The Daily Stoic - CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells on Training The Mind and Reaching Your Potential | This Is How You Can Talk To The Dead

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Professional CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells about getting better not just physically but mentally, how she finds balance in an inherently unbalanced profession, how to be great but not miserable, and more.Brooke Wells is a 7x CrossFit Games Athlete. She made a name for herself at the 2015 Central Regional, which she won at 19 years old. It was her first individual regional appearance. In 2014, she competed with team 540 Beefy of CrossFit 540 at the North Central Regional. She went on to take 16th in her debut Games appearance in 2015. She proved herself again in 2016, taking third at the Central Regional but catapulting to sixth at the Games with six top-five finishes and one event win. Wells is a student at the University of Missouri and a trainer at CrossFit Fringe in Columbia.GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $250 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org and pick podcast and enter DAILY STOIC at checkout.SimpliSafe just launched their new Wireless Outdoor Security Camera. Get the new SimpliSafe Wireless Outdoor Security Camera, visit https://simplisafe.com/stoic. What’s more, SimpliSafe is celebrating this new camera by offering 20% off your entire new system and your first month of monitoring service FREE, when you enroll in Interactive Monitoring. Again that’s https://simplisafe.com/stoic.KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. This holiday season, give the gift of a fun, hands-on holiday experience with KiwiCo. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Competitive Cyclist is THE online specialty retailer of road and mountain bikes, components, apparel, and accessories. Go to competitivecyclist.com/DAILYSTOIC and enter promo code DAILYSTOIC to get fifteen percent off your first full-priced purchase plus FREE SHIPPING on orders of $50 or more. Some exclusions apply.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Brooke: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are, and also to find peace in wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. This is how you can talk to the dead. When Zina was a young man, he visited the Oracle of Delphi to learn about his future. The prophecy he got was cryptic. His best life could have been had only through conversing with the dead. What does that mean? Zina wasn't sure until he made a realization you may have made yourself reading is a way to communicate with the dead and the past. It's pretty incredible actually. Although Marcus Arelius is long since past, you can have a conversation with him by picking up meditations.

Seneca has been dead even longer and yet you can get what amounts to a daily letter from him every day by reading letters of a stoic. For roughly 5,000 years, humans have been writing things down in books. You can at the snap of your fingers, talk to these people, you can literally have them talk to you in the form of an audio book. Why would you not take advantage of that? Why would you be so anti-social? This, of course, is also a reason to journal and to write to yourself so that you can reach forward and talk to the generations that came after you. We are in this long, ongoing project, a dialogue together about how to learn, how to grow, what to do, what not to do, how to be wiser, smarter and better. So don't be anti-social, don't tune it out. Be like Xeno, talk to the dead.

Hey, it's Ryan, welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. It's really important to me that stoicism doesn't feel like this male thing. Like, tragically, most of the stoic figures in history were men because men dominated public life. But that doesn't mean, for instance, that stoicism is just for men. But it also doesn't mean that there weren't many, many, many stoic women historically. I talk about Portiaccato in Lives of the Stoics, one of my favorite people to write about, and Musone's Rufus, one of the great Roman Stoics talks about how philosophy should be pursued by men and women. But again, the result, it's not explicitly addressed. There is this sense that it's a very male, very masculine philosophy.

It's been one of the joys of my books to see just how much they've resonated, universally cross gender, culture, lifestyles, careers, industries, etc. And so one of the best parts of the podcast has been talking to people with very different experiences than experiences in the mind, different lives and approaches than mine, and definitely getting to talk to strong women. And you might have heard my interview a couple months ago with, or it could be weeks ago, I have no conception of time anymore, I don't know about you, but with Stephanie Cohen, one of the strongest women in the world, and my guest today, she'd go in one of the strongest women in the world. And my guest today, Brooke Wells, is another incredibly strong woman,

a seven time CrossFit Games athlete. She made a name for herself at the 2015 Central Regional, which she won at 19 years old. She has competed in all sorts of CrossFit competitions. She's one of the best CrossFit athletes in the world. For instance, in 2021, she is currently ranked as the ninth best crossfit woman in the world. Fifth in North America in 2020.

She was 11th in 2019. She was sixth, 2018. She was sixth, 2017. She was ninth. She was third in the US at one point, fifth in the US at one point, 5th in the US at another point, 2nd in the US and another point. The point is she is on an incredible sustained run of excellence in an incredibly difficult sport. And as you'll talk about in the episode, a bit of a social media expert as well. She has 1.6 million Instagram followers. I follow her for inspiration, for sure. You can follow her at At Brook Wells with

two S's, pretty much everywhere. That's B-R-O-O-K-E-W-E-L-L-S. Look, just an incredible athlete. And what I really was excited to talk to her about in this episode, which I hope you will enjoy, is the connection between not just stoicism and women and its universality, but really stoicism and fitness, the connection to weightlifting and strength training, which as a runner is less my thing, but it is something I am working on and do enjoy from time to time. So here is my interview with the one and only Brookwells. Enjoy.

When people think ancient philosophy, I don't think they think weightlifting, but when I read the Stoics, I can't shake the, I can't shake the impression that they knew too much about it to not be at least somewhat into training, right? So I'm going to give you some quotes and then you hit me back into training, right? So I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you some quotes. And then you hit me back what, what they mean to you and what you think of them, okay? Okay. All right. So this is epic teetists. He says, uh, if you're improving, let's see some evidence of it. He says, but no, it's as if I were to say to an athlete, show me your shoulders

and he responded with, have a look at my weights. Get out of here with your weights, I'd say. I don't want to see your weights. I'd say. I don't wanna see your weights. I wanna see how you've profited from using them. Yeah, so I kinda take that as like, it's not really about how much weight that you're lifting, but it's about like what it's doing to better yourself. So it's not always about, oh, I'm lifting way more than the person next to you and comparing it to someone else, but as long as you're benefiting yourself and getting

better, then that's all that matters. I think that's right. And I think he's also saying that we should show and not tell, right? So like the proof is not what you post on social media or the elaborate, you know, sort of regimen that you go through, but like at the end of the day, are you stronger, are you in better shape, are you more disciplined and all of that? Yes, totally agree with that.

And then in one of my other favorite quotes from Epic Titus, he actually compares reading to weight training. He says that you're, he says that books are the weight training for, he says that books are weight training for the mind. Okay. Yeah, I was going to, that's when he said reading because comparable to weights, I was going to say weights kind of like train your body, but then reading, train your mind. So it just kind of like take it comes together.

How do you think about that? Because I think that's how you and I connected you'd like posted a picture of one of the books or something. How do you think about getting better, not just physically, but also mentally, especially now, because you're you're still recovering, right? Or you had to take a break from training due to an injury. But I imagine you didn't give up entirely. You had to find other ways to sort of expand that energy. Yeah, I almost feel like now that I'm hurt, I'm kind of like training my mind instead of my body because I mean, my body is not really fully functional

right now. And that's a big part that I think a lot of athletes are missing is they can train their body as much as they want. But when it comes to like showing how that you are how like better you are than yesterday it's like they don't train their mind enough in order to like be mentally tough. And so have you have you always been a big reader or is this something you came to later like how do you think about getting better mentally? you came to later, like how do you think about getting better mentally?

I think over the years I had become a lot bigger into reading, but that's because when I started reading, I saw how much improvement I had in the gym, which is crazy to think that like I'm not doing anything physical by reading, but I'm actually just growing my mind and I'm just becoming a better person, like more mentally tough, and it shows in the gym, which like you probably wouldn't like normally think of. So I've kind of become more of a reader over the years after noticing how big of a change that has made. What have been some books that hit you particularly hard? I think one of the first books that I read was Can't Hurt Me. And so that one was like super intense. Just kind of like when I was in the gym struggling,

I got to remember that he would run like a hundred miles on like broken key and stuff. And so super intense, but it just kind of helped me like be more mentally tough. And then I read your obstacles away. That was a really good one. Let's see. Atomic habits. I'm currently reading slight edge. Who what's that about? I haven't heard of that. So that one's just kind of like the little things will over time and will think you have like a slight edge and they'll just kind of add up. So it has like a lot of just different examples and so that one's pretty good too. That's what I feel like atomic habits is really about. It's like what are the little things that and they'll just kind of add up. So it has a lot of just different examples and so that one's pretty good too.

That's what I feel like atomic habits is really about. It's like what are the little things that cumulatively add up in a big way? Yeah, I think that's huge on, I mean not just being an athlete, but anyone and anyone just trying to be better every single day, it's like the little small things you don't notice.

You won't notice for even the first maybe couple months. It's like you just know everyone to just have immediate proof or just, it just takes time. I think that's what you have to learn. What's like, we're always looking for the sort of big transformative things, but I think especially for someone like you,

you're at the top of your field. So like you've already done most of those things. And if you hadn't, you probably wouldn't be where you are, right? Like nobody, Michael Jordan doesn't wake up one day and be like, oh, you know what I should do? I should add this to my game because it's probably already there. He wouldn't be the best in the world. But then, you know, I was reading about, I was reading this book actually, if I have it here, I don't know what it went. I read this book about the New England Patriots and Tom Brady, and they were talking about how

Tom Brady's secret addiction is not actually winning, but it's about getting doing things better. So for him, he's like, how do I get, how do I make this throw 5% more accurate in the fourth quarter? So, you know, he's not thinking about like, how do I make this throw 5% more accurate in the fourth quarter? So, you know, he's not thinking about like, how do I just throw better generally, but he's like, how do I do these tiny things better that over the course of a season or over the course of five years of playing might win two more games or might win the Super Bowl because it comes down to

that little thing. Yeah. And I think that's really interesting too. I feel like a lot of athletes these days, all that they wanna do is like get as much work as they can possible. Like they wanna accumulate more like quantity over quality and so they're just kinda like, I've seen a check this box, move on, get to the next box. And that's something that I've learned is just like,

it won't pay off in the long run. I think if you take more time and don't rush, if you do less, your quality over quantity is way more important than how much you're actually doing. That would be particularly true. I imagine in your profession, which is like, so comedians or authors, we talk about reps, right? Like how often you do the thing that's how you get better,

but you are literally doing reps. Like that is what your thing is. And so yeah, in training at least, doing fewer reps better is probably overall better for your long-term sustainability than doing just like, just gutting out tons of stuff, is that's how you get hurt? Right, exactly.

I mean, obviously, like the more hours and the more times you do something over and over again, like that's gonna pay off as well. But I think just making sure that like, you're actually giving everything that you have into each single rep instead of just trying to get as many done as possible as fast as possible. Well, and because you are doing the same thing over and over and over again, which is unusual,

right, for most professions, but in your specific cases, you're doing the same thing in reps. If you find a way to do the rep 1% better, you improve your technique 1, then you get massive cumulative benefits from that because each time you're doing it more efficiently or effectively. Yeah, and in the moment, like one percent may not seem like very much, but like once you're at like the top of the sport, like that one percent really matters, and then once that continually just adds over time, like it's going to pay off in long run. So the other thing that Stokes talked about and they tended to use boxing more as the analogy,

but I think they also use like lifting heavy things, which is this idea that life throws obstacles or difficulties at us just like in the boxing ring or on the wrestling mat, you're paired with the sparring partner, right? And EpicTidus says like, you shouldn't bimbe on the fact that it's hard. You should say, this is how you become world class.

Or it says this how you become Olympic class material. It's by having strong sparring partners. So how do you think about maybe this injury that you're going through, or just the difficulties you've gone through as your career have, has that made you a more resilient athlete or do you not think about it like that? Oh no, I totally think so. It's kind of one of those things that like you're not going to get better by doing things that are easy. Like I want to take the hard way.

That's when you really build that character. That's when you become resilient, is going through tough times. I mean, I dislocated my elbow on the world stage and like a lot of people may think, like, it would be really easy for me to just, I've done seven times at the games, like, that's good. But instead, I'm like, I'm so excited to get back there because I know that I'm gonna be better than I ever was because my mindset is just so, like, fueled in a way that I want to be better than I was before.

This is a perfect time to like fix any other nagging injuries that I've had in the past and just kind of taking those hard circumstances and flipping them into a positive to where I'm going to use this to make me the best athlete that I've ever been. So did, let's break all that down. So was there a part of you when you had that injury that like at given what you've done, was there a part of you that thought like, this could be, this is an acceptable career ending injury, like you're like, I could call it here

or just no part of you think that way. No, honestly, like that, I feel like a lot of people probably think that, but there was not one second in my mind that I was like, I'm done. It was more like, I mean, they literally popped my elbow in in the back of the games and I was like, okay, I'm good. Am I gonna be okay to compete tomorrow? I'm just the type that I'm never gonna be finished

until I'm like saddest that and I would never wanna go out on a note like that. But so I interviewed Ryan Schaezer, who also read my book, see he had this career ending tackle for the Steelers. Not just a career ending tackle, he was paralyzed by it. So do you think you could accept a career ending injury or would it like break you?

Um, that's kind of one of those things like this is fixable. I can like just let it heal, but if it was a career ending thing like that, obviously like there's nothing you can do about it at that point. It just kind of is what it is. And I think you would just have to accept it. Although it would be like extremely difficult. I'm probably just you would just have to accept it. Although it would be like extremely difficult, I would probably just, I mean, there's nothing you can really do about it. No, that would be the challenge, right?

Having to now face what life looks like without the thing that's given you so much meaning and structure and satisfaction. Yeah. I mean, I hope that I don't get, like I won't, I hope I don't have that situation, but in something like that, I think you just kind of have to, like, I think it's important to have balance

in your life for things like that. So when you're like most important thing to you, crumbles in front of you, you have something else to kind of fall back on. So did the time you've had to spend away from the sport and from training, has it made you appreciate it more? Like, is there been some benefits in that regard? Yeah, I mean, I kind of think you always think

like the grass is greener on the other side. Like when I'm training for the games, there's like nothing I want more than just like a little bit of rest. I feel exhausted, I'm like, I can't wait until the games are over with so that I can just relax. And in the minute the games were over with this year and I was forced into a complete offseason because I physically couldn't do stuff, that's when I was like wow I totally took for granted

when I was able to do all the training that I could. And it's just kind of one of those things that you need to remember in the moment when things get tough, is that like, I don't have to be doing this training. I get to do this training. Right, yeah. And when you come back, are there gonna be lingering effects from it? Like are you having to rethink how you do what you do

or you're gonna be back 100% as you were or is it to avoid doing this again? You've learned something or you're making some sort of changes? I think kind of both. I think like it's gonna definitely take a while to get back to where I was just because like, I mean, I'm trying to not like be scared of the certain movements that like cause this,

but in the back of my head I'm always like, I don't want this to happen again, but. Nice. It's just, it's gonna take some time to kind of like re-warn the patterns again and just strengthen that arm back up. But. Yeah, that would be so weird, right? It had such a, to not be sort of reticent

or hesitant in doing a thing where there's really no room for hesitation. Right. And yet, if you don't learn from what happened, you're gonna do it again. Yeah, I think the biggest thing I'm taking away from what had happened was I just like, I pushed it too much before the games. I knew that there was an injury in my arm and I just continually practice on it. I mean, that's probably those people would just be if you're in like the top of the sport. But yeah, I mean,

when I talk to athletes about that all the time, I'm so fascinated by it because obviously what I do is a little bit lower impact, but I think all high performers have that tendency, which is you push, you wouldn't be where you were if you didn't push past pain or doubts or, you know, warnings. And yet this can also cost you everything if you can't keep that impulse in check. Yeah. I definitely, there's like a fine line right there because in training, you want to be pushing every single day in order to become better. And like, when I'm training and I'm like, I probably shouldn't be doing this because I'm a little bit injured and the back of my head, I'm like, okay, well, my other competitors are doing it. Like, my other competitors are better right now. And so it's just a fine line of using kind

of that in your benefit. Like, maybe when I'm in a really tough work on them and a bad spawn, it's hurting really bad to be like, okay, like, T.O. wouldn't stop right now. Like, that's when I need to use it, but I need to kind of back up when something's hurting and just kind of be like, okay, well, if I continue to do this, like, I'm not going to be even able to compete. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the

world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So, if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early, and add free, on the Amazon, or Wondery. Right, yeah, and I imagine the paradox and what you do is like, if there wasn't resistance, if there wasn't pain, you wouldn't be getting stronger. And that, because that's the definition of what weight training is.

And yet, if there's too much pain, you won't be able to do it anymore ever. Yeah, exactly. So it's just like a line that you're always like playing with trying to find the right spot. And yeah, definitely push that a little bit too hard. All right, so here's Senica. Senica has a weird relationship with exercise.

But I feel like he might actually be describing CrossFit here. He says, now there are short and simple exercises which tire the body rapidly. And so to save our time, the time is something we should, and time is something we should keep to strict account. So these exercises are running, brandishing weights, and jumping, high jumping, and broad jumping.

Then he lists a bunch of other weird things which we don't able to translate. But he says, select for practice any of these, but whatever you do, come back soon from the body to the mind. I think this point is that you should, because training or it shouldn't dominate too much of our time, that still, it's always worried that our physical pursuits would impede on our time to study philosophy. But he was basically saying, like, what is the most effective exercise you can do? What has the highest ROI? Just do that and ignore all the fluffy vanity stuff. Yeah, so I mean, CrossFit is like high-intensity work,

and when he was describing that, that's kind of what it sounded like, was just these movements that will jack your heart eight up extremely, like in a short amount of time. And so that's like, basically what CrossFit is. I would say for the average person. The average person that's doing CrossFit, they just go in for an hour, they get their heart rate up. And that's great. You probably shouldn't spend too much time on it

if you don't have to. But I also think another cool thing just about CrossFit is for our sport and competing for it, actually like trained for the unknowable. So we go to the competition and we don't know anything that we're going to, we don't know our workouts, we don't know our events, nothing. So it's just kind of like, I mean, I think games you mean, it's a surprise. Yeah, so when we get to the games, we don't know any workouts. Like every single year, they kind of like throw a new movement out. So it's kind of like,

we are constantly training to be able to do anything that they could throw at us. So that is a perfect stoke thing. So EpicTidus says that the whole point of philosophy is to get to a place where something happens and you're able to go, this is exactly what I trained for. Like this is what I prepared for, even though I had no idea this would happen. So how do you think about that?

Like how can you train for what is effectively an unlimited amount of combinations or possibilities? How do you do that without neglecting getting really good at core things? Yeah, so I mean, I mean, obviously in training, we do a lot of like the physical stuff. It's like we basically do everything

that we could ever imagine that will come up. But I think the big thing is being able to handle the adversity. Like we don't know what's gonna be thrown at us. And a lot of that can be like a mental head case when you get to the games and you see something that you've never done before and you're like, oh crap, like how am I going to do this?

But instead, like if you're very mentally tough and just prepared, you just look at it and you're like, okay, well I'm fit, like I'll be able to do this. I will just do it to the best that I can. You have to kind of remember like, um, no one, none of the other athletes have done this before either. So even though I might be feeling a little timid

towards it, like, I'm not the only one. And it's just kind of, it's, it's honestly more of a mental game, not knowing what's coming than it is visible. Do you find that like, you can feel when, like, they all, you all come up to on the thing. Can you can feel when like they all you all come up on the thing? Can you just feel the energy of the people who are like befuddled or frustrated or thrown off by something? Oh, I mean reading body language is huge. Also like there's a lot of people that are just

I guess I just don't understand the mental side of it and they'll be complaining in the back before we go out. You know, like, it just, you can pick up on these little things that you're just kind of like, okay, well, they're out, like, already got, I already beat them before they even started because they're just so all over the place mentally. Yeah, I would imagine the most dangerous thing you could think before a situation like that would be I hope they

don't have X. Yeah. Because that's exactly what they're going to have and then you'll be deflated when that's there. Yeah, I mean, just like a little side story. In the 2019 games, they started doing these cuts and it was the final cut. I'd been in the top 10 the whole time, they were cutting down to the final 10. And all I needed to do was not step on this line. So if you stepped on a line, it was a sprint. If you stepped on the line, you were disqualified. I was like, okay, I'll have to need to get through this and get to the top 10 is not step on this.

And what do I do? I stepped on the line because it's all that I was thinking. It's in your mind. Yes. And so moving forward from that at the time, I was like the end of the world. But I was just, I learned like I was focusing way too much on what I was not supposed to be doing.

Right. And so how do you, like what's your mindset going into an event that has so many unknowns? Like, you're just like, I accept all of it. I'm open to all of it. Or do you think, like, I know there's going to be these core things. I'm just going to crush it in those things and I'll wing it on the rest. Like, what do you take into that uncertainty? I mean, I definitely have my strengths, obviously.

So I'm always trying to do the best that I can on those. But then the things that I like, and not prepare for, like don't know that are coming, I just kind of like take off the expectation, I release the pressure, I try to go into it, like not already, like putting kind of pressure myself to do awesome. It's just kind of one of those things that's like, if you're good into it, not already putting pressure on myself to do awesome. It's just one of those things that's like, if you're good at it, then you're going to

have it, and if you're not, then you're not. Let's just do this and continue on. Just kind of like, I try not to put emotions into it. I don't want to be nervous or sad when it doesn't go well. It's like, let's just do it and then move on. It's so exciting to talk about just having no opinion. Like, you always have the ability to just not have an opinion. So that's what you're just like, and it's funny when the Stokes talk about being indifferent,

they don't mean you don't care. They just mean like, you're good either way. I'm not going to waste my energy on these emotions. I'm just going to gonna do the task at hand and the best so that I can and not overthink it. Yeah, I do go back to Tom Brady. It's like when you play in New England, you don't give a shit about the weather anymore

because it can't possibly be as bad as the worst weather that you've experienced. So whereas if you play in, I don't know, LA now, you're so spoiled. Yeah. That then when you when you have to go play in Kansas City in the winter, or Buffalo in the winter, or New York in the winter, you have an opinion, right? You would prefer that it not be snowy and rainy and cold, whereas the quarterback who's, and I think sometimes Tom Brady will do this. This is more when he was in New England, but you'll see that the the quarterbacks like go out in a short sleeve shirt like in warm-ups, just to send the message that like I don't care about

the weather. Yeah, no, totally. I think that kind of comes like that happens with training too. Like we always want to train in like our conditions. Because if we're training when things are going really bad or really tired, all the worst things that could happen are happening to us, then once we get to the competition, hopefully it will be more easier than it was in training. And so we'll just excel there. Right, you're training with the headwind or you're training with the weight. So then when the weight is removed, which it hopefully is, you're good, but you're used to it doing it under worse circumstances. Exactly.

So one of the other early stoic Olympic events or an Olympic event that a stoic participated in. I'm forgetting exactly how you pronounce it, but Chrysipis was a distance runner. And so I assumed like, okay, so he runs three miles, five miles, you know, it's some, or maybe the marathon. But I was reading the, you competed in this special kind of event. And it was, it was basically three miles of wind sprints. So you ran three miles of stadium length sprints. So back and forth, back and forth, you know, you touched the line, come back, you touched the line. And I was just thinking about, like, you know, running three miles that's hard in competition on its own.

Yeah. But I could just imagine where your lungs would get doing short distance sprints for an extended distance. Yeah. And I figured you would relate to that experience because that's what CrossFit is, right? CrossFit never says like go run five miles. CrossFit always has you do it in some insanely short distance burst that gets you to like your anaerobic thresholds and then slow, you know what I mean?

I just thought you would appreciate that as an as an as an event. Yeah, yeah, I definitely do. I feel like those are kind of the type of things that we do and cross it is just like kind of events. If you can make the events worse, then like they will. And they'll just go three miles like one distance.

They'll just make it harder. just go three miles like one distance, I'll just make it harder. That is kind of like what we do in CrossFit. And that's just something they always have to prepare for. Right. They would never have you run three miles. They would have you run three miles in 100 yards sprints with a 10 second rest between or something. Yeah, exactly. So what do you do when you get to that point where your body says like, this is literally, like this is not possible. You cannot keep doing this.

And then you look at the scoreboard and you have like a mile and a half left to go or 25 reps left to go or 75 yards left in this farmer's carrier. Like how do you push past that? So that's actually, I used to have this mantra, and it's like, this is when it counts. So it's kind of that mindset that like,

the beginning of this workout doesn't matter. Like the first, let's say you have a 10 minute workout, the first five minutes, they don't really count. They aren't, they aren't hard for anyone, they're like the easy minutes. It's all about when things get hard, like are you gonna be able to push? So that's kind of like what I've always thought to myself

is like, this is when it counts, this is what you train for. And so I try to put myself in those positions like in practice so that when it comes to a big stage that I'm prepared for how tough it gets. So do you have to sort of, and David Goggins does talk about this, is sort of the idea that like your body is a liar, right? Like when your body says you're done, you're like 40% done. Yeah. Totally. I think it's just completely a mind game. I don't know the exact thing, but it's always like your mind is going to

give up before your body does. So I often tell myself that during workouts. I like this is just my mind talking. It's not my body. So it's always like, what are you going to listen to in your head? Are you going to listen to the voice that's telling you to stop? Or are you going to listen to the voice that's like cheering you on and like pushing you towards the finish. So I remember seeing your post when you got hurt. You said something like this was God's plan. I'm just curious as someone who's not particularly religious, how do you know when it's God's plan and when it just is something that sucks? Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm very religious so I think that God has a plan for everything. And so if he's telling me that like, this is what's going to happen, and this is what's going to happen,

I'm going to try to use this to just like better myself, like coming like in the future. You know, it was just kind of like, this wasn't my time to shine in his eyes. So let's just call it a year and then try again next year. But I mean, obviously you think that like, there's also mistakes that we make, right? So what if the injury had been your fault?

Is that still part of the plan? I guess I'm just wondering how do you think about like sort of where responsibility and sort of providence, like where is that line? Yeah, I mean, I'm not exactly sure where that line is. It was just kind of like the way things that happened. Like, it's not like something's minor happened and it caught me out.

Like, I completely, my elbow was in my bicep. Like, there's nothing I could do about it, you know? So that's kind of when it's like, okay, well, this is bigger than me at this point. And so I'm just gonna hand it over to him and like, call it. And I mean, that is something that Stokes talk about. They have this word ascent,

not like ascent up a mountain, but asseant, which basically is acceptance, but not like resignation. It's acceptance like, yes, this is the plan. Something or someone or fate or whatever it is, but not like resignation. It's acceptance like, yes, this is the plan. Something or someone or fate or whatever it is, chose that for me. Like the stoic image is that we're like dogs tied to a cart. And the cart is just sort of going along.

And the dog can lay down and be dragged, or the dog can sort of cheerfully trot alongside. But either way, like the dog is going, where the cart is going. Yeah. And that's kind of, maybe that's how you think about it, be curious to hear, but it's the idea that's like, I can accept it, or I can fight it,

but it still happens, so it is what it is. Yeah, I mean, I think everything happens for a reason, that's how I kind of just view things. And so it's just kind of one of those moments and just moving on. Have you read, do you know who Kate Boller is? No. Oh, you would love for her. I had her on the podcast, but she, um, she's, uh, uh,

I had her on the podcast, but she, she's a, a Christian, she had this aggressive form of cancer. And she was talking about how many nice, nice people would come to her and say, everything happens for a reason. And she would say, well, I'd really like to hear what the reason is. And so her book is called Everything Happens for Reason. And the subtitle is something like things you should never say to people with cancer or whatever. But it is funny, right? Because it's easy to say everything happens to a reason, even with something as hard

as an injury that could take away your career. And then we also accept there's sort of a level of shittiness above that, that it's really hard to accept. Yeah, I think also like I always try to put like a positive spin on things that happen. There's no sense of wasting time like being upset and like that's just time wasted and like the energy wasted being sad instead of like trying to make things better.

You know, so I just try to look at it like that, not waste time on the negative and just try to turn into a positive. So what's interesting about your sport is how I think intertwined it is with social media, right? There's probably professional athletes who are on, you know, national television on a regular basis who have fewer Instagram followers than you do, right? It's such an engaged sport, I think,

because it's new and it sort of came along with these things. And that was like the, because CrossFit wasn't on television for a while, that's where they built, I'm curious like, how do you deal with the spotlight and the attention? I've got to imagine a good chunk of it as a female athlete. A lot of the attention is the kind of attention

that one does not want. Yeah. So I think it's always just important to like focus on like what matters to you. And to me, that's just being the best athlete that I can. And the social media just kind of comes along with that. I love social media because just the cross-the-community side of it, I think that's why it has all cross-the-athletes have a pretty big following is because cross-the-social tight knit with

the community. And cross-the-'s like one of those sports that everyone can do it. It's very scalable, but they can watch it and do it too. So yeah, I think just kind of like focusing on like becoming the best athlete that you can be instead of like trying to get the free Instagram angles and like the things that people like essentially follow because

there's a huge we did like a noble did a campaign on it a couple years back and it was not just an influencer basically saying like yes we do have a lot of following but it's not because we're influencers it's because we're athletes and like we work very hard for that. Right. My wife follows this account and she shows it to me sometimes. And basically, it's like screenshots, it's sort of like comments from celebrities,

but it's like screenshots of men, men explaining how to lift weights to professional female athletes. And it's like the funniest thing that I've ever seen. Because it's like, everyone, that's like opinions are like assholes, everyone has them, but they think they should definitely share them with women. Yeah, I think it's like, I mean, stereotypically, like, guys are the ones that lift, but I think it's becoming more and more common that like girls are all

also into lifting and like, strong is becoming more, like less rare. So, I think that's really cool. And like, I just wanna use my social media to just be like a good influence on like other girls. And especially like young girls to show them that like, it's not just for boys. Well, I think because the sport is new, it doesn't have like a hundred years of sex

segregation built into it or 150 years of stereotypes. It's like everyone kind of was able to get in on the ground floor of the sport. So I almost feel like a bunch of the female CrossFit stars are more famous than the male counterparts. Kind of like women's soccer actually in America. Yeah, I think it's probably just because it's not as usual to see girls like that fit. And I think that's very like one of the cool parts about it. Like CrossFit's always been like, everyone gets paid the same at the games

and like things like that that just make it very like unisex. You know? Yeah, no, that's really cool because then you actually see what is possible, not just what's possible within. Like what would the women's basketball tournament look like if they got to play in the same venues? Yeah.

You saw that photo a couple of years ago where they're like, this is the women's college weight room. And it was like 10 dumbbells. Yeah. And so I, yeah, I hate that sports are like that. Male versus female. And so I think that's another reason why girls are so big into CrossFit.

And in the games, is it still actually segregated by sex in the competition, or is it like a free-for-all? Yes, it's still segregated. Guys and guys, girls and girls. Right. Yeah, it is crazy how we like, it doesn't really matter, right? Performance should be performance. And yet we like try to sort of put it in these strange categories. Yeah, for sure. But when it comes to like weightlifting, like it's just a little bit different

because guys are a lot stronger, you know? But it's still fun. Like one of my training partners, I train with a male every single day. And it's just like, I mean, it's super fun to be competitive because we're still going after the same thing. Well, I wanted to ask you about that because I know Ben a little bit and I saw you switched coaches and I read your post about it. I'm not so much interested in like, yeah. Why you switched or what your new courses, but how do you like, I imagine that must have been an

agonizingly difficult decision. And how did you make a decision like that? Because it's the same when Tiger Woods decides to switch his caddy or his swim coach or when somebody decides to switch teams. These are really difficult decisions that they're extremely risky in the sense that like it is working or you wouldn't be where you are, how do you make the decision to go towards the unknown new thing that might have

more upside versus sticking with what's comfortable and working? Yeah, and what I was going to say is that it's extremely difficult because it's such a big change. Like we are so comfortable with what we have. I knew that like changing coaches, it would be completely different. He's gonna have a different way of doing everything. I'm so used to the way that Ben had done it.

And like, I mean, I was a good athlete. But when the opportunity was presented to me to train with the number one athlete who has won the Games the past five years and essentially be coached by her husband, he was her coach. It's like I really had to sit back and think like is this going to be what's best for me. And so even though things are going to be hard and I mean it was very challenging to kind of like trust a new coach when I was so ground in the way I did things before. But I almost just like well in my gun, you know,

that it was the best thing for me. And so is it kind of invigorating though to like have to figure out a new way to do it, like to not be, I mean, I imagine there's something comforting about being in the group. This is the way I've done it my whole career. This is how Ben and I set it up, blah, blah, blah, and then being having to wrestle kind of with the lack of control and lack of familiarity with like envisioning a new way of doing it or having to follow somebody else's system. Yeah, I mean, I was extremely scary just like jumping from one program to another program, but I was just so confident in my new coach that I really, I didn't worry too much about whether, like, say I was doing something different,

I wasn't too worried about that because I just knew that I wasn't really good hands. But it keeps it interesting, right? It's sort of what I'm saying is that like, it's nice when some of that stuff proceeds into the background, but it's also like when you move to a new place, you're suddenly your eyes and your senses are operating at a heightened capacity because you're not just like used to tuning everything around you out. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just that like change

is hard. Like it's very change is scary. And so going about a different way of doing things was definitely something that like didn't sit well with me for a while, but you just kind of like continually like start trusting more and more into like the new change that you have. And then I mean most of the time it's probably for the best. Did you think about what the downsides of it could be? I think that's what keeps a lot of people from making changes is like what if I make a mistake, what if people criticize me, what if we don't get along? Like how did you think through the downsides to then still have the sort of courage to make the jump?

Yeah, I mean, there's always gonna be like downsides that like creep into your head the whole time. Like I mean, it was just, it was constantly like fighting with myself like, Is this a good decision for me? What if I don't get better? What if the next thing doesn't work well for me? I think you just have to measure the pros and cons. If the pros are way bigger, then you're just going to have like feel out, like if it makes the content worth it, you know?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I think about is like, is the change, the hard thing or the easy thing, right? So it's like, if, like I remember when I was actually just selling this series of books that I did, I was thinking about maybe shopping at around to different publishers. I've done all my books with the same publisher. And I kept sort of trying to go back and forth

is like, am I trying, am I thinking about leaving because I think it will be easier to do it this other way? Or am I thinking about staying because it would be easier? And I wanted to go towards like the harder thing, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. Now I totally agree with that. Like, I think any change is going to be like harder at first

because it's different. I mean, I think I'm just kind of like beating that cow here, but I think, yeah, change is just scary. Well, because like sometimes an athlete will say, like, leave one team because they're like, this coach is hard on me. And if I go over here, I'll get what I want, right? Like, it's like, I guess that's the question is like,

is one switching because they don't like how the person is holding them accountable. You know, they're tired of, like, they're tired of being pushed in a certain way. Like, is it because one is becoming more entitled as an athlete or as a performer? Or is it because one is becoming more entitled as an athlete or as a performer? Or is it because one is refusing to be satisfied as a performer as an athlete? And that's like the critical distinction.

Yeah, and I think ultimately like, I mean, I had my, I knew that I wanted to be with Shane from like, it's just something that I've always dreamed of doing because he's incredible coach. But I'm another aspect is just like having them, I knew that I was gonna have Shane in person every day. So when I was with Ben, it was like, he was in Boston, I was in Nashville, so it was just kinda like, it worked, but could it be better? Yes.

So having someone to keep me accountable every single day, like watching me be a car to me, making sure that I'm doing everything to the best of my ability is like, I'm always gonna choose that option. Yeah, well it's an investment in sort of getting even more serious about what you do and being more hands-on about what you do, I imagine.

Yeah, and then, I mean, there's also the aspect that I'm now training with Tia who is a five time champ And it's like a lot of people would probably be scared to train with her because they're gonna get beat every single day But I think that if you're not it's someone is not better than you in the room Then you need to change rooms because I always want to be pushed to like the best that I can and that's the only way to get better So you guys both training under a coach and then competing with each other, is that weird? Yeah, so I think that was one of the hesitations when we first started was that,

I mean, obviously, not only is Shane Tia's coach, but they're married. So you kind of were like, we don't want you to ever feel like you're the second best. And I have never felt like that. We got, um, that doesn't seem to me like a feeling you have very often. No, honestly, no, but, um,

I mean, they even like sent me up with like an additional coach to make sure that like, when it comes time for competition, like Shane's gonna be a Tia, I have my other guy, Nick. And so, um, just kind of like figuring out what works for you is important. And then, um, I saw you other guy, Nick. And so just kind of like figuring out what works for you was important. And then I saw you got a jog recently. How's that changed?

Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's awesome. I literally picked him up yesterday. It's been super fun. I've been wanting a dog for a really long time, but it's just kind of one of those things that like I wasn't really ready for responsibility. Not that it's gonna be like that much of responsibility, but I'm just so career focused and driven. I'm

like, is this dog going to take like one percent away from my training? You know? Right. So it's I got it at a good time to where I mean, it's November. I don't start competing until about March. So have a few months to get him trained and like, hopefully bring him to the gym and stuff. But maybe it will take your focus off of training, but in a slightly positive way. So like, you can leave the gym and go home and not be still at the gym. Yeah, no, totally agree with that too. That's another reason I was so excited to get him is just, like, I mean, when I'm not at the gym,

I don't wanna think about training and stuff. I've always been that type. Like, I'm not even very good at typing my results at night from the day, because when I'm at the gym, I'm at the gym, when I'm at home, I'm at home. So it's gonna be great to just kind of focus my energy somewhere else. Yeah, it's like balance is very hard when what you do is inherently unbalanced. Yeah, like I've always heard this saying, like, if you want to be the best, then you're

not going to have balance. Yeah. But I think it's like, it is kind of true, but I also think that like if you're constantly stressing over training and not having any sort of balance where you can just go like shut off, that's also gonna mess with you mentally. Yeah, I mean, I found that with having kids, like I think the fear as a writer is that you have kids

and now your work is not your only focus or your only obsession. And that's true, but it may well be a positive because your obsession was probably not fully healthy and also not actually as productive as you thought it was. Like when you're obsessing about it all the time and you're whipping yourself about it and it's all that you live and breathe,

like by definition, you're gonna take all of it way too seriously and it's gonna suck some of the fun and joy and also success out of it because it just looms too large in your life. Yeah, I mean, I think that can be with like anything in life, but with CrossFit, we're training like eight hours a day. So if I'm like training eight hours a day and then constantly thinking about it,

I'm gonna burn out really quickly. And then like, long journey is very important in any career or like whatever you're doing in your life, it's just like you don't wanna only be able to do it for a short amount of time. So I think just having like balance to, even you out a little bit is very important. Yeah, I had Bob Bowman on the podcast

who is Michael Phelps swim coach. And you just, I mean, he's obviously one of the most successful swimmers of all time, but he has this middle period where he just comes to hate swimming because he's not like taking care of himself and it's also a grind of a sport that just, you know, you're just staring at this line underwater for hours and hours on end. It's awful. Like without, without something else

that keeps you going or gives you joy, it's almost as if all your skill and drive, like it turns against itself and it starts making the thing you love, the thing you hate. Yeah, and I think that's a really important thing to remember is that I always do my best competing or whatever when I'm having fun. Like my best years have been when I've been really enjoyed the sport.

So like little things like having a fun training group around you, like, I don't know listening to like fun music, just whatever you can do to kind of like enjoy what you're doing more is very important. Always there's those times where you need to like, really like grind and like be super like mentally tough, but it's just like, enjoy it when you can. Well, that has been my experience getting to know a number of professional athletes, and it's been

helpful and sort of balancing for me as you're like, this person has a game that millions of people are going to be watching in five hours, and they're having a totally normal lunch, you know, with a person right now about, you about, in my case, like about ancient philosophy that you need, because you take it very seriously, if that isn't balanced out or doesn't have other avenues, eventually it kind of turns toxic. So it's like, if the people who are best in the world at what they do are able to have fun and have other hobbies or other interests, the idea that you can't do those things

because you're too busy or important or whatever is just a lie, you're telling yourself. Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, that just comes back to like, I just, like, you need some kind of like distraction and you don't need to be like sitting in your room right before you're about to compete or some big moment just like thinking about it.

Like, you need to like, rest your mind and, and I just think that's kind of when balance comes into play. Yeah, and like, let's say, let's say that wasn't true. And then actually the way to get 1% better was to be completely joyless and obsessed and aggressive and like, would that be worth it? You know what I mean? Like let's say you get it,

but it also makes it functionally impossible for you to enjoy getting it. That doesn't sound like a good trade. Yeah, I think that, yeah, that's a huge, that's a great point. I think that like, like if I were ever win the CrossFit Games, but I was miserable doing it when I got to that point, it like, well, was that worth it? Like, probably not.

Do I like enjoy, like, I think that a big part of like your accomplishments are looking back on the process that like got you there. So if you're not enjoying it and you're not having fun, then you're doing something wrong. And it's not going to be rewarding when you get to that point. Yeah, it's like you got into whatever the thing was because you enjoyed it. Right.

And so if succeeding at it sucks the joy out of the thing, it might be externally recognized success, but I think we would all accept that there's something wrong with that if that's what winning is. Like when I watched the Michael Jordan documentary, I was like, I'm not sure it was that fun to be Michael Jordan. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I think happiness,

like I would choose happiness over success for sure. It's just kind of like, like why would you do something if you got no joy out of it when you do it? Yeah. Well, and that there's a very healthy middle ground, right? I don't know if I would choose to fail miserably if that meant happiness or although miserable

as a contradiction, but I don't know if it's possible to be happy repeatedly failing at what you do and being like the worst at it. But it's like you meet people who are champions or extremely successful at what they do. And you're like, oh, and they're having a good time. They might not be the most recognizable in the world at that thing. But maybe that's actually the point that they, there's a line in one of Stephen Pressfield's books I love. Have you ever read his stuff? No, I haven't. You would love the War of Art, or he has this novel called Gates of Fire that's amazing. But in one of them, this philosopher is talking to Alexander the Great

and Alexander the Great says, like, I have conquered the world. What have you ever done? And he says, I have conquered the need to conquer the world. And that that's sort of in some ways the higher accomplishment to be able to go like, this is really important to me,

but it's not everything to me. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even just training with Tia, she's one of, or I've talked about her a lot, she's my training partner and she's won the games five times. And training with her, I thought like, this is going to be like brutally serious, like no joking, like it's just going to be like being in the room with Kobe Bryant is just like parading you. Yeah, I thought it was gonna be this super intense,

like no fun kind of thing, and it was the complete opposite. Like we have so much fun during training, and it's just kind of like, it's another sign that like, in order to be successful, you don't have to be miserable all the time. Like you can make these things fun.

Is that maybe why she's had sustained success? You think like maybe being, maybe it being no fun is how you get there once, but it's not how you build a career that you can continue. Yeah, for sure. It's actually funny. She said that like her after her fourth game, or after her fourth win,

she was probably going to call it like her last year. But then she continued like having fun and now she's like doing another year and another year and it's um yeah it's just one of those things like in order to be successful you're gonna have to have some kind of passion doing what you're doing or it's just like it's not gonna be worth it and it's not gonna be a long term. So, where are you trying to end up, as we wrap up the interview, what does you looking back on a career

that went well for you? What does that look like? How do you define like, I accomplished all that I wanted to accomplish? Or I did it right, and maybe not even accomplished because that is emphasizing the specific external things. If for you to look back and go,

I did it well or it went well, what does that look like to you? I never try to put like some kind of placement on like, I need to podium or I need to win the games. That's not what it's about to me. I just want to continue getting better. And once I feel like I have reached my maximum potential, then that's when I want to be like,

okay, I'm satisfied with what I did. I did the best that I could. I put every single thing that I had into the sport and I'm happy with that. And I also just want to continue enjoying it. The minute that I'm not having fun doing what I'm doing is the minute that I'm not going to be doing it anymore. So.

So I think often though, people use the external accomplishments as a proxy for whether I did everything I'm capable of doing. If it's not that, how do you know? How do you know that you reached your potential? I think that's kind of hard to like, it's hard to know when you've reached your potential, but I think that if I'm just like continuing to get better and better and better and then maybe like say,

I like start feeling myself, well, I think it's just like doing everything that I can. Like, each year, adding something in new, like in order to make myself better. Just continuing to do that. First, I said, I just want to get 10 years of the gains, and then I'll be done. But if I'm still having fun after 10 years, like, I'm going to continue competing. It's just something that I love to do. I'm very passionate about it.

When 10 years is just an arbitrary number, it's not based on anything, right? So I totally agree. People sometimes ask me, like, you know, is there a certain number of books you want to write or sell or whatever? And I almost feel like that's kind of artificially limiting because what, like, I don't think, I don't think it's a specific number means anything.

It should be that you did all that you were capable of doing, and then you stopped before it was harmful for something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree. Yeah, like why 10? Just because it's like a 10, you know? So yeah, I just want to continue doing it as long as I am like enjoying it.

I think another big thing is I just want to inspire others to be their best self. That's cliche, is that sounds like it's just important to me to be a good inspiration to others. Well I often hear the numbers that people have, it's not even arbitrary like 10 because it's a round number. Because they heard somebody else did nine. Yeah, yeah. Right? So it's like inherently based on competition that they just pulled out of their ass. It's like they heard so and so, so the million or so and so do this. And that's like, again, so limiting. You should be trying to do the most or the best that you are capable of doing,

which might be higher than that or which might be higher than that, or it might be lower than that, but it should be that, not just some benchmark that you pulled off of an article or Wikipedia page or something. Right, I feel like everyone's just so competitive these days, like comparing yourself to other people, and that's something that I don't want to do.

Right. Do it as long as I want to do it, not as long as someone else has. Well, I hope you get to do it as long as I want to do it, not as long as someone else has. Well, I hope you get to do it as long as you want to do it. And nothing else gets to decide whether you keep doing it. That to go back to our conversation about injuries, that that's always the thing hovering above all of it as the Stoic say, which is that, you know, sort of fate behaves as she pleases

and sometimes doesn't really care about what we want. Yeah. Well, lovely, this was so fun. I'm really glad we got to talk. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. Go play with your dog. Okay, I will. It's great to meet you. All right, I'll see you later. See you.

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