May 21, 2025 • 24 mins
Episode 77: The Brain will try to give up long before the body does
Harnessing Inner Strength: Overcoming Mental Barriers
In this episode of Conversations with Kimen, host Kimen Petersen shares motivational insights derived from personal experiences and interactions with remarkable individuals. He discusses the phenomena of the brain giving up long before the body, and emphasizes the role of the inner critic in holding people back. Kimen advocates for setting ambitious goals, detaching from outcomes, and consistently giving one’s best effort regardless of daily fluctuations in personal capacity. Highlighting personal anecdotes from his running experiences and responses from his audience, he stresses the importance of persevering through mental and emotional challenges to unlock untapped potential. Join Kimen as he inspires listeners to embrace their journey, overcome self-doubt, and continually strive for greatness.
00:00 Introduction to Conversations with Kimen
00:28 The Brain vs. The Body: Understanding Your Limits
01:36 Setting and Achieving Big Goals
02:43 The Importance of Giving Your Best Effort
04:05 Managing Your Inner Critic
05:42 Personal Running Journey and Overcoming Challenges
06:59 Mental Strength and Persistence 08:16 The Power of Self-Belief and Encouragement
12:27 Never Reaching Your Potential: A New Perspective
20:31 Using Past Struggles as Fuel for Success
23:42 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
24:00 Closing Remarks and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
Here's a powerful thought for you.
The brain will try to giveup long before the body does,
and this might be because thebrain, the ego, the inner critic,
(00:49):
the sense of identity has one superimportant job and it's to protect you.
To protect you from being hurt.
The problem is how it doesit is by keeping you small.
So as soon as you come up againstsomething big, your inner critic
(01:14):
may start to say you can't.
And it's interesting with myself, withmy running, and like I said, I'm not.
I'm not an incredible runner andI'm not gonna break any records.
Uh, I run for me and myonly competition is me.
(01:36):
And so far I've been reallyworking on making goals that are
bigger than I know I can achieve.
And I think this is a reallysmart thing to do in life.
As long as you don't gettoo attached to your goal
(02:00):
because attachment iswhat caused this upset.
It's not failure.
It's attachment to the way thingsshould show up the way they should be.
And if you have that inner thoughtprocess that I'm not good enough.
And you set a massive goal and you fail.
(02:23):
You could use that asconfirmation of that belief.
And it's funny, if you actuallygo out to accomplish a goal that's
a little bigger than you thinkyou are, and you do all the work.
And every time you're out there,you give it an honest effort.
(02:47):
It doesn't matter what this isfor running like school, like
some creative project, anything.
If you actually
go at it like you believe it's possibleand you give it every effort you have,
(03:07):
then I'd like to argue thatthe outcome doesn't matter.
Because the outcome really onlymatters when you're completely attached
or you know, you honestly didn'tgive it everything you had.
(03:29):
And let's get really clear on this.
Um, 'cause there's a lot ofpeople who don't understand
this super important fact is.
Giving your a hundred percent everyday doesn't mean it's, you have one
level that's a hundred percent andyou're gonna hit that every day.
(03:50):
You gotta understand thatsometimes you're going to be
running at, you know, 50% or 30%
and there's, you cannot give your normala hundred percent on a 50% or 30% day.
But what, and the brain will like.
Try to say, oh, you're not good enough.
Come on, you, you need,you did that yesterday.
(04:11):
You gotta do this today.
And it's like, oh my God, listen,just listen to that inner credit.
Go away.
If you are running at 30% or 50%,or 20% or whatever percent you're
running, given your given, givenyour hundred percent, it only means
(04:34):
that you gave a hundred percent.
Of what you have on that day.
So if you're running at 30% andyou give a hundred percent of that
30%, you gave a hundred percent.
Now the brain is funny because itwill go, well, that's not good enough.
You should be at ahundred percent every day.
And I say bs, it's not possible torun at a hundred percent every day.
(04:57):
You can have stretches, which areamazing, but running at a hundred
percent every day is, it's a pipe dream.
Because there's all kinds ofexternal factors, mentally,
emotionally, physically,
in life.
Even the change in the weather, if it'sa physical pursuit, is gonna change
(05:18):
your ability to perform at your best.
So I digress.
Let's go back to how this brain ofours has this interesting way of.
Getting in our way andtrying to convince us to quit
(05:42):
in my running.
Um, so right now I'mbuilding for a half marathon.
First half marathon I've ever done.
This week was the highest volume I'veever done, which was 66 kilometers.
Uh, for some people that'sprobably not a lot for me.
That's 16 kilometers overmy old record, probably.
I think I'm actually hit a 54 alittle while, so it's, it's at
(06:06):
least 12 kilometers further thanI've run in a week in my life.
And it's funny.
So I've started doing somereally hard work, some hard
workouts, and it's literally, I'mactually building this myself.
So I'm, I'm putting this, I,I'm putting myself out there.
I am doing this to myself.
(06:28):
And it's funny, sometimes when I'mdoing my warmup, it's like, I'm so
slow, I'm so tired, I'm so, and thisis my inner critic going, like, trying
to make an excuse right off the bat.
So, you know, trying to protect mefrom getting hurt if I'm gonna fail.
And so I do put up withthat conversation a bit.
(06:48):
Yeah, and sometimes I evenindulge it when I'm running along.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
And I'm like, oh man, I don'treally wanna create that either.
It's funny, it's like if you want tobe successful in anything in this life,
you have to work on your mental game.
You really do.
(07:09):
And you have to consider thatevery time you keep going.
When your mind says youcan't, you build strength.
And in order to assist you in thatbuilding, that strength, you need to
acknowledge when, Hey, I didn't quit.
Uh, my brain came up against meand I didn't feel like I could.
(07:32):
And I agreed with it abit, and then I kept going.
You gotta kind of like give yourselfa pat on the back once in a while.
You know what, like.
Huh.
You guys are so critical of self
and you're, you're, you're crushing life.
The fact that you're here, you'remaking it through, you're actually
(07:55):
crushing life, and then you've gotthis soup stupid conversation in the
background going, you could do better.
You could do better.
It's like, dude, stop and giveyourself a little bit of credit.
I know if you're anything like me, you'veovercome incredible odds just to be here.
Oh, man.
You're awesome.
Okay.
(08:16):
If you really started focus, likeAlbert said, when Albert Einstein
said, what you focus on expands.
If you focus on how you can havenot been like crushing life and
how you're not quite reaching yourgoals, all you're gonna see is
all those places where you're not.
Because part of life is we're not goingto nail everything, and that's okay.
(08:42):
But if you started focusing onthe things you got through, the
things you accomplished, you'dstart seeing more and more of that
you,
and then
did you ever stop to think that maybeyour soul hard on yourself because
(09:02):
you have these incredible standardsand you want to do amazing things?
So is it all terrible?
No.
But what you gotta do is don't let thatlittle thing, that thing that pushes
you forward in all the tough moments.
Don't let that take you out on tough days.
Shake it off, get back up.
Get back out there and do it again.
(09:25):
And if it doesn't worktomorrow, do it again.
And if it doesn't worknext week, do it again.
And if you get injured, recover,heal, rebuild, do it again.
And if you get injured again,recover, rebuild, heal, and do it.
And if you get injured again.
How many times is enough?
There, there, there is no number.
If you wanna live an extraordinarylife, you have to keep
(09:47):
going despite all the odds.
I've got so many, so many people thatI've worked with over the years that
even, and, and honestly these peoplewho do these massive breakthroughs,
they do have terrible times.
(10:08):
And they have times when they really,really want to quit and they break down
in tears and they're so bloody frustrated
and yet something inthem won't let them quit.
Channel that in your life.
Channel that every time, Hey, evenme, I like, sometimes I will let up.
(10:30):
Sometimes I will stop and breathe.
And sometimes I just keep going
because I've decided that
the potential of me,
(10:51):
the potential that I wantto reach in this life
is worth it because the potential of me.
Is somebody who makes a massivedifference every single day.
Person who works and works andworks and doesn't quit and one day
finds, finds his voice for real,
(11:19):
and then it echoes backfrom other human beings.
And thank you.
I needed that today.
I actually got.
Um, a comment like that recently on oneof my social media pop, like, thank you.
I needed that today.
I also got another one recentlywhere the guy was, thank you.
(11:43):
I don't feel so alone now.
God, if, if that's who I can be in thislifetime, then this is all worth it.
All the work, all the battling mybrain, all the putting myself out there.
It's worth it.
And because like honestly, my braingoes to places like not just running, I
mean like with my social media, with mypodcast, sometimes it goes, well, there's
(12:07):
no downloads and does anybody care?
And is this good enough?
And like my brain and I know my brain isjust protecting me and I'm not gonna quit.
I'm gonna keep on putting outthere, but there is something in the
background wondering if I do makea difference or if I can ever make.
The kind of difference I wanna make.
(12:27):
And honestly, I never wanna, I don'twanna reach my potential if you
understand that this is something I tellthe amazing people that I, and this is
something I'm telling you right now.
My greatest wish is wish is you never,ever, ever reach your potential.
That doesn't mean I want you to fail.
It means every time you get close to yourpotential, I want you to raise the bar.
(12:49):
This is what I'm doingin my lifetime right now.
Every time I get anywhere close to mypotential, I raise the bar and then
I get close to that and I raise thebar, and I raise the bar, and I raise
the bar because I never want to stop.
I never wanna let rest on laurels.
I never want to quit or give up.
I want this.
I, at the end of this life, I wantto be a. Burt up husk of a human
(13:12):
being going, wow, what a ride.
And I never actually reached mypotential because I never settled
and I never said that it wasenough, and I always raised it more.
And at the end of the day, itdoesn't matter because I, I will
be satisfied in this journeybecause of how I approached it,
(13:38):
you know?
I want you to think about this.
The fact that you can be knocked downphysically, mentally, emotionally
does not define who you are.
You are defined by the way.
You get back up every time, tears andeyes feeling like you're never gonna
(14:00):
make it, and you get back up and do itagain and again, and again, and again,
and again and again, and you never quit.
That's what defines you.
I'll tell you, I got so many humanbeings that I, I, I'm so inspired by
the do that over and over and over, andI've seen some of these human beings
(14:23):
and I know some of these other onesare going to reach that, like that
pinnacle of what they're driving for.
But I've seen, I've seenpeople two years of.
No results, come out and crushit and end up at the Olympics.
This can be done.
So, like I was saying, so the brainwill give up long before the body.
(14:46):
And I, I remember, so I've starteddoing these really hard running workouts
and there are a lot more than I thinkI can do, and yet I have no, what I,
I have no idea what I'm capable of.
My motto is just try.
Yeah, you don't know what you can do.
You don't, and you do notknow what, you have no idea.
(15:06):
You have no clue ofwhat you're capable of.
Not even an inkling, just try
take on the motto of I can do hard things.
So last week I'm doing this runworkout and recently one of, one
of the athletes I work with, uh,she came in, she said, you know.
And she said, do you know the, uh,do you ever hear that saying that the
(15:30):
brain will give up long before the body?
And I'm like, oh, yeah.
So I'm out on this hard workout andI'm in the last rep and it's slightly
uphill and it's supposed to be fast, andI'm slowing down and my brain is going,
I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.
And my breath is hard.
And I'm like, and I like,
(15:52):
I thought, Hmm.
So I checked in with my legs,like, how are you doing?
Are you tired?
My legs were, no, no, we're not tired.
We're moving fine.
I'm like, my hips, my are,my hips are, are you sore?
Are you tight?
Can you are, do you need a rest?
And they're like, no,no, no, we can do it.
And I checked in with my breath, can,can you keep, can you keep this up
(16:12):
for another, like another 300 meters?
I'm like, yeah, we can do it.
And I'm like, and then I askedeverybody, can you speed up?
And they're like, yep.
And my body sped up
and I realized that
I am my own limit.
(16:35):
My inner critic, of course, is tryingto make sure I don't fail, right?
If, if you really want to beextraordinary in this life,
you have to risk going too far.
Despite the un, uh, despite theopposition of your inner critic,
(16:56):
your inner dialogue, your ego,
I mean, let's, let's, let's qualifythat too, because I work with people,
and I'm not saying push through pain.
I never said that and I never will.
If you're in pain, then pain is asign to slow down, like true pain.
(17:19):
I'm just saying that.
If your brain is saying, youcan't, you can't, you can't.
Not that like, oh, somethinghurts and it's gonna be injured.
No, you listen to it's hurts.
It's gonna be injured.
You listen to that every single time.
But if it's just your braingoing like, I can't, I can't, I
can't, I can't then push harder.
(17:39):
Risk going too far.
As long as it's not a risk of injury.
Keep on going.
'cause you know what?
You're gonna surprise yourself.
And it's funny, I was talking to one ofthe athletes who's a, like, athletes are
amazing, and this is an athlete who'sobviously worked on the mental side
(17:59):
because they weresaying, well, it's funny.
It's like my brain will push me ashard as I can and I'll keep on going.
And sometimes my body fails.
And that's somebody who'sworked on their mental game.
If you've worked hard enoughon your mental game, then
(18:22):
the brain doesn't give up longbefore, and that's, that's
like something I strive for.
I'd love to develop and nurture andhone, not, not to take myself to
a place where my body fails, butto take myself to a place where
my brain isn't getting in my way.
(18:42):
It isn't.
It telling me I can't.
I would love it if my brain wouldstart saying, keep trying, keep trying.
You got this.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
You got this.
Keep going.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
Wouldn't that be cool if the brain,you know, in my running pursuit if
it's like, oh, this is hard, andmy brain says, but you got this.
(19:05):
Keep going.
Or.
In my podcast as I'm moving forwardand trying to create better and
better content and, and going,is anybody even listening it?
Does anybody, anybody even care?
Is it making a difference?
And my brain goes, of course people care.
Of course it's making a difference.
Keep going.
The only way to get to, you know,it's like, okay, so I love this
(19:28):
quote from Eat, pray, love, and, uh.
So the main character had, I guess she'dgone to Italy and ate all this good food.
And now she was in ashram in India.
And uh, and she just wantedinner peace and she's struggling.
And she's like, and she's like,I just, I just want inner peace.
(19:50):
And this other guy said to hergroceries called her groceries because
when she came to Astro, she was justeating so much food because she just
hadn't experienced eating right.
Groceries.
You gotta swim the moatto get to the castle.
Wow.
(20:10):
You gotta get through thehard stuff to get to paradise
and the hard stuff is what createsthe strength that you, that will
get you that last little bit.
Right.
(20:31):
It is like if you could take up everysingle hard moment, every time that you've
struggled and fought and cried at nightalone and just build it up as this energy
just to push you that last little bit,
like completely reframe all thatstuff that you've gone through in
(20:52):
life as something that's detrimentaland holding you back and uses as
this energy for this one last burst.
Which is that last little bit like, youknow, it's always darkest right before the
dawn, and the hardest part of the climb isjust, just before you get to the summit.
(21:13):
If you could find a way to understandthat all the tough things you, you've
gone through, you're going through,you've been through, can be burned
as fuel to get you just over the top.
Wow.
(21:33):
And I'm not saying I can do this yet.
Okay.
I, I, I'm not saying I can, I'm notthere yet, but man, I wanna hold
that up as something to strive for,
you know,
the last 200 of a race.
(21:55):
And dig down inside andfind all this stuff.
All the times people said I couldn't.
All the times I said I couldn't.
All the times that I didn't meet mymark all the times I let up and I gave
up on myself and use it as strength andhave a burst of power and burn that and
make that be something that fueled me.
(22:18):
'cause you know, I honestly believe.
That if I have any light in this life now,it was all given to me by my darkness.
I saw this other quote recently.
It said, if you are doubting yourself,
(22:42):
if you're doubting yourself in thespace you're in, in the reality
you're in right here, right now.
It actually means you still believethere's a higher level in you.
You haven't given up.
You believe that there's more.
So listen to that voice, reframe it,
(23:07):
and the honest truth.
I believe, just like I say, it'salways darkness before the dawn.
Hardest climb is that last little bit.
The most challenge comesright before the breakthrough.
If things are really hard right now, thatis a sign that you are about to level up.
(23:30):
Just keep going.
Tell that brain.
Thank you for sharing and just keep going.
You weren't here to be ordinary.
You are here to be extraordinary
(23:51):
and extraordinary is onthe other side of the moat.
Just swim the mot.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
(24:17):
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
. Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
Here's a powerful thought for you.
The brain will try to giveup long before the body does,
and this might be because thebrain, the ego, the inner critic,
(00:49):
the sense of identity has one superimportant job and it's to protect you.
To protect you from being hurt.
The problem is how it doesit is by keeping you small.
So as soon as you come up againstsomething big, your inner critic
(01:14):
may start to say you can't.
And it's interesting with myself, withmy running, and like I said, I'm not.
I'm not an incredible runner andI'm not gonna break any records.
Uh, I run for me and myonly competition is me.
(01:36):
And so far I've been reallyworking on making goals that are
bigger than I know I can achieve.
And I think this is a reallysmart thing to do in life.
As long as you don't gettoo attached to your goal
(02:00):
because attachment iswhat caused this upset.
It's not failure.
It's attachment to the way thingsshould show up the way they should be.
And if you have that inner thoughtprocess that I'm not good enough.
And you set a massive goal and you fail.
(02:23):
You could use that asconfirmation of that belief.
And it's funny, if you actuallygo out to accomplish a goal that's
a little bigger than you thinkyou are, and you do all the work.
And every time you're out there,you give it an honest effort.
(02:47):
It doesn't matter what this isfor running like school, like
some creative project, anything.
If you actually
go at it like you believe it's possibleand you give it every effort you have,
(03:07):
then I'd like to argue thatthe outcome doesn't matter.
Because the outcome really onlymatters when you're completely attached
or you know, you honestly didn'tgive it everything you had.
(03:29):
And let's get really clear on this.
Um, 'cause there's a lot ofpeople who don't understand
this super important fact is.
Giving your a hundred percent everyday doesn't mean it's, you have one
level that's a hundred percent andyou're gonna hit that every day.
(03:50):
You gotta understand thatsometimes you're going to be
running at, you know, 50% or 30%
and there's, you cannot give your normala hundred percent on a 50% or 30% day.
But what, and the brain will like.
Try to say, oh, you're not good enough.
Come on, you, you need,you did that yesterday.
(04:11):
You gotta do this today.
And it's like, oh my God, listen,just listen to that inner credit.
Go away.
If you are running at 30% or 50%,or 20% or whatever percent you're
running, given your given, givenyour hundred percent, it only means
(04:34):
that you gave a hundred percent.
Of what you have on that day.
So if you're running at 30% andyou give a hundred percent of that
30%, you gave a hundred percent.
Now the brain is funny because itwill go, well, that's not good enough.
You should be at ahundred percent every day.
And I say bs, it's not possible torun at a hundred percent every day.
(04:57):
You can have stretches, which areamazing, but running at a hundred
percent every day is, it's a pipe dream.
Because there's all kinds ofexternal factors, mentally,
emotionally, physically,
in life.
Even the change in the weather, if it'sa physical pursuit, is gonna change
(05:18):
your ability to perform at your best.
So I digress.
Let's go back to how this brain ofours has this interesting way of.
Getting in our way andtrying to convince us to quit
(05:42):
in my running.
Um, so right now I'mbuilding for a half marathon.
First half marathon I've ever done.
This week was the highest volume I'veever done, which was 66 kilometers.
Uh, for some people that'sprobably not a lot for me.
That's 16 kilometers overmy old record, probably.
I think I'm actually hit a 54 alittle while, so it's, it's at
(06:06):
least 12 kilometers further thanI've run in a week in my life.
And it's funny.
So I've started doing somereally hard work, some hard
workouts, and it's literally, I'mactually building this myself.
So I'm, I'm putting this, I,I'm putting myself out there.
I am doing this to myself.
(06:28):
And it's funny, sometimes when I'mdoing my warmup, it's like, I'm so
slow, I'm so tired, I'm so, and thisis my inner critic going, like, trying
to make an excuse right off the bat.
So, you know, trying to protect mefrom getting hurt if I'm gonna fail.
And so I do put up withthat conversation a bit.
(06:48):
Yeah, and sometimes I evenindulge it when I'm running along.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
And I'm like, oh man, I don'treally wanna create that either.
It's funny, it's like if you want tobe successful in anything in this life,
you have to work on your mental game.
You really do.
(07:09):
And you have to consider thatevery time you keep going.
When your mind says youcan't, you build strength.
And in order to assist you in thatbuilding, that strength, you need to
acknowledge when, Hey, I didn't quit.
Uh, my brain came up against meand I didn't feel like I could.
(07:32):
And I agreed with it abit, and then I kept going.
You gotta kind of like give yourselfa pat on the back once in a while.
You know what, like.
Huh.
You guys are so critical of self
and you're, you're, you're crushing life.
The fact that you're here, you'remaking it through, you're actually
(07:55):
crushing life, and then you've gotthis soup stupid conversation in the
background going, you could do better.
You could do better.
It's like, dude, stop and giveyourself a little bit of credit.
I know if you're anything like me, you'veovercome incredible odds just to be here.
Oh, man.
You're awesome.
Okay.
(08:16):
If you really started focus, likeAlbert said, when Albert Einstein
said, what you focus on expands.
If you focus on how you can havenot been like crushing life and
how you're not quite reaching yourgoals, all you're gonna see is
all those places where you're not.
Because part of life is we're not goingto nail everything, and that's okay.
(08:42):
But if you started focusing onthe things you got through, the
things you accomplished, you'dstart seeing more and more of that
you,
and then
did you ever stop to think that maybeyour soul hard on yourself because
(09:02):
you have these incredible standardsand you want to do amazing things?
So is it all terrible?
No.
But what you gotta do is don't let thatlittle thing, that thing that pushes
you forward in all the tough moments.
Don't let that take you out on tough days.
Shake it off, get back up.
Get back out there and do it again.
(09:25):
And if it doesn't worktomorrow, do it again.
And if it doesn't worknext week, do it again.
And if you get injured, recover,heal, rebuild, do it again.
And if you get injured again,recover, rebuild, heal, and do it.
And if you get injured again.
How many times is enough?
There, there, there is no number.
If you wanna live an extraordinarylife, you have to keep
(09:47):
going despite all the odds.
I've got so many, so many people thatI've worked with over the years that
even, and, and honestly these peoplewho do these massive breakthroughs,
they do have terrible times.
(10:08):
And they have times when they really,really want to quit and they break down
in tears and they're so bloody frustrated
and yet something inthem won't let them quit.
Channel that in your life.
Channel that every time, Hey, evenme, I like, sometimes I will let up.
(10:30):
Sometimes I will stop and breathe.
And sometimes I just keep going
because I've decided that
the potential of me,
(10:51):
the potential that I wantto reach in this life
is worth it because the potential of me.
Is somebody who makes a massivedifference every single day.
Person who works and works andworks and doesn't quit and one day
finds, finds his voice for real,
(11:19):
and then it echoes backfrom other human beings.
And thank you.
I needed that today.
I actually got.
Um, a comment like that recently on oneof my social media pop, like, thank you.
I needed that today.
I also got another one recentlywhere the guy was, thank you.
(11:43):
I don't feel so alone now.
God, if, if that's who I can be in thislifetime, then this is all worth it.
All the work, all the battling mybrain, all the putting myself out there.
It's worth it.
And because like honestly, my braingoes to places like not just running, I
mean like with my social media, with mypodcast, sometimes it goes, well, there's
(12:07):
no downloads and does anybody care?
And is this good enough?
And like my brain and I know my brain isjust protecting me and I'm not gonna quit.
I'm gonna keep on putting outthere, but there is something in the
background wondering if I do makea difference or if I can ever make.
The kind of difference I wanna make.
(12:27):
And honestly, I never wanna, I don'twanna reach my potential if you
understand that this is something I tellthe amazing people that I, and this is
something I'm telling you right now.
My greatest wish is wish is you never,ever, ever reach your potential.
That doesn't mean I want you to fail.
It means every time you get close to yourpotential, I want you to raise the bar.
(12:49):
This is what I'm doingin my lifetime right now.
Every time I get anywhere close to mypotential, I raise the bar and then
I get close to that and I raise thebar, and I raise the bar, and I raise
the bar because I never want to stop.
I never wanna let rest on laurels.
I never want to quit or give up.
I want this.
I, at the end of this life, I wantto be a. Burt up husk of a human
(13:12):
being going, wow, what a ride.
And I never actually reached mypotential because I never settled
and I never said that it wasenough, and I always raised it more.
And at the end of the day, itdoesn't matter because I, I will
be satisfied in this journeybecause of how I approached it,
(13:38):
you know?
I want you to think about this.
The fact that you can be knocked downphysically, mentally, emotionally
does not define who you are.
You are defined by the way.
You get back up every time, tears andeyes feeling like you're never gonna
(14:00):
make it, and you get back up and do itagain and again, and again, and again,
and again and again, and you never quit.
That's what defines you.
I'll tell you, I got so many humanbeings that I, I, I'm so inspired by
the do that over and over and over, andI've seen some of these human beings
(14:23):
and I know some of these other onesare going to reach that, like that
pinnacle of what they're driving for.
But I've seen, I've seenpeople two years of.
No results, come out and crushit and end up at the Olympics.
This can be done.
So, like I was saying, so the brainwill give up long before the body.
(14:46):
And I, I remember, so I've starteddoing these really hard running workouts
and there are a lot more than I thinkI can do, and yet I have no, what I,
I have no idea what I'm capable of.
My motto is just try.
Yeah, you don't know what you can do.
You don't, and you do notknow what, you have no idea.
(15:06):
You have no clue ofwhat you're capable of.
Not even an inkling, just try
take on the motto of I can do hard things.
So last week I'm doing this runworkout and recently one of, one
of the athletes I work with, uh,she came in, she said, you know.
And she said, do you know the, uh,do you ever hear that saying that the
(15:30):
brain will give up long before the body?
And I'm like, oh, yeah.
So I'm out on this hard workout andI'm in the last rep and it's slightly
uphill and it's supposed to be fast, andI'm slowing down and my brain is going,
I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't.
And my breath is hard.
And I'm like, and I like,
(15:52):
I thought, Hmm.
So I checked in with my legs,like, how are you doing?
Are you tired?
My legs were, no, no, we're not tired.
We're moving fine.
I'm like, my hips, my are,my hips are, are you sore?
Are you tight?
Can you are, do you need a rest?
And they're like, no,no, no, we can do it.
And I checked in with my breath, can,can you keep, can you keep this up
(16:12):
for another, like another 300 meters?
I'm like, yeah, we can do it.
And I'm like, and then I askedeverybody, can you speed up?
And they're like, yep.
And my body sped up
and I realized that
I am my own limit.
(16:35):
My inner critic, of course, is tryingto make sure I don't fail, right?
If, if you really want to beextraordinary in this life,
you have to risk going too far.
Despite the un, uh, despite theopposition of your inner critic,
(16:56):
your inner dialogue, your ego,
I mean, let's, let's, let's qualifythat too, because I work with people,
and I'm not saying push through pain.
I never said that and I never will.
If you're in pain, then pain is asign to slow down, like true pain.
(17:19):
I'm just saying that.
If your brain is saying, youcan't, you can't, you can't.
Not that like, oh, somethinghurts and it's gonna be injured.
No, you listen to it's hurts.
It's gonna be injured.
You listen to that every single time.
But if it's just your braingoing like, I can't, I can't, I
can't, I can't then push harder.
(17:39):
Risk going too far.
As long as it's not a risk of injury.
Keep on going.
'cause you know what?
You're gonna surprise yourself.
And it's funny, I was talking to one ofthe athletes who's a, like, athletes are
amazing, and this is an athlete who'sobviously worked on the mental side
(17:59):
because they weresaying, well, it's funny.
It's like my brain will push me ashard as I can and I'll keep on going.
And sometimes my body fails.
And that's somebody who'sworked on their mental game.
If you've worked hard enoughon your mental game, then
(18:22):
the brain doesn't give up longbefore, and that's, that's
like something I strive for.
I'd love to develop and nurture andhone, not, not to take myself to
a place where my body fails, butto take myself to a place where
my brain isn't getting in my way.
(18:42):
It isn't.
It telling me I can't.
I would love it if my brain wouldstart saying, keep trying, keep trying.
You got this.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
You got this.
Keep going.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
I know you can.
Wouldn't that be cool if the brain,you know, in my running pursuit if
it's like, oh, this is hard, andmy brain says, but you got this.
(19:05):
Keep going.
Or.
In my podcast as I'm moving forwardand trying to create better and
better content and, and going,is anybody even listening it?
Does anybody, anybody even care?
Is it making a difference?
And my brain goes, of course people care.
Of course it's making a difference.
Keep going.
The only way to get to, you know,it's like, okay, so I love this
(19:28):
quote from Eat, pray, love, and, uh.
So the main character had, I guess she'dgone to Italy and ate all this good food.
And now she was in ashram in India.
And uh, and she just wantedinner peace and she's struggling.
And she's like, and she's like,I just, I just want inner peace.
(19:50):
And this other guy said to hergroceries called her groceries because
when she came to Astro, she was justeating so much food because she just
hadn't experienced eating right.
Groceries.
You gotta swim the moatto get to the castle.
Wow.
(20:10):
You gotta get through thehard stuff to get to paradise
and the hard stuff is what createsthe strength that you, that will
get you that last little bit.
Right.
(20:31):
It is like if you could take up everysingle hard moment, every time that you've
struggled and fought and cried at nightalone and just build it up as this energy
just to push you that last little bit,
like completely reframe all thatstuff that you've gone through in
(20:52):
life as something that's detrimentaland holding you back and uses as
this energy for this one last burst.
Which is that last little bit like, youknow, it's always darkest right before the
dawn, and the hardest part of the climb isjust, just before you get to the summit.
(21:13):
If you could find a way to understandthat all the tough things you, you've
gone through, you're going through,you've been through, can be burned
as fuel to get you just over the top.
Wow.
(21:33):
And I'm not saying I can do this yet.
Okay.
I, I, I'm not saying I can, I'm notthere yet, but man, I wanna hold
that up as something to strive for,
you know,
the last 200 of a race.
(21:55):
And dig down inside andfind all this stuff.
All the times people said I couldn't.
All the times I said I couldn't.
All the times that I didn't meet mymark all the times I let up and I gave
up on myself and use it as strength andhave a burst of power and burn that and
make that be something that fueled me.
(22:18):
'cause you know, I honestly believe.
That if I have any light in this life now,it was all given to me by my darkness.
I saw this other quote recently.
It said, if you are doubting yourself,
(22:42):
if you're doubting yourself in thespace you're in, in the reality
you're in right here, right now.
It actually means you still believethere's a higher level in you.
You haven't given up.
You believe that there's more.
So listen to that voice, reframe it,
(23:07):
and the honest truth.
I believe, just like I say, it'salways darkness before the dawn.
Hardest climb is that last little bit.
The most challenge comesright before the breakthrough.
If things are really hard right now, thatis a sign that you are about to level up.
(23:30):
Just keep going.
Tell that brain.
Thank you for sharing and just keep going.
You weren't here to be ordinary.
You are here to be extraordinary
(23:51):
and extraordinary is onthe other side of the moat.
Just swim the mot.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
(24:17):
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
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