What if the obstacles you've faced could become the foundation of your greatest achievements? Join us as we uncover the compelling life story of David Kitchen, founder and president of Edge Leadership Academy. Growing up in Pennsylvania with no male role model and financial instability, David found his sanctuary in sports and weightlifting. Despite a knee injury that derailed his college football dreams, his perseverance led him to a successful coaching career at Robert Morris University, UNLV, and Georgia Southern. From the football field to founding a leadership academy during a pandemic, David's journey is a testament to resilience and grit.
Ever wonder what happens when high achievement meets personal demons? David takes us into his battle with depression and anxiety, challenges he faced after transitioning from coaching to entrepreneurship. Hear firsthand how a strenuous trip to Georgia turned into a wake-up call, revealing the depths of his mental health struggles. David's candid discussion about the physical manifestations of anxiety and depression serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of mental health, especially in high-pressure environments. His story emphasizes the need to address these issues head-on and the profound impact it has on one’s overall well-being.
Imagine navigating life's toughest moments while pushing to achieve your highest potential. David shares his journey of confronting past traumas and the importance of adversity in shaping character. Reflecting on personal experiences, including his transformative shift from powerlifting to becoming a hybrid athlete, David illustrates how embracing discomfort can unlock true growth. We'll also explore the cultural pressures to overlook mental well-being and the role of authenticity in storytelling. This episode offers invaluable lessons on the significance of resilience, mental health, and the transformative power of facing one's fears.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Max Chopovsky (00:02):
This is Moral of the Story Interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Tchaikovsky.
Today's guest is David Kitchen,the founder and president of
Edge Leadership Academy.
Coach Kitch, as he is known byhis athletes, is a former
Division I coach and has adecade of experience building
(00:23):
leaders, culture and mindset atthe highest levels of sports and
business.
Born in Harrisburg, pa, andraised in the coal country
region of northeasternPennsylvania, david was raised
by a single mom.
Although he never met hisbiological dad and didn't have a
male role model growing up, hebecame the man of the house at
the young age of 11.
As a kid, david was alwaysoutside playing football,
(00:45):
baseball, kickball, ridingskateboards and doing anything
else active as his escape fromreality, but his real solace was
the weight set that hisstepfather got for him.
He would do reps of the fewexercises he knew until his arms
were numb, and he loved it.
When his stepfather left thefamily, he took what savings
David's mom had left, leavingher in financial ruin.
(01:07):
This was when David'sgrandmother stepped in, whisking
his family from their apartmentabove a bar in the middle of
town to her home in thecountryside, with their closest
neighbors a mile away.
This was the best thing to everhappen to David.
As his mom went back to school,his grandmother introduced
structure into their lives,taming the wild children and
(01:31):
showing them what trueleadership looked like.
David describes his hometown asthe kind of place featured in
the movie Friday Night Lights,with signs in town touting the
trifecta of God family football.
Being a larger kid obsessed withweights, david played high
school ball in front of 12,000people every weekend.
He was heavily recruited as ajunior but, after blowing his
knee, had to settle for a smallschool in PA.
After the other offers dried up, he ended up graduating with a
(01:53):
business degree selling ITsystems right out of college.
He was good at it, but he hatedit.
And when a friend offered him ahead coaching position at a
local high school, davidrecognized the divine
intervention, left the sales joband went all in on coaching.
This newfound sense ofresponsibility gave him fuel for
his next step, which waswriting letters to every D1
(02:15):
college on the East Coastoffering to work in the weight
room for free, and Robert MorrisUniversity gave him a shot.
David quit his job, packed hisbelongings and drove to
Pittsburgh to start the nextchapter of his life.
David's next big shot came atthe age of 25, when he got an
offer to be the assistantdirector of football training at
UNLV.
This was the opportunity of alifetime, and David was ready.
(02:38):
He ended up spending threeyears strength and conditioning
with both football andbasketball programs at multiple
schools.
Fast forward to 2020.
As David and his GeorgiaSouthern basketball team were
getting ready to board a planeto head to March Madness, the
pandemic shut everything down.
They returned to campus to findout that the head coach was
(02:58):
offered another job, so it wastime for David to make his next
move.
Fortunately for the many liveshe would come to impact.
His next move was founding theEdge Leadership Academy, which
works with athletes andcompanies to build leaders and
take performance to the nextlevel.
David is the author of thePyramid, a system for building
tomorrow's leaders today, andthe Scoreboard, a self-audit
(03:19):
system to help you build thelife you want.
It's a far cry from his days asa loose cannon kid in
Pennsylvania's coal country, butthat is David answering the
question he now asks hisstudents what if you went all in
?
And all in he is.
So if you can't stand the heat,you got the wrong kitchen.
Coach Kitsch, welcome to theshow.
David Kitchen (03:42):
That was phenomenal man.
I really enjoy that you do itthat way.
You know the intro is I alwayshate writing short intros
because I'm like there's so muchmore, but you never want to
bore people.
So I appreciate that man.
That was a phenomenal synopsisof the man I am today.
Max Chopovsky (03:56):
And quite the man .
You are brother, so you arehere to tell us a story Before
we get started set the stage.
Is there anything that weshould know?
David Kitchen (04:09):
Yeah, so when the story begins, it actually is a
perfect segue from yourintroduction.
The story is, it starts rightafter I had left coaching.
So right after I got out I hadfounded my business, edge
Leadership Academy, and we werefortunate to be profitable in
about six months.
And then from there, I launcheda second business, and so I
thought I was taking on theentrepreneurial world right, and
(04:31):
so I had my business.
I had a gym, I was working onmy PhD, I had just finished my
first book and was working on mysecond, and my girlfriend had
just moved in with me fromGeorgia.
So that's where the storybegins, and then we can dive
into it from there, brother.
Max Chopovsky (04:45):
I love it.
Let's do it.
Tell me a story.
David Kitchen (04:47):
Awesome man.
So it was Memorial Day weekendand my girlfriend, like I said,
had just moved in with me.
She had not moved out of herapartment in Georgia yet, and so
we had to go down to Georgia toget her, the rest of her
furniture, the rest of herbelongings out of this house and
move them back to Pennsylvania.
So we're driving down and weget stuck in shore traffic.
(05:07):
It's Memorial Day weekend,we're heading south on 95.
And so you can imagine, it'sbumper to bumper.
What should have been an 11hour trip turned into a 17 hour
drive, and through that time Ijust remembered feeling off and
I didn't know what it was, Icouldn't put my finger on it.
And the whole ride down I'mjust out and she kept saying to
me why are you so quiet?
Wait, let's go, cause I'musually a very rambunctious,
(05:29):
loud person, especially in a car.
I don't do well being cooped up.
And so she's asking me you knowwhat's wrong?
What's wrong?
And almost was like I blackedout and I remember hearing my
name and she's like David, david, and all I felt was I was on
(05:51):
the rumble strips and I was likeman, what is going on with me,
right?
So we pull over and she sayshey, do you want me to drive?
And I'm like, yeah, you drive,I don't.
I don't know what's going on.
No-transcript.
(06:29):
I say, hey, we got to pull over.
I don't feel good.
Something, something's going onhere.
And so we pull over, pull intothis gas station.
And I go into the gas station,I get a Gatorade and a cliff bar
and I'm like, maybe my sugar'slow, maybe something's going on.
So I get this Gatorade, I getthis Clif Bar.
I'm walking up to the counterand it was like I could hear a
million voices but nothing madesense, like everything was like
(06:52):
blurred out.
And so, as I'm walking to thecounter, I dropped the Gatorade
and the Clif Bar and I lookeddown at my hands and my hands
are shaking and I'm like what iswrong with me?
This is insane.
Wrong with me, this is insane.
And so I pick it up, I pay forit, I get back in the U-Haul and
this process continues over andover and over.
So every 20 minutes we'repulling over and it gets to the
(07:12):
point where I'm literally likefalling out of the vehicle and I
can't breathe and my chesthurts and I'm like, man, there
is something seriously wrongwith me and I can't figure out
what it is.
And so this goes on all the waythrough the trip and we end up
her family lived in Virginiabeach.
We end up pulling over inVirginia beach and staying the
night.
(07:32):
I go directly to bed andeverybody thinks I'm just
physically ill.
And I thought I was physicallyill, I thought there was
something wrong with me, becauseI was literally falling out
into a crumpled heap on the sideof the road and I'm just
wondering, like man, what isgoing on?
Like this is terrible.
And so we get back toPennsylvania and I start, you
know, going about my life againand it's kind of okay,
(07:54):
everything's normal.
And then I'm in the gym and itwas my gym was 22,000 square
feet, beautiful facility, andI'm in there with my business
partners.
We're having a meeting and itstarts to happen again and it
starts.
Things start shaking.
My chest starts pumping realhard, my hands are shaking, I'm
sweating and my business partnerlooks at me and he goes are you
okay?
I said I don't know.
(08:14):
So I ran to the bathroom, I'mthrowing up, I'm like what is
going on?
So eventually, what happened,max, was I was actually having
panic attacks and I had no idea,and so that's the story of my
depression, my anxiety.
That's where it all started.
I had no idea that that's whatwas going on with me, and it
(08:34):
took months to figure it out.
I had EKGs, I had sleep studies, I had everything, because
everyone was telling me it'ssomething physical and I thought
it was something physical.
It wasn't, it was somethingmental.
It was mental health issuesthat I had not dealt with from
growing up.
So that's a big turning pointin my life.
Man was that drive from Georgia.
Max Chopovsky (08:53):
I cannot believe that you finished the drive.
That's insane.
Most people, myself included,would have pulled over and been
like I've got to lock up thisU-Haul and call an ambulance.
That's crazy.
If you're hitting the rumblestrips, I would have thought,
well, my girlfriend's not in thecar with me.
I'm just in the U-Haul bymyself.
Nobody's there to kind of shakeme and say, dude, you're going
(09:16):
off the road.
David Kitchen (09:18):
I was calling everybody I knew and just trying
to distract myself from whatwas going on.
So I was literally making phonecalls on the way home, calling
friends I hadn't talked to in along time.
Just hey, how are you doing?
They didn't know what was wrongwith me.
I just needed somebody to talkto, right, and I didn't know.
I didn't know because I reallydidn't know what was wrong with
me, I had no idea what was goingon.
Max Chopovsky (09:46):
And for somebody whose whole life was predicated
on strength to feel that week,in that moment.
It rocked me to my core.
And so what happened?
David Kitchen (09:50):
after you realized that they were panic
attacks.
What was the journey from there?
It was seven months of thehardest work that I ever had to
do.
Once I finally acknowledged itand recognized it and admitted
it, and it got to a point whereI just said I need help, like I
can't keep living like this,because they were happening more
often.
It was every single day and Iwas like I can't live like this.
And so I finally got help and Igot started going to therapy,
(10:11):
got put on medication, gotdiagnosed with depression and
anxiety and what happened was Iliterally slipped into this
depression.
Where my girlfriend was at thetime was also a strength and
conditioning coach, and so wekept similar hours.
And then so we would get up inthe morning about four, 30,.
You know, she'd have her coffee, we talk in the morning, and
then when she would leave forwork, she would think that I was
(10:33):
getting ready to go to the gym.
I would go back to bed untilone or two in the afternoon and
just lay in bed, and forsomebody that's typically a 4am
kind of guy, that's odd, right.
And so I did that for probablyman four or five months in a row
where I just I didn't want toleave my house, I didn't want to
do anything.
It took everything in me to godownstairs to our home gym and
train, and so it was a long ride, man.
Max Chopovsky (10:55):
I had to do a lot of work and I had to have a lot
of be really honest withyourself, which for the bulk of
your life, as you said, it wasall about strength, and so
that's what you had to project,not just to your family when you
were 11 and 12, but you had toproject it as the leader of
(11:20):
every sort of team that youhelped over all those years, and
so those conversations had tobe some of the hardest
conversations you had withyourself your entire life, I
would imagine.
David Kitchen (11:34):
Absolutely, and what it was was realizing that
the reason that that hadhappened the way it did, the
reason it was so sudden likethat, was because I've been
going my whole life right.
I've been chasing achievement,I've been chasing achievement,
I've been chasing things and allof a sudden you're in a U-Haul
by yourself on a 17-hour driveand it gets quiet right and the
(11:54):
only thing left is you and yourthoughts, and I didn't want to
be involved with that.
There were some things from mypast, from my childhood, you
know, seeing my stepfatherstruggle with addiction, seeing
some of the abusive behaviors inmy household.
There were things that I didn'twant to deal with, that were
put in a box and buried andcovered with years of
overachieving and chasingexternal things to fill that
(12:15):
internal wound.
And all of a sudden I'm face toface with them and I got
nowhere to hide, because it'sjust me in the cab of a U-Haul,
and I don't know if you've beenin a U-Haul lately, but they
didn't update those things.
There's no Bluetooth, sothere's no music, there's no
nothing.
I mean, you're just listeningto the engine and so it is just
you and your thoughts.
And that's what that was, man,that was.
(12:35):
The boxes finally shook looseand all the ghosts came running
out and I was not prepared orcapable of handling it.
Max Chopovsky (12:43):
And it's not something you expect, because
nobody throughout their lifethinks I have some issues I need
to deal with, right.
And so when we're younger, wejust go, go, go, we just chase
right.
And, like I remember, when Iwas in school I struggled with
my own mental health issues butI never could point the finger
(13:06):
at it and say.
I could never put my finger onit and say this is what this is,
this is where it comes from.
Here are the things that I needto sort of work through.
So what I remember what I woulddo is I would jump in my car
and I went to Miami, ohio, soit's kind of surrounded by a
couple hours of cornfields inevery direction, and I would
(13:26):
leave campus and I would getinto my 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse
with 130 horsepower andfive-speed transmission and I
would just go race on thosecountry roads and just listen to
Paul Oakenfold and I loved it.
And I realized many years laterwhy I loved it.
I loved it because when you'regoing a hundred miles an hour
(13:50):
and you're going up and downthese hills and if you don't hit
it right, you lose traction,you'll be dead in a second you
have no room for any thoughtsother than how do I keep this
car on the road?
And I just remember it waswhite knuckles, I was gripping
the steering wheel so hard.
And it was many years laterthat I realized that's why I did
(14:11):
that, because I couldn't bealone with my thoughts either.
And so that was my way of kindof short-circuiting that and
saying I don't have to be alonewith my thoughts.
And it was many years laterwhen I realized that chasing is
never going to be the ultimatesolution, because it's a bandaid
.
You're just trying to run, andultimately, what I'm sure you
(14:35):
realize too is you got to stoprunning, you got to turn around,
you got to plant your feet andyou got to get in the fucking
three-point stance.
David Kitchen (14:44):
Yep, and that is so difficult, man.
It is so hard because there'sso many layers to it.
Right, because you start to,once you start to unpack that
stuff, you start to see how muchyour past and I say that I've
seen how much the ghosts of mypast had one hand on the
steering wheel my whole life.
Right, because I realized like,oh, I overachieved because I
(15:07):
had these abandonment issues.
I overachieved because Ithought that people would love
me if I was successful, right,and so then success became my
drug, and then it became thework kept me so busy so that I
didn't have to think aboutanything else.
So, and the byproduct of allthat work and all that busyness
was the success which peoplewhich I equated with love and I
equated with people caring aboutme.
(15:28):
And so it just became this,this self-fulfilling prophecy of
I'm never going to stop.
Right, and and I rememberstanding, I remember standing on
.
I was in Las Vegas, I just tookthe job at UNLV, and I was the
first.
So four out of my six roommatesfrom college are college
coaches now in one fashion oranother, and I was the first one
(15:49):
to make it to division one.
And so my buddy came out tovisit me and we're standing on
the second level of the EiffelTower Club in Vegas and we're
overlooking the strip and we'rehaving a drink, and it should
have been this awesome moment,right.
And he's been my best friendsince I'm 10 years old.
And he looks at me and he sayswhat are you going to do if it's
not enough?
And I said, what do you mean?
And he's like what are yougoing to do if that confetti
(16:11):
falls?
They give you that nationalchampionship ring.
You do all this stuff and it'snot enough.
And that was a question that atthat time I was not even
remotely prepared to answer.
I didn't even want to thinkabout it, right?
But then all those years later,it all came to the surface and
it's like, oh, that won't beenough, that it'll never be
(16:32):
enough If I continue down thispath of just chasing external
things to fill these internalwounds, it'll never be enough.
And so I look at it now and Isay I lead with love, like I
used to lead with on some levelof fear and a self-hatred of I
just want to be the best and Iwant people to care for me
because I am the best.
Now I lead with love, because Ilove everything that I do and I
(16:53):
love the people around me whileI'm doing it.
Max Chopovsky (16:55):
Dude, I have like goosebumps listening to this
right now.
There is I had a guy on theshow, shea Hillenbrand, who was
a starter for the Red Sox and hewas an MVP.
He was incredibly accomplishedand he had that same moment when
he was literally flying on aprivate jet and just realized
(17:16):
that he was miserable, like allof the stuff that everybody
around him was telling himshould be enough to make him
hell.
Anybody completely happy wasn'teven making a dent in the way
he felt and he was like it willnever be enough.
I think that you were fortunateenough to understand this
(17:40):
pretty early in your life.
A lot of people just keepchasing and keep chasing and
then they realize when they turnaround and look back on their
life that they were chasing thewrong thing.
There is I think I've quotedthis gosh on multiple episodes
(18:01):
in the show, but J Cole has asong called Note to Self on his
2014 album and he says there'sone part where he says the good
news is, man, you came a longway.
The bad news is, you went thewrong way.
You came a long way.
The bad news is you went thewrong way and the first time I
heard that I was like damn, somany people chase the wrong
(18:25):
thing, they chase the wrongthing.
I do have a question, though itwas a superhuman effort Do you
(18:48):
think that you would have pushedthat hard if you did not have
those ghosts with one hand onthe steering wheel, if you
didn't have those demons kind ofall around you?
David Kitchen (19:03):
No, definitely not, Definitely not.
I think it was a perfect stormof things, right.
I think I watched my momstruggle for so long, but I
watched her also show grit, andso I internalized that piece of
it.
And then I also internalizedthis piece of not having fear,
because I had to stand up.
I was 11 years old, 10 yearsold, standing in front of a
(19:24):
struggling addict, keeping himfrom doing something that could
have potentially ruined ourfamily, and so I built this
inner belief of like I can dohard things.
Now it was not true confidence.
It was born of fear.
But I think that perfect stormof ingredients created this
monster, right, and it alsocreated this I say monster
(19:47):
loosely, because it also createdthis really driven person who
is, at his core, a protector,right, because that's who I am
At my core.
I want other people to besuccessful, right, and I want
other people to feel that stuff.
But along the way, I still feltlike the more I achieved, the
more people would look at me theway I wished I looked at myself
(20:09):
.
Max Chopovsky (20:11):
Of course, of course.
A few months ago I was thinkingabout this I have three kids.
Is I have three kids?
And there is always sort ofthis thought, that kind of runs
through the back of my mind,which is like am I being a good
dad?
Am I doing the right thing?
Will they remember theirchildhood as a great childhood?
And parts of me sort of thinkoh, we have to do all these like
(20:33):
amazing vacations and thesesort of wonderful trips and
these unforgettable experiences,and at some point I realized
that they don't care about anyof that.
Like all they care about isthat I'm just there, like I'm
literally just in the livingroom playing Jenga with them,
not on my phone, because that'sall that matters to them.
(20:55):
Like I set the bar artificiallyhigh for my own kids.
But if I think about my closefriends or my parents, I don't
give a shit what kind of carthey drive, what clothes they
wear, where they live.
All I care about is that if Ineed to pick up the phone and
call them, they'll pick it upand they'll talk to me.
(21:17):
Right, and they'll do the thingthat good friends do, which is
take time when it's inconvenientfor you to help somebody else
to help your friend.
David Kitchen (21:27):
It becomes about character, right, and it becomes
about understanding thatfulfilled success is not an
external metric, it's aninternal metric and the only
currency like.
I picture it like a mountaintopright, like you're climbing,
you're, you're, you're trying toscale this mountain, to quote
unquote fulfilled success at thetop.
(21:47):
And when you get there, you gothrough all these things along
the way and when you get there,there's a doorman at the top of
that mountain and he checks yourresume, and your resume is your
character, and he looks backdown that mountain and he sees
what you did along the way toget here and the only way that
he lets you in that door at thevery top is if you have the
(22:08):
right character.
And if you don't, then you sitout on that peak and you have
those moments like I had.
And you have those moments likea lot of successful quote
unquote successful people thatwere measuring on the wrong
scoreboard have.
And you're cold and lonely atthe top of a mountain peak and
you're like how did I get here?
Max Chopovsky (22:25):
Yeah, now, you became the man you are in part
by having that adversity whenyou were younger.
So the other side of the coinis you may not be where you are
right now without having gonethrough that, because that
molded you and that turned youinto the man you are today Right
(22:48):
.
So, as much as you had to do somuch work and you had so much
trauma in your life, you mightnot be in the position you're in
right now without having gonethrough that.
David Kitchen (23:00):
You might not be in the position you're in right
now without having gone throughthat.
No, I definitely wouldn't.
I definitely wouldn't, ahundred percent.
I have said multiple times beingborn in the situation that I
was born in and going throughwhat I went through was the
greatest gift that I was evergiven and it goes back to.
You know, if you think aboutsuperheroes like, there's not
much difference between a heroand a villain.
They both have a prettytraumatic backstory.
(23:22):
The only difference is whatthey choose to do with it, right
?
One person says the world hurtme, so I'm going to make sure
that the world feels it.
The other one says the worldhurt me, so I'm going to make
sure that I help the rest of theworld so that other people
don't have to feel it.
Right, it's the same path, it'sjust there's a fork in the road
and I think my childhood andthe experiences that I had built
(23:43):
a skillset in me that could bemuch like anybody.
That can be used for good orcould be used for evil.
You know, I look at differentsections of my life and I look
back and I'm like, oh okay,here's how these things have
influenced this, and when I'm atmy worst.
I can be very cold, I can bevery callous, I can be very all
these different things selfish,et cetera.
But when I'm at my best, I canutilize some of those traits
(24:04):
that allow me to be callous andselfish, and this, that and the
other, and I can also becomevery selfless and I can become
very driven to make an impact inthe world and I can become very
open and vulnerable.
This feeling of being willing,again at 10, 11, all the way up
through you know, every time hepopped back into our lives to
stand in front of a man that Iknew was unstable, to say the
(24:26):
least, and protect him, protectmy family from him, that's that
same feeling of fear, but doingit anyways that I get when I
share my story on stage.
It's the same mechanism, and soit's just deciding how you put
it to work for you.
Max Chopovsky (24:43):
Totally.
Yeah, you have to make thatconscious choice.
It makes me feel like adversityis a requirement, like it has
to be a requirement.
You have to, on some level, gothrough adversity to shape you.
It's like strength training,right?
(25:04):
We're talking about this.
You cannot build muscle withoutgoing into the gym and just
crushing yourself, in some casesto failure, right.
And when the muscle fibers rip,they grow back stronger and
bigger.
And I think that it's achallenge for kids that are
growing up without having facedthat adversity, because they're
(25:27):
not getting some of thosecalluses right that they kind of
need to face some of thosechallenges when they get older.
David Kitchen (25:33):
Yeah, and even from a physiological standpoint,
if you look at it, one of thereasons and don't quote me on
this, but in my opinion, youknow, one of the reasons that
there's so much anxiety andthings in the world is because
our threshold for triggering ourfight or flight reflex has
decreased.
Right, like the threshold.
Like the more you train, themore it takes for you to get
sore.
(25:54):
You increase your threshold,you increase your resistance and
your resilience, and I thinkthe same is so true of adversity
and emotional stress andemotional thresholds as well.
And so, for when I look atchildren now, like it's, I had
this I'm trying to think of thebest way to phrase this.
I had a unique opportunity as acoach, because I would have
(26:14):
kids come in at 17, 18 years oldand I'd see them leave at 22,
23 years old as completelydifferent people, right.
And so one of the things thatwe always talked about with the
parents was you have to let themgo through things, and there's
that old quote like you don'twant to prepare the world for
your kids, you want to prepareyour kids for the world, right.
(26:34):
And so I think we have to workto increase that threshold.
I'm not saying that everybodyshould go through what I went
through.
That's not you know by anystretch of the imagination what
I'm getting at, but I thinkthose things are important.
Those experiences are importantbecause it has it's increased
my threshold for discomfort,right.
So I look at things now becauseof what I've gone through as a
(26:55):
child and what I went througheven as a young adult.
And I look at things now and Isay I can do hard things.
I literally have it tattooed onmy forearm in Latin Hard things
are broken by hard things.
You can do hard things.
But the only reason that I knowthat to my core is because I've
done hard things and I've beenthrough hard things and I've
been through the fire and theflames and I'm still standing,
(27:19):
and so that's the whole thing.
But if you don't have thoseexperiences, that threshold
never gets bumped up and thenyou have to find out the hard
way and that's really difficult,especially as an older adult,
because it can shatter beliefsystems and everything else, and
it's really, really hard tobounce back.
Max Chopovsky (27:35):
A hundred percent , yeah, so it makes me think of
(28:04):
my grandfather, who was born in1929, which, all over the world
I mean the US was about toexperience the and they were
starving.
And their mom ended up takingsome of the last jewelry she had
left and taking a train thiswas the middle of the winter
walking to the nearest trainstation, taking a train to
market where she could tradethat jewelry for two loaves of
bread.
And she brought those loaves ofbread back on the train and
then took and then walked fromthat train station on foot back
(28:26):
to their house, but it waswintertime, she walked through
the snow, she didn't have verywarm clothes and she came home
and she gave her children thebread.
But as she was walking throughthe snow she got sick and she
ended up getting pneumonia anddying three days later and he
was, I think, 11 at the time.
(28:46):
Right, I mean that kind ofexperience.
And then world war II came.
They had evacuated, they neededto evacuate, get on a train.
They ended up going to Siberia.
That kind of childhood, ofhaving that happen, made him
into the kind of person that wasable to become one of the most
prominent journalists and poetsin Ukraine while being Jewish.
(29:09):
Jews never got those kinds ofopportunities.
He first started writing undera pseudonym and then he wrote a
really critical story and hiseditor said we got to take your
pseudonym, this is going to golive.
It's got to go live under yourreal name, because his pseudonym
was a non-Jewish pseudonym,right, and he ended up rising to
prominence and in fact, when wewere immigrating to America we
(29:30):
moved in 92.
They moved in 94.
Right before they moved he wasoffered the newspaper, which was
one of the biggest newspapersin Kiev at the time.
So he was offered to be theeditor-in-chief of the newspaper
and he turned it down to cometo America.
But it just makes me think thatwhat a story arc for somebody
(29:52):
that had such a traumaticchildhood.
But he would not have been ableto make it that far without
having an incredibly andunreasonably high tolerance for
stress, because he just came toexpect it and so everything else
that life threw at him was kindof.
It was hard, but it couldn'thave been as hard as seeing his
(30:16):
mom pass away in front of hiseyes because she brought them
loaves of bread, and you canimagine the guilt that went
through his mind.
Like I think you're absolutelyright.
You have to experienceadversity, and again, maybe not
as crazy as what you wentthrough or what he went through,
but something Otherwise you'llnever advance right, and the
answer then becomes to seek outdiscomfort right.
David Kitchen (30:37):
The answer then becomes in your own life, to
seek it out, right, Whether it'sa physical discomfort, putting
yourself in uncomfortablesituations, those types of
things.
Like that becomes the answer.
If life doesn't supply it, youhave to go and find it and I
think Completely right For me.
I think that's ourresponsibility as humans.
Like it deeply saddens me whenall that somebody can say about
someone is they had so muchpotential.
(30:58):
Like that saddens me becauseit's like if they would have
sought out discomfort and chasedit and figured out like I'm
excited to see having this pastand having these gifts that I've
been given.
I'm excited to see what I'mcapable of.
Like I'm really excited aboutthat.
It genuinely it gives me life,it gives me passion, Right, Like
.
And so I think if you seek itout, you can get that too.
(31:23):
You can seek out thatdiscomfort and all of a sudden,
you can take bigger swings atthings because your tolerance
level is much better.
Just simple things like when Istarted the business during the
pandemic, people were like dude,you might be broke.
I'm like, I've been broke, Igrew up broke.
Like I'm not afraid, thatdoesn't scare me Like that's not
.
That's not what drive.
The money doesn't drive me, youknow, and so, and so for me
(31:45):
it's that fear is gone, that'snot even on my radar of being
broke Like, okay, so what that's?
Max Chopovsky (31:51):
amazing dude.
We were talking about workingout before we started recording
and you know, rowing has been mything ever since I stopped
doing CrossFit years back and Igot comfortable I could have a
decent time on my 5K.
And then my buddy in Januarywas like you should do a
triathlon.
I've never run a marathon, I'venever done a tri.
And he did a sprint tri and thesummer of 23,.
(32:15):
This last summer he wanted todo an Olympic tri.
I was like all right, let's doit.
So I started training, but Iwas training by myself and I'm
not much of a swimmer.
I wasn't much of a swimmer, itwasn't much of a runner and that
first swim I had to do was sohumbling.
I remember I have a picture ofmy goggles with the pool behind
them before I got in the poolthat first time and it was like
(32:36):
day one.
I was really excited.
But after I got out of thewater I was like holy shit, how
am I going to swim that entiredistance nearly a mile if I
can't even do 600 meters?
David Kitchen (32:53):
I can't even do 200 meters without struggling.
Max Chopovsky (32:57):
But what happened was I ended up doing it.
I ended up finishing the tryunder three hours, which blew my
mind.
But I realized that actually itwasn't as bad as I thought it
was going to be, because thetraining was harder than the
fight Right and I wascomfortable Like I could have
just kept rowing and that wouldhave been my only thing.
But now my fitness level is somuch better because I was like I
(33:21):
have no idea how I'm going,will allow myself to not do it.
David Kitchen (33:27):
And in those moments where it sucks and like
you look at it and you're like,wow, that was really really hard
.
I've started to reframe becauseI told you before we got on
camera, I'm kind of changing mytraining too.
Like I came from a powerliftingbackground.
Now that I'm doingentrepreneurship and I'm not in
a weight room on a daily basisanymore, it's like okay, now I
want to be a little bit more ofa hybrid athlete.
I want to change from being anoff-road vehicle to kind of more
(33:48):
towards an F1 car if I can, andso I suck at these things.
I suck at putting the weightvest on and going for a run.
I suck at all these things.
But I've started to reframe itin those moments and almost like
find joy in it and be like thisis cool because I'm never going
to suck this bad again.
Like I get to be new atsomething right I've been
training for, as you said in theintroduction, I've been
(34:09):
training for 20 years, right,and so I'm familiar in the
weight room.
I'm comfortable in the weightroom.
I'm not comfortable in theseother things, and so it's fun
because I get to have thatbeginner's mindset and for you,
doing the try right, are youfamiliar with I believe it's a
Japanese tradition misogi.
So it's the tradition of doingsomething hard every year,
(34:30):
something that's so difficultone day a year that it impacts
the other 364 days of the year.
Like it's something each year.
They have a challenge that youdo something that is so hard and
so uncomfortable that itimpacts the rest of your year.
Max Chopovsky (34:44):
That's cool.
I feel this seed being plantedin my mind right now.
It's a dangerous thing.
David Kitchen (34:50):
I know I've came across it and immediately in my
mind I'm like hmm, what can I dothis year?
What could be something thatcould be completely out of the
box?
So I'm thinking about doing aboxing match.
To be honest with you, ooh yeah.
It's gonna require a differentside of me.
Max Chopovsky (35:05):
I did that a long time ago.
It was a fight for charity witha bunch of real estate brokers.
It was crazy.
I mean we had you know glove,we had headgear on, but there
were a lot of people in theaudience, a lot of testosterone
and dude.
It was insane.
I'd never experienced anythinglike it.
Like when the bell rings, it'sjust you and your opponent and
(35:29):
man.
Those three minutes are aneternity for each round, an
eternity Like your heart ratespikes so quickly and it just
stays there.
There's no respite, because ifyou're not punching or defending
, the adrenaline is stillcoursing through your system
Like it's elevated for astraight three minutes.
And then you get a small breakand before you know it it's like
(35:49):
all right man, time to get backout there.
You're like shit, that is awhole new joint man.
You should do that totally.
David Kitchen (35:57):
Yeah, I'm thinking about.
I had a friend who did asimilar.
He did KO for cancer down inPhilly and they fight in the
Fillmore in Philadelphia, whichis a pretty, pretty famous venue
, and he did it last year and hehe talked to me and said you
should, he's like you should trythis.
And I was like, and my brotheractually went through a cancer
battle this year and so he's youknow, he's 26 years old, he's
two and O versus cancer, soshout out to that that warrior
(36:19):
in my family as well.
But so for me I'm like, oh,it's kind of a, you know, an
event that would hit close tohome for me, coming off of this
with him, and you know, so, yeah, it's definitely something on
my mind Could be my Misogi forthe year.
Max Chopovsky (36:30):
Dude, I hate to tell you, but you don't have a
choice.
I know, I know you got nochoice, brother, you got to do
it, I know.
So, as you think about thatstory that you told about your
panic attacks, what is, for you,the moral of that story?
David Kitchen (36:54):
is, for you, the moral of that story Learning to
get comfortable with the voicethat's inside you when
everything else is quiet.
In the years that have passedsince then, I spend more time in
silence now than I ever have inmy life, and in fact I look
forward to it, and that is sodifferent and so powerful, right
, and so I think if you can getto that space, it is the most
freeing thing in the world.
(37:15):
Like there's the book by JamesAllen.
It's a short essay, as a manthinketh right, and or it might
be Paul Allen, I got to thinkabout it, but he talks about,
you know, the inner sanctum ofyour mind and how it should be a
place of peace and a place ofcomfort and a place that you can
build beautiful things.
But if it's not, it's going tobe a place where you have
tormentors and a place that youget tortured and destroyed.
(37:36):
And so I think that that's themoral of my story has been that
shift, and how much it has freedme up to operate at a level
that I never even thought I'd beable to operate at, because I'm
at peace, I'm not afraid of thequiet anymore.
Max Chopovsky (37:55):
Yeah, that is a really powerful thought.
It's a really powerful thought.
I will say there's one thingyou mentioned earlier that I
want to correct you on.
You said you know it wasn't aphysical issue, it was a mental
issue, but I think that youprobably know that actually,
mental is physical, right, Likewhen your hands are shaking
(38:17):
you're about to pass out.
That is your body saying to youthat well, you haven't listened
to my subtle hands, so let memake the shit real obvious for
you.
You know I'm going to blur yourvision and make you pass out.
So it is just as physical, asyou know.
Breaking your arm, Absolutelyyeah.
David Kitchen (38:35):
And one of the things that I've learned you
know, obviously I'm working onmy PhD now in psychology, so
I've dove into some of thisstuff too One of the things I've
learned is that everybody'spresents differently right, Like
so, like some people are moreon the physical side, like
somatic, and then some peoplehave a little bit more of the
internal type of symptoms andthey present differently.
So for anybody out there that'slistening to this, listen to
(38:57):
your body, man, because, just asyou said, at some point it's
going to stop being subtle andit's going to tell you all right
, watch this, I'm going to jamthe e-brake on you and we're
going to see what happens.
Max Chopovsky (39:06):
Totally, you're so right on you and we're going
to see what happens.
Totally, you're so right.
And for a lot of people it justtakes time to understand how to
be sensitive enough, how tohave a sensitive enough antenna
to be able to listen.
While the hints are subtle,like I would get injured all the
time when I would do CrossFitand even when I started rowing I
didn't have the best form andmy body was giving me subtle
(39:29):
hints like oh, this is an achethat's getting worse when you
row and it kind of stays withyou for a little bit and I was
being an idiot, thinking I'mjust going to power through this
right, lock it off, right, it'sfine.
And then I would be out forweeks doing PT because I didn't
listen to my body, right.
And it's the same thing withmental health.
Fortunately, I think thelandscape is different now.
(39:52):
It vastly improved, where it'scompletely normal and encouraged
to take care of your mentalhealth as much as your physical
health, and that's a really goodthing, because that was not
always the case.
A lot of people struggled theirentire lives because for me,
growing up in the former SovietUnion, it was like did you have
(40:13):
any mental issues growing up.
No, because they didn't existthere, right, it was just not a
thing, like you'll be fine.
David Kitchen (40:21):
It was the same for me growing up.
I mean, I grew up in ruralPennsylvania, like, like I said,
god, family football.
This will put it in perspectiveI broke my foot week, week four
of the season, week five of theseason, my senior year.
So I was playing on a blownknee and a broken foot and I was
getting taped up beforepractice and my coach looked at
me and I said, coach, it'sbroken man, like this thing is
(40:41):
purple, it is busted.
And he looked at me and he saidhow do you want to be
remembered?
Right, and it's like that.
That's where I grew up, right.
So I grew up in this mentalityand this culture of football and
toughness and you know, allthese things where it's like
mental health, like no way youknow, no way you admit you're
depressed, you admit you haveanxiety, like it wasn't a thing,
(41:02):
and so you know, I'm I'm gladthat it's changed and I'm really
, really hopeful that itcontinues to change and it
continues to permeate throughsome of the cultures that are
still holding on to the oldthought processes and some of
the things that hold us back.
You know, and and I thinkthat's that's the direction we
need to continue to go.
You know, because I know theeffects that I've seen in my
(41:22):
life and I know how much betterI am now, how much happier I am,
how much better my business is.
I'm a better friend, I'm abetter.
You know, son, I'm a betterbusiness owner.
I'm a better salesman.
I'm better at everything that Ido, you know, when I'm taking
care of my mental health andbuilding that stack of things to
keep me on the track.
Max Chopovsky (41:41):
Of course, of course.
Now you have been in sales fora very long time.
You also have led highperformance teams for a long
time, and I would think thatstorytelling is a big part of
that, of both of those, and so Iknow you've told lots of
stories, I know you've heardlots of stories.
(42:02):
So, of the stories that you'veheard, what do the good ones
have in common?
David Kitchen (42:11):
that you've heard .
What do the good ones have incommon?
Authenticity.
I think you can really tellwhen someone has rehearsed a
story over and over and over andI think there's something to be
said about somebody that can bean authentic storyteller,
meaning that that story is notcookie cutter, that story is raw
and it is true, and sometimesdetails come out that were left
out in the last time you told itor whatever, like that's what I
(42:31):
love, you know, and that Ithink my best performances for
myself as a public speaker andas somebody that stands on stage
for a living now my best onesare the ones where I go off
script and it just comes frominside out, you know, and so I
think great stories share thatauthenticity, totally.
Max Chopovsky (42:50):
Couldn't agree more.
What about a good storyteller?
What makes for a goodstoryteller?
David Kitchen (42:55):
You have to ride it Like you have to invest in
the story.
You have to ride the wave withthem, right, and so I think that
that makes for a really goodstoryteller.
Somebody that can putthemselves in the shoes of both
themselves and the audience atthe same time Like you have to
be able to ride the wave withyou should be up when the
audience is up and down when theaudience is down, like it's a
dance right between you and thepeople in the crowd.
Max Chopovsky (43:19):
I love that.
I love that you ride the wavetogether.
What is one of your favoritebooks that just nails the art of
storytelling?
David Kitchen (43:30):
Gates of Fire, steven Pressfield.
It's the 300 story Phenomenal,phenomenal book David and
Goliath.
Absolutely the way it'sconstructed and the way he
paints it.
To me it's perfection.
To me that's like what itshould look like, that's amazing
.
Max Chopovsky (43:49):
That's amazing.
Well, last question, brother,you've come a long way since you
were 20.
You've learned a lot, you'vematured a lot, but if you had a
moment with your 20-year-oldself.
David Kitchen (44:09):
What would you say to that, David?
Kill the idea of Mr Perfect.
Let it go, man.
You don't have to be thatversion of you that you have in
your head that keeps you up atnight.
You don't have to be him.
That would be the message thatsimple Just lead with love, dude
, Because you matter and whatyou're putting out into the
world matters.
You don't have to be perfect.
Max Chopovsky (44:29):
I love that In an age where perfection is sold on
the cover of every magazinefewer now, actually not every
magazine.
Now we're seeing somevulnerability, but by and large
that's been the approach.
That's such such a poignantmessage and one that I am very
(44:51):
happy to end on man.
That does it, coach Kitsch.
Thank you for being on the show, man.
David Kitchen (45:00):
Thank you, brother.
This is phenomenal.
You have created an environmentand a platform that is much
needed.
I mean, I'm super humbled tohave been on it and been a part
of it, man, so thank you.
Max Chopovsky (45:10):
Thank you, man.
I'm just here to create theplatform.
You're the one sharing yourstory and I am honored that you
chose to share it with me in theaudience.
So for show notes and more,head over to mosspodorg.
Find us on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was Moral of the Story.
I'm Max Trapofsky.
(45:31):
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time.
This is Moral of the Story Interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Tchaikovsky.
Today's guest is David Kitchen,the founder and president of
Edge Leadership Academy.
Coach Kitch, as he is known byhis athletes, is a former
Division I coach and has adecade of experience building
(00:23):
leaders, culture and mindset atthe highest levels of sports and
business.
Born in Harrisburg, pa, andraised in the coal country
region of northeasternPennsylvania, david was raised
by a single mom.
Although he never met hisbiological dad and didn't have a
male role model growing up, hebecame the man of the house at
the young age of 11.
As a kid, david was alwaysoutside playing football,
(00:45):
baseball, kickball, ridingskateboards and doing anything
else active as his escape fromreality, but his real solace was
the weight set that hisstepfather got for him.
He would do reps of the fewexercises he knew until his arms
were numb, and he loved it.
When his stepfather left thefamily, he took what savings
David's mom had left, leavingher in financial ruin.
(01:07):
This was when David'sgrandmother stepped in, whisking
his family from their apartmentabove a bar in the middle of
town to her home in thecountryside, with their closest
neighbors a mile away.
This was the best thing to everhappen to David.
As his mom went back to school,his grandmother introduced
structure into their lives,taming the wild children and
(01:31):
showing them what trueleadership looked like.
David describes his hometown asthe kind of place featured in
the movie Friday Night Lights,with signs in town touting the
trifecta of God family football.
Being a larger kid obsessed withweights, david played high
school ball in front of 12,000people every weekend.
He was heavily recruited as ajunior but, after blowing his
knee, had to settle for a smallschool in PA.
After the other offers dried up, he ended up graduating with a
(01:53):
business degree selling ITsystems right out of college.
He was good at it, but he hatedit.
And when a friend offered him ahead coaching position at a
local high school, davidrecognized the divine
intervention, left the sales joband went all in on coaching.
This newfound sense ofresponsibility gave him fuel for
his next step, which waswriting letters to every D1
(02:15):
college on the East Coastoffering to work in the weight
room for free, and Robert MorrisUniversity gave him a shot.
David quit his job, packed hisbelongings and drove to
Pittsburgh to start the nextchapter of his life.
David's next big shot came atthe age of 25, when he got an
offer to be the assistantdirector of football training at
UNLV.
This was the opportunity of alifetime, and David was ready.
(02:38):
He ended up spending threeyears strength and conditioning
with both football andbasketball programs at multiple
schools.
Fast forward to 2020.
As David and his GeorgiaSouthern basketball team were
getting ready to board a planeto head to March Madness, the
pandemic shut everything down.
They returned to campus to findout that the head coach was
(02:58):
offered another job, so it wastime for David to make his next
move.
Fortunately for the many liveshe would come to impact.
His next move was founding theEdge Leadership Academy, which
works with athletes andcompanies to build leaders and
take performance to the nextlevel.
David is the author of thePyramid, a system for building
tomorrow's leaders today, andthe Scoreboard, a self-audit
(03:19):
system to help you build thelife you want.
It's a far cry from his days asa loose cannon kid in
Pennsylvania's coal country, butthat is David answering the
question he now asks hisstudents what if you went all in
?
And all in he is.
So if you can't stand the heat,you got the wrong kitchen.
Coach Kitsch, welcome to theshow.
David Kitchen (03:42):
That was phenomenal man.
I really enjoy that you do itthat way.
You know the intro is I alwayshate writing short intros
because I'm like there's so muchmore, but you never want to
bore people.
So I appreciate that man.
That was a phenomenal synopsisof the man I am today.
Max Chopovsky (03:56):
And quite the man .
You are brother, so you arehere to tell us a story Before
we get started set the stage.
Is there anything that weshould know?
David Kitchen (04:09):
Yeah, so when the story begins, it actually is a
perfect segue from yourintroduction.
The story is, it starts rightafter I had left coaching.
So right after I got out I hadfounded my business, edge
Leadership Academy, and we werefortunate to be profitable in
about six months.
And then from there, I launcheda second business, and so I
thought I was taking on theentrepreneurial world right, and
(04:31):
so I had my business.
I had a gym, I was working onmy PhD, I had just finished my
first book and was working on mysecond, and my girlfriend had
just moved in with me fromGeorgia.
So that's where the storybegins, and then we can dive
into it from there, brother.
Max Chopovsky (04:45):
I love it.
Let's do it.
Tell me a story.
David Kitchen (04:47):
Awesome man.
So it was Memorial Day weekendand my girlfriend, like I said,
had just moved in with me.
She had not moved out of herapartment in Georgia yet, and so
we had to go down to Georgia toget her, the rest of her
furniture, the rest of herbelongings out of this house and
move them back to Pennsylvania.
So we're driving down and weget stuck in shore traffic.
(05:07):
It's Memorial Day weekend,we're heading south on 95.
And so you can imagine, it'sbumper to bumper.
What should have been an 11hour trip turned into a 17 hour
drive, and through that time Ijust remembered feeling off and
I didn't know what it was, Icouldn't put my finger on it.
And the whole ride down I'mjust out and she kept saying to
me why are you so quiet?
Wait, let's go, cause I'musually a very rambunctious,
(05:29):
loud person, especially in a car.
I don't do well being cooped up.
And so she's asking me you knowwhat's wrong?
What's wrong?
And almost was like I blackedout and I remember hearing my
name and she's like David, david, and all I felt was I was on
(05:51):
the rumble strips and I was likeman, what is going on with me,
right?
So we pull over and she sayshey, do you want me to drive?
And I'm like, yeah, you drive,I don't.
I don't know what's going on.
No-transcript.
(06:29):
I say, hey, we got to pull over.
I don't feel good.
Something, something's going onhere.
And so we pull over, pull intothis gas station.
And I go into the gas station,I get a Gatorade and a cliff bar
and I'm like, maybe my sugar'slow, maybe something's going on.
So I get this Gatorade, I getthis Clif Bar.
I'm walking up to the counterand it was like I could hear a
million voices but nothing madesense, like everything was like
(06:52):
blurred out.
And so, as I'm walking to thecounter, I dropped the Gatorade
and the Clif Bar and I lookeddown at my hands and my hands
are shaking and I'm like what iswrong with me?
This is insane.
Wrong with me, this is insane.
And so I pick it up, I pay forit, I get back in the U-Haul and
this process continues over andover and over.
So every 20 minutes we'repulling over and it gets to the
(07:12):
point where I'm literally likefalling out of the vehicle and I
can't breathe and my chesthurts and I'm like, man, there
is something seriously wrongwith me and I can't figure out
what it is.
And so this goes on all the waythrough the trip and we end up
her family lived in Virginiabeach.
We end up pulling over inVirginia beach and staying the
night.
(07:32):
I go directly to bed andeverybody thinks I'm just
physically ill.
And I thought I was physicallyill, I thought there was
something wrong with me, becauseI was literally falling out
into a crumpled heap on the sideof the road and I'm just
wondering, like man, what isgoing on?
Like this is terrible.
And so we get back toPennsylvania and I start, you
know, going about my life againand it's kind of okay,
(07:54):
everything's normal.
And then I'm in the gym and itwas my gym was 22,000 square
feet, beautiful facility, andI'm in there with my business
partners.
We're having a meeting and itstarts to happen again and it
starts.
Things start shaking.
My chest starts pumping realhard, my hands are shaking, I'm
sweating and my business partnerlooks at me and he goes are you
okay?
I said I don't know.
(08:14):
So I ran to the bathroom, I'mthrowing up, I'm like what is
going on?
So eventually, what happened,max, was I was actually having
panic attacks and I had no idea,and so that's the story of my
depression, my anxiety.
That's where it all started.
I had no idea that that's whatwas going on with me, and it
(08:34):
took months to figure it out.
I had EKGs, I had sleep studies, I had everything, because
everyone was telling me it'ssomething physical and I thought
it was something physical.
It wasn't, it was somethingmental.
It was mental health issuesthat I had not dealt with from
growing up.
So that's a big turning pointin my life.
Man was that drive from Georgia.
Max Chopovsky (08:53):
I cannot believe that you finished the drive.
That's insane.
Most people, myself included,would have pulled over and been
like I've got to lock up thisU-Haul and call an ambulance.
That's crazy.
If you're hitting the rumblestrips, I would have thought,
well, my girlfriend's not in thecar with me.
I'm just in the U-Haul bymyself.
Nobody's there to kind of shakeme and say, dude, you're going
(09:16):
off the road.
David Kitchen (09:18):
I was calling everybody I knew and just trying
to distract myself from whatwas going on.
So I was literally making phonecalls on the way home, calling
friends I hadn't talked to in along time.
Just hey, how are you doing?
They didn't know what was wrongwith me.
I just needed somebody to talkto, right, and I didn't know.
I didn't know because I reallydidn't know what was wrong with
me, I had no idea what was goingon.
Max Chopovsky (09:46):
And for somebody whose whole life was predicated
on strength to feel that week,in that moment.
It rocked me to my core.
And so what happened?
David Kitchen (09:50):
after you realized that they were panic
attacks.
What was the journey from there?
It was seven months of thehardest work that I ever had to
do.
Once I finally acknowledged itand recognized it and admitted
it, and it got to a point whereI just said I need help, like I
can't keep living like this,because they were happening more
often.
It was every single day and Iwas like I can't live like this.
And so I finally got help and Igot started going to therapy,
(10:11):
got put on medication, gotdiagnosed with depression and
anxiety and what happened was Iliterally slipped into this
depression.
Where my girlfriend was at thetime was also a strength and
conditioning coach, and so wekept similar hours.
And then so we would get up inthe morning about four, 30,.
You know, she'd have her coffee, we talk in the morning, and
then when she would leave forwork, she would think that I was
(10:33):
getting ready to go to the gym.
I would go back to bed untilone or two in the afternoon and
just lay in bed, and forsomebody that's typically a 4am
kind of guy, that's odd, right.
And so I did that for probablyman four or five months in a row
where I just I didn't want toleave my house, I didn't want to
do anything.
It took everything in me to godownstairs to our home gym and
train, and so it was a long ride, man.
Max Chopovsky (10:55):
I had to do a lot of work and I had to have a lot
of be really honest withyourself, which for the bulk of
your life, as you said, it wasall about strength, and so
that's what you had to project,not just to your family when you
were 11 and 12, but you had toproject it as the leader of
(11:20):
every sort of team that youhelped over all those years, and
so those conversations had tobe some of the hardest
conversations you had withyourself your entire life, I
would imagine.
David Kitchen (11:34):
Absolutely, and what it was was realizing that
the reason that that hadhappened the way it did, the
reason it was so sudden likethat, was because I've been
going my whole life right.
I've been chasing achievement,I've been chasing achievement,
I've been chasing things and allof a sudden you're in a U-Haul
by yourself on a 17-hour driveand it gets quiet right and the
(11:54):
only thing left is you and yourthoughts, and I didn't want to
be involved with that.
There were some things from mypast, from my childhood, you
know, seeing my stepfatherstruggle with addiction, seeing
some of the abusive behaviors inmy household.
There were things that I didn'twant to deal with, that were
put in a box and buried andcovered with years of
overachieving and chasingexternal things to fill that
(12:15):
internal wound.
And all of a sudden I'm face toface with them and I got
nowhere to hide, because it'sjust me in the cab of a U-Haul,
and I don't know if you've beenin a U-Haul lately, but they
didn't update those things.
There's no Bluetooth, sothere's no music, there's no
nothing.
I mean, you're just listeningto the engine and so it is just
you and your thoughts.
And that's what that was, man,that was.
(12:35):
The boxes finally shook looseand all the ghosts came running
out and I was not prepared orcapable of handling it.
Max Chopovsky (12:43):
And it's not something you expect, because
nobody throughout their lifethinks I have some issues I need
to deal with, right.
And so when we're younger, wejust go, go, go, we just chase
right.
And, like I remember, when Iwas in school I struggled with
my own mental health issues butI never could point the finger
(13:06):
at it and say.
I could never put my finger onit and say this is what this is,
this is where it comes from.
Here are the things that I needto sort of work through.
So what I remember what I woulddo is I would jump in my car
and I went to Miami, ohio, soit's kind of surrounded by a
couple hours of cornfields inevery direction, and I would
(13:26):
leave campus and I would getinto my 1999 Mitsubishi Eclipse
with 130 horsepower andfive-speed transmission and I
would just go race on thosecountry roads and just listen to
Paul Oakenfold and I loved it.
And I realized many years laterwhy I loved it.
I loved it because when you'regoing a hundred miles an hour
(13:50):
and you're going up and downthese hills and if you don't hit
it right, you lose traction,you'll be dead in a second you
have no room for any thoughtsother than how do I keep this
car on the road?
And I just remember it waswhite knuckles, I was gripping
the steering wheel so hard.
And it was many years laterthat I realized that's why I did
(14:11):
that, because I couldn't bealone with my thoughts either.
And so that was my way of kindof short-circuiting that and
saying I don't have to be alonewith my thoughts.
And it was many years laterwhen I realized that chasing is
never going to be the ultimatesolution, because it's a bandaid
.
You're just trying to run, andultimately, what I'm sure you
(14:35):
realize too is you got to stoprunning, you got to turn around,
you got to plant your feet andyou got to get in the fucking
three-point stance.
David Kitchen (14:44):
Yep, and that is so difficult, man.
It is so hard because there'sso many layers to it.
Right, because you start to,once you start to unpack that
stuff, you start to see how muchyour past and I say that I've
seen how much the ghosts of mypast had one hand on the
steering wheel my whole life.
Right, because I realized like,oh, I overachieved because I
(15:07):
had these abandonment issues.
I overachieved because Ithought that people would love
me if I was successful, right,and so then success became my
drug, and then it became thework kept me so busy so that I
didn't have to think aboutanything else.
So, and the byproduct of allthat work and all that busyness
was the success which peoplewhich I equated with love and I
equated with people caring aboutme.
(15:28):
And so it just became this,this self-fulfilling prophecy of
I'm never going to stop.
Right, and and I rememberstanding, I remember standing on
.
I was in Las Vegas, I just tookthe job at UNLV, and I was the
first.
So four out of my six roommatesfrom college are college
coaches now in one fashion oranother, and I was the first one
(15:49):
to make it to division one.
And so my buddy came out tovisit me and we're standing on
the second level of the EiffelTower Club in Vegas and we're
overlooking the strip and we'rehaving a drink, and it should
have been this awesome moment,right.
And he's been my best friendsince I'm 10 years old.
And he looks at me and he sayswhat are you going to do if it's
not enough?
And I said, what do you mean?
And he's like what are yougoing to do if that confetti
(16:11):
falls?
They give you that nationalchampionship ring.
You do all this stuff and it'snot enough.
And that was a question that atthat time I was not even
remotely prepared to answer.
I didn't even want to thinkabout it, right?
But then all those years later,it all came to the surface and
it's like, oh, that won't beenough, that it'll never be
(16:32):
enough If I continue down thispath of just chasing external
things to fill these internalwounds, it'll never be enough.
And so I look at it now and Isay I lead with love, like I
used to lead with on some levelof fear and a self-hatred of I
just want to be the best and Iwant people to care for me
because I am the best.
Now I lead with love, because Ilove everything that I do and I
(16:53):
love the people around me whileI'm doing it.
Max Chopovsky (16:55):
Dude, I have like goosebumps listening to this
right now.
There is I had a guy on theshow, shea Hillenbrand, who was
a starter for the Red Sox and hewas an MVP.
He was incredibly accomplishedand he had that same moment when
he was literally flying on aprivate jet and just realized
(17:16):
that he was miserable, like allof the stuff that everybody
around him was telling himshould be enough to make him
hell.
Anybody completely happy wasn'teven making a dent in the way
he felt and he was like it willnever be enough.
I think that you were fortunateenough to understand this
(17:40):
pretty early in your life.
A lot of people just keepchasing and keep chasing and
then they realize when they turnaround and look back on their
life that they were chasing thewrong thing.
There is I think I've quotedthis gosh on multiple episodes
(18:01):
in the show, but J Cole has asong called Note to Self on his
2014 album and he says there'sone part where he says the good
news is, man, you came a longway.
The bad news is, you went thewrong way.
You came a long way.
The bad news is you went thewrong way and the first time I
heard that I was like damn, somany people chase the wrong
(18:25):
thing, they chase the wrongthing.
I do have a question, though itwas a superhuman effort Do you
(18:48):
think that you would have pushedthat hard if you did not have
those ghosts with one hand onthe steering wheel, if you
didn't have those demons kind ofall around you?
David Kitchen (19:03):
No, definitely not, Definitely not.
I think it was a perfect stormof things, right.
I think I watched my momstruggle for so long, but I
watched her also show grit, andso I internalized that piece of
it.
And then I also internalizedthis piece of not having fear,
because I had to stand up.
I was 11 years old, 10 yearsold, standing in front of a
(19:24):
struggling addict, keeping himfrom doing something that could
have potentially ruined ourfamily, and so I built this
inner belief of like I can dohard things.
Now it was not true confidence.
It was born of fear.
But I think that perfect stormof ingredients created this
monster, right, and it alsocreated this I say monster
(19:47):
loosely, because it also createdthis really driven person who
is, at his core, a protector,right, because that's who I am
At my core.
I want other people to besuccessful, right, and I want
other people to feel that stuff.
But along the way, I still feltlike the more I achieved, the
more people would look at me theway I wished I looked at myself
(20:09):
.
Max Chopovsky (20:11):
Of course, of course.
A few months ago I was thinkingabout this I have three kids.
Is I have three kids?
And there is always sort ofthis thought, that kind of runs
through the back of my mind,which is like am I being a good
dad?
Am I doing the right thing?
Will they remember theirchildhood as a great childhood?
And parts of me sort of thinkoh, we have to do all these like
(20:33):
amazing vacations and thesesort of wonderful trips and
these unforgettable experiences,and at some point I realized
that they don't care about anyof that.
Like all they care about isthat I'm just there, like I'm
literally just in the livingroom playing Jenga with them,
not on my phone, because that'sall that matters to them.
(20:55):
Like I set the bar artificiallyhigh for my own kids.
But if I think about my closefriends or my parents, I don't
give a shit what kind of carthey drive, what clothes they
wear, where they live.
All I care about is that if Ineed to pick up the phone and
call them, they'll pick it upand they'll talk to me.
(21:17):
Right, and they'll do the thingthat good friends do, which is
take time when it's inconvenientfor you to help somebody else
to help your friend.
David Kitchen (21:27):
It becomes about character, right, and it becomes
about understanding thatfulfilled success is not an
external metric, it's aninternal metric and the only
currency like.
I picture it like a mountaintopright, like you're climbing,
you're, you're, you're trying toscale this mountain, to quote
unquote fulfilled success at thetop.
(21:47):
And when you get there, you gothrough all these things along
the way and when you get there,there's a doorman at the top of
that mountain and he checks yourresume, and your resume is your
character, and he looks backdown that mountain and he sees
what you did along the way toget here and the only way that
he lets you in that door at thevery top is if you have the
(22:08):
right character.
And if you don't, then you sitout on that peak and you have
those moments like I had.
And you have those moments likea lot of successful quote
unquote successful people thatwere measuring on the wrong
scoreboard have.
And you're cold and lonely atthe top of a mountain peak and
you're like how did I get here?
Max Chopovsky (22:25):
Yeah, now, you became the man you are in part
by having that adversity whenyou were younger.
So the other side of the coinis you may not be where you are
right now without having gonethrough that, because that
molded you and that turned youinto the man you are today Right
(22:48):
.
So, as much as you had to do somuch work and you had so much
trauma in your life, you mightnot be in the position you're in
right now without having gonethrough that.
David Kitchen (23:00):
You might not be in the position you're in right
now without having gone throughthat.
No, I definitely wouldn't.
I definitely wouldn't, ahundred percent.
I have said multiple times beingborn in the situation that I
was born in and going throughwhat I went through was the
greatest gift that I was evergiven and it goes back to.
You know, if you think aboutsuperheroes like, there's not
much difference between a heroand a villain.
They both have a prettytraumatic backstory.
(23:22):
The only difference is whatthey choose to do with it, right
?
One person says the world hurtme, so I'm going to make sure
that the world feels it.
The other one says the worldhurt me, so I'm going to make
sure that I help the rest of theworld so that other people
don't have to feel it.
Right, it's the same path, it'sjust there's a fork in the road
and I think my childhood andthe experiences that I had built
(23:43):
a skillset in me that could bemuch like anybody.
That can be used for good orcould be used for evil.
You know, I look at differentsections of my life and I look
back and I'm like, oh okay,here's how these things have
influenced this, and when I'm atmy worst.
I can be very cold, I can bevery callous, I can be very all
these different things selfish,et cetera.
But when I'm at my best, I canutilize some of those traits
(24:04):
that allow me to be callous andselfish, and this, that and the
other, and I can also becomevery selfless and I can become
very driven to make an impact inthe world and I can become very
open and vulnerable.
This feeling of being willing,again at 10, 11, all the way up
through you know, every time hepopped back into our lives to
stand in front of a man that Iknew was unstable, to say the
(24:26):
least, and protect him, protectmy family from him, that's that
same feeling of fear, but doingit anyways that I get when I
share my story on stage.
It's the same mechanism, and soit's just deciding how you put
it to work for you.
Max Chopovsky (24:43):
Totally.
Yeah, you have to make thatconscious choice.
It makes me feel like adversityis a requirement, like it has
to be a requirement.
You have to, on some level, gothrough adversity to shape you.
It's like strength training,right?
(25:04):
We're talking about this.
You cannot build muscle withoutgoing into the gym and just
crushing yourself, in some casesto failure, right.
And when the muscle fibers rip,they grow back stronger and
bigger.
And I think that it's achallenge for kids that are
growing up without having facedthat adversity, because they're
(25:27):
not getting some of thosecalluses right that they kind of
need to face some of thosechallenges when they get older.
David Kitchen (25:33):
Yeah, and even from a physiological standpoint,
if you look at it, one of thereasons and don't quote me on
this, but in my opinion, youknow, one of the reasons that
there's so much anxiety andthings in the world is because
our threshold for triggering ourfight or flight reflex has
decreased.
Right, like the threshold.
Like the more you train, themore it takes for you to get
sore.
(25:54):
You increase your threshold,you increase your resistance and
your resilience, and I thinkthe same is so true of adversity
and emotional stress andemotional thresholds as well.
And so, for when I look atchildren now, like it's, I had
this I'm trying to think of thebest way to phrase this.
I had a unique opportunity as acoach, because I would have
(26:14):
kids come in at 17, 18 years oldand I'd see them leave at 22,
23 years old as completelydifferent people, right.
And so one of the things thatwe always talked about with the
parents was you have to let themgo through things, and there's
that old quote like you don'twant to prepare the world for
your kids, you want to prepareyour kids for the world, right.
(26:34):
And so I think we have to workto increase that threshold.
I'm not saying that everybodyshould go through what I went
through.
That's not you know by anystretch of the imagination what
I'm getting at, but I thinkthose things are important.
Those experiences are importantbecause it has it's increased
my threshold for discomfort,right.
So I look at things now becauseof what I've gone through as a
(26:55):
child and what I went througheven as a young adult.
And I look at things now and Isay I can do hard things.
I literally have it tattooed onmy forearm in Latin Hard things
are broken by hard things.
You can do hard things.
But the only reason that I knowthat to my core is because I've
done hard things and I've beenthrough hard things and I've
been through the fire and theflames and I'm still standing,
(27:19):
and so that's the whole thing.
But if you don't have thoseexperiences, that threshold
never gets bumped up and thenyou have to find out the hard
way and that's really difficult,especially as an older adult,
because it can shatter beliefsystems and everything else, and
it's really, really hard tobounce back.
Max Chopovsky (27:35):
A hundred percent , yeah, so it makes me think of
(28:04):
my grandfather, who was born in1929, which, all over the world
I mean the US was about toexperience the and they were
starving.
And their mom ended up takingsome of the last jewelry she had
left and taking a train thiswas the middle of the winter
walking to the nearest trainstation, taking a train to
market where she could tradethat jewelry for two loaves of
bread.
And she brought those loaves ofbread back on the train and
then took and then walked fromthat train station on foot back
(28:26):
to their house, but it waswintertime, she walked through
the snow, she didn't have verywarm clothes and she came home
and she gave her children thebread.
But as she was walking throughthe snow she got sick and she
ended up getting pneumonia anddying three days later and he
was, I think, 11 at the time.
(28:46):
Right, I mean that kind ofexperience.
And then world war II came.
They had evacuated, they neededto evacuate, get on a train.
They ended up going to Siberia.
That kind of childhood, ofhaving that happen, made him
into the kind of person that wasable to become one of the most
prominent journalists and poetsin Ukraine while being Jewish.
(29:09):
Jews never got those kinds ofopportunities.
He first started writing undera pseudonym and then he wrote a
really critical story and hiseditor said we got to take your
pseudonym, this is going to golive.
It's got to go live under yourreal name, because his pseudonym
was a non-Jewish pseudonym,right, and he ended up rising to
prominence and in fact, when wewere immigrating to America we
(29:30):
moved in 92.
They moved in 94.
Right before they moved he wasoffered the newspaper, which was
one of the biggest newspapersin Kiev at the time.
So he was offered to be theeditor-in-chief of the newspaper
and he turned it down to cometo America.
But it just makes me think thatwhat a story arc for somebody
(29:52):
that had such a traumaticchildhood.
But he would not have been ableto make it that far without
having an incredibly andunreasonably high tolerance for
stress, because he just came toexpect it and so everything else
that life threw at him was kindof.
It was hard, but it couldn'thave been as hard as seeing his
(30:16):
mom pass away in front of hiseyes because she brought them
loaves of bread, and you canimagine the guilt that went
through his mind.
Like I think you're absolutelyright.
You have to experienceadversity, and again, maybe not
as crazy as what you wentthrough or what he went through,
but something Otherwise you'llnever advance right, and the
answer then becomes to seek outdiscomfort right.
David Kitchen (30:37):
The answer then becomes in your own life, to
seek it out, right, Whether it'sa physical discomfort, putting
yourself in uncomfortablesituations, those types of
things.
Like that becomes the answer.
If life doesn't supply it, youhave to go and find it and I
think Completely right For me.
I think that's ourresponsibility as humans.
Like it deeply saddens me whenall that somebody can say about
someone is they had so muchpotential.
(30:58):
Like that saddens me becauseit's like if they would have
sought out discomfort and chasedit and figured out like I'm
excited to see having this pastand having these gifts that I've
been given.
I'm excited to see what I'mcapable of.
Like I'm really excited aboutthat.
It genuinely it gives me life,it gives me passion, Right, Like
.
And so I think if you seek itout, you can get that too.
(31:23):
You can seek out thatdiscomfort and all of a sudden,
you can take bigger swings atthings because your tolerance
level is much better.
Just simple things like when Istarted the business during the
pandemic, people were like dude,you might be broke.
I'm like, I've been broke, Igrew up broke.
Like I'm not afraid, thatdoesn't scare me Like that's not
.
That's not what drive.
The money doesn't drive me, youknow, and so, and so for me
(31:45):
it's that fear is gone, that'snot even on my radar of being
broke Like, okay, so what that's?
Max Chopovsky (31:51):
amazing dude.
We were talking about workingout before we started recording
and you know, rowing has been mything ever since I stopped
doing CrossFit years back and Igot comfortable I could have a
decent time on my 5K.
And then my buddy in Januarywas like you should do a
triathlon.
I've never run a marathon, I'venever done a tri.
And he did a sprint tri and thesummer of 23,.
(32:15):
This last summer he wanted todo an Olympic tri.
I was like all right, let's doit.
So I started training, but Iwas training by myself and I'm
not much of a swimmer.
I wasn't much of a swimmer, itwasn't much of a runner and that
first swim I had to do was sohumbling.
I remember I have a picture ofmy goggles with the pool behind
them before I got in the poolthat first time and it was like
(32:36):
day one.
I was really excited.
But after I got out of thewater I was like holy shit, how
am I going to swim that entiredistance nearly a mile if I
can't even do 600 meters?
David Kitchen (32:53):
I can't even do 200 meters without struggling.
Max Chopovsky (32:57):
But what happened was I ended up doing it.
I ended up finishing the tryunder three hours, which blew my
mind.
But I realized that actually itwasn't as bad as I thought it
was going to be, because thetraining was harder than the
fight Right and I wascomfortable Like I could have
just kept rowing and that wouldhave been my only thing.
But now my fitness level is somuch better because I was like I
(33:21):
have no idea how I'm going,will allow myself to not do it.
David Kitchen (33:27):
And in those moments where it sucks and like
you look at it and you're like,wow, that was really really hard
.
I've started to reframe becauseI told you before we got on
camera, I'm kind of changing mytraining too.
Like I came from a powerliftingbackground.
Now that I'm doingentrepreneurship and I'm not in
a weight room on a daily basisanymore, it's like okay, now I
want to be a little bit more ofa hybrid athlete.
I want to change from being anoff-road vehicle to kind of more
(33:48):
towards an F1 car if I can, andso I suck at these things.
I suck at putting the weightvest on and going for a run.
I suck at all these things.
But I've started to reframe itin those moments and almost like
find joy in it and be like thisis cool because I'm never going
to suck this bad again.
Like I get to be new atsomething right I've been
training for, as you said in theintroduction, I've been
(34:09):
training for 20 years, right,and so I'm familiar in the
weight room.
I'm comfortable in the weightroom.
I'm not comfortable in theseother things, and so it's fun
because I get to have thatbeginner's mindset and for you,
doing the try right, are youfamiliar with I believe it's a
Japanese tradition misogi.
So it's the tradition of doingsomething hard every year,
(34:30):
something that's so difficultone day a year that it impacts
the other 364 days of the year.
Like it's something each year.
They have a challenge that youdo something that is so hard and
so uncomfortable that itimpacts the rest of your year.
Max Chopovsky (34:44):
That's cool.
I feel this seed being plantedin my mind right now.
It's a dangerous thing.
David Kitchen (34:50):
I know I've came across it and immediately in my
mind I'm like hmm, what can I dothis year?
What could be something thatcould be completely out of the
box?
So I'm thinking about doing aboxing match.
To be honest with you, ooh yeah.
It's gonna require a differentside of me.
Max Chopovsky (35:05):
I did that a long time ago.
It was a fight for charity witha bunch of real estate brokers.
It was crazy.
I mean we had you know glove,we had headgear on, but there
were a lot of people in theaudience, a lot of testosterone
and dude.
It was insane.
I'd never experienced anythinglike it.
Like when the bell rings, it'sjust you and your opponent and
(35:29):
man.
Those three minutes are aneternity for each round, an
eternity Like your heart ratespikes so quickly and it just
stays there.
There's no respite, because ifyou're not punching or defending
, the adrenaline is stillcoursing through your system
Like it's elevated for astraight three minutes.
And then you get a small breakand before you know it it's like
(35:49):
all right man, time to get backout there.
You're like shit, that is awhole new joint man.
You should do that totally.
David Kitchen (35:57):
Yeah, I'm thinking about.
I had a friend who did asimilar.
He did KO for cancer down inPhilly and they fight in the
Fillmore in Philadelphia, whichis a pretty, pretty famous venue
, and he did it last year and hehe talked to me and said you
should, he's like you should trythis.
And I was like, and my brotheractually went through a cancer
battle this year and so he's youknow, he's 26 years old, he's
two and O versus cancer, soshout out to that that warrior
(36:19):
in my family as well.
But so for me I'm like, oh,it's kind of a, you know, an
event that would hit close tohome for me, coming off of this
with him, and you know, so, yeah, it's definitely something on
my mind Could be my Misogi forthe year.
Max Chopovsky (36:30):
Dude, I hate to tell you, but you don't have a
choice.
I know, I know you got nochoice, brother, you got to do
it, I know.
So, as you think about thatstory that you told about your
panic attacks, what is, for you,the moral of that story?
David Kitchen (36:54):
is, for you, the moral of that story Learning to
get comfortable with the voicethat's inside you when
everything else is quiet.
In the years that have passedsince then, I spend more time in
silence now than I ever have inmy life, and in fact I look
forward to it, and that is sodifferent and so powerful, right
, and so I think if you can getto that space, it is the most
freeing thing in the world.
(37:15):
Like there's the book by JamesAllen.
It's a short essay, as a manthinketh right, and or it might
be Paul Allen, I got to thinkabout it, but he talks about,
you know, the inner sanctum ofyour mind and how it should be a
place of peace and a place ofcomfort and a place that you can
build beautiful things.
But if it's not, it's going tobe a place where you have
tormentors and a place that youget tortured and destroyed.
(37:36):
And so I think that that's themoral of my story has been that
shift, and how much it has freedme up to operate at a level
that I never even thought I'd beable to operate at, because I'm
at peace, I'm not afraid of thequiet anymore.
Max Chopovsky (37:55):
Yeah, that is a really powerful thought.
It's a really powerful thought.
I will say there's one thingyou mentioned earlier that I
want to correct you on.
You said you know it wasn't aphysical issue, it was a mental
issue, but I think that youprobably know that actually,
mental is physical, right, Likewhen your hands are shaking
(38:17):
you're about to pass out.
That is your body saying to youthat well, you haven't listened
to my subtle hands, so let memake the shit real obvious for
you.
You know I'm going to blur yourvision and make you pass out.
So it is just as physical, asyou know.
Breaking your arm, Absolutelyyeah.
David Kitchen (38:35):
And one of the things that I've learned you
know, obviously I'm working onmy PhD now in psychology, so
I've dove into some of thisstuff too One of the things I've
learned is that everybody'spresents differently right, Like
so, like some people are moreon the physical side, like
somatic, and then some peoplehave a little bit more of the
internal type of symptoms andthey present differently.
So for anybody out there that'slistening to this, listen to
(38:57):
your body, man, because, just asyou said, at some point it's
going to stop being subtle andit's going to tell you all right
, watch this, I'm going to jamthe e-brake on you and we're
going to see what happens.
Max Chopovsky (39:06):
Totally, you're so right on you and we're going
to see what happens.
Totally, you're so right.
And for a lot of people it justtakes time to understand how to
be sensitive enough, how tohave a sensitive enough antenna
to be able to listen.
While the hints are subtle,like I would get injured all the
time when I would do CrossFitand even when I started rowing I
didn't have the best form andmy body was giving me subtle
(39:29):
hints like oh, this is an achethat's getting worse when you
row and it kind of stays withyou for a little bit and I was
being an idiot, thinking I'mjust going to power through this
right, lock it off, right, it'sfine.
And then I would be out forweeks doing PT because I didn't
listen to my body, right.
And it's the same thing withmental health.
Fortunately, I think thelandscape is different now.
(39:52):
It vastly improved, where it'scompletely normal and encouraged
to take care of your mentalhealth as much as your physical
health, and that's a really goodthing, because that was not
always the case.
A lot of people struggled theirentire lives because for me,
growing up in the former SovietUnion, it was like did you have
(40:13):
any mental issues growing up.
No, because they didn't existthere, right, it was just not a
thing, like you'll be fine.
David Kitchen (40:21):
It was the same for me growing up.
I mean, I grew up in ruralPennsylvania, like, like I said,
god, family football.
This will put it in perspectiveI broke my foot week, week four
of the season, week five of theseason, my senior year.
So I was playing on a blownknee and a broken foot and I was
getting taped up beforepractice and my coach looked at
me and I said, coach, it'sbroken man, like this thing is
(40:41):
purple, it is busted.
And he looked at me and he saidhow do you want to be
remembered?
Right, and it's like that.
That's where I grew up, right.
So I grew up in this mentalityand this culture of football and
toughness and you know, allthese things where it's like
mental health, like no way youknow, no way you admit you're
depressed, you admit you haveanxiety, like it wasn't a thing,
(41:02):
and so you know, I'm I'm gladthat it's changed and I'm really
, really hopeful that itcontinues to change and it
continues to permeate throughsome of the cultures that are
still holding on to the oldthought processes and some of
the things that hold us back.
You know, and and I thinkthat's that's the direction we
need to continue to go.
You know, because I know theeffects that I've seen in my
(41:22):
life and I know how much betterI am now, how much happier I am,
how much better my business is.
I'm a better friend, I'm abetter.
You know, son, I'm a betterbusiness owner.
I'm a better salesman.
I'm better at everything that Ido, you know, when I'm taking
care of my mental health andbuilding that stack of things to
keep me on the track.
Max Chopovsky (41:41):
Of course, of course.
Now you have been in sales fora very long time.
You also have led highperformance teams for a long
time, and I would think thatstorytelling is a big part of
that, of both of those, and so Iknow you've told lots of
stories, I know you've heardlots of stories.
(42:02):
So, of the stories that you'veheard, what do the good ones
have in common?
David Kitchen (42:11):
that you've heard .
What do the good ones have incommon?
Authenticity.
I think you can really tellwhen someone has rehearsed a
story over and over and over andI think there's something to be
said about somebody that can bean authentic storyteller,
meaning that that story is notcookie cutter, that story is raw
and it is true, and sometimesdetails come out that were left
out in the last time you told itor whatever, like that's what I
(42:31):
love, you know, and that Ithink my best performances for
myself as a public speaker andas somebody that stands on stage
for a living now my best onesare the ones where I go off
script and it just comes frominside out, you know, and so I
think great stories share thatauthenticity, totally.
Max Chopovsky (42:50):
Couldn't agree more.
What about a good storyteller?
What makes for a goodstoryteller?
David Kitchen (42:55):
You have to ride it Like you have to invest in
the story.
You have to ride the wave withthem, right, and so I think that
that makes for a really goodstoryteller.
Somebody that can putthemselves in the shoes of both
themselves and the audience atthe same time Like you have to
be able to ride the wave withyou should be up when the
audience is up and down when theaudience is down, like it's a
dance right between you and thepeople in the crowd.
Max Chopovsky (43:19):
I love that.
I love that you ride the wavetogether.
What is one of your favoritebooks that just nails the art of
storytelling?
David Kitchen (43:30):
Gates of Fire, steven Pressfield.
It's the 300 story Phenomenal,phenomenal book David and
Goliath.
Absolutely the way it'sconstructed and the way he
paints it.
To me it's perfection.
To me that's like what itshould look like, that's amazing
.
Max Chopovsky (43:49):
That's amazing.
Well, last question, brother,you've come a long way since you
were 20.
You've learned a lot, you'vematured a lot, but if you had a
moment with your 20-year-oldself.
David Kitchen (44:09):
What would you say to that, David?
Kill the idea of Mr Perfect.
Let it go, man.
You don't have to be thatversion of you that you have in
your head that keeps you up atnight.
You don't have to be him.
That would be the message thatsimple Just lead with love, dude
, Because you matter and whatyou're putting out into the
world matters.
You don't have to be perfect.
Max Chopovsky (44:29):
I love that In an age where perfection is sold on
the cover of every magazinefewer now, actually not every
magazine.
Now we're seeing somevulnerability, but by and large
that's been the approach.
That's such such a poignantmessage and one that I am very
(44:51):
happy to end on man.
That does it, coach Kitsch.
Thank you for being on the show, man.
David Kitchen (45:00):
Thank you, brother.
This is phenomenal.
You have created an environmentand a platform that is much
needed.
I mean, I'm super humbled tohave been on it and been a part
of it, man, so thank you.
Max Chopovsky (45:10):
Thank you, man.
I'm just here to create theplatform.
You're the one sharing yourstory and I am honored that you
chose to share it with me in theaudience.
So for show notes and more,head over to mosspodorg.
Find us on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was Moral of the Story.
I'm Max Trapofsky.
(45:31):
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time.
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