#189 - Collin Chartier - Fear, Faith & Second Chances - Stupid Questions with Seth Hill

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome back to the Stupid Questions podcast.
So today on the podcast, we're going to be talking with Colin
Chartier. He is a former professional
triathlete. I don't even know if I need to
give him much of an introduction.
I knew that there was a possibility that this episode
could be a bit controversial. But before I say anything else,
and before you think anything else, I would just like to ask

(00:21):
that as you go into this podcast, keep an open mind.
Colin is not defensive in any sort of a way.
If anything, I would say that his, the spirit of which our
conversation, of which our conversation extended, was one
of just true authenticity and honesty.
Yeah. Got to get to know him like I

(00:42):
do. Most of the guests from
background to moving into modernday and the things and lessons
that he's learning. We actually have a ton in
common, more than I even anticipated when reaching out to
him just not that long ago. So thanks so much for calling
for being here. Make sure to check out the show
notes for some of the books and things that we recommended or
excuse me, he recommended and quoted stuff from.

(01:02):
And yeah, if you're interested in any of the stuff that he has
going on, check out his Instagram.
Thank you so much for being here.
Check out the show notes for anything that has to do with the
podcast. And without further ado, I want
to introduce you to Colin Chartier testing on the echo
side. You sound good.
You sound good. That sound good?
Yeah, perfect. OK, cool all.
Right, here we go. Hey, Colin, thanks so much for

(01:25):
dealing with the technical difficulties.
First of all, how you doing? Yeah, no good.
I'm doing good. Thanks for thanks for having me
on. Yeah, for sure, man.
Where are you at right now? Right.
I'm in San Diego on a little road trip.
Nice. You've been doing a lot of
travelling. Yeah, I miss travelling

(01:45):
actually. But are we?
Are we on or are we just chatting?
We're on, we're chatting and we're on.
So anything you can say will be used against you in a court of
law. Yeah.
OK, awesome. Yeah, You know, I as an athlete,
I traveled a lot. I was a nomad for sure.
I didn't have that. I had like a home base that was

(02:06):
that usually like three to four months a year in Colorado, but
other than that, traveling nomadically, Girona, Ecuador,
Colombia, Asia, just every everyfew months I was in a new place.
Yeah, by choice. I said it was by choice, but

(02:28):
then it was a lot of like, financial pressures, like I
couldn't afford to live in one place and like actually rent the
place and then still travel to everywhere I need to go.
Yeah. So I felt all that financial
pressure the whole time. And then after eight years of
doing that, like that's just theonly way I knew how to live and

(02:52):
very nomadic. And then after I got suspended
for doping, like I was ultra nomadic every day or two in a
new place on a bike packing trip.
And I was talking to therapist on better, betterhelp.com.
I started to like figure out, you know, just trying anything
and everything. And she was like, you grew up

(03:14):
military family, but that was Navy.
We moved every two or three years.
And then I went to, you know, trathlon.
I was moving every two, 3-4 months.
Now I'm moving every day. She's like, you can't run any
faster away from whatever you'rerunning from.
I was like, oh, that, that hit home.
Yeah, I'm going to make a very quick note because I want to

(03:36):
come back to that. What are you running from?
But I wanna go back like get some of the prior contacts just
totally not scripted. Where are you from?
Is he even that question? I don't even know.
I was born in California. Okay.
Yeah, it's been 2 years there. And then I was in Spain for
three years. They moved to Washington state,

(03:57):
moved to Nevada, moved to Virginia, was in Virginia for a
total of 12 years. Was the longest.
I like grew up in school, but every 2-3 years I was like, are
we going to move? I don't know.
So it was only 2-3 years at a time.
We were like, we're going to be here.
What was responsible for the moves?
Was it parent related job or what was the situation?

(04:20):
Yeah, my, my dad was in the Navy, so they, you know, get
stationed every two to three years.
We just happen to get stationed in Virginia DC area three times
in a row. Yeah, wow.
What if you were to go back and have the ability to kind of
change that, being less of like a travelling person to more of
like a stable maybe one or two moves over the course of 12

(04:43):
years. Would you change that now?
It's kind of a hard question to ask because you know, you can't
change anything. I am right now who I am because
of all of what I've went through.
So no, I don't know. I mean, I, I've learned a lot.
I've grown through traveling andmoving and having that skill set

(05:06):
right to pick up and move and and get involved in communities
and meet people is actually an amazing thing to have is getting
to know people from all over theworld and all over the US.
You know, that's why I love traveling now.
It's 'cause I get to go see those friends again.
Yeah. So let me ask you this question
then. I don't know if you want kids or

(05:27):
not, but if you did want kids and you wanted to start a
family, would you, do you think that you would create an
environment where there was lesstravel or more travel or
balance? What do you think?
I mean, if I were to have kids, I'd probably say travel, yes.
And getting exposed to differentcultures and different ways of

(05:48):
thinking was of life like that, you know, as, as, you know, in
the sport or as American, like we are grown up in a certain way
and in our schools. And then when you go out to the
world into the real big world, you're like, oh, there's, you
know, billions of people out there and they all think very
differently and, and grown up very differently.

(06:09):
And oftentimes we're like, thinkthe way we grew up was the best
way, right? So even when we talk about kids,
it's like, oh, because I did it,it's probably the best thing for
kids. Well, no, maybe not.
Yeah, yeah. It's a fascinating conversation
because yeah, everybody is, you know, similar to the kind of the
AI conversation, only AI doesn'thave a soul, I don't think.

(06:30):
But with everything in our lives, it's whatever we do in
the future is somehow influencedby things we've done in the past
or an experience we've had or the nature of the nurture.
There's other stuff that I thinkthey're there are finer details
that we can't necessarily place on on a nurture type of AI,
don't know scale. But for you like, yeah, I guess

(06:54):
my question is who is Colin? Like what?
What are you finding out about yourself that has enabled you to
kind of cement in the ways of thinking?
Because if at some point, like there's so many things that you
could try to understand, but it's like very difficult because
the world is so large, the more you know, the wider your horizon
becomes and the more overwhelming it can become.
So where are you at? Yeah, I mean, I I wasn't even on

(07:18):
that journey of kind of understanding or wanting to
understand who I was until like,you know, lost every everything
I had, right, my reputation, my identity.
The the big part is the identity.
And when that is gone, when the everything I thought from the
being a kid being wanting to be like, you know, looking up to

(07:38):
Michael Phelps and and Lance Armstrong and like being like, I
just want to be a professional, you know, athlete from an age of
eight. And then I'm, you know, 29 and
it's gone. That leaves a huge hole of like,
OK, well, who am I? Because that was it, You know,
whether that's nature, nurture or just created based on

(08:01):
dreaming or, you know, manifesting, just having that
goal in your mind for so long, that's who you become.
And that can be said for anything, right?
Like if I wanted to be an artistor something like that, I could
also put that energy and dreaming and taking the steps
to, to do that. Oh, and I've, you know, when I

(08:23):
came from where I was to just completely falling out of my
group as as a triathlete, like Ididn't at that point, I didn't,
I pushed away everyone else to be just the best I can be in the
sport. And so I'm the analogy that you
said, even as a Pro is like, I'ma horse with blinders.
Like there's one objective as tobe, you know, world champion, to

(08:46):
win the biggest race in the world, to be #1 ranked in the
world. And like anything that got in
the way of me, even that dream, like it was gone, that didn't
want that alternate, you know, way of living to challenge that
world view. Like because that was the ego of
like, that's it. And anything the ego gets

(09:07):
defensive over anything that would challenge that dream.
And so it just push it away. Yeah.
So and when that. Yeah, yeah.
Go ahead. No.
No, no. Continue, please.
When that happened, like then I was like, OK, so why did I make
these decisions to get me here? Because this is not who I wanted

(09:29):
to be. You know, I never wanted to be
like a suspended doper taking drugs, cheating.
That was, I grew up actually in the church and I was even a
youth pastor. This is not my values.
This is not who I want to be. And so that that bike packing
trip, which is about 5 1/2 months, was just kind of
discovering, you know, why did Iget here?

(09:52):
How did that happen? A lot of that came down to
conditioning growing up, childhood, having this self
worth that I needed to I felt like I needed to prove all the
time and maybe even tying in like parents love with my own
self worth or like their praise was their love and even even

(10:17):
younger right like this. And I just discovered I was like
ADHD. I just got tested a couple weeks
ago and they're like, Oh yeah, ADHD and the, and the origins
and roots of ADHD is actually like infancy and lack of
attunement eye contact in those first year or two, right?
Because then you feel safe and heard you, you feel safe to

(10:40):
share your emotions. And, and instead I had to like,
try to earn that even at that age.
And I discovered I was like asking my parents, like, what
was going on? You know, when I was one and two
and growing up as like, oh, we were my younger brothers being
born and then we moved to Spain.And then my mom got really sick
and my dad was working all the time.
And then it's like, oh, it makessense.

(11:02):
I guess if you start, if you keep probing back to the
origins, you end up discovering like, why you are the person you
are right now today. And I think you can only move
forward or change or be intentional with who you want to
to be right now, today, when youunderstand the past, do.

(11:22):
You feel like you understand your past now, like how you to a
place where you feel like you'vekind of got it sorted.
I mean, I would hope so. I mean, there's still always
more, more to to learn. But then the temptation also is
to just be stuck looking at the past instead of living in the
present moment. So there's kind of that balance
because I, I know some people who are, you know, in the, in

(11:44):
the healing world and they're constantly going to, you know,
ayahuasca and all this other mushrooms and, and kind of this
healing spaces without realizinglike you're healed enough to
move forward to that next chapter in life.
You speak probably because it becomes comfortable, because
they become comfortable and thatlevel of uncomfortability, I

(12:06):
guess it's familiar. We're very habitual.
We like to build a home. We like to go back to our home
in the evenings, we like to go to sleep.
We like to have the same familiar warm tea or whatever it
is, those things that keep us kind of cemented in the habit.
So let me ask you this. Do you think that habits are
bad? Do you think that the comfort of
those routines are are good or is it good to shake them up?
It's so how often? Like what are your thoughts on

(12:27):
that? I think it's weird that routine
is coming from. I'm not really a routine person.
As soon as you something becomesroutine, it becomes like
automatic. And so if you want to live
present and like in the now and the moment, you can't be on
autopilot running like, oh, I just do this because this is my

(12:49):
routine instead of being very intentional.
Like today, actually, I don't feel like going to the gym at
5:00 AM because I woke up, you know, tired or I'm not going to
do that cold plunge today instead of just the sauna.
Like being flexible and adaptable.
And oftentimes when you get a routine long enough and you

(13:11):
don't do that, you don't do the journaling in the morning, you
don't do reading, you don't do meditation, you don't do
whatever that morning routine is, then you feel guilty not
doing it the rest of the day. And that is more destructive
than just, you know, not doing it and then feeling fine about
it. Yeah, it becomes a burden more
than a blessing. Yeah.

(13:31):
So you mentioned earlier like they were a youth pastor at one
point. I'd be curious to know, like in
your upbringing, you know, you're moving around a lot.
You guess. I guess you found some community
in that sense of like church, religion.
And what in some sense, how did that first like enter to become
a piece of who you are, where you felt like, oh, this is
something I want to do. And then how does that overlap

(13:54):
with the experience of being a triathlete, as you told me, like
you moved into this professionalspace of, well, my ego said
world championship is it? I want to win that thing.
So everything else has to kind of pale in comparison.
When did those start to switch? And then, sorry to ask so many
questions. Kind of I went after.
But then, like up to modern day,are you still religious?

(14:15):
Like, are you going back to that?
You have a lot of these world perspectives now.
How has that changed your faith?And yeah.
That's, that's good. That's I went to, I was in
Virginia. So after high school I was like,
I want to make say it's my own. So I went to another church with
another buddy and just started volunteering while I was at

(14:37):
college because I went to Merrimack University, which is
also in Virginia. That was their first.
Like I went there because they had the first varsity triathlon
program in the US. So I actually had funding and
there's also happened to be really close to family.
So I ended up going to church there, and then by the 4th of my

(14:57):
senior year, that senior pastor,the youth pastor had left.
So they're like, oh, we need someone to fill in.
And I was like the longest standing person.
I've been there five years. So I started, you know, to be
the youth pastor, and that was fun, but it was also just a lot
of like emails and coordination and yeah, so good to have a

(15:18):
role. I left that and went immediate
into professional strathlon. And when I went down to
Colorado, my uncle's out here. So I just came out trained.
I started to look for churches, would go for, you know, one or
two times and then would be gonefor months and come back and be
like, what's the point? So like I had a really strong

(15:40):
community that was stronger thanmaybe the faith part, being
comfortable having friends, likehaving a support group.
And then when I left and it was hard to like start a new one
because I was traveling all the time for triathlon, that the
faith kind of went away. And then the more I was stuck in
like, this is my strength, I'm going to just do triathlon, the

(16:05):
less I was reliant on like God'splan for my life because I was
being like, I don't want to hearanything else.
I don't want to hear another way.
I don't want to be open to triathlons, not my future.
So that kind of pushed faith away.
And so now you have had a bit oftime away from it.

(16:25):
You went on the bike packing trip.
You've just from scrolling through your Instagram, doing
minimal research, it seems like you have been opened up to just
different ways of thinking, meditation, breath work.
How has that influenced, if at all, like your relationship with
quote UN quote God? Like do you still believe in God
in the same way? Do you still relate to God in
the same way? Like who is God to you big?

(16:48):
Question. It's good got to me, I guess the
way I see it with the bike packing and the doping and all
that is like God never left. I left God, he was always there
waiting and when I opened back up to God, like he was already

(17:10):
there and grace, grace and mercy.
I never, I always read these things in the Bible or like
heard about it, but I never knewwhat it felt like until like a
Monday. The news came out of my doping
suspension and I was in Colorado.
I had been going on and off to this like Bible study group in

(17:31):
Boulder. And that Monday, the guy you
know, Patrick calls me. It's like you're coming tomorrow
to dinner. And it's just like, wow.
Like I I've lied, I've cheated. Like I don't deserve to be
there. Like I don't deserve it at all.
And you know, I went that Tuesday and it's actually it was

(17:55):
very hard to even go and just standing there in tears at the
door and just being welcomed to a hug.
And like that's what it felt like was, you know, you don't
deserve this. You don't deserve, you know, I
don't feel like I deserve that. But that is God's grace was
like, no, you, you are loved as you are, even in your
brokenness. And I think that's how God works

(18:20):
is through his people, through all people.
And that gift was something thatI'll always remember and now
I'll be able to give to other people.
And so that was the experience that, yeah, the experience I've
had that brought me back. There's a lot there, man, a lot

(18:44):
of questions I could ask, I think.
But at first I want to make an observation because I don't
think that many people understand, or rather, I don't
think many people have experienced what you're talking
about. Like truly.
One, because maybe they haven't done something in a public light
that has brought them to a placewhere they could potentially be
condemned. But another is I don't think

(19:07):
that enough people are in touch with like you were saying, the
fact that God or an all powerfulcreator person that let's just
say that a being that loves you is kind of always right here
standing back here. Like most people have not looked
over their shoulder to see that.I guess observation first.
That's really beautiful. I'm glad that you had that.

(19:28):
But do you think that there is any other way for people to
experience that level of grace without first seeing or just
being aware that like I did something that's unworthy of
this? I think that, yeah, it comes to
awareness, right? Like if you think there's

(19:50):
nothing, you know, you've never done anything wrong, you're
perfectly loved all the time, then that's great.
That's wonderful place to be. Like that's where I think God
wants you to be. To those who have this, maybe
not to the extreme level of where they think they've done
it, but like something terrible,there's still this like low

(20:11):
hanging, I'm never good enough. I see amongst many, many people
and a lot of athletes, it's likeI'm not good enough.
And even with that is not good enough.
Not my times aren't fast enough.You're always comparing yourself
to others. There's grace and mercy there.
It's like you don't have to earnit, but when you realize it as

(20:35):
you are showing up today, you'reenough and you're loved.
That is, I don't know, it's hardwhen when I was an athlete, I
was like, no, that doesn't make any sense.
I was like, I don't want to feelthat because I feel like I don't
deserve it. But nobody showed me that to the
point where like I felt it, so I'm not sure.

(20:57):
No, I don't I'm not sure either.That's why I was kind of
hopefully you had some wisdom that I don't, but it's like for
the the deserve aspect, you know, I think we in American
culture, because we're so individualistic and so just like
driven by works that really kindof slaps in the face.
Like what is the gospel message of I am undeserving of this

(21:18):
eternal gift? You know, it's a very simple
sentence, but the, the, the, thepower or the, the complexity of
what actually is going on, even though it's so beauty, it's so
beautifully simple that it seemscomplex to like our minds
because it's like, wait, I have to work for this.
I need to do this in triathlon. It's or any sport.
It's well I need to put myself through these painful moments so

(21:41):
that I am rewarded with the gainof endurance, stamina, whatever
it is. Status or.
Yeah, but for, but for like things like this that transcend
the physical, it's like very hard to explain that to people
and to to really give them that experience without them
experiencing on their own. Like it's very profound.
What's your background with withFaith?

(22:03):
Yeah, so I grew up in 1/7 day Adventist, Christian home, so
Christian, but we keep the Sabbath.
We have a few beliefs that are quite different to the contrary
than most, like state of the dead.
We don't believe that when you die, you go straight to heaven
or hell. It's it's like you're asleep
until the 2nd coming of Christ. So that's a big one.
Sabbath. So actually observing a day, the

(22:23):
longest standing celebration since God created everything, he
worked six days, rested on the 7th.
Those are some of the big things.
But yeah, Christian Christianity.
But it was interesting though, man, because you asked like, you
know, my parents were kind of first generation, I would say,
like true Christians. My dad was converted from being
like a teenager, from being likea drug dealer, kind of a crazy

(22:44):
life. And my mom grew up in kind of a
Southern Baptist home, but not really practicing.
But growing up, I had the opportunity to see them in a
very wide range of behaviors that some of them, I would say
those are Christians. Some of them were not like
finding drugs in my dad's car and being like, what is this?
And him actually breaking down and crying when I was like, I
was probably like 9 or 10, like,what is this?

(23:05):
And I was just asking, what is this?
But he seeing him breakdown and being so ashamed.
I, I didn't have any like judgement toward him.
So it was like those little experiences where I was like,
Oh, wow, this is fascinating. Like they're on a very real
journey. And because like my dad passed
away when I was 16 by his own hand, radically shifted the way
that I viewed everything. And after many years of trying

(23:26):
to find healing, like I was ableto come back around to it.
But it was just so cool to see them across the spectrum to
realize that well, in the best moments of their lives, I think
that's when they were exhibitingthose Christ like behaviors.
But why did they have that? What was going on really,
because it wasn't works based because we didn't none of our
family, I think would have made it to heaven if that was the

(23:48):
case or would make it. But yeah, sorry it's a long
winded answer, but that's. Kind of, yeah, No, thanks for
sharing. Yeah, let's see what I was going
to mention there. I'm.
Sorry I. Have a question?
I have a thought, Yeah, I've thought that Nick Goldston is
when you that podcast you recorded you had him on, I

(24:10):
thought there was a a great conversation around empathy.
I think he was getting at it's called the empathy paradox.
Then it's this reluctance to empathize with anyone because if
we did put ourselves in their shoes and feel what they're
feeling like, it would challengeour own worldview and our own

(24:33):
ego. And so every time there's like
that block where we, we struggleto emphasize with someone,
that's the, the paradox is like,it's not that we struggle, it's
that if we were to really do that, we'd feel our own
insecurity being challenged fromour worldview and our ego,
right? Like, if I empathize with, you

(24:53):
know, if somebody's on this and like empathizing with me, they'd
be like, oh, I don't support doping.
Well, then what? I don't support doping either.
But like they, they would struggle to empathize with me
because then it would challenge that worldview.
Yeah, yeah, empathy is such a huge thing.
I've learned so much about it just from being married,
honestly, because like you're saying, I I had a very specific

(25:14):
way of how I thought relationship should be.
And as a man of the house, this is how it should be.
And then I realized pretty quick, like, well, this is only
going to continue to hurt the one that I love and hurt me.
And so how do I find empathy? And yeah, it's so true.
I don't think that it can happenwithout like a softening of the
heart because as even going fromlike to the bigger worldview
perspective of what you're talking about, you know, I'm

(25:35):
familiar with like the genocide that happened in Rwanda, the
Hutu versus the Tutsi in the in order in order to be able to
commit such an act, which we areall very close to actually
committing, all it takes is likea shutting down of that empathy
channel. Because if you can dehumanize
someone by just, well, they're wrong, you know, and then, well,
they're stupid. They're well, I hate them.
You know, it's like we get this animistic mentality to that

(25:59):
we're able to do such horrible things.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I, I did want to ask you a question specifically around the
doping thing, because you, you've mentioned that a few
times when that happened, You know, as I was kind of preparing
for this podcast, I I viewed it,I tried to view it through the
lens of like Mary, I think it's Mary Magdalene.

(26:20):
Do you know that story like where she's thrown down on the
ground in front of all of these like high-ranking priests and
officials and they're ready to stone her because she committed
all of these things And you know, and Jesus comes and starts
writing their sins in the dirt and then one by one they fall
off. I've seen now a few of these
kind of doping quote, UN quote scandals pop up and everyone's

(26:41):
really quick to throw rocks, butno one has and at least not they
haven't risen to the surface. The questions of, well, what was
going on internally that made you feel like that that was the
only option? Because I think that sometimes
people are just like, I want to win and that's it.
And whatever. Maybe they make that decision.
But from reading your your statement, from hearing some of
your podcasts and your posts, like you've even mentioned it,

(27:03):
like there was something deeper going on.
So my first question, were thereany people that showed
themselves kind of like when youwent to dinner, you're coming to
dinner with how many people showed to be true friends and
we're actually reaching out to figure out what the deeper thing
going on internally in your heart was?
And I was surprised, right? Like I thought, you know, was

(27:24):
gone, family, friends, everyone but people reached out and
showed up and shared things thatthey had done that nobody knows.
And like I said, you know, one of my friends is he was in
federal prison for two years for, you know, an addict and
dealing and other people like who shared their stories that I

(27:47):
was like, wow, like I didn't know that either.
Thank you for sharing and just being like, yeah, we're broken
people and you're still loved and we care about you.
And there was as Even so many people that reached out messages
was like, you're going to get through this.
You know, we're here for you. And so thank you to all those
people that reached out and my other friends are like, just

(28:09):
don't read the negative comments.
Read the positive ones, you know, the ones that people care
about. And I like, I could easily get
stuck into this mental spiral ifI just read all the things that
people didn't like about me or anything that was negative.
Yeah, I did. And wherever attention goes,
energy flows. Like if I that could have easily

(28:30):
destroyed me. What is What is your attention
on these days? Tension right now is is is
unlike how can I be of use to the world?
How can I be of service? Like what can how can I use the
gifts and talents and story I have to help anyone else who is

(28:53):
struggling where I was with likea low self worth, but like it's
having to achieve and no matter what I achieved, it was never
enough. Like I would, you know, win the
PTO or win a big race. And like immediately it was,
there was no celebration. I was like, the next the cone is
next. Like, how can I help anyone else
who's stuck in that trap and stuck in that cycle of, you

(29:16):
know, I see this in age groupersall the times.
Like I just didn't want to break10 hours.
I was like, why? What is it?
What does it get you? It's so arbitrary.
It's so subjective that if I reach, you know, 10 hour mark
and I, if I reach 9 hours, then I'll be happy or then I'll feel
like I belong. Then I'll be in this exclusive
elite group. And it's just this constant

(29:38):
ladder that you'll always go up.And even if you're at the top
now you have to defend yourself at the top.
And there's this fuel. And I worked with, well, when
I'm working with a business partner, Charlotte Bergen, who's
a mental sports performance coach.
And so we're working on a, a program, an online program to

(29:59):
help athletes with this combinedbreath work and mental sports
performance breaking down. Like what is your fuel?
And then before all this happened, I was after Kona, I
started working with Doctor Jim Taylor, sports psychologist,
really smart guy. And he's constantly asked me
like, what's your rocket fuel and what's toxic fuel in this

(30:20):
toxic fuel of comparison and earning your worth and
continuing to try to like belongis toxic, right?
And every time we compare ourselves, that's toxic fuel.
Every time it's like a fear of success because if we were to
feel successful and happy and celebrate, then we'd like lose

(30:43):
our motivation. And so at least for me, and I
see this with other people, is that that was more the case.
It's like I knew how to fear failure and like be fueled by
not wanting to be a failure, butI didn't know how to be fueled
by actually being like, oh, I'm coming from a place of like

(31:06):
celebration because I get to do this because my body is so
capable. It's like that's the the two
types like toxic fuel versus rocket fuel.
And so helping other people realize that and just become
healthier versions, healthier, happier in their relationships,
in their life and in sport. Because I believe if you are

(31:27):
coming from a place of like abundance and gratitude that you
get to do all these amazing things, your performances will
improve and you'll be happier. Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting because like you, you a second ago, we were
talking about, you know, where attention goes, energy flows and
there's an obsession and attention to being faster, to

(31:49):
doing this many watts, to keeping a heart rate at this to
take 600 grams of carbs per hour.
You know, so like from in one sense, like that's when that
becomes toxic and doesn't actually work.
But it's like there's a level that and I'm not a professional
athlete, so I take all this witha grain of salt, I guess.
But it seems like that the greatest performances that I

(32:11):
have ever had where when my watch wasn't working and I
wasn't sharing the numbers every20 seconds and lat power
averages and all this stuff, it's like I was just completely
in the moment. And even if like in those
moments, even if I didn't come to a place where, oh, I had a
really fast time in Santa Cruz, when that happened this past
year, I looked back over at the finish clock.
I was like, oh, that's pretty good.
But I felt really good about that race because I felt good

(32:33):
and I enjoyed it and took it allin in the moment, right.
But how do you train that in people?
Like, how do you, how do you, how do you evangelize that so
everyone can experience that? Because I think it's such a
small percentage, even in the professional field, I would
imagine. More so in the professional
field that people are stuck and they'll be caught up in that
cycle. And so the more we glorify

(32:55):
athletes doing that, the more we'll set examples for anyone
else coming up in the ranks or an ace grouper to be like, oh,
we need to be all in and commit everything and sacrifice
everything to achieve these times.
And so the more we're inspired by these incredible feats of
time, they are insanely fast. But what it takes to get there,

(33:17):
we're also celebrating. And often that is not
necessarily healthy. Yeah.
Is it possible, you think, to bea world champion and also have a
healthy mental state before, during and after the event?
I think it's possible, but it's someone who's willing to do the

(33:38):
work, and it's not alone. It's not alone to work.
It's working with sports, mentalperformance, sports
psychologist, working with a coach who understands that human
performance is not just about hitting the numbers and hitting
a training plan. Yeah, like there's more about
the person that matters for performance than than just a

(33:58):
training program. Because I've seen it too.
It's like coach has the same training program and there's 10
athletes. Maybe it's only designed for
one. The rest who do it aren't
achieving those same results. And I got caught to that trap
too. It's like if I just train like
the best, if I just copy the best training like then I will
be fast. Yeah, sort of.

(34:21):
Trusting. Yeah, to your point, like I,
we've all heard this story of the mother who was able to lift
the car off of her child. And the only reason she was able
to transcend herself, to use a popular phrase in the trap the
world is, is be able to lift offthat car because she was saving
a life or doing it for someone else.
But like if she went out and just tried to deadlift, you

(34:42):
know, 2000 lbs, I don't think that's happening because you
know, like it. There's just something to that.
Like I had the focus has to be out of just like this.
I don't know, pride, I don't know is there do you think that
there's a good like pride is good like to have to be prideful
to? Is there any level of ego that's
OK, you think? I think pride is different than

(35:05):
ego. Ego is just our, I guess, false
sense of self. Should we think we are based on
all of our conditioning and all of our upbringing?
Like my ego was like, I'm an athlete because that's what I'm
good at and I'm not good at anything else.
But like, who you are is when you get rid of that ego and even

(35:29):
be OK letting go of your, your, your body and your what you look
like. So if we actually are more than
that, we're a spirit, then yeah,this is just what we are living
in. But pride, like last year, the
first year as they actually eversaid, like I'm proud of who I am

(35:50):
today because of everything I'vebeen through, and I'm proud of
who I am. I was never proud of who I was
as an athlete, and I think that's a good thing.
Yeah, I was going to say I thinkit is a good thing.
I think where I struggle going from growing up and like the a
pretty conservative church, it was like pride is always bad.

(36:13):
But there's this discernment because you know, there's Bible
verses where, you know, Jesus says to love your neighbor as
yourself. And we put a lot of emphasis on
loving your neighbor. But what does it actually mean
to love yourself? To to, to to know that like,
yeah, like if God truly did givehis only son and he put
everything in the universe on hold to be able to save you,
Like, well, what does that actually mean?

(36:33):
Because if I don't love myself, then I'm actually saying, well,
Christ doesn't love me. And you know, there's like this
whole thing of like, well, what is self actually?
Because there's good sides of self.
There's, I would argue not good sides of self, But to being able
to like truly love yourself in away that is not egotistical is
hard. Because really, I honestly, even
in depression, something I've observed and I don't know, I

(36:56):
don't say this is like, Oh, thisis the truth, but more of an
observation. But oftentimes the most
depressed people are the most inward focused on their self.
But it's usually self battering your inner critic voices and
they're just like driving those home, you know what I mean?
Yeah. So I think, I mean what you're
saying is like what's the balance of inner focus versus

(37:18):
outer focus? Yeah, I think at least for me,
the more inward focused the workI've done, the inner work is to
discover like, OK, who am I and what's my purpose here in the
world. And the more I question that and

(37:39):
look into that through breathwork, imitation and
reading and, you know, exposure to different, you know, books,
the more it's like, well, I haveto, if there's any purpose for
me, it's like of service to others, of service to a
collective or humanity because everything else is just

(38:01):
self-serving. And everything will go ever.
All the awards and all the, you know, winning achievements,
money is all gone. And so it will go as quickly as
you came into this world. Yeah.
How useful will it be on your deathbed?
It's interesting. My, my best friend right now,

(38:21):
like he's working as a Hospice nurse.
So he's with these people in their last moments of life.
And he was, I was talking to himfor about an hour last night and
he was just sharing. He's like, you know, it's so
interesting. Most people are so nice and open
to conversation on their deathbed.
It's like the one time that theyrealized, oh, like these, these
last few moments of breath that I'm able to breathe matter and

(38:42):
what I take in matters. And I wish it's, it's so crazy
because humans, we we take such,it takes often time, such
intense things to like really wake us up, not to discount like
the small seeds planted over time.
And then you water them and then, you know, when the sun
blossom or comes out like those seeds sprout.
There's different ways to get there.

(39:02):
But it's it's interesting, I guess is what I'm saying in the
observation that it often takes such intense, traumatic show
stopping things to happen for itto like shake people up and be
like, wait a second. Yeah.
Yeah, no. And and that's why I'm, you
know, glad everything happened the way it happened.
It was like that was the moment of awakening up.

(39:23):
And yeah, I'm not proud of what I did.
And but it all needed to happen to be here.
What were you running from you we mentioned a little bit about
that and you started talking to a therapist about that.
But did you, did you narrow thatdown?
I couldn't sit with myself, you know, I couldn't sit in silence.

(39:45):
I couldn't couldn't even journalthere was so it really was from
myself and what I, I guess created or lack of self love.
You know, it's very hard on myself.
I had plenty of, you know, kind of body dysmorphia was

(40:05):
controlling body weight. Never.
I thought it was always too big to be a fast runner.
Yeah, I did. I would say it's definitely did
not like myself. Everything, all the training was
on just pain and accepting the most pain I could take, taking,
you know, tramadol and training just so I could push harder and

(40:28):
then I would just be broken the next day.
And it was just a cycle of like that and it I guess, Yeah.
And I didn't want to face that. I don't want to face myself.
Like, why am I? But what is my relationship with
pain? I remember pulling up that
string of pain with Doctor Jim Taylor is like, what is my

(40:48):
relationship with pain? Like, why is it that I'm
pursuing this at a such a high level?
And like the moments I remember the mouse or when I was in the
most pain. And so it's always difficult for
me to remember happy moments because it's just like I felt
when I pushed past this barrier of pain, kind of like this

(41:09):
euphoria because all the endorphins in the body is like,
you actually feel amazing and you're going really fast, like
on a bike or on a run or whatever.
Yeah, it's interesting, like going back to our conversation
about empathy, I think when empathy dies, we we forget how
to feel a lot of those, but we rely on physical pain to push us
where you're talking past that. And so like for me growing up,

(41:32):
yeah, it was. This is going to sound really
strange, but I got into this weird habit of like, almost
wiggling my teeth to where they would be loose because the pain
was so intense. But I for some reason, I liked
it. And it was a weird thing.
And I knew there, I mean, peoplewere into, and I was, yeah,
people have been into bulimia oranorexia, and there's this other
stuff. And I couldn't understand that.
But like, the physical pain of like, my teeth.

(41:53):
And I was like, one day I woke up.
I was like, what am I doing? What is it that like, what is my
relationship to pain? Yeah.
But I'm just now putting the pieces together after what you
were talking about. Like, what is my relationship
with pain? That's fascinating.
Yeah, and this I it's something that it's easy to feel and I
didn't have a vocabulary at all to know what what I was actually

(42:15):
feeling like a dissociation withemotions and almost like a body
dissociation because I wasn't inmy body.
I wasn't feeling it other than just pain.
And I didn't know even how to process sadness or loneliness or
love the war. The I didn't know what those
were like. There wasn't a vocabulary.

(42:37):
I didn't know how to feel it. And so that was part of the work
going through that bike trip. And even breath work was the
missing key for me in Nicaragua on the bike packing trip, went
to a three day breath work course or day 2.
Like there was a three hour session where I was just laying
down sweating buckets. Like there was just pools of

(42:57):
sweat and I was just breathing and I was crying and things came
up like emotions. Childhood memories were just
vivid. I was reliving them.
And afterwards I just felt so incredibly light.
And I could just feel. I felt completely changed.
And I didn't understand any of it at all.

(43:18):
You know, I was very much like science driven and I'm like here
in this hippie place in Nicaragua.
And it was a really life changing experience.
And that's what led me to now bea breath work coach and
facilitator. I understand the science, I
understand what's going on. And when you're doing that,
you're disturbing the the nervous system because you're

(43:39):
CO2 levels drop. So your body gets in the state
of alkalosis and it disturbs your homeostasis and it can
start to create a lot of feelings and almost like a
psychedelic experience. Yeah, but it was all through
breath work. There was no like psychedelic
mushrooms involved for that one.None.
All breath work and it allowed me like you, now that I'm

(44:00):
connected with the breath, it allows me to feel and be
connected with my body. I can be like, oh, I'm feeling a
lot more. Yeah, that's so fascinating
because like on the topic of breath work and then the
psychedelic kind of mushrooms, Ifeel like they get you to a
similar place, but I think that there's this third way to also
get there. But it's through.
I don't know if I want to use the word mindfulness and
meditation, but like self reflection to a place where you

(44:25):
like, almost force yourself to remember and like audibly speak
the things that you have been through that were tough.
I've been through like a three-week weekend retreat where
there was a lot of emphasis put on like small group and large
group, but like talking through these very intense, just
terrible things. But then like that feeling what
you're talking about being incredibly light, that the

(44:45):
catharsis of like letting off these burdens and the waiting on
their yeah, for so long. And yeah, I want everybody to
experience that. I think everyone deserves the
opportunity to experience that. But it's so easy to control
people, I think from a society when you can put 1000 LB weight
on their shoulders and they haveno idea and keep it there like.

(45:05):
Because whatever you have with you, that's normal and you
become adapted to it. And so we keep on allowing
things to just be instead of looking underneath.
But a lot of its subconscious, 90% of our thoughts are
subconscious. So it's hard to even know where
to go. That's why I was like, I
couldn't journal, I couldn't sitstill.

(45:27):
It's like it's didn't even know where to go.
And the breath was an Ave. that opens up subconscious.
It allows things to flow throughwithout our conscious control
because consciously we're tryingto solve problems.
We're just like, OK, there's theissue, like I want to solve it.
That's our analytical mind. But most of what this work is,

(45:48):
is subconscious. And our breath mostly is
subconscious unless we're conscious of it.
And so much of our emotions in stores gets stuck in our
stomach, in our diaphragm. And so just releasing that I had
Charlotte Bergen business partner, release the diaphragm

(46:09):
and just completely opened up. And my bowels changed for the
better and starting to improve because we have tension and
whatever we can express gets kind of caught in our fascia and
starts to tighten up and we start to bring us forward.
All right, Our rib cage gets stuck down and then some of the
athletes rib cage get stuck up or maybe once to the side.

(46:30):
I had a left rib cage always flared as an athlete.
Now it's completely straight. But like our body keeps the
score. That's that book.
It's amazing book. The body keeps the score and I
truly believe it. Like in our fascia, in our
nervous system, in our muscles, we are storing a lot of stuck

(46:50):
emotions and trauma that we but subconscious.
And so somatic body work is something that's been really
cool to, to, to learn more about.
Yeah, no, it's super fascinatingbecause like I've heard of like
crazy one off stories where people have gotten even like
organ transplants and somehow they like it's seemingly obtain

(47:10):
a memory from a past person. So I and, you know, we're always
kind of referencing to our heart, well, thinking where the
heart, well, it doesn't really have a brain.
But science is starting to, I think, prove in different ways
that like memories can be storedor things can be stored, like
what you're saying. Yeah.
In our DNA, yeah. Literally.
And then that gets passed on to our kids.
That's a whole other thing. Epigenetics, how to turn those
things on and off that you pass on to your kids.

(47:32):
So my wife's pregnant right now dude and.
Like, oh, that's awesome. Yeah, thank you.
First kid. First kid.
Yeah. So.
Exciting. Yeah, it is exciting.
I'm I'm so pumped, little girl. But what's crazy is, you know,
I've realized or I'm realizing or have a great respect for the
fact that everything she feels, she sees, she eats, she touches,
she smells like that's all goinginto whatever is going on in

(47:54):
here. So like one of my best friends
who has a father or is a father is ahead of me.
He's like, whatever you can do to just keep her happy and at
peace, that's going to be amazing for your kid.
And I'm just thinking like, man,my mom is probably a wreck
because I am so crazy up here. But it's kind of crazy.
Much respect to my mom. But yeah, it's crazy that that

(48:14):
that that level of science understanding.
But I have a specific question for you because I know that you
still have a lot of followers that are in the world of
triathlon and endurance sport. And I think that will continue
to grow and expand with the workyou're doing now.
But what is what are some red flags or some things that you
like would tell people in the triathlon world, especially like

(48:36):
your former pro colleagues that are red flags for like when,
when to know when to take a stepback from when this thing starts
to become more of a burden rather than a blessing of like
a, an opportunity because a lot of people talk about that.
But what are the actual red flags?
That may be a things you could look for.
It's it's hard to say because everyone is on their own

(48:57):
journey. I like I've seen some people who
are just constantly like injuries, accidents, and they
just keep showing up is just keep rehabbing, coming back.
And that's, that's a worthy journey.
Like building that resilience tobe like, no, like my injuries
and accidents will not define me.
I will continue to to push what I can and always come back.

(49:22):
That's this awesome mental resiliency.
At the same time, if you look atanother person, they'll be like
you're always getting injured and you're always in accidents.
Maybe this is a sign to do something else or to take a step
back to re evaluate. I think that's up for the
individual just to have that awareness.
OK, so like I got, you know, sick before my Iron Man or you

(49:45):
know, a car hit me or is in a bike accident.
Maybe that's a wake up call to be like, OK, I'm going to let's
take a step back. What is life trying to show me
right now? Is it is it need to slow down?
Do I need to put my energy somewhere else?
Is maybe it's in a relationship,Maybe it's career change, but
having that awareness and it doesn't mean you have to give up

(50:06):
your dreams and just completely leave the sport.
But having that moment of pausing, saying, OK, what, what
am I here to learn? Because I believe everything
that happens in your life, whether we perceive it as
negative or positive, is for your benefit and is for my
benefit. And it's up to us to be like,
what is this teaching being? How can I learn from this?

(50:32):
That's a challenging thing to accept because I'm trying to
think of all the different examples of things good or for
I'll that could be used. I mean, yes, like you, I think
that your choice and how you approach those like even to go
to that very specific Bible verse.
All things work together for those who love God.
Like, I think that that there isa level of truth to that, but
it's not something that I just openly want to accept, Right.

(50:55):
Because if I get shot in the armor my father commits suicide or
my daughter dies before I get tomeet her, like, whatever.
Like those things would be so hard to if you were to just look
at me in the eyes, you know, andtell me that.
And in the moment, I get so hardto accept.
But I think that honestly, most of me believes that it's just so
hard to to accept. And but once you get over that

(51:17):
hurdle, I feel like that's where, like, true healing and
adaptation for the better comes.I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah, I guess for me, I've been
working on that trusting in life.
I like it's even as an athlete, right?
If you trust your training, if you trust that everything is
happening in your life for a reason, for your best interest,

(51:40):
we start to begin to not worry, not be in fear that is this the
right thing? You know, am I going to be OK?
Am I going to come back from this injury?
You know, that's if you trust, really trust from the core of
your being, it opens you up to operating from a place of
abundance. And that's love.

(52:02):
And you're like, OK, I can overcome anything that comes at
me because this is here for a reason and I'm going to be open
to it and accepting what's goingto actually happen.
Yeah, except this is huge. And the fear of aspect.
I have to pee really quick. I'll be right back.
OK. Yeah, I think it's still going.
OK, perfect. Cool.

(52:25):
So thanks for bearing with me asliterally I've been.
Trying to, yeah. Sucking down so much water,
getting ready for. The weekend.
And stuff. So on the topic of fear really
quick, I want to transition a little bit and I'm going to read
a piece of one of your posts because it, it really struck me
because in relation to like mountains physically and
otherwise, I've had some experiences like being up on

(52:49):
mountains and it just gives you such a feeling of like there's
so much exposure, there's so much opportunity for the wrong
step could lead to death. And it's like this balance of
how much fear can I tolerate andaccept, and then how much can I
not. So unlike the topic of what
we're talking about. I'd love to read this piece.
And then I have a question kind of about it.
And as I, as I asked this question, I want the listeners

(53:11):
to kind of think not just about like the physical mountain, but
also like the metaphysical or metaphorical mountains in their
life. So you wrote as I transitioned
from rock to snow, I paused longenough to let all the fears let
flood in. I am alone.
I'm in the cloud. I can barely see what's in front
of me. I am more of afraid of going
back down than up. What is the snow like?

(53:32):
Is it safe? I don't want to die.
So little spoiler alert, you make it to the mountain.
But that was such a potent piecebecause, first of all, it's
poetic. So it was beautiful.
But the mountains like you went in the summit, what is it about
mountains that demand such a respect and reverence?
And how do you relate to fear inthose moments of trying to

(53:52):
figure out this journey ahead? I've always been drawn to
mountains. I think there's this feeling up
on a mountain where you're just so small and there's so much
power around you. And this mountain specifically
is in Columbia, Nevada to Lima, over 18,000 feet.

(54:15):
It's a big glacier. And I was scared like I was, I
had crampons on ice axe. I was climbing up the snowy
rocky section being like, yeah, this is, you know, if I slipped,
like I'm going bye, bye. And there's no one around me to
save me. And so in that moment, like I

(54:36):
had that, I was like, ah, like, do I try to go back down?
Do I just go up like it? And it's hard and much harder to
climb down on the slippery, snowy rocks then just going all
the way up. And so that was a scary leap,
but I had to trust like, OK, there's probably another way
down, but I'll just make it up to the top.

(55:00):
Yeah. Mountains represent something
that I've always felt connected or close to God and in a sense
that I got away from me, away from thinking about me and my
importance. When you realize like there's
this huge expanse of nature thatis incredible and is dangerous.
And yeah, it's it's a humbling place to be, a place to be in

(55:27):
awe and to be humbled, to realize there's many, many
thousands and, you know, millions of years and we're just
this speck of dust and our time is short here on Earth.
It's just a nice reminder, at least for me, being on the
mountains and this specific mountain and the quote, I got to

(55:51):
the top and it was just white out.
You can see nothing. There was no views.
And I was just there alone. And I was just like, OK, I just
sat in the snow for about 10 minutes, 1015 minutes.
And I was like, I don't know what to do do.
Some breath. Work.

(56:15):
But then I saw in the distance this group of 4-4 people coming
up, you know, and they're all with ropes and this is a glacier
and it's dangerous. And then so I walk over to them.
It's 2 guides and this couple, this older couple, 65 years old
Colombian couple, but I'd spent their whole career as doctors in

(56:37):
the US and so they were now retired.
And I was like, wow, like at 65 years old they're climbing this
epic mountain and the white out snowstorm.
Like we were meeting them and the guys were like, you're
crazy. Like what are you doing?
Where did you come from? And I'd gone from this other
side, which I learned then that it was a prohibited site to go

(56:59):
up. So like, nobody's on it.
Oh, my goodness, me is getting in trouble.
I just like seek it out. So I was like, I don't want to
go down that. Like, it was really sketchy.
And like, oh, like, they showed me another way.
I could still go down that route.
And I had to go down that route because, like, my bike and all

(57:20):
that stuff was on that side of the mountain.
And they came from another side.So that was just a really
beautiful moment to be like, oh,like even in the most scary
section, like I'm not alone. There's always there's people
there. And the way down was, you know,
shown to me. And I started, I made my way

(57:43):
down the the first section, I was super sketchy.
And it started to go from snow to hail as I got lower to just
like a torrential cold downpour.And my tent was set up on that
like little flat section. It was still pretty high up.
And I remember just like runningin to the tent, just stripping

(58:04):
off my soaked clothes, getting to his sleeping bag.
This was like 130 and PM, just that I waited for an hour and a
half of this just like lightningand storm and like the power of
the storm. I was just like, oh gosh, don't,
don't want to die. Yeah.
Hopefully your stakes stay in and no mountain slide comes

(58:25):
screaming down the mountain. Like dude, that's crazy.
Yeah. That's amazing story.
Yeah. It's so like the aspect of
dealing with fear in those moments.
Like, again, like I, I don't know how to put into words these
experiences because I've been on, you know, the sides of a
mountain where the sheer drop off is over 2000 feet and like,

(58:45):
well, I have my footing is pretty sure.
But if one mistake goes, it's like there goes my life and
being able to just know that, especially in that perspective
or in that instance my wife was with me.
So like having heard near that, it was just like, dude, it broke
me. Like it actually broke me.
Like I, I gave in to the fear too much to where like it was
debilitating. And I, it was like, I have to

(59:06):
turn around and we should turn around because I've already
screwed up the group here because my fear has overcome me.
And I, it bothered me man, for like a few months because I
realized like, man, I don't know, am I realizing my
mortality? Am I realizing that I can't
handle as much as I thought I could?
So it called everything into question and really had to look
at myself in the mirror and be OK with the fact that I failed,

(59:28):
you know, mentally. And then how do I prepare for
the future? Like it's crazy.
So you're at least in the Bible,is the most often used
commandment, so you're not. Yeah.
And I think that's really relevant to your situation.
My situation, all of ours is if we put our attention on fear, it

(59:51):
means we, it's the opposite of love.
It's the opposite of trust. Because and then wherever where
our attention goes, energy flows, you start to focus on
fear, you will be paralyzed because you'll have all the
reasons why not to do it. Whereas if you have 1000 things
to be fearful of, but there's just one thing to be hopeful of.

(01:00:16):
And you put your attention there, that's where you're going
to go. And so the temptation is all
these things, little fear moments arise, questioning your
trust on God that life is for you and whatever is going to
happen is going to be for your benefit and getting away from
that connection and love with God.

(01:00:40):
So like Seer and and that's always coming up for me as well.
And having that awareness to be like, OK, I seal it.
It's real. Now I get to decide what I'm
going to, you know, what my thoughts are, what are the
thoughts that are going to be true?
And fear isn't real because fearis always a projection of the

(01:01:03):
future. And you can always come back to
that moment. It's like, OK, I'm, I fear if we
put one step here, you know, my wife could fall off the Cliff,
but that's not the reality. The reality is you're standing
right there and you're super safe.
And the next step, you start to focus on what the next step is
instead of the step 100 steps away or 1000 steps away.

(01:01:26):
That's going to have that distance from fear to the
future. There's a, the farther you go
out, the more things you're going to be fearful of.
You start to bring that back down.
You're like, OK, what's the nextstep?
Can I take the next step? The fear there is going to be a
lot less because the next step you're like, you can see it,
it's safe and so you can always come back whenever, wherever

(01:01:47):
fear is, pay attention because that is something to work or to
to to go towards. Dude, if there's nothing else
you say for this entire interview that everyone takes
home, I want them to take home the because I'm going to take
home. Like fear is a projection.
I've never thought of it in thatcontext, especially biblically,

(01:02:08):
when we're talking about like, false prophets or false
prophecy, like it being a fearful projection of the
future. Not to say that all prophecy is
based in fear. That's not what I'm saying.
But like that just like hit me square between the eyes because
yeah, like, that's when you needto have the attention, dude.
For so long, death has been likethe thing that I don't fear for

(01:02:29):
myself, but fear for everyone around me that I care about in
the weirdest way. Like which is kind of always
been a little boggling to me because I'm like, well, I don't.
If I died today, like I died today, I think I'm OK with it.
Do I want to drown? No.
Like, do I want to get shot? And it'd be painful?
No, that's not what I'm saying. But like, I'm not afraid to die.
But I have such a, like, this false narrative that has gone on

(01:02:51):
my head for a long time that I've been working on combating
where it's like, well, your wifeis probably going to die soon or
your mom's going to die soon. Like, my mom had to get some,
like, liver thing checked out here recently, and I was
convinced she had cancer and she's going to die quick.
And I have had a lot of death that's touched me.
So I think that's because of those past repetitions.
But living in a state of not fearing, like, the IT, it can

(01:03:12):
influence my decisions in the most negative way.
Yeah. I don't know.
I'm just kind of talking out loud.
Interesting. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean scared of being alone. Yeah, you know, it's.
Interesting. You don't.
You're not going to feel alone, but if everyone else around you
dies, you're going to feel alone.
Yeah, that's a good point. Especially as you were talking

(01:03:34):
about, you know, you couldn't sit down and journal even
because you were, you didn't know how to be calm with
yourself. I struggle to do that more often
times than not. It's gotten better as I've
gotten older, especially now I have a piano in the house.
Like that's a form of journalingfor me because I'll just make up
songs and sing my heart out or write in in my write, just write

(01:03:54):
down letters to people that I actually never give them because
it's something to say or yeah, like, yeah, anyway, you've got,
you've got a lot of cool experience, man.
Thank you. Sounds like you have awesome
experiences too and hard ones. Trials.
I think we all look at the social media and the performance

(01:04:15):
and the results and we see like,wow, they're so awesome or
they're so you know, they have everything together and reality
is everyone I talk to like everyone's gone through deep
shit and has stuff in their lifethey're working through and
deaths and it's not not the fun stuff struggles.

(01:04:37):
And, and also in that vein, I just want to make sure people
understand too. It's like whatever you go
through, the hardest thing you've ever gone through,
there's a hard thing, hardest thing you've ever gotten to
through. For somebody who's riding a bike
for the first time, 150 watts may feel like to you 650 watts
and your body has to adapt to get to that next level, to
experience it. But like that literally is the
hardest thing that you've ever felt.

(01:04:59):
So that doesn't mean that it's not, like, a serious thing that
you've gone through because like, likewise with the traumas
that we go through in life, yeah, like, the hardest thing
you've gone through is the hardest thing you've gone
through. And it's OK to accept that.
And, like, comparison is the thief of joy.
I would say comparison is also the thief of healing in many
ways because a lot of people arelike, well, my dad didn't die

(01:05:19):
or, you know, whatever. It does not matter.
Like you break your femur or youbreak your pinky, and that's how
you ever break. Like, that really hurts, you
know? Yeah, yeah.
It's like the conversation of big T trauma versus little T
trauma. Yeah.
It's like we think trauma is like this major thing and I
never thought that I was totallyfine and gripped in a loving
household. But like when I start to look

(01:05:40):
like there was a lot of little tea traumas everywhere that, you
know, trauma is just an event that is stored in the body or in
the mind, like that's all it is.And that event then shapes our
subconscious beliefs and thoughts.
And then those thoughts then create actions of how we live.

(01:06:01):
Is it just understanding the pathways of how we got to where
we are today? You can go back and say, OK,
what what are the key things stored in my body, in my mind
that control my thoughts and my thinking, control my emotions,
because then those emotions control my actions.
And we always try to solve things by like, oh, I would just

(01:06:24):
change my actions. Then everything else will
change. That is one Ave. for changing,
right? Like you want to change your
life? You want to lose weight, like
commit to an action first, right?
And then the mind will change. Start to embody a new personnel.
I'm like feeling lighter, I'm feeling healthier, I have more
energy. And then the other way to go
through change is like you startto change in here and in here,

(01:06:48):
our beliefs, subconscious beliefs or programming, start to
analyze it. And then in return, our reality
will change, our actions will change because of coming from a
different place. I think as triathletes and
athletes, we love to make changephysically first, but there's a
limit to that. You know the difference between

(01:07:09):
a 10 hour Iron Man and a nine hour Iron Man.
Nothing's changing up here or inyour heart, in your mind or your
heart. Yeah, that's a powerful lesson.
Where did you learn that? Like beliefs, I think it was
beliefs lead to thoughts, thoughts to actions, actions to
character. Where?
Yeah, Joe Dispenza, I've I've found like his, his work, his

(01:07:31):
influence, he's got some great books about like that power of
our hearts and our minds and that our hearts like everything
below our head, far more powerful than just our minds
because our minds are stuck in up here prefrontal cortex like
the thinking analytical mind to try to understand the world.

(01:07:54):
And it we never will because it's not coming from a place of
like knowing and believing and love, which are all emotions and
felt in the body. Yeah, have to look him up and
link some of that stuff because yeah, it's such an important
lesson. Even go back to what we're
saying 1000 of 1000 LB ingot of steel and a 1000 LB bag of rice

(01:08:16):
added slowly over time can be like equal the same weight
measurements along with those lines as well.
Yeah, that's crazy. Well, dude, I know you got to
run here in a minute. So I just want to ask you, I
guess one kind of final question.
What are you, what are you most excited for in the future as you
continue on this journey of likejust, I guess figuring out how

(01:08:39):
to help more people share these stories and learning like what
is something that's kind of taking up the most mental
bandwidth in a positive way for you right now?
Yeah, I'm, I'm most excited about.
Let's see, I'm most excited about coming back into working

(01:09:00):
with athletes or the sporting world in a way that can actually
bring positive change. And and maybe that's just a way
that I want to redeem my story, but then I constantly battle
like how much of it is me wanting to redeem my mistakes

(01:09:21):
versus how much of this is me stepping back and saying, you
know, God's will be done, not myown, but then allowing my story
to be used and my story to be shared.
So that's my constant back and forth is I don't want to fall
back into I have to achieve, I have to perform and really

(01:09:43):
embodying a place of like completeness and wholeness and
celebration of like, OK, I get to do this and I get to be an
influence for change, positive change in other people's lives
do. You feel like that's what
Scott's calling you to do. Yeah, I've last or this year I
decided to go from real estate, which I was all in last year.

(01:10:07):
Give me some financial stability, job security, a
little bit these you're still like running around.
You don't know when the next paycheck is.
So pretty similar to being an athlete to feeling called to
push more into breath work and coaching and Wellness in this
space and speaking with with athletes and working with them

(01:10:32):
because of the actual meaningfulchange I get to help people go
through. Whereas like, you help someone
buy a house, great, that's awesome, on to the next.
Like you're there for, you know,a small part of their journey.
And it was after I hosted my first breathwork retreat the
last spring. It was amazing.
I just didn't know what it was going to work out.

(01:10:54):
It was kind of that leap of faith.
I was in the season of fear. I just unlocked levels of fear.
Like I I was intentionally like,oh, I'm really scared of this.
So I pursuing this. The first thing to unlock that
was doing a a backflip on skeets.
It was like a lifelong dream of mind.
And I was like the, you know, March end of the season.

(01:11:14):
I was like this is it and. If I get.
Injured, like, yeah, it's just like, you know, this fear of
like, hi, I mean, if I don't break my back and blah blah
blah. And so I found this Cliff and I
just started, I did it took 5 breaths and I was like, I
committed to it, mentally rehearsed it and I the first try
like crashed and lost my skis. I was like, oh amazing.

(01:11:36):
I was so happy, right? Like you're not dead.
Like, like, I'm fine, you know, all that.
It's always worse than imagination than reality.
So I hiked back up and then did it and it was amazing.
And that unlocked the fear of the and the rest of my life.
So I was scared of hosting retreat, like committing to
purchasing an Airbnb and like figuring out how this is all

(01:11:58):
going to work. And so I committed to without
knowing what it was going to be like the location, the Airbnb.
And then the right people, Davidand Mercer came, you know,
around and they wanted to help and they helped me organize and
bring 15 people out to Colorado where we Co plunge every morning
at 6:00 AM and did breath work and create a community and a lot

(01:12:21):
of people to share and open up. And it was a beautiful
experience. And after that I'd come back to
real estate and just nothing felt right.
And so that was that pull of howdo I live like in alignment with
my heart? How do I lead with my heart and
not my mind? Because if I'm leading with my
mind, what makes sense? I'm going to think about like

(01:12:44):
money, security, and, you know, the things that everyone else is
thinking about. But like when I go down to the
heart and say what it, what doesit mean to lead by the heart?
That's scary. I don't know the future.
It's uncertain and I have to trust.
And so that's what I'm really excited about is leaning more

(01:13:04):
into that. Yeah, Well, dude, I'm super
excited for you. First of all, I guess, or last
of all, I'm very thankful that you were able to be willing to
sit down with me because you gota really amazing story.
Yeah, I think, you know, some people this may be a
controversial episode because I release it.
I don't really know. Don't really care too much to be

(01:13:24):
honest, but. Because of your I love your
style. Yeah, and like, I'm like,
whatever, like I from talking toyou, like you seem super
genuine, authentic. And I feel like I, we have a lot
more in common than I actually had known before, which is a
really beautiful thing to figureout.
But I really appreciate you taking the time to let me ask a
lot of these questions and sharing just from a, a place of

(01:13:47):
experience. And yeah, no matter what
happens, I just want to encourage you, brother, like as
you go out and conquer this thing, yeah, like you said,
don't leave with fear, leave with love.
And I'm sure it'll go well and you can impact a lot of people
in a positive way. So I'm stoked.
For you appreciate you Seth. That was great podcast.
When I was looking at everyone who's been on the show, I was

(01:14:08):
like, oh, wow. Like I know most of these guys.
It's awesome. You built a, you built a cool
podcast. Thanks, man.
Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, definitely, I'd love to
have you on again in the future.I'll have to hit you up for
sure. All right.
And you said you were racing this weekend.
Yeah, doing Iron Man, Californiaon Sunday.
Nice. Yeah, I'm, I think I'm like, if

(01:14:30):
anything, I'm probably under trained.
I've been pretty chill, like hitting the marks, like you
know, you got to hit some of thebasic stuff.
But I'm my last, my first Iron Man dude, great experience.
Amazing. Like, you know, fanfare.
Second one worst experience in my life.
I was in the worst headspace. Like honestly dude, like I'll
just share really quick. I've been free from like the
addiction of porn for almost 6 months before then.

(01:14:51):
Congrats, that last one. Thank you.
The last one was like up late atnight, couldn't sleep trying to
pacify that with that and then woke up in the morning crying in
the in the in the port a potty like what the heck am I doing?
And crazy enough, like I swam really well, biked really well,
just the run exploded and because mentally up here, I was
not with it dude, I just fell apart.
So this one I'm a dad to be. I have nothing to prove.

(01:15:15):
I'm just excited to go out and see some friends from Tennessee
and and like quote UN quote racist thing and see what the
body can do. But even if I end up walking the
marathon, dude, I'm going to be singing.
Like, I'm just so excited to have the opportunity.
That's awesome. Yeah, Good.
Best of luck. Thank you.
Always whenever the mindset goesnegative, so I have to be
positive. Yeah, 100%.

(01:15:35):
Well, thanks. Thanks, Colin.
Appreciate you man. All right.
Appreciate you. See you, Seth.
Thank you, Colin, for coming on the podcast.
I really enjoyed that conversation.
There's conversations that I have that have left me feeling
just decent. Some have been harder to get
through. I'll be honest, this is one that
really brought me a lot of joy and energy.

(01:15:57):
So I really appreciate Colin forcoming in and telling his story.
And I didn't even have to ask about the doping thing.
I wasn't even necessarily planning on it, but he shared
just multiple times just from his experience, you know, what
happened. And truthfully, like at the end
of the day, I just want to say, no matter what people do, I
think that if we can have a layer of empathy to understand

(01:16:18):
them, that all. I'm not saying that excuses what
they've done. That's never the case.
But to be able to humanize that person and just understand the
human experience for the things that they've gone through that
led them to make that decision is important because it allows
us to recognize the red flags inour own life that may have led
us down a similar path to make any decision that's not good for
us or others. Yeah, even to downright

(01:16:41):
cheating. So great conversation.
Really appreciated him. Just sharing from the place that
he did. And so many of the concepts and
things that we touched on were things that I hold dear to my
heart, especially the one with, you know, beliefs become
thoughts. Thoughts become character.
Character. Excuse me?
Beliefs become thoughts. Thoughts become actions, Actions
become character. And if you ever want to build a

(01:17:03):
great kid someday, it's those key elements I think, that need
to be understood because that's how we pass on our genes and our
love and our compassion and our character to a future little
someone. Yeah, that.
And also, last thing to remember, 1000 lbs of iron is
the same as 1000 lbs of grains of rice added one by one.

(01:17:23):
So whether you've got through a big T or a little T level of
trauma, just want to say it all hurts and we can all heal
together. All right, thank you guys so
much for jumping in on this episode and I'll see you in the
next one. Peace.

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#189 - Collin Chartier - Fear, Faith & Second Chances

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