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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.
Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:
"There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."
—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.
"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."
—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.
Transcript of the Podcast:
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com.
Speaker 2: (00:12)
Today I have another special interview with a very lovely friend Matt Calman. Now met is a journalist and he is the author of the longest day and matt shares his journey today through a very bad depression and coming back and using the coast to coast is his journey back to health. So it's a very, very interesting and insightful and really real interview, which I'm very pleased to bring you before we get over to matt just want to remind you my book relentless is now out in available on all the platforms, on audio books, on eBooks, on Amazon, on Kindle. You can find out all about about it at relentlessbook.lisatamati.com. That's relentlessbook.lisatamati.com I'd also like a word to all the runners out there. If you've been sitting on the fence about joining our online run training club running hot now's a good time to do it during the covid crisis, we have made a special so that it's more affordable for people.
Speaker 2: (01:14)
We have a 12 week excess membership excess for 49 us dollars at the moment for 12 weeks and get access to all of our programs from 5k up to a hundred miles. And we have a very holistic run training approach. So if you've never run before, this is your first time that you have having a go at it or whether you're doing your hundredth a hundred kilometer race. We'd love to talk to you and help you build a very structured plan and a holistic approach based on our five pillars, which are the running, the mobility, the strength and nutrition and the mindset. So check that out. That's on my website, at lisatamati.com. Now, before I go, please do give the show a rating and review. I really, really appreciate that on iTunes if you could. It really helps the show get exposure. And I love to hear your feedback of any of the episodes have really touched a chord with you. Or if you've found great help with this, please share it with your networks and also write to me and let me know. Really, really appreciate it right now over to matt Calman
Speaker 3: (02:17)
Well, Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. This is Lisa Tammany here and I am with matt Calman. Matt, how you doing? Good, thanks Lisa. Thank you for having me on. Oh, it's very, very exciting to have you met as a fellow New Zealand author. and, as I said, you don't know. He has written the book the longest stay recently, very recently telling his life story. And I'm going to share my story. I'm going to share his story with us. There. It is the longest life as I was watching on YouTube. I must grab a book met you know, really excited to delve into your story a little bit today and your backgrounds and how this book came about and your, your history. So give us a bit of a rundown on who you are and where you come from and your family and so on. And then it still haven't your story.
Speaker 4: (03:03)
Well, I'm, I'm 43 now. I was born and mastered them and it's very small town Amsterdam. Then my dad worked there as an insurance man then got transferred to Christchurch when I was about three years old. So like, yeah, I don't, I didn't know, I don't know Amsterdam then very well, but I had the roots there, a lot of friends there, and then we put down some roots in Christchurch and that's where I grow up. So I spent all the way through to my sort of early twenties and Christchurch. And then I met my wife, ah, when I was 19 and she was 17. She was just finishing up high school, took it to the bowl. And you pretty early on actually throw me and I know that she was going to be the ones who may, yeah, but a fairy tale really.
Speaker 4: (03:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we're still dealing. We've got a couple of daughters now teen and nearly seven two girls and I've been, I'm at home with them for the last nine years. So when my, when my first, our first daughter was about seven months old I left my job as a journalist. I've been a journalist for a few years of the dominion post. I was living in Wilmington at that time with my wife's where she started her legal career. She's now a partner at a, at a sort of a good sized law firm and Christchurch. And we're living, you know, living the dream. But yeah, it's a, it certainly hasn't been a straight road life pays its ups and dances. You know, Lisa, I've read your book and I read about all your ups and downs and yeah, pretty inspiring stuff.
Speaker 3: (04:48)
Oh, thanks man. Yeah. And I'm keen to Delvin zoo story because you know, I love, I love people who share, they are the real stuff, the, the stuff that isn't perhaps pretty in the stuff that isn't glamorous, the difficult times. And your, your story is certainly inspiring. So let's start with where it all went wrong. You know, cause this sounds like a fairy tale. You meet your beautiful wife, you, your kids and lost going. Great. We did it all. We did things start to go wrong for you.
Speaker 4: (05:15)
Let's see. In Congress thing about all of us about depression, about how it doesn't discriminate it, it touches people who've had wonderful life like I've had. Well, and it touches people who struggled. It doesn't, yeah, it's not really about how good your lifers. Yes, from the outside, my life was perfect. Two beautiful children, amazing wife. We don't want for anything. We were pretty comfortable financially. Live in a lovely house in Christ, in a leafy suburb internally for probably it had been years, you know, it was like a tap dropping, slowly dropping, dropping, dropping and building up on this internal struggle I was having with Myla identity with my direction in life. There were a number of factors. There was, there was some sort of, at the time I had my breakdown and at the end of April, 2017 come off the back of a very stressful situation with, with someone who had kind of lied to us and taken the money and not a lot of money, but I took it very personally coming out of the back of that I had had some panic attacks like the year before, my first major panic attack was off the back of a situation.
Speaker 4: (06:32)
When I started to realize that things weren't right. And so I've been, I've been in hindsight dealing with depression and anxiety, social anxiety for most of my life. So before I knew what to call it, because I'd always, you know, I compared myself with other people and you look at the worst case scenario, the worst of the worst person who has suffered terrible mental illness and there's a full range. You're somewhere on, everyone's somewhere on the spectrum. So I never thought that I really had a problem with, with the time to, to fix or to try and address. So for years, this tape dropped and dropped and dropped. But it finally got to the point where I reached my breaking point and, and that's where the book really kind of begins. You know, I, this is, this was where my life kind of fell apart and I was diagnosed with depression, something that one, and for New Zealand as well experienced in the lifetimes. It's very, very common. We don't talk about it, but from the time I had my breakdown, that was when I started to she and to reach out and actually address it properly. Yup.
Speaker 3: (07:42)
And I mean, this is, this is, you know, like we do sometimes think that because I didn't, you know, love through the most horrific thing. The four don't have a right to be depressed in any way. And that's really a dangerous thing what you say, because then you don't address it. You don't know. Look out front. And you know, having had depression myself and having it rock bottom a number of times in my life I can totally relate to this feeling. So what actually had of it? How did it manifest itself when it really crashed? And this is what usually happens, you have a big crash.
Speaker 4: (08:19)
Well, basically I had been building out for months, weeks and months really seriously to the point where I was, I was desperate and feeling you really love myself. I was really irritable. Which is, which was a number one symptom and, and nightly mean like does anger where it's a rational, you don't really know what it's about, where it's coming from. And so like I was snapping it feeling really bad and apologizing straight away. And then, Mmm, in rhino it was sort of aware that things were about off, but she didn't, I, I mainly had it from everyone around me and I was just feeling internalizing everything. I was feeling all this mental strain, a lot of it, very subconscious. And it was just building up on me, building up and when it really crashed my, my daughters that had their cousins around for a sleepover extra.
Speaker 4: (09:15)
And so, Oh, it was under a bit of a bit of pressure there and I wasn't feeling good in myself. And I kind of had a boat, an outburst in front of all the kids in the kitchen over breakfast. I went upstairs and I was just sort of sliding back on my bed, really searching for what was going on, a real, I was feeling very desperate. And then, and then I looked over and I saw a vision and I'm actually in my bedroom now, so I looked over at the on suite away and a version of myself hanging in the doorway. No. Did well flashed into my, I w it wasn't, it wasn't even in my mind, it was like Alison nation. There was signs of it and a real that it just scared me straight. It gave me a white to, to the real problem that was there was head name.
Speaker 4: (10:07)
And I, it was, it was very frightening. Mmm. They fleshed up and then it was gone. You know, very quickly, and I described this in the book and that was the moment I reached out. I already had a and they haven't used for help. I've been seeing a counselor for, for the panic attacks I'd had the year before, but I got through that sort of put the bandaid on there, which was great, but hadn't really dealt with the main thing, which was this depression that was coming. Yep. And so I reached out for here and cold out for my wife and from there moment there was, there was no more facade of, of being okay. And it'll come down and it was just relating,
Speaker 3: (10:52)
No. How was that for a man on an eye? Like, you know, woman generally have a, a slightly perhaps easier time or sharing their emotions and how was it for a, you know, good Kay, we broke two to open up about something like this and you know, even to write about this afterwards is, is it quite, you know, like difficult and how's it been? How's it been received?
Speaker 4: (11:15)
I think for me it maybe was a little bit easier for me than for maybe other men who don't have an outlet. Yeah. I'd been a writer, you know, for a long time in June, freelance for a long time. I've been writing a blog about my life at home with the children in the early days. The ups and downs of life in a really honest blog about parenting and which was pretty entertaining to people were in serious, you know, I touched on some serious topics of miscarriage and grief and the stresses of being a parent and, and the identity of being a, being in the workplace and then coming home and not having that anymore. And then when I gave up alcohol in 2016 my blog, I'd started blogging and The signs, Diane is, is a good friend of mine, a lot of Dane has written books about her sobriety and, and keeps up the website living sober, which I joined.
Speaker 4: (12:09)
I'd done an article for drug foundation on her. And she inspired me to one of the people that really inspired me to give up drinking and, and just say, you know, get rid of that depressant. Yes. It's like they had a way basically taking that away rule the mental health staff to the four that was already bubbling away. I no longer had alcohol to kind of put the bandaid on the problem. I had to deal with it. So this is a very common thing that people would give up. Alcohol, I have to kind of deal with life in the war and without, without that thing, help them. So yeah, so like probably losing sight of the questionnaire, which often happens with me when I go on and on. But I have been blogging about, I've been doing this daily blog on those pseudonyms.
Speaker 4: (12:54)
So man, three, six, five. And actually if you, if you Google sideman three, six, five, the blogs are start up online. I, I blog for a year, the first year of sobriety that about seven, six, seven months and it became a blog about more about depression and about, about the struggles I was having. Wising up to that stuff. I'd already had the panic attack and that started writing about that. And then they know I, you know, I had my big crash and I stopped writing for a period of probably at least a week or a week and a half. We are obviously just trying to get through and getting through each moment really. And I wasn't able really to do anything. You know, I was, I was stripped back and control. I couldn't drive. I couldn't do much more than lie on the couch and just try and get, you know, get through the day.
Speaker 4: (13:43)
And so when I started riding again, I reentered the blog. Mmm. Talking about the depression. So being open about it, it already happened. So I win. You know, I decided to write the book, you know, I knew, I knew that writing as honestly as possible, it was really important. So you don't just talk in generalities and let people fill in the gaps. Oh, I've got my experience. I'm not an expert on depression, but I'm an expert on my own depression. And in that way, there's this universality of it. No, I mean everyone has a very unique experience in different ways that they can coping and get stroller. But I, I put my roadmap down in the book to help out other people you know, build their own roadmap. So
Speaker 3: (14:27)
You've come through this time and I know that you know, and it's moving to the part of the story where, you know, it's called the longest day for a reason.
Speaker 4: (14:38)
What happened there also in February, 2018. So I'm sort of, I'm throw the worst part of the depression, the, the railway early days when I'm getting on the medication, you know, I'm getting back to functioning and, and my, my heat's clear and the fog is lifting and I'm starting to look for the challenge, the next thing that I can do because basically you guys stripped all responsibility. I just stopped. I was a big being at home. It was actually easier for me and I don't know how people who work do this. Rhino, he was able to take all that pressure off me and I could just work on my recovery. And so then I was looking for the next thing to actually do the next challenge. And my friends were finishing the coast to coast, which is a rice that goes from the West coast, New Zealand tomorrow, serpentine beach.
Speaker 4: (15:27)
And then it goes all the way across the country over the big mountain. And then you're on down the road down the why man and then you're cycling correct across J 70 case last bike ride into this terrible kid, went on the straightest route and use the longest straightest road in New Zealand. CFA arrived and you're finishing it and you brought in a new youth Sumner that can the day speed do any, it was one of the famous Cathy lunch, all these famous famous people writing Curry, Sam Klein as the Legion, the rice in the moment, four time winner and the most iconic race and captured it beautifully between one side of the country and the other, my friends were finishing and I decided to go out for the first time either to see the finish of this race. I've lived in Christchurch most of my life, always been kind of kept divided by this rice, nivo bean physically there, this is the mistake I made.
Speaker 4: (16:12)
I go into the race, you go to this race and you get drawn into the rice and you get inspired by all these amazing people. No half of them don't look like acting like that prepared within an inch of their lives. And I are all finishing this rice. You see what it means to them you see on their faces but the struggle. Yeah, the joy, the hardship that the just getting over all these little struggles along the way to get across the Island. And it's, it's not, it's not a sure thing. You start this race and you don't know what's going to happen. You can prepare for everything, but it gets, stuff gets chucked in you. And this is just like as a metaphor for life, this race. So I've seen my friends Spanish, I see Sam clot actually finish. You finished about half an hour before my friends cause the one day people, you even do it in two days or one day.
Speaker 4: (17:02)
People, we don't know that was raised the two day people start on the second day and sorry, the one night people start on the second day of the rice. I winner in the late people, I pass a lot of the highly end of the two day field, so the flower people. And so I stay in class one time. I say the winner of the rice, I say my friends finish. I see them embraced by their families. They run the last bit of the kids and I'm like, I want to buy the of this. I'm going to. So I decided, I left, I left the race and I'm biking back to my house, 10 Ks away. And so, and as I was biking home I already knew I was going to sign up in 2019 and just would be the vehicle I would use to prep does doing things differently in my life to approach challenges differently because a lot of my problems had been, I've been so hard on myself. The things that are tried or not tried, I'd mainly been a spectator on the sidelines of my own life. Wanting to do some of these things and thinking, no, that's not for may because God, I know I couldn't do that and I decided, right. All right, I'm going to do it. If my friends can do this, I can do this.
Speaker 4: (18:14)
I mainly knew that this was the vehicle for my book because I'd always wanted to ride.
Speaker 3: (18:19)
Yes. This well in sport, you know, like, I mean, you know, I've got different, but some of stories really.
Speaker 4: (18:31)
No, I'm not. I'm Lisa, the late on sort of a, I would, NASA, I'm on a little bit higher than a weekend warrior. But well, no, kind of just hanging under there at a late level.
Speaker 3: (18:42)
Yeah. Well that's the funny thing Matt. I'm totally not a late and never have been. Oh, hold on. Ever done his work for 25 years at something and got, you know, halfway good at it.
Speaker 4: (18:55)
It doesn't matter though, isn't it? Yeah, it's the price you say,
Speaker 3: (18:58)
But, but you know, like as far as ability and like, you know, you put me in a race with you. If I had to go for a jog for you with you, you'd be like off I cry. That like, come on. All right. My husband does it every day. You know, I like, I'm slow. But that doesn't matter. Right. It's, it's the journey that you go on on the inside. That's really what's important. And your, your story actually reminds me of Charlie angle's story a little bit, except he was much more extreme metallic. Charlie is he's the one at random right across the Sahara and he's legend. Widowed in, in, in his story was well, much more alcohol and drugs. So he, yeah, he took, yeah. Now stories to the other end of crazy, but on both ends.
Speaker 3: (19:46)
But, but this, this, this, the same reason nights through so many of our lives. And when we take up a sport that is hugely challenging, whether it's the coast of ghosts or deer Valley or doing something crazy, it is the hardest thing you've ever done, but at the same time as the best, most rewarding experience. And it changes your perception of who you are. I mean, I, I remember even like when I met my husband at the beginning he was coming to me for running coaching and you know, he wanted to do this charity of running 27 case in full BA. He's a firefighter and full caps, you know, the yellow plastic suits with full BA for charity. And he wanted to know about running in the heat. So who better to ask, right?
Speaker 3: (20:32)
Teach teacher may touch him in any, any does it. And it goes, it raises lots of money. Awesome. And he, he always thought that ultra marathon runners had to be special types of people with super talents. And he started when he started to get to know me to realize, hang on, there's nothing special about this church. She's just funny. And it realized that, hang on, I could probably do this. And then his life, you know, he's gone on to do lots of ultras and so on. And this story of head over and over and over and over again because we sit ourselves, limitations of what we're capable of, don't we? And we, and we think we can overcome them. And you saw in your friends, so you considered perhaps equals to you that they could do this and therefore that was a gateway for you to
Speaker 4: (21:17)
Absolutely. And I think also like, you know, really on our mind, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do the coast to coast until the end, you know, so I turned up. So yeah, so it's not like it's not 243 kilometers across a mountain and across the country and down the river. It's a million States. And so you just start walking towards her and then why it's all that process stuff. So, and there was also a massive antidote to the depression as like depression really does. I mean, they say that old saying goes a depression lives in the past and regrets and the things that you've done and things you're holding on. So anxiety lives in the future and worries about what's going to happen up here. And I had both of those things going on. So, so the coast to coast and training, like you know, you've got to be in the moment.
Speaker 4: (22:04)
You described this many times Googling down evens pass at 70 Ks an hour on your bike. There's potholes all over the place. It's very much you should, you really need a P in the moment. So, so the poster goes, training draws the past and in the future into the present in the end. So, so you are, you are just soaking up that experience. Like in the past when I trained, I would off be beating myself up about God. I wish I was better and and, and I'd have pain in my body. I some thought, I wish I wasn't hurting and all the stuff, you know, and, and I'd be just fixated on this little rigid small goal of I have to run a certain time in my half marathon. I've always wanted to break an hour, an hour and a half so I could consider myself a good runner.
Speaker 4: (22:50)
I was like, well, okay, a lot of people would have killed to do, do my best time of, of an hour, 31, whatever it was. And so, you know, I'd never quite made that. And maybe one day it doesn't matter to me now it's, it's really more about the duty because like the, all that time I spent or writing myself and being so hard on myself, and then I wouldn't reach the goal and then I would be like, Oh, there's just another reason why I'm not good enough. Yeah. You know, you know, a lot of people think like this and like, I thought like this all my life. Yeah. The first thing the first thing I had to fix, Mmm. When I was recovering from the, from my breakdown, well, it was my relationship with myself. So you're like, you know, you're talk about you need to lock yourself.
Speaker 4: (23:37)
That is really important. But to really truly like yourself and say, Oh, my K is so powerful. Mmm. And it does just the mindset tweak. It's just a shift in mindset to the point of, Mmm. From that moment on, you don't hear about all that external stuff. You don't hear about missing up, you don't care about falling out of your boat. So from that point on, once I've fixed my relationship with myself and I, and I went into this training, Mmm. Like a fraud. If I'd been the old man, I would have fallen out of my diet and I would have packed it all up and said, fuck it. I'm not going to do it. I'll, sorry. Sorry. Did y'all eat a data and, and carried me through the year because I'm embracing making mistakes and knowing that it was all a learning process and nothing's perfect.
Speaker 4: (24:28)
And my race, my two races, I edit coast to coast. Neither of them were perfect. I loved every minute of both races. The one, the one which is encapsulated in the book and then the one that I did this year earlier this year the best experiences of my life because you know, I've, I've now gained this massive community of people. Oh, I'm so connected now to hundreds and hundreds of people that do this race. It's opened my life up instead of like me going, God, I wish, I wish I had more friends. So I wish that I hadn't with deep friendships in my life, all that stuff was there all along, but he still wasn't being a very good friend to myself. I didn't feel I deserved it. Now that I'm, that I know that I'm okay, I realize that and I'm embracing that, but everything else has just improved. So I still struggle with depression and fate.
Speaker 4: (25:19)
Two days ago I really crushed again, like it had been building up subconsciously. My, my lockdown experience has been like a dream can be to a lot of people's and like kids have been so wonderful, but yeah, but I haven't, I need this space. I need the aligned time. And I need the time to just risk that, you know, when the kids are at school, if I'm not doing well, yup. You know, I say it's okay for me to risk cause I need to do that or there's certain strategies I've put in place and I haven't been able to do that. So that boat up to the point where it just all came out and, and, and I was like the irritability and the anger and the just feeling side low and just the brain fog was bad. And, but I've been here before. I lived experience, I know passes in the news today I signed up and did a yoga class and 9:00 AM to just get my day rolling in the right way and, and just yeah, like in street, like your home, I'm homeschooling. I'm not a teacher.
Speaker 3: (26:18)
You're not alone in this panel. I think there are many linear, many parents now they going, hell yeah, I get you.
Speaker 4: (26:25)
So you'd be a stay. It doesn't matter. Really the bigger picture is that you're okay. Yeah. And that everyone's happy.
Speaker 3: (26:32)
You know what? And what I find powerful about data to say, sometimes people write about, you've written a book, I've written three books. People think you've got it all together now you've written about it in a year together and you're, you're on top of it. And nothing could be further from the truth. We are all on a journey and as you said before, there's a spectrum and there's a, you know, we're all improving our mental health and I've been doing a lot of study lately on functional genomics and looking at genes and your predisposition to certain ways of you know, how long adrenaline stays in your body, how fast the dopamine mean is take, is processed, all of these chemical things and actually have an influence, which I'd love to talk to you about actually separately. I'll, I'll on that topic. When you, once you start to understand your genes, I think that all and what you can do to, to help support that that will be a really another great thing to, to, to have in your toolkit.
Speaker 3: (27:24)
But we need talkative. This isn't talking about like every time I go through a horrible experience and hard times, I really have a little bit more then I can use it. It can, it can either break me and there've been things that have nearly broken me and where I thought I was broken. And that was that. But you know, I managed to stand up. And then when you do stand back up, you've got another tool that you've been able to overcome. And this is why [inaudible] this story is so powerful and I really encourage people to go and get the book the longest day. Mine's on its way. And I'm looking forward to diving into it and into the story. And it really, if, if this, if this interview you guys sitting out there listening to this, if this is the reason I did with you, what's Matt saying?
Speaker 3: (28:12)
And you think that this could help you know, ground. Grab that book the longest day, shake it out, see what Mets all about and, and see if, if there's something in there for you that can help you. We write these books because we're just sharing Ella stories and we're not experts necessarily, but the, the value lies in the [inaudible] okay. In being open sharing honestly. Yeah. And giving other people a new perspective on the crap that they're going to, cause sometimes you cannot see the forest for the trees when you're in the middle of it. And another thing is, yeah,
Speaker 4: (28:49)
That your experiences as, as you need better does really quite universal. And the more you share about what's happening for you, then then you're giving other people permission. Feel connected. But also to share about, back to you, like, so you get back what you reflect out. And I, I've, I've seen it, what's going on with me with a lot of people, perfect strangers in a way, within 20 seconds of meeting a perfect stranger. I've gotten really good at being able to just sorta segue into a real deep conversation. And it's really one voice because, okay, we're, we're all, we're all sort of wandering around the planet aimlessly and then we collide with each other and we can make these really kind of amazing connections. And you don't have to be the best friend or the person you'd leave them. You might never see them again. But if I felt quite special way and then
Speaker 3: (29:40)
You feel and
Speaker 4: (29:42)
Going around being, I mean we have to do with our professional hats on and network and song be a certain way and so on. Well I don't have to, cause I'm sad I'm gay so I'm the most unprofessional person.
Speaker 3: (29:52)
But this is a thing and this is why I think we buy some, you know, we both kept them of our own ship cause I don't go to work either. I work my ass off but I wasn't going to work is that I can be who I am and that is the most precious thing to me and I can be the real person and not the person that, you know, people want me to be, you know, at least my son. You can just be you and [inaudible] and you can connect and this is what the other are that sport does. And when you're out doing the, the either coast to coast or an ultra marathon somewhere, you go through so much shit and that period of time and so much hardship and so much pain and so much doubts and so much whatever and the preparation and everything that the person that's running next to you or your crew or whatever the case may be, that going through it with you and they're experiencing.
Speaker 3: (30:40)
And that creates a bond that can, that is better than what the normal bottoms when you just go to have coffee with your friends, you know, and it's like, you know, when soldiers go to war together and they come back, they have a bond that I don't think we as outside people can ever actually understand because they've wrapped together and there is a beauty in this, even though it can be hard at the time. There is a beauty in that as well. And having those deep connections with other humans is a real human need. And you know, we, we sort of sometimes think we can be lone wolfs and we can, I mean, I used to definitely try and be the lone Wolf and I don't need everybody and and it was only because I was hurting, you know, it was only cause I didn't have that connection that I really sought needed. And you do dumb things in, you know ma, I know you've got a, an appointment to get to and I've got another coaching session to do. I would really like to continue this conversation, you know, maybe in a second or a little bit later on because I think it needs to be really explored so we can people buy the book, where can they find out about you and your blog and all the other work that you're doing that.
Speaker 4: (31:49)
So, so the book is published by element on one. I just hear from them that that wall are not fulfilling orders at the moment, but when it starts back up again, you can order it. Online. You just, you just Google the longest day met Kellman at all. They all know at links pop up, you can get it for Kindle on Amazon and for a reader on ebooks.com. Which was another instant way to be able to read it in the lockdown. A lot of people have done that yet.
Speaker 3: (32:19)
ebooks. And do you have a website met that you personally have?
Speaker 4: (32:24)
Yes, mattcalman.com so MA, T, T, C A L M A N . com l and he's a lengthier actually to to buy the book. And you sit on my photos. thats from my racing in falling out a client days, which
Speaker 3: (32:40)
Will continue. I wouldn't even, I had a certain one, one of those rice ones you haven't loved until you said. That's nice. Good. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today. I really appreciate it. It's been an honor to have you on and to meet another fellow author, you know, doing, doing cool stuff in the world. So thank you very much for your time. Thanks so much. Been great.
Speaker 1: (33:08)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.
The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.
We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com
For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runni...
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epige...
measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home
For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/minds...
Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.
Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:
"There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."
—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.
"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."
—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.
Transcript of the Podcast:
We are all facing scary and uncertain times right now and learning ways to mitigate fear and anxiety and tools to help reduce stress and help you make better decisions are really important right now.
Mental toughness coach Lisa Tamati shares her insights on how to thrive in the tough times and how to keep control over your physiology.
We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com
For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runni...
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epige...
measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home
For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit:
https://www.lisatamati.com/page/minds...
Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.
Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:
"There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."
—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.
"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."
—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.
Transcript of the Podcast:
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.
Speaker 2: (00:13)
Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. Welcome back again, I hope you guys are okay during this coronavirus crisis. That's certainly a big change for us. And today because of that, I wanted to do a session on how to not meet fear, get the better of you all my tips and tricks for helping stay focused at this tough time and how you can stay on track. Um, before I go over to the actual interview, I wanted to, um, remind you that I've just released my book relentless. It is available on my website. Um, you can, I'll put it in the show notes, but you can just hit on over to lisatamati.com and under the shop button you'll find it, the F I'd love you to check it out. And it's actually really good book for this type of crisis because it's all about mindset and it's all about how to keep focus and how to deal with, you know, going up against great odds and really difficult and uncertain times.
Speaker 2: (01:02)
So you want to check that out. That's relentless how a mother and daughter defied the odds. Go over to my website and check that out. Also at running hot coaching, we've got a special going on at the moment for 12 weeks during this whole lockdown time and in the whole coronavirus wanted to be able to offer extra value and to make it, you know, really affordable for people because we have a whole, not only the running programs now we have a full live workout program that you can do and it's only $49 US dollars to join for the 12 weeks. So if we'd been sitting on the fence for awhile thinking about joining us now would be a perfect time to do that. Especially if you're in lockdown and you want your running training programs and at home workouts. All of it's in there right over to the show.
Speaker 2: (01:46)
Hi guys, just want me to do a session on not letting fear get the better of you. So about the mix of crosses with the coronavirus, we're probably feeling a lot of fear right now. There's a lot of uncertainty there. Jobs are in dangerous and some of us are incomes and so on. So I wanted to do some practical tips that you can do to control the fear response in your body. Because number one, if you have a fear response going on right now, your immune system is going to be compromised and that's not going to be good as if you're going to be fighting this far as which we hope you won't be. But if you are, you want to make sure your immune system is, is up and running. So the first thing that I want you to look into is done for medic breathing, deep dogmatic breathing.
Speaker 2: (02:30)
Every time you start to feel out of control, feel triggered, feel stress is to do some deep breathing in through the nose, holding for about four seconds out for four seconds and hold for four seconds. Now that is called box breathing. Now you can do it in a different rhythm. If you've got a really good set of lungs, you might get to seven or eight holding it for that long and doing this just I do this 10, 11 times a day. It's, it's my go to as soon as I'm feeling triggered, as soon as I'm starting to feel upset. Now what does deep do? Well, it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. You have to submit two nervous systems, your parasympathetic and sympathetic. You want to be stimulating it this time. And there's a lot of fear around a lot of anxiety. The parasympathetic. Now when you stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, you are lowering the levels of cortisol and adrenaline that are being produced.
Speaker 2: (03:23)
Now these are hormones that are really for fight or flight. So back in the caveman days, which our body is still, you know, back there, we haven't evolved to being really where we are in our current world. So we still react to, uh, outside simulates some, you know, I was fear. So back in the day we might've been running away from a tiger, right? And so we needed this fight or flight response. So the amygdala, which is a part of your brain, deep in your brain, that's your limbic brain, that reptilian brain and its mediate responses to put up your heart, a heart rate, increase your breathing rate, uh, make you shit shallow breathe. It causes in your vision so that you have tunnel vision. Uh, it takes away blood from your prefrontal cortex and gives it all the blood into your muscles and so that you're ready to either fight off or run away.
Speaker 2: (04:13)
One of the two, the final fight syndrome, you'll know the SES. So that's all control where the medulla, now when you do this, you are taking away energy from your immune system, from your rest and recovery system. And you know, this was a great thing back in the day when we were had periodic stress was situations where we needed to run away from the line really fast. But in our day and age we are constantly bombarded with things like emails or problems with work or a phone call from your shitty boss or something that causes the same response. And it can get to the level where it's chronically your chronic amount of stress and you are constantly in this fight or flight state. So at this time when the coronavirus is here and you've got all this uncertainty, it's really, really important that we start to calm down the parasympathetic nervous system or stimulate, sorry, the parasympathetic nervous system and get things quiet and down.
Speaker 2: (05:10)
Stop the release of that cortisol and that adrenaline going full bore. And now you want those things at certain times but not constantly because you want your immune system to be operating well and you want to be thinking really clearly and there is a break in your decision making ability when you are in the stressed out state. So going back to the deep breathing now, this deep breathing technique will instantly, and I made really, really quickly start to calm the body down. Another great technique of course is meditation. And this doesn't have to be, you know, sitting on the floor, cross legged in an absolute silence that works for a lot of people and it's fantastic if you can quiet your brain down that way. But it also could just be going for a walk outside and we're all a little bit limited in what we're still at the moment allowed to go outside into get some fresh air.
Speaker 2: (06:01)
And that brings me to the next point. It's taking, you know, um, control of, of some of the things that you can and not focusing on the things that you can't control right now. Taking control of the basics, good hydration, good nutrition, good sleep habits. All of these things are going to help you to stay in control and make good decisions. Okay. And not focusing just on the negative. The next technique that I wanted to give you is visualization. Now I use this a lot with my athletes and I've certainly used it in my career as an athlete. Visualizing a positive outcome. Visualizing yourself as if it's in a, if it's an a running race, obviously envisaging the whole race and the more real you can make this visualization, the bidder in the cause that we are facing, visualize yourself being in control and being healthy.
Speaker 2: (06:51)
Visualize yourself and being able to adapt really quickly to this, to the situations at hand and you're getting on top of it and your business is going to be okay and your job is going to be all right. And when you visualize, your brain doesn't differentiate between what is real and what is imagined and okay, you can't control whether you're going to lose your job next week. You can't control movies outside variables, but you can stop your body going into this panic state because that isn't going to help anybody. What you want is your decision making ability on fire. So these visualization techniques can help you to start to regulate that into see a positive outcome. The next thing I want you to think about is the challenge versus threat scenario. So if we see something is a threat, and let's be honest, the crime viruses a bloody big threat right now to everything, to our health, to our loved ones, health to our society.
Speaker 2: (07:50)
But if we can start to really position they in their minds to see it more as an opportunity or a challenge, then that changes the way we perceive it and we are able to then coat a whole lot better. I'll give you an example from a noncurrent divorce situation, but again from my aesthetic Korea, okay, so if I'm looking at this massive race that I'm doing, it might be in death Valley, it might be in the [inaudible] and the Gobi desert or a Niger. Now, as I'm saying that as a threat and it's going to be terrifying and it's gonna be horrific, then guess what's going to happen? My body's going to shut down. I'm going to be in the fight or flight mode. I'm not going to be reacting really well. I'm not going to be coping when you, well, if I can reframe it in my mind to being an amazing opportunity to have this wonderful adventure and to have to turn it into a challenge in an a, an ability to be able to see this in a positive light.
Speaker 2: (08:48)
And I want you to think about this. Cisco rhino virus is going to give us some benefits. There are some good things that are going to come out of it for each and every one of us. It might be a complete pervert in your lives and you're going to end up doing another job and get out of that dead end job that you've been stuck in but too scared to leave and now you have to leave. So you're going to have to think and learn and redirect. Maybe that's going to be a good thing at the end of the day, none of us actually know. So they're good. They could be real positive things. Going back to a situation like with my mum and I've, you know, I've got my books here in the background. This the story is a really powerful one for the situation that we're going through.
Speaker 2: (09:28)
When I was faced with mom's aneurysm and that's the fact that she was probably not going to survive and if she did, she was going to have massive brain damage, which she did have and that she was never going to do anything again and I could've taken that prognosis. And just accepted it and taking no action and stayed on decided, no, I'm going to use this. These people telling me that there's no chance and there's no way I'm going to use that as motivation to prove them wrong and I'm going to make this the greatest comeback story and I'm going to get my mum back. And those were the thoughts that I feed into my mind so that I was able to take big, strong action and so that I was able to cope with the stresses that were come at us and it's been, you know, a four year long battle, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: (10:12)
There were times when I was on the ground balling my eyes out and not knowing which way to go forward. The thing is I did keep moving forward and I did keep looking for the next decision. I hate to make the next situation. The next opportunity and that attitude of going all in is one is lead to him miraculous recovery. This is a one in a million recovery, but it's not a one in a million because she was anything special or because I'm anything special. It was a one in a million recovery because we never even gave up and we kept fighting and we looked for the opportunities and we saw the beauty in this process, and this is why I've written the book, is because I want other people to have a blueprint for your mindset and what it takes to go all in on a challenge.
Speaker 2: (10:57)
And in this Corrado bar situation, we're going to have to go all in. Some of us, this is gonna be, you know, a threat to our incomes and our lifestyles and a massive of change. And we can either crawl up into a facial ball and start crying our eyes out and go, well I can't take any action or we could be warriors and we can stand up and go. Not a lot. I'm not going to take this line down. I'm going to go down sliding if I'm going to go down in going all in with this, with a situation with mum, I know that I could have done all of that and still failed and still lost here. That wasn't the point though. I had no option but to go all that because the alternative was certain days in certain loss. So I had a tiny chance and I took that tiny chance and when everybody told me it was impossible, I just kicked all moving and kept ignoring the people that told me it was bad.
Speaker 2: (11:49)
So right now what you also want to be doing is surrounding yourself with positive people. If you're listening to this, but you know this video, then you probably want of those people that is looking for a positive input and good messages. And that's fantastic because you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with. So if you are around positive people who have a direction, who are saying, right guys, this is the way we're going and this is why we're going to think this is the way forward. And you start listening to positive messages instead of the ones who are, Oh my God, the world is ending. It's apocalypse now and it's all going to be horrific. And you know, like we all have moments like there, don't get me wrong that I don't have those moments, but I keep them in check.
Speaker 2: (12:34)
And then I turned my mind around again and I tune it again and I tune it again. Every time those negative thoughts come up, I start to turn them around. So I wanted to now talk about, uh, exposure therapy. Now this is another therapy that can be really, really helpful if you are feeling a lot of fear. Now this is not exposure to the virus. We don't want that. But this is like when you are feeling fear for a certain situation or a certain thing that you have to do. And it might be like having to change your profession because you know someone's going to has to. Um, I want you to understand that the more you do something, the more it's going to be, the less you're going to be reacting to it. So I'll just give you a simple example of getting on phone calls.
Speaker 2: (13:19)
If you hate sales calls, which I used to hate doing sales calls. Now I've changed my perception of what that call is about in term repetition and doing it over and over and over again. It becomes actually a conversation with a friend if the coms nothing to be scared of and most of the things that we face in our life that we are scared of are actually not physical threats. Okay. The coronavirus could be a physical threat to you or your loved ones. I'm not mitigating them, but a lot of the fee is that we have running around in their tummy and then their minds at the moment that it's just going around and around like a hamster wheel is things that I'm never ever going to happen. I even say that the thoughts that we have in our head, the disasters scenarios that we're playing out are not going to happen, so why focus on it?
Speaker 2: (14:07)
Why not put your energies into focusing on how can I make this the best opportunity for me, for my business, for my profession? How can I help other people? How can I turn this into something that is good for me and my world and my business? I am using this as an opportunity to pivot, to change very quickly, to be adaptable. And I've lost my income. I'll be honest with you, at least six months, I don't have any income. Now I'm a speaker. That's what I do. I go around to conferences, well there are not conferences going on, but I'm not going to sit here and start crying about it. I'm gonna change my perception of what I can do. And then I'm going to pivot really quickly into doing other things and focusing on the positive and they don't get to be prepared also for when life comes back to normal.
Speaker 2: (14:52)
And we'll we go again. So it's your perception of things is controlling your thoughts. Now I want you, I'm also studying at the moment the functional genomics and this is the study of DNA and genes and how they affect the way everything in your body from methylation to mood and behavior to cardiovascular health, to um, detoxification. All of these areas. Okay. But I wanted to talk to you briefly about a couple of the genes that are in your head and I won't go on to the specifics. I'm going to be writing a couple of blog posts, uh, over the next few weeks and I'm still studying this area of science, but it's absolutely fascinating. There are a couple of genes that really, um, control or give you a predisposition to thinking a certain way and you can get yourself tested and DNA and all that sort of stuff later on when all this crosses over and you find out what you have a predisposition for, um, your edge or to being a gene for example, sample, which is y our adrenal, uh, Jane, if you like, the pains are which variation of the gene as to how long that adrenal and is going to be active on your sip as in your body.
Speaker 2: (16:03)
And if it's, if you've got the gene where it's going to be attached it to the recipients for a long time and active, you're going to have a harder time meeting golf things. You're going to have a harder time, you're going to have a stronger emotional and printer reaction to things. Um, then another person, another saying is that the brain derived neurotrophic neurotrophic factor, which I'm writing a blog post on now because this has to do with brain rehabilitation, but it also has to do with your mood and your behavior and the how, how susceptible you are to depression and a negative frame of mind. And if you have that, the hamster wheel brain that goes over and over and over. So what I want you to take away from this, without getting into the specifics of which Jane is to realize that every single person is different.
Speaker 2: (16:49)
Hey, do have a different set of genes. And so we all do experience things in a different way. So if you have someone in your most ho is very prone to panic, is very prone to having neurotic thoughts or the hamster wheel going over and over and getting stuck in a thought pattern and not being able to shift at least understanding some of the factors that are in play here and that their genes just may be predisposing them to doing that. And I'm going to share this blog post that I'm writing at the moment on BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor and what you can do to increase set, uh, in order to help elevate your mood. One of those things for example, is to uh, for the baby and is a example. This is to go and do exercise. Now if you're doing at least 30 to 45 minutes of exercise at 70 to 75% of your heart rate, you're going to increase the production of brain derived neurotrophic and that's going to elevate your mood.
Speaker 2: (17:51)
And this is why I run, let's get the run is high and I know all of us just enjoy running for the running site. Sometimes we don't even feel like going out there, but after half an hour out there, what happens? You mood elevates. What's that? There's some brain derived neurotrophic factor, inaction, other things that also stimulate that and what elevates your mode. Things like having a hot shower or hot bath or being in a hot warm environment or getting more sunlight to make more vitamin D, which will also help you produce more brain derived neurotrophic factor. All of these things are really important also in the brain rehab side, but I won't go into that right now, but just to understand, genetically speaking, we all have different ways of processing things in our brain and having some love and care and empathy for people who've, who don't see them.
Speaker 2: (18:39)
Some things the same way as you do, who react very differently and some people will have more a deeper emotional imprint. Then other people, some people will be able to get over things much easier because they have the right combination of genes and another person doesn't have that. That is not to be fatalistic and say, well, those people are babied, is to find out the what can you do? Like the saunas and the hot bows and the exercise and the right supplementation and all of that sort of stuff to help you if you are one of those people affected, increase or head of HIPAA. What resilience when it comes to your emotional wellbeing. So more about that later, but for today's podcast it just wants you to think about some of those things that I've covered off. So I want you to be stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 2: (19:31)
That means calming your body down. That means stopping the stress and the adrenaline, the cortisol from pouring out all day, all day long. How are you going to do that? You're going to do that through meditation to that true connection to nature, which I've forgotten to mention. You know, like going outside, listening to the birds, looking at the beauty in the trees, looking at the flowers, standing and staring at the beach. If you're still allowed to do that, anything that will connect you and ground you to mother nature will calm your system down. Doing a exercise of course is also going to do there anything that's going to calm the system down. However one portion, don't go and do extremes, amounts of exercise because that will have the opposite effect. Don't overreach at this time. Firstly for your immune system and also for your, you don't want to upset your whole minds and get everything out of balance.
Speaker 2: (20:23)
Okay, so you want to be, um, a little bit conservative with your training at the moment. Just nice chain tool and doing things like working in and state of just working out. So not just the, you know, running and breathing and hard, hard work, but also aiding and the stretching, the, the yoga, the plankung. So things that are going to calm the body down, especially in the evening when you're wanting to get that slate. Because remember, sleep is absolute King, so doing these basics right and getting good sleep, if you can get it. I was sleep right now would be really gold. It'll help you emotionally cope with the situation and not fall off the DPN and be short tempered and doing all those crazy things. Now, just before I go, you have this thing in the, in the Brian like I said, called the amygdala, which is a very formative part of the brain that controls a lot of these trigger responses.
Speaker 2: (21:16)
And you know, in the past, I'll be honest with you, I've had a lot of problems with anger management. So I think I've got some warrior dreams from my, my Maori side, either that or the German or Irish sort of data. Um, and I've been triggered in the past and reacted in ways that I, you know, was not proud of afterwards. Um, and also learning to, to manage these reactions. Now a lot better. I wouldn't sound perfect, but I'm a lot bitter. The amygdala reacts before your, uh, your prefrontal cortex kicks into gear. It's very primitive. It's very lightning fast. So if you're feeling triggered right now, you know one of the things that I'm worried about in this crosses is the mystic piece going up is people doing things that they wouldn't normally do because they are stressed out and they're frightened and they're doing all these things and they were make deliver, starting to take control.
Speaker 2: (22:07)
So I want you to learn just a couple of trucks to keep it under control. One of them is that deep breathing, if you're feeling triggered, if you started to have fights in the family cause you're in close quarters, you've got the kid screaming, you don't know how you're going to pay the bills, your businesses going on the and you're fighting and you know this, this is all us. I think we are all feeling this type of stress right now. Then getting a controlling amygdala and not acting in a triggered state. You know, walking away, going to the other end of the house, doing some deep breathing, starting to tune your logical brain on the way I do this. And getting blood back to the logical brain. Cause the amygdala takes it away from the and helps you, makes you make bad decisions. The rang, I get a controller that as I start to do some logical problem solving things in my brain, like counting backwards from a hundred and lots of seven and I have to go, Oh, how much is that 193 and so on.
Speaker 2: (23:04)
And I have to actually think about it. And that makes me calm down again and gives me a chance to get on top of that adrenaline and cortisol that's come out and makes me want to have a scratch. Um, cause that's not good. And what you're doing when you get into this triggered state also in, in the anger response is you, uh, releasing the cortisol, which is, which is pumping out your blood sugars. So remember those begin angry and you're going to weight problems. You making things worse. You're going to put on more weight because you've increased your cortisol, you're going to leave the four have, have more, a whole warfare. Okay. So there's one, there's a really good reason not to get angry and to stay cool and calm. And this is one of the reasons why doing yoga and [inaudible] and all of those debriefing and all that actually helps you lose weight, which is not the topic of today's conversation, but it does say it because it's actually lowering the cortisol, the stress levels in the body.
Speaker 2: (24:01)
Interesting, isn't it? How we, uh, such complex characters and if we understand more about our physiology and our biology and how things actually interplay, then they can really, really help us in overcoming all these challenges that we're facing. So that's makes us very, guys, I hope this has been helpful to you or please decide that the, or if you want to reach out to me, please do. I'm, you know, this is what I, I'm begging to the mental game. I'm big into the mindset and mental toughness and leadership in, you know, um, some of the lessons that I've learned along in my now quite long nights, um, and sharing those insights with you. Not from a place of I know better because God knows I still have a hell of a lot of things to learn. But from applied, so via I've, I've experienced a few things, bring around the block a few times and wanting to share some of these insights.
Speaker 2: (24:53)
I do that also on my podcast, which is called pushing the limits. I would love you to go and subscribe to pushing the limits because I have some of the greatest minds. I don't know how I get some of these amazing people on the air, but I do, if you look back over the episodes that I've managed to record in the last four years, you've got Nobel prize winning scientists. You've got, you know, some of the top scientists actually in the world, some of the top doctors in the world, some of the top athletes in the world. And I'm not exaggerating, there's been some absolute legends on my show. Say, you know, I be a good way to spend a few of those nails we stuck at home. Um, uh, listening to the podcast is called pushing the limits. You can find it on iTunes, on Lipson, on Stitcher, or via my website, at least at [inaudible] dot com and while you're the gone grab one of my books, one of my friends, uh, especially running this right now is a super book for you to be reading, to strengthen your mind. And, um, really thank you for your time today. And we'll see you again soon.
Speaker 1: (25:49)
that's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com
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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.
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—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.
Transcript of the Podcast:
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host. Lisa Tamati brought to you by Lisatamati.com
Speaker 2: (00:11)
Hi everyone. Welcome back this week. I hope you are doing all fine in your bubbles, wherever you are in the world and staying safe this week. I have a very interesting interview with a couple of very experienced ultra marathon runners guy and Krista odor dice from Vermont in the USA and they are going to share a few of their stories and they're also writers and founders of the website, bluecollarruners.com where they share everyday running stories with, with the audience. Now they also write for outdoor running magazine and I've done the Vermont 100 a famous race in the United States. Oh, I think seven, eight, nine times. And it's a really, really interesting interview about what makes them tick and about why ultra marathoning isn't just for the super athletes of the world, but for everyday people. And I hope you enjoy the show. Before I hand you over to Krista and guy, I just want to remind you my book relentless is now available. You can go to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com that's relentlessbook.lisatamati.com to grab your copy. It's available right around the world. It's available in paperback, on audio and Kindle and Amazon. You name it. It's a net version. So check that out. I hope you enjoy the book. If you do get it. And I would love a review if you've read it already. So without further ado, over to Krista & Guy Alderdice.
Speaker 2: (01:44)
Well, hi everyone. Lisa here pushing the limits. Thank you once again for joining me on the show today. I've got a little treat for you. I've got some lovely, lovely, amazing runners with me all the way from USA. I've got Krista & Guy Alderdice. How are you guys doing? You guys are sitting in Vermont. Many Ultra runners will know about the Vermont 100, which is a really worldwide famous, you know, ultra Mo ultra marathon in the States. And you guys walk past your doorstep, guys, right? Yeah, we're a mile 80, 87 passes right by our driveway. Oh, you were right in the corner, right where it gets tough. It gets real tough.
Speaker 2: (02:32)
Says it today. You guys at the listing, I wanted to introduce you to Krista & Guy. These dear friends of my dear friend Ben from Yulara who's really our key man in our company at running hot coaching and he is in Connecticut and he's introduced me to these lovely people. So they're going to share a little bit these stories today around ultra marathon running and Krista & Guy, I have a website which has blue collar runners. So just www.bluecollarruners.com isn't it goes which is telling the stories from everyday runners. Is that right? Yeah, we're just spotlighting the everyday runner who just kind of inspires us people all over the U S we've spotlighted. So yeah, says entered pretty cold. So I want to dive into the background and we've been talking before we started recording and I, and I'm getting a bit of background and we're gonna have to repeat a lot of it guys.
Speaker 2: (03:33)
So you two are married, you've been together since your like high school sweethearts, is that right? Yes. Yeah, we had, we had our first date in 1991. Wow. And you've got two young boys, 15 and 17 years old. And you were finding it to a printer guy and what do you do Christopher, for a day to day job? Where are you at home or are you working? Yeah, I work for him. So kind of do the business side of it, the admin side, and then I'm helping with the writing. Oh, the hard stuff by the chef. Well, the real stuff is that it seems to be like in my household, I do all the, the, the public facing stuff and then behind me, Neil, Ben and my husband has the trying to pick up all the basics and actually do the hard yards. So so you guys are ultra marathon runners and you've been doing this now for a decade now and you super talented runners or how did you get him?
Speaker 2: (04:42)
Well, actually Krista was much more accomplished. I mean, she was a, she was a great cross country runner back in high school and, and did real well. I on the other hand, was, was not a gifted runner by any means. I played, played basketball and did very short distances in my twenties and into my mid thirties didn't run. We're more than a couple of miles over 15 years. So yeah, no, not a gifted, no gifted background for us at all. But of course if you were, you had to go to spades. I crossed it. So you had see back in high school? Probably. that's, that's since gone away and now it's run long. Yeah. I was more of an endurance rider. So I did the a hundred mile and 50 mile races on horseback. Wow. And I would see all these crazy ultra runners at the Vermont 100 when I was riding it back in the early two thousands.
Speaker 2: (05:39)
Just wondering what the heck are they doing? Like is this run simultaneously that the horse race and the the running race? Yes. It's like one of the only ones left that you are on the same course at the same time with ours in the runners. So it's pretty fascinating. Yeah, it's neat. Yeah. Huge background as an endurance horse rider. But what sort of changed that for you? I know you, you know, you had an event. Yeah. And 2015 I was badly kicked by a friend's horse, so it was a pretty bad shatter of my elbow shattered in about 10 places. So I had three surgeries and about a year. And I just needed to take a break from that side of my life and I was wondering, you know, what, what am I going to do? Like I need that kind of physical push. And luckily guy was in the midst of, you know, doing his ultra stuff, I had kind of dabbled a little bit. I had done a couple of 50 K's just more socially. Honestly just to kind of be in the community, but it was much happier on horseback. But once that was kind of shifted, then running really became kind of my, I love how you say, I just set up a couple of things.
Speaker 2: (07:03)
They were not fast. I was just kind of getting around with friends. And as far as you know, our community, we have the Vermont 50 and the Vermont 100, like right in our backyard. So it was kind of a, what do you always call them?
Speaker 3: (07:18)
Yeah, our, our town. We've also just said that this town is kind of an outlier because we're a switch, only about a thousand people in this town and, but there's the per capita ultra runners are pretty crazy because it's, you know, it's right in our backyard. All these big, big events,
Speaker 2: (07:32)
Easy entry. It's kind of easy to get sucked in. Yeah. You sort of saw it happening in going past your doorstep literally everyday. So you sort of sucked into that world. And it's a beautiful part of America, isn't it? It's a beautiful place. It's gorgeous. It's quiet. It's a beautiful place to raise kids. And I think in, in our oldest son Justin's class, I would say out of the 20 parents, didn't we figure if Dean had done like the Vermont 50? I mean it's pretty, pretty fascinating. Like I think everybody is outdoors a lot. It's
Speaker 3: (08:11)
Yeah, I mean you can, you can literally walk out, you know, you walk out of your back door and you're on dirt roads, trails. The amount of Scott is, is a mile two miles away. So there's a playground right outside of our door that we, you know, so we're really lucky.
Speaker 2: (08:24)
You're very lucky. You were definitely very lucky. So I mean that's quite interesting. When you say like so many of the parents that you could saw with a ultra marathon runners, do you think, cause a lot of people think that ultra marathon running is only for the elite and only for the super gifted and the super tough. What do you, what do you say to that? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: (08:47)
Oh yeah. We, we know from experience that nothing could be further from the truth. Then the first year I ran my first 100 I ran it with two friends, lived in town,
Speaker 2: (08:56)
A guy named Fred and a guy named Jim and myself. The three of us were, I mean, we had no special skills. We had, we weren't great planners and we all went out and tackle this a hundred mile run. You know, despite people telling us we were crazy and family members, you know, no one can be, most people never heard of it. You know, this wasn't even an event. So, but over the next few years, the three of us went out. We all, at one point, we all got to finish all of us. And so, and we just, it was just what I learned is, I mean, 90% of this I think is mental, you know, just that mental toughness. Yeah. And along the way isn't it? Yeah. so I know you said back in 2011 when you guys sort of started or you know, you got underway and that you did have no idea.
Speaker 2: (09:48)
You would just, like you said, you turned up on the format socks and, and we had, we, our gear was, was I ran, I was running in just like 86 basic road shoes. I had a Socks from Walmart. I had no special foods. I mean I hadn't done any research and, but we just went out there and you know, my aid station to aid station and we just, what we've found over the years is we just, it really became about being outside and just, you know, seeing how far you could, you know, how far you can push yourself. And, and honestly, I think we, all of us pushed each other, you know, and it was just that social part of it was a big thing. I think I was starting to wind down and then Krista, you know, got into it and then I kind of rejuvenated me because some of my friends were moving on and doing other things. And so when Krista came in 2015 and then we kind of just, you know, if it started doing more, I know it is the famous just one more. That's right. That's right. So yeah, there's a lot of things always sound good on paper. You know, when you come up with these ideas on runs with friends and you're like, what did I agree to? And you know, I can do that. I definitely know that problem when you're reading something on a website.
Speaker 2: (11:20)
I've had a few, I've had a few times where I opened my email and I've been, and I get an email saying, you know, thanks for signing up for this race. And I'm like, I didn't, I have no idea. Come to find out. Krista's signed us up for a race and I guess now I just get used to it. That's right. I hacked into his ultra sign up to how many things that you do? Oh, you running together? You know, hadn't you find it as a couple? Like I met with my husband, I can't, we did do runs together, but we don't run much anymore together because we're a different paces now. He's got better. I've also slowed down and got up, gotten older and been doing it for too long in the tooth, I think. And he w w we, we end up arguing.
Speaker 2: (12:16)
How do you guys find that as a couple? I think, I think for us it's like really therapeutic. Like we figured a lot of things out in the runs, like whether it's, you know, things we talk about, about the kids, like any issues they're having or I don't know, I don't really know how to explain it, but it's a time that we can just be really free of anything. So like it just, everything comes out. Mmm. And, and literally like, like I said before, before the podcast, like we do everything together. So like I said, if anyone sees one, it's usually the other. And he's way faster than me. Yeah. There's, if we're doing any sort of speed work, like he'll just go ahead and then come back or any sort of like speed work, which we're not the greatest staff. He'll just kind of go, go a little bit ahead and I'll just, it gives me a push to try to keep up with them.
Speaker 2: (13:10)
As far as, yeah. And then I think, and then when in terms of like race day, we're kind of both on the same page, is that we're, we're not really that worried about, you know, how great our time is. We're, we're, we're definitely finishers. You know, first we wanna we want to finish and, and know, we know we're never gonna be elite, you know, we're never going to be in that cream of the crop. I mean, some of the times these, these are the athletes put up or just they blow my mind. Unbelievable. So yeah, we're pretty happy being just kind of, you know, we just chug along and, you know, crank the miles out. So yeah. So that, so usually we just, you know, we run one of the hundred miles we ran the whole thing together. That was a special start and finish the whole thing together. Pretty magical. That was 2000. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all have to be on the same page as far as, you know, Asha or, yeah, yeah, yeah. Feeling good when well occasionally, you know, on a, on a, on a long run, in, in a, in a event, if one of us is feeling junky, the other one would say just go ahead. And, you know, cause I'm usually when you're feeling, you know, you feel junky, you want to be alone anyways. Yeah. You're a grumpy, horrible person.
Speaker 2: (14:29)
I'm nauseous and I hear like a little rapper opening on like, Oh, I can't eat, eat. So just go ahead. Don't eat around me. But how many of the promote 100 if you've got a son, a hundred miler. So I've done three and I've done eight on horseback. So three on foot.
Speaker 3: (14:53)
Yeah. And I, and I'm the CEO and this, let's see, I've, I ran in I ran nine of them and I've finished seven at a nine. Wow, that's amazing. And we always tell people it's such a family thing for us because yeah, since 2001, I think we've been to every single year except for, well, 2002, she had our our son, Justin Christie given birth a couple of weeks before. So we missed that year. Other than that, other than she was a slacker, slacker that year. But yeah, we've been, that we've been to and seen since our kids were babies. They've been to every single, because when they were babies, she was riding, I was crewing and so I'd be changing diapers and you know, strollers at aid stations and then now our kids and that's come full circle where the kids are crewing us. And now last year our oldest son ran the last like 13 or 14 miles in with Krista. Yeah. So we've seen it, you know, from little infants to now, you know, they're taller, taller than us.
Speaker 2: (15:59)
So the future is bright. We want, we want to see some more. So now I want to talk to you, a rotting guy in the blue, calmer that we call a Rana's website and the stories that you tell and you write for ultra running magazine, which is a very prestigious ultra marathon running naked scene. What sort of stories do you tell guys? What, what's sort of you know, the background into that?
Speaker 3: (16:30)
Yeah. So, so we always were fascinated. I mean, my whole life I've always been fascinated me reading memoirs and curious about people's stories. So this was kind of a natural thing for us. We've met a lot of nice people in town through the sport and in, in, in races. So we just said what we were out for a run about a year and a half ago and we just had this idea, you know, we've always called ourselves blue collar runners cause we're always just kinda like, did we always felt like we were just, you know, scraping by and getting through it. So yeah, he just started. We just say, well, and what we've found is with law as we've, we said, well, every once a month we just interview, we interview someone. And then we, we write their story and ultra running magazine and their online column. Well, we just found that people that are doing these crazy, you know, feats and challenges generally, there's a really good story. You know, why they're doing it. And we've, we've talked to people that have been through addiction of I tried to commit suicide too. Health issues to family issues to, and you realize some of the people that we knew in town pretty well once we interviewed and we found out things we never knew. And so we just, we bunked you've just met really cool people and now it's, we have this neat platform to tell their story, you know, tell it does again, average runners,
Speaker 2: (17:50)
You know, have jobs and have families or, and, and running is kind of a side thing. It's not the way they make their living, but they're doing just incredible things. And then any, they all have really big hearts like theirs. You know what I mean? There, there's just this neat push to do something big. Mmm. But they're just, yeah. I mean, this is, this is a couple of themes running through those stories by the sounds of it. And this is my experience too in dealing with lots of, you know, ultra runner, crazy people and myself as well. I know that, you know, running, saved my life. Literally. I, you know, I'm going through some terrible things and, and again, and again that's picked me up and given me my life back and my confidence back and my self esteem and channeled my Oh, I've got a bit of an addictive personality and if I don't do, if it didn't do running or working, I think stupid. So I it is a way of channeling my energies and so on. And I think a lot of people can, can understand that who are ultra marathon miners said it and it helps you deal with issues and helps you rebuild your life. And, and these are sort of byproducts that, that people outside of the running or the ultra running community especially, but even the running community don't, don't see as a benefit of running, but it's actually a mental health based mental health thing I've ever done.
Speaker 2: (19:23)
Yeah. And that seems to be a same that that does run, you know, you do get some deep stories when you're interact with people and some people have been through some terrible things and running his saved them and help them out of the muck, you know? Yeah, a lot of them weren't runners per se, you know, they didn't grow up, you know, running cross country or they didn't grow up. Having someone that they ran with it, it's how running kind of came into their life at that perfect time and they really needed to lean on it. So you know, and I know for me personally, it came back, you know, after I got injured and I, I did, I leaned on it big time and outside and to, you know, feel your heart pounding and feel that wind in your hair.
Speaker 2: (20:10)
And you know, it doesn't matter how far you go or how long you go or how fast you go, but it's just there and I feel lucky for that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's like they've primal, there's a primal instinct that is missing in our everyday lives, mostly now in our modern day world. And it answers a lot of those biological and instinctive and ancestral sort of needs for us. So that need to push our bodies to, to survive and the in the outdoors and to be able to overcome and to actually, you know, like expel all this energy that we have which is sometimes a negative and or an anger or a grief or, you know, I I often come back from long runs, especially where you've given your role or rices and you just, you, you, you, it's so fantastic. The pain that you go through physically sometimes is, is it's a mean tool release part of the draw card and it's not what like I don't think you and I would sit here and say we like pain cause a lot of people, you're a masochist or something.
Speaker 2: (21:31)
Not at all. I don't like, I do see the benefits on pushing through pain or through suffering or had moments in a, in an event or training because it does teach you so, so much about who the heck you are. And that's something that my listeners hear me preach a lot, but I think that is, that is a very true thing. And he'd agree with it. Yeah. More. And when we always talk about it, we'll be doing something, whether it's work related or life w we, we always say we lean back on those ultra lessons that we learn because we're just, you just some of the things you're doing out there, you does, it converts over to, to real life situations and mental toughness kind of, you know, pushing through hard times. Yeah. And then the metaphors are there all over the place, but yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: (22:25)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, people hit me to have my story with mom and that's definitely like a Humvee, 100% of all of that, that, that resilience, that consistent, that real manelessness come from being an athlete and doing this sort of stuff. And so, so many benefits of people. And that's why, you know, I love encouraging people to get into running or any sport. But running is a, is a, is it, I think it's one that, again, going back to our ancestral ways, this is how we used to communicate this and how we used to get from one village to the next, the one, you know, we didn't have cars and everything else and, and it's the most instinctive, natural form of movement that we don't. And even in thing, you know, walking, running, you know, whatever in doing ultra-marathons there's a heck of a lot of walking isn't there? Oh my gosh. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: (23:21)
Race. The race is a loosely defined term, you know, death shuffle, shuffle. So you know, I love to share some of your stories like I've asked you guys, you know, hopefully we can share some of your stories within the hour, you know, running hot coaching out online club and also on our websites and stuff. And you know, what I love about this is a being connected through our frame vendors that we've disconnecting. You know, the USA with new Zealanders, with Australians who listen to this podcast. It's mostly my audience, New Zealand and Australia. We have got other people in other places as well, but at say international illness, you know, but we all have the shared love of, of running and ultra marathon running and Beecher and nature and you know, for one side of the road to the other with these stories. And I think that that's, that's pretty damn cool.
Speaker 2: (24:16)
I just love that. You know, I think it's exciting. I think that's really neat. Yeah. It makes us feel more together and it's not in this crosses right now. We need to feel together. You know, like you guys are facing some really, really tough times in America. I think way worse than what we are experiencing. And if we can, you know, again, in this Karina time, we need to pull together, we need to focus, we need the strengths that are run as heavy, you know, push through these tough times and not give up. Tom's, he gotta to get tough for a lot of people. And you being a financial advisor guy would probably know, you know, lots of horror stories coming your way. And, and being able to help people through this sort of a crisis, I think you know, in having good stories always does that.
Speaker 2: (25:07)
So, you know, I just wanted to say thanks for coming on today and for sharing your, your stories and for connecting with us down at the other end of the ears. And I hope one day that I'm actually going to be able to come and poverty won't run for malts anymore. I'm retired now, but I might come and know what you guys do. One that would be so cold. You never know. What would be your, like if you had a couple of messages for people listening out there who have never run in their lives and think that this is only for the super Tufts super cold, super amazing athletes, they want me to say to that? Yeah, I think I would say aye. I think we, I think as, as humans we just, we always are putting limits on what we can do.
Speaker 2: (26:00)
And we're always kind of, you know, it's almost like I hear so many people say, well, I have bad knees or I can't, I just can't do it. Right. There's, you know, and Jen, obviously some people probably can't do it, you know, not everyone can. And we're lucky to have you know, I've, I've run the show I'm with, with, with farmers and carpenters and Marines and every, every segment of life out there. I've seen people doing these things and I mean age. Yeah. I mean just people in their, in their seventies doing, doing a hundred miles. So we see the whole spectrum. I think the biggest thing is, you know, just get out there and do it. Just start with something, you know, even if it's a couple of him and if it's walk a half mile, walk a mile and just get out there. And if it's something, I think you'd be amazed what you can, what you can do. And then, and again, we're, we're here to tell you we are, I'm Todd, we are his averages. Again, there's nothing special about Austin.
Speaker 2: (26:59)
I mean you can, you can do a lot more than you than you think is possible. I think that's my, and I think to have the courage to try and then, and not worry about failing and running for me, like a little tidbit is I don't care if you, if you run a hundred miles a week or one mile a week, that first mile is the hardest every, every day, every night. So I think sometimes he will get to that mile and they're like, it's just too hard. But if you know that it's hard for everybody, no matter how often you run or how long you run. I mean, I think that's my biggest take is have her smile. But after you get past that first mile, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. But that first 20 minutes of everybody's run and was even sitting, but it's for some people, right?
Speaker 2: (27:46)
For me can be worst part. And most people give up and before that, like, you know, the runners and they think that the whole time is going to be like that. And you're like, she's just getting to the good stuff. Guys. You're just warming up. Cause man, when you get to that warm up part, everything was clear on the fog goes away. Yeah. And that's why the warmups bloody important people listen for you even by writing. And then I'm preaching to myself here because I'm still, I know that I should be warming up every time and I have a much better one when I do warm up properly, we all have a tendency, I've got, I've got an hour, half an hour or an hour, I've got to go straight out the door and I'm fixing my miles and I've got to see it on Strava, you know, warm up doesn't count, so I'm not doing it. And that's dumb. That's a good way to look guys. I really appreciate you coming on today and I want to hear more. I want to she's some of the stories that you've already written and I'd love to do some more connections, you know, have some more discussions with you and the heavier now running hot sharing in being involved with us. Cause I love what you're doing and I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. We love what you're doing. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: (29:19)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over. Visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com
The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.
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Lisa's third book has just been released. It's titled "Relentless - How A Mother And Daughter Defied The Odds"
Visit: https://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/ for more Information
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When extreme endurance athlete, Lisa Tamati, was confronted with the hardest challenge of her life, she fought with everything she had. Her beloved mother, Isobel, had suffered a huge aneurysm and stroke and was left with massive brain damage; she was like a baby in a woman's body. The prognosis was dire. There was very little hope that she would ever have any quality of life again. But Lisa is a fighter and stubborn.
She absolutely refused to accept the words of the medical fraternity and instead decided that she was going to get her mother back or die trying.
This book tells of the horrors, despair, hope, love, and incredible experiences and insights of that journey. It shares the difficulties of going against a medical system that has major problems and limitations. Amongst the darkest times were moments of great laughter and joy.
Relentless will not only take the reader on a journey from despair to hope and joy, but it also provides information on the treatments used, expert advice and key principles to overcoming obstacles and winning in all of life's challenges. It will inspire and guide anyone who wants to achieve their goals in life, overcome massive obstacles or limiting beliefs. It's for those who are facing terrible odds, for those who can't see light at the end of the tunnel. It's about courage, self-belief, and mental toughness. And it's also about vulnerability... it's real, raw, and genuine.
This is not just a story about the love and dedication between a mother and a daughter. It is about beating the odds, never giving up hope, doing whatever it takes, and what it means to go 'all in'. Isobel's miraculous recovery is a true tale of what can be accomplished when love is the motivating factor and when being relentless is the only option.
Here's What NY Times Best Selling author and Nobel Prize Winner Author says of The Book:
"There is nothing more powerful than overcoming physical illness when doctors don't have answers and the odds are stacked against you. This is a fiercely inspiring journey of a mother and daughter that never give up. It's a powerful example for all of us."
—Dr. Bill Andrews, Nobel Prize Winner, author of Curing Aging and Telomere Lengthening.
"A hero is someone that refuses to let anything stand in her way, and Lisa Tamati is such an individual. Faced with the insurmountable challenge of bringing her ailing mother back to health, Lisa harnessed a deeper strength to overcome impossible odds. Her story is gritty, genuine and raw, but ultimately uplifting and endearing. If you want to harness the power of hope and conviction to overcome the obstacles in your life, Lisa's inspiring story will show you the path."
—Dean Karnazes, New York Times best selling author and Extreme Endurance Athlete.
Transcript of the Podcast:
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by LisaTamati.com.
Speaker 2: (00:11)
Hi everyone and welcome to pushing the limits today. I have a fantastic episode with the amazing Craig Johns now Craig Johns is originally from my hometown from Taranaki, but living now in Canberra, in Australia. Now. Craig is the CEO and founder of energy to perform. He's a CEO himself. Uh, he has a background in 25 years global experience working in the sport health, mind, education and hospitality industries and he loves to help him become high performing leaders. He's also coached at the elite level Olympians, triathletes, world champion athletes, um, across a number of areas. And he is really at the top of his game as far as, uh, human performance. And I was really privileged to be on his show last weekend. He's agreed to become, come onto my show this week. So you're in for a really interesting session. If you want to know about being a high performance leader.
Speaker 2: (01:07)
If you want to know about high performance and sport, then this is the man you need to listen to. Um, just before I hand over to Craig now, just want to remind you my book relentless is now available and still seeing now copies. So if you hop over to relentlessbook.lisatamati.com you can order there and you can order audio books, eBooks, Kindle, Amazon, you name it, all the options are there for you to see, uh, to, to purchase that book. Um, I had the privilege of having a wonderful online book launch just a couple of nights ago and we're going to be doing, uh, a weekly one of these. So if you want to join me on one of those sessions or live session with me talking about the book, of course my mum will also be there. Um, then please reach out to me and I'd love to let you know when the next one is happening. Um, you can reach out to me at Lisa, at lisatamati.com and if you enjoy the show, please don't forget to rate and review this podcast. It really, really helps us get more exposure and we have some brilliant people sharing their incredible knowledge. Right. Without further ado, over to Craig Johns .
Speaker 2: (02:19)
Well, how everyone Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you with me again. I hope you guys are all staying safe out there as best as you can in this crazy time. Yeah, I'm sitting today with the lovely Craig John's from Canberra and Craig is the CEO and founder of energy, uh, the energy to perform. So welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for coming on board. No, Lisa, it's great to be on your show after we had a great interview the other day. Yeah, it was fantastic. So I had the privilege of being on Craig show as well. Um, active CEO, if anyone wants to go and check that out. Active CEO. Now, Craig, can you give us a little bit of background about your life and your story and what you do these
Speaker 3: (03:00)
days? Yeah, so I grew up in Taranaki as well. So from the same region, grew up on a farm, you know, a families were pretty simple. Yeah. And dad, you know, worked on a farm since he was 14 years old. He, it went through kind of the school of hard knocks and it was around our pretty rough crowd. And the teachers would say to him, look, you know, you're not going to make it in life. And when he was 14, him and his mate, they like to mess and like pee and light eating their lunch. And so they went to the principal and say, look, you know, we're wasting your time, us being here and you're wasting our time. So how about we build the furniture for your school? And so they're great to it. So they get access to the woodwork room and middleweight room and started building furniture.
Speaker 3: (03:47)
And then at the age of 14 he lifts school, went farming and retaught at 45. So I think the, uh, sort of prove them wrong in that sense. I'm a mum also came from a farming and hospitality background, her banana under a famous pub and pop Tia and you know, they, it's a lot of time spent on the farm and I think that grounding from both of them, very simple. I appreciate the small things. You work really hard and then the benefits will come and uh, from uh, an also from a sporting side. So I had a, had a fortunate too, both sides of the family have coaches, so dad's side where all around field hockey and my mom's side were all around cricket. So I had this great grounding from a sport point of view and also from coaching and leading people, which was just fantastic.
Speaker 3: (04:42)
I moved to Oakland to study, no sports science at university. I went on to do things around masters and biomechanics before hitting overseas. Uh, so my work in Auckland during that time was around sports science with some of the Olympic teams, some of the professional sports and was always coaching from the age of 15. So I love coaching swimming. So fly saving and triathlon in was working with some pretty amazing athletes during that time when I was 24 I got this call too. We've got a swimming coach opportunity for you in Taiwan. And that's kind, kinda like, well, I'm living at middle wide. I've got a beautiful view over the middle wide beach in Oakland and I've got these amazing opportunities. But I just thought, you know what, hi, I'm 24 years old, is this incredible world out there. I know nothing about Taiwan. All I think of as these, this big tall buildings. And my friend was like, no, it's really cool. There's like massive mountains. There's beautiful beaches. Amazing people. And so I thought, you know why not? So I packed up my bags at 24 and that started my worldwide adventure and have now lived in five places and wow. Currently based in Canberra. And you've done a of work in
Speaker 2: (05:58)
the triathalon space, is that correct? So tell us a little bit about some of the sort of work you've been involved with there.
Speaker 3: (06:05)
Okay. Yeah. So I've been a triathlon since I was nine years old, was my first triathlon. Wow. And so it was in my blood from quite an early space, and I naturally transitioned into triathlon where overseas I was coaching the Taiwan national team and went through to work at one of the Oh sort of most famous and beautiful splices and [inaudible] Peru kit called Tonya Perro, which is the only vice where they have, or mind how education, hospitality as an integrative approach. And so we're working with a lot of the world's top triathletes there. And then the last five and a half years I've been in Australia as a CEO of, the sport of triathlon in Canberra, and then working with the national team. So quite a, quite a big involvement. And it's just a beautiful sport with a great community.
Speaker 2: (06:55)
Yup. Okay. So what have you learned as a, as a person from being an athlete that you've taken over into your corporate world, if you like, into your business and you know what you're doing now?
Speaker 3: (07:07)
I think when you're very young and you're in sport, you learn some great basics for
Speaker 2: (07:11)
Mmm.
Speaker 3: (07:12)
Succeeding in life. So you have time management, discipline, hard work, um, overcoming adversity. You know, resilience. If we look at what's happening right now in the world around COVID-19 and coronavirus,
Speaker 3: (07:25)
it really sets you up to handle those situations well. You've experienced loss before, you've experienced hurt and pain before. You've experienced the unknown and I'm overwhelmed many times and you've always made a way out of it. Yeah. You just don't give up. You, yeah, it could be out on a, I know I bike ride and you're stuck three hours from home and you've run out of energy and battling a IDK in our headwind in it's five degrees in. You just don't want to go on any longer, but you stop playing mind games. You think positive thoughts and
Speaker 3: (08:02)
Nixon it and you just go from lampposts or lamppost or town to town. And then next minute you're like, Oh, I'm ready 20 minutes from home and you get home and it kind of feels a bit tiring and then you kind of wake up the next day and go, huh, what's next? Where's the big Nick's big talent? So I think those aspects are really good. And a sport like triathlon you, you wouldn't less than you loose. So you know, in a team sport you've got a 50% chance of winning every single time. And I was fortunate to be in a field hockey team where we never lost the game. The Stratford hockey team in the Taranaki league, they went something like 270 games straight without losing a game. So it's a record in New Zealand for any sport. And it was a phenomenal time to be part of that because I learned how to win end this awesome, great listens winning all the time.
Speaker 3: (08:56)
However, in triathlon there's also potentially a bit of side where you are learning so much because it is so difficult to win when you might have, you know, a couple of thousand people. On a start line or even if it's 50 on the start line, your chances of winning are not that high. No, you have to [inaudible] learn to deal with winning isn't everything, but what is the winning? So it may not be first across the line, but it might be okay, I've improved my swim or I was able to stay with that pack longer or I felt better on the run. So there's always ways that you can be winning, but it's might not just be that gold medal around your neck.
Speaker 2: (09:36)
Then Neva comes instantly. Th th that actually standing at the top of the podium as always a progression of years to get there. And many, many
Speaker 3: (09:43)
in the, in the, in the individual sports,
Speaker 2: (09:45)
um, you know, and lots of semifinalists and problems along the way and overcoming it. And then when you get to the top, you don't stay there either. So it's learning to manage that whole system and keep going. Um, so the biggest, listen, they would be, yeah, definitely. Keep, keep working towards your goals. Would that be right?
Speaker 3: (10:03)
Yeah, just small steps and appreciate the small things. I think in times like these where you need to have a bit of gratitude for yourself. Yes, you need a lot of gratitude for other people and acknowledge and sank and be kind to them. But a lot of people forget to do that with themselves. Worst predict. So it is so important to be, you know, looking everyday what is something I did really well today, well done. Yeah, that's great. Boy I'm off the couch this morning and I'm out running and no one else's. And, and there are lots of little things that you can just look after yourself a lot more effectively and you can do that in day to day life. And I think people, as much as this is going to be a very challenging time, I think people have the opportunity to learn, to appreciate the small things in life and be around their families and yeah, maybe Potter in the garden or whatever it may be and realize how important that is to success in life over a long period of time.
Speaker 2: (11:01)
Yeah. In taking the long view on this one now, Craig, and now you have a bit of a story yourself, um, a story of, of going home, you know, working so hard and burning out and um, coming into a bit of a drastic situation. Can you share that sort of background story, because you know, these are the stories that really teach us.
Speaker 3: (11:20)
Yeah, they are. I think from a very young age, I've always, you know, push the limits. For me it was, I'm trying to find that new space, um, where can I take my body? How much can it handle? And you know, I, it wasn't the most talented person out there, but I had, damn, I had some grit and hard work if they can be. And I think that comes from there from my mother. Yeah. I think we both the same there. And you know, a lot of people go, Whoa, you know, you did really well, you succeed into world champs. And I said, yeah, there was a lot of hard work in that. And you know, there are a lot more talented people, but I managed to get ahead of quite a few of them just because I was more determined and dominant approach to say, you know what, I'm going to prove people wrong.
Speaker 3: (12:02)
I'm going to prove science or medicine wrong and I want to see if I can get there. I love it. So I triggered hot problems and probably stress and burn out to a certain extent, not always burnout, but pushing that limit three key times in my life. So the first one was, who knows, uh, 15 and I'd come off a week long swim camp at Christmas time. I had done some things I've never done before. I had people stopping in the lines watching me do a set and which is absolutely flying and this felt amazing. And the next day was new year's day. I got out of bed at six o'clock in the morning when to go to the bathroom and find and went out for very long time. Um, my dad, who had just had a hip replacement was on crutches and sort of come along and tap me.
Speaker 3: (12:54)
And he thought I was, could have been dead because he, he couldn't been over at time and he said my eyes were in a state that he'd never seen before. And being knocked out for over five minutes is, um, yeah, fairly scary for a lot of people. Hmm. You know, that opportunity. I spent some time in intensive care, uh, and, and word was spreading around the community that I'd had heart attacks and all sorts of things that happened to me. Um, and it took a little while for, um, the cardiologist to try and make sense of what was going on at that time. And they initially, he said, look, you know, you have to give up sport. That's it. Your resting heart rate is too low. Um, it's, it's still 32 right now and I get down to 24 at night. My next spot right is still over 210. Wow. And I've always had an extremely low blood pressure of 90, over 60. Yeah. So all those things with their, and if I stressed too much, there was a recipe for disaster in a way.
Speaker 3: (13:58)
so they, but they couldn't find an actual reason to why I was having these heart problems at that time. And while I was really struggling. And so in the end, they just say, look, you can go back to sport, but you need to monitor and listen to yourselves. And I made two New Zealand teams within a year, um, and, and obviously had a very successful career after that. The second time I did it was I was working in Taiwan. I was qualified for world half iron man champ. So I was pushing the limit about six weeks out from the event. We had a big period of work where I'll be working around 60 hours a week plus those training 30 hours a week. Um, and just, I mean I was always some to try and find where is that balance on the high performance edge and I just pushed it too far.
Speaker 3: (14:46)
And so I had the same thing happen there, not to the, I wasn't feinting, uh, so much because I had a pacemaker and by then it was stopping me from doing that. Ah, so that was the second time. And then the third time I in Thailand, I was working, uh, 70 to 80 hours a week. Loved every single minute of what I was doing. I was worth 302 days straight. Yup. And woke up and did the big find to gain and um, you know, obviously this time I'm married and my wife's freaking out. She, I had never been in a hospital apart from being born pretty much. And you know, this took a big toll on her and I spent quite a bit of time in hospital again and Thailand and was during that time I realized that wasn't right about me anymore. And it was more too, you know what?
Speaker 3: (15:37)
Hey look, yeah, my heart's struggling a bit here and I'm not feeling well, but you know what, I'll, I've got the resilience, I'll bounce back from it. Right. You do it all the time and training, you know, you work hard, you smash yourself to bits it and you'd get a better recovery and your bounce back and away you go again pretty quick. But in this instance there was a lot more to it and I could see the effects on the staff. You know, we had 500 stops, so you could see how that affected them and especially my wife. And at that point I was like, you know what, I need to change. I'm, I put on 14kgs, I'd stopped exercising. Aye wasn't eating well even though I was at the healthiest place in the world. Mmm. And I was only getting four to five hours sleep a night.
Speaker 3: (16:17)
So I wasn't allowing my body to, to recover. Right. So I wasn't giving it a chance whatsoever. And what was really, and, and, and obviously at that time I decided the term breaking the CEO came up for me at that time, breaking the CEO code and [inaudible] that concept is now sort of really developed out in working with CEO's and executives around that and also building out programs for corporates. Exits are as well. So that's where that came from. But one of the real interesting things is when you're in athletes, you base everything. Everything's based around recovery. Yes. You've got the hard work. It's based around recovery because that's when the gains happen. That's when the high performance gains actually occur. And you have really strong trees. So when you push the limit in training or at a rice, your body tells you, you know, your times aren't as good.
Speaker 3: (17:15)
Your heart rate might be up, your sleep patterns go off. Um, appetite can change. And so there's a lot of really strong triggers that you're aware of. And generally you're recording a lot of data, so you, or you've got a coach that can see things as well when you're in the working world, [inaudible] have that. It's not a physical fatigue unless you're in certain [inaudible] industries. Yeah. So it's a real psychological fatigue. And unless there's a catastrophic event, yeah. Don't realize what's happening. So, excuse me to interrupt. But when you're an athlete, you only value breaking yourself physically.
Speaker 2: (17:50)
So you think any mental stress, it's just like, Oh, you know, grit. You haven't run 200 cases today. You know, like it's not that bad. You underestimate how much that they can put on the actual your system when your brain is stressed and when you're, when you're pushing the limits. Mean to me it takes a lot of energy. I mean, 20% of our energy goes just into our brain. 20% of our calories, for example. Yeah. Which is, you know, and part of it. So what's happening when you're in psychological fatigue or in your work spaces, the change in fatigue and energy levels is so gradual and our bodies so clever at adapting, you don't understand what's going on, you don't feel it. And it keeps dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping until it's too late. You don't realize it. And generally it's either you take a couple of days off or you go on a planned holiday and you get sick quite often.
Speaker 2: (18:45)
Well, you get to a point where I did where I had just worked at 302 days straight, full on 100% the whole time there was, it was go, go, you know, 24 seven never stopped thinking and the body does soon. You know what, okay, I'm going to have to put the brakes on here. I'm going to put the handbrake on it and we're going to hit real hard and you're probably going to hit a lamppost at the same time. And yeah, that's what happened. [inaudible] it a big lesson. The body is a very clever thing when it, you know, even in the, in the athletic world like, um, when you're running specific boat, you know, when I ran through New Zealand, my body was like shattering my body down in your mind is so strong that you pushed through the pain and you carry on and then my body actually pick up, carry on till the end of it run.
Speaker 2: (19:32)
But I paid the price for the next, but he is, well actually I'm still lost if I'm honest. I mean I think cause she pushed through those, you pushed through that, that survival limit. Okay. And you do do damage. It reminds me of a really funny story. Um, I was racing autumn in Austria back in 2005, so would have been my first right man. Oh uh, yeah. First Imam. So week before I had, um, Oh go, this is going in my head, uh, not boil. Um, and then fiction, uh, [inaudible] on my head anyway, so I had, I had a, had a medical problem and yeah. Um, so from that they said, Oh look, you know, you may not be able to race. And so during the rice, like I felt good beforehand and I said, okay, look, yep, you've got the clearance, go for it. And I felt amazing. I swam really well up with the front packs out onto the bike and feeling good. Got 50 K, and then I just started vomiting from 50 K right through to the a hundred into the 190 K ride. And I'm sitting here going, I don't know how I'm going to get through this rice if I can't get food. [inaudible]
Speaker 3: (20:46)
got onto the felt good,
Speaker 3: (20:48)
you know, I felt pretty crappy near the end of the bike and then got on the run and felt good for the first 10 K and going along nicely. And then I'm like sitting there going, I need to eat and I need to drink because I'm kidding. Anything down all day, you know, we're a six, seven hours into the rice by them. And I remember, I remember sitting down at the 21K Mark it was a loop, a double loop course. You come back past the finish line a couple of times and I could hear on the loudspeaker, a friend of mine ran out to sink being called out and saying, I went to our champion for today, ran out two sinks about to cross the line. And so I remember that and that's the last thing I remember. And, and I woke up in the medical tent [inaudible] I was like, how do I do? And they're like, what do you mean? I said, where did I finish? And they're like, Oh, we found you at the 22 K Mark or running down the wrong road and we were trying to stop you. And you're like, no, leave me. I'm about to catch the widow completely out of it. Just lost it. You know, body wanted to keep going. But I had, isn't it amazing how strong the mind is though, that you can push yourself to almost killing yourself? Yeah. Yup, yup. [inaudible]
Speaker 3: (22:02)
and like you, you know, through all this, these, you know, the cycle if you like, of of going had crashing, growing, had crashing, going hog crashing. It just started to learn something that you've actually like used today and you are in your world today. Okay. Yeah. So when, so when I was sitting there and I talked about, you know, being in that position, hospital, yeah. A couple of years ago and okay, I realized I needed to break the CEO code. And the big thing for me was I have all this amazing knowledge and lessons learned from the athlete world, from coaching, from being a sports science in that high performance space. And I was using none of it, none of it. And here's a lesson for everyone in life. There are four basic fundamentals to performance. Anyone, no matter what you do, it's exercise, nutrition, freeing your mind and recovering with purpose.
Speaker 3: (22:57)
Now all of those have effects on your ability to perform mentally, physically, emotionally. Okay. [inaudible] they have huge effects on things like your mood on your ability, your cognitive function, your ability to, to actually process information [inaudible] okay. Don't have those imbalance, then you will limit your performance potential. So I was, look at it this way, your talent sits, your minimum performance ceiling, your exercise, your nutrition, you're freeing your mind and you're covering with purpose determines how high you can lift the ceiling. All right? So that is what controls that your talent controls just your minimum height. So you could be the most talented person in the world, but if you don't look after yourself, you're not going to get anywhere near your potential. Hmm. And so obviously we say that quite often they get lazy and know everything's too easy for them when they're younger. And then finally, some people who actually really look after themselves come through and Sean above them, and that works in whatever space it is, whether it be a musician or a speaker, a coach, an athlete, a parents, whatever it may be, that will determine it.
Speaker 3: (24:16)
And then the second aspect is, uh, that are really thrived on and tested and tried many times is paradise nation and of the term that CEO paradise relation. Now puritization initially comes from cataloging in the library system and it was cataloging on periods of time. Then the sporting world took it, especially in endurance and used it to paradise. There they work in stress loads and balance it with recovery periods so that they can get jumps in performance over time. So as they recovered, their performance would go to a high level. I would stress it, they dropped down their performance, but then when they recovered it would go higher again. So I applied that to work. Um, and as we talked about before, you don't recognize the fatigue that's going on and you push and push and push. And because it's the stimulus is that the change is so small and it's a catastrophic event, then you don't, you, your body is adapting to it. [inaudible]
Speaker 3: (25:12)
so important to actually plan the recovery and, and that can be on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, yearly or career basis. Now, the Korea one is fascinating because I've only met two people so far who do this extremely well. One is Anne gripper, who used to be CEO of triathlon Australia and she's now working at new South Wales office of sport as their CEO. And she is into a fourth cycle of five years in a job, one year off, five years on, one year off. And she planned that, you know, uh, what are we looking at about seven, eight, nine years ago now? Nearly 20 years ago. Yeah. Each of her breaks, she's done something completely different. Yeah. And some might think of it as a sabbatical, but no, this is actually planned. It's not seven or more years. It's, it's every or five years on, one year off.
Speaker 3: (26:03)
And so she cycled the world for one of them. She set up a philanthropy, uh, in another one and the other one, she has gone off and done her masters at one of the prestigious Mmm postgraduate schools in Switzerland for school, the lighting. So I'm looking forward to what's next. I don't know. I haven't actually spoken to her. What's next? The other one is Del Beaumont. Del Bowman is a bit of a legend in the personal development and kind of marketing spice and has a huge following in Australia and around the world. And he's been working for 17 years and kind of that personal development space for the last 10 years. He works two months on, one month off. Wow. Three months on, one month off. And so during that one month off, he generally goes to a new country around the world. He takes his, his wife has young children and he's been, I think he's over a hundred countries now.
Speaker 3: (26:58)
He's been to, and so that's the approach he's taken now. He has a, he's built a team behind him. He's put trust in them. I'm sure he will really hard during the two months, but then he has a full one month off where it's completely off work. Yeah. Extremely good. Uh, if we took a look at it from a year point of view, most people will go, all right, I've got four weeks holiday. I'll take them off inside the Southern hemisphere. They'll take them off for Christmas and they'll spend time with the children. I've a summer, a Northern hemisphere would obviously be July, August period. So what they do is they work 11 months and then they just have this recovery there. So it's a long time to be staying on and performing at a high level. Exactly. Yeah. And so what's more effective is if, how do we look at, can we put things in every three months or every four months and actually scheduling those [inaudible] your diaries before the start of the year, like an athlete would.
Speaker 3: (27:52)
They plan the recovery periods at Welland avant, sometimes up to four years if they're into an Olympic cycle. [inaudible] and you sit there with your family and you plan that so that you're both offered the same time, if that's what you want to do. If you're married, if you're not, then obviously you just need to look after yourself. It's a bit easier. Um, but as you plan that time away from the work that you're doing away from the passion that you're in, get out in night, go see some new places, change your environment and allow that mind to refresh and the body to recover and that as well. Uh, and then obviously we can type that down to even into a WIC space where, how do we cycle those periods? What has been fascinating through the research with Don [inaudible] pretty much in, in endurance athletes and also in anything that's done in business, it works out to be about a three to one work to rest ratio.
Speaker 3: (28:43)
Yeah, three, two, one. So say an athlete will generally go three weeks on one week off, three weeks on, one week off. Now if sometimes they may do a longer period up to five or six weeks and then, but then they need a longer recovery period to balance that back. But it's still equal somewhere around three to one, unless they're doing something really extreme. And in the, it might need to be a lot more recovery in the working world. They do stuff, uh, say on a daily basis where they look at how long can a, a high performer achieve high levels of performance and productivity over period of time. Now there's some that say 52 minutes, um, of work at that level and before they start to lose the, the performance and lose the productivity and it takes about 70 minutes to get that back.
Speaker 3: (29:33)
There are others who say 45 minutes, 15 but most of the studies are still based around a three to one where it's risk ratio. So it's a great place to stop. Now if you go through what a lot of CEOs and a lot of businesses and a lot of families are going through right now, which is a massive stress load with dealing with [inaudible], you actually go into needs more recovery in there. Yup. Or a longer piece of recovery coming up. Now we're pretty much going to be forced to doing that because you're working from home. Yup. There might be some stresses, yes. But you're pretty much going to be forced to do that, which will be really good for you. Really good for you to take that time out to recover [inaudible] and we're using it to recover, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so the key message is here that it's all around proactively planning recovery so you can sustain high levels of performance and productivity all the time.
Speaker 3: (30:27)
And that's what I've been able to do since then. I don't drink coffee, I don't have sugar, I don't um, touch soft drinks. I don't have any caffeine whatsoever. I can't cause my heart anyway, but I have consistent energy all day. I don't get to a point where I fall over. I don't get to a point where I feel it declining. If that happens. It's extremely rare because I plan my recovery, I've got my exercise, nutrition, freeing my mind and recovering with purpose embedded every single day. And if I do need to do a period of how to work, then I will, I will plan a longer period of recovery in there. So I will look at it and go, okay, this project is going to take quite a bit of time. So I know I need to have some recovery in it. Yeah. At the moment, I am having to stop pretty early in the morning because of dealing with some stuff with covert 19 from a local, national, international level in multiple areas.
Speaker 3: (31:21)
So I have to start at five Oh six in the morning and I might not finish till nine at night, but I'll go out in the middle of the day and I go for a two three hour bike ride and have some recovery. So I'm in the middle of the dice. So I ensure that I can perform at a high level. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's really about planning in doing the very basic things. Well, you sleep, you know, when you were doing in Taiwan and you hit that four to five hours a night's sleep, it's a disaster. Well, your hormones now, when do you put on my, you know, I don't order those sort of things. Uh, really those sort of things are really crucial. But their sleep, the hydration, the nutrition in the meantime breaks. If we all would agree on that and they exercise. Oh, absolutely. No, we are, we're singing from the same song shake Theo thing. Yeah. And it's certainly important. I like it. There's been a whole thing of the last sort of 10 years around that the hype before or that the people can go without slave and they'd be performing a massively. Now there's something trying to me what the statistic is.
Speaker 3: (32:27)
Oh yeah. I think it's something like 7%. It may even be less than that of people that can survive, that can function at the highest level off around five to six hours. Yeah, it's very few,
Speaker 2: (32:40)
but most people, it's around eight to nine hours. And every time you reduce that, like say if you reduce it by half an hour, you probably won't notice it too much because your body's adapting to it. But it does have quite a big effect [inaudible] on your IQ. Obviously your intelligence, your emotional intelligence, as you said, your hormones, which you fix, uh, things such as energy to fix, such as things as your mood. It affects your ability to cope under pressure. Alright. Really important things that you need to have firing in all cylinders. So the people that are thrived, Oh, sorry. Yeah. People that are thriving at the moment rather than just surviving the coven 19 and coronavirus people that actually [inaudible] sitting quite healthy and are able to make decisions rationally. I will too go through thought processes and um, ensure that they have the cognitive function, deal with things effectively.
Speaker 2: (33:37)
Those that have come into it a little tired that don't, don't have a healthy body are the ones that are struggling the most. Yeah, yup. Mean to the end physically and [inaudible] sleep deprivation one, um, that really over time leads to cognitive decline, you know, which I'm, you know, specialized in learning about brain rehabilitation and, and the correlation between Alzheimer's and dementia and lack of sleep over many years is it's a very strong one. Mmm. So for that reason alone, you know, you need to, if you want to have a brain that is performing into, you know, like the stats already in your thirties and your forties, you know, this is already a map to climb. Okay. And you, you know, optimizing every area of your life so that you can cope. What's the [inaudible] you know, I like, I've got a [inaudible] well it shouldn't be healthy fit. [inaudible] and I can face this courses with a beta lot of energy [inaudible] to focus on, you know, like I've got more to, to, to more resilience.
Speaker 2: (34:47)
And at the moment we're all going a little bit, well some of us are going and sign the hat, um, and we have to for this short period of time and that's okay. As long as we're the planning and as soon as this one's down that you've got some recovery in there somewhere. Otherwise you will. Hello. I mean, I know this, like with my mum, I'm having that aneurism and you know, the book that I've just [inaudible] for that relentless, the first three years were seven days a week, you know, operating two companies working with her all day and not a day off. Never a day off. Yeah. Oh, you know, in the first six months it was round the clock and there was hardly any time for sleep. It was, yeah, four to five hours of sleep. And you know, I paid, I paid a massive price, but I had to, to survive. And now I have to, my body isn't quite as as it should be.
Speaker 3: (35:38)
And I have to rebuild those resources again. And that is an extreme, you know, situations that you had to, you know, and we know as athletes how to do that for a period of time. The thing is [inaudible] don't, don't mistake mental toughness with, you know, you're, you're, you're still a human, you're not Bulletproof. I would like to think we are as athletes, we're not, and we will have limitations and we need to respect their bodies and gives them time to come back sooner or later and hopefully sooner. Mmm. So Craig, I now need to ramp up shortly and I know that you've got lots of things to get onward. So the periodization, the three two one is a really important factor adhering to the basics. Uh, got you. What else did you like? What would ask, would you like to leave as parting words for people to think about and we can they find you and reach out to you if they wanna work with you?
Speaker 3: (36:36)
Yeah. Brilliant. I think one of the best [inaudible] the most important things is here is it. It's about the basics. You know, if we look at the most effective sports teams in the world are most effective athletes, they focused a lot on the basics and getting them right. What we're seeing a lot now in say the sporting world as we're seeing a lot of people going for the shiny things, they want to mimic the plays that the all blacks do. They want to be trying to do the same sessions as and the Olympic. A runner. Yeah, Stitcher, and so they want to go for the shiny things first. It is or about the basics and that's the same thing when it comes to looking after your body. [inaudible] no matter whether you're a mum or your a CEO or you're someone going to work or you look after the [inaudible], the [inaudible], the community bridge club.
Speaker 3: (37:23)
It's about the bicycles. If you want to [inaudible] high performing person, I think that's really, really important. [inaudible] the second thing is that you need to obviously make sure that you're preparing to perform every day. If we look at athletes, singers, dances, songwriters, artists in what people would term is the performing areas. Um, and what they don't realize everything is performing. But I would consider those as performance ones. They spend over 95% of their time training, preparing, planning, and less than 5% of their time actually competing. Now when it comes to the business world, corporate world, it's the complete opposite. So they actually spend more than around 95% of their time actually competing. Yeah. And very little time planning, preparing training to be better, to improve their performance and to get the best out of their team. So I have the second phase of breaking the CEO code is performance is the three P's of leadership performance touched on CEO paradise [inaudible].
Speaker 3: (38:31)
The second one is CUI prisons. Now CEO prisons is around, how do you turn up? Oh, sorry. How do you show up and turn it up? So it is how do you prepare for a meeting or an interaction or for a project? Cause most people just roll in. Yeah. We see quite often in the corporate world where people will go back to back to back meetings. Um, and even if they don't, they'll just rock into a meeting. They'll pull out their diary and go, Oh, we're talking about this today. Can someone brief me what's happening? Yeah, absolutely. Zero preparation. There's no preparation to right. Sometimes. Ah, yeah. And we all get caught in it sometimes, but wouldn't it be more effective if you actually plan for it? You thought about what you were going to say and what impact you are going to have on people. Uh, and, and you speak. So generally as a speaker, one of the key things you focus on before you get on stages, you visualize how you want the audience to react and feel afterwards. How do you want them to react and fill afterwards? So [inaudible] you've got to bring the performance, bring the energy, and you've got to evoke the emotions that are required. So that's in any meeting, in any discussion, any sales. Yeah. Any relationship that's so important. Evoke the new bright emotions, not any emotion. The right emotion.
Speaker 3: (39:56)
Okay. And then once you evoke the emotions, you then need to make sure that you leave them with a message and something to do next. So what, what is the action that is going to occur? So prisons is all about your nonverbal communication. It's around your communication as well. Content you are going to say. So go back to nonverbal. It's around your body language. It's the way you bring your energy to the room. Mmm. [inaudible] the most important aspect because people feed a lot more off the nonverbals than they do the verbals. So we actually react. And so 97% of the message comes from the nonverbals, not the actual verbal content. Well, not what you're saying. Yep. That's how you say it. Yep. And how you deliver it. Yeah. Yeah. So that prison is so important. So a lot of the time we start, we talk with our, with the say CEOs executives to go, alright, let's cut yours, schedule your meetings in half.
Speaker 3: (40:53)
And it freaks them out. And we know we have to get the pay on the to do it and it teaches him to delegate the low and medium priorities to other people to look after. And so they just focus on the high priorities. And this is so important right now during covert 19 and coronavirus. You need to identify what are the high priorities and then determine what is going to have the greatest impact with the least amount of effort. And you move the medium and low, um, priorities and delegate them and empower your staff to look after those and given some responsibility. Don't take all the responsibility yourself. Hmm. So that's a really powerful thing right now. Mmm [inaudible] then obviously once we've reduced the number of meetings, we, we then go, okay, we need to put some time in beforehand. So you plan not just understand the content and maybe your outcome, but how you're going to deliver.
Speaker 3: (41:47)
And then after the meeting you need to make sure you've got a debrief and some time to recover because we need to make sure that you're performing at three, two, one work to rest ratio throughout the day. [inaudible] come four or five o'clock when you might need to be making some really key decisions. You still have the energy, you still able to perform [inaudible] best to bring the best out of the people you've got. So powerful. The third phase is CEO performance and CEO performance is around developing high performing habits and high-performing habits. Uh, [inaudible] around making sure that you have your and your [inaudible] mental state that you're removing any obstacles, any, uh, things that are cluttering your mind, anything that is preventing you from being your best. So it does integrate. So that first one, that first phase of your foundations of exercise, nutrition fraying and modern recovery does include those.
Speaker 3: (42:45)
But there are also other things. It's around ensuring that you don't contaminate the home space with workspace. Yeah. This is really, really important right now I working at home. So maybe I think for this, uh, I would just go into what's really important right now for those that haven't worked at home before. You need to set some boundaries, create a space where you do work only and only work. Do we need to make sure that it's, you can keep the children away if possible, unless they're really young. You may need to adjust this, that drinks can't be spilled, etc. That distractions are put to the side. You need to make sure that when you step out of that room, you go from being in work. So now being in home life, yup. Or release life, you put the new hat on, you need to make sure when you get up in the morning, you keep your routine as consistent as possible to what you would do from a normal working day.
Speaker 3: (43:41)
Keep that routine because then your body's not reacting to stuff. Your body reacts when it's [inaudible] doesn't, it's unfamiliar. Yeah. It would be proactive. So get up, have a shower hugely out of your pajamas. Cause I'm sure there's a lot of you that are sitting in your pajamas and your boxer shorts, et cetera right now or your underwear doing your work at home. No, you've got to step out and get into the right mental state and you know, I have breakfast stopped the day as you would [inaudible] then you need to make sure that you've actually got planned time in there to step out and get some exercise, recharge the batteries, clear them on freedom mind, um, and, and have a break from things cause it's so easy to get caught up, especially when you're at home. And for those that are normally used to being in a really busy office with lots of calls and emails going on, now I'm going to find you actually probably not this week, but in the next couple of weeks you'll find you have a lot more time for yourself and you'd be able to get in the zone and standard zone a lot longer.
Speaker 3: (44:42)
So when you're in that space, it is still important because if you want great performance throughout the whole day, through the whole week, through over the next few months, [inaudible] got to proactively put in the recovery now otherwise you will struggle later on. Yup. Mmm. And that is so important. Now there might be some if you're like, um, let's see how, so if, if you've heard of the five love languages. No. So there are Gary Chapman, check it out. [inaudible] fascinating, fascinating stuff. And it talks about one of the five love languages and how if you can understand what your love languages and you understand what someone else's is and then you know how to work with them. So my love language is acts of service. So I like it when people do things and I do things, that's my love language. Whereas my wife is physical touch and quality time, so she likes to be close to me.
Speaker 3: (45:33)
We don't need to speak, don't need to talk much. And she dislikes to be close to me. So there might be an instance where say [inaudible] because they might be a bit more work to do right now is I might go out in the lounge, but we know clearly that I'm still working. We're, we're aware of that if we want to. And so it can be close to each other. If we want to have a discussion, I close the laptop, take it back, put it in the office, and then we sit down and have our discussion and talk through things or discuss whatever we want to. That's a good tip for me actually. Cause I'm, yeah. Tend to just be 24, seven hovering around the computer and sometimes the husband, it doesn't get detention in dates when he needs it. Yeah, because you were always, that delineation is really, really, yup.
Speaker 3: (46:19)
And relationships are absolutely number one priority. It's so easy for us to brush them off to the side and get busy with work in the end. The people that are always going to be there when things are struggling, uh, when, when times are tough, when overwhelmed sitting are your family and your friends. And so if you [inaudible] [inaudible] them right anytime of the year, you can do it for a little bit. But if you do it over a long period of time, that relationship will deteriorate. So make sure if you've got healthy relationships, you have a healthy life and you have healthy work, um, and productivity and performance. Excellent. All right. It gives it a nice wrap I think for that. Perfect. Wrap up. So Craig, we can people reach out to you. I know you have a whole bunch of things that you offer in courses and a work that you do with [inaudible] CEO isn't so on as a speaker is a drug.
Speaker 3: (47:10)
Can you just give us where they can find you and we can put that in the show notes? So, yeah. Brilliant. So we have WW dot [inaudible] uh, J, the number two, the form.com and that's where we have everything around coaching these details there. On the speaking that I do workshops, I have yet to see your on there. And also a range of videos that I'm doing at the moment. So at the moment I'm doing a daily video [inaudible]. It brings the breaking the CEO code principles and relates them directly to coven 19 and coronavirus. So there's a three to seven minute video coming out every day you can get on social media, YouTube, um, and also on the website and that's around leadership, wellbeing and performance in the business space and for home life in that as well. So there's some great opportunities there. I also have a brand new website, which is still in construction, but [inaudible] you can view it at the moment.
Speaker 3: (48:05)
And that is Craig, John, speaker.com. So Craig, John speaker.com and that just focuses more around speaking that I do an emceeing as well. Sorry. [inaudible] yeah, great. So you can grab me on LinkedIn. Ah, always got stuff happening every day on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and Twitter sort of not so much do stuff there, but my main focus is around LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Fantastic. Craig, thank you so much for your insights, your wisdom, your knowledge today and sharing it in this difficult time. I know that some of these practical w tips and in life tips and help and support, um, well be well received and are going to help people during this crisis. And you know, right now more than anything, I think that the work that you do and what we do as well as is very passionate and very relevant to today's crisis and keeping people safe and healthy, uh, immediately healthy to get through this, this horrible crisis that we're all facing. [inaudible]
Speaker 3: (49:04)
Craig, thank you very much for your time and your energy today and thanks for having me on your show. I really appreciate that. Yeah, we'll be, um, anything else you want to say? We've got Lisa, thank you very much. It's absolute pleasure. A lot of speaking and connecting with you. Bring out some really interesting questions and some great, uh, topics to discuss and really there to help people, you know, it's pushing the boundaries to go, you know, what, let's do things better or even different to what we'd done before because it's so important that we have more people out there being high performing leaders and high performing people who are having are really positive and calming and effective influence on the people around them right now. So thank you very much. Thanks, Craig.
Speaker 1: (49:48)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.