The Daily Stoic - Ross Edgley on Swimming Around Great Britain and the Value of Resilience

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to Ross Edgley about his 1,792 mile swim all the way around Great Britain, overriding the innate function of self-preservation to perform feats of endurance, the importance of protecting yourself against becoming too comfortable in life, and more. Ross Edgley is an extreme adventurer, ultra-marathon sea swimmer and author. He holds multiple world records, but is best known for completing the World's Longest Staged Sea Swim in 2018 when he became the first person in history to swim 1,792 miles all the way around Great Britain in 157 days. Voted Performance of the Year by the World Open Water Swimming Association, he documented his training, nutrition, theories and strategies and published them in his books titled The World's Fittest Book (2018) and The Art of Resilience (2020) which both became No.1 Sunday Times Bestsellers and have been translated into several other languages.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.Centered is a Mac and Windows app that helps you get into Flow and work faster...and healthier. Join thousands of users who have discovered their Flow States by running Centered in the background while they work. Download Centered today at centered.app/stoic and use the Promo Code “STOIC” by October 31st to get a free month of Premium, and also be entered to win a variety of prizes!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.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 Ross Edgeley: Homepage, Instagram, Twitter, YouTubeSee 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 Wundery'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. It's not much, but it's enough. How long has it been now since you first heard of this philosophy? Few months? Few years? Few decades? Of course, it seemed hard to you when you first discovered it because sadly, like the rest of us, you were not magically instantly transformed. Indeed,

however major the epiphanies you've had on your journey, like the rest of us, you still seem to have your flaws. You still lose your temper, still yearn for this or that, still complain about this boss or that coworker. On some days, it can feel like you're failing, but is that really failure? No. Remember, Senika said that stoicism was about acquiring one thing a day. That's it. Marcus really said it was building your character action by action. Xeno said that well-being was realized by small steps. It's not glamorous, but with time and energy, we make progress. Longfellow in his beautiful psalm of life puts it perfectly. Not enjoyment and not sorrow is our destined end or way, but to act that each tomorrow

find us farther than today. One foot in front of the other, one page after another, one email after the next. We're getting better as we go. We're not perfect. We're never going to be. But are we better than we were yesterday? Are we farther down the path of self-improvement? A virtue? That is what counts. A couple years ago I got an email and I do get emails like this a lot. People tell me that the books have mattered to them or that it helped them when they were doing something.

But very rarely do I get an email from someone who says something like, your book helped me as I swam around all of Great Britain. And that was the email that I got from the one and only Ross Ejli, an extreme, adventurer, superhuman, ultra marathoner, British David Goggins. He holds multiple world records, but he's best known for that thing. I was just telling you about the world's longest staged C-Swim.

In 2018, he was the first person to swim all 1792 miles all the way around Great Britain. And he did it in 157 days. He would swim with the tide, get out, get in the boat, sleep, get right back in the water, and he swim all the way around the island of Great Britain. It was the performance of the year by the World Open Water Swimming Association. of Great Britain. It was the performance of the year by the World Open Water Swimming Association. And as we get into in this interview, just an insane feat of human endurance, literally like his tongue fell out from the salt water. He talks about cracking the ice to get off his wetsuit to get in the water. I mean, it's just unreal. And he's documented, he's written a bunch of great books, The World's Fittest Book, The Art of Resilience,

which were both number one Sunday times bestsellers and translated in a bunch of languages. A bunch of languages. But seriously, I had so much fun talking to this dude. I think there's no way you could do a physical feat like that and not be an upbeat, exciting, optimistic person, right? When you watch some of David Goggan stuff, it's a little dark, like it's coming from a dark place.

I don't know him, I'm not judging. I'm just saying there's a little bit of like, I'm gonna kick your ass kind of a thing. And Ross is more like, come on man, you can do it. Let's have fun. That was the vibe I got anyways. I loved talking to him on this really fun interview. I think you're really gonna like it.

Check out his book, The World's Fittest Book, The Art of Resilience, look out for some crazy stunts to come, I'm sure. You can follow him at RossEdgely.com. You can follow him at RossEdgely on all platforms. That's R-O-S-S-E-D-G-L-E-Y. Enjoy this interview. It was seriously the peerless, the only Ross edgley. Well, I wanted to start at sort of a difficult moment. So let's start with, you're in the middle of one of your feats of endurance, right? Whether you're 500 miles into a swim or you're, you know, 10 miles into a marathon. How does someone push past? Do you specifically, you're next reacting to the wetsuit,

your tongue is dissolved from the salt. When you're in one of those rock bottom moments, how does someone push through that? Because it's not like you have to do it, right? You're not in the middle of some epic feat of survival that if you don't make it through your die, like you chose to do this. So how do you push through these moments? I can't wrap my head around.

You know what, bro, I love what you just said there because you wanted very few people who sort of addressed that where I think a motivating factor was I was the idiot who said I was going to do this, you know, whatever it was with right head, you know, I'm going to swim around Great Britain, I'm going to climb a rope the height of Everest. So I think there was an element of my ego just being there like, if you, if you pack me in, everyone will know, well, you said you'd do it, no one had a gun to your head. But I think there was definitely an element of that. However, and this is how I, you know, this is a few years ago now when I came by you, your works, your racism, you introduced me to it with your obstacles way. And it was all of these things that I just found that sport science no longer had the answers. And what I meant by that was,

take swimming, for example. Swimming as a sport exists in a pool, you know, the, the, the, the pool, it's, it's the parameters are very easily set. But what I found is when I'm swimming and my, my, my tongs falling off, I've got a jellyfish on my face, you know, I'm in an Arctic storm, you know,

I'm just going, well, you know, sports science can only get me so far now. And that's where I think stilicism helped me so much. Just looking at controlling the controlables, except in the uncontrollables, Marcus Aralius and all of his teachings, they resonated with me so much with that. And I just found, and I'm not just saying with the daily stoic between tides as a team,

we all read it. And sometimes honestly Ryan, like I remember in Scotland, and we got caught in an Arctic storm. And then the tide changes every six hours. So if there's sort of great Britain tide changes, so you swim when it's with you, you stop when it's against you and you rest.

And we, it didn't matter if it was two o'clock in the morning or two o'clock in the afternoon, you got in the water. And sometimes I had to just crack the wetsuit because it was frozen. I had to crack it before I could put it on to get in. And there was sometimes when we just picked up daily stoke and we were just like, anything in there, they're going to get us through this next time. And so that was basically it. There was no one

mechanism to keep getting in the water. There was a few. Well, I love that so much, obviously, and that's not at all what I would have thought about as I was writing the book, that that was be the environment in which it's been read because that's insane. But it strikes me that like physically, there's sort of one element to what you do. But I've got to imagine at a certain point, your body's like, this is not possible anymore. You must stop. You cannot keep going.

And you have, you managed to find, probably on hundreds of days over the course of that swim, the mental and spiritual fortitude to be like, you're wrong, you can keep going. And again, I love that you said that because so often people think that fatigue is just a physical thing. But only now are sort of really appreciating that it's an interaction between your psychology and your physiology. It was it was Tim Knokes who came up with the the central governor theory where he said that fatigue is an emotionally driven state that we basically used to pull the physiological handbrake

and what he meant by that was is, say me and you right now Ryan, we went went and ran a marathon. We were like, yeah, let's go run a marathon and And we got to 18 miles. All of a sudden, you'd get this biological feedback. You'd be carved, depleted, overheating, or you'd be cold, depending on, in a way, you'd be dehydrated, electrolytes, just let all of these things heart rate too high. So you'd get all of this biological feedback to the brain and the brains, this hyper-conductor act that's just trying to keep you safe. Right. And so the brain's going, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, we're 18 miles in. You need to stop or slow down. You hit the wall.

You know, all of a sudden your brain's going, this is a terrible idea. Stop, turn back. You know, go and get a takeaway and go home and run a bubble bath. Here's the what it's trying to tell you. And it's only now that Tim Note says that, you know, we have to override that. We have to understand that no, no, no, okay, noted all of those biological signals, but we're safe. We're okay.

And a lot of people now sort of say, you know, central governor kind of infers that there's just a thing inside of your brain. So they prefer the psychobiological model of fatigue. It's essentially the same thing. And what I love as well is dating back to the Marcus Aurelius, you know, when he was talking about that same interaction as well, you know, when he was talking about, you know, quitting and endurance and it was amazing that they weren't aware of central governor theories, psychological, psychological model of fatigue.

But it's the same thing. And I think in that moment, when that happens at the 18 mile mark of a marathon, if you were doing Hill Sprint, even if you're doing like jujitsu and some guys like kneeling on your neck, and you're just like, I just wanna give up. I'm not in pain as such, but it's uncomfortable. You have to stoically and objectively void of emotional sort of decisions go,

actually, am I really in pain? Am I about to, you know, die? All of these things with people, I can't go on, my legs are gonna fall off, but are they? Are your legs gonna fall off? My lungs are gonna explode.

Let me stop you there. Are they gonna explode? And it's a real art, and you have to practice it time and again. And then the more you push the body, the more you start to realize that you can override that central governor theory, that innate sort of desire for self-preservation. And I think after the Great British swim, for instance,

157 days, 170, 180 miles, tongue falling off, hypothermia, all sorts. And so now it's funny, because even when I swim now and people go, Ross, like your lips are blue, like Ross, your tongue, like parts of it are falling off. I'll go, oh, no, no, this is nothing. You can push beyond that. Do you remember when you first realized that, like when you sort of first realized

that the body's a bit of a liar or that fatigue isn't as true as it might feel? Like was that something you came to later? Like in these feats, or was that something you maybe figured out early on in life? Or did you cultivate it? That's a point. I think it was a combination of things.

There were certainly moments where it kind of stood out. But quite often it was just when I was training at Loughborough University and even before that, reading a lot of sports science journals, you know, they will say, you know, you can't train every single day. You need a rest day. Don't train over 45 minutes because all of a sudden you go catabolic and your quarters are stress warmers. Go through all of these things. And I was like, no, no, that's not strictly true. And again, a friend of mine, Jeff Capes,

a two time former world strongest man, way back in the day. Before sports science was kind of a little bit restrictive telling you what you can and can't do, he was just like, it's shifting hay bales, working in, you know, the field or day, and then we'd go and perform these herculean feats of strength. And that sports science would go, well, that's not possible. And I know you do get these outliers, but I think like so often, society, sports science, everything, they just sort of make these rules and you just go but it just doesn't apply to everyone and when you've come out the other side of swims

the Greek British Swims are great example people said you just can't do it you can't swim that length for 157 days and it's not pleasant I don't recommend it since coming back I was back. I was like, no, you can. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's sort of, like you said this earlier, but this is true for like sort of people who give advice. This is true for your parents. Everyone in the world wants to keep you safe. That's their main thing. They just don't want you to die or hurt yourself,

which is great. But that if you listen to that all the time, you leave a lot on the table. That is such a good way of putting it because it doesn't come from a bad place when people put in these restrictions on you. And then I mean my favorite story was and it really did inspire my own swim but kept in web. So for those who people who don't know, 1875, people said you cannot swim across the English channel from England to France. It's alright, it can't be done.

You know, 21 miles, but the water's too cold, tides are too strong. It just simply cannot be done. But Captain Webb, and this is the part I love, he sort of dropped out of the Navy, he started training full-time, and on a diet of beef broth and brandy, he swam breaststroke all the way across because front crawl was ungentlemantly like at the time. So his brother and his cousin were just feeding you, he'd be rough, I didn't just crushed it. And he did it in, I believe it was like 26 hours, that the current record might be below six. But it was just the way he did it. Same with Roger Bannister.

People said, can't run under a four-minute mile, can't be done. Keep Trogie recently, two-hour marathon. People like, you just can't be done. Leading physicians, really intelligent people, you just like, you just, you can't do it. And then as soon as Roger Bannister did it, what I also love is collectively, all of a sudden, everyone started to run under a four-minute mile and it was just that once the flood gates were open, so sometimes you're absolutely right, right? I think people just want to keep you safe or they're giving you advice based on their own parameters, but it takes a really strong, well-person just to be like, no. And based on central government of theory, cyclotry, psychological, no. And based on central government theory,

cyclo-conclocal, biological model of tea, you go, I think I can push beyond it. Yeah. I'm thinking about this now. So the book that I'm working on is about self-discipline and temperance, right? So courage is obviously a virtue for this tocks. It's sort of doing the thing that people say you can't do that's impossible to do. That's a scary thing. And that requires a certain amount of sources. But then there's also this sort of virtue of moderation or temperance or knowing one's limits, right?

And so it's those two things are intention with each other. So like if you're pushing through your tongue is dissolved, you're having to crack the ice in your wetsuit, et cetera. How, how given your determination, you're willing this to push through to sort of treat the body as somewhat deceitful or lazy, how do you not just hurt yourself all the time? You know what I mean? Like when your knee is feeling a little off or you feel tight here there, how do you know what wording signs to listen to and which ones to blow off? How do you know what wording signs to listen to and which ones to blow up?

Yeah, I, you know what? Because I, a lot of people can sort of take my advice and it's like a pendulum that it swings too far. And yeah, and I'm absolutely, I'm like, no, no, no, no, do not like kill yourself off. Like, barefoot running is a great example. I'm a huge advertist of that, but you know, I'm like, build it up. So you see people throw their shoes away and then just go, I'm like, no, don't do that. So to answer your question, one of the best mechanisms that I've always found, and I call it almost outsourcing common sense, certainly on the swim, there was times when your cognitive functioning

because your tired sleep deprived cold, you have the cognitive functioning of like a five-year-old. You sure? You understand one arm in front of the other and eat that's it. And certainly with Captain Matt, who's the captain of the whole film, I would be looking at him and just being like, if I'm not making much sense, if I'm going backwards, you know, there were sometimes, I remember I was so sleep deprived, I was swimming at night, and I was sighting off this light off the boat, and I must have just lost concentration for a split second, and then all of a sudden thought that the light on the boat was the moon.

So I just started swimming like back the other way, and they were like, that's not the boat that's the moon. And they were like, you're not thinking quite right now, Ross. And I think when you trust the team around you or the advice, that can be really empowering because you can push yourself knowing that there's that safety net. You go, I'm going to take this as far as I can. So maybe the discipline is to have coaches or support staff

or advisors. I was thinking about this the other day with perfectionism. Often creators are really perfectionists. And so you can get trapped. And so you need to have editors or collaborators who are like, no, this is good enough. We need to move on. Right? You need. So if you're like, I don't have the willpower to check myself or to take myself out of the game or to rest, you need to, before you start, build a support team that

you've outsourced some of the decision to, and then you have to have the strength to be like, I am going to defer to your decision here. 100% yeah. I think this is, as sports science example, this is going to sound weird, but to do a full VO2 test, so your lung capacity on a treadmill at Loughborough University, we do this. And I'm actually, I mean, there in a few weeks, I'll send you a video right. I mean, it's, yeah, it's hilarious, but equally terrifying. And you get hooked up into basically like a horse harness and they just go like, you go until you are dribbling and just kind of like a puppy.

So we've got that coming up and it's exactly what you said. Make sure the infrastructure around you, the people, the infrastructure, everything can protect you so you can solely focus on overriding that psychological model of fatigue, if it's physical. Or I love what you said there, creatively, just go nuts knowing that people are gonna edit it later. And yeah, that's a really good way of putting it actually. So there's this, obviously you're sort of pushing the body,

you're in the middle of the ocean at night, you can't see anything. How do you prevent the mind from spiraling out of control? What just touched my foot? What if I get taken out by a way, how do you keep fear in check or are you just so physically exhausted that the mind can't think about anything?

Yeah, you have to check yourself. Especially when swimming, because swimming for that length of time, especially when you're at night. So we were, town, obviously I swam six hours on six hours off for what was essentially five months. So doing the math very quickly, I spent two months in complete darkness counting the night swims. You're so much more vulnerable than you would be running an ultra marathon or any other feed of endurance, you're like literally, it's like climbing Everest or something, like you can just get killed in a second.

It's exactly it. Yeah. And also doing it kind of blind. So if you get killed, you won't even know about it like something which is coming up. And I think you're absolutely right. In the left unchecked, your mind will go to a million places. What was that that touched my face? You know, is it a jellyfish?

You know, it just, and you can't do that. It's like, yeah, I always think like your mind, it's almost like this like horse, this wild horse. If you tame it, it's so powerful. If not, it will just run riot and you will not know what to do. And there was always various mechanisms that you could use or I certainly did, but never won, because I think a lot of people will go,

what one trick did you use? And I was like, no, I think of it more like the TV channel. And every swim you'd get in, and some days you'd have a thought, you know, something like a quote to teaching that would be really powerful and potent and that could get you through. I always talk about, you know, swimming with a smile and the science of a smile because there was times when just camaraderie and just, you know, and again, this is backed by

studies. There was a great study where they showed cyclists cycling to complete exhaustion, these pictures of people either smiling or frowning, but they were so short, it was almost the subliminal cue, so it barely registered on unconscious level. And what they found, infatically, was those that were showing these pictures of people smiling were far more resilient to fatigue than those that were showing them frowning. So with this, it's kind of proven, you know it, it's like swim with a smile, the science of a smile, but that won't work every time.

And there's sometimes where, I've got jellyfish tentacles in my beard, I'm cracking my wets, my tongs on and off. And the team will be like, just smile Ross, I might do not want a smile right now. So then you might use something else. I think it was Aristotle when he said, if you want to leave society, you need to become a God or a beast. And I kind of loved that phrase because I was just becoming more feral

as the days went on, Just hairy, chubby. My girlfriend would come on the bone, be like, why does your wet shoes smell of urine? I'm sorry. And I think that was also quite powerful. And I talk about stress and due to stannulgisia, so the way that an injured animal will just fight to the death,

because it's feral, it's full of fear, it's full of stress. And there was times where that, that was actually quite empowering. That I was in so much pain, I was so exhausted that I just didn't care. Jellyfish would just like slapping me in the face. I was like, I don't care anymore. And so it was always knowing which one to use. And there was various more as well, but you couldn't just stick to one because smiling all the way around wouldn't work and being feral wouldn't work as well. You need to just switch between all of them. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast

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It's not just like it was as hard, but you would have been in constant pain. It just pain, it's pain just something that doesn't bother you very much or there's strategies you've come up with sort of endure the pain. Yeah, there was, so one thing that really resonated with me again in sports science when they talk about adaptive and maladaptive mechanisms for coping with pain. And I think the words that you use, people don't really understand it,

but the words, if you've ever run an ultra marathon or you listen to some of those people, when they check into those stops and their feeding stations with their team, the best ones, I mean, I'm a huge fan of Courtney. Don't worry, when you see it, she's smiling the whole way around, she's amazing. And you see others coming in, Cameron Haynes as well

as a number one. He's just there running, going, keep hammering, he's just got green on his face. And I find that fascinating, the language that they use usually corresponds to being a good runner. It's not necessarily biomechanics and, you know, VO2 lactic threshold. It's that mentality. And other runners will come in and go, oh, I can't go on. I'm dying. My legs are killing me. You know, using these words, we just didn't tolerate that on the boat.

So it was that. And then I think also as well, being so objective, going back to the central governor and psychobiological model of fatigue that me and Captain Matt would have these meetings before every swim and there were void of emotion. We just needed to communicate what was going on. So I would be like, good morning, good morning, I'd like what's the tide doing? It would be like, tide to really slow and we're gonna get caught in a storm and the water is about five degrees. So we need to watch for hypothermia.

How are you feeling? And I'll be like, tongues falling off. I'm losing fingernails and I haven't slept in 48 hours and he'd go, it's what you wanna do. And I'll go, swim. So it was just that. So that's sort of the stoic idea of kind of stripping judgment out of it,

because the judgment doesn't change the reality of the situation. So yeah, if you come into the station, you're like, it's terrible out there. I feel terrible. I don't know if I can go on. All of that is coloring the situation that you're in. And it's not making it worse, but it's not making it better. Right. It's not making it

more likely you'll be able to do this really hard thing. Yeah, it's exactly it. And I think we did that. We started doing that almost just organically, naturally. But then like you said, later learn that yeah, it's your judgment of it that will make it so much like worse. So it very quickly became, we just don't have any room for complaining or just anything because, and again, it was to your point that no one was holding a gun to my head. So if I wanted to complain, I was also, a lot of people said this when they were like,

rast, it was amazing watching the whole thing. You didn't cry once, you know, and everything. I was like, yeah, I wanted to, but I just knew it wouldn't help. And objectively looking at my day, I swim for 12 hours, I eat and do rehab for the rest. And what's left, I just try and sleep to try and recover. So I was like crying in that 24 hour sort of period.

I don't have time. So it was also that as that 24 hour, so period. I don't have time. So it was all say that as well. Yeah, that just... Well, I think about that with Marcus really. So Marcus really is, we get some sense that he's a bit of an athlete, but he also is just racked by pain most of his life. He has some sort of like a stomach condition. It just, he doesn't, he's, he, something's wrong with his body.

We don't have that much inside about it, but it is interesting that meditations like his private diary. And there's no real complaining about it. There's no like, oh, this sucks, oh, this hurts. He's just sort of like, there's this one part where he says like, look, the pain will either stop on its own, or you'll die, in look, the pain will either stop on its own or you'll die, in which case the pain will also stop, right? Which I thought was just sort of like the perfect stoic encapsulation.

I mean, in your case, it's like, look, either you'll get to the end of the race and the pain will stop or you'll quit the race and the pain will stop. It's sort of day to day, you're a car-ho. That is exactly it, is exactly it. And it was also as well in your head, just quitting was just a non-negotiable. So it was just when people said, did you ever think about quitting?

It was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That never, we never discussed that. That wasn't just, it just wasn't ever part of our vocabulary. And so even, again, going back to that safety net, but I did know, the words I quit wouldn't come out of my mouth, but I could be carried out on a stretcher. Against my will. And there was that element as well, I think, which is related to the pain. It's just going how much are you going to endure? And I'm just sort of sitting there going,

well, I'll be taken out on a stretcher against my will. So that's my threshold. I don't know if there's a British equivalent, but what I've read about the Navy Seals, for instance, like in Hell Week, the sort of the training thing, is that there's a bell there that you can ring at any time to quit, right? And so it's sort of always there. And that it's sort of, and that they actually,

the trainers are sort of, they're trying to get you to ring the bell. Like they're like, it's right there. You can leave at any time. We'd like you to leave. You know, like, you can have a warm shower and a blanket right now anytime you want. And so I imagine it's like, they say like to win a game of chicken, you know, like two things crashing into each other.

You have to rip the steering wheel out, right? You have to go like, it's, that's the only way the other person will know that you're not, you're not going to call it, right? And so I imagine that's probably a decent strategy. You're sort of saying to the coach at the beginning, I'm a hundred percent not going to quit. All die before I quit. You're going to have to call it in for me because if you have the option to quit, if that's one of the things you can do, you'll probably do it. You're so right. And I think all of these survival stories, Shackleton, I love like Shackleton story and what he did when they managed to get from the the ice shelf all the way to Elephant Island and then to cross Elephant Island.

People don't know that like, and then he went back. He gets the civilization and then he goes back and he gets everyone else. It's the same. And leading, I mean, the whole exploration, the heroic age of Antarctic exploration during that period, everything was pioneering anyway. But you had world class navigators, sailors, explorers. But then what they did was

just like on Favonwalk, like sleep deprived, like, you know, a year on the eye shelf. And I love what you said at the start there, which was just like, but they had no choice to survival is just a motivating factor. So if you can almost replicate those conditions safely, that is a huge motivating factor. And again, it goes back to the sources and when you're just living poverty, you'll realize what's the worst that can happen. And I think it's that element of,

get hungry, too many people are just kind of life scourge, they're comfortable. And it's like, no, that's why I continue doing my eyeshows, my eyes fast, I run barefoot continue doing my eyeshows, my eyes fast, I run barefoot, people look at me nuts, I'm running through the woods barefoot and they're like, dude, you've got money, get shoes. Because you'll get, you'll just get, you know, it's sacyated, you'll just, it's just, yeah, you'll be comfortable. So I think that's a really interesting trick inspired by Shackleton that trying to replicate the same motivating factor

that sheer survival will give you. And that's in anything, even if you are just like creating a business for the first time, you're writing an album, you're a musician, you're writing your first book. Do it like your family, I'm not gonna eat for a year unless you finish that book. Right.

Yeah, I remember thinking that when I started my first book, which it was like, like, so how do you know you can do something you've never done before? Right? That's the tricky question, right? So like, you're either delusional, and that's not a good place to be, or you have some sense of what it takes to do things. So I remember going into it, going like, well, I've done training. I have the education, I have the idea, I have the motivation.

But most of all, I know I don't quit things. So I had this sense that I had no idea what it was gonna be like, how long it was gonna take, how it's gonna go. But I knew I didn't quit things. So I was confident I could at least get to the other side. I wasn't confident that it would to take, how is it going to go? But I knew I didn't quit things. So I was confident I could at least get to the other side. I wasn't confident that it would be good, but I knew I could get to the other side

because it was more likely that I would finish than I would quit. I love that you said that because similarly, when you know what your capable of, just go like, these are my strengths. This is what I'm playing with. And that was, again, almost controlling the controllables that in those six hours swims where the tide was with me,

I was just like, swimming 12 hours a day. I was like, I'm gonna swim 12 hours a day because that's when the tide's with me. Doesn't matter if I've got jellyfish in my face, waves, tides, it doesn't matter, but that's when that's my period to swim. So if every single day I can just swim 12 hours, eventually you will get around, very brilliant.

It was just breaking it down like that, exactly what you just said there, which was just how do you know it's possible when you've never done it before, when you break it down, you go, it is a map at a certain point, it's just a map equation, right? It's like, hey, with books, it's like, okay, how many pages is a map at a certain point. It's just a math equation, right? Like, it's like, hey, a certain, like, with books, it's like, okay, how many pages is a book? How many pages are you doing a day? Eventually, you'll get to the end if you don't stop. If you stop, of course, you won't get there.

But if you don't quit, eventually, you'll get there. You could have the worst time in the whole world, but if you don't quit, you'll get there. He's definitely, I don't know what you say, because it really does just boil down to maps. It's maps and logic. When I said I was gonna climb a rope, so it was a 20 meter rope repeatedly,

the height of Everest, the 8,848 meters. I remember I told my dad, and my dad is so like stoic and objective, and I remember he just immediately pulled out a calculator and then just worked out, and he just said, you need to climb a 20 meter rope And I calmly said it was like every minute on the minute, you know for for 20 hours with a 20 second break in between And he just broke it all down. I was like 20 seconds. I could eat between that 20 seconds and go to the toilet if I needed to

Cool I'm done. Yeah, in my room Well in meditations Marcus says, you know, you assemble your life action by action. No one can stop you from that, meaning no one can stop you from doing the 20 meter rope. The whole fit, something could happen that prevents you from doing the entire thing. The rope could break. But the point is, you have the power to go, I'm going to climb it one more time.

I'm going to climb it one more time, okay? I'm going to climb it one more time. And if you just focus on breaking it down to the smallest component piece, and you just go like, I just have to do this 8,000 times or whatever it is, then then it really just does become a bit of a math equation. Yeah. I know, I know you said that when you just go, I just need to do this 8,000 times or whatever it is. And people always laugh, but maybe it's being so naive or a very simple man. I'm very simple, I just like, look at things.

When people are like, well, I'm just like, but if you keep putting one arm in front of the other, you will swim to your destination. And then they're like, but, but, but, sharks, jellyfish. I'm like, yeah, no, that's an uncontrollable.

But what I can control is this. Well, I read about Churchill once, someone I'm like, yeah, no, that's an uncontrollable. But what I can control is this. Well, I read about Churchill once, someone was saying, like, how could Churchill have known in 39 that all this stuff could happen that would lead to Britain, like winning the Second World War, right? And they were like, it was impossible. You couldn't have known. But that wasn't what he was thinking about. He was thinking, look, let's get as many people back from Dunkirk as possible. And then he was like, let's just get through the Battle of Britain. He's like, let's just bring America into the war. So he was just thinking about it.

He just had this sense. If you could hold on long enough to do this, then he could hold on long enough to do that. then he could hold on long enough to do that. Then he could hold on long enough to do that. He had, it's impossible to know, right? You don't know that you're going to make it all the way to here because so much lies in the future that's uncertain that depends on these other things. But if you're just focusing on, hey, I'm supposed to swim for 12 hours today. I just swam for an hour, so now I have 11 left.

And then I just swam six hours. Now I'm halfway through. If you're just breaking it down into increasingly smaller chunks, it's like driving a car at night. You're just driving as far as the headlights show in front of you. But then the headlights move. And that's how you travel a far distance.

100%. And that's what I coach so many times, when I'm coaching swimming as well. One of my biggest frustrations is when people start all of a sudden they start looking at the outcome. But I think that's the worst thing you can do. If you're clock watching or looking at the horizon. And so as soon I don't entertain any questions about that if people are going how long's left or anything I go you don't

If you focus on the process the outcome becomes inevitable But if you're solely focused on the outcome then you're not focusing on the process Yeah, and so that's one thing that I've always found whether it's running swimming cycling It's like just focus on putting one arm in front of the other as efficiently as possible. If you're running that beautiful biomechanics for foot striking because if you do that and also as well, whether it's psychological spiritual, you know, when you get into that flow state as it's called, if you just get in that all of a sudden you look up and go, oh my god, I've just covered like 50 miles, you know, swimming or whatever it is. And I think slightly related to that, all of a sudden you look up and go, oh my God, I've just covered like 50 miles, you know, swimming or whatever it is.

And I think slightly related to that, and I talk about that in my book, and it was such a cool story, but the Stopdale paradox. Yes. And with Donald Stopdale, and he just sort of said, Prisoner of War Vietnam,

he could point out those people who just wouldn't make it. Yeah, he's an activist. Exactly right, yeah, he was just like, oh, to me, and I only found that so often that it's just like that that's stock nail paradox. You know, you absolutely need hope. You need hope. You need to hold on to hope, but equally, you have to face up to your current reality. And for me, in all sport that resonated so much because you cannot keep going, oh, this will be over soon. We'll be in a

warm bubble bath. I know I was going to be amazing because that warm bubble bath didn't come for 157 days for me. What Stockdale had was this, he had this profound belief that he would survive, but then no real day-to-day sense of when that would be, or how he needed things to be. So it's like, I'm going to get out, I'm going to turn this into something that I'm better for having experienced. But today's going to fucking suck, you know, that, that, that was sort of the vibe in my understanding of it. It was exactly that. It was the same. And I think the media on a lot of my swims, the media always press me. Of course they do, you know, for an answer saying, when are you going to finish?

What's the target? And if you then don't meet that target, we, for the great British swim, for instance, a lot of people say 100 days because they just had a nice way into it. But I was like, you don't know, like the ocean is completely over at this. So when we did make it 100 days, a lot of people were like, oh, you know, sorry, I was like, you don't know, like the ocean is completely over at this. So when we did make it 100 days, a lot of people were like, Oh, you know, sorry. I was like, what are you sorry? I was like, it's fine. This is just going to take as long as it takes. And that just getting real philosophical about it, we were like, doesn't want to.

And you can see what it means about optimists. So if you're like 100 days, that's what I'm trying to do. Then, you know, at day 90, you're like, it's almost over, right? And then you get to a hundred, you're not done. And then if someone could have told you, hey, Ross, you've got another 50% to go, you would have killed yourself. Like, there's no, like, you know, that would crush you, right? So you have to be able to almost operate in this kind of suspended, you know, animation where you're not, you're not, there's no expectation, no goal.

You're just like doing it day to day. That's how I find with the book, like, I'm doing this four book series. So like, I kind of have a sense of when I need to hit stuff, but I'm trying not to measure myself on how the last one went. Because if I did, I'd have woken up today and been like, I'm already a month late. But really, all of this is fucking made up. None of the bent, like, you know, all that matters is eventually I hit the mark and I can move that out if I have to.

So you have to, it's like, you have to zoom way in and deliberately tune out where else it'll break your heart because the stuff adds up. And now, now you feel like you're failing when really that by the same token, you could be like, I can't believe I'm, I've swam 100 days and I, I'm still going, you know, like the story you tell yourself could be despairing or inspiring. That is, I love that, the story that you tell yourself, like in your own head, that internal environment, and that, that's again, like when you were swimming,

like, especially ocean swimming, I've always found, because it just amplifies everything. You are the world of sensory deprivation. And anything you're head, you are, like certainly for me, I was like, oh Ross, you know, I had this beard, you know, that it was just ungrouped and like just tentacles and seaweed in.

But in my head, I was like, I bet this looks like Poseidon. I bet I look amazing. And in reality, I look back at Kitches. I was like, you look awful. I remember I started at 90 kilos. I finished it like a hundred and eight. And I was like, oh, it's because I was big and strong. It's like, no, you just fat. Like, you're eating like 15,000 calories a day, weren't you? I was. Honestly, but in my head, I was just like, this is,

this is like Captain Web. This is an oval course. But like looking back, I'm like, you look horrendous. So, so your introduction to stoicism was from my books or how did you end up hearing about it? I'm like, there's obviously athletes that I've known that have sort of read the stuff, but you know, like I've read some of the things you've written, you're like hardcore into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I've been into it for a while, but it was specifically the Daily Stoke that was recommended to me because I knew we didn't know how long we'd have between tights. Yeah. To get stuck into a proper book and everything like that, it would have been kind of hard to follow a cool story, where it's someone was just like, oh, Daily Stoke.

And I was just like, oh, okay. And then sometimes, like I said, picking tentacles out on my face, cracking a wet seat, I'd just go flip, flip, ah, yeah, that'll get me in the water. So it was just finding that one thing. And then like I said, certainly in my book, The Art of Resilience, it was just trying to fuse the two because this idea of stoic sport science, I found, I mean,

I called it kind of like a sport science forged in battle because sport science will only get you so far. Stoic sport science is for what you need, you know, when the shit hits the fan for one of the better. Well, that's what I love about the Stoics, right? It's like, it's like, sports science is great, but it's sort of for from and for the laboratory, right? And I think most of philosophy is sort of from

and for the classroom. And what I think I like about the Stoics is, yeah, Marx really is racked by pain. Epic Titus, in der's 30 years of slavery, Stockdale's in a POW camp, you're like, oh, this is, it's not just like tested, but it came from someone with real experiences and like, it came from the real world as opposed to just from someone's brain. You could still be right just coming from your brain, but it means

something else if like this person has done stuff. Yes, I hugged. It's just a practical application, not theoretical, not like let's sit here and you know start talking about it. No, like you're in the trenches and you went, hey, this sort of method mechanism helped me, you know, you're absolutely right. And that's what I needed. I, you know, I didn't need some abstract, you know, philosophical, I was like, that's not, that's not gonna help me right now. I've not slept in, you know, three days. I'm freezing. I've not got a tongue left. It's like, come on guys. Yeah, it's weird that they can't do something about the tongue. Have you thought about like, you think that there's, I don't know, that seemed, that, I was, that was the most surprised, I was like, oh yeah, I guess your tongue just can't

be in salt water for 150 days without consequences. I'm going to be growing bad. Yeah, it's fine now, but it was, um, one of the things that I found helped was, um, was coconut oil. So it's like, it's just like, swilling it around and then it almost forms a barrier. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't make it bullet proof or saltwater proof, but it certainly helped. And I think again, that goes back to the whole concept of my book with the idea that resilience, and I say resilience is just suffering strategically managed.

And you know what I mean by that was just a lot of people go, you know, your tongue's falling off. Oh, you know, man up, you know, grit your teeth and get through it. It's like, no, you weren't end up with a tongue at the end of it. You know, so you know, you split it out now. Again, if we were running a marathon and Ryan, you turns me, it was like, Ross, I got a pebble in my shoe. Resilience wouldn't be me going, oh, run and grind it into the ground. You go like, no, well, let's stop and take the pebble

out your shoe, right? And then let's continue. And that's one thing that I found that, you know, void of a lot of that man up dogma and you know, no, so I'm praying about Queen Elizabeth a little bit in this book. And, you know, people are like, how does she stand there all day? Or how she, and she's like, no, no, there's a specific way that you stand and shoes that you, she's like, she has strategies. You know what I mean? She's like where she's met like four million people

in her life, right? Like she shook hands with four million people. But she has like a system. She'll only talk to each person for hands with four million people. But she has like a system. She'll only talk to each person for four seconds. Like it's, she has like a system. And you're like, oh, yeah, it's work, work smarter, not harder. It's not just brute force.

So I like your idea of sort of strategic suffering. You're not just like, oh, I don't feel it. You're like, if I don't have to feel it, I want to figure out how not to feel it. 100%. I think that was a misconception, especially of a lot of my past stuff. Let's get mentioned that people go, oh my god, you're a beast. And I'm like, no, I mean, I don't like pain. I'm not like, no, if I can help it, I don't want to lose my tongue. Yeah, it's exactly that. Yeah. So when you hear about like someone like David Dawgins or these other people, do you guys have like a sense

of competition with each other, or do you have a sense of like, or is it more just like, oh yeah, that guy's been through the desert like I have. Like what's your, like what, when you hear about other people who pulled off these insane feats, does it trigger a competitive part of you or does it trigger like an empathetic

part of you? I think definitely empathetic. I think I find him fascinating because again, I'm sort of like, you know, the science of a smile and where he's just, it seems darker for him. He's a little bit darker. And you know, it would be amazing to go for a run with him because I'd just be there like, you know, suffering strategically manager David and he's like, shut the fuck off. But that sort of goes back to what I was saying at the start

that no mechanism is the best way. It's find whatever in that moment is the most powerful and potent to get you through it. He seems to swear a lot, but it works. You cannot argue with the results. But it would be really interesting to go, you know, subliminal But, and that's what I'm thinking, but I'm actually, because again, you can't smile all the time and friends of mine in the military, it is amazing to sort of use what they have as well. So yeah, I could be more goggins

when I look at Cameron Haines, I'm like, you know, just that like proper work ethic and discipline. And I'd love to pick up on on everything that that idea of just kind of being a chameleon and going, well, what did you use? Because I'll try that. Sure. You might see a video of me just like cussing. You know what? And you know, I was working. I, uh, there was a book published here in the US a couple of years ago that actually did some of the marketing for it called resilience by Eric Gritons, who was a Navy CEO, uh, and then, uh, and then a politician.

But what I thought was interesting about it, you wouldn't be super familiar with the story, but he ends up becoming the governor of the state of Missouri where, and then he has an affair, and he sort of sexually assaults this woman, then you get, you get impeached from office. Now he's running for Senate. He's, while he's sort of embraced Trumpism and a bunch of other gross stuff. But what I found interesting about his case is how someone can be very self-disciplined,

very driven in one aspect of their life, and then a complete mess in another part, right? So it's like, we could talk about resilience, like, hey, I blew out my knee and I bounced back, right? And then that same person could be like, well, and then I screwed up publicly and it made me a worse human being. Do you know what I mean? And I think it's interesting that we so often just think of resilience

like athletically or just physically, but endurance is also, you know, I think there's a spiritual element to it and and that it applies to like being a good person also. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but I like what you said there about it being so specific as well because I mean I'm very sort of sport centric that's where I come from that study but I get inspiration from everywhere and I was hearing stories of prints just like staying awake for just like days, you know, and then that one of my favorite stories, he would just turn up like a jazz or a blues club

or whatever it was and then he'd just be like, I just need to try some material, can I play? And this club would just be like, oh my God, of course you can play your prints. And he'd just be up there, just rock out. And people would be like, what is going on? This is amazing. And it was just that up there to rock out. And people would be like, what is going on? This is amazing. And it was just that endurance, resilience, discipline

that he just like plowed. And they were saying that producers just couldn't keep up with him. He was just dropping them off slides. And I hear stories like that. I heard similar stories with Jay-Z as well, just going into the studio and just like, all right, so I'm like, that is amazing. And so yeah, I agree with what you're saying. It's really interesting that friends of mine are Dan Hardy as well, UFC fighter commentator, and just an amazing

human. And we're mean, I'll do a little bit of sort of Jiu Jitsu and he'll cradle me like a baby and submit me. He's amazing. And he's a whole Russell Sir Brazilian. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I would do another lap of Great Britain before I get in a cage and fight with someone. It's like with courage, right? You'll have someone who could be a war hero, then they get elected to public office or whatever. And that you find they can't bear the thought of losing an election or being criticized. So I think one of the things I think we should take from your stuff too, is that like the inspiration, it shouldn't just be applied to physical feats, is I guess what I'm saying.

Resilience has to be bouncing back from trauma. It has to be bouncing back from bankruptcy, pushing through when your business fails. Like, and that you want to sort of be well-rounded with this stuff. It's obviously when you're a professional at a specific thing, you're sort of deliberately unbalanced, right?

But like the idea should be, I think, for the rest of us, how do you incorporate this physically, mentally, spiritually, as opposed to, hey, yeah, I'm training for a marathon, but the rest of my life is a complete undisciplined mess. Yeah, you're right, you're so right. And once you've applied those principles, it is really interesting how it can apply

to everything else. I think that's one thing that I found. And you can get just like motivating factors as well. I think that's one of the biggest things that it's quite easy when swimming, because you have one goal. You don't really have a lot of outside input as well. I need distractions. You just know you're right.

Yeah, that it's got much broader applications, I think. And it doesn't necessarily matter what the goal is. The principles are always the same. Ralph Wilde and Emerson teach them how principles you can create your own methods. And it's so true with this. No, that's right. That's right. So what are you doing next?

What's the next, I know that's probably an annoying question because you're like, I'm recovering is what I'm doing. But what do you think about to make it? No, no, so I think this gets really interesting as well, like talking about kind of motivating factors because for me, and I almost want to ask you the same question about some ideas off, but looking at Maslow's hierarchy, it really resonated with me and there's that idea of, you know, your physiological needs, sleep food, and then you've got your sort of family friends, you've got sort of prestige, feelings of accomplishment. And for me, that's kind of where I am at already now. I don't feel I want to do anything now for records, accomplishments.

Like, it's nice, but there's nothing you don't feel you have anything to prove. Yeah, and it would just feel a bit weird. So to set the world's longest C-swim and then beat it again. Right. And then, like, oh, everyone will go, alright, mate. Plus, you know how terrible that is. Yes. It would just feel a bit weird. So I think where I'm at with that Maslow's hierarchy, I think probably, and this is why

I wanted to ask you as well, it's almost that, you know, philanthropy, self-actualisation, and that's kind of where I'm at now in that I love sort of competing, I love athletic adventures and stuff, but now it's much broader. It just, it needs to give back. And I think similarly to pose you the same question, because I'll just be interested in your response with there was a time where don't get me wrong. I think awards and you've got many of them for your books.

It was great when you were first on offer, but now are you like, oh, New York Times was a subtleties again. Oh yeah, there's definitely diminishing returns to accomplishments. It's sort of if you've never done anything, then you do something like, oh, this is nice. It also sort of is a little anticlimactic also.

I'm sure you finish the swim and you're like, I did it and then you're just like, now I'm a regular person again, right? Have you read the book The Second Mountain by David Brooks? No, however, Chris Hemsworth, I was racing out in this video. He was talking about that exact concept because of the conversation.

Yeah. I think you would like that book, it's really good. And so one of the reasons I opened this bookstore was the idea it's like, I've done a lot of things that were mostly just for me and mostly solo things. Like it was like it only depended on me and whether I showed up. And the decision to like do something physical in person for which the majority of the benefits would be like the community or the town that I live in was like a really fun interesting challenge that I took a lot of meaning out of in a way that I hadn't

on other projects. And so, and it also shaped the goals. It was like I'm doing this thing that if I succeed, it will probably not even register financially. Do you know what I mean? And like that success is just at a different sort of lower. It's harder, but then the rewards for succeeding are lower, right? But the idea that it was a different kind of mountain to climb was really interesting to me. And so for maybe for you, the next thing is either one, how do you help other people achieve things, right?

So coaching could be it or some sort of collaborative adventure or thing. But the other part would be, maybe it's not the physical feat, it's what the physical feat accomplishes. So like Eric Burns, he was a professional baseball player. I've had him on the podcast before. He did a thing where he ran,

biked, and swam across the United States, but he did it to raise money for physical education for kids, right? So he's already been to the top of the physical mountain as one of the great baseball players of his time. This, when he was pushing through, you know, mile 1,000, he wasn't thinking, you know, what is this for me? He was thinking, what is this doing? You know, you know what I mean? Like what is this doing for other people? So maybe that's how to think about it. But I think you'd like the second mountain. It's, you know, it's exactly that. And I think because one thing that resonated with me was that concept of your Ichigai, the Japanese term, where it's just that idea of a originated on an

island where there's more people living over a hundred winners in the world. where it's just that idea of it originated on an island where there's more people living over a hundred winners in the world than it's been studied where people just go it is your reason for being, that's what you're equal guys, it's your sense of purpose, why you get up in the morning and what I love is it's made up of those four things, so what you love, what you're good at, what you can be paid for, but what the world needs. And I think it's that one right now that you're so right right. And that I'm sort of sitting there going, you know, I do love doing crazy stuff. I'm semi-gidded at it. I can be paid for it in a weird way. I suppose roundabout way with books and stuff,

but is it what the world needs? So it's that awful for now. So whatever I do in the future, it will have that aspect. I love that. Well, I'm excited to see what it is. And if you ever make it out this way, let's go for a run. I love that. Do you swim as well? I do. I do. The pandemic screwed up my swimming.

I haven't swam as much as I liked, but it is one of my favorite things. Amazing. Right. Done. And then the food out there is amazing as well. It's not bad. Oh, like a neat in competition. Let's just go somewhere. I think you might beat me in both those things, but I'm happy to do it. All right, you're a legend, right?

Thank you so much, brother. My new book, Courage is Calling is now officially a New York Times bestseller. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the book. It was literally and figuratively overwhelming. We signed almost 10,000 copies of the book, which just, you know, it hit me right here. And I appreciate it so much. If you haven't picked up a copy or you want to pick up a signed copy as a gift, please do. You can get your copy at dailystoic.com. Slash Courage is calling or you can just go to store.dailystoic.com. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.