Why the hell not, right? Look at the people who are doing it better than you are and learn from them and challenge yourself and engage in the feelings of competition that might motivate you and help you refine your game and be the best. If you want to be elite, then compete. But for every other area of your life, and I would argue a much bigger part of the pie, Can you just enjoy the ride? Like, can we just enjoy the experience of doing it? Must we compare ourselves to people who have chosen to master that or chosen to be elite in that category and then beat ourselves up in the comparison? What are we doing? Like, I really, really got curious about this for myself. So let's, let's use a couple of examples to make this resonate with a few more of you. Let's say you're, following someone or paying attention to someone in social media, for example, who has like 4% body fat, okay? A little bit of hyperbole, but stick with me, okay? So you're following someone who just looks amazing, they look like a fitness model, like they're top of their game, they're 1%, and they are elite in that category, if you will. And here you are comparing yourself to that person. Now let me ask you something. Do you want to be that person? Do you want to compete in that arena? Do you want to eat just chicken breast and broccoli and asparagus and drink gallons of water all day long and spend most of your time in the gym and really do the otherworldly, the supernatural things that people who are elite so to speak, in that category, is that the life that you actually want? Or do you want to have a glass of red wine every once in a while, or the chocolate chip cookie, or heck, just food? Right? More than three kinds of food. If you are not seeking to master that category, then what on earth are you doing, wasting your energy on the comparison? Let's use another example. Let's say, Mommying maybe you look at other parents in the parenting sphere for those of you who have kids and you see the moms for example who do like the most amazing craft projects with their kids or they throw birthday parties that are honestly like they're just beautiful and they belong on Pinterest right like they set the bar or their kids know how to speak Japanese by the time they're three okay like you get the idea right and And you're looking at them and you're like, oh, I am so falling short in this category. I mean, I'll use myself as an example. It took me not very long to realize when I had my son that I was not going to master the momming in that way, right? So I had to take the lessons from number one and look at the things I was good at, right? And stack them to be the unique kind of mom that I'm going to be to my son. And I had to stop comparing myself to the elite in this category All right and decide what is the mom I'm going to be because beating myself up about the kind of mom I'm not Feels like the wrong thing to do. Okay, so I'm like, hmm I have a pretty like I believe discipline is important meaning I believe that the parents are in charge. Okay, these are just my values I'm not imposing them on you. I'm not even suggesting that they're good for you I believe in responsibility. I believe in enormous amount of fun and adventure and spontaneity and joy. I'm entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial. Can't say it, but I can be it. And I have an entrepreneurial spirit and I love business. So my kid knew what profit and margin were, you know, when he was six. He couldn't speak Japanese. but he could talk to you about your balance sheet. That's not nothing. I'm exaggerating now, but my point is I looked at the things I was able to bring to the table and I decided to run my own race when it came to parenting. And I encourage that with you with regard to your body image, with how you're going to engage in your career, with how you're going to parent, with how you're going to do any of the things you're going to do. Do you follow someone on social media who's traveling every 10 minutes? There's a new picture of them in some exotic location. And it's to die for, and it's amazing. And you look at it, and you salivate, and you have FOMO, and you have all the things. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself and say, is that the life I actually want? Do I want to master that? Is that what I want to be elite in? Do I want to live out of a suitcase? Do I want to be a nomad? Do I want to not have a permanent home? Do I not want to have my neighborhood, or my local club, or whatever's important to you, or all of the creature comforts that you surround yourself with? Some of you, the answer may be, yeah, no, I want to be a nomad and that's a hundred percent fine. My point is, do we ever challenge the thought and examine it or do we just go on autopilot straight to comparison and then find ourselves either missing out or worse feeling like we're constantly falling short? If you find any area of your life where you're doing that, I would just encourage you if you want to master it, Compete, sharpen all of the tools in your toolbox, become elite. Everywhere else, what if we just enjoyed our own ride? What if we just ran our own race? Okay, let's go to number three, my third big idea and my final big idea, okay? One of my favorite things about triathlon, really my favorite thing about triathlon is the people, like the experience of the people. And if you've ever been to one, you'll know what I mean. the energy and the fun and the encouragement. Everyone's encouraging everyone else most of the time. And with very few exceptions, it's just the spirit of those races and those events is just utterly contagious, whether you're wearing the number or you're there as a support crew or whatever. It's really magical. And again, if you've been to one, you'll know what I mean. And if you haven't, I would encourage you to go to one, even just to witness it, okay? But here's the thing that I love. The diversity of the people that show up to do the race, it's just the most beautiful thing, okay? It's people of all shapes, of all sizes, of all ages, of all backgrounds. I mean, just the diversity is just the most incredible thing. And you know what? We all show up, we all run the same race, we all get the same t-shirt, And we all get called triathlete when we're done. So what's my point? My point is, it is entirely irrelevant what pant size you showed up in that day, what car you drove up in that day, what kind of home you're going back to that day, what your relationship status is that day, okay? You are in the club of the people who all crossed the finish line, who all got the same t-shirt, and you are a part of the people that do just because you showed up and did. Does that make sense? Like, what does that mean? Like, what am I trying to share with you? Okay. So many times we limit what we do. We keep ourselves out of the club simply by not doing because of preconceived notions that we have about what we're supposed to look like or what we are supposed to have accomplished to even show up in the first place. Right. Or how we're supposed to, like, What are our qualifications that got us to the table? And I want to flip the script. I want to tell you that when you do the thing, when you immerse yourself in the doing, when you just show up, when you just show up to the thing, you are a part of the people that do. You are no longer a part of the outside who sits and wonders or who lets fear keep them back or who has disqualified themselves before they even showed up. It is the act of the doing that puts you in the club. You with me? When you cross the finish line, you are a triathlete and it doesn't matter if you finish first or if you finish dead last. You are a part of the club that got off the sofa, that got out of the bed at four o'clock in the morning and got yourself there. So in life, is it really any different? Like, Could you start that business? Could you start that service? Could you create that thing that you have been wanting to create that, you know, deep, deep down that you're meant to create? Could you just show up in the doing? Do you understand when we, when we really examine this, that it is just the showing up that makes you a part of the club, immerse yourself in the doing. Okay. You, win the prize not because you crossed the finish line first, you win the prize because you tried. That is the truest thing that I've ever known. Where are you going to show up? Where are you going to go do the thing? You know, you've heard me say this before, Arthur Ashe, the great tennis player, he said it first, but the secret to greatness is not collecting the trophies. It's not even collecting It's not getting the best time. It's not getting the most superlative of anything, the best job, the best promotion, being able to drive the best car. No, the real secret to achieving greatness is by living the best life that we can, by intentionally living the best life that we can. So stop with the disqualifications. Start where you are, use what you have and do what you can. That is the secret to achieving greatness. Okay? Get out there. Do you. I'll see you out there. Love ya.