Pain isn’t the enemy—it’s the teacher. Ryan shares how to build a positive relationship with pain, using it as fuel for focus, energy, and growth. Learn how simple mindset shifts, language cues, and habits can turn setbacks into strength and make you tougher without growing colder.
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Episode Transcript
2 45 in the morning or 7 o'clock at night with
harder.
None of it's hard.
Hard is uh having cancer or whenyour dad dies or your best
friend dies.
Both does happen.
This isn't hard.
That's what I love to do.
(00:21):
I love to feel the pain, theysay make friends with pain and
you'll never be alone.
SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
Do hard things.
Help one person.
Be good and do good.
Live a life of discipline, andyou will always win.
You have all the tools that youneed to succeed.
Welcome to Win Today.
SPEAKER_03 (00:47):
Thank you so much for tuning in.
My name is Ryan Cass, and I'myour host.
My purpose in this world is tohelp push people further and
harder than they believepossible and become unshakable
in what matters most to them intheir lives.
Every week, you're gonna learnfrom either myself or renowned
experts in their field, andwe're gonna unveil pieces of our
playbook to help you win today.
(01:09):
Please, if you love the show,subscribe and share it with
somebody that will benefit fromit.
Let's dig in.
What if Pain was viewed as aprotagonist versus an
antagonist?
In social settings, we can oftenrevere pain as purely an
(01:30):
antagonist, as pain is a badthing, yet what if we created
space to build a positiverelationship with pain?
What if pain could be viewed asa friend versus an enemy?
What if pain could be viewed asone of the tools in your arsenal
(01:53):
versus one of the weapons ofyour demise?
This is all about building apositive relationship with pain
and how we can view it as aforce in our lives.
I've found that I've beensharing a lot lately about how
(02:17):
pain is a friend and how that'sone of the hacks that I use,
especially in endurance eventsand marathons, that when the
going gets tough, because that'sinevitable, it's only a matter
of time before the feet hurt,before the quads hurt, before
it's excruciatingly hot outsideor in your body.
(02:42):
That rather than looking at itas here's this bad thing that
has now come upon me, what abouthere's this good thing that is
helping me grow and isultimately going to make me
better?
So I've shared this with a lotof friends over the years, but
(03:02):
more so recently, that hey, whenit gets tough, look at pain as
your friend.
So I figure, hey, what bettertiming to go ahead and release
an episode on it and share moreas to what built that belief
system so that you can use someof it, could use all of it, but
(03:23):
form something of your own sothat when pain in fact visits
you, whether it's an enduranceevent or in something meaningful
in your life, that you can alsohave a more positive experience
with it and experience thegrowth and ultimately keep
(03:44):
pushing forward.
So, what I ultimately believe isthat when we view pain as a
friend and a positive force, wecan go further, we can unlock
new energy, and ultimately wecan discover a new and better
and best version of ourselves.
(04:05):
This first came to me severalyears ago when that beginning
clip actually with CameronHaynes, he was in a workout and
he shared that hey, when youbecome friends with pain, you'll
never be alone in life.
So I remember that stuck withme.
And then I also thought through,well, what does that actually
(04:28):
mean?
So here are the steps in my viewas to how you can make pain your
friend and shift yourrelationship with it.
The the first thing is step backand identify a painful moment in
your life.
And this could be in a marathon,it can be in a tough season of
(04:54):
life, it can be a breakup, itcould be a variety of things.
It doesn't need to purely goback to endurance because I also
understand here that noteveryone listening is an
endurance athlete, and that'sokay.
But pain has likely paid avisit, or if not multiple
(05:14):
visits, in everyone's life.
So, what is one that is really,really memorable to you?
And then with that, I want youto think about what happened
afterwards.
So if you've thought of thatmoment or you're ruminating on
it right now, then think throughdid you make adjustments from
(05:40):
this?
Has it changed how you show upfor yourself or for others?
Has it changed how you train?
Has it helped you develop aquality that you believe is a
positive force in your life?
(06:01):
Most of the time, the answer islikely going to be yes to one,
some, or all of those questionsthat, hey, I've had a painful
moment.
And as a result of that painfulmoment, here's what I do
differently, or here's what Ilook for in people, here's what
I make sure that I don't do withpeople that I love or a
(06:22):
relationship or something thatis deeply meaningful to me.
So what's that the reason whywe're starting there is because
I want you to see that, hey,with that painful moment that
you've experienced, you have infact done something positive
(06:42):
with it, or it has given yousomething positive.
Maybe not immediately in themoment, and maybe not until way
down the line, because at times,with the example I'm about to
share, we could have had oureyes closed to even see the
goodness that is being deliveredto us because of this pain.
(07:05):
So when I think about a painfulmoment in my life, it's really a
painful season.
And one thing that maybe this isyour first time listening, or
you haven't listened to too manyepisodes, but I come from a
family with a long-standingtrend of alcoholism and mental
(07:27):
and emotional abuse.
And from my earliest years, Ioften played the middleman
between my parents.
And my parents are no longertogether.
And I remember as a kid justwatching these scenes unfold in
my home and being so upset thatfrom my earliest years to up
(07:51):
until about time to go tocollege, that I was inserted in
the middle the whole time.
And that I was almost thisintermediary, if you will, to
keep the peace.
And I was upset.
Why is why is this happening?
Why can't we have a normal lifelike the family down the street,
(08:12):
not knowing if their lives arenormal?
But from the outside picture, itit sure looks like it.
And I was angry, I wasdestructive.
I saw pain as pain, that there'sno possible way you can convince
me that these things that aregoing on in the house right now,
(08:34):
that I'm staying up until two,three, four o'clock in the
morning on school nights toresolve stuff between my parents
or make sure that things don'tget too out of hand, or make
sure that my little sisterdoesn't see what's going on, and
I'm lying to teachers about whyI'm showing up to school late.
There's no possible good that Ican see in any of this.
(08:54):
And it wasn't until I decided tomake a promise to myself later
on down the line, or as I wasgetting ready to go to college,
that I am not going to put thepeople that I love and the
future family that I, Godwilling, may have someday, and
(09:16):
future spouse that I, Godwilling, may have someday.
I will never put them throughthis.
And I've got to make sure that Iput myself in an environment
where it's not possible topotentially gain these habits
that have plagued my family forso long.
Hence why I went to a militarycollege.
(09:38):
And from there, then I starteddoing research.
What is it about all of thepeople?
Not all of them, but so manypeople that we'd love to talk
about, whether it's DavidGoggins, whether it's Jocko
Willink, Michael Jordan, thelist goes on.
One of the of the many commonthreads that they that they
(10:01):
possess is that they havereframed negative events in
their lives and turned them intoa powerful force that pushes
them forward and allows them toinspire change in dozens of
lives.
And that's where it started toopen my eyes to wait a minute.
(10:23):
This stuff that's been going onthis whole time for over a
decade in my life, has actuallybeen helping me this whole time.
And it has led me to this placethat is only going to further
reinforce this commitment thatI've made that I'm not going to
(10:44):
carry on this trend in my life.
The buck stops with me.
And I was able to see that holysmokes, pain this whole time has
brought me all of this goodness.
Yes, in the moment it's tougherto see.
(11:04):
And I'm not suggesting that,especially if it relates to
something in your family or arecent breakup, that you
immediately find the find yourfriend coming to visit you, and
then you're happy.
No.
But what this is doing is it'screating space so that you can
(11:24):
either immediately see orshortly thereafter see that, oh
no, we we had some good stuffhappen there.
And it's okay.
So the first piece there againis we want to identify a painful
moment and then recognize if ithas actually given you
(11:46):
something.
Can you arrive at that point?
So now we can actually see thatokay, yeah, you know what?
Pain is a good thing because ithas given me XYZ.
Growing up in a broken householdand being there for or being the
middleman between my parentsgave me the commitment that I
(12:11):
have today to serve others, togive back in the community, to
ensure that my habits are inalignment with the promise that
I've that I've made.
Here's how I'm gonna lead afuture family, here's how I'm
going to lead in the workforce,here's how I'm going to be
(12:32):
present with the people that aremost important to me and my
friends.
I smile when I talk about myearly years.
Yes, I do think about littleRyan in those times, but I also
I smile thinking about wherelittle Ryan was and where I am
(12:55):
now.
Because had I not built apositive relationship with pain
and seen that, oh, this actuallybrought me so much goodness, I
could be living my life rightnow as a 32-year-old, still
blaming the universe, stillblaming the world.
That man, why me?
If I just didn't have thatupbringing, then I could be at
(13:17):
this point.
We could I could go back to myparents' house and not have to
go to two different places tovisit them and all these things.
Woe is me.
But thankfully, because we'vecreated space, pain is pain is
our friend.
So, with that, how do weactually apply this?
(13:38):
How do we put this into action?
And I'll also share how thisdoes come into play in real time
and more so in endurance events,because that's where it
certainly comes up the most.
But now that we've seen, hey,you know what, this is this is
how we first recognize thegoodness.
(13:58):
Secondly, now I want you todownload a program in your mind.
The beauty of our brains is thatthey are so malleable.
And they're basically what thatmeans is that our brains, I look
at it as a computer that we candownload new software, we can
(14:20):
delete software, we can deletethings that no longer serve us,
or even this iPhone or God helpyou, Android.
Just kidding, but kind of not.
But the iPhone that you'relistening to, you can you can
add apps that serve you in acertain time, you can delete
apps.
We can do the same thing withour brains and our belief
(14:41):
systems and how we programresponses to certain things.
So there's this interestingstudy I found from the
University of Columbia withneuroplasticity.
And uh, neurogenesis, wegenerate 700 new neurons a day
in our brains.
Basically, what that means isthat our brains are constantly
(15:04):
rebuilding.
It's not something that stopsafter a certain point in time.
There's a lot of myths aroundthere, but our our brains are
constantly rebuilding, whichbasically means that our brains
are constantly creating spacethat we can download new
programs, we can deleteprograms.
So, with that, I want you tothink about what program do you
(15:25):
want to download?
Whether it's pain is my friend,pain is my buddy, pain is
something that helps me grow,whatever the case may be.
I personally recommend Pain ismy friend.
That's the one that I use.
Pain is my friend is just comingto visit me right now.
And the more that you repeatthat before we even get into a
(15:51):
moment where it will actuallycome visit you, like a marathon
or whatever the case may be, Iwant you to play that, play that
program in your mind.
Sing that song, that favoritesong that you sing.
I know the new Taylor Swiftalbum that just came out,
there's probably people thatalready have memorized all of
the lyrics to all the songs.
(16:13):
So basically, what that means isthat they have downloaded 12 new
programs in their mind becausethey have continued to replay
the lyrics of those songs towhere it's second nature.
So the more that we play Pain ismy friend or whatever the
program is, the more that weembed it into our mind, and that
(16:33):
when it actually comes to visityou, now we trigger this
response in our brains that, oh,it's my friend coming over, man.
We're not gonna let pain be thenegative voice and let pain be
pain because then we're we'refighting against an adversarial
force versus welcoming apositive force and friend and
(17:00):
companion.
So how does this actually getapplied?
When do we put the program intoaction?
So I love running marathons andultramarathons and doing hard
(17:20):
things.
It's something that brings joyto my life that I recommend
everybody find something that ishard to you, hard being relative
to you.
Not everybody needs to be amarathoner or ultra marathoner,
but find something that trulychallenges you because that's
(17:40):
what allows your mind, body, andsoul to expand.
And when pain does come andvisit you, welcome it to the
party, just like you would yournormal friend.
Because now we know that what isthat pain bringing you?
It's bringing you growth, it isbringing you the qualities that
(18:07):
you possess today that you'remost proud of.
It's bringing you a betterversion of you, just like we
would we would want our normalfriends to do.
We want to be around people thatlift us up, that help make us
better, that bring us to a newlevel.
I couldn't imagine anybodylistening right now that says, I
(18:30):
hope to have a friend that makesme feel bad and shoots me down
and makes me not want to push asfar hard as I possibly can.
No.
This pain, yes, it doesn'talleviate the actual physical
pain, but this pain is doing theexact opposite of that.
(18:53):
It's making you better, it'sgiving you something because our
minds are opened to the factthat, hey, this actually does
deliver gifts.
And we have evidence thatsupports that.
Whether it's the tough breakupyou went through, whether it's
the race you endured, whetherit's the tough season of life
(19:15):
growing up, whatever the casemay be, we have so much evidence
that pain is good.
So I've ran a few marathonsrecently and have have a couple
more big ultra marathons comingup.
Uh most recently competed in thein the Chicago Marathon.
And around 22, mile 22, on theback half of the course, I was I
(19:41):
was just starting to speed up,was planning for a pretty big
negative split on the back side,uh, but didn't get everything
that we wanted there, but stillgot still got about a minute
faster.
But right around 22, 23, Iremember it was it was warm, and
(20:01):
my pace was now just starting toto decrease a little bit.
And legs were quads wereextremely hot, and that that
that voice is starting to visityou.
Hey, you can slow down a littlebit.
You can slow down a little bit,and then immediately I'm
smiling, like, okay, Payne, hey,what's up, man?
(20:24):
You know, I'm glad you I'm gladyou came to join me.
Let's have some fun.
And just smiling, like, hey, I'mI'm I'm running with my friend
now.
Just like I would if I'm runningwith my actual friends.
I'm going on a run with myfriend right now.
Now, it doesn't mean that all ofa sudden you start running at
this 530 clip or you you startjolting out of any nowhere.
(20:49):
But what I've found that bydoing this is that when I do
welcome pain to the party andsay I'm hanging out with my
friend, some of the actualphysical pain itself does
subside.
Versus if it came to visit me,and then I'm thinking about all
(21:12):
the negative impacts, and here'show much this sucks, then the
very opposite can happen.
That pain can increasesignificantly and actually make
me want to stop or give up ornot push forward.
So in that moment or in thosemoments, that's what I that's
(21:35):
what I think about.
I smile, I'm going on a run.
I'm just out on a run with myfriend right now.
I hope you're doing, I hopeyou're doing well.
And another thing I like to dois, you know, when that friend
does come to visit, just likeyou would with your actual
friends, have some fun withthem.
So sometimes to make sure thatyou know my my friend's getting
(21:58):
a little loud, I say, is thatall you got?
Like, seriously, is that allyou've got right now for me?
Is that the best you can bringme?
You know, kind of like beingcompetitive with one of your
friends.
Or even I like to do this onetoo.
You know, hey Payne, like, heyPain gods, can you can you give
(22:21):
me some more?
Can you give me some more?
And I find that that issomething that after doing that
and repeating it, every stepstarts to feel a little better.
Again, it doesn't immediatelydiminish what you're facing, but
(22:44):
it keeps you moving forward,going further and harder than
you believed possible in thosemoments.
So looking back, we're we'vefirst we've taken a step back to
identify how how pain has helpedus at some point in time, and
(23:04):
then think through what programyou want to download, practice
that, practice that repetition.
What do you want that voice tobe?
What do you want that program todo?
How do you want that program tobe executed in the moment?
And then when it's there, or howhow how can we actually apply
(23:26):
it?
What does that actually looklike?
I went back and I love takingnotes and books.
And of course, I wrote, likemany of you read Can't Hurt Me
by David Goggins years ago.
And then I figured if there'sanything that I have, an example
(23:47):
in a book, uh, what better onethan Can't Hurt Me?
And I'm sure that my notessomewhere along the way have
something about Goggins talkingabout pain and what what he does
and how he manages through it.
And I found something that I'llshare this quote that I believe
illustrates how he doesn't givepain a voice.
(24:07):
And then we'll also talk about ascience concept related to his
example that I learned fromSteve Magnus in reading his book
and having him on the podcast aswell.
So this excerpt from Mr.
Goggins in none other than theArmored Mind chapter in Can't
(24:30):
Hurt Me.
And here's here's his quote.
I should read this in a Gogginsvoice, but we'll see.
SPEAKER_01 (24:39):
People have a hard time going through bugs healthy,
and you're going through it onbroken legs.
Who else would even think ofthis?
I asked.
Who else would ever be able torun one minute on one broken
leg, let alone two?
Only Goggins.
You are 20 minutes in thebusiness, Goggins.
You are a fucking machine.
(25:00):
Each step you run from now onuntil the end until the will
only make you harder.
SPEAKER_03 (25:07):
That last message cracked the code like a
password.
My calloused mind was my ticketforward, and at the 40 minute
mark, something remarkablehappened.
The pain receded to low tide.
The tape had loosened so itwasn't cutting into my skin, and
my muscles and bones were warmenough to take some pounding.
(25:27):
The pain would come and gothroughout the day, but it
became much more manageable.
And when the pain did show up, Itold myself it was proof of how
tough I was and how much tougherI was becoming.
Day after day, the same ritualplayed itself out.
I showed up early, duct taped myfeet, endured 30 minutes of
(25:48):
extreme pain, talked myselfthrough it, and survived.
None other than David Goggins.
But you see what he says thereand what he did.
Rather than look at pain as thisadversarial force, he looked at
it as hey, this thing right now,yeah, it might physically hurt,
(26:12):
but it's making me better.
And we can push through this.
Another thing he did there, ifyou notice in the in the quote,
he spoke in third person callinghimself Goggins, and you can do
this.
And that's actually a conceptthat I learned from Steve
(26:33):
Magnus.
Steve is a performance coach,mental performance coach, and a
highly regarded in the runningspace, uh former USA track and
field athlete, awesome guy, haswritten several books about how
we can reframe our mind andreframe our thoughts into
(26:56):
positive forces.
I actually have this on my on myfridge because this was
something that really just stoodout to me in Steve's book, Do
Hard Things.
So it talks about how to changehow changing one word in your
thoughts can boost mentaltoughness and resilience.
(27:16):
So this was actually a study atthe University of Michigan.
And it's changing the word orthe voice, I to you.
So notice in that quote fromGoggins, he's not saying, I can
do this.
Now he believes that, but he'ssaying, Goggins, you can
(27:38):
freaking do this.
So he's now a third party, as ifthere's somebody on the
sidelines, just like there wouldbe on the marathon, that is
shouting out your name, heyCass, hey Ryan, you can keep
freaking going.
Now it's almost like this crowdeffect.
You've got someone else that isrooting for you.
(27:58):
And the concept is calledpsychological distance.
So create psychological distanceto boost your resilience.
And it's again, just by changingthe voice I to you, that can be
(28:20):
a differentiating factor as tohow far you continue pushing,
how much longer you last in thefight, in the battle, in the
tough season of life, goingthrough the breakup, whatever
the case may be at home, just bychanging the voice.
(28:41):
So it's no longer I can gut dotdot, you can dot dot dot.
So as a complement to everythingwe talked about as it relates to
making pain your friend, eventhe voice that you're using when
you're having that conversationwith pain can be a
(29:04):
differentiating factor.
So ultimately, here pain is yourfriend, you have evidence that
you've been through stuff inlife that has given you
something positive today.
(29:26):
And when we're intentional aboutwhat program we want to build
around that, then when thattrigger moment takes place, so
in this case, the trigger couldbe when that physical hurt comes
up in a race.
Now we have our response ready.
(29:46):
We've got that track ready thatoh hey man, good to see you.
Let's have some fun, let's godance.
Is that all you got for me?
Let's go.
see let's see how you let's seehow you like these next five
miles.
You won't even believe what I'mgonna do to you.
(30:07):
So we can have fun with it too.
So it's my wish that by hearingthis that this is a call to
action for you to think aboutthe program you want to download
around pain and to view it asyour friend that is going to
(30:29):
help you push forward and wintoday.
Thank you so much
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