170 - The Hero's Journey: Move Fourwards with Joe Lindley - The Captain's Lifestyle Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
And he starts telling us the storyabout why he's driving Uber, and he's
driving Uber to try and save extramoney to go to Germany. Like why
are you going to Germany? He'slike, well, I'm from Germany and
whenever I was like I think,he said he was five, his dad
kidnapped him and his older brother andsmuggled them out of the country into Iraq

(00:23):
and then into multiple other countries,smuggled into the US, changed their names,
changed the birth certificates, and he'dcompletely lost track of his mom.
But just before this car ride,he'd found her. So okay, let's

(00:58):
let's just jump right into it.So, uh, you know keytone I
Q? Yeah, okay, doyou know what this is the block that
it's under. I don't so rightnow, the keytones are being charged with
quantum energy. This is a quantumblock that well, we won't go into

(01:18):
that now. I'll just I'll leaveit a mystery. You can let your
imagination run wild. And so weare going to cheers and have a shot
at these before before the interview.You know about keytones, like what the
effects of them? Yeah? Okay, so yeah, we won't need to
go into that dried keyton I Qthough, Yeah, cheers is the whole
bottle. Yeah, down the hatch, down the hatch taste. What do

(01:48):
you think taste like keytones? Itdoes it. It's definitely not the worst
tasting keytones that I've had. That'sstill better than five hour energy. I
think. Oh yeah, what youput into your body today is the foundation
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(02:14):
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yours today. Back to the show. All right, let's jump into this
conversation. Joe Lindley, Oka,Indiana. Joe, Welcome to The Captain's

(02:43):
Lifestyle Podcast. Thank you for havingme. It's great to be here.
I'm very excited for this conversation becauseit seems like you like adventure. Yeah,
would that be an accurate statement?Yeah, okay, pretty accurate.
Adventure is one of my core values. So I was studying your Instagram and

(03:04):
YouTube before this episode, and itlooks like your life is an adventure.
Yeah, I try to make itthat way. I think that people probably
think it's a little more adventurous thanit actually is generally because I, you
know, like creating content. Butthat's just the nature of things. Of
course, we're getting the highlight onthe Instagram. I understand my favorite moments.
Yes, exactly what got you intocontent creation? Like, from what

(03:34):
I saw it, you went tocollege and then after that, what happened?
What was the start of the adventure? The true start to the content
creation adventure was in high school.The GoPro Hero Too Reveal video came out,
and I don't know if you remember, but it was glitch mob to

(03:58):
music and it was just all ofthe best go pro shots, you know,
people wingsuiting, bass jumping, wakeboarding, all of the all the extreme
sports. And I'd been wakeboarding fora while and I wanted to get into
you know, videography because that wouldbe really cool at the time, you
know, the sophomore in sophomore inhigh school and I told my buddy that

(04:19):
I would future in the future ridedirt bikes with I told him that I
was going to get a GoPro.He's like, what do you have to
go pro. So I took thatpersonally and from then on got my first
go pro, started filming pretty mucheverything I did adventurous, like when did
the Grand Game with my dad,you know, it was nothing like I'm
currently doing. But just kept videoingand videoing and videoing. And then one

(04:43):
day I just looked up and Ihad this massive stockpile of footage and I
had never done anything with it.And so I went on a trip my
buddy David to the Bahamas and wedid some free diving, and on that
trip he taught me how to useiMovie. And that was just the end
of it. I mean, Istarted creating videos for all of our trips.

(05:03):
You know, on the first trip, all your friends are making fun
of you, and then you makethe first video, and then they're like
on the next trip, like areyou making a video this time? So
I did that for some ski trips, trip to Costa Rica, trip to
the Grand Canyon, which is ahuge part of my life, definitely changed
it. It was my first likekind of near death experience with three other

(05:24):
guys that I felt responsible for.And then from there we I just kept
making footage, kept trying to planthat next adventure because I knew that adventure
was where I would create myself,and so I just went off on that
path. And back in twenty twentyone, I decided that I was going
to do seventy five hard and Iwas just going to record every single day,

(05:46):
and so I did it on TikTokand then grew my following, which
eventually drove me to be like,I'm going to do something crazy. Let's
ride bike across the country and froma documentary from Mental all Awareness and it
was just like on the spot.I mentioned it to a friend and I
was like, did I just volunteermyself for that? She was like absolutely.
I was like, okay, wellI don't even have a bike,

(06:06):
so let's let's try and learn howto clip into a bike. But it
was the it was that trip andKilmanjaro where I really fell in love with
not just creating cool shots and epicscenes of you know, action, but
actually creating that story and that storywas what really changed my whole perspective on

(06:29):
content creation, which, by theway, the storytelling that you're referring to
absolutely comes across in the content,like the music, the shots, all
of it. It's it's fantastic.I appreciate that. So let's start back
at the beginning, the Grand Canyontrip. What was that first near death

(06:50):
experience? Walk us through that storythe Grand Canyon in a nutshell. Um,
let's see, So spring break sophomoreyear. Yeah, sophomore year in
college. You know, we'd donethat classic spring break and goulf Shores,
Alabama freshman year, and everyone wasgoing to Cabo and they were spending like

(07:12):
fifteen hundred dollars on this you know, epic trip to go drink for seven
days, and we wanted to dosomething different. We also didn't have the
money, but we wanted to dosomething different, something more adventurous, and
so we just decided. My buddyJack at the time, had an interview
with a company called Tilt, whichwas like a crowdfunding for parties and for
you know, big things together.He had an interview with Tilt in San

(07:35):
Francisco, but it was going tobe remote, but we just decided that
we were going to drive him tothat interview in San Francisco. So from
college station, we planned, Iplanned this massive road trip across the country
ten days and planned it down tothe tea like this gas station. We're
going to stay here this night.You know this many hours to this place.

(08:00):
Ten days were just mapped out completely. I obsessed. I obsessed over
that instead of school. But wetook off the first ten hours. We
ran out of gas on the sideof ten. So the whole thing was
shot from there. The first nightin El Paso, Guadelupey Peak, which
is the tallest peak in Texas.That was our first stop, my truck

(08:24):
got vandalized. And then the secondnight my truck broke down in Joshua Tree.
And so this the whole trip wasjust full of these massive highs and
massive lows already, you know,like we had to stay for a day
and a half in Palm Springs andwhile my truck got fixed, and so
just find something to do. Andwe were supposed to be on the not
Fantasy Factory. But what's the otherone ridiculousness. They wanted to use one

(08:46):
of our clips and they were goingto bring us in for the show,
but they ended up not getting backto us. It would have been too
soon. But we planned to goto Yosemite and I had done all this
planning, but no search. Youknow, it's March. I'm just picturing
Yosemite half Dome, hiking it inthe summer. But we started driving into

(09:07):
Yosemite and we see all the snowaround us, and people have snowmobiles in
the back of their trucks, andwe're like, why are people with snowmobiles
coming through here? So eventually wehit a road closure and it's like snowtrack
only beyond this point, and sowe're just stuck in the water. We've
driven seven hours from San Francisco toYosemite and now we have to find out

(09:28):
what we're gonna do. And sowe're just like, all right, it's
ten hours through the night to theGrand Canyon. Let's go. So we
hop in the car again, stayup all night long, drive, show
up there at about like eight am, walk inside with two of my buddies.
The other one was asleep in thecar while we signed them up for
this. But the park rangers like, there's no camping remote camping available in

(09:52):
the Grand Canyon right now. We'resorry, you missed the rush. Everyone
took everything. We're like, dang, okay, and she's like, well,
actually, there's one spot. There'sone There's always that one spot that
no one wanted She's like, it'snine point two miles in and nine point
two miles out and there's only waterat the beginning in the end. And
so one of my buddies next me. He's like, all right, we

(10:13):
have to do it. She's like, no, you don't have to do
anything, and starts basically telling usthese stories of epic misadventures in the Grand
Canyon and you know, people dyingor dying a you know, a thirst
or starvation. We ended up takingit anyway and signing up our buddy that
was in the car without telling him, and so he wakes up and we're
like, we're hiking. He's like, how far, So as far as

(10:37):
it was get there. So weget there. So we load up our
water and start this hike into theGrand Canyon at like two thirty pm,
like way too late in the day. Um, but we just cruised all
the way down. None of ushave done a canyon hike before, and
so so we hike in. Nonenone of us have done a canyon hike

(10:58):
before. We've done on you know, mountains, and so you get the
hard part done first and then youcome down and that's the jarring part.
So we just basically run down theGrand Canyon, get all the way to
the bottom. We have blisters already. We haven't thought about this massive hike
out, but we spend the nightunder the stars in the Grand Canyon.
We also forgot to tell anybody whatwe were doing that we're gonna be able

(11:20):
to sell service. We haven't techprobably texted our parents or our friends,
and at least a day. Bythe time we start this and wake up
the next morning, it's seven inthe morning. We start mozing around getting
ready, and then suddenly it's twopm. We have no idea to this
day, what happened, how it'ssuddenly like six hours past, seven hours
past. But we were like,all right, it's time to start this

(11:43):
hike. Keep in mind, it'sSunday and we have school tomorrow, which
we didn't plan for, but wedecided to, you know, and just
go for it. So we startedthis hike out of two pm, and
my buddy's getting out all the waterready. He's got to experience the electro
lights at this point in time aswell. Like we're sophomores in college,
but no one's really advertising that athletesand people who exercise a lot need to

(12:09):
use electro lights, right, it'slike drink water, but no one's like
put salt in your water besides youknow, college, high school. But
we did bring electro lights on thistrip. We didn't have a whole lot
of experience with them. And somy buddy prepared my camelback with three leaders
of water in it, which wasmost of our water, and he put
like double the amount of sodium tabletsin it, and I didn't know that.

(12:31):
So we both start drinking it.Within the first hour, like,
I had diarrhea on the side ofthe trail. It was pretty bad.
Other buddies puking. We're like,oh, okay, and it's you know,
three pm, and the sun goesdown over the canyon wall and like
forty five minutes and we still havefive hours left, so we just keep

(12:52):
hiking. We keep hiking. Eventuallywe pull over to eat something, so
I eat some tuna. My onlythe only water bottle left, It might
be in my lap, and soI'm like getting my tuna ready and my
water bottles open and it just fallson the ground spills. So we ran
out of water at that point,and we were hurting pretty bad for a

(13:16):
while. I think we went likeprobably an hour and a half, and
it was just it got to thepoint where everyone was cramping up. Everyone
was in a pretty bad spirit aswell, and so one guy would stop
and like pull over on the sideof the trail and he would be in
front. And the only thing thatwe could say at that point was like
keep moving forwards, motherfucker, Likewe have to keep going, Like there's

(13:41):
only like quitting and going back andperhaps making it back or going forward.
And we still had thousands and thousandsof feet of elevation to go, so
we did that. We just keptgoing back and forth and stopping and cramping
and just keep going and keep going. And I had this moment walking out.
I was in the back as longstory, and we'll get there with

(14:01):
Kilimanjaro. But I decided, likeon trips like this, I would always
be in the back because that's whereI want to make sure that everyone's okay
from. And so I'm in theback and I just have this overwhelming sense
of emotion, like just overcome me. And I would find out the next
year at school that that's called thegenius low Si. It's the spirit of

(14:22):
the place. It's like whenever yousee this massive landscape or this big forest,
or you stand next to this treeand you just have this like maybe
it's goosebumps for people, maybe it'syou know, they get teary eyed.
It's this feeling of just presence,ingratitude and like despite these circumstances, almost
dying, you know, or feelinglike we're about to die is like nineteen

(14:45):
and twenty year olds where like,this is an incredible experience, and so
I bowed that I would never forgetthat feeling that I wanted to not chase
it, but if you're present forit whenever it happened and allow that to
happen. So we keep going,and we're going, and I this sense
of gratitude but also this small senseof fear. And then we come up
around a corner in the Grand Canyonand the sun's going down. It's just

(15:09):
about to go right and hit likethe rim of the Grand Canyon and then
disappear. And as we round thecorner, there is this like gleaming light
change I guess in some way,and like the sun's doing something different.
It's almost like a shining through something. So we're like, what is that?
And it's off the trail, probablylike a hundred yards like close to

(15:31):
the cliff's edge. So we allwalk over there and it's a gallon of
water. I mean, it's definitelysomeone else's water cash. And so if
you're listening to this and you losta water cash or it disappeared on you
in March of twenty sixteen, thankyou. But there's this gallon of water.

(15:52):
And so we all take a coupleof swigs, you know, and
take a little bit for our waterbottle, but then we leave like half
of it. We're like, youknow, this is probably someone's and what
if they're in the same predicament thatwe are. And so that actually gave
us enough water to be able tomake it out because we've made it a
couple hours without in so we're like, we can definitely do this. And
so we keep going, still cramping, still not feeling great, still sick,

(16:17):
but you know, in higher spirits. And then the sun goes down
in Arizona in March, and we'veall been sweating all day long. There's
like, you know, dried sweaton our faces, and then eventually we're
drenched in sweat and it's dropping likequick. It's just you know, going
from what it felt like eighty fivedegrees to like probably forty five. You

(16:40):
know, we're cold. We're allwe're in shorts. No one brought sweatshirts.
You know, we're not prepared forthis. We weren't prepared at the
time. We would get better atpreparing for these kind of things over time,
but we eventually literally crawled out ofthe Grand Canyon. We one of
my buddies like he just collapsed andwe're within almost to the parking lot.

(17:00):
It's like the last two hundred yardsand he just falls down. We're like,
the car is there, like canyou get up? He's like,
I can't get out. So heends up crawling to the parking lot and
we finished this hike. We driveout of the Grand Canyon and I don't
know if you've ever been, butthere's like no service anywhere around it.
But there's restaurants inside of the park, like there was a McDonald's, but

(17:22):
you still didn't have service there becauseit was so far like in the middle
of nowhere. And we go toMcDonald's. Everyone gets like two baked max
and French fries. And we didn'tknow health at this point. You know,
at that point, it doesn't matter. He was just starving and everyone
ate so quick and then everyone wentto the bathroom puped it up. It
was just like right end, waytoo fast, way too fast. I

(17:45):
mean, we were just so hungry, so thirsty. But that's the first
trip that was That was the tripwhere we realized, you know, despite
this super super tough experience climbing outof the Grand Canyon, you know,
everything that led up to that aswell, like my truck breaking down,
things getting canceled, campsites being closed, and then running out of water coming

(18:07):
out of the Grand Canyon. Despiteall these significant lows, it made all
of the highs that much better.And so that's whenever we made the realization
that the beauty of life is builtinto the contrast. It's like, you
can never expect to always ride yourhighest high, otherwise it's going to feel
dull. But if you have thesetough moments in life, you know,

(18:29):
the breakups, family members passing away, you know, if you have those
kinds of moments, then they actuallymake you appreciate the highs that much more.
And what we've further concluded is thatit's all about the people you surround
yourself with. Like if we've beendoing. If I'd been doing that thing
together or by myself, sorry,if I've been doing that by myself and

(18:52):
trying to climb out of the GrandCanyon on my own, I would have
been scared shitless. But with threeother buddies and you know, turned brother
in that one twenty four hour period, everything seemed like, you know,
a worthy challenge. And so justremembering that the highs and lows, that
contrast of life is what creates beauty. And it's the people that you go

(19:12):
through those moments with that help youget to the other side and tough ones
and then celebrate with you at yourhighs too. Highest climbs have the best
views exactly. Things are cliche fora reason, you know, like they're
they're true. We're like, oh, that's so cliche. Well, there's
a reason it became cliche because Ithink I think the people who think it's
cliche have never experienced that, youknow, like live, laugh, love,

(19:41):
you know, like that's one ofthe most fucking cliche things. You
know, a fucking picture of livelaugh love up there. But like if
you think about it, like that'sthat's really what life is about. Actually
living the life that you want tolive loving yourself, other people laughing laughter.
Are you familiar with Ryan Sprague,He's the founder of Connect with Cannabis,

(20:06):
is a great guy. I washanging out with him last weekend and
he explained, you know the phraselaughter is the best medicine. So he
explained how that's actually the case orwhy that is a phrase because if you
look at an infant, joy istheir default state, right, Like,

(20:27):
yes, they ride their waves ofemotions, but ultimately they end up back
in this joy and awe and wonderand endless curiosity. Right, So like
that's our default state, and laughtercan help us get back to that default
state of joy and bliss. Soyeah, laughter, laughter is a good
medicine. Do you suffer with stress, anxiety, trouble sleeping? If so,

(20:51):
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(21:14):
are so many different routes that Icould take after that story. I think
the most pertinent one and one thatI love is the importance of a tribe,
having a crew of brothers like youmentioned, talk to us about how

(21:41):
you found your tribe and the importanceof it. Wow, well, I
think throughout all chapters of my life. You know, you you graduate college
and you save a few, right, You save a few guys, not
because the other guys suck, justyou got along best with those guys or

(22:03):
maybe they saw a specific version ofyou that you know, they knew you
pretty well. And then college happens. So you go to college, you
do the classic college experience, andthen whenever you look back on it,
you realize that the guys that werereally there for you are the ones that
were with you in the hard times, and so you keep a few.

(22:26):
And then sometimes you get super luckyand you find guys totally randomly and an
uber You DM them on Instagram becauseyou like their photography. And that's what
ended up happening. Right before Igraduated A and M. I reached out
to this guy that was in mygeography program and he had incredible photography.

(22:51):
He'd done this thing called Semester atSea it's a study abroad experience on like
a cruise ship, and you justgo like you circumnavigate the world on a
cruise ship. I mean, youcan only imagine the experience, right,
like getting off in Japan and stayingthere for a couple of days. So
I really liked his photography, andso I sent him a d M because
we were starting Forwards at this time, and you know, I'm a I'm

(23:12):
a great creative and definitely a creator, but I didn't have the design eye
at the time, but I didhave an eye for a good design and
good photography, and so I reachedout to him. I was like,
you know, we're looking for aphotographer. It's it's barely a business.
We haven't even made but one shirtyet. Here's a shirt by the way,
you know, we'd made our firstdrive fit. And reached out to

(23:37):
him and met him up at ataco shop and we connected right before he
went on a expedition to Patagonia withmy previous study abroad Study abroad professor and
didn't really talk the whole summer.Whenever he got back, he was like
super down for Forwards for what itstood for, and he like he experienced

(24:00):
that on his semester at sea aswell. You know, the highs the
lows, the contrast, the goodstory, Every good story as highs and
lows. And so we went ona road trip and I'd just gone through
a massive breakup, my first evermassive breakup, and I was a mess,
Like I was the one driving,but you know, I was just
like letting it all out, andthis man is just seeing me at my

(24:22):
absolute worst, you know, andhe stayed my friend. And so guys
like that that are there for youin the tough times and just really supportive
even having just met you. PatrickCampbell is his name. He's the one
who drove the van across the countrybecause I slid into his DMS, you

(24:44):
know, like that's where it allbegan. And then the rest of my
tribe here in Austin I found becauseI went skydiving. I took my Uber
driver skydiving. I got an Uberone day and this guy started telling the
story about why he drives Uber.His name's Izzy, and my buddy Jack
knew him and he's like, dude, my buddy's a drone photographer, drone

(25:07):
videographer. He does all this stufflike I love your content. He was
doing all this crazy like Austin workoutcontent at the time, and he starts
telling us the story about why he'sdriving Uber and he's driving Uber to try
and save extra money to go toGermany. Like why are you going to
Germany? He's like, well,I'm from Germany, and whenever I was
like, I think he said hewas five, his dad kidnapped him and

(25:33):
his older brother and smuggled them outof the country into Iraq and then into
multiple other countries, smuggled into theUS, changed their names, changed the
birth certificates, and he'd completely losttrack of his mom. But just before
this car ride, he'd found herafter twenty something years because his mom had
posted a YouTube video that she doesn'tknow where her sons are but it's been

(25:59):
about this long and the YouTube videofound him because of his Instagram. I
know a good story whenever I hearit, and so I just start diving
in. I'm like, tell methe story, tell me everything. Are
you when are you going? Likeand he tells me, you know,
I'm going in a month and that'swhy I'm driving Uber and my buddy Thomas

(26:21):
is coming, and I'm like,you know, this is going to sound
crazy, but I know you justmet me. In fact, you have
no idea who I am. I'mjust this guy whose buddy is hyping me
up on the front seat. ButI will go with you, and I
will pay my own way, andI don't want to I don't want to
hype everybody up. I didn't endup being able to go. His reasoning

(26:42):
was, you know, I'm hedoesn't know me, first of all,
but mainly that this was going tobe a really really serious moment, right
like you have to hold space forsomething like that, and have a stranger
there and videoing you and all ofthat, it's just gonna be a different
experience, and he didn't want toturn it into that. So his buddy
Thomas ended up going and filming thewhole thing. And it was actually a

(27:07):
project that I lost on my computerwhenever I was working on it. Unfortunately,
you know, things like that happened. But it was my first really
really exciting story. And whenever hegot back, I was like, listen,
this is also going to sound crazy, but I'd love to take you
skydiving and hear about your experience.And so he ended up saying, yes,
I paid for his first ever tandemskydive, and I had my skydiving

(27:30):
license as well, and so Iwas The plan was that I was going
to go up with him, youknow, jump out like say bye,
and then he was gonna follow medown. And so we went to the
drop zone, and he essentially gaveme the whole backstory of his meeting his
mom and the experience and how itfelt to a certain degree. He would

(27:52):
tell me later that it was almostmade him feel more lost, and we'll
get into that. But picked himup, interviewed him, had incredible conversation,
really really got along. We goto get in the plane. I
have my skide, having rick on. He strapped up to the instructor,
and unfortunately the winds were too highfor solowers. So anyone that's flying their

(28:17):
own their own parachute, there's justnot enough weight under that thing to be
able to fly it in like aspecific mile per hour. And so I
ended up being grounded and he endedup going up. But I just waited
for him, and whenever he landed, I was there and he was so
excited and so ecstatic, and Iwas just there in his face with this
camera and like you know, inthat moment. If you can bind adrenaline

(28:38):
with tribe, right, you getthis massive sense of brotherhood. And so
from there we just we talked andwe talked and we talked and we talked
all day and then went back andwhenever we went back to Austin or got
back here, we ate a littlebit. And you know, we were
pretty tired because you know, thiswhole experience jumping out of a plane,

(29:00):
I'll take it out of you andfilming the whole thing as well. We'll
do the same. So he's like, listen, I know we're both tired.
But my buddy CJ. Is havinghis thirtieth birthday tonight and his grand
opening for his business, and there'sgonna be a lot of people. There
be a cool opportunity to meet somepeople. Let me know if you'd like
to come. It's like, that'ssuper nice. You know, you're just

(29:22):
I mean, at one point you'rejust an uber driver to me, You're
so much more than that. Butnow you're like a true friend. So
I got home and I was like, I'll think about it. I got
home and time's coming and I'm prettytired, and I have this like feeling.
I'm like, I'm so exhausted.I don't don't. I don't want
to go. You know, it'sit's just a lot of effort. I'm

(29:47):
not drinking at the time either.It'd be a ton of strangers. And
so I sit down on the couchand i'd go to you know, turn
on a Netflix show and I texthim. I'm like, hey, I
don't think I'm gonna make it.He's like, that's totally fine. And
at that moment, I realized whata rain check implies, right. Rain
check doesn't imply you get another chance. A rain check just implies, like,

(30:07):
if you do invite me again,I'll try and make it right.
And so, sitting on the couch, lean back, all comfortable, cozy,
you know, just ready to endthe day, and I realize,
you know, I know exactly what'sgoing to happen tonight. If I sit
on this couch for the next sixhours, I'm gonna sit here, watch

(30:30):
this TV show, probably eat dinnerat some point, and then go to
bed, probably too late, butgo to bed. And so I decided
my mom told me one time.My mom told me many times, Actually,
don't don't told me this quote thatshe used to always say, ninety
percent of life showing up. Itseems aggressive, right, but normally the

(30:51):
hardest part is showing up, Likeyou show up to the workout, you
show up to the practice, youshow up to the test, you know,
and like you're there. You mightso I'll give it. You're all,
But like a lot, most ofthe friction is just in getting up
off the couch. And so Igot up off the couch and I drove
ten minutes across town, walked intoa room full of people that I had
no idea who any of them were, and now I know every single one

(31:15):
of them and I still communicate withall of them. Are you an introvert
or an extrovert? I think thatI'm still trying to figure that out.
I've really really been thinking about,you know, personality for a couple of
years now, Like I know I'ma type seven. I know that I'm
a Gemini and show it, likeyou know, those kinds of personality traits,

(31:38):
But I can't really decide. Iwould say that I'm an extroverted introvert
at my strongest, you know,like whenever I'm feeling good and whenever I'm
in a healthy place, I'm anextroverted introvert, meaning like I know that
I recharged by myself. I needthat time to reflect, I need that
time to write, I need thattime to create. Um. You know,

(32:01):
I can often get burnt out byseeing friends every single day of the
week, but whenever it's time,like I would like to be present,
I don't want to be in thecorner, you know, I don't.
I also don't want to be thecenter of attention necessarily, at least I'm
not going to search for it.But I do enjoy getting to know people,

(32:22):
and I think that by learning thatleaning into discomfort brings a very fruitful
life. I think it's confused me. Yeah, I feel similar. Definitely
understand what you mean by recharging byyourself. So that's that's why I asked,
Like, if I was on thecouch and was tired and they invited
me to this event, that Iwouldn't know any of the people, Yeah,

(32:45):
the first response would be like hardpass, I'm just gonna sit here
and be with myself. Okay,So we're at the party, all these
people you don't know, all thesepeople that I don't know, and then
ment tons of people you know,just actually decided to talk to people rather
than standing in the corner, whichis probably what I would naturally want to

(33:06):
do. So maybe I am anintrovert, right, yeah, yes,
and just uncomfortably that would be exhaustingfor me to like when I'm already exhausting
to go meet all these new people. That's just like and I'm nervous,
and I actually ended up I justremember I ran into a sliding glass door.
I thought I thought the door wasopen, and so, you know,
I like turned around after running intoa sliding glass door, and I'm

(33:29):
thinking that, you know, noone's gonna have seen it, and I'm
gonna be able to slip away,but like the whole the whole party is
looking at it, and you know, it actually made made them laugh,
which probably made them feel closer tome because they're like, are you okay.
I'm like, I'm totally fine.I deserved it, you know,
like whatever, whatever the funny wayto shrug that office. But I was
definitely embarrassed. And at this party, I met a lot of the people

(33:55):
and really the community that ended uppushing me to do a bike ride across
the country. That that Uber driverwas there, um Izzy was there,
that's his name, m and heinvited me to this gym called Squatch Frontier
Fitness. Have you been yet?Oh yeah, oh yeah, very familiar
mass. I've interviewed CJ. Incredible. So CJ was my first podcast.

(34:17):
I was, It was my firstpodcast on his podcast. I was so
nervous, so nervous. Um,this is my fifth so thank you.
UM. I definitely feel more.I definitely feel a whole lot more comfortable
on this one and that first one. But CJ was there. It was
actually CJ. It was his thirtiethbirthday and grand opening, and so that's
how I got pulled into this Austinfitness community and ended up going to Squatch

(34:42):
and then, you know, beingsurrounded by other great athletes and super fit
people, I was inspired to,like, you know, reach their their
level. You know, what canI do to make myself better? And
so eventually I came up with theidea to the bike across the country.
UM and all those people support tome. Squatch was a huge funder and
the go fund me to make ithappen, because I didn't have money to

(35:06):
make that happen, but we dida go fund me and had a fundraiser
and were able to fundraise just barelyenough to make the whole thing happen through
that. Just to tie up thisstory, you mentioned that when Izzy was
Yeah, when he met his mom, he felt more lost. Said,
we're going to circle back to that, yeah, before we forget Yeah.

(35:28):
So I did a follow up ina interview with him a couple of weeks
later. We did we were goingto do a the structure was along for
the ride was what I was goingto do. And so we went mountain
biking where he was going to takeme along for his ride and I was
going to take him along for myride type thing. And so we went
mountain biking, and then after mountainbiking, we went and grab some pet

(35:49):
Terris and went to the Zilker andjust laid down and hung out. It
was a beautiful day and we're layingin the mulch, sitting in the mulch,
and I'm and I asked him,like, you know, how do
you feel like in reflection, becauseyou after big moments like this, there's
always a drop off, you know, there's you can't possibly match that level
of dopamine, so there's a dopaminecrash, and so I was like,

(36:10):
how do you feel he's like,I feel not worse than before I found
her or met her, but justmore lost because you can imagine, I
mean most people can't imagine, right, Like being kidnapped from your mother by
an abusive father, smuggled around theworld. Your name has changed, your

(36:36):
birth certificates changed, you have noidea where your mom is. Your mom
went to a really, really toughtime. I won't go into the details
of what happened to her after sheleft, but her dad, his dad
was a pretty bad dude, andso she got like beat up quite a
bit, like for most of thosetwenty years. And whenever that happens to
you, you create this your sinceyou become centered on this is my purpose,

(37:02):
Like I need to find my mom, right, I need to find
my parent, And your whole lifeis like I need to find her.
I need to find her. WhateverI'm doing, I'm saving money to go
travel there. Like it's all basedon this one thing. And whenever you're
twenty eight years old and your lifegoal is realized, Yeah, what's next?

(37:28):
What's next? Right? That's like, I mean, that's a lifelong
goal that happens. Like most peopledon't have goals that long or at least
they don't realize them that quickly,and so he was just so confused.
And I think he's still in probablya little bit of a hermit face,
right, like trying to his momstill lives in Germany, but he lives

(37:49):
in the US, and he Ithink what he said that day was,
now, my goal is centered aroundmaking as much money as I can so
that I can give my mom theyears back, or at least try my
best. And so that's his lifegoal now, at least the last time
I talked to him, it wasbut it's been hard. I haven't seen
him in a little bit, butwill always be brothers. We talk occasionally

(38:12):
whenever we can. But he wasdefinitely one of the person that opened the
door to Austin for me and reallygave me. You know, he's the
reason I'm sitting at this table.So tribe, it's massive and it's tough
to find. It's hard to workfor. You have to put an effort

(38:37):
in order to get the right qualityand the best quality. You know,
people think that I'm going to showup at you know, run nights every
Wednesday and someone will land in mylap. It's like, you gotta talk
to people. You gotta stop standingin the corner and if you can go
on a trip together, do somethingfun, something out there you know where

(39:00):
things can go wrong, and thenyou can see how people handle it.
Something challenging. Yeah. One ofmy favorite ways to protect myself from me
MFS is swimming in the ocean,and even when I can, I'm still
protected with my aries tech life tuneFlex. It protects me from the oxidaive
stress caused by electromagetic radiation that cancause things like headaches, fatigue, and

(39:21):
trouble sleeping. To get yours,head to aristech dot com. Usecoat,
Captain Morgan. That's aristech dot com. Use good, Captain Morgan. All
right, back to the show.Are you ready for it? Another emotional
and potentially challenging story. Yeah,all right. So as I was going

(39:43):
through preparing for this interview, Margaretcame up quite a bit and I could
tell that you guys were extremely closeand I was excited to talk about her

(40:08):
with you on this podcast. Andthen I found that you guys had broken
up and that was your first one. So can you walk us through how
you handled that and how and ifyou have overcome that? Yeah? Absolutely,

(40:28):
I think that relationship showed me themost about myself the most so far,
really peeled back a lot of thelayers and peeled back a lot of
the insecurity, and it really mademe pushed me into trusting myself and into

(40:54):
trusting my own intuition. It wasit was along on off relationship trauma bond
classic m She was a friend.First we met each other, like the
first week of college. At thatpoint, we had, you know,

(41:15):
all the things in common. Bythe time that we actually like fully broke
it off, we had pretty muchnothing in common. Um. I was
active, she didn't really wasn't superactive. Um I was reflective and growth
minded, and that wasn't her mainmain goal. And the really the the

(41:39):
nail in the coffin for all ofthat, um, in a good way,
you know, putting, putting itto rest, allowing it to rest
in peace, was the bike ride. Um we got back together right before
the bike ride. She'd saw thatI was, you know, committing myself
to doing something wild, and youknow, perhaps she wanted to be a

(42:01):
part of that. Perhaps she wasimpressed. I'm not sure, you know,
that's that's up to her decide.Um what that reasoning was but I
let her back in and I wasexcited by it, and I was I
felt changed. You know, Ihad just finished seventy five hard I'd done
a lot of hard things. Um, I was about to do a bike
ride, and it's it sounded greatto have someone hold on, hold on

(42:25):
when you say I'm about to doa bike ride. This is not like
what what most people think about.Hey, I'm gonna go for a bike
ride. When you say I'm aboutto do a bike ride, I'm sorry,
Yeah, you're biking across America.Yeah, yeah, we just we
were for within my friend group.It's just funny because we referred to it
as the ride bike ride, right, and so like it's just funny because

(42:49):
it will always forever be called that. But yeah, in in all of
our heads, that's what it means. But to other people are like,
the ride, what is the ride? Yeah? Um okay, so yes,
the Ride across America, the RAM, otherwise known as and we'll get
into more of those details as welllater, but essentially to give you like

(43:10):
an overarching lens. It felt greatto have the idea of having someone back
home felt great, you know,like someone to talk to, someone to
update about my day. The ideaof that person, of that thing felt

(43:31):
amazing, but it was just anidea. And what happened was we were
already so so different going into thebike ride. There were about two or
three weeks but whenever we got backtogether and started like talking to each other
again. Before I left for thisbike ride, we hadn't seen each other

(43:52):
talk to each other in like sixor eight months, you know, it
had been a while. And soI left for the bike ride, and
you know, the events unfolded.I unfolded and unraveled, and I put
myself back together, and on theother side of that bike ride we were

(44:13):
I'd just gotten back. I wasa little bit depressed as well, because
of that high and not, youknow, being at that fifty five miles
a day bike ride endorphin level.And she came over one night and she
was like, who are you?I laughed. I was like, what

(44:34):
do you mean? Who am I? She was like, no, like
who are you? I was,I don't I don't know what you want
me to tell you or explained toyou, like who I am? After
all of that, you know,and that was really just the realization,

(45:00):
like we were so different people andwe were not meant for each other.
And from there it just started fallingapart again, and it was scary.
I was working at the Ocean Lab, flipping float cabins and cleaning saunas and
coal plunging as much as I couldand squeezing floors and going through this breakup

(45:25):
and just having all this time inmy head. You know, it's it's
pretty effortless tasks to do. Youknow, you're not you don't have to
think about folding a towel. Ijust fold the towel. And so the
breakup occurred, and a lot oftime passed. I mean, I would

(45:45):
say between all of the other breakupsand get back getting back together, there
was always that like feeling of,oh, is it going to happen again?
You know, are we going toget back together again? But I
knew that after this one, youknow, I didn't know consciously that it
was fully fully over. You know, there was always that like subtle or

(46:06):
there was that subtle in the backof my head, you know what if
you know, what if people completelychange, right, I can't hope for
that. And time passed, woundsslowly started to heal. I found out,

(46:27):
you know, like eight months laterthat it hadn't been what I thought
it was, and you can likefill in the gaps there, but that
like rebroke me again in the bestway, and it was actually funny enough,
like three weeks before Kilimanjaro. Andso now I had a new fresh

(46:52):
perspective on life and love and wentto Kilimanjaro. And I would like to
use this as an opportunity to segueinto Lauren Lindbergh, who is incredible feminine
that I ran into at Silker Parkone day right after Kilimanjaro, after I

(47:12):
was changed yet again, and sheturned out to be not just a beautiful
woman but also a documentary producer,incredibly smart, creative, nurturing, carrying,
and I wouldn't know all that orsome of that for a couple of
months, but it was one ofthose moments at the park. I'd just

(47:37):
run to the park to stretch andwalk my dog, you know, and
walk around the park. And Iwent to my normal spot, and whenever
I was running up to my normalspot, there was this woman walking in
front of me, and I wasjust like kind of blown away, like
I haven't looked at or seen anotherfemale like that before. And I just
felt this feeling. So I wentto my spot to stretch, and normally

(47:59):
I'd only be there for like twoor three minutes, and I decided.
I was like, she's laying overthere. I need more than two or
three minutes here, Like I needto figure out if I'm going to talk
to this woman, what am Igoing to say? And so I was
like, I'm gonna run five sprints, like from here to there, I'm
gonna run there, I'm gonna walkback, and on the fifth one,

(48:21):
I better know what I'm gonna say, you know, like buying myself sometimes.
So one, two, three sprintsand then on the way back from
the third when I'm like, okay, perfect. And one of the reasons
that I was so attracted to herand wanted to talk to her is because
she was journaling. And it wasfive thirty PM on a Friday. She's
journaling, she has headphones, andI'm like, I'm at Zilker, running
and working out on a Friday.You are journaling and reflecting, probably about

(48:45):
your day or your week, ormaybe you're writing a book. I have
no idea, but I'm curious whatyou're writing. So I was like,
I'm gonna ask her what she's writing. Great place to start. It's a
great place to start, right,So four happens, Five happens. I'm
walking back. I'm like, okay, I need to change my trajectory a
little bit. And so I'm walkingtoward her and like, you know,
my heart's beating fast, super nervous, and I'm like, play cool,

(49:06):
play cool. And as I'm walkingup to her, this man comes out
of nowhere and starts harassing her dog. Like she's got her dog next to
her, and he's like, hey, come here, come here, I
want to bet you. I wantto bet you, like, let me
bet you. And she's like,I don't think he wants you to bet
him. Like Cody, her dogis not like a super like he decides
whenever someone pets him, not theother way around. You know. She's

(49:30):
like, I don't really think thathe wants to pet you, and so
but he's just like incessant. He'slike, I want to pet your dog.
And so I'm like, my planis foiled. I have I can't
walk over and be like, hey, what are you writing while this man's
yelling at her, But I'm alsonot going to walk away and go back
to my spot. That would belike going against us, and so I

(49:50):
just walk up and I'm like,what can I do? And so I
just sit down next to her,like I'm a friend, you know,
like maybe this man will see thatshe's with another man and be like,
Okay, I'm gonna stop, youknow, harassing her dog or something.
And so I just sit down.She turns around, she like sees me
sitting there, and she's like probablynot startled, but just surprised that there's
someone sitting there. And like that'swhen it began, just a random day

(50:14):
at Silca Park where I had thisfeeling where I was like, I feel
like this is one of those momentswhere you're supposed to show up and we've
been we've been seeing each other sincesince then, and she's entirely changed my
perspective on life and love and whata safe relationship can enable you to do.

(50:35):
And that is just one of thebest feelings. So fu yeah,
fuck yeah, all right. Ifeel like this is a perfect time to
insert one of my favorite quotes andone of the quotes that I discovered while

(51:00):
ring for this, and it's fromParis Bielder's Day Off. You know that
quote, Oh yeah, yeah,oh yeah, life moves pretty fast.
I do want to stop to lookaround once in a while. You could
uns it fucking love that? Allright, that's a great one. Yeah,
let's let's now talk on um whyit's so important to romanticize your life?

(51:24):
Right, Because you're a dude.You're having dude experiences, some more
exciting and challenging than others. Butfor the most part, this is like
the journey of the masculine. Right, when did it become apparent to you

(51:49):
that you wanted to start romanticizing yourlife? And what is the importance of
that? Like, well, Icould say more of it? Yeah,
go ahead, Yeah, I thinkI turned off autopilot during seventy five hard?
Are you familiar with seventy five hard? Okay? I didn't have a

(52:09):
whole lot of discipline at that point, Like I'd been working out and lifting
for years, But like, wasit a consistent split? You know?
Was it a consistent run? Wasit a consistent this or that? It
was? Like no, I waskind of just like fooling around with it.
I was staying in good shape,and I was in pretty good shape,
But was I really like giving itwhat I could give it? And

(52:30):
so seventy five hard made me kindof relook at that and relok at discipline.
And so the interesting thing was,you know, you have to do
two forty five minute workouts. Onehas to be outside. I wasn't super
disciplined yet, and so some ofthose workouts would be like two am walks,

(52:52):
you know, if I hadn't goneasleep yet, still countered for that
day, and so I'd be walkingmy dog at like two in the morning
on the street in Austin, andlike in the street you could do it,
you know, there was no cars. And so that's whenever I really
realized that, like I am justdoing the most ridiculous stuff right now.
No one's doing it, and Ifeel like I'm super off autopilot. And

(53:15):
that the more novelty, the morenovel that these experience has become, the
more that like I'm going to rememberthem. Right. You do every single
day, the same, the same, the same, the same. You
wake up, you drank coffee,you go to work. You have no
idea what that work day looks like. Whenever you look back on it in
four years, like what happened onthis Day're like, I don't know,
but I could I could name everysingle day if you told me the name

(53:38):
of the day on the bike ride, because I named them all. It
was like day forty four Dances ofRavens. You know. I started doing
things like that, like if Icould find something novel within today, what
would I name it? And sofrom seventy five hard realizing that if I
put myself in these kind of weirdcircle stances that no one was really doing,

(54:01):
that I would have really interesting experiences. And so that's whenever I started
finding synchronicities in my life and noticingthem more specifically. You know, I
think they happen all around us allthe time, but it's a matter of
if you pay attention to them.The Alchemist was really what started to change
my whole perspective. But at thispoint, a couple of years later,

(54:23):
whenever it really flipped. And sothat's whenever I just wanted to start doing
challenges, things that you know,would challenge me to write, would challenge
me to read, would challenge meto change my perspective. And from their
life got a whole lot more romantic, and I started seeing the symbolism and
the imagery and not just like madeup signs like you know, just the

(54:46):
same way that your childhood will reflecthow you approach relationships, Like the same
goes for your childhood and how itwill affect how you approach life, and
the kind of synchron cities that happened, and like maybe there's a father wound
in there, maybe there's a motherwound, right, and so finding those
synchronicities within your story and then workingthem out like the hero's journey. I

(55:10):
became super obsessed with the hero's journey, and I think that's really what sent
me into this, Like I needto go find my death rebirth, and
I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what's going to happen.
I mean, looking back, Iknow exactly what the event was,
but it was really finding out thatthere's a narrative to everything that happens in

(55:34):
your life if you look hard enough, like why did this happen? Maybe
not why did this happen? Wasit supposed to happen? But can you
find make the sense in it?And so once I really started finding the
meaning in my life and what itstood for, not only did the novelty
in the romanticism go up, butalso the suffering went down. Because I
found out that there was a reasonfor that suffering. What was the event,

(56:02):
I think it was day thirty eightof the bike ride. I got
taken out by a dump truck onthe side of a freeway outside of Albuquerque,
two thousand miles in you still hadeight hundred and eighty six miles left,
and I was going down a mountainpass on the shoulder of the freeway,

(56:27):
and which was a bikable brute bythe way, it was like designated
bike rude, you know, numberwhatever, And they had been tearing up
highway and like putting it in theback of dump trucks to read it the
highway a couple of miles back,and one of those dump trucks passed me
going about seventy five miles an hour, and for no apparent reason, as

(56:52):
she was passing me, I wasgoing thirty two miles an hour downhill,
the lady driving the truck flipped theswitch released everything in side of it.
And this is a belly dump truckas well, not like the classic one
that leans back, so if youflip the switch, but a belly dump
everything comes out all at once,and so fifteen tons of gravel asphalt tar

(57:14):
and rock was thrown behind me onthe roadway, and so forty five miles
an hour relative to my speed,I got swept from behind down the roadway
covered and just rock and debris andrebar and all of this crazy shit,

(57:36):
and she pat the truck passed me. I don't remember a whole lot about
it, but I remember like threeor four very distinct things. The truck
passed me, and it got louder, and then I saw a wave of
black and then suddenly I was onmy side and I had enough time in
that moment to be like, damn, I can't believe this is it?

(58:00):
Like wow, this is what dyingin the moment feels like. There wasn't
a flash necessarily, but it waslike, full, this is it.
This is this is my end.You know, this is exactly why no
one wanted to ride me, wantedme to ride a bike across the country
because of the danger here. It'snot like you're gonna die riding a bike,

(58:22):
but it's you get hit. Butdid I really think it was this?
And like I just had this wholestreamline of consciousness happen where I'm like
damn, and then I'm still slidingand I'm like, I'm not dead,
debt, And I eventually come toa halt and I'm like, the the
debris is over my legs, LikeI don't really know what's gonna look like.

(58:46):
I don't even know if I'm gonnahave legs. I don't know if
I'm being able to stand up.And I like slowly stand up and I'm
able to stand and I like,don't look down, but I'm like,
I know that my left side liketotally totally completely cheese grated. And I
looked down my legs still there.There's there's no bone sticking out, which

(59:09):
is what I thought there would be, And there is debris just all the
way down the roadway probably another hundredyards, and all the way up the
roadway, probably one hundred yards.And eventually the truck came to a stop
on the side of the road andI looked down and I am just I
am just absolutely just not quite bleedingyet. But you know that that time,

(59:35):
right before we were like, ohno, this is going to happen
quick, I had a really nastygash like right here and then one of
my need to and so I gotup and got off the road and I'm
able to walk, I'm able tostand, like look down and like my
my limbs and my arms are shaking, like extremely shaking. But I'm here

(01:00:00):
and no broken bones. My bike, my bike tire, my bike wheel
had been blown out by probably arock like maybe this big that went through
the spokes. So you can imaginethat if that rock had been six inches
more forward right where my leg myankle was, like, I would probably
be debilitated the rest of my life, you know, like would be limping,

(01:00:23):
wouldn't have been able to do everythingthat I have done. Maybe you've
lost it. I'm not sure.But eventually the cars didn't really slow down
because it was right over a hillcrest, and so all of these trucks are
just slamming into this rock, andI'm like, I need to get off.
I need to get away from thehighway. I don't know if any
of these trucks are going to runoff the road. So there was this

(01:00:44):
tunnel under the road, like kindof like a storm wasash way. So
I walked through that tunnel to theother side, to the meeting end of
the road, and then called myfriends and I was like, actually no,
I called my friends and media thingbecause I was like, listen,
you to be here ten minutes ago, like now, like I'm fine,
but I don't know how much longerI'm gonna be fine. So eventually they

(01:01:07):
show up. They said it wasthe longest fifteen minute car ride of their
life because I was alive and nothing'sbroken. But like that's all I told
him. I was like, notreally fine though. So they showed up,
and eventually the EMS showed up,and the cop told us that she

(01:01:31):
was arrested for DHUI and she hadhad mouse order the day before, and
that whenever the cop asked her whathappened, she said, I don't really
know what happened. I can't explainit. I just looked down at the
switch and I flipped it consciously.She had been on bank killers, but

(01:01:55):
I mean, this is this isone of those moments where I'm like,
this is like a divine intervention,you know, because just a couple days
before, I'd like shouted to thesky as a joke like break me,
which like, be very very carefulabout it when you asked the universe for
because it definitely it definitely tried toum and it definitely did. It definitely

(01:02:20):
did break me, and it continuedbreaking me for months and months and months,
and you know, getting back froma ride like that to a break
up and then going through that aswell, and it was it was tough.
It was a tough time. Butyou know, from the shadows,
there's always light. And I wouldnot be even close to the person,

(01:02:45):
the man that I am today ifthose events hadn't unfolded exactly as they as
they had. I'm going to completelybutcher the pronunciation of this. It is
Latin. You mean to say it, Yes, you know exactly what I'm
gonna say it in sterquilinius and natureand what does that mean? It means

(01:03:06):
in filth it shall be found.It's actually a direct the direct translation is
actually in this cesspool it is found, meaning like the grossest place you could
possibly imagine is where it's found.It is an illusion, it's a Carl
Jung philosophy, but it's an allusionto King Arthur and the Knights of the

(01:03:30):
Round Table. Whenever they were sentout on a quest to look for the
Holy Grail, no one knew whereto start looking for this artifact, and
so they were instructed. All ofthe knights were instructed to go out of
the forest and to look around andwhatever path seemed the darkest to start there.

(01:03:52):
And so to me, what thismeans is whenever I don't want to
show up to things, whenever Idon't want to have that conversation, Whenever
I don't want to completely restart onlove and what my definition of it is
and completely redefine, you know,other aspects of my life. Whenever that

(01:04:13):
seems like the scariest thing to dois often what will hold the most treasure.
And it's underneath that dragon where allthe gold is. And so I
got this tattooed on my thigh rightbefore the bike rid about a couple of
weeks before, and every single pedalstroke it was right there in my face.

(01:04:34):
Striquilineus inventor. And my friend Noah, who I met through CJ,
is actually the one who told methat quote the first time, and I
was like, that's mine, that'smy Latin quote. Talk to me about
burnout. You push yourself really hard, and I think you have to burn

(01:05:01):
out. I think everyone should burnout, but you don't have to keep
burning out. It's a matter ofyou should know where where your limit is
and where your boundary is and youshould push it, and you should be
very careful about not going over it, because going over your boundary, your
limit, can set you back evenfurther. And I found that after the

(01:05:24):
bike ride, you know, onthe bike ride, riding fifty five miles
a day for fifty five days,I missed a lot of things. I
missed cooking. You know, wecouldn't really cook. We didn't have a
grill or a stove really that wasn'tstored completely under the van. I missed

(01:05:45):
cooking. I missed lifting, Imissed swimming, I missed running. I
missed all of these things. Andso I made this grandiose plan in my
head, like whenever I get backinto spike Ride, I'm gonna start training
for an iron man, and I'mgoing to start this and that, and
I'm going to the gym five timesa week and I'm going to do all
of that. But I didn't knowwhat the dopamine crash would look like on
the other side of a success,like almost dying twice on the bike ride

(01:06:11):
and then finally making it to thePacific Coast and then just going back home
to normal life, and like theblink of an eye, like you arrive
home two days later and everyone's stillyou know, people have made progress,
but like everyone's for the most partlike still live in the same life they
lived whenever you left. And likehere you are just like wide eyed looking
around that everyone like did y'all Likedo y'all not feel this? Yeah?

(01:06:33):
Do y'all not feel this massive change? And so super hard on myself.
And Dave Robinson saved me from thisdeep, deep dark hole of a depression
that I got in because number one, I didn't have the endorphins from fifty
five miles a day of biking,and so I wasn't able to rely on

(01:06:53):
that aspect of happiness. And pluscontinue I need, I need my body
needed to rest, you know.I needed to allow myself this space of
like you've done something incredibly crazy.You have a little bit of PTSD,
Like every loud sound in the room, I would like flinch, you know,
because there was a really loud soundthat happened. And Dave was like
he reached out one day and he'slike, how are you? Because he

(01:07:15):
also coached me through the beginning ofthe bike ride, and that would be
a good thing to look to goback into. But he reached out and
he was like, how are you? And I was like, I don't
know, man, I'm being prettyhard on myself. And he was like
why. I was like, becauseI really wanted to train for an iron
man. I feel like I'm inthe best shape I could be for an
iron man at this point. Youknow, all I have to do is

(01:07:35):
like get my running back up andyou know, swim a little bit more.
And he was like, how longhave you been back? I was
like three weeks. He was like, how long were you gone? It's
like sixty nine days. He waslike, how about let's give it at
least as long as you were gonebefore you expect to get anywhere close to

(01:08:00):
where you were whenever you left.It's like that's a pretty good advice.
And so I actually ended up doublingit, you know, just rather than
being like I am going to dothis workout split and I'm going to run
this many miles, just being like, move your body so it feels good.

(01:08:20):
Pause right here. That that issomething that the majority of people who
exercise completely miss the mark on.Yeah, like, yes, it's good
to train intensely, and yes weshould we should challenge ourselves in exercise,
and there's sometimes more often than you'reprobably doing already, that we should just

(01:08:45):
move to move. Yeah, justjust commit to move. Feel good.
Moving your body feels good. Itdoesn't have to be to the point of
breaking a sweat or or you know, exerting your muscles. Like simply just
moving around it feels really good.So okay, continue. So I've been

(01:09:10):
I've really kind of created a Iwould say my personal brand to myself is
like, how can I how canI find these like not cheat codes,
but these little secrets to avoiding burnout? You know, Like I want to
get better at running. Most peopleare like, I want to get better
at running. So I'm going tobuy this workout plan from this influencer and
he's going to tell me to doMonday four miles, Tuesday, speed workout,

(01:09:34):
Wednesday, long run, Thursday,recovery Friday, you know whatever.
You know, this this massive schedulethat you're supposed to adhere to every single
day by the book, and itdefinitely gets you better at running. Don't
get me wrong, But most people, whenever they buy these programs, they
start running, they get to weektwo and they're like, I can't even
keep up with this shit, Like, why is running so hard? I

(01:09:57):
have never been more in love withrunning than I am currently right now.
And what I did this month waslike, all I said was I'm gonna
run every day. I broke onehundred miles this month because all I said
was I'm gonna run every day.It started out with two miles, and
then two miles, and then fourmiles, and then two miles and then
four miles. I was like,I'm gonna run two and four miles.

(01:10:17):
After the first week based on howI feel two or four miles, I'm
gonna do two hundred push ups.That's all I'm gonna do for the month.
And I'm in better shape than Ireally was right before the bike ride,
just because I've been running and Igot invited to do this race calls
it called the Texas Independence Relay thispast weekend, which is two hundred miles

(01:10:38):
from Gonzales, Texas to Houston,Texas. Teams a twelve run through the
night. You know, everyone endsup running thirteen to eighteen miles apiece in
three different segments. It was incredibleand I did it really well. And
all I did was just run everyday up until that, and I think
that we're constantly overthinking things like orlike we have to make this as efficient

(01:11:01):
as possible, Like, yes,efficiency is great, but I'm probably to
get consistent. Yeah, consistency,but also like efficiency takes out the fun
sometimes, like I'm gonna stick likediscipline, yes, but like have some
flow with it and enjoy your enjoyyour run, balance it. Don't burn
yourself out. Like if if you'regoing to burn yourself out for the whole

(01:11:25):
year doing seventy five hard, donot do seventy five hard. I created
a super bad relationship with alcohol andfood after seventy five hard. I became
a binge eater after seventy five hardbecause I wouldn't buy things in order to
actively not eat them, but wheneverthey were in my presence, I'm eating
five cookies. You know, Icouldn't just eat one cookie because I'm like,

(01:11:50):
oh, I'm treating myself though.And alcohol was the same thing,
like I demonize people to drink,and it took me over a year and
a half to realize that alcohol isactually pretty good in moderation. Most things
are like I'm celebrating this person's wedding, like they're supposed to do this once

(01:12:13):
in their life. You know,I'm gonna have the tequila shot with them
if they want, and I'm gonnadrink water afterwards. I'm gonna wake up
tomorrow and I'm gonna hydrate, andit's it's gonna be a lower day,
and I can accept that. Idon't have to be down on myself.
I have to beat myself up,but I'm not going to do that every
weekend. I'm not going to dothat during the week. And that's just
a choice that I make, youknow, because I know that performance for

(01:12:35):
me and my mental health for meis just more important than that one night
out in the town. So that'sone of the problems that I have with
seventy five hard, And I alwayssay, seventy five hard is not going
to solve your problems. It's gonnabring the surface. You're gonna bubble up

(01:12:55):
because it's just so much discipline,which is it's great for a lot of
people who are lacking that discipline,and they're missing one of the key components
of actual lifestyle change and changing yourhabits, which is the mindset and like
the stories and the language that youtell yourself around these things. So that's
I haven't done seventy five hard forthat. Yeah, reasoning, I'm pretty

(01:13:21):
good soft talk acknowledged, good withdiscipline, and so all right, let's
let's circle back to one of themost loving men on this planet that I've
come in contact with, Chopper Davethe job yep. So how did you

(01:13:43):
first meet Dave Man? Okay,you think about this, which, by
the way, Brooks mentioned this tome. Apparently we first met at Ocean
Lab, you and I. Yeah, I don't remember at Ocean Lab during
the coaches Strong coaching. Okay,yeah, so I was. I was
working that day, a little littleside tandard there, but yeah, apparently,

(01:14:04):
okay, that's so wild. Ididn't have his hair do back then.
Um okay, Chopper Dave. Itcan be traced back to Izzy.
Um. So Kenness barefoot Shoes yep. They were sponsoring a girl at Squatch

(01:14:25):
and I realized that Kenness was fromRichmond, which is where I was born,
and I was like, that seemslike an interesting synchronicity. I'm going
to check into that. And soI actually ended up doing a couple marketing
videos for for Kenness and Vincent,and whenever they came to town for something,
I think it was a tough nottough monor spartan. It's one of

(01:14:46):
their spartans. They came to townand Vincent was like, hey, will
you come to lunch with us?And so I went to lunch with them,
met him there, and Dave wasthere, and so I've been very
I think at this point, I'vebeen very careful about who I told about
this concept of riding a bike acrossthe country. But I knew that I
should tell certain people, right thekind of people that are going to push

(01:15:09):
you not be like are you sureyou can do that? Why would you
do something like that? You're crazy, you know, like, don't tell
those people your wildest ideas. That'sa bad idea. That's how that's where
dreams going to die or do anduse that to fuel you, Like,
okay, motherfucker, you want tosee it's good fuel. It's good fuel.
It burns dirty, but it's goodfuel. And so Dave was there

(01:15:30):
at this lunch and I start,you know, telling them this idea that
I'm having about riding a bike acrossthe country. And I'm telling it mainly
to Vincent because Vincent's the only guythat I know, and Dave you know,
I'm also hesitant, like I'm kindof trying to suss out how they
feel about it. You know,could Kennis maybe get involved? I don't
know. I have no idea whatI'm doing. I've never fundraised or tried

(01:15:51):
to make a pitch deck or makesomething like this. I'm just fucking around
and finding out, sucking around andfinding out. And I found out.
But Dave's there and he hears mewith my language, of course being a
little bit but kind of and youknow, sort of feels like guests maybe

(01:16:12):
could might possibly, you know,he heard me soft talking and he was
like, Joe, I know wejust met. I know, we literally
just met five minutes ago, butlet me play a little something with you.
He's like, let's imagine twenty yearsfrom now, twenty years from now,
you look back on the summer oftwenty twenty one and you biked across

(01:16:38):
a continent and everything that happened inbetween the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.
Just like, try and fill inthose gaps, all those memories you made,
places you saw, people you met. Now do the same thing twenty
years from now. Imagine you didn'tride a bicycle across country. What does

(01:17:02):
that summer look like to you?Do you remember it? Do you spend
the whole summer with your friends doingthe things you would have normally done in
the other summer? Like, yeah, you'll you might miss out, might
miss out on those things, Butare you really missing out on anything if
you go and do this or doyou want to go and ride a bicycle

(01:17:26):
across the country? Say yes tothe unknown and create probably one of the
biggest life changing experiences of your life. I think I just smiled at him.
I was like, damn, youjust fucking convinced me, right,
Yeah, So at that point heknew what he did, and he knew
that he was on the hook.He's a pro. He was like,

(01:17:46):
but he knew that if this man'sgoing to commit to you know that's using
all these kinds of words, ifhe's going to commit to doing something like
this, I should probably like takethe next step with them, you know,
like, how can I how canI make sure this is a success?
And so he set up a callwith me. He was like,
this one's on me. He setup a call, and I think a

(01:18:11):
couple of weeks later we met upon zoom or the phone or something.
And he had a couple of exercisesfor me. He was like, what
are your top four fears about thebiggest fears about this bike ride? And
I think number four was the bikebreaks right. Number three? Yeah?

(01:18:39):
Number three was Patrick, my vandriver and photographer and best friend, and
I would get in a fight andhe would ditch me or be like I'm
leaving, you don't need me todo this, etc. And so I'd
be on my own. Number twowas I get so hurt that every second

(01:19:01):
is a constant question of bish ifI should give up or not. And
number one was I get so injuredthat I have to quit. It's my
biggest fear. He was like,okay, I've never done any exercises like
this before. Huge for Metitashia Malorum. You know, imagine the worst and
prepare for it. Totally changed mylife. And he was like, Okay,

(01:19:27):
now those things have happened. Whatare you going to do? It's
like, okay, so number four, my bike breaks. Walmarts exist the
worst thing. I you know,one of the worst things to ride would
be a Walmart bike. But like, would it be funny? Would happen
to overcome it? Would it takea lot longer. Yeah. Probably Number

(01:19:50):
three was Pat Leaves. He waslike, okay, you have a friend
named Dave, you know, like, Okay, there's all other people they
could take that spot. Number twowas I get so injured that every day
is a constant battle. He waslike, one day at a time,

(01:20:14):
and number one, I get soinjured I have to quit. The road
will always be there, Okay.I mean technically number one would be like
I die, right, but like, you know, let's think about this
in terms of how I can thinkabout it after the fact of what these
things happening. And so he preparedme with those kinds of things. He's
like, all right, now you'veimagined probably every possible thing that could go

(01:20:38):
wrong along the road. Now you'vemade it to the Pacific Ocean. How
does that feel? And I recordedthis conversation with Dave because I was like,
I know that I'm gonna need this. How does it feel to arrive
at the Pacific Ocean? You know, I crossed a continent from to Ocean.

(01:21:00):
I got out of the Atlantic,got on a bicycle, traveled across,
got off a bicycle, and hotin the Pacific. How do you
feel? And I told him Ifelt like this moment would feel like I
finally began this adventure I call myown holding the hand of my childhoodself.
So I did this ride for mentalhealth awareness. I went through massive existential

(01:21:26):
crisis like multiple times as as ayoung adult and a kid way too early,
and struggle with mental health specifically likedepression, suicide, you know,
things like that, and romanticism wasone thing that saved me. But doing
things like this and doing things likethis for a cause to tell an allegory

(01:21:49):
of mental health about whenever it getsthe toughest is whenever it's the most important
to continue. And so whenever thisaccident happened on the bike ride, I
played that audio of me and Daveevery day in the morning. That's so
I started my day. It's like, it's just day by day. What

(01:22:11):
does it feel like to get tothe Pacific Ocean? What does it feel
like to take this day by day? And I made it across through no
other reason than that I had friendsthere to do it with. Who rapped

(01:22:32):
Davis Angel is an angel. Hetook wilderness outdoor first aid a couple of
years ago, you know, firstsummer, maybe multiple summers, I don't
know, but I was covered inroad rash on my thigh, on my
calf, on my butt, onmy arm, on my side, on

(01:22:53):
my shoulder, and he rapped allof those twice a day. He put
the antibacterial cream off on it,He washed them, He wrapped me up
like that is love, man,and that is yeah. They just Pat

(01:23:15):
said, he didn't tell me thisuntil afterwards, but he said, you
know, we actually never once guessedor a thought that you were going to
quit. We never once questioned,you know, what if he doesn't make
it, what if we don't makeit, what if we don't finish this
thing? It was tough, butwe knew that as a team we could

(01:23:43):
make this happen. And that kindof belief, like that kind of belief
from friends about your capabilities and whatyou can do and what you can do
together, just totally shattered any previouscomprehension of what friendship was. And those

(01:24:06):
are two of my best friends,like blood brothers. Pat and I went
to Kilimanjaro together. Davis wasn't ableto make that one, but just massive,
massive friendship, and Dave Robinson preparedus for those moments because if we

(01:24:28):
had gone into that having no previousthought of what if it would have been
a lot scarier and whenever I hadtwo friends with me instead. It was
a challenge that we could approach dayby day by day by day by day
for eighteen days on the road andfourteen days in the hotel rooms scruciating pain.

(01:24:57):
So let's day have powerful. Thet write your own story is tattooed
on your right arm, right herein your mother's handwriting. Yeah, talk

(01:25:21):
to us about the ace of water. Hmmm, we've talked a lot about
you're you're writing your own story upuntil this point. What is the ace
of water? The ace of wateris the deck of cards we created.
Um, it's the Ace of spades. But we created this deck of cards

(01:25:45):
for the bike ride where every singlecard had a question about your story,
specifically formulated in the hero's journey format. So you know, there's a call
to adventure, meets him intour,a crosses into the unknown, trials and
tribulation and successes and failures, growthand then death, rebirth, revelation,
you know, gives wisdom, returnsback and funny enough like, after designing

(01:26:12):
these cards and these questions to fitthat hero's journey narrative, the bike ride
took a very very exact path towardthat. And so the ace of water
is the hardest question in the deckif you haven't answered or at least thought
about the answers to those previous questions. So all the way from the two

(01:26:35):
of air, the two of airto the ace of water, all of
those questions gradually get harder, theyget deeper, they get more intentional.
The ace of water question relies onevery other question to really know the answer

(01:26:58):
to it, you know, likewho is the villain in your story?
You have to know that in orderto know what does the ending of your
story look like? And what hasthe hero overcome? What is this overarching
theme within your life that you arerefusing to look at, that you refuse
to change, that you refuse toventure into the unknown and to tackle it

(01:27:23):
and to fight with it. Andthose questions are still bubbling up. I
don't really, I don't really thinkmost of us do know the answer to
that question, you know, likethere's probably a pretty obvious answer, and
for a lot of people, butlike what is it deeper and deeper and
deeper, like what is it aboutyourself? And so the ace of Water

(01:27:44):
for me is a reminder that mystory has an end, and that I
hope at the end of my story, I can say that I have overcome
the biggest obstacle in my life andthat's probably me right, And so I
put it on my wrist because mygrandmother is the one who got me into

(01:28:08):
cards. So a lot of mytattoos are tribute to the people that have
played the biggest roles in my life. And my grandmother, my dad's mom,
Memal, is the one who taughtme to play cards, and she
will boast that she never let mewin. And so I asked her because
I wanted to get a tattoo ofher favorite card, and I asked her

(01:28:29):
what her favorite card was in thedeck, and of course, naturally is
a competitive woman, that she hassaid the Ace of Spades, and so
I converted that to the ace ofwater, and I put it here so
that I could have an ace upmy sleeve and a joker in my sock,
because I have a joker from myuncle who passed away from cancer all
my ankle. And it's that symbolismand that meaning through other people and the

(01:28:56):
impact that they've made in my lifethat really gives me so much more drive
and gives my own personality that muchmore depth. Whenever I can realize,
you know, you've even played arole in my life just here today.
How is it going to How isthat going to impact me for the rest
of my life? The same goesfor our parents are best friends, our

(01:29:17):
ex girlfriends are current lovers. Youknow, everyone plays a role, and
so this is a signifier of therole of my grandmother's played in my life
and a reminder of my memento mori, so to speak. Two final questions,

(01:29:39):
What are you most excited about?This one's This one's been challenged a
lot lately. You know, Ithink a lot of my life and even
especially in the last couple of years, I've been planning for that next thing,
you know, planning for the bikeride, planning for Gilimanjaro, planning

(01:30:00):
for Mexico or else Salvador, ora row across the Atlantic or sailing around
Australia, whatever that might be.And something that I've realized lately is that
I am living right now. Weknow that we're awake, and I have

(01:30:27):
stopped right now, and I thinkpart of it is because of love,
But I have stopped constantly yearning forwhat is to come. I still have
excitement, you know, about thingsthat are to come. But what I'm
excited about and what I'm most excitedabout right now is that I think I'm

(01:30:47):
the most present that I've ever been. I'm excited about this conversation we're currently
having, like this is the nowand I get to be here in it,
and every thing that I say canimpact the way that it goes.
And I get to, you know, go through this life with you in
this moment, and so I'm mostexcited for the next moment, for this

(01:31:12):
moment because it feels good, itfeels refreshing, and it feels like heaven.
I wanted to briefly go over thisconcept of heaven and hell and I
read this book about love. It'sI think it's like a little pamphlet.
I'll butcher the name of it,but it basically says that people think heaven

(01:31:34):
and hell are something that's not onearth, that it's the afterlife. Whenever,
every single person, every single dayis creating either their own heaven and
their own Hell, and they canimpact that. And it's literally just a
choice. The negative things, thenegative things that happened to you in your
life eventually be a positive thing,which might eventually be a negative thing.

(01:31:59):
And so learning and living in thissense of love to you know, and
go back on what you said earlier, like what are you most excited about.
I'm excited about love. Love isthis presence, and I feel so
at home and not just myself,but also this relationship that I'm in,

(01:32:20):
and it's really exciting. And Iwas talking to Lauren a couple of weeks
ago because we're both in this verytough spot in our jobs where it's just
a lot of stress. You know, there's a lot of things rolling around
and people, you know, runningaround with their hair on fire and trying
to pull this aspect of presence outof you and make you feel stressed.

(01:32:42):
And we've talked about how we're excitedfor like the things that are to come,
and I had this realization I toldher about it. It was like,
you know, I keep thinking thatthe next thing is going to be
awesome, Like whenever financial freedom finallyarrives right and I don't have to worry
about what I do with my moneyor where I put it or where I

(01:33:04):
get it, or what I dowith my time, those times will arrive.
But the more that I pursue thosetimes and the harder I work to
make them come faster, the lessthat I live in this current moment and
this specific chapter is what falling inlove feels like. I've never felt this

(01:33:26):
before. I've never felt this kindof love, and why would I want
to accelerate that process to get throughthat? But I can get the financial
freedom, and then whenever I lookback, it was like, Oh,
that was what felling in love.Falling in love felt like? Why didn't
I enjoy it just a little bitmore? And So I've really been taking

(01:33:47):
these I call note card moments sothat I can reflect on them in the
future, right about them, etc. And I take in the moment.
I like, pause for a secondand take in the moment with Lauren or
with myself and really just be presentso that I can look back on that
moment be like that was it,that was what that felt like? Last

(01:34:10):
question, what does thriving mean toyou? Thriving interesting? Thriving is a
life seated. Thriving is a lifeseated in passion. It can be high,

(01:34:42):
it can be low. It canhave it it's ups and it's downs,
and it's shitty moments and it's incrediblemoments. And I think that the
purpose behind all that is and suingyour passions and making sure that you know,

(01:35:03):
maybe it is love, Maybe thatis your passion, right. I
think that whatever it might be,if you're pursuing that thing, even if
you're down, you know, evenif you're poor, even if you have
no food, and you know,to most people you're not thriving. If
you can adjust that lens and lookthrough it in terms of like this is

(01:35:26):
this is just the way, thisis the journey that I'm on, then
you can be thriving, and youknow, I think it's kilimanjar had a
very interesting perspective because we flew throughDohawk Gatar and on the way there it
was like the most wealth in theworld right as a layover, like Lamborghini's

(01:35:50):
in the airport, you know,people walking around with gold watches and not
a single smile in sight. Andthen we arrived in Tanzania at a shadow
of Kilimanjaro. There's trash burning,there's people walking around without shoes on,
which is great, which which isgreat, which is great. There's people

(01:36:13):
walking around without clothes, you know, and they're all smiling, and it
made you question, like immediately uponlanding there, like what do they know
that we don't or what have weforgotten that they haven't? Right? And
so I think that taking all thelens as you possibly can off thriving and

(01:36:34):
just realizing that, like it's justhere. You know, you can thrive
in any moment that you want to, in a storm, on the beach,
at a funeral, you know,just a matter of the perspective you
take on it. Being present.Yeah, my purpose is to make thriving

(01:36:56):
standard. So that's why I've gotthis podcast sticker for you. That's what
I do with my coaching, Mypurposes to help people find that presence in
themselves and be healthy, be happyto pursue what they want to. So
thank you for helping me fulfill mypurpose to make thriving standard by telling your

(01:37:20):
story. Thank you for letting mebe a part of it. Yeah,
where can we find more about you? And forwards? So forwards Movement spelled
fou r w a r DS dotcom is our website. Our instagram is
the number four w rds mbmt andthen my instagram is Joe Linley sixteen with

(01:37:45):
the D. That's where you'll findmost of it. We are also working
on these two documentaries currently. Onethe first one is going to be for
Kilimanjaro, which brief synopsis of Kilimanjarois that one of my friends that I
made an ocean lab his grandfather passedaway before fulfilling his life long dream of

(01:38:08):
climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, and whenever hewas cremated, we decided that we would
bring his ashes to the summit.I won't spoil the story there. And
then the second documentary is the documentaryof the Ride across America, and it's
specifically titled Into the Wind because withmental health, it can often feel like

(01:38:30):
a battle into the wind, likethe wind's working against you. So those
document those documentaries we're working on currently. We'd hope to have Kilimanjaro out by
the fall on YouTube, and thenthe Ride documentary will be probably more so
like a like a full feature length. We want to enter it into contests

(01:38:56):
and hopefully get it onto Netflix orsomething, so I'm sure that they'll see
it eventually. But look out forthose because those are where my soul lies
currently. It is most of meand how my brain thinks and how my
Soul Functions, So Joe, thankyou for coming on the Captain's Lifestyle podcast.

(01:39:18):
Appreciate you live the Captain's Lifestyle

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170 - The Hero's Journey: Move Fourwards with Joe Lindley

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}170 - The Hero's Journey: Move Fourwards with Joe Lindley