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jeff how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: Good? How are you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to share a conversation with
you because you get it. I mean, you understand the
timing and basically the listening of your body in order
to do what it is that you require during these transformations.
Speaker 2: Oh, I really appreciate that. I can't claim to have
a to be an expert in that, but certainly for me,
I think I've discovered some things that have really worked out.
Speaker 1: But you grab our attention right away. Racing against time?
Aren't we all doing that? Except you know what, Jeffrey,
You you're the one that figured out a better way
to do it, and we're we're just doing I don't
know what we're doing, but we're just racing through time.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we all are. You know, we all
have to contend with the effects of aging, and I
think we all have a lot of power over how
we go about doing that and how the kind of
life that we want to lead, the kinds of things
we want to be able to do as we get older,
and so you know, I think for me that the
trick is to really harness the things that we have
control over and really to try to have the best
life that we can.
Speaker 1: Man, you bring up a very interesting point there when
you say aging, because I would have never thought in
high school that I would get up to a point
to where I would look at my master in martial
arts and say, I think I've aged out. He said,
there's no such thing as aging out. I'm thinking he's
wrong on this. What are you going to and going
through when it comes to what you deal with out
there racing against time?
Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, I think we have to
we do have to recognize it as we get older.
We do have to make some concessions to that, but
not as many as we take and I think we're
capable of a lot more than we give ourselves credit for.
And for me doing a first marathon at fifty, doing
iron Man in my late fifties, ultra marathons in my
late fifties and early sixties has been very eye opening
because I never really considered myself a runner, and I'm
still not an especially past one. And it's not that
those are the recipe for everybody, but I do think
we're all capable of surprising ourselves and it's fun to
go through that process.
Speaker 1: All right, this is a third degree black belt talking
to you right now as that runner. Is it because
you finally learned to listen to your body? And is
that why you picked up running? Because I got into
martial arts at forty.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, that's amazing. I think I listened to my
body in the sense that I realized I wasn't satisfied
being sedentary, that I knew that I needed to start
to get serious about my fitness if I wanted to
live the kind of life that I wanted to live.
And so basically, for me, it started with the ten
k at the age of forty eight and basically kept
going kept challenging myself, kept looking for new mountains, and
it's an amazing process to the end.
Speaker 1: How did you deal with those moments? And baby, Hopefully
I'm not going to be too transparent here, but I
think that maybe someone will relay with it. My very
first five K I was like a little cry baby
out there because I wanted to stop. No, you can't stop.
You hear all these dang voices inside your head. How
are you dealing with those voices when they want to stop?
But Jeffrey says no.
Speaker 2: I think that is one of the first skills that
you need to develop, and it gets more challenging as
as the distances get farther if you do get serious
about running. But I think if you take it in
a step wise way and you know, just kind of
climb the ladder and take on things that are maybe
a little outside your comfort zone but truly achievable, you
do get better and better at silencing those voices and
really just you know, keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: To become part of the Iron Man legacy. Don't you
have to sit down and pre plan a lot of stuff?
Because I've seen so many runners that, oh, yeah, you know,
they'll jog around they'll think that they're getting things right,
but I think it's a mental game, is it not.
And it deserves to have time for planning, definitely.
Speaker 2: I think for the longer the race, the more planning
is needed. I think, you know, to take on a marathon,
you need to be decently fit, and then you know
you're really going to need at least four or five
months of dedicated specific training for that And for iron Man.
I didn't take on my first one until I've been
doing endurance sports for about nine years and really very
carefully planned out a year of training to get me
to the start line.
Speaker 1: Do you ever wonder where life is going to plan
to you in the way of all of this experience?
And the thing is is that for some reason, life
will come back and say, hey, you remember when you
first started running. I need that energy right now. It's
almost like you're learning something new every day for something
that will one day happen that you're now you know,
expected to show up for.
Speaker 2: I totally agree, and I've always loved the adage that
sports are a metaphor for life. Yep. And I think
that done right, we don't just get fitter and healthier,
but we also build grit, resilience, aspirational skills, and aspirational mindset,
a growth mindset, I think, all of which pay incredible dividends,
and all sears of our lives, whether of our lives,
whether as professionals or just as spouses and parents and
all of the rest. I think it carries into everything
that we care about.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Jeffrey Weiss coming
up next, the name of his book, Racing Against Time.
We are back with Jeffrey Weiss. So okay, you and
I are both up here. And the thing is is
that do you ever have those moments where you know
inside your heart I can outperform that twenty year old
or that thirty year old. But the thing about it
is you don't want to come across as the grumpy
old man who's out to prove it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think, and I think the competitiveness in
many ways should be with yourself, yep, and trying to
do as well as you can do for yourself with
the tools that you have and the ability you have.
And that's my competition. I'm not trying to better other people,
certainly not people who are much younger. If I think
about twenty year olds. I do sometimes think about my
twenty year old self, yep, and it gives me. It
makes me happy to think that I'm doing things now
that I never could have done when I was bad age,
and that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I love those little conversations that we can have with
that younger self. I mean, it's almost like they've never
left us. They're still there. It's almost like that movie
with Russell Crowe Beautiful Voices or Beautiful Man. And the
thing is is that you're able to sit there and
communicate with where you once were, to make yourself greater
even today.
Speaker 2: I think those voice I think it goes in two
directions to me. I think my younger self would be
inspired to know that life you didn't end when I
hit my sixties and I was still doing cool things,
things that minderself couldn't have imagined. And I think about
my much older self looking back on the life and
hoping that that older self will look back on a
life well lived, a life of risk taking, of audacity,
of doing some pretty neat things. And so I think
in both directions.
Speaker 1: The book we're talking about is racing against time, and
you know there's going to be some naysayer sitting in
the front seat of their car, their office, or inside
their house somewhere, and they're going to be going, I
don't want to deal with the pain. Well, how what
can we say to let people realize it's called pain management.
You're not going to be in pain if you learn
the fine art of pain management.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. I think. It is going to
be hard for the first month or so of any
new activity. I think there's no getting away from that.
But I think if we persist, if we really search
for activities that we are capable of doing well and
that we're capable of enjoying, I think we'll find that
the pain is not nearly the factor that we think
it might be. And I also think there's just there's
tremendous satisfaction in completing a hard workout, and how very
much discomfort you feel during the workout. It's to me
it's overcome by the feeling of satisfaction and you know,
just gives you some pride that you did something hard afterward,
and the carries through the day.
Speaker 1: I think, did you get a runner's high while you
were writing this book? Because it takes a lot of
energy to put things on a page.
Speaker 2: Now, the running for me is a lot of fun.
And the running for me is not taxing in the
way that a hard work. And I write every day,
start my day with writing before I work out, and
always enjoy it. It's a tremendous process. All right.
Speaker 1: Where'd you get that idea from? Writing it? Because I
do the same thing when I wake up at six
in the morning. The first thing in my hand is
a writing instrument.
Speaker 2: Oh that's wonderful, you know, it's funny. This is my
third book, and before I wrote my first one, I
did actually read a lot of books on writing, with
all sorts of interesting advice, the approaches of different famous authors.
And one thing that came across time and again was
if you want to be a serious writer, you got
to write every day. Yeah, and I think that's a discipline.
And then you know, look, if you write a page
a day in a year, you've got a book. So
it's not as simple as that, but it's not far
off from that either. And I think, you know, persistence
really does yield tremendous benefits over time.
Speaker 1: In any of those studies, did you include Julia Cameron?
Speaker 2: Not specifically, but I think I got that from am
Lamot and maybe from Stephen King here in one of
the book I'm writing. Yeah, Yeah, there's some really really
terrific ones out there. I encourage anybody who's interested in
it to check them out. But yeah, writing is a
wonderful adventure of its own.
Speaker 1: See, you're proving to people you can run and be
everything else in life as well. It doesn't have to
be that thing. Oh you're a runner, that's the only
thing you do. No, You've got a life to live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think fitness is incredibly important,
but it's not the be all and end all of life.
And it shouldn't, you know, it shouldn't overcome your commitment
to your obligations as a family person. That shouldn't take
away from your obligations as you know in the workforce.
But I think done right, it actually can make you
better in all of those fears.
Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about you?
Because I want them to jump on your and go
for a run.
Speaker 2: I love it. The book itself Writs Against Time is
best obtained on Amazon, either as a paperback ind the
version or an audiobook, and I have an author website
Jeffreyweis's author dot com.
Speaker 1: Please come back to the show anytime in the future, Jeffrey,
because this is a subject that needs to be talked
about throughout the year, not on just one Spring day.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate that. Thank you so much. It's been
a real pleasure.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today? Okay, you two.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much.