#165 - Tim Ford, Host of The Endurers, Sponsorship & Athlete Manager at Mana Group - Stupid Questions with Seth Hill

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How's it going everybody? And welcome back to another
edition of the Stupid Questions podcast.
Today on the pod, we're going tobe talking with Tim Ford.
He is the Co host for the Endures podcast, another podcast
as well. Can't remember the name of it,
so sorry Tim, but check out the show note links if you want to
check out that stuff. But Tim is an awesome guy.
Deep thinker is a representativefor a number of different
professional athletes with the Mana company that he works with

(00:22):
for elite athlete management andnumber of other things.
So make sure to check all that stuff.
But today's conversation is really good.
When we dive deep on grief, we dive deep on family relations,
values, different endurance topics, overcoming hard
obstacles, a lot of good things.So thank you so much to Tim for
coming on and I hope you guys enjoy this conversation with Tim
Ford. Well, first thing that is some

(00:45):
beautiful bikes you got on the back wall there.
Thank you very much. I appreciate that they are a
lovely shade of blue. Yeah, actually, so is my shirt.
I just realized there's a lot ofblue happening behind me, which
isn't a bad thing. Yeah.
And then do we have some Transformers in the background
or what's what's that? Actually, I'm such a nut.
They're vintage Power Ranger toys like Megazords and stuff.

(01:08):
I don't know if you ever, maybe you're a bit young for that, but
there was a when in the 90s, there was a Power Rangers show
and I always wanted the toys andmy parents would never get them
for me. And then when I grew up and had
some of my own money, I could gobuy those things.
Yeah. And I have AI have a very, I get
this thing where I sort of set my mind on a certain thing and
then I have to go fully into it.So I think I've almost collected

(01:31):
every single one available. And some of them are like, I had
a, had a like almost like my toydealer in Japan who was helping
me to find some of the rarer Japanese variants of them and
stuff. So yeah, I do tend to go down
some very random rabbit holes with my collect collecting
sometimes. But yeah, that's, yeah, that's
random. Yeah, no, that's super cool.
It's funny. I do remember Power Rangers.

(01:52):
So I was born in 92, but I remember Power Rangers being in
one of the old houses that I lived in North Carolina.
I don't even know how old I was.I had to have been like 5 or 6.
But I remember that being the first TV show that like, I
really launched onto, I was like, I want to be a Power
Ranger. Like I think I memorized that.
Go, go Power Rangers, all that stuff.
And Oh yeah, that's that's good fun.

(02:14):
That's hilarious. My parents didn't let me watch
it, though. It's kind of missed out.
Yeah, here you are. Many years later, I'm still a
little bit obsessed. I I I don't watch the shows
anymore, but I certainly like the.
Yeah, again. Maybe it's just I'm getting old
in the outs. Like that hint of nostalgia
makes me try to remember a bit of my youth.
I'm not. Sure, but yeah, does does your?
I think it's a Madonna in the back.

(02:35):
Does it match? Is it the same colour way?
Oh, it is. Yeah, I've got the same paint
job on the Madonna and the speedconcept.
Like I said, I'm AI. Don't know.
I'm on. I like, I like things to match.
You know, I do put a bit of attention to detail in terms of
the colors of my bikes, the kits.
At one point I had a bike that had the, the wheels had decals
that matched the Tri suit that Iwore and stuff.

(02:56):
So I'm a bit of a bit of a geek.Yeah.
And like I said, it's just it's the same thing with the the
collection. I just need to get something in
my mind and take it to the extreme.
Yeah, aesthetic is a big thing for you too, it seems.
I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's necessarily
aesthetic. It's more just the like, it's
like an itch that I need to scratch.
If, if something doesn't look like it matches, it kind of,

(03:17):
yeah. I I wouldn't say it's not about
like, it's not vanity or anything.
It's not about needing to look at.
It's more about needing to look like your match.
They're not looking at a place maybe, I suppose something like
that. Yeah, yeah, cool man.
Well, hey, Tim, first of all, thank you so much for making the
time to jump on the podcast. Really appreciate it.
It's been cool to track some of your progress against it's.
I've been following you a littlebit, but yeah, just thank you so

(03:39):
much for hopping on. I don't know what time it is
there, but I think it's kind of early.
It's not too, it's 10 AM, which is which is fine.
But now look, thank you so much again.
I really appreciate the opportunity.
It's always nice to have a chat and I suppose have the roles
reversed because normally I'm the one doing the doing
interviewing. So it's yeah, it's nice.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to
jumping into it. So First off how you doing?

(04:02):
Yeah, I, I, it's funny on one ofmy other shows we have a point
that when we get asked that question, we try not to just
give the generic yeah, good. We actually try to I guess talk
a little bit more about what is going on.
It has been a a, an interesting week.
I was overseas last week. I actually went, I was in Europe
for work and managed to line up.So I got to get a challenge
Roth, which was, which was great, but I got back just over

(04:25):
a week ago and my jet lag has been worse than normal.
Normally I'm, I'm inconsistent. Sometimes the jet lag doesn't
hit me too bad, but this time it's, it's been a bit rough.
So I go through these waves of being tied and energetic.
And so, yeah, getting back into the swing of things.
Yeah, good deal, man. So where exactly are you?
I know you're in over the acrossthe pond, but I don't know

(04:47):
exactly where. I am coming to you from Sydney,
Australia at the moment, so yeah, Down under, yeah.
Are born and raised. Are you from that area?
Yeah, I grew up in an area whichis sort of inland of Sydney, a
place called the Blue Mountains.So again, people sometimes know
about it, don't know about it. It's this huge National Park
that is, yeah, probably 2 hours West of Sydney.

(05:10):
Very, very beautiful place. I spent, yeah, the 1st 20 years
of my life growing up there, living there.
But yeah, happy not to go back now. 20 years was enough, so
that was good. Yeah, yeah.
How old are you? I'm 39.
Unfortunately I'm looking down the barrel of 40, turn 40 and
literally I think six months from today.

(05:30):
So it's it's getting very real. What is the biggest change
mentally and the biggest change physically that you have
established and understood between the ages of 30 and now
going on 40? But mentally, I think it would
be the the need to prioritize mymental health is probably being
a big thing. I suppose when you're in your

(05:52):
20s and into your 30s, it's sortof like you just go like
1,000,000 miles an hour and everything sort of happens and
you're very reactive to it. And I know for myself, and this
has probably been more in the last couple of years, and I
think it's also a bit of a byproduct of getting older.
And unfortunately, as you get older, you also start to lose
family members and, you know, grief becomes a part of reality

(06:13):
as well. Yeah.
I think a lot of those experiences sort of have
certainly shaped me and made me realize that no, no, you
actually just can't react anymore.
You need to start being proactive.
So that is a journey that I havebeen on, on and off, I suppose
for the last six years, but really ramped up in the last 12
months. So that is probably the biggest
mental shift is the need to be much more proactive with my, my

(06:36):
mental health physically. Man, that's a, that's a tough
one because I made a lot of physical changes when I was in
my 20s. I lost a lot of weight and, you
know, got in a trap. But I think it's probably also
that accepting, yeah, that you can't really necessarily, you
know, when I was younger, I usedto hear people being like, oh,
once you hit your mid 30s, like,you know, things get harder.

(06:56):
And I was like, bullshit, it's not going to be a problem for
me. And then you get there and the
the desire is still there and, you know, you still want to do
things like you used to, but suddenly you're like, I'm really
tired. Like I did a really hard session
yesterday or, you know, I had a big day of work or, and you just
don't recover quite the way. So I think it's also that that
accepting that. Yeah, yeah.

(07:17):
You might not want to accept it be a getting older physically
you you do start to slow down a little bit unfortunately.
Yeah, for sure. So when you were growing up, did
you have siblings? Are you an only child?
I am the eldest. I have a a brother and a sister.
So it's me, then my brother's two years under than me, and
then my sister's two years younger than him.
So yeah, two siblings. Yeah.

(07:37):
So relatively close in age then.Yeah, very close, yeah.
Do you feel like, so I'm asking just going to compare and
contrasting a little bit with myupbringing.
So my younger sisters, two of them, one's four years younger
and the other is 12 years younger.
So the four years younger, you know, you're separated by enough
to where it's like there's pretty big steps to in terms of

(07:58):
where I'm going and where she's going and kind of seeing her
follow in this footsteps more orless.
So the, the level of advice, youknow, none is really taken until
we're like in our mid or late 20s.
But being so close, I'm wondering for you with the two
and two, were you guys pretty close?
Did you fight a lot or were you able to kind of be pretty?
It's it's funny. So I've, I growing up was always

(08:21):
very close with my brother. My brother was too young and and
my brother was one of those likejust annoying overachievers,
particularly from a sporting point of view.
Like, you know, I, so I was older.
I was probably the more, I guess, like academic of the
three of us, but Luke was alwaysmy younger brother.
Luke was always very good at sports.
So he actually ended up playing in a lot of the same sporting
teams as me. He'd play up rather than

(08:43):
obviously I can't play down in age.
So he'd play up and we we spent a lot of time playing sport
together. So I was very, very close to my
brother and probably not so close to my sister.
You know, not that I wasn't close to there, but you know, me
and my brother were very close and Emily was a bit different.
And, and as I've aged and as I've gotten older, if you had of
asked me 10 years ago, I would have said me and my brother are

(09:05):
the same. Emily's sort of like the black
sheep of the family. And yeah, as I've gotten older
and, and I've my relationship has changed with my siblings.
I think I've realized that actually I'm probably more
similar to my sister. And I think again, with age,
I've realized that I probably resisted that relationship in a
lot of ways because it was sort of holding a mirror to myself in

(09:26):
a, in a few ways, because I realized now I'm very similar to
my sister. And yeah, maybe there was parts
of myself that I didn't like that became a bit of AI guess.
Yeah, like she, she sort of holds the mirror up to me in a
lot of ways. And that can be quite
confronting. But I suppose becoming more
comfortable with accepting my flaws and things like that has
made it easier to accept. And like we, I mean, I'm very

(09:49):
close to both my brother and sister.
I, I wouldn't say that it's beena smooth journey the whole time
with, with either of them, but that's the great thing with
family is that you can go through the bumpy patches.
And you know, we, I sort of touched on it earlier, we lost
my granddad in 2018 and he was hugely important to all three of
us. He was, you know, to me, the
best man that ever lived. And that experience, I think

(10:15):
sort of I, I made this commitment to my family saying
like, you know, he would have wanted us always to get along.
And as a result of that, we needto make sure that we do sort of
thing. So yeah, that's something that
we've sort of done together. Sorry, I just said my camera's
been weird. Yeah, I just like zoomed in on
you if it that's a bit. Did it switch cameras on you?

(10:39):
I. Don't know what's happened, it
looks like it. I might just change cameras for.
That so last thing you were saying with your granddad, Yeah,
kind of repeat maybe that last 30 seconds or so if you don't
care. Yeah, just I think that when we
lost my granddad, you know, likeall families have arguments and

(11:01):
problems and things like that. But we, I suppose, had this,
probably not myself, some of my siblings, and we used to have
these fights. So we'd end up with just like,
not talking to each other for a while.
And I know that when he died, I sort of like, it probably hit me
the hardest because I was very close to him.
But I sort of made this big declarative statement with my
family basically saying like, that stuff has to stop now.

(11:21):
Like we can't, we can't ever letour disagreements, like, prevent
us from being close. So that brought us together in a
lot of ways, I think. So I'm very close to them all.
Like I said, it's not always smooth sailing.
But yeah, very close to my brother and sister.
But yeah, the realization being that I am a lot more similar to
my sister was quite a yeah, it was.
It was a very eye opening but I'm grateful for having gone

(11:45):
through it. Yeah, for sure.
Well, seven years, I mean, you've, you've had a good while
to to work through some of thosethings.
But obviously with any death in the family, I don't think you
ever get over something like that.
And they're still going to be always many years of reflection.
But thank you for sharing that. That's super deep.
I'm curious, as you, you know, got to know your granddad

(12:06):
growing up, what were some of the attributes that made him
such a stand out out, upright man for you that you wanted to
be, you know, a model for or after?
He has this ability with like what I love with my granddad was
and I again, I love, I love my parents.
I love all my but he was very much there was very clear lines
with him. You knew where you knew, you

(12:27):
know, with my dad or my mom, I could, you know, as kids, you
sort of work out. You can push the lines and you
can sort of get away with it. And sometimes they'd get angry,
sometimes they wouldn't. Whereas my granddad was just
constant. You knew you knew I could push
up to this point. I was fine The second I put a
slight toe that was too far and I and I appreciated the fact
that it was very clear with him,like he was a very, very like

(12:49):
family was the most important thing to him in the world.
Like all he ever wanted was everybody to get along and stuff
and the other, I suppose parties.
And this isn't this doesn't factor into why he was so
important to me and my family. But it certainly, I guess
explains why we had a maybe different relationship is and
maybe this, my childhood was very different to a lot of

(13:10):
people is because my family won the lottery.
So we went from being just like a regularly.
Yeah, actually, like my granddadwon millions and millions of
dollars in the lottery. And that's crazy.
Yeah, it's crazy. And so that experience meant
that he suddenly was in this position where he, you know, he
he was living far away, was working all the time.
He quit his job. He bought a place literally 5

(13:32):
minutes away from us. You know, my my mom stopped
working. My uncle moved up as well.
So something. But my whole family became very
close. So I think that it wasn't just,
I mean, look, he did a lot for me, my, my, my siblings.
He paid for me to go to university and stuff like that.
But it was, it was more just because he suddenly wasn't a
didn't have to work or anything or worry about that stuff.

(13:52):
His focus became his family and in particular me, my brother and
sister. So I was really fortunate that I
got this opportunity to have this incredible relationship
with him. And yeah, I just learned like,
you know, so many of the lessonsthat I learned and like, you
know, respect isn't given, is isearned.
And, you know, you need to be kind to like so many of those
central pillars of who I have become as a person, loyalty and
and, you know, persistence and perseverance and these things

(14:15):
are all, I guess, the values that he instilled for me.
And it wasn't like, it's sick. I come sit on my lap and I'll
tell you about this. It was just, you'd see how he
was and like he was just, like Isaid, consistent.
And that consistency. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, certainly sort of made himthis, you know, like he when he
when he died, which was which was pretty rough.

(14:37):
Like I had to, it's what actually led me to seeing a
therapist, which is, you know, another sort of blessing in
disguise from him. But I remember having this
conversation with my therapist, Brian, and we were talking about
why I was struggling so bad because I couldn't like, it was
the first time I'd experienced areal death, you know, somebody
very close to me and he had this, you know, he basically
said to him in life, this is applicable for all people.

(14:58):
We have many different people that perform different roles for
us. You might have A and
coincidentally with this model he was using, everything was AC,
but he said you might have a coach, you might have a
comedian, you might have a cheerleader.
You know these people that perform set roles for you and he
goes, you were very fortunate. Your granddad was many of those
roles. He was my confidant.
He was like, he was the person that I could anytime anything

(15:19):
happened, good, bad, whatever, he I could talk to him.
Like when I decided I was going to propose to my wife, my now
wife. He's the first person I spoke to
when I was worried about it. Like when I, you know, whenever
something bad would happen, I could get in the car with him.
And, you know, again, I was what?
Let's say I was 20 at this point.
I'd get in the car with him and he'd go, what's wrong?
You go nothing. He's like, Tim, what's wrong?

(15:40):
Yeah. Fuck.
Yeah. OK.
Yeah, it is. He's like, don't lie.
I know. So I think it was just that he
was this. Yeah, very.
Yeah. Just the best.
He was the best. Like truly, he was just one of
my, yeah, just my favorite person in, in the whole world.
And yeah, that was. In No, Yeah, that's beautiful
and also super intriguing. So I have had family members.

(16:04):
I won't get too much into it, just I don't want to hurt
anybody's feelings. But I have had some family
members who not necessarily threw the lottery that way, but
they came into a large sum of money and it like all but almost
destroyed them. So I'm very intrigued by the
fact that who your grandfather must have been before something
like that happened for it to enrich your lives in the way

(16:25):
that it did. Because a lot of times it can be
overwhelming. And it sounds like he obviously
was a hard working man because he was gone a lot and he was
working. I don't know exactly what he was
doing, but he seems, he sounds like some kind of a blue collar
hard working man who had a lot of principle and work ethic
beforehand. Is that the case?
Yeah, you know, you see those things where you like on a movie
where they say, you know, the person gets the ring of power or

(16:45):
whatever it is, and it's sort ofit exaggerates their or it
exaggerates their existing, their existing characteristics.
So if they're a good person, they'll become better.
And if they've got evil, they'llbecome worse.
And I think that's that's very much it.
My granddad, you know, he, he had, he had his challenges
through his life and I, I believe that, yeah, I mean, his
work ethic was, was second to none.

(17:07):
And I just think it's, it's, he was just an incredibly generous,
incredibly generous man. And not just, you know, not even
just within my family. One of the things like, OK, it's
not like he, he wasn't worth billions of dollars or anything,
right? But he, you know, things, he, he
set up a scholarship at a university because my mom had
had an aneurysm. So he set up a scholarship for
people to study to become neurosurgeons because that

(17:29):
happened to my family. I can do something about it.
And that that literally, I thinkthat scholarship lasted for 20
years or something. So he was just like things like
that just because he was such a yeah, very self, very selfless
man, right? And I think that's the thing,
right? Like, so he yes, it was my
granddad who won the lottery, but he didn't see it that way.
He saw it as as is the family wanted.

(17:50):
Like it was it was it wasn't just for his betterment was for
our betterment. And that's what he very much
did. You know, he, he paid off his,
his brother and sisters mortgages.
He paid off his children's mortgages.
He like, he set everybody up. And even with me, my brother and
sister, like it's not like he just gave us a lump of cash, But
he certainly, you know, my brother's a pilot.
He paid for my brother to go through all of his flying school
and everything. My brother's now an

(18:10):
international pilot for Qantas. My sister works, you know, she's
a very successful marketing consultant.
He paid for her to go all the way through university.
Myself, you know, he paid for meto do my first degree.
He paid for me to go through lawschool.
Like he he he did these things that meant that well, after he
was gone, we would be set up to be successful.
I think it, you know, very different to just like, oh,
here's some money sort of work it out.

(18:31):
Like he never it was never aboutthat, right.
And that's why I suppose I neverreally see it as this like just
suddenly money was a thing. Like look at things certainly
changed for us, but that wasn't the reason why I think he meant
so much. Like it was more that suddenly
he was there so much. And I, and I, I look, I'm under

(18:54):
Noah. Like it's not a normal
relationship people probably getto have with their grandparents
just because, you know, time anddistance and these sort of
things. But he he very much like, you
know, this incredibly life changing thing happened to him
and his first thought was to come and be with his family.
And, and it was. Yeah.
I mean, it's a, it's a pretty surreal thing, you know, even to
sort of say it's, it's my normalnow.

(19:15):
Sort of happened like, you know,20 odd years ago.
But yeah, yeah, when you think about the way that life changed
and and you know what, it's sortof enabled us all to go and do
it. It is, you know, one of the good
stories, I think. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. It sounds like it was a stepping
stone that he was able to use totake you guys to a field of
experience. Like because I think of my
wife's family, her grandfather, he actually died tragically back

(19:38):
in 2022 in a tractor accident. But this guy was very similar,
it sounds like, to your grandfather and that he as a
doctor, surgeon, had a family farm, taught people how to work
on the farm, was very central inthe community.
He was like very much a patriarchal head of this family.
And then when he died, even, youknow, he had three sons and a
daughter, everyone was just like, for quite a while lost

(19:58):
because it was like he was and we didn't realize it, but you
know, and I've only been a part of that family for like 10 years
now. But he was such like a glue to
help people together, which goesa lot to be to say just how
important. And not to undermine the, the,
the role of motherhood, but the role of like a true father,
fatherhood, father figure is, I would say, like the backbone of

(20:20):
society and helping people to just live and learn values that
can sustain A thriving culture in society.
It's funny and I certainly don'tknow make this whole
conversation about grief, but I so my my grandparents, my both
my mom's. It was my mom's dad and he's
what they, they weren't married when, you know, they got
divorced many years before I wasborn, but they were still very

(20:40):
close. They, you know, they weren't
people who were capable of having animosity.
It was, you know, family first the whole time.
But my nan actually died at the end of last year.
And it's sort of, I mean, you know, that was a, that was a
another sort of catalyst for a whole different thing.
But even for me, I have found the journey of grief between the
two of them, both of them were like, both of them were so

(21:00):
close. I was so close to both of my
grandparents, unlike my granddad, and my grandma never
won the lottery. But, you know, she lived in a
granny flat. She used to pick me up from
school. She, my mom and dad went, you
know, they were working while I was a kid.
So like, I'm in this extremely fortunate position where both my
grandfather and grandmother werejust huge parts of my life.
And yeah, so my grandma died in late November last year.
And so I'm still sort of going through the grief process.

(21:24):
But I suppose what I'm saying isI have, I have been surprised at
the difference that there's there's a, there's a
universality to grief. I think it's, I actually think
there's something really beautiful about grief, to be
honest. It there's for SO.
Many of us to live. It's yeah, it's also a human.
It's something that every singleperson who is listening to this
is going to or has experience like connects us all.

(21:47):
And there's also this idea that.And I, I still think this is the
single greatest thing for me forreframing my understanding of it
was, you know, grief is the debt.
You know, it's the cost of love.We we grieve because we love
somebody. And when they die, the grief is
you have to pay the debt. Like every action has an equal
and opposite reaction and understanding that has suddenly

(22:09):
made what is a very rough, difficult emotion beautiful in a
way. Like I, I, I've, I've shifted my
focus from going, this sucks to be in like none of they're worth
it. Yeah, but what I've really the,
the grief of both of them has felt very different in in very
different ways. The things that I miss about my
granddad aren't the reasons why I miss my my nan.

(22:29):
And there I, yeah, it's, it's, it's just, I am, I am funny that
I find it funny the way that these two people that were, you
know, two of the most important people in my life, the loss of
them has, has, has changed me fundamentally, but both in very,
very different ways. And the ways that I miss them,
the ways that I continue to interact with them in, in many

(22:51):
ways is different. Like one of the things that,
again, my therapist has had me do with my grandma is like talk
to her. So I still will sometimes have a
conversation with her. And, but I wouldn't do that with
my granddad. Whereas, and again, maybe I'm
getting a bit spiritual or Zen or whatever, but I, I dream
often about my granddad. I've had many dreams.
And it's, it's funny how often when there's something that I'm

(23:13):
going through in life, maybe a tough period or summit work that
I'm not quite sure about or a decision that I'm not quite sure
about where in the past he wouldhave been the person that I
would talk to. He'll visit me, my dreams.
And it's not like it's this lifeset.
I have these very vivid, vivid flashes in my dreams of him just
being like, are you OK, mate? Just like he would if, if I was,
you know, able to talk to him. Really.

(23:34):
So it's it's he's just been veryfunny to see the different ways
that I have experienced that loss and then continue to sort
of go through the journey with them, you know, even after
they've passed on. So yeah.
Yeah, it's it's also, I'm tryingnot to use the word fascinating
because I say that word all the time, but it is interesting,

(23:54):
fascinating. I need to, I need to explain my
vocabulary, but to, to not expand it right now.
There's nothing quite like the ability that grief has or death
to take the just outward focus and turn it inward.
Because I think oftentimes, you know, especially as younger kids
like you, you are just taking stuff in at such lightning speed

(24:18):
and it's everywhere you go. And you're kind of comparing
yourself with this person. And that person has a cool new
toy. And then you get a little bit
older and it's like, oh, well, that guy has muscles and I
don't, or the girls, you know, they're going through their own
thing. But then for me, like I
experienced it first time when Iwas 16 and it was interesting
how everything came to a screeching halt in terms of like
my outlord just desires and interest.
And it just like turned everything a complete 180 where

(24:39):
I had to like really look insideand figure out and ask this
question like, OK, what? So who am I?
Like, where do I stand in this? And what does that really look
like? So with all of that you've
experienced and being, you know,at the wise age of almost now
40, who is Tim? I, I would love to have it's
it's funny because I do think I think I'm very aware of who I

(25:03):
I've always been. Now that's a lie.
For a long time, I wasn't very happy with who I didn't, I
didn't like myself a lot and it took a long time and a lot of I
guess UN UN what's not. I know I wasn't aware, but I was
oblivious to the fact that, yeah, subconscious I was doing
this work to sort of get to the point where I, I got to a place

(25:25):
where I like to myself and I'm, I'm very aware of who I am as a
person. I may not always be able to very
well verbalize it, but I'm very like, I look at myself in the
mirror and I'm very, very happy with who looks back at me
Because, you know, one of the things that I've sort of like,
I, I know what my values are. I, I'm very, very aware of what

(25:46):
are those sort of central pillars who, you know, you know,
loyalty is very important to me.You know, kindness is very
important to me. Empathy is very important to me.
And I like, I do try every day just to be a good man.
But like, truly, in so much of what I do, I can go to bed at
night knowing that I don't try to do harm to people.

(26:09):
Like I, I don't, you know, I always try to make things better
than I found them. And I don't always fight, Like I
don't always succeed. I think a lot of the times I,
you know, I mess up and I make mistakes.
But I'm yeah, I think that if I had to say who is Tim?
I think it is just a guy who's trying his best to to be a good
person. I think he's is ultimately what
it is. And yeah, I think that's what it

(26:30):
is. Like, I'm not trying to be world
famous or I'm not trying to, youknow, whatever.
But I, I just want to like, you know, if if I was, you know, and
again, I know I'm going to die someday, I would love it if
after I died, people just say hewas a good man.
That would be, that would be amazing for me.
And yeah, that's really, again, probably a probably, I guess a
hang up for my granddad because if I had to sum him up, I'd say

(26:51):
he's a great man. And that's definitely how I'd
like to be remembered. Yeah.
I want to ask you a question I don't think I've ever asked
anyone before, but it I was kindof rolling a scenario around in
my head as you were explaining that, you know, talking about
the end of life epitaph, what would people think of you?
So you have a very specific set of values, which I do want to
eventually dive into. And you've explained some of

(27:13):
those and your adaptation of them.
Like you have had experiences where people have exemplified or
you know, people, things that have exemplified those different
values and you have them. Whenever we die, I it's very
rare, I think that you would go to a funeral and people would
stand up and say, actually, thisguy was a terrible guy.
He sucked. He sucks actually.
So I'll see you guys later, you know, throw the flowers.

(27:35):
So if you were to die, let's just pretend that both of us, we
die tomorrow and we're able to kind of talk on the other side.
If someone was to come up and and give like a, an actual
testimony of who Tim was and he was a good person because of X,
what person or what kind of person?
Maybe, but I'd be curious if youhad a person who you would say
no, they, they could be a good judge of my life or I would be,

(27:56):
even if they didn't know you andthey could look at all your acts
and whatnot. Like who would you feel
comfortable and saying like, yeah, that I'm I'm comfortable
with their assessment. To be honest, there's there's a
lot of people I would feel comfortable with and I'm I'm a
bit of an open book, I suppose. Maybe it's a maybe it's a
problem, but I'm quite happy to like open up and and talk about

(28:17):
things. But there's, I mean, the first
person that came to mind for me is, is he's a, he's probably the
most influential person in my life to this date to be like,
and not he, he changed my life. And this is his name's Robert
Wooley. He's a, a British endurance
athlete fiend. And this guy is, you know, like
ultra run. It does 160 mile running races,

(28:38):
does Iron Man's does it all. He's actually the guy that got
me in a triathlon in the 1st place many, many, many years
ago. But I would say it would be him
because he has seen, he has seenme.
I, I suppose from before I, you know, when I was just the, the
overweight, you know, partying guy who was, you know, just very

(29:01):
focused on work and all that stuff.
And he's seen me go all the way from that through to where I am
these days where, you know, health is much more important to
me. I'm a little more active.
I've calmed down a lot. He, he has, he has been through
that entire journey with me. Yeah, I, I would say it would
probably be him. I mean, my wife is probably the
other one. She's known me and I've been
with my wife for, for 20 years at this point when I was 19,

(29:23):
because she's also thank you. So she, I mean, she's also
literally been with me through, through so many changes and, and
things like that. So yeah, probably, probably Rob,
I think would be, yeah, he'd be that person.
And then, yeah, my wife as well.Yeah, I, I want to ask you
because you've been, how long have you been?
You said you've been with her for 20 years, right?
Yeah. Yeah. 20, yeah, Is that right?

(29:44):
2019? Yeah, something like that. 2000
and yeah. That's amazing.
Yeah. So, so many people.
I feel like because especially in the US, the divorce rate is
just so high and people just kind of didn't work out, you
know, I'll go find somebody elseand like they really kind of
look inward and figure out what's going on to make it
through. So I've been married for eight

(30:05):
years and even in eight years, like I've we've come through
this cycle a few times when we had plenty of opportunities to
like, I'm actually going to takethe off ramp here and we're
going to try this somewhere else.
The joy that I have found in having the confidence after you
go around that loop a few times when you pass the exit rampant
and you decide to stay in it is like such a beautiful thing.

(30:26):
What would you, how would you explain that to people or
encourage people who are like, Idon't think this person is right
for me. You know, they made the
commitment and maybe they were in love with them at one point,
but then they're like, I just don't, I can't do it anymore.
And whatever the reason is what?How would you explain that joy
to them? I firstly, I obviously
understand my situation, your situation is going to be

(30:48):
different for anybody's and and things like that.
But yeah, there is a there is a,the thing I love so much about
my wife. And like I have, I mean, there's
many things I love about my life.
I think she, she's my favorite human being on the in on the
planet. But there's something that I
find such joy in that like I am just 100% the purest version of

(31:10):
myself with her. I have, I have no secrets.
I have no, like literally nothing.
Like, you know, they say, oh, would you let your partner open
your phone? I couldn't.
Like, there's there's, there's literally there's nothing.
I can't. It's like, sometimes it's like
maybe it's a bit weird, but there's what I find about that
that is so joyful is just the ability to completely drop your

(31:34):
defenses with someone. And look, it's not it's not all
smooth saying like I think I think any successful
relationship requires work. And, and they, and it's, it's
funny, something that we've recently sort of, I guess,
overcame a challenge or a plateau or something that would,
you know, we, when we would argue, there would be this, I

(31:56):
mean, argument is very adversarial, right?
And like, I'm, I'm a lawyer. I love, I love an argument.
Like I'm not going to pretend I don't, but we had this ability
to, and I don't even know how itactually happened.
I probably read it or listened to it in a podcast or something.
But we started to reframe problems as, instead of it, me
against you, it's US versus the problem.
And that simple reframe you talkabout the, the joy of overcoming

(32:19):
those things. It just means that suddenly
whenever it does something come up, we are united because we
both understand that this is thething we need to fix.
And it it has just meant that, yeah, instead of it being.
And look, sometimes there's still anger and sometimes she'll
call me a useless lazy prick or whatever it like.
But we also then know, though, that our combined goal is to fix

(32:40):
whatever that is not I'm not trying to change her anymore.
She's not trying to change me. We're trying to fix whatever
that thing is. And that's, I mean, that's sort
of I think is just a, a symptom or byproduct of the fact that we
are so like we are a team. Like like truly there's,
there's, there's no other way for me to put it like we are
fully A-Team. And yeah, that's, that's just so

(33:03):
like it's, it's like, you know, they say, and I say this to her
all the time, but it's so true. Peter Pan can fly because of his
happy thought. I'm like, that's my wife, like
our relationship together. That's my happy thought that it
just is such a source of joy forme.
That's beautiful man. Thank you for sharing that.
Are you a spiritual person? Are you religious?

(33:24):
I was raised like, not that my parents were necessarily
religious, My nan was very religious and I'm raised
baptized Catholic. I, I would not say that like I'm
not a practicing Catholic anymore.
I always say that at, at school,I, I did a lifetime worth of
mass because we used to go to church like 3 * a week.
So I'm like, I'm, I'm good. But I, I, I have a complicated

(33:44):
relationship with spirituality in the sense that sometimes I
lean on it, sometimes I don't. I don't, I don't know.
I suppose, I guess it's, it's very complicated for me.
I I'm, I am not a person who would.
I guess I can't define myself. Like I'm certainly not atheist.
I'm certainly not. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't know.
I suppose. Yeah, I'm not sure.

(34:06):
Yeah. What do you think would need to
happen, or do you have any inclination of what would happen
that would bring you to a place of surety?
I don't think, I don't think something could, to be honest.
I think that that is sort of, I,I mean, I say that like I'm very
happy to have my mind changed about things and have my, you
know, I'm always happy to put upmy hand and say, Yep, I was

(34:28):
wrong about that. I suppose also though, that
that's kind of the nature of faith a little bit right?
Where surety kind of defeats thepurpose because faith requires a
belief in something you're not sure about.
Yeah, I don't. I don't know, to be honest.
I've. I've not really.
I've not really thought about that.
Yeah, it's interesting. I was just thinking too, as

(34:48):
you're explaining that I think it would be a fascinating thing
for me to take each transcript from every podcast I've done,
copy and paste them and throw each and one individual one in
to chat to BT and say based on this conversation, what like
religion do you think this person would be or could be?
Because if I'm judging based on just our past 35 minutes, you

(35:09):
know, just your values alone, honesty, just being a good
person, I think are rooted in a lot of these Christian ideas or
Islamic ideas or really a lot ofreligions like the oldest ones.
So it's just interesting to to hear you say that because
cultural Christianity in the US right now is like a very popular
thing. It's interesting.
We're kind of taking this swing away from just the extreme of

(35:31):
anything goes and yeah, yeah, yeah.
And to like, oh, we need rigid, you know, rules and, and rights
and, and everybody needs to get back in touch with God.
And, you know, I think it's a little bit too much of A swing.
It's like the pendulum never slows down in the middle.
It just kind of swings more extreme in the opposite
direction. But all that to say, I just,
yeah, it's more of just a thought.
I don't know if I have an exact point.

(35:53):
It's, it's funny though, becauseI think as well, like I, I think
that there is, I talked about the universality, universality
of grief before. And I also think that if you
look at faith and different religions and stuff, at the
core, there are I actually like,for example, and I'm not trying
to like get a plug in for my show, but I did an interview
with a young South African triathl called Jamie Riddle a

(36:14):
few few weeks ago, a few months ago.
And for Jamie, faith is hugely important.
And he kept apologizing to me whenever he talked about this,
his faith. And after we finished the chat,
we were sort of talking about he's like, oh, I hope it wasn't
too much. And I said, look, mate, if it's,
it's if it's important for you, who cares?
But what I said to him is I said, if you look at so many
things that you spoke about, I think if you strip away the

(36:35):
actual label of being, this is about faith and you just talk
about the changes that it has sort of brought into your life,
that's not a religious thing. Like if you look at any sort of
positive psychology or, or thosesort of, you know, tricks to
sort of make yourself a happier person, it's all the same.
And it's the same with religion.Like I spent a lot of time in
Thailand both for work and for, you know, I love to go and

(36:56):
train. I think actually Phuket's one of
the best places to train for triathlon in the world.
But you know, the reason those people are so friendly is
because of the, the Buddhist faith and the idea of karma,
right? Like this.
And and it's like if you actually really unwind what
karma is, be good to people and good things will happen to you
and you're. Like golden rule.
There is just this and I mean that's something that I think
that yeah, that if I had to sortof pick the bits of certain

(37:19):
religious that I like, it would sort of probably be that from
each thing is just be a nice person to people, do good things
to people and good things will come back in return.
And, and yeah, I do find it quite interesting that if you
actually stripped, if you talk about the ChatGPT thing as well,
I think if you actually took a lot of religions and, and sort
of blind tested it without necessarily naming the deity or

(37:39):
naming the the tradition the prophet or, or, or whatever it
is, people would probably struggle to pick out which is
which. Like at their base fundamental
level, yeah, I think they're allvery much the same thing.
Be nice to people, don't be a Dick.
Try to do the try to do the right thing and everything will
sort of take care of itself. So.
Yeah, I think at the end of the day, like love is really the

(38:00):
only thing that wins like it andcan truly just snuff out all of
the all of the the junk. Like at the end of the day, it
is that's what all those things are just like how to love your
neighbor, how to just be a decent person.
Because at the end of the day, like we're all just kids, grown
up and adult bodies. And we're looking for somebody
to tell us like it's going to beOK.
And then to offer that support to another.

(38:21):
It's like a blessing, and it's in itself.
It's one of the best pieces of advice or best things.
It was my brother who said it tome.
He just said it as a throwaway comment one day.
And you want to talk about those, like, epiphanies you have
that can sort of change the way you see the world.
And he said to me, I just look at everybody and assume they're
trying their best. And the second I started to

(38:44):
frame it that way, it was like, yeah.
And, you know, I've, I've reallybeen trying the last few months
to be very empathetic to people instead of, you know, and
somebody cuts me off in traffic might, you know, instead of just
being like life, it's like, no, maybe they're running late for
something or maybe something's happened.
Maybe they've had an emergency life.
But I think that even if you just take it to that same thing
where anytime anybody does something, you just go with,
they're trying their best. They're trying their best to be

(39:06):
a good person. Like, look, obviously sometimes
it's quite hard to to square that in your brain.
But if you start from a place ofoptimism or yeah, assuming the
best in people, it also just makes your life so much happier.
Like, you know, I'm sure it's the same for you.
Like I, I do spend a lot of timeonline doing what I do, you
know, having podcasts, you know,things like that.

(39:27):
And I always just see this, this, this, these people that
just always seem to focus on thenegatives.
And I just go like, you'll, you'll, you just let it go, man.
Like, it's exhausting. It's it, it really is
exhausting. Yeah, 100%.
And I've had to go through, you know, I went through like a bit

(39:48):
of a rough patch a few months ago where there was a few, I
came across a few threads about me on, on, on a, on a forum.
And it was, oh boy, it was pretty.
But I found it quite upsetting, to be honest.
And it really did because I've always been quite happy at like,
you know, I understand if you doshows or whatever, or you got a
bit of a following or whatever, people will have opinions about
you. But this time it really rattled

(40:09):
me a lot. Like, like really rattled me
and. I couldn't work out necessarily
why, considering, like I said, Ionly ever try to just be a good
guy. And yes, sometimes I will give
my opinions about things, but I never want to be cruel and I
never want to, you know? Yeah.
So I suddenly saw these things and people talking about me
being a parasite and all this sort of stuff, and it really

(40:31):
shook me a little bit, to be honest.
I was like. And then it was also that idea
of like, hey, well, these peopledon't actually know who you are.
If the people that actually do know who I am don't think that
way about me, that should be enough.
But I guess it also just shows that sometimes you think you've
got things worked out and a little little thing can find a
chink in the armor and you've got to start working on it a
little bit again. So.
Yeah, it's hard. It's easy to offer to offer up

(40:53):
for people an opinion or a strong just statement when you
can hide behind a keyboard. But at the same time, like, I
think the reason it hurts so much is because really it's an
accusation on who you are or whoI am as a person.
Because I, I don't read any reviews anymore.
And by the way, 99% of them so far are all positive.
But I saw one -1 and it just like really got to me.

(41:16):
Similarly. And I think for me, as I kind of
chewed on, it was because they were accusing me of being
something that I just totally rejected as, as an identifier of
who I am as a person in my character.
And like, we feel like we have to stand up.
Like hold on, that's actually who I am.
Because, yeah, in a perfect world, we all get our sense of
self worth, I think, from knowing that who we are as a

(41:42):
person can be affirmed and like the good ways to others.
And that's not a great way to phrase that.
But like, I really do believe that in a perfect world,
especially in a Christian context, if we get our identity
from, you know, the Father or whatever, and then we move
forward, we all should be lifting each other up and we
should never have to lift ourselves up.
So when somebody tears you down and just like is the exact

(42:05):
opposite, minus more of what you're supposed to get, I feel
like, yeah. Well, for me, it was also
probably interesting because I was just about to launch the
Endurers podcast, which, you know, we've done the first
season of and I know you've listened to a few and it, you
know, there's a, we, we get pretty, we get pretty real on
that show. So I knew at the point that

(42:26):
those comments were coming up, like I think we recorded a few
and like there was a few ready to go.
And it really suddenly made me have this panic going.
Like, holy shit, there's people out there that think I'm the
devil and I'm about to go on this show, like talking about
how I've, you know, hit rock bottom in the last six months
and chlorine my way back up. And I thought maybe this isn't
the best time to do this. Like, I really did sort of
'cause this like, oh, man, if there's a, you know, yeah, quite

(42:49):
like, is this the right thing todo at the moment?
But I mean to sort of follow up and sorry if I I do tend to
ramble a lot. But the other thing is exactly.
Why I wanted you on here so I don't have to talk and you can
talk. And I mean, I've said this a lot
with with Will who I do my show with, but overwhelmingly when
you do open up and you do revealyour struggles, you don't get a

(43:09):
lot of negativity back. I think that you do tend to get
a lot of positivity back. And I'll link it back to my
brother earlier because even in the last year, we had a slight
falling out over. He wanted to help us by play
anyway. But even until so that my nan
got sick and everything we wouldwe sort of mended bridges a lot,

(43:30):
but it still felt a bit off. And it wasn't until maybe and I
I didn't tell him this, but I'm guessing it was probably my mom
or my grandma who told him abouthow hard I was doing and how
much work I was having to do to try to get better.
That there was suddenly this very drastic change in how he
started to interact with me. And it didn't feel like he was

(43:52):
judging me or being critical of me anymore.
Suddenly it felt like he saw me differently.
It was like fuck Tim's actually sorry I do swear a bit.
But he was like, Tim's not got it together and Tim is actually,
you know, struggling and he's trying to just get by and stuff.
And it was, it was funny becausehe was training for a marathon

(44:12):
and he was going for a runner and I was kind of, so I'll come
for the run with you. So we ended up running like 20
kilometers together. And it was one of the greatest
experiences of my life because we just for 20 KS just spoke
about so many things that we probably hadn't spoken about.
And when he realized that when Isort of did explain to him a
little bit about how I had been struggling, he really.

(44:35):
Yeah. It's it's completely changed our
relationship now. And it feels like we've probably
gone back ten years in time to where we were as close as we
were. Yeah.
It's I just find it very funny that a lot of people get very
reluctant to, to really, I guess, talk about the times
they're not doing so well. And when you actually do it can
lead to so much positivity. That's that's definitely been my

(44:55):
experience. Yeah, for sure.
No, I I completely agree. And I feel like that anybody who
is 1/2 decent person, whenever they see someone sharing from a
place of vulnerability, it breeds empathy and
vulnerability. And that's a two way St.
And then they feel like that they can open up.
And like, honestly, I think that's when the most potentially

(45:15):
divisive but important conversations can come out and
have the most fruit bared from that conversation.
Because at that point, if you'reboth on the same level and you
see the struggle and you have not just the perspective from,
you know, a few 5 minute conversations.
And then internally, you know, if I talk to you just for a few
times 5 minutes and we kind of exchange some frustrations, I'll
build an entire narrative of whyyou're feeling, how you're

(45:37):
feeling, you know, why you did that, and then how I'm going to
react and what I'm going to say next time.
And you know, you just muddle around rather than having like
these more longer form conversations like you're
talking about. Like you can, you can say a lot
even in the silence. You can say a lot over the
course of 20K with somebody. Yeah, exactly.
And I think you're right. It's just it's once you, I think

(45:58):
it's people we're very naturallydisposed to putting up defenses.
We we tend to build walls aroundourselves because we have this,
we need to present a certain version of it.
And this again links back to what I was talking about with my
wife, where I don't need to haveany of those things.
And I think that, yeah, once youactually start to, to stop that,
again, this is, this is something that I, I say like

(46:19):
it's not like I'm the best at this.
And it's something that I still struggle with, but I do always
now try to stop that. Like even when I deal with, you
know, what I do for work and stuff, like I feel like I'm
trying not to play a character because some, I mean, sometimes
with, with, with my job, you sort of have to play a bit of a
character. It's it's a requirement, you
know, even even on a, you know, on a podcast, right?

(46:40):
Like I do AI do another triathlon podcast and I honestly
feel like I'm playing a character when I do that show
half the time because you've gotto, you know, you've got to give
opinions about what's happening.Otherwise sometimes I say stuff,
sometimes I'll disagree with my Co host, not because I actually
disagree with him, because it'd be pretty boring if we were just
like, yeah, we agree. And so it is quite nice, I think
or yeah, I think when you actually stop doing that and

(47:01):
actually really start to allow others to see the true version
of who you are. And that probably also is a is a
reason why I came across that forum with those comments,
because they're basing it off a,their perception of me, like you
said, or they've made assumptions about me based on
these very small snippets that they've actually, you know, they
don't have the whole picture or,or it's taken out of context or
whatever. But yeah, I think once you
actually allow people to see andyou, you lower those defenses

(47:23):
yourself, it's it's when, yeah, the good stuff happens.
Yeah. What are the different irons
that you have in the fire? Tell me all of them.
For work, I like there's there'smany.
I I work for a a interesting company is, is the way that I
would say it. So I work for a company called
Mana, which was started by ChrisMcCormack won the Hawaiian.

(47:45):
I man a couple of times and yeah, no two days at my job are
the same, but I lead, I lead theathlete management division for
Mana. So, you know, we represent a
number of professional athletes.I also then we have a number of
clients that we work for. So I manage the sponsorship.
So I sort of work both sides of the coin there.

(48:06):
I'm our solicitor, so I'm a, I'ma practicing solicitor as well.
So I do all of our legal stuff. And oh man, there's so many
other things like that. They're probably the main ones.
I yeah, they're probably the main ones.
Host a few podcasts, but that's probably more of a bit of a
hobby rather than a I'm not, yeah, I can't see myself getting

(48:26):
rich from podcasting. But I've also, I mean, weirdly,
I've recently started writing a book as well, to be honest.
Not that I didn't have enough already on my plate, but I, I
was sitting on a train going from Vienna to Nuremberg and I
started writing a book and I am surprised at how easy it is
actually. So yeah, lots of different bits
and pieces. I also do, you know, I, I'm a

(48:48):
triathlete myself. Yeah, there there are many, many
little different things, so. What?
What is the book going to be about?
Is this like a an allegory? Is it a story of your life?
Is it a? No, it's I'm not, I'm probably
not quite ready to share what the book is like, because I
actually think it's I think it'squite a good idea.
And I'm going to I'm going to wait to see how it yeah, maybe

(49:11):
keep watch this space. It's it's certainly not any,
it's not anything any it's nothing that anybody would
expect, I think. And maybe if you know me really
well, you wouldn't be surprised,but it's.
Comic book. It's Power Rangers.
No, but you're sort of getting it's, it was, you're not, you're
not terribly far off. But no, it's, it's a, it's a,
it's a fantasy thing. It's, it's a yeah, that's all
I'll say. OK.

(49:32):
Cool. I look forward to look forward
to diving into a little bit Yeahit's interesting on you said,
you know on a train. Some of my most inspired moments
have been while travelling either on a train or a a plane.
But there's something about a train that adds just an extra
level of, I don't know, I got totravel across China during one
phase of my life when I was doing business over there on the

(49:53):
bullet trains. It's just sitting gone, you
know, 200 miles an hour looking out the window going through
this countryside. There's just something really
neat about that that's like, I don't know, gets the juices
falling mentally. Right, I am all about the train
travel now. I travel a lot for work and if I
once I get to Europe now, if I can take a train over a flight,
I will do it every day of the week.

(50:13):
I, I think train travel is the best.
It's yeah, I I could talk to youfor hours about why I think
trains are better than planes, but no, I, I do, I just find it
so much better. I actually struggle to.
I find when I get on a plane andI spend a lot of time on planes,
I'm very unproductive. Like it's almost like my body,
you know, I'll take my Nintendo or something and I'll have these
grand plans of playing a game onthe and I just can't physically

(50:35):
I just like so, but on a train the opposite the train, I think,
yeah, I'm so productive and it's, you know, you got space,
you got a little desk and you'vegot it's more comfortable.
But yeah, it's definitely more comfortable, more space by a by
a long shot. So in one of your podcasts, I
want to shift a little bit and ask some question about
specifically indoors. In one of your podcasts, you

(50:57):
were mentioning that you were onthe search for resilience.
So I'm curious how that search is going for you.
I would say that it, it has similar to most things, not been
a not been a straight journey. It's, it's been a bumpy ride.
I mean, I can give a bit of, I guess a bit of background about
why or what I, I didn't. Resilience is a word that I'd

(51:22):
heard a lot, but didn't really pay much attention to you.
You think you understand what resilience is, but it's not
something that I ever really focused on.
And I, like I said at the end, so last year I was already, I
had a few things at work that were happening.
I, I was working with a few clients that I, I, I wasn't
enjoying the experience very much, which wasn't great.

(51:43):
I was sort of feeling trapped because I was in a situation
where like on paper you'd have, and you're like, this is
everything you should want. But it was, it was actually
becoming quite a not strictly, it was just negative.
It was, it was mad. I think some people are just
incompatible. And yeah, I was basing the
situation where I was sort of trying to, I was very aware that
this wasn't working. But you, you know, like I said,

(52:05):
you, I was like, no, I need to make this work.
Like this is this is what you you know, so that was happening.
And then I, I'd been training for a marathon last year.
I wanted to go into three hours.I nailed it.
When 254, I was absolutely over the moon.
It was like I hadn't been this high on a race for years.
And then literally 24 hours later found out my name was
Stein and that I'd never experienced such a drop from

(52:28):
such a high to such a low so quickly like I I was.
Just nosedive explosion. I was standing next to her
holding her hand while the doctor said there's nothing,
There's nothing we can do. You've got weeks and going
through that journey. And then the stuff with the

(52:49):
client sort of escalated and lots of things, lots of
different things basically became this sort of how I
explained it at the time was thedeath of my grandmother because
the sickness and then the actualdeath, it felt like an exposed
nerve. And anything that I in the past
would have been able to deal with or push through, suddenly I

(53:09):
just didn't have the capacity toto handle.
And things that would be a mild annoyance would became
devastating. And I started to have panic
attacks. I'd never, I'd never, I'd never
had a panic attack before in my life.
I had my first panic attack. I was actually in Phuket for
work and thought I was dying, which was horrific.
And this was, it was just, it was all this stuff.

(53:29):
So yeah, got, got through it gotto the end of last year.
I actually, my therapist had said to me, Tim, you're burnt
out. You actually need to be really
gentle with yourself because youhave no resilience at the
moment. You're, you're literally like a
exposed wire. Anything is just going to be
devastating. And again, I talk about mana
being this crazy. It's, it's also I'm surrounded
by incredible people. And I don't even know if my boss

(53:53):
Trent realizes this, but we had a conversation at the start of
this year and I he sort of knew that I've been through a rough
patch. And he said, he said, mate,
like, you know, resilience, you basically need to become a bit
more resilient. And him saying that to me made
me go, yeah, he, he's right. Actually.
I need to, I need to work out how to do this and committed to

(54:13):
my therapist to see him more regularly.
And I said to him, I want to be more proactive.
I'm sick of being a passenger. I want to take charge.
I just want to be. And I'm not saying that I want
to be bulletproof or anything, but I want to be happy.
I just am so sick of being everything anxious or sad or
down or nervous or anger. I used to feel all these other
emotions except for just being happy.

(54:36):
And so he basically gave me thisthing.
So I, I keep a journal now I, I,I, I try to be as great.
I, I try to practice gratitude, which is, you know, just every
time I'm doing something, try tolook at the positives.
Every day. I put down three things in my
journal that I think went well. As I said, sort of empathy.
And while I was going through this journey, I really like I

(54:57):
said earlier with the once I getmy teeth into something, I go, I
go all in. And I was listening to podcasts
and I was reading books and stuff.
And every time I'd hear these stories, I kept thinking like
this just set like this is like when I've been in a race and
things get hard. Or when I've spoken to the ex
athlete and they've talked about, you know, like, you know,
when they're trying to win Kohner and suddenly they get a

(55:19):
stitch. And like, I just, I was like,
luckily because of what I do, I can actually, you know, I'm
pretty lucky to have relationships with a lot of
these people. And what started out as me just
sort of having conversations with some people that I know.
Again, a guest on your show Freeseveral Belinda Granger.
You know, Belinda, I'm exceptionally close with where I
sort of enabled myself to open up a little bit about some of

(55:41):
the struggles I was having with Belinda and everything she was
saying. She kept blinking back to sport.
And I think I just realized thatthere is this natural sort of, I
think endurance athletes in particular are extremely
resilient that you have to be todo a sport that requires you to
suffer for, you know, extended periods of time.
And that was sort of the, the, the, the realization of my

(56:04):
unique position that yes, my, myjourney to try to become
resilient. By resilient, I mean, just not
let things get to me so much andshift my focus from a negativity
bias to a basis of optimism. Yeah, there was just this
natural sort of, I was like, I've learned these lessons
already. I just didn't realize
necessarily that they were applicable because it was always
about, yeah, like, OK, I've done8 intervals.

(56:26):
You know, I'm doing a set of 10/1 hundreds in the pool on
trying to hit 115 pace or something.
And it's getting hard pushed through and I'm like, well,
that's resilience. That's the ability to even when
things are going badly or hard or I've got the lactic acid or
whatever it is to keep going. So yeah, at some point, my
journey to just be a a happier person, live a happier life.

(56:48):
Yeah. I just realized it was sort of,
I was already on that journey. I've been on that journey for
many, many years. But I also had this incredible
resource of people, friends, clients, acquaintances, people
that I could talk to and and have these conversations with.
So that's sort of, yeah, sorry, that was probably a very long
winded rambling way of explaining it.
No, it was good. I, I like the comparison to
swimming especially. And you know, it's amazing how

(57:11):
well it, it translates across endurance sport to just the
everyday getting through life from a mental perspective, which
affects the physical. But it's, I think that has it
has a lot to do with the amount of belief that we have or, or,
or hope maybe is a better word like to hope and believe to know
that I can make it through the next 100 or I can make it

(57:33):
through this, you know, next week of work or whatever it is
like resilience is, I feel like rooted in that belief in hope,
because our bodies are able to do, our minds are able to do way
more than we kind of, you know, put our glass ceiling there.
But to to have that belief, likesimilar to use your example of

(57:53):
or the analogy of doing efforts,you have to go out there and
build the muscles to be able to know how to do that.
But also to just, you know, on paper, if you know your FTP
well, you know, you should be able to hold 85% for however
many hours. But going out and doing that,
you know, some 30 minute efforts, going to a 45 minute
effort to a one hour effort. Like once you have that a few

(58:14):
times you realize like, oh, I can do that.
And then it raises that bar again.
So yeah, no, I think that was a beautiful way to say it.
Yeah, no, the muscle analogy is,is perfect.
And that's, that's very much, I suppose how I, I've tried to
implement a lot of these things in my life.
It's not like I, I do find this idea like, oh, I'm just, I'm

(58:35):
going to be happy now. Click my fingers and it it's you
know, to be honest, even this week I was talking with my wife
saying I'm actually annoyed how like I'm struggling, you know,
that those sort of default triggers of like looking for the
positives and, you know, being epithet like, you know, this
morning I was sitting behind somebody in traffic and they the
light went green. They didn't.
And I was like, man, what are you doing?
And Desi's like being empathetic.

(58:56):
I went, Yep, you make a good point.
Like I had to catch myself. So it's but it is a muscle,
right? And I think that even in my
journal the other day, I think one of these, what's brilliant
about my journal is it's not just like I just don't write
stuff. It's got prompts every day, like
little things that I meant to answer.
And one of them was, how have you been imperfect today?
And why is that OK? And I wrote that I am, I'm

(59:18):
struggling a little bit to be who I want to be or live the way
that I want to live. But the fact that I'm aware of
it and the fact that I'm still trying despite not being
perfect, I think is there's something good about that,
right? Because I'm, you know, you've
heard that. I don't know who says it, but
like, good is the enemy of all perfect is the is the enemy of
good. You know, so many people will

(59:41):
try to be perfect. They won't be and they'll give
it a lap. And, and I've also had to change
my focus a little bit because it's like, yeah, sometimes I am
going to slip. But what matters is that I'd
keep going Despite that, that it's not like I truly think it
is the most like unlinear journey I've ever been on.
Because, you know, if you had have asked me in March, I'd gone

(01:00:04):
from feeling absolutely awful tofeeling like a new.
It was like, it was like I'd come out, the sun had come out
from clouds for the first time in years.
And I was like, this is how good?
How good is this? I've got it sorted.
Here we go. We're good to go.
And it wasn't until a couple of months later, and I can't even
remember what something, something happened that sort of
I had a dream about my name and without realizing I'd slipped.

(01:00:27):
And because I'd been going, I'd been feeling so good.
To be honest, I'd probably slipped just back to how I used
to feel like. Not it's not like I was suddenly
in this deep pit of depression. And I don't think I was
depressed, but my baseline had moved and therefore going back
to what was my previous normal felt so bad by comparison.
And I was in it going, I hate this.
I hate feeling like this. Why can't I give back any Like

(01:00:51):
I'm doing the same things every I've not nothing has changed,
but why? Why has this happened?
And then it was like speaking with my therapist.
He go and he said like sometimesit just happens like it's the
human we're complicated people. You can do everything right and
still somebody will punch you inthe face like you don't have
control over everything. Stop trying to control.
Understand that you're a passenger on this journey.
And yes, you can make sure that when you sit at your table to do

(01:01:13):
your work, you've got your drinkand you've got your little bag
of chips and everything's shouldbe right.
But if that train gets stuck forfour hours, you can't help it.
So yeah, again, I don't know I'mrambling, but.
No, no, practically so in, in one of your other podcasts here,
I'm not sure which episode it was, but you were talking about,
I think law school and how getting through it was like
Tetris. And it required a lot of
forethought and planning. And like that goes along

(01:01:34):
perfectly with what you're saying right now with using
control as a clutch for comfort or to false sense of security or
whatever you want to call it. But you're talking about
something very practical here, which I would love to hear just
for the listeners at home as well, because I think a lot of
us can struggle with like that. Oh, how do I relinquish control
whenever I want to control this so bad?

(01:01:56):
Journaling sounds like one of the things that you do to kind
of bring that in your wife reminding you to have empathy, a
form of control. You can't control a car in front
of you. Like what are some things that
people can take away or maybe practically do to help learn how
to be at peace with not having control?
I, I think the journaling is an absolute game changer, to be

(01:02:21):
honest. And it was something that I'm
sure there's people listening right now that probably felt the
same way that I used to when I'dhear about general, I was like,
what a what? Is that?
Yeah. Yeah, what a what a waste of
time. Who The Who do you think you
are? Nobody.
And I, so I did it and I was quite reluctant to do it.
It was like, OK, I've been told to do this and it is probably

(01:02:45):
the single best thing that I've done for myself.
I'm, I'm not, I'm not at a placeyet where I'm ready to go back
and read some of my previous andI'm not, I'm not ready to do
that. I don't think that would be a
good experiment for now. But I do look back and again,
it's, it's funny because I spokeabout my Nan and I know that
after my nan died, I think it was a couple of days after she
died, I had to go to her house and start, I define, I think we

(01:03:09):
needed a document. I think we needed her.
I can't remember what it was I needed, but I went there and it
was so eerie being in her place without her.
I found that actually had a fullon meltdown when I was there.
But I came across a letter that she'd written to herself and and
it was and I and I knew that my Nana, my Nana had her struggles

(01:03:31):
as well. But I found this letter and
she'd written this letter to herself.
And it was a letter of all the things that she was grateful
for. And it's funny that as I went
and again, at the time, I was like, oh, I didn't realize how.
And I found this journey. She'd written, she'd written
hundreds of journals, you know, and it wasn't until I sort of
started to do it and I was very quickly able to link my

(01:03:53):
experience to what had happened.And again, like I said, my
grandparents were so poor to me.And you know, I never would have
known my nan. I knew that she had her
struggles, but I never witnessedor experienced it.
But seeing that I was now journaling and seeing how it
made me feel and understand thatshe had done it for so long and
the way she presented herself tome, I thought, oh, maybe there's

(01:04:13):
maybe there's a link. And that also then probably gave
me the the assurance or like a proof of concept, I suppose.
Oh, well, they worked for her. So yeah, it can probably work
for me. The other thing as well, I think
is it's that idea that, and again, I, I can say it and it's
not just going to be like, OK, OK, done.
I'll, I'll make that change. It's stopped trying to control

(01:04:34):
things as well, right? Like, you know, it starts this,
this, this self fulfilling prophecy a little bit, I think,
where you, you want the control over a situation you ultimately
don't have control over. It's impossible.
You can do you can do everythingyou want and something will
happen. And then because you don't have
the control that causes more strength, stress, more anxiety,

(01:04:55):
more negative emotions. And then this cycle just gets
worse and worse and worse. So suddenly what goes from being
like a little bump in the road becomes a Canyon or a or a
mountain to overcome. And I know that it links and
again, trust me, talk to a therapist if you want a better
idea than this. But with difficult emotions in
particular, because a big one for me has always been anxiety.

(01:05:16):
I'm I'm naturally quite an anxious person and how it was
explained to me. And it's the same with control.
You're anxious, you start to feel anxious, you don't want to
feel anxious. So you get tense and you try to
fight the anxiety, which then makes you feel guilty and then
makes you feel angry. And then that makes you feel
sad. And suddenly you go from feeling
this one difficult emotion to feeling 10.
And the, the way that I was explaining it to, to deal with

(01:05:38):
that was if you've ever, I don'tknow if you have the sushi train
restaurant where you sit down, they've got the little thing.
There Sushi. Yeah, yeah.
And they say that it's funny howwhen you go to a sushi train
restaurant, you sit there when you first sit down, you'll see
the food go past and they'll be,oh, there's the I like this
sushi. I like the Anari.
I like this. I like this.
Oh, that's squid eggs or something you don't like the

(01:06:00):
look of. And you'll have this initial
disgusted reaction to it, but bythe second time it comes past,
you don't even notice it anymore.
And I was told that that's what you've got to do with those
negative emotions. So when you do feel, and it's
the same with control, when you when you start to feel that
you're slipping or you're not having that thing that you want,
diffuse it. OK, It's there.
It's not that big a deal to me. There's so many other things

(01:06:20):
around that I do like the look of or whatever.
Focus on those like we do naturally anyway.
And again, that analogy really just sort of helped me.
But yeah, I think journaling is 100% the answer.
Yeah, no, 100% from then even a neurological perspective, I know
just from reading and and some other people who have heard talk
about this, but the neuro pathways that we have in our
brain for positivity or negativity, the more that

(01:06:44):
they're fired, the stronger theybecome.
And then to deviate away from that becomes increasingly
difficult. It's not impossible to change
the way that you think, but it is very difficult.
And I just think of it like if you're on a beach, water in a
pond needs to go out to the the ocean or whatever, you know, you
can draw this line in the sand. 1 can be a negativity, 1's

(01:07:05):
positive. And wherever that water starts
flowing first, like it strengthens and widens very
quickly. So like there's, there's
positives in that because if youget in the right channel, you're
really good. But if you get in the negative
channel, it takes, it takes sometime and energy to dam up that,
that wrong path and then get it over to the other one.
So I like the sushi train idea too.
I had not heard that before, butyeah, it's really that's

(01:07:26):
fascinating. Yeah, yeah, the journal is like
I said, it's game changer for me.
So I, I, I believe, I mean, it'svery easy to sit here and say it
now, but I can't see a time where I'll stop doing that.
I actually just ordered three more copies of it's a six month
journal that I use and I literally just ordered three
more copies of it. I'm like future plan.
I'm like, Yep, this thing's I'm committed to this now, so.
Yeah, that's so cool, man. Well, Tim, thank you so much for

(01:07:48):
taking the time and allowing me to dive into your life.
I feel like we only scratched the surface and I could
definitely talk to you for many more hours.
So we'll definitely have to haveyou back on again.
It would be fun to top touch on some other topics.
We didn't even get into law school and I had a whole thing.
I'd like to ask questions about that.
But I really do appreciate your time, the way that you think,
taking the time to answer all the questions just from a very

(01:08:11):
heartfelt place. And all the best to you with
Endures as well. Make sure to link that in the
show notes so people can go check out your podcast and the
stuff that you're doing there. And yeah, thank you.
Seth, thank you so much. And I think you need to
reconsider the name of your podcast because I don't think
you asked a single stupid question.
So. Thanks man.
I appreciate it. Thanks Sir.

(01:08:31):
Thank you so much to Tim for coming on the pod and sharing
from a heartfelt place. It's always neat to hear how
people experience different waysof growing up.
And it was not on my list to have guessed that he would have
had family win the lottery and be impacted so positively.
I can't say that I've heard a lot of stories where that kind
of an instance has turned out good for a family, if I'm being
completely honest, but doesn't mean it can't happen.

(01:08:53):
And I'm so glad I did in his case.
So make sure to check out the show, not links for the
different podcasts that Tim is apart of, follow him on Instagram
and all that stuff. And if you made to support in
the podcast, just want to say thank you so much.
If you're listening on YouTube, like comment, subscribe, review,
turn on the notification bell. That really helps to continue to
grow the show. If you're on Spotify or Apple
podcast, you know the drill, reviews, comments, follows.

(01:09:15):
That'll help as well. Thank you guys so much for being
here and we'll catch you in the next one piece.

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#165 - Tim Ford, Host of The Endurers, Sponsorship & Athlete Manager at Mana Group

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#165 - Tim Ford, Host of The Endurers, Sponsorship & Athlete Manager at Mana Group