Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
These are some very uncertain times we are living in right now. Races are canceled, schools are closed, restaurants and bars are closed, most people are working from home, and what's next? How bad …
Continue Reading about 11. How to Manage Your Mind During Uncertain Times →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners and other cool people. What do I do? I help you overcome your obstacles in running and in life so you can unleash your inner badass. Today I’m doing something a little bit different because of the situation that’s going on in the world today, the Coronavirus and people are concerned.
And what I wanted to do is record this podcast today to talk to you about how to manage your mind during uncertain times. This, I would say, is definitely an uncertain time for everybody. First, let me tell you really quickly about The Runner’s Edge. This is my mindset, coaching and training program. It’s a comprehensive online coaching and training program designed specifically to help runners like you develop the mindset you need to achieve powerful results in running and life.
When you join The Runner’s Edge, you get weekly mindset training, you get to ask questions, get answers, much like the teaching that I do here on the podcast, but we take a deeper dive into the material, we learn it, we study it, we apply it. The runner’s edge is only $26 per month. It’s less than $1.02 per day. It’s a subscription based program. The longer you stay, the more valuable it becomes for you.
Join The Runner’s Edge, ask your questions, get answers, jump on a hot seat coaching call with me that would be fun. Connect with other like minded runners and learn how to master the mindset of running. So you can unleash your inner badass, go to innefiretribe.com/edge to sign up for Runner’s Edge today.
So onto today’s topic, how to manage your mind during uncertain times. There’s some uncertainty, there’s some very uncertain times happening right now. There is a situation going on out in the world today that’s causing a lot of people to panic and a lot of people to have a lot of fear and anxiety.
You know, this virus thing is causing businesses to close their doors temporarily. It’s causing a lot of race cancellations. People are hoarding toilet paper. I don’t know why. But here’s the thing. There is a situation happening here in the world right now. And then there’s our thinking about that situation. And honestly, people are letting their thoughts just go wild here.
They’re freaking out. They’re going out to this worst case scenario. They’re panicking. People are getting angry, they’re gonna be angry about things being canceled about. There’s no toilet paper or bananas at the grocery store. Why did you guys buy all the bananas? I got bananas today, I’ll tell you that. And I feel good about that. Still don’t have toilet paper.
People are getting disappointed. They’re getting angry because races are being canceled. Training groups are canceled, schools are closed, restaurants are closed, bars are closed, public places are closed, blah, blah, blah. Everything is being turned inside out. Like we don’t know what is going on here. There’s a lot of uncertainty.
And so it’s, you know, what people are saying is all this uncertainty is causing me to have all this fear and all this anxiety inside. You know, people have to stay home alone. You know, they’re spending a lot more time alone. Or they’re spending more time at home working from home with their kids, bugging them all the time, which is probably worse, I don’t know. But anyway, all of this stuff can lead to very unhealthy thinking. You know, remember, it’s our thoughts about the situation, not the situation itself. That is the problem, okay?
And what we’re doing is we’re causing ourselves all kinds of unnecessary suffering, you know, we might have an emotional state that is, you know, in a negative emotional state. And when we start thinking this way, it just sort of amplifies everything. And we start self medicating. Because we don’t want to feel this way. We don’t want to feel the fear. We don’t want to feel the anger, the frustration, so we go to the fridge, we overeat, we drink too much.
You know, or maybe you don’t numb your feelings with food or alcohol. And you experience things like panic attacks, or anxiety, or just depression or strained relationships. You know, stress and anxiety can trigger a fight or flight response in the body and actually release a flood of chemicals like adrenaline into your system, which can cause your immune system to become weak and compromised, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections. Does that sound like something you want to know?
I was talking to a friend earlier today who went through a very highly stressful situation in her life some years ago, and it actually caused her to, she was under so much stress, she put her body into so much stress, that she actually got shingles, you know, and it’s one of those things where that’s a pretty bad reaction to stress and anxiety, you know.
Now’s not the time when we want to compromise our immune systems, you know, we want to be strong, mind and body, okay. But so all this stuff is happening out there. And we start to feel fear, we feel anxiety, we feel panic, we feel frustration, and all those things. And we think this is a normal reaction to what’s happening, like out there. You know, the truth is, though, this is not, it’s not normal. And it’s not healthy, and it’s not necessary.
Like I was saying times like this, they tend to amplify who we already are. So if you’re typically a stressed out person, now, you might be into full blown panic mode. Or maybe you typically manage your feelings by going to the fridge, and now you’re knee deep in edible cookie dough, or Ben and Jerry’s. Or, you know, you can power down and eat a whole large pizza yourself, whatever it looks like for you.
You know, maybe if you’re, if you’re typically a little depressed, now you’re like, in this isolation mode, and this might send you into a deep, dark place, and we don’t want that. Okay. So what we need to do is we need to manage our mind, we need to manage our mind so that we can show up during this time, in a more empowered way. Okay.
So just because things are happening out there doesn’t mean you have to respond, or you have to react to them in a negative way, okay? It doesn’t have to be this way. What’s going on out there doesn’t have to affect you in here, okay? It really doesn’t. You don’t have to react to the news, or to the rumors or their predictions, or you don’t have to worry about what might happen.
Instead of allowing the events around you to determine how you think and feel, you can actually decide for yourself, how you want to show up right here now. Who would you be without these thoughts that are causing you to feel so frustrated? So angry, sad, worried, afraid?
You know, who do you want to be while we’re all dealing with all this uncertainty, because you get to choose how you feel. That is a choice that you make, okay? Remember, every emotion that you feel is caused by a thought, it’s caused by your thoughts and by your thinking. It’s not the situation out there. It’s not the circumstances around you that are causing you to feel the fear and the anxiety. It’s your thoughts about them.
It’s your thoughts about what’s happening out there that is causing you to think these thoughts that is causing you to feel these feelings. All right, whether you like it or not, the truth is you are choosing your feelings. You are choosing to think these thoughts. You choose to feel your emotions, okay, and it’s not a bad thing. I’m gonna talk about that in just a minute here. But I think what a lot of people want is they want some sort of tools, you know, what do I do in this situation?
If I start to feel this way, what do I do? If I start thinking these crazy thoughts, how do I manage my mind? Well, first of all, I want you to take ownership of your thinking, know that your thinking is not determined by what’s happening outside of you, your thinking is 100% determined by you, you choose your thoughts 100% of the time, okay?
Now, take responsibility for your own thoughts and for your own feelings. And we call this being at cause, be the cause of everything that’s happening in your life to you, in your mind, in your body.
Be a cause for all the results that you’re getting in your life, don’t be at the effect of others, don’t be at the don’t live at the effect of the news or the rumors. Okay. So take ownership of your thinking, that’s the first thing you can do, just know that you are going to take radical responsibility for the way you think and feel. That’s a great first step right there. Okay.
The next thing you can do is separate out the facts from your thoughts about the facts. Okay, so what’s really going on out in the world? You know, is this thing that you’re hearing about actually true? You know, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the number of cases that have been reported. And I’ve heard numbers of 10,000, in Ohio and 100,000. And I’m just like, whoa, this is crazy.
I got on the CDC website, and they’re only around 3500 confirmed cases. Now. I’m not saying that it’s not going to go up. I know it’s going to go up. But there are some, there are some facts that are happening right now. And then there are predictions and there are what might happen in the future. And even if the number goes up a lot, I still can’t do anything about that, other than stay home, wash my hands, use hand sanitizer, and don’t get into fights with anybody over toilet paper at the grocery store.
So, you know, what are the facts of the situation? You know. So, for example, you know, our local marathon here, the Flying Pig marathon, which was scheduled for the weekend of May 2, and third has been postponed until October, October 9 through the 11th. That’s a fact. The Flying Pig has been postponed. Our training group has stopped meeting officially, bars and restaurants are closed in the area. Travel has been limited. I’m spending more time alone. Those are all facts.
I could say, you know, everything sucks right now, you know, or you know, I can’t go out to get food anywhere. The training groups are all canceled. This all sucks. Like, no, I’m not doing that. Instead, I’m looking at what the facts are. Okay, I’m separating out the facts from my thoughts about the facts.
Now I have some thoughts about what’s happening. You know, and I know, I take full ownership of what I’m thinking, I’m disappointed. You know, I’m a little I’m, there’s some uncertainty about what’s going to happen going forward here with our training group. And, and that’s okay, like, I don’t have to have all the answers right now. You know, but it’s not causing me undue stress or anxiety. Okay.
So what are the facts about the situation? Just make sure you know, what’s true. And what are the facts? Okay. And then what are your thoughts about the facts? Now we can separate out? What is true, what are facts? You can separate those from your thoughts about it. What are you really thinking? What are the stories that you’re telling yourself about what’s happening? What are the opinions that you have? What are your judgments?
You know, where are you like, going out in the future and thinking about the worst case scenario? You know, are you seeing only the bad things? Or do you have positive thoughts about your circumstances, like, what are your thoughts? Sometimes it’s helpful to just write all that stuff down, just get it all down on a page, and you can actually see, oh, these thoughts here, those are kind of crazy. I should probably check those.
You know, right now I feel pretty good. I feel pretty calm about things. There are things that are happening with this situation that are affecting me. And as they come to my attention, I can respond to them, I can respond to them with clarity and understanding, I’m not reacting to them with fear, frustration and anger. And, you know, craziness.
You know, I’m calm, I have a clear head. And I have a lot of understanding. And I’m being very practical about what I can and can’t do. I can only control my thoughts. I can only control how I show up in the world. I can’t control what other people are doing at all. Honestly, I think I’m going to be fine.
I think most people are going to be fine. I’m not going to entertain a different thought, I’m not going to entertain a thought that everybody I know is going to be, you know, infected or something like that, you know. I’m just not going to go there until that situation changes and warrants a different thought. I’m going to maintain the thought that like, hey, right now I’m fine. Right now everybody I know is fine. And I think most of us are going to be fine. Okay.
And then I think like, okay, when I think these thoughts, how does that make me feel? It’s important to notice what thoughts are causing your feelings because all of your thoughts cause your feelings. Okay, the situation out there isn’t causing you to feel fearful. The situation out there isn’t causing you to feel frustrated. Situation up there is not causing you to feel sad.
You choose those feelings too. What is it that you’re feeling? What is the name of that emotion? Because sometimes it’s hard to determine, like, what is it that I’m really feeling here? Is that sadness? Is it fear, anger, hurt? Guilt, loneliness, frustration? Are you just pissed off? Are you frustrated with the lack of toilet paper in the world today? What is the feeling that you’re feeling?
And then here’s the part that seems counterintuitive. Don’t try to make that emotion go away. Don’t try to suppress that feeling. Feel your feelings. It’s okay. Feel it, allow it. Let it be. Don’t fight against it. We suffer when we resist our emotions. Resisting our feelings is what leads to most or all of our suffering. It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to feel sad. I’m frustrated.
You know, it’s okay to be pissed off because your race got canceled. I’m pissed off because, you know, our race got canceled. I was really looking forward to this. You know, it’s okay to feel like you’re going crazy trying to work from home with kids asking you a million questions and bugging you every 14 seconds. You can feel frustrated, it’s okay. Just don’t allow those feelings to consume you. Okay?
Don’t get lost in your feelings. Remember that you are in control. Always you are choosing these feelings. And it’s okay, you can have them, it’s okay. You know, you don’t have to allow them to dictate, you know, your behavior, you don’t have to allow your feelings to overwhelm you so that you can’t take action.
A lot of times we feel stuck. And so we just feel like we can’t do anything. And a lot of people that have depression that will feel like doesn’t, you know, whatever they do doesn’t matter. And so they just stay in bed, you know, they stay on the couch, whatever.
That’s when your feelings kind of can consume you. And they get to the point where it becomes unhealthy. But don’t don’t get lost in your feelings, it’s okay to feel your feelings. It’s when we try to push them away, that we start to see issues. And one of the ways we push them away is by numbing. And we do that with food and alcohol and drugs, or shopping, whatever.
But if you’re not showing up as the person that you want to be because of how you feel, that might be something you want to look at. Because that might mean that you’re not allowing those feelings to be just allow them to be and then look at how you’re showing up, how are you showing up in this world today? You know, what are you doing or not doing because of how you feel?
You know, what actions can you take despite how you feel, you know. Things get bad for us when we feel like there’s nothing we can do about our situation. And here’s the truth, there’s always something you can do about your situation. And the first and foremost thing and one of the most important things you can do is to manage your thoughts about your situation. Okay?
So some actions, you might take some actions, we can all take, I think, to stay more positive, more, more focused, more present moment, more thoughtful. First of all, stop watching the news. Because you know what, this steady stream of like, fear mongering, which a lot of the news is, it just goes, it goes right to our subconscious minds, you know, and it creates all kinds of innate fear and panic and anger in us.
So instead, I would encourage you to consume something positive every day, read a personal growth book, listen to an awesome podcast, like this one you’re listening to right now, watch some good, you know, YouTube videos, some TED talks, some good speakers, read some blogs, soak up good stuff, from high vibe people, you know.
Something else you can do is connect one on one with people I know, there’s a lot of isolation going on right now. We can still connect with each other. You know, I feel like I’m connecting with you here, through this microphone through this video camera, through this social media platform, whatever it is, but you know, get together with people, it’s okay, you know, stay six feet apart.
Or connect with people over the phone, you know, let’s get back on the phone and talk to people. Jump on a video conference like this. I’ve been doing this lately with some people. I talked to a guy today, who lives in Zurich, Switzerland, and we just did a Zoom call. And it was awesome. Had a fun little chat. And they’re dealing with the exact same stuff we are here. It’s no different. Okay?
Everybody’s dealing with this right now. All right. But take the time to like work on yourself right now. You know, who do you want to be today? Who do you want to be right here? Now as we’re going through this, as we’re all going through this together? How do you want to? How do you want to remember this time? How do you want to remember how you showed up?
How do you want to remember yourself in this experience? Do you want to remember it as being like, sad and lonely and frustrated? And you know, crying all the time? Or do you want to remember it is like that was an amazing thing that I did there? Like I transformed myself? Like, what can you learn? How can you grow? What lessons are here for you?
Right now, I would encourage you to get outside, take a walk, go for a run, keep running, run with a friend with a small group of friends less than 10. And you don’t have to react with fear. Okay? No matter what is happening out there, you don’t have to react with fear instead, respond with conscious thinking, on purpose, purposeful, conscious thinking.
The bottom line here, yes, these are uncertain times. Okay, we’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. But you know what, we will get through this, you will get through this. And you get to choose who you want to be while you’re getting through this. So who do you want to be? How do you want to show up for yourself? How do you want to show up for your kids? How do you want to show up for your friends and for your family? How do you want to remember this time? How do you want to remember the plague of 2020?
And I’m not making light of this. Okay, not at all. I do think I’m kind of funny though. All right, my friends. I would love to hear what you think about this, drop a comment. And if you liked what you heard here today, I would love it if you share it with a friend. Also, it would be incredibly awesome if you’d leave a review on iTunes. I truly value your feedback because it helps make me, it helps make the show better. Reach out with questions or comments. Always hello@innerfiretribe.com And I hope you all have an amazing day, much love to each and every one of you.
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.
The most powerful thing in the entire known universe is the human mind. So how do we use it? Most people use their minds to create stress, anxiety, and depression for themselves. They don’t use their …
Continue Reading about 10. The Incredible Power of Your Mind →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners and other cool people. And what I do is I help you overcome your obstacles, both in running and in life, so you can unleash your inner badass. I like the way that sounds.
And I think you should join my monthly coaching and training program called the Runner’s Edge. It is a comprehensive online training program, designed specifically to help you develop the mindset that you need to to be able to achieve powerful results. When you join the Runner’s Edge, you’re gonna get weekly mindset training.
So each week, you’re gonna get a new training, where you could ask questions and get answers, much like the teaching that I do on the podcast, but we take a deeper dive into the material, we learn it, and you’ll learn how to apply it. And you get to ask questions. That’s the big thing. You get online coaching.
So most group coaching programs only share generic one size fits all content. And I want to help you with your individual issues. So you get a chance to ask your own questions and get them answered. And occasionally, you can get on a hot seat coaching call with me for some powerful one on one coaching.
You also get the supportive Facebook community of other runners just like you, it’s fun, supportive, safe, you can ask questions, you get to learn about how to build mental toughness, overcome failure, gain confidence, and so much more. And then everything we do in there is archived onto a Members Only website where you can go back and watch all the trainings. And I also have courses and things that are available there that you can’t find anywhere else.
I’ve got an awesome goal setting course out there right now. The best part about joining the Runner’s Edge is that it will not break your wallet. You get all this mindset training, you get the ever growing Video Course Library, you get live online coaching and a supportive community of runners all for only $26.2 per month. That’s less than $1 per day people.
It’s a subscription based program. And the longer you stay, the more valuable it becomes for you. Because I’m always gonna be adding new training, new videos, new coaching sessions, so you get to continue learning. As you go, there’s no contract, no commitment, you can cancel anytime.
So join the Runner’s Edge, ask your questions, get answers, jump on a hot seat coaching call with me, connect with other like minded runners and learn how to master the mindset of running so you can unleash that inner badass that I know is inside you. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/edge to sign up. All right, cool.
Onto today’s topic. Today, I want to talk about the incredible power of your mind. Here’s what I believe. I believe that the most powerful thing in the universe is the human mind. There is nothing that we know of in the universe that’s more powerful than our brains. Our brains can create something from nothing.
We can conjure up ideas and then make them happen. Our minds are amazing, our minds can make beautiful art just for the sake of having something beautiful to see, hear or feel. And our minds create feelings. They create emotions, deep, meaningful, powerful emotions that drive us to do all kinds of amazing things. Our minds are incredibly fast learners, and we get faster all the time.
Look at how far we’ve come in the last 100 years. So our brains have like evolved and they’re evolving even faster. Our minds are self aware. We can contemplate our own existence. We don’t know of anything else in the universe that does that. There’s nothing in the known universe that we know of that comes close to the power of your mind. It’s an amazing, amazing tool that we have.
And I was thinking about this because my son Colin and I were at the National Museum of the US Air Force last weekend. And we were checking out the SR 71 spy plane. Now this spy plane was the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever built at that time, they built it in the 1960s. And at the time, they did not have computers. So they used slide rules as their computer to build this amazing, amazing machine.
But we got to talk to pilots, engineers and the maintenance crew of the SR 71. The complexity of this machine is staggering. And the fact that human minds created all of that just blows me away, we’re standing there, you know, and looking into the cockpit of this thing and looking at the sophistication of the tools and all the gauges and everything in there.
And then looking at the complexity of like, the jet engines that make this thing go, like 2700 miles an hour or faster, the thing flies at like, over 80,000 feet is crazy. And it would take pictures at that high altitude, it would take pictures that you could tell the difference between a man and a woman between like a Ford and a Chevy. It’s crazy.
And all that just because all that was somebody’s idea in their mind at one point. They just had this idea, let’s build this thing. And then we, as humans, went and did that. It just, it blows me away. So I was just thinking like, oh, my gosh, our minds are so so powerful. So I hope you’re on board with this idea that your mind is the most powerful thing in the universe, then the question becomes, how are you using it? How are you using that mind of yours?
So most people use their mind to create all kinds of stress and anxiety and depression for themselves. Most people live their life in this place of dissatisfaction of, you know, this feeling of lack or unhappy with themselves. And most people don’t know how to change that. They don’t use their minds to create positive thoughts and positive emotions and positive outcomes. They constantly worry that things aren’t as they should be, you know, if I were only thinner. If only my husband would treat me better. If only I made more money, then I would be happy.
But then what happens? They get thinner, their husbands treat them better. Or they leave that relationship thinking there’s someone, quote unquote, better out there. Or they make more money. But then they’re still stuck in misery. They’re still full of fear and anxiety and worry, and depression. Because you know what, wherever you go, there you are.
But the truth is that you can be who you want to be today, right here, right? Now you can be happy. You can have abundance, you can feel good about yourself, you can have all the confidence that you need, all the motivation that you want, simply by tapping into the power, the incredible power of your mind.
But here’s what we do, we create all kinds of stress for ourselves with our minds, you know, we use our imaginations to create future worst case scenarios that cause us, like so much anxiety, some people have panic attacks, because they’re thinking about something that may happen in the future.
And it causes a physiological response in their body. And that response is just to the thoughts in their head, the thoughts that they are thinking. Think about the implications of this for a moment. You know, how much money do we spend every year on anti anxiety medication or antidepressants like, so I looked it up. It’s something like $17 billion globally. And in the US, there’s something like 42 million people on antidepressants, 42 million people, that’s like 13% of our population is taking medication, because of stress and anxiety that they bring on themselves.
Okay, now, I fully understand that, you know, depression and anxiety, some of these things are diagnosed conditions, and some people do need to be on medication, I totally get that. But the vast majority of people, I would, I would guess, are on those medications, simply because they can’t change their thinking.
Not crazy. But what if you could use your thoughts? What if you could use your imagination to create inner peace? Joy, love, happiness and abundance in your life. How do you think that would change how you experience the world and your daily life? I think it would be pretty amazing.
Unfortunately, most people are living, you know, in the past, they’re living their past over and over and over again. So the way most people live their life, as they get up in the morning, they brush their teeth the same way, they eat the same breakfast, they drink the same coffee, drive the same way to work at the same job, do the same stuff day after day after day, they come home, eat the same dinner, go to bed at the same time, then do it all over again tomorrow.
And while they’re doing all of that pre-programmed stuff, they keep thinking the same thoughts over and over again, the same thoughts, they’ve been thinking for decades, they feel the same feelings they felt. And they respond to situations in the same way. They’ve been programming their minds for years and years, and reinforcing those programs every day, day after day.
And then they wonder why they aren’t happy, they don’t feel fulfilled, their life isn’t changing, nothing’s getting better. It’s like choosing to live the movie Groundhog Day, every day of your life. You’re thinking the same thoughts, you’ve always thought you’re feeling the same feelings, you’re doing all the same things, you’re living your familiar past, over and over and over again.
And we all do this to some extent, okay? No one is immune to this. And I’ll tell you why here, there’s something going on in your brain. And I’m going to get a little nerdy and talk about some neurons and neural pathways and stuff like that here. But it’s, it’s cool when you know this, okay, maybe you already know this. And that’s awesome.
But here’s what’s happening inside your brain, okay? Our brains are really, really good at creating habits, creating routines, our brains are very, very powerful. They actually use very, very little energy. So our brains do everything they do. You know, all the processing that our brains do, they only use about .07 volts of electricity.
Just to put that into context, a one AA battery is 20 times more powerful from an electrical standpoint than our brains. Okay, because our brains use so little energy, they’ve evolved to be incredibly efficient. So whenever you learn something new, your brain has to use a lot of energy to learn that new thing.
So let’s say when you’re first learning to tie your shoes, as a little kid, you know, that’s very, it’s a, it’s a hard thing to learn how to do, you know, it takes time, it takes energy, it takes a lot of mental energy to do that. Or when you learn how to drive a car, right, you got to learn, you got to remember 27 different things when you’re learning how to drive a car.
But over time, your brain gets better and better at that new task. And then it gets to a point where you can do it so well, you can do it almost unconsciously. Your subconscious mind is actually, you know, kind of running the show at that point.
So like, do you have to think about tying your shoes now? No, you just do it. You probably can’t even explain to somebody how to do it. Because it’s such a subconscious thing for you now, or driving a car. You know, do you ever like find yourself driving? And then you like, totally zone out? You’re like, Whoa, I don’t even remember the last 10 minutes? How did I get here?
That’s because your brain is on autopilot, okay. Your subconscious is kind of running the show, you don’t have to consciously think about driving a car anymore, or tying your shoes. And what’s happening in your brain is this, your brain uses neurons to communicate signals to different parts of your body. So to tie your shoes, there’s a bunch of neurons that all have to fire in a certain sequence, right.
And they tell your hands to grab a lace in this hand, grab a license and pull them tight, the right goes over the left, blah, blah, blah. The same for driving, there’s a bunch of complicated steps that your brain has to do in order to, quote unquote, what we call drive a car.
Now, we can just like get in and drive because most of the stuff we’re doing is subconscious. Okay, all these little steps, all these neurons have to fire in sequence or whatever they require firing precisely at the right time in a certain sequence every single time you want to drive a car, right? Well, your brain wants to be as efficient as possible.
So what it does is it strings all of those neurons together. It puts them all together and creates something called a neural pathway. So neural pathways are like superhighways made up of neurons in your brain that all work together to accomplish a task, subconsciously, we have something like 100 billion neurons in our brains, as in a staggering number.
But those 100 billion neurons can connect in so many different ways that can create over 100 trillion neural connections in our brains. This is like, blows my mind, literally. It’s like mind blowing 100 trillion neural connections can be happening in our brains. Anyway, so our brains are really good about taking these pathway, taking these connections and creating pathways. So these are like, well worn ski slopes, things move very quickly down these neural pathways.
Again, the brain wants to be as efficient as possible. So it uses the path of least resistance. So neural pathways are where a lot of our habits occur. And these can be good habits or bad habits. But if you think the same thoughts or react the same way over and over again, you create very efficient neural pathways in your brain for those thoughts and feelings.
Okay, so every time your husband leaves his clothes on the floor, you react by internalizing it, you get a little angry, maybe a little resentful about it, you might choose to believe that it means he doesn’t care about you. Okay? That may happen a couple of times, but then it keeps happening over and over again, your brain will start to react more and more efficiently.
And then you’ll start to see more evidence that he doesn’t care about you and everything he does. And again, your brain will race down those net neural pathways from seeing the clothes on the floor to feeling angry, immediately. It just happens without you even thinking about it. It’s instantaneous. You know what I’m talking about? You’ve felt this way before, maybe not this exact situation. But we’ve all reacted in what we think is an instant reaction to something somebody’s doing, okay.
So, this is a problem, though, because this is where the efficiency of your brain can start to become a problem. Because it’s reacting so fast to situations in your life. Those thoughts come so fast, you create the feeling so fast, you can’t stop it, right? You’ve gotten so good at creating the habit of feeling angry, or maybe it’s unloved for you, or you feel hurt or, or depressed, whatever emotional state you’re in, you know, you created that state.
And it can become a habit. And it’s this habit that you’ve created. And you think, well, that’s just the way it is. You know, for example of the person who gets mad when her husband leaves the clothes on the floor, it almost seems as though the clothes on the floor are causing you to feel angry. But you know, that’s not true. It’s not the clothes on the floor. The clothes on the floor aren’t beaming magical anger beams into you, okay?
It’s your thoughts about the clothes on the floor. It’s the story you’ve been telling yourself for years about what the clothes on the floor means. That’s the real cause of your emotional state. And it’s not true. It’s just a story you’ve been telling yourself over and over and over again, so many times that your brain has created new, very efficient superhighways of neural pathways to make sure you feel those feelings very quickly and very strongly. Okay.
So this is what’s going on in our brains. And we all do this, our brains are very efficient, and it’s okay. You know, it’s not a bad thing, okay. But sometimes, we keep thinking the we keep living in our past and we keep thinking these same negative thoughts over and over and over again, and we don’t know what to do to get out of them. And your life basically becomes a series of habits that you have created.
Every thought that you think every emotion you feel, you know, all habits that you’ve been working on your whole life. So I think this is good news, because it means that if you’ve created these habits, that means you can create new habits right, you can break the old habits and create new habits you can start using better thoughts, you can start taking control of your feelings.
And you can start managing your mind to begin working for you instead of against you. You know, for me, I’m no longer operating on autopilot. I’m flying this plane now. And it’s an incredibly powerful way to live your life, honestly. But here’s the thing, changing your mental habits, like creating new neural pathways, takes a little bit of work, and most people won’t do it.
And it hasn’t been that long that we have figured out that we can actually create new neural pathways for a long time. I think people thought that the brain was static, and that you couldn’t really change the brain very much. But new studies have come out in the last couple of decades, really.
And they’ve seen that they’ve dubbed this thing, neural plasticity, neuroplasticity. And why do I have a problem saying that word? Anyway, it’s the fact that your brain is, you know, has plasticity and it can change and grow and create new thoughts and new pathways and new connections, like you can change your brain, you can do it, and you do it by thinking new thoughts and feeling new feelings. But here’s the thing, it takes a little bit of work to do this, and most people just won’t do it. They won’t do it.
Think about all those well worn ski slopes of habits in your brain, all those neural pathways that are so smooth and super fast, they’re so fast and efficient, your brain just keeps choosing those same things over and over and over again. And to create a new neural pathway means like, it’s like hacking a new trail through a dense jungle, you’ve got to hack away at that for some time, and it’s uncomfortable. Your brain doesn’t like uncomfortable. We don’t like being uncomfortable. And it takes a little bit of time.
So what happens is, most people start working on new thoughts, you know, maybe they start living their life in a new way. And it gets hard. And it doesn’t feel good, and it’s uncomfortable. And so they quit. It’s like that person who wants to lose weight. So they join a gym, and then they say, I’m gonna go to the gym and workout every single day, I’m gonna lose so much weight, and they go a couple of times, and then it’s hard.
And they feel terrible because everything hurts and it’s hard work. And then they’ll just say screw up one day and go back to living their very comfortable, but very unhappy and very unfulfilling life. And just a little sidebar, by the way, exercise has been proven to be not a very effective way to lose weight. It’s not very effective weight loss.
Honestly, it’s great for a lot of things. Exercise is extremely important for our heart health, for our happiness levels, for you know, relieving stress, and everyone should exercise. But when it comes to losing weight, it’s not that effective. I know a lot of runners who struggle to lose weight, even though they’re always training for something, they’re always training for a marathon or something like that. And they always say that they’re struggling with their weight.
There’s a much better way to lose weight based on changing the way you think and feel about food. And I’m actually going to be sharing more about that in upcoming episodes. So stay tuned for that. That’d be cool. Anyway though,little sidebar, we’re talking about creating a habit here, okay, and creating new habits and how uncomfortable it is, you know, it takes getting through that uncomfortable period, maybe being very uncomfortable for a while if you’re want to create some new neural pathways, okay, but you can do it, I know you can do it.
You just have to embrace that uncomfortable. You know, and Ironman, they say embrace the suck, because you know what, at some point that race is going to suck, you got to embrace that. Because what’s on the other side of that is amazing. You just know that it’s gonna suck for a while before it gets better and it will get better. So how do you do this?
Well, you’ve got to practice new thoughts, okay, it takes a while for those new neural pathways to emerge. So you got to practice thinking the thoughts that you want to think so what thoughts should you be thinking well, what thoughts will create the emotional state you want to be in? You know, how can you change your thinking, to create better feelings?
You know, if our thoughts create our emotions, what emotions do you want to feel and what thoughts might help you to create that emotional state that you want? That positive, resourceful, emotional state? You know, write down those thoughts right? Write down those things that you want to believe about yourself about others. And then read that read that a few times a day. This is how you start to train your mind, okay? And then visualize the person that you want to be, who do you want to be, you know, maybe hold that vision in your mind for 10 minutes a day, in like a meditation.
You know, this is one of the most powerful things I do with my coaching clients, I help them figure out who they want to be. And then we start creating mental habits that get them there. And it’s not just about sitting and visualizing, we’re talking about things like I use NLP, neuro linguistic programming techniques to show them how to actually reprogram their subconscious mind to release those old habits.
And you can release some of these old things like, instantaneously, it’s awesome. And then what we do is we install new programs that help them become the person they want to be. Okay. And if you want to take a really deep dive down the rabbit hole on this topic, this topic of like, neurons and neural pathways and neuroplasticity, Dr. Joe Dispenza, has an amazing book called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. He gets deep into the science behind all this, and I’m really into this kind of thing. And if you’re into it, it’d be a great book for you to check out. It is very dense and really, really awesome. It’s like, life changing stuff here.
But you can do this, you can change your habits, you don’t have to keep living your emotional past, you can start creating a future from a new state of mind. You know, you can, your mind is the most amazing, most powerful thing in the universe. Start harnessing that power to get better results in your life. Cool.
One quick note, before I wrap up here. I started this podcast with the intention of interviewing runners because I wanted to talk to them about how they’ve used the power of mindset to help them accomplish amazing things. And my intention was to do mostly interviews, and then the occasional teaching episode like I’m doing today.
Well, I’ve received so much positive feedback on these teaching episodes that I’ve decided to flip things around. So I’m going to do mostly teaching episodes like this, with the occasional interviews sprinkled in here or there. Is that cool with you? Drop me a message and let me know if this works for you.
And while you’re at it, I would love it if you would leave a review on iTunes. Let me know what you think of the show. Just go down there, go to the podcast app on your iPhone or whatever, scroll down and just hit those stars. However many you feel is appropriate, five’s a good number, whatever, but whatever. And then write a little review and tell me what you think of the show because it does help me to make things better.
If you have comments or questions you can always reach out to me at hello@innerfiretribe.com. I’d love to hear what you think of this topic or anything really. And honestly, I hope you all have an amazing day. Much love to each and every one of you.
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.
Are you blaming someone or something else for the way you think, feel, or act? Or are you taking responsibility for all of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions? Today on the podcast, I break it …
Continue Reading about 9. What Happens When You Take Radical Responsibility →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners and other cool people. I help you overcome your obstacles in running and life, so you can unleash your inner badass.
And I’m really excited about an upcoming event I’m doing here. It all starts Monday, March 9, it’s a three day challenge called how to solve any problem. And the good thing about this is that it is totally free. That is correct, you will learn how to solve literally any problem that’s on your mind. Big or small, earth shattering, or maybe it’s just something that’s annoying, it might be something from your past that keeps coming up, it might be something that’s just bugging the crap out of you right now, whatever it is, show up on day one with your problem. By the end of day three, your problem will be solved. That’s right, it’s that simple.
And what you will learn here is going to stay with you. So you’ll have the tools and systems in place, you’ll be able to solve any problem that comes your way now. And in the future. You do not have to keep struggling with the same old problems, you can end the anxiety and start feeling excited about things in your life again. So whatever it is that you are struggling with, there is a solution. And I’ll show you how to do it.
This is going to be fun, I’m very excited about this, this is the best training I have ever put together. And I’m super excited to share it with you guys. So it all starts on Monday, March 9, I’ll be holding the class in a private Facebook group, you have to sign up to get in, just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to save your spot.
You’re gonna get live coaching and training with me, your master life and success coach, you’ll get to ask me anything. There’s probably something on your mind right now where you’re like, Patrick, I’d really love help with this, well bring it to the table, and I’ll help you. You can also access all the live trainings after the fact.
So you don’t have to actually be on the lives at the time that I do them live. You can watch them later, whenever it works for your schedule. And I got a special bonus for you guys. If you just show up. If you do the work for those three days, which is, it’s not a lot of work, okay. It’s not like training for you know, 50 miler or something like that.
All you got to do is do a little bit of work. Do your homework for those three days, and you’re going to get a free coaching session with me. I know it’s awesome. And I’m calling this a challenge, mostly because most people will not do it. Most people will not take action. Most people have a problem in their life. Most people want something to change in their life, but they’re not willing to actually take any action to do anything about it.
But I know you’re different. You want to make change happen, you’re willing to do the hard work and show up. All you have to do is show up and do the work. Do it for you. Because you deserve this. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have more confidence, more inner peace, you deserve to feel good about yourself. Learn how to solve any problem and you can have all of that just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge and sign up now it’s going to be super, super fun.
Okay, on to today’s topic, which is what happens when you take radical responsibility. This is, I love talking about this topic, because this is one of those concepts that has radically changed my life. I used to blame others for everything that was happening to me. And I don’t do that anymore. I take responsibility for every result that I get in my life. And you know what? My life is way better now.
So let’s talk about the difference first of all between blame and responsibility because when I talk about taking radical responsibility, you’ve got to stop blaming other people and other situations for the way you’re thinking, feeling and the things you’re doing.
Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about blame. First, what is blame? What does it mean when we blame someone? So the definition of blame is to assign the responsibility for something bad. And it doesn’t have to be bad, but this is what the definition says. You assign the responsibility for something bad to someone or something. So when you blame you assign responsibility to someone else or something else, you push that responsibility outside of yourself and you assign it to someone else. Okay?
Blaming is when you look outside yourself, usually to other people, as the cause of all of your thoughts, or your feelings or your actions. So you blame others for how you think and feel and for what you do. That’s like saying, Yeah, I threw that plate against the wall, because you yelled at me. Okay, that is blaming someone for your actions, just kind of crazy.
But when we blame, what happens is that we give all of our power away to the other person. You know, if I say, you know, I threw that plate against the wall, because you yelled at me. I’m giving the power, I’m giving all of my power to that other person, I’m saying, you know, like, you have control over me. So when you blame, it’s very disempowering.
When you blame others, there’s nothing that you can do about it, you’re like a helpless victim, you become like a pawn on someone else’s chessboard, someone else’s driving the bus. When you blame others, it means you’re living at the effect of what everyone else is doing. You know, you’re perceiving everything is like happening to you.
And people that blame, they have lots and lots of excuses, they have excuses for everything, why? They don’t have what they want. They have lots and lots of excuses. So that’s all blaming is, you know, pushing the responsibility off of you and onto someone or something else. Now, the flip side of that is taking responsibility.
What does responsibility mean? So the definition of responsibility says the opportunity or ability to act independently, and make decisions without authorizations. I love this definition. You act independently, you make decisions without authorization. So you act on your own, you have agency, over your own decisions over your own existence over everything that is happening in your life.
When you take responsibility, you accept that you are the cause of all of your thoughts, and all of your feelings and all of your actions because you are, no one can cause you to feel sad, or feel hurt or feel angry. You actually choose to feel those feelings. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it doesn’t seem that way. But it is true. But here’s the thing that’s cool about this is that it’s very empowering.
When you are the cause of how you’re acting and what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling. When you take radical responsibility for everything that’s happening in your life. It’s empowering. Because you know what? There’s something you can do about it. You’ve no longer given the control away to somebody else, you have taken back the wheel of the bus, okay, you’re back to driving the bus again.
And when you live with radical responsibility, you’re the cause for everything in your life, good and bad. Okay, which is good news. This is actually very good news. You’re responsible for all of your good results and all of your bad results too. But that means that you get to do something about it.
You can make changes to that, you’re not a victim, okay? You’re not, you know, just being you know, told by somebody else what to do or act or think. Okay, so people who take radical responsibility, they get awesome results in their life. Okay, so how do you know when you’re blaming someone else you might just think oh, you know, I’m just thinking this way.
Just because or I feel this way just because well, usually, you know, you’re blaming somebody else because when you feel that feeling inside there’s like the it feels kind of icky. It feels terrible inside you. There’s like this internal conflict inside. Do you feel helpless and disempowered? Blaming others feels very disempowering, you can feel it.
So let’s say you think something like, oh, my husband leaves his clothes all over the floor, and it drives me nuts. He makes me so angry. You, when you say that you start to, you start to feel that little disempowered like achiness inside you, you know, you feel that turmoil inside you, that’s like he’s doing this. And I’m, it’s making me angry.
I got news for you. Nobody can make you feel anger, you are choosing to feel that way. But what happens is you put your husband’s actions, you’re making his actions, be in control of your emotional state. That’s just crazy. Because we know, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know that your thinking causes your feelings, your thinking causes your emotions.
And the fact that he leaves his clothes on the floor, it does not cause you to feel angry, what causes you to feel angry, is what you’re thinking about him leaving his clothes on his on the floor, the clothes on the floor, this is just a neutral situation is just a pile of clothes on the floor over there, okay? There’s no magic power in the clothes. It’s not beaming anger into your heart, okay?
You have a story that you’re telling yourself about what your husband should or shouldn’t do with his clothes. And reality does not match your story. The reality is the clothes are on the floor, you don’t think it should be that way. So you are in conflict. Okay, so your husband’s clothes on the floor or him doing this thing is not causing you to feel the feeling you’re choosing that emotion based on the story you’re telling yourself.
Or maybe you are blaming the weather for your last race performance. So you didn’t do so well in your last race because it was a little too warm, or maybe it was too cold or raining or whatever. And so because of the weather, you had all this self doubt, or at least that’s what you’re saying to yourself, oh, you know, I always bonk in my marathon when it’s over 70 degrees. Or, you know, I hate running in the cold. I always do terrible when it’s cold out.
So you have an internal story about what the weather means about how you perform, okay. And this is kind of crazy, because now granted, if it’s like 90 degrees out, you are probably going to run a little bit slower in a marathon. Okay, that’s just science, okay. But to say like, oh, I won’t be able to finish or something like that, like you can, you know, adjust your training to account for slight changes in the weather.
But I have a feeling inside like, I can’t do well because it’s 70 degrees, or it’s 30 degrees, whatever it is, is kind of crazy. You’re putting your power, the power that you have to run this race in the hands of the weather gods, you know, and just FYI, I don’t like running in the cold. Okay, but I ran my marathon PR in November a few years back, but it was in November, and there was an ice storm during my marathon. It was cold.
And then I don’t know about mile 16-17 it started raining and then it turned into ice and like the last five miles of my marathon was this crazy ice storm. I still kicked ass, I felt damn good about myself. Despite the weather. I chose not to believe this thought that the cold weather would affect me negatively.
So when you take radical responsibility, you are the cause of all of your results. Only you are responsible for the way you think the way you feel and the way you act. No one or nothing outside of you can cause you to think, feel or act in a certain way. Your husband can’t do it. Your kids can’t cause you to think or feel stuff. Your training partners, your coaches can’t do it.
The weather has no effect on your thinking, your actions or your feelings, okay? And taking radical responsibility means that you know if it is 90 degrees and you ran a little bit slower than you train and you plan for that next time, that’s what tight taking radical responsibility means in that situation. Okay?
So one of the things you can do to see if you are blaming or if you’re more in the radical responsibility end of the spectrum here, which I’m hoping you are, is to start asking yourself better questions. Tony Robbins says quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions. And as a result, they get better answers. Love Tony Robbins.
So blaming people ask terrible questions, blaming people ask questions like, why does this always happen to me? Have you ever found yourself asking yourself something like this? Or how come everybody else can do this, but not me? Or how come I can never get it? Why isn’t life fair? These are the kinds of questions that blaming people, people who are living in effect of everyone and everything around them, they ask questions like that.
People who take radical responsibility for everything in their life. They ask questions like, How can I get this done? Like what do I need to do to change? What do I need to change in this situation in order to get better results? You know, what internal resources can I tap into? To make this better? How can I figure this out? What can I do better next time? What do I need to learn to make this happen for me now?
Those kinds of questions are empowering. Those kinds of questions will help you to take radical responsibility for everything that’s happening in your life. So what happens when you take radical responsibility for everything, you take back your control, you know, you, you regain agency over your own results, you take back your power, okay, you are empowered. You control your thinking. And if you want to, you can change it.
You control your emotions, you get to choose your feelings, somebody isn’t bestowing them upon you, okay? You control what you do, you control the actions that you take. And if you want to, you can always do something different, you can always take different actions. The best part though, is you control your results. Your results are not determined by others, you are in charge, you get to be the your results are determined by you alone, okay? And you have no excuses, all the excuses are gone. Okay? That’s the good and the bad news.
So, think about this, you don’t need anyone else to change anything. They don’t need to change what they’re doing at all. You have the power within you right now. To get whatever you want in your life, stop living at the effect of what others are doing or saying or poor, or thinking, stop blaming others, start taking radical responsibility, and you’re going to see some amazing changes happening in your life. Cool. That’s all I got for you today.
Remember to sign up for the three day challenge on how to solve any problem and running and in life. It all starts Monday, March 9. It’s a challenge because most people will not take action. That’s not you, though. People who take action get results. And I’m putting this out there because I want to challenge you, my runners. My people who love challenges show up and do this work for yourself. Bring your problem to the table on day one, have it solved by day three. There’s nothing to lose. It’s totally free.
The worst thing that could happen is that you learn some new tools and you could handle problems way better than you ever did in the past. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to sign up now. And always, you can reach out with questions or comments at hello@innerfiretribe.com. I would love to hear from you. I’d love to hear what your biggest takeaway was from today. And I hope you all have an amazing day. Much love to each and every one of you
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.
Most of our problems are created because we're trying to change something about our past. We cause ourselves so much unnecessary stress and anxiety because we are constantly ruminating about past …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners, I help you get better results from your running and from your life in general. And I’m really excited about an upcoming event I’m doing. It’s a three day challenge called How To Solve Any Problem.
And it’s totally free, you’re going to learn how to solve literally any problem that’s on your mind, big or small, earth shattering or just annoying. It might be something from your past that keeps coming up or something that’s just bugging the crap out of you right now. It couldn’t be running related or not.
Here’s the thing, you don’t have to keep struggling with those same old problems, you can end the anxiety and start feeling excited about things in your life. Again, whatever it is that you’re struggling with, just know that there is a solution. And I’ll show you exactly how to do it. This is going to be a fun, interactive challenge. And it all starts on Monday, March 9 2020.
I’ll be holding class in a private Facebook group, but you have to sign up in order to get in. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to save your spot. You’re gonna get live coaching and training with me, your master life and success coach. And you can ask me anything I know, there’s probably something on your mind right now that you want help with. And you’re like, I would love to ask Patrick this question.
Well, guess what? You can do it, I’d be happy to help you with that. You can also access the live trainings after the fact. So you don’t have to actually be in the live group and listen to the live trainings, you can go back and listen to them afterwards. But the most benefit you’re gonna get out of it is if you participate in the live trainings, okay.
And I’m calling this a challenge, because here’s the fact most people do not take action. Most people want something to change in their life, but they’re not willing to do anything different. Think about that. It’s crazy. So my challenge for you is to show up and do the work. Do it for yourself. Because you know what, you deserve this.
You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have more confidence, you deserve to have inner peace. You deserve to feel good about yourself for a change. So when you learn how to solve any problem that you may be experiencing now or in the future, you get to have all of that. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to sign up. I can’t wait to see you there. It’s gonna be so much fun.
All right, cool. Onto today’s topic, how to change your past. Now that title, I hope it grabbed your attention. Because we’re going to get into this today. One of the biggest ways that I see people get stuck and feel like they’re stuck is they ruminate about the past. They keep thinking about past events over and over and over again. Things that they did, things that they wish they had done, things they wish they had done differently. These could be past experiences, past events, it could be past heartaches, it could be people who have hurt us in the past, how we’ve hurt others failures, we’ve made mistakes we’ve made. The list goes on and on and on.
And we think about these events, and we replay them over and over and over and over again. And if this is you, if this sounds like you, welcome to the human race. We all do this. It’s very, very common. It’s part of the human experience. You know, we’ve evolved to learn from our mistakes, you know, we’ve evolved to learn that if we touch fire, it will burn us or stay away from that one animal because it will eat you or Hey, Jim, don’t eat those berries. You know, like we learn from the past and it’s good that we’ve evolved to learn from the past.
And you know, learning from the past and keeping those memories in our subconscious minds. It serves a purpose: it has helped us to survive as a species. So that’s all good. The problem, though, is that today, it’s really not necessary to keep ruminating about every past event that has ever happened to us in order to survive. We still do it though.
And here’s a few things that happen to us when we keep ruminating on the past. And we keep stewing about past events. Subconsciously, we’re reliving that event over and over and over again in our imagination. And here’s something interesting about the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real, and what’s imagined. So when we really relive a past event in our imagination, our subconscious mind is like, oh, yeah, hey, here we are, again, let’s get the body all stressed out, let’s, let’s feel those feelings again, let’s feel the guilt and the sadness and that frustration.
And what happens is, we feel all those old feelings again, we feel the old guilt, or the shame or the disappointment, we feel the worthlessness that we felt five years ago, or, you know, five days ago, or 30 years ago, we feel it as if it’s happening now, we are really good at using our imagination to fill ourselves with stress and anxiety. And we do this all the time, we beat ourselves up over and over again. This does not sound good.
I’m going to say that most of our problems are created because we’re trying to change something about the past, we’re resisting the past in some way. Most of our problems are created because there’s something about our past that we are in conflict with, and that we’re resisting. Most people cause themselves so much unnecessary stress and anxiety because they’re trying to change something about their past or they wish their past had been different.
If only I had done this things would be different. If only I had said this, finally, I hadn’t said that. And if you take this one step further, I say that most of our problems are created by us because we are just resisting, not just the past, but we’re resisting what is. We’re actually resisting the way things are. You know, if my wife would only talk to me this way, if my boss would only treat me like this, if only I trained harder for that last marathon.
Whatever it is we’re doing, we are resisting what is we’re resisting, accepting the way things are? Or the way things were the way things happened? Because what’s happened in the past has happened. And it’s over and done with. Okay, how well does it usually work for you? When you try to change something that’s outside of yourself, really, it doesn’t work ever. And your past is part of that; it’s no longer inside you. It’s no longer a part of who you are. It’s way in the past, it’s over and done with history.
You cannot change what’s happened in the past. And you cannot change most of what’s happening around you right now in the present. You know, I have no control over what the driver in front of me does on the highway. I have no control over what people think about me or say about me.
I have no control over how fast I ran my last race because it’s out of my hands now. Okay, during my last marathon, if I didn’t like my time, I had control over that while I was in that moment. But as soon as that moment is over the control I have over that is gone. It does me no good to keep thinking about oh, I should have changed my training or you know, done my nutrition differently, or if only I’d done you know, we can go on and on and on.
And what happens is we put ourselves into that state of stress. So you’re probably thinking like, Oh, I thought you said this podcast was titled How To Change Your Past and you just said you can’t change the past, what the hell, Patrick? Stick with me here. But you probably already knew that you can’t change the past right? So just be honest, though, you can own that one right now. Okay.
But think about this: when you think about the past, where does that live? It lives in your imagination. Everything that’s ever happened in the past exists in our mind. You know, it lives and breathes in our thoughts about it. And not only in our conscious mind, but in our subconscious mind.
So we can’t go back in time to physically change the events of the past. But here’s what we can do. We can change what they mean to us today, we can change how those past events affect us today. We can change how we think about those events today. So we go back to the past in our minds all the time. But what do we do so we can change the way we think about the past today?
In fact, there are no past thoughts. There are no there’s no past thinking anything you’re thinking about today, is current thinking. If you’re thinking a thought right now, even though it’s a thought about the past, it’s current thinking, it’s a current thought about a past experience.
Okay, so it’s not like, oh, these thoughts from my past keep coming up. No, this is you thinking about that today. Okay. So you might have a thought that you continue to think over and over and over again for years and decades even. But if it’s on your mind, right now, it’s a current thought.
So even though, you know, I had some friends that treated me like crap in, you know, seventh grade, I can still, I can go back to that moment right now and feel hurt all over again, if I choose to. Here’s another example. A few years ago, I was doing this 50k trail series, the Ohio River Road Runners 200k No Way series.
And here’s the deal, you are supposed to complete 4 50ks over one season over one summer. And I had done three of them. So I just needed to finish that last one. So we start the race. And the race is called Broken Toe 50k. And the name of this race is no joke, because there are lots of routes, lots of rocks, lots of people tripping and falling. Well, I tripped and fell at like mile one, we started on like a gravel pathway.
And then we headed into the trail into a single track trail. And as soon as I got onto the trail, I maybe went and 50 feet tripped, fell and bloodied up my knee. My knee was jacked up, okay, it got swollen. And it was one of those things where I’m like, I’m gonna run it off. Well, I’m gonna walk it off. So I started walking.
And then I was like, I don’t know about this. And I could run a little bit. And eventually I got to the point where I could run and it was okay, it still hurt, but it was okay. Well, it kept getting like more and more swollen as the race went on. And it kept getting more and more painful. And finally, I had, I got to a point at like, mile 21, where I could barely bend my leg anymore. And I had like four or five miles to go. So I had to walk like five miles back to the aid station.
So I got to mile 26. And I had to stop. I couldn’t bend my leg. And I was in so much pain. Walking was terribly painful. I had to stop because it was the only race I’ve ever DNF. And I go back to that over and over again. Like, what if I didn’t trip? What if I had stepped two inches to the left? What if I, you know, what if I wasn’t as tired? Maybe I know, what if I had gotten more sleep the night before? What if I had started a little bit slower?
Like I can drive myself crazy thinking about what could have been. And in my mind I’m like, trying to resist what I really wanted to do that 200k thing, you know, just for the sheer fact of like, being able to say I did it, and I couldn’t eke it out, you know what I mean? And I keep trying to change that. But no matter what I do, or how I think about it, the results are never going to change. They’re exactly the same. I did not finish that race. I did not get to the 200k.
So when I think about it, I keep feeling disappointed. I keep feeling frustrated. I keep feeling bummed out. I feel like a failure. Okay. So I think these thoughts and this is years later, by the way, and when I think those thoughts, in the moment I get frustrated all over again, I feel bummed out all over again. And I feel like a failure all over again.
Why am I feeling like a failure today over some stupid trail race that I did a bunch of years ago? It’s crazy, right? Isn’t this crazy thinking? I know, you’re saying, Patrick, that is crazy thinking, but you do it and we do it all the time. Substitute this trail race for any other experience that, you know, causes you to feel pain today.
So, listen, if you’re suffering, the suffering that you experience inside, it’s almost all self induced, because we are incessantly trying to change the past. And when we can’t, we’re in conflict, we’re in turmoil, there’s inner conflict, internal turmoil, and it produces all these unwanted emotions. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, I talk about problems, the problems we have are actually just unwanted emotions. We don’t want to feel those feelings.
You know, if we feel feelings of like joy and happiness, we’re like, cool, I’m good with that. But if there’s feelings of like, shame and guilt, or unworthiness, then we don’t want to feel those. And so we label that as being a problem. But what happens is, we keep looping through the trying to change the past, we keep looping through that, and we stay stuck, we stay in conflict, we stay in turmoil.
And we think, well, that’s just the way it is. There’s nothing I can do about that. This is just how I am, this is how I’m wired. I’ve heard people say that I’m just wired that way. It’s not true. You know, you may have some habits about how you think and how you feel. But you know, you’re not necessarily wired that way. Like you can, you can rewire, you can reprogram your mind and your subconscious mind, especially.
So I think that for most of us, a shift in our thinking is all we need to do to change the way we feel about some past events. Okay, it’s very powerful. Now, there may be some past events that are traumatic, you know, if you’ve, if you’ve gone through some certain kinds of traumas, too. Capital T traumas, you know, professional help may be required for that.
But for most of us, I think just shifting our thinking a little bit, can work wonders. So here’s the part you’ve been waiting for: how to change your past. So this is a writing exercise, most of the work that I do with my clients is writing, you know, we talk through a lot of stuff. But writing is so important when you write by hand and not typing into a computer, but when you sit down with a notebook, and you write by hand, it ingrains the ideas and the words and the thoughts and the feelings that ingrain them into your subconscious mind.
And you can look back over the things that you’re that you’ve written down, and you can see, these things will pop out at you. Whereas if you’re just thinking about this stuff, those thoughts will come and go, like clouds floating across the sky, they come in, they go, and then they’re gone. You want to write this stuff down.
Okay, so any of the work that we do, typically, we’re writing by hand, okay, you’ll want to reference it to you’ll want to go back and look through it. So this is a writing exercise. And here give yourself the gift of time to do this work. It may seem simple, it may seem like oh, Patrick, this seems pretty simple, but it is life changing work. Okay. It’s very powerful stuff.
And here’s how you do it. You get quiet, maybe even close your eyes. And I want you to think about that past event. If you’re driving right now, do not close your eyes. But think about that past event. Go back there now, get into it. What do you see? What do you hear? And especially like, what do you feel? And it may feel uncomfortable, but get into it. You’re going to feel those old feelings right now. And if you do, that’s good. That means if you feel those feelings right now, that’s good, because it means it’s all in your head. Okay? The actual event is not happening right now. Yet you are feeling those same exact feelings. So it’s all in your mind.
So write down those feelings, those one word emotional feelings, like I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m guilty, I’m hurt. I’m worthless. I feel enraged. Whatever it is. This is so important that you write down the feelings you’re feeling and you get in touch with whatever it is you’re feeling right here in this moment. Okay, so write down those feelings.
And then next, just do a complete thought download of everything you’re thinking about that past event, okay? Just get it all down. Just don’t censor it, don’t leave anything out, just dump it all out on the page. And it should be ugly, it should be petty, it may sound ridiculous, whatever it is, it does not matter. Write down all those crazy, obscure thoughts, whatever it is, wherever you’re thinking about that event, just write it all down.
And once you’ve got it down on paper, and this is why it’s so important to write it down, you’re going to go through all those thoughts that you’ve been thinking about that event, and you’re going to see if you can identify a few thoughts that are causing those unwanted feelings, circling them, write them on a separate sheet, whatever, but underlying them, right, you know, capture a few of those thoughts that are causing those feelings.
And you’ll know it because when you start reading through all your thoughts, you’ll, a couple of those thoughts, as you read them are going to stir up some emotional response inside you, you’ll get that tingling sensation inside that vibration inside your body. That’s a feeling that’s an emotion, that tingling sensation, that’s your emotions.
Okay, so you’re gonna identify a couple of the thoughts that are causing those feelings, okay. And now, for each of those thoughts that you’ve identified, the ones that are causing you to feel something you don’t want to feel. Answering this question is a very, very powerful question. Who am I, without this thought? Who am I? If I didn’t have this thought, if I didn’t think this thought, if this thought were gone, if I no longer believed this thought to be true, who would I be? Pow.
That is a powerful, powerful question. To go back to that past event again. Now, without that thought, how does it feel different? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel now? What do you do? How do you act? How are you showing up for others and for yourself? And what do you believe about yourself?
Now, if you do this work, if you really spend time to go back to your past, without the thoughts that are causing you to suffer internally, you can change the past, the entire meaning of that event changes, the emotional charge around that event melts away the unwanted feelings, they’re suddenly miraculously gone. So it may take a little bit of time to develop some new thoughts and feelings about your past. And this is why we write these things down.
And we write down the ways we want to think, feel and act instead. So that we can then read them every day, we want to ingrain those new thoughts into our subconscious, so they become a habit. And when we do this, we’re actually creating new neural pathways in our subconscious mind. We can actually reprogram our subconscious to believe new beliefs about that event, and about ourselves. We can reprogram our subconscious to believe new beliefs about ourselves and about that past event. And so in your mind, you have effectively changed the past.
I really encourage you to do this exercise. It is amazing and powerful. Okay, so think about that past event, that one thing that’s causing you that internal turmoil, that conflict, do the work around it. I think you’re going to be amazed. And don’t forget to sign up for my upcoming three day challenge on how to solve any problem.
And listen, people who take action, people who do the work, those are the people who actually get results, people that listen to the podcast or show up in a training like this. And they just kind of show up and hang out. They might get something out of it. But I’m calling this a challenge because most people will not take action, will not take action.
And I’m putting this out there because I want to challenge you, my runners, my people, the people who love challenges. I want to challenge you to show up and do the work on yourself. It’s not hard work. It’s not like running back to back 20 milers, you’ve done way harder things and honestly this requires you to do some thinking and some writing and to be open to changing the way you’ve been doing things.
So it’s like three days of mindset training, it’s totally free. There’s nothing to lose here at all. The worst thing that could happen is maybe you learn a little bit more about yourself. You know, maybe you feel a little bit better about yourself. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge and sign up. And as always, I want you to reach out to me with questions or comments, you can email me at hello@innerfiretribe.com I’d love to hear what you think about this topic. I’d actually love to hear one takeaway that you got out of this today. You can hit me up on the socials @pmcgilvrayatinnerfiretribe. I hope you all have an amazing day much love to each and every one of you, my runners.
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.
Randy Kreill is a cool cat and a passionate ultrarunner. In 2019, he ran 13 ultramarathons including 6 100-milers. The cool thing is that he does it all on a plant-based diet and running in …
Continue Reading about 7. Randy Kreill on the Joy of Running Ultramarathons →
Patrick McGilvray
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and I’m a life coach for runners. And I want to help you get better results from your running and from your life. And if you’re listening to this podcast, that means you want more out of your running and your life and I hear you. That’s why I created The Runner’s Edge. The Runner’s Edge is a community based coaching and training program where I share everything I know about mindset, building mental toughness, gaining confidence, getting your running mojo back, basically, everything you need to get the most out of your running and out of your life.
So I take the concepts I talked about here on the podcast, and we take them to the next level. This is a results based coaching program. It’s all about getting results. And it’s designed to help you get what you want to help you reach your goals, whatever those may be for you. So here’s the deal though, most people don’t take action.
Most people will listen to a podcast like this, they’ll hear a bunch of great stuff and they’ll think oh, that’s that’s good information. But they never do anything with it, they don’t apply it. And so nothing ever changes for those people. On the other hand, there are people who get results. Those are the people who do something different. They take action, they take the knowledge, they take the information, they take the things that they learned and they apply them.
So if you want something different from your running, if you want something different in your life, if you want different results, you have to take different action. Check it out, go to innerfiretribe.com/edge and get the edge you need to perform at your best in running and in life.
All right, onto today’s interview. Randy Kreill is a cool cat. I’m just gonna tell you, I like this guy. He’s a passionate ultra runner. Last year he ran 13 ultras. So that’s more than one a month including 600 miles last year in 2019, and he does it all on a plant based diet. And he does it all running in sandals. And we talk about why he does all of this stuff.
And his answers are really interesting. And it’s not what most people say. So most people say they run because it’s hard. They want to push themselves. They want to see what they’re capable of. They want to challenge themselves. They want to move away from their past or who they used to be. And Randy has kind of a different take on this. It’s really cool.
And I’m gonna let him share that with you because I won’t do it justice by explaining to you here. But Randy and I are like fast friends and we could talk forever and just fair warning. Like we laugh a lot during this interview because it’s just so much fun talking with him. He’s such a positive guy and super fun and such an inspiration to me. So I’m going to stop talking now and get on to the interview with Randy Kreill.
Okay, today I’m talking with Randy Kreill. And Randy is an interesting character. I love everything about Randy and I first heard of him or met him out on a trail race. I was doing a 50k, I think. It was another day, another 50k. You were kind of passing me. I was passing you. We just kept kind of finding each other out there. And the reason I remembered you is because I’m like this dude’s running in sandals.
There was nobody else out there running and sandals. I’m like this is interesting, but I heard you talking to some people you’re running with about you know, eating a plant based diet and I eat a plant based diet and it was just like a cool you know, and and then I would see you around at other events and stuff and then I started following you on Facebook and YouTube and stuff like that.
And then a couple years ago I was running the Flying Pig. I think it was 2017 and I’m running down Erie Avenue and I just hear this slap, slap slap I’m on the pavement behind me. And I’m like, somebody’s running in sandals. I betcha that’s Randy. And sure enough, here you come running up behind me. We chatted for a little bit. That was really cool.
But that’s my introduction to you, Randy, the guy who runs Ultras, the guy who runs in sandals, the plant based guy, the YouTube guy, you’re just a cool, cool cat, you know that you really are. So I wanted to get you on here just so we could have a conversation and just talk about running, talk about Ultra running and whatever else comes to mind. So Randy, thanks for being here.
Randy Kreill
Well, thank you for having me. This is fantastic to finally do this. Not quite sure where to really start. I guess, going way back, I did absolutely no sports in high school. And I used to hear a lot from my parents about how I was a late bloomer, I was yet one of the youngest kids in my class. And in kindergarten and first grade, the teacher, I believe, in first grade wanted to hold me back, because they could not teach me to skip.
So my brothers were fantastic popular students in high school, great athletes, I did nothing. So I kind of felt like, I was not the athlete, I didn’t get that gene. And so that was kind of where I came from. But then in my 20s, I was fascinated by the idea of the Ironman Triathlon. It was becoming popular kind of back in the 80s. And so in my 20s, I started doing some biking, a little bit of running, and really had to overcome some fears and swimming, to be able to do open water, sprint distance triathlons, never got really good.
Maybe on my best day, I was in the middle of my age group, but I loved it, and then kind of got away from it, got into building some homes, I was busy with my job, I finally got married, had kids, and all of a sudden, I’m 42 with a cancer diagnosis, overweight, quite a few health concerns, there were there were a lot of warning signs. And that ended up being a huge turning point in my life. Because I had to become a lot more honest about what you know, what caused the cancer, how can I minimize the risk of a recurrence.
So after a whole lot of lost sleep, kind of some, a lot, a few years, really filled, filled with a lot of fear. I was trying to figure it all out. And it was a few years after that, cancer was in ‘04, the book Born to Run came out. And I was really ready for a lot of the messages there. And so I started changing my diet right away, I started adopting all those changes right away.
I ended up on a 100% plant based diet after going minimalist and barefoot with my shoes. And I’m not even sure when I first realized that people could run 100 miles, I thought an Ironman Triathlon was an incredible feat. And it might have been born to run where I learned that people could actually run for 30-40 or more miles at one stretch. And I was intrigued with it.
But again, I’m not an athlete, I didn’t get that gene I never would have imagined going from, you know, my deteriorated physical condition with flat feet and broken ankles. I had a couple broken ankles to actually be able to do it myself. But as I started adopting the barefoot and minimalist running, I noticed that my stride improved.
I was finally learning how to run properly in my late 40s and came off of a first marathon at the Air Force marathon here in Dayton and barely stumbled across the finish line, really literally hopping on one leg. But that was before Born to Run. Before reading Danny Dreyer’s book, Tai Chi Runnin. I like Tai Chi Running, that really taught me everything I needed to do from my head to my toes to learn how to run in a more natural injury free sort of way, efficient way.
And so you know that changing the diet, changing the footwear, I started noticing my feet getting stronger, the mid foot got thicker, I was running longer distances with less energy used, I’d say I was feeling better about it all and losing some weight. And I’ve even found out that my vision was actually improving.
And so, you know, when I initially went with this 100% plant based diet over nine years ago, I didn’t realize how many incredible unintended positive benefits there would be. But in my late 40s, I was told that my bifocals wouldn’t get thicker. It just happens. That’s life. But in fact, with these changes, I didn’t need my bifocals. I wasn’t using them anymore. And I still don’t.
And it’s so it’s been nine years of improving or stable vision, my eye doctor, she’s just kind of stunned. She doesn’t see 57 year old patients with the way my eyes focus in and out really quick and how healthy they are and not needing the bifocals that I used to wear. So it’s just been a fascinating trip into something I never thought I was capable of doing.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, that’s cool. And I can really relate to a lot of that, because I had the cancer diagnosis back in ‘03. And at that time, I was in very ill health, I was really overweight, drinking too much, eating, you know, the standard American diet and was very unhealthy. That cancer diagnosis was my wake up call.
Yeah, I completely changed my life. And I started running, I started eating better. I went from like, eating every, you know, just the regular American diet to going vegetarian. And then some years later going plant based. And, and for me, running was the catalyst, you know, running was the thing that kept me on that path. You know, it kept me on the beam, so to speak, you know, so I kept I wanted to do more and more like I wanted to, you know, run my first marathon and then I wanted to do start doing the triathlons and I wanted to do an ultra marathon and then so it just kind of was this thing that kept me moving in that direction, that healthy direction. And so I can really relate to a lot of that and I wasn’t athletic in high school, either. I didn’t play sports or anything like that. I’m very surprised they wanted to hold you back because you couldn’t skip. That’s ridiculous. Like that’s their criteria of like an athlete.
Randy Kreill
When I crossed the finish line of the Falls 100 about a month and a month or so ago, only eight people finished out of about 28 starters. And I don’t know if anybody even noticed it was late at night but I skipped across the finish line which I also got an honor.
Patrick McGilvray
They’re like, you know, this kid smart and everything but the skipping I don’t know. I think we should just hold him back. So, tell me what was your year like this year for your ultras? Because this is something I wanted to kind of touch on and I’m just gonna like, prompt you here because I want to hear about your okay, what you did this year, what you accomplished?
Randy Kreill
It’s been absolutely phenomenal since 2011. Spring I guess running that first 50k another dam up in Inglewood. Really each year I’ve ramped it up. So in ‘18, I ran 11 ultra marathons, I can’t remember how many 100 milers and then in ‘19 I wasn’t necessarily setting out to run an ultra marathon every single month. But I ended up running 13 Ultras, finished all 13, ran at least one per month and ran 600 milers including three, which to me I considered really hard to resist and it was just unbelievable.
I just everything came together on how the weather was always just good enough to get me through. Got redemption at one of my hardest races ever. Injury free running for almost nine years. Everything just came together phenomenally and just a couple of weeks ago, ran a 50k in Columbus through lots of rocks and roots in the sandals but with some toe socks on and finished in like eight minutes under the cut off time.
And that made it that put me at 13 months in a row of running ultra marathons. So anyways, I’m not fast. I’m not out there to try to be on the podium or anything but the consistency of it and enjoying the time running as a person close to obsessing about the pace, my time is my focus.
But what’s become the real goal I think is to maximize the number of hours of runner’s high that I expect it’s over a lifetime. So it makes it a really long term goal, I would hope to maybe be running Ultras, at least that decades into my 70s, possibly beyond. So my race, I guess, as I think of it different way more than five years out, planning for that, and we’re hoping for the best.
Patrick McGilvray
Talk, talk a little bit about that. That runner’s high, like, what do you, you know, different people have different interpretations of what that means, tell me what that means for you.
Randy Kreill
Um, sometimes it’s pretty subtle. But obviously, there’s a lot of biochemical changes that happen. And I guess what I’ve noticed is, if I work hard enough and execute the plan, I can really increase my odds of a runner’s high, but it’s basically a euphoric feeling. And it can happen really any time during a run.
And it varies though. The 100 miler, but I think when I got truly hooked at 100 milers was my very first one. And I think we started about 7am. And by 7pm, it was dark. And the coffee was coming out. And I had gone past 50 miles. So I noticed, gosh, once I made it to 50, and everything was still working. And I’m counting down from 50.
So my mindset, mindset shifted big time. And so counting down from 50 was a big I don’t know it was a boost to my energy level. And as you know, I got some fluids in me, took care of a little dehydration and started feeling better than when the coffee came out about the same time. All these things were in deploy, the weather was good. A runner’s high kind of kicked in and it just went for hours.
And one thing that sticks out in my mind was I don’t know what time it was. It might have been 1, 2, 3 in the morning, running by myself on a course I’d never been to. No Pacer, no crew just walking around the 100 mile race near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. And I was just honest, crazy high come into this aid station, just kind of hooting and hollering.
And I remember one of the volunteers really thought that maybe it was not a natural high. I was just like come in there hooting and hollering, and said, you know, I wish I could bottle this up and sell it because I would probably be a billionaire. If I could just give this feeling to people, they wouldn’t have to work for it, they wouldn’t have to run, then I’d be set for life. But it’s not that it’s not that easy.
And I think what I’ve been doing kind of since then it’s just riding this way. Once I finished that 100 and a lot of pain. The last 5-10 miles were extraordinarily painful, but I didn’t care. I knew I was coming back. And I don’t know, I just got to the point where I realized everything that I can do in all areas of my life, that would make me a better runner. Kind of makes me a better person in general. And so kind of chasing that runner’s high as part of it.
Patrick McGilvray
Oh, man, I love that you just said that. Because I tell people all the time. So I work as a life coach, you know, and I coach people through difficult stuff, and through getting rid of the baggage from their past and helping them to just live the best life anyway, I focus a lot on runners. And what I say is, you know, it’s not about running. It’s about life, you know, the stuff we talk about the mindset of running. Running is essentially a metaphor.
You know, it’s a metaphor for the hard things that we have to do in life and the challenges and the things that make us stronger. And the things that push us outside our comfort zone are the things that make us grow. And I love it as a metaphor. I love just running in general too. I love that runner’s high as well. But it’s the same principles when we talk about the mindset it takes to run 100 miles, you know, the same principles apply to life in general, they apply to, you know, getting through that tough week at work, or that big project or, you know, starting a business or, you know, going through a breakup or whatever it is, you know, like we can get through the tough stuff with the right mental toughness, you know, yeah.
Randy Kreill
Yeah, there’s something special about running. Last injury I had was actually that first and now they’re damn 50k and 2011. I didn’t know that note at the time, but I ran it on a stress fracture, a tibial stress fracture and right ankle so you can run on that but it’s really a bad idea. I just had no, I was so green, I didn’t even understand what a stress fracture was.
So after the race, I can barely walk back to my car. And you know, after three weeks of soaking it in ice, I realized it hurt just as bad as it did after the 50k finally got an x-ray verified, it was in fact, a stress fracture. So I had 12 weeks or so to recover from that point. And I rode my bike from Beavercreek, Ohio to Cincinnati and back out 120-130 miles.
I did a lot of long distance swimming, but nothing, those things did not replicate, replicate what running does for my general well being and feeling really good. I was positive what I could when I couldn’t run, but it didn’t replace the running. So I became just laser focused on doing everything I could to become an injury free running, so I would never have to take a break from it again. And so not a knock on wood, I want to knock on wood, because every single step as a potential, you know, foot injury or leg injury or whatever.
Patrick McGilvray
So, especially running races, like roots and rocks or whatever, like there’s…
Randy Kreill
Yeah, cloud splitter, 100 mile route in Northern Virginia was the hardest one even harder than Superior 100. So yeah, to run that one in sandals, and Superior in sandals, it was a lot of fun doing in sandals. I guess I’m more known for that than anything else. But the real message behind the sandals is, we’re usually best served by wearing the very least we can get away with for any given application. So I preferred to feel the open air on my feet, and running the sandals, but a pair of minimal shoes can be even more minimalist underfoot than a thicker pair of sandals.
Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, and I’ve never run in sandals before. In fact, I was the Hoka guy for a long time. Thy were in my big, you know, as much cushioning as possible. But then I’ve gone back to the minimalist shoe and I wear like a pretty minimalist, you know, running shoe now. And I love it. You know, I feel it feels good.
It feels good to feel the the road and the trail under my feet. Yeah. Yes. And there’s this thing about like, just feeling the ground and like, you know, having that tactile sort of sensory connection to the earth. Like that is just kind of cool. You know, for you. I’m sure it’s even more. Very cool. Yeah.
So all the, all the ultras, all the hundreds, you know, how do you stay mentally? Like, here’s the word I’m going to use, like, how do you keep your mojo going? With the constant training and the constant showing up for these really challenging events?
Randy Kreill
Um, I don’t, I know a lot of ultra runners kind of glamorize the suffering and the pain and all that. And I kind of flip all that the other way. I do it mostly for fun and pleasure and adventure. Sure, it hurts a lot. But generally, I mean, for the 100 miler, the vast majority of those minutes, I expected to be feeling really good, if not phenomenal.
I like to think I joke with people semi joking that a 35 hour 100 miler is just a 35 hour free full body massage from the feet up, I’m gonna it’s just a body massage. And I think of it differently. You know, we’re going back to this whole mindset thing. And so I, you know, it goes back to what you think about and feel about you attract more of, and so if I’m focused with my running on, enjoying the time enjoying the place, enjoying the people being fully present.
There’s not much I don’t really need to keep myself hyped up and motivated. Although I’ve never really had a pacer crew at 19 100 mile attempts and 15 finishes at that distance. I think I part of the reason is, I enjoy the self motivation aspect of it, or even more, so if I find somebody out on a course that struggling, being able to maybe help them out. Helps me to feel better about what I’m doing and helps propel me along runners.
I was running with a wonderful woman who was doing her first 50k Roots and Rocks up in Columbus couple of weeks ago. And she was having a blast. She finished a couple minutes ahead of me too. But I said, you know, it’s, I just love what we do, because we we push and pull each other along. And that’s kind of what it’s all about. I don’t mind if a 70 year old woman passes me on the trail. I think it’s fantastic.
Patrick McGilvray
So, yeah, yeah, more power to them. Oh, my gosh, I hope I’m running trail, you know, ultra marathons at 70 years old. Yeah, so what you focus on you attract, I love that. I mean, I coach people and talk to people about that all the time, when you’re focused on how hard running is, or what if you might fail, you know, that’s what you’re gonna get, it’s gonna feel hard, it’s gonna, you know, your chances of failure go up exponentially, if that’s what you’re focused on.
So you sound like you have a pretty easygoing attitude about this stuff. You know, 100 miles is no joke. I’ve only done one. It was two years ago and, you know, I remember the training, you know, when I kind of started the training season for that, you know, I train maybe for a year or whatever, nine, 9-10 months. And I remember starting it and thinking, like, I don’t know how I’m gonna do this, I really have no idea. But at some point, you know, a few months later, I just got to this place where, where I was, like, I’m going to finish this, I’m going to do it, I can do it. I and I, it I shifted from, from I can’t to I can, and I kind of adopted this identity of like, I am 100 miler, you know, I’m 100 mile runner, I can do this. And it shifted things for me. And then I just, the training became easier. My thoughts became lighter about it. And I was focused on a successful outcome. Yeah. And it was, you know, painful at the end. But, you know, it was, it was successful.
Randy Kreill
Yeah, yeah. You’re probably familiar with the concept of VMR, or visual motor rehearsal. Have you heard of them? Put Olympic lates I collected a lot of high tech wires to them, and had them run through their routines just on their minds. And their bodies reacted as if they were really good.
And the race was about the power of the mind. And so I always try to use that in my hundreds. It doesn’t always work. I can go. I can visualize feeling the goal and finishing the race, but I still might not finish, but usually it does work. At C&O Canal 100 I met a guy at the pre race dinner, who had run the race the year before it finally happened to have his buckle with him. And so I was just like, oh, I kind of just check it out, because I wanted to feel it in my hand. Cuz I’ve been for months, feeling that knowing what it would be like to cross the finish line and get that hardware in my hand. It’s kind of squeezed and I got that feeling, I think even before the race started, which was nice.
Patrick McGilvray
So do you ever feel like during any one of your mantras that you said you’ve had like 19 attempts and 15 finishes of the 100? So let me ask you, I’m gonna ask you two questions. The first one is when you have to quit, you know, or you know, you’re not going to make the cut off like what’s going through your mind at that point?
Randy Kreill
Um, well, disappointment, but I don’t like to focus on the negative at every one of the 4 100 mile DNF. I’ve had extraordinary experiences. At the biggest race I ever tried to do at the time, Cloud Splitter, 100 mile or a tough time was based out of Elkhorn City, Kentucky, they had to move the race but for me, that was like my leadville.
It was a 40 hour race. 25,000 feet of climbing, super technical. I trained like it was the Olympics. I went out there. I was a little nervous. Beautiful weather had a great time with the runners, but I kept getting off course. And it just kept happening, whether I was running alone or with other people. And then in the middle of the night on a real long, lonely section in the most remote part of that course. I evidently went into the woods to use the bathroom and came out and went the wrong way for hours.
So while I’ve never quit a 100 mile race, I’ve timed out four different times. And you know, I gave it my best. I made about 100k on Cloud Splitter, but then got a ride. I was with him but he’s back to the finish and watched all the rest of the runners come in and talk to the volunteers and talk to the locals. I just had a blast there till the very last runners came in. And I’m still friends with some of those people.
But a few years later, I came back to that race in ‘19, and finally finished. So, I’ve had a case where I timed out at 32 hours at Mohican, I ran about 99 miles, and I was worried that if I kept going I knew I wasn’t gonna make the cutoff. I know it was a strict cutoff. So I pulled my bib off into a shortcut back to the start finish, because I didn’t want to maybe get in trouble and sit down. I’m trailed, dehydrated and have to be rescued by anybody. So I knew I couldn’t get back to the start. And that was a heartbreaker. But it was still a great story. And I was very proud. And you’ve heard a lot around those 99 miles.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, well, 99 miles is no joke. I mean, come on. It’s close enough. Let’s just say no buckle, whatever.
Yeah, so the second part of this is like, okay, so, because I’ve experienced this, like, have you ever felt like just quitting? You just felt like, I just, I gotta, I cannot do this. But somehow you mustered the mental fortitude to go on? Has that ever happened to you? And then like, what do you what do you like, do? Or what do you say to yourself to keep yourself going?
Randy Kreill
I’ve actually, I, I don’t think that’s ever happened. Many, many times where I’ve been very fearful that I would make the cut off. Or I’ve gotten very scared. Because I was off course. And that can be dangerous, whatever, who knows how long you might be lost? I’ve been through fearful moments of not finishing, but I’ve never wanted to quit any of them. Yeah. So I think part of my whole philosophy on this running is, and life is anything worth doing is worth doing less than perfectly. So I may not be the fastest, or important to be consistent. And, and, and that’s just what I’m chasing.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s really cool. I mean, that’s awesome, that you’ve never really felt like I just can’t go on anymore. You know, because, I mean, I think most of us have felt like that at some point. And then, you know, you gotta like, conjure up that I know, for me, you know, I ran the Hallucination 100, that was my 100. Yeah, sign off. Yeah, and that’s a 16 mile loop until you do six loops.
And then coming in, off off the fifth loop. Coming into the finish area, everybody was cheering for me. And they’re like, great job. And because they thought I was done. And I was like, I just got one more loop to do. And I just sort of felt dejected at that point, not because of them, really, but my feet were killing me. And just like I could barely, I could barely walk and I just didn’t know how I was going to do another loop and something.
You know, I sat down for a minute, I got some food or drink or whatever. And something just shifted in my mind. I was like, I am just going to just get out there and do the best I can and finish this thing. I’m going to finish strong. And I just started running hard. I was feeling the pain, but it wasn’t going to get any worse.
And I was just like, I’m just gonna keep going. And so anyway, it was just like I had to pull everything I had, everything I had. It was kind of like the training that I did for this thing helped me to build that endurance engine, you know, right, right.
Randy Kreill
Yeah. The self talk is critical. It’s like I said, I’ve had to dig deep a lot just just to try to finish. But I’ve always wanted to finish so badly that I’ve never, never considered quitting. Yeah, so I guess I’m lucky that way I’ve haven’t needed to have a crew and or peace or whatever to talk me off the ledge. It’s just been part of the challenge of learning to solve those problems more independently.
Patrick McGilvray
So, what does that look like for you digging deep?
Randy Kreill
I like how Eric Orton is one of those allegedly top running coaches in the world. The guy from Hawk from the Born to Run, book and store. He likes to say in his book, The cool impossible. I got some good training ideas out of that book. He likes to say athleticism is all about awareness, which you can obviously say that about just life in general.
So basically, when you’re so tired, you can barely walk. It’s just really a matter of finding some gratitude that you’re out there doing it. Taking a real deep breath, taking a full inventory of all the feelings in the body and emotions, and just doing whatever it takes.
Do I need hydration? Do I need food? Do I need to stretch some muscles? Do a little yoga out there in the truck, whatever it is. Be in tune enough with yourself and fully present to solve that problem. What is it I need to do to keep going and then just do it and keep moving? So like you said you wanted to do, do you want to get better and listen to Jim 100? Hallucination 100? Buckle.
Patrick McGilvray
Postnational honor.
Randy Kreill
Yeah, I still don’t have it. I did the 100k there. It was my first and only 100k. So I’d like to talk on that as well. But you want it bad enough and you weren’t going to get up on it. So you could do it. Just dig deep and get her done?
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, yeah. So you’ve done a lot of amazing things, you’ve got a lot of amazing accomplishments. You know, you’ve got a regular job. And as this isn’t your profession that you just have this passion about running, but what would it have been what’s been like, your proudest moment as a runner? Biggest accomplishment? Well, however you want to say it.
Randy Kreill
That’s really hard to pinpoint. One, I mean, getting Superior 100 done was huge. That was like a five year bucket list goal. But then earning the 500 mile club buckle at C&O Canal 100 was huge as well. Now I’m going after the 10 year on the 1000 mile vogel but getting finishing the C&O Canal, 100, 5 years in a row, five PRs on the courts in a row for me, and five consecutive years and get there at age 55? All the stars just kind of lined up. That was pretty huge.
Had a phenomenal final 20 miles. So that race was just beautiful. But all those moments are fantastic. But one of the things I love has been able to help another runner who’s struggling? One case, I think it was the second C&O canal 100 There was a guy 67 or 68 years old who was a legend in the ultra rank community. And I can’t think of his name right now. But he was the final finisher at C&O Canal that year, I think it would have been 2015.
And I caught up with this fella in the dark was sleeting runners were dropping left and right. It was miserable. Luckily, I had just enough warm clothes on. And anyways, I got to talk with this guy. And right away, I knew who he was because I’ve read all about his comeback at Pine Creek challenge 100. And he had had Lyme disease. And so he was out of alternative for maybe eight or 10 years and have really bad news from it really horrible night vision.
And so I was like, Oh, well, I’ll listen to your stories for quite a while. And I’ll help get you up that we had to do like sub stream crossings on real steep technical climb to get up to the start finish area. And he needed help with it. It was kind of scary. But anyway, stayed with him. And on the way up the hill. He stopped at one point and said, well, I’m gonna have to drop off here.
And I was like, well, don’t don’t make that decision. Yeah, once we get up there. I’ll wait for you. We’ll talk again, I’ll get you back down the hill if need be. And maybe 15 minutes later, the race directors writing down names left and right, people drop and it’s cold, trying to sleep was just miserable. Colder than predicted. So people weren’t ready.
And I see this guy all of a sudden sitting there with no shirt on. And I was like, oh, what’s what’s up? He’s like, Well, they’re giving me some dry shirts. And I said, Well, it means we’re going back down that hill. Right? And it was an honor to help this guy. It might have been his last 100 mile distance at his age and ended up taking a long time to get him down that hill but we got him down the hill safely.
And then he was okay on the towpath. And the next morning I don’t know how he got ahead of me. I thought maybe he dropped out but the next morning, I ended up passing him on my way into the finish and he ended up getting last place. So that was cool.
Another time at St. Mary’s. I was talking with a young guy I’m doing his first 100 miler. He had the pacer get a crew he had a coach out west he was working with it was really into it. But it was like in the 90s that day, way it way higher than record high temps really unseasonable for the rest, and humidity, there was pollen in the air, it was tough. And he was really loose on the water, I was concerned for him. And we talked for quite a while.
And he was really interested in not only the sandals, but my diet, a whole plant based diet, and just asked him a lot of questions. And some put mine I thought later hours and hours later that he must not have made it. But then right before the cut off, maybe two to five minutes before the 30 hour cut off. He comes into the finish. And it was really cool to get to see him do that.
And what was even better was several months later, I was actually on Thanksgiving Day, I get a text from him, saying, hey, my family, we’re having our first vegan Thanksgiving day, we’ve been staying in touch, I’ve been coaching him along on diet changes and some lots of information. And so both him and his wife and his child were making this big diet change. So being a little part of helping people make those kinds of changes as a result of these adventures in this run. And yet again, another unintended byproduct of all these changes, is helping other people learn these things.
Patrick McGilvray
That’s awesome. You’ve got like such a great attitude about life in general. Randy, you really do like, what, what how would you like? How would you? Like what’s your secret? What is your like philosophy? How do you stay so positive?
Randy Kreill
Um, well, after going through the cancer surgeries and all that stuff, that was a pretty dark, fearful time, but I felt really lucky to get through all that I don’t know, I guess we usually use the word secret. And it kind of made me smile because one of my favorite documentaries is called The Secret or they talk about quantum physics and the law of attraction. A lot of the movie is pretty hokey. A lot of it’s focused on money, rather than maybe health or fitness, which is weird, right?
My thing is more health is wealth and so that at this time, that’s more my focus, but so trying to come back from that low point. I learned from Ruth hydric, who Dr. Ruth hardrick is in her 80s Now, but she was a key part of the Born to Run book. And she was really the person who closed me on going all in on the diet change.
I picked her brain for about a week online via email, and I was like, Okay, I’m gonna do this 100% Cold tofurkey I’ll go plant based. That’s mid December of 2010. So, you know, here’s a woman who in her 40s had stage four breast cancer and is famous. I’d say she’s probably the most world famous, self healed cancer survivor, brilliant woman, she’s now written five books. And you know, she’ll tell you the most important thing is the four letter word diet.
So I’ve been kind of approaching this thing from a mindset, attitude point of view, a healthy emotion point of view, and the nutrition. And those are kind of to me, that’s the three fountains of views but that they all work together. So your topic mindset really caught my attention right away today. I wonder, you know what’s really most important for Ruth to heal herself from the cancer with no chemo, no radiation. She signed up for her first Ironman. She’d been a marathoner. And she thought on this doctor, he convinced her to not do chemo, not do radiation, simply go to an all plant based diet of mostly whole foods, and it worked then three months or cancer was fading off of her body scans.
And then she went on to become one of the fittest woman in the world, and was writing books and so forth with a sponsored athlete. I think she got first place at the Japan Ironman years ago. And so anyways you know, but she had to change her mindset first. She had to sign up for an Ironman too, she was going to change her diet and execute on that and stick with it.
And she doesn’t learn how to use your body in a healthy, healthy way, healthy motion combined with the right nutrition and the right mindset. But the healthy motion and the nutrition definitely impact the mindset. I know that if I’m not taking them the right nutrition, I don’t feel as well. I have, if I’m not feeling well, I’m probably going to have less positive emotions, which is going to impact the power of the mindset. So, you know, there’s just that kind of that yin yang to the balance of trying to create an upward spiral. And using all three of the fountains of youth so to speak.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, like, that’s your three legged stool there, right? Yeah. Yeah. You kind of need all three legs in order for it to work. Right. You know.
Randy Kreill
Yeah, they all work together. There’s a synergy. Yeah.
Patrick McGilvray
So yeah, that’s really cool. Like, I’m a firm believer in that you can heal, you know, all kinds of ailments, you know, using the power of your mind using the power of diet, and it’s really cool stuff. What’s next for you? What do you got coming up?
Randy Kreill
Um, my instinct is to kind of back off a little bit this year, but I still have that streak go when of, you know, 13 months in a row, run an altar every month. All right now I’m thinking about maybe keeping that going. But Rocks Roots 50k is on February 16. Coming right up. Usually, I barely finish, but I’m hoping to get that double 50k finishers buckled three years in a row, which is pretty hard to get.
The success ratio on that is probably a lot less than at most 100 milers like proud of those, those buckles. I’ve signed up for the seventh year in a row at C&O Canal 100 in late April, and then the Canal Corridor 100 up in Akron, Ohio for mid July. But I haven’t really, really committed to anything else yet. Lots of ideas. I’m still trying to decide what I want to do.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah, cool. Well, it sounds like you’ve got some things you’re committed to. So that’s awesome. It’s always good to have goals out there. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I know, having a goal for runners is kind of key like keeps you mentally moving toward that goal, you know? Awesome. Well, this has been really, really amazing. I just love talking to you. And we’re going to do this again, because there’s a lot more we can talk about. But for now, where can people reach out to say hey, or thank you or whatever? How can we connect with you?
Randy Kreill
On YouTube, I just use my real name Randy Kreill, last name is KR E I L L. So if you plug that into YouTube, you’ll see my channel and people can comment and connect there otherwise, is I’m really easy to find on Facebook. My intention here is to get a blog going very soon and have another way to get my messages out to people. So hopefully that will happen very soon. I do a little bit on Instagram, not a whole lot. But I try to keep my real name and all the social media presences. Not hiding behind any aliases or anything like that.
Patrick McGilvray
Cool. A podcast is a great way to get your message out to there.
Randy Kreill
People have suggested this has been fun. And I hope to do more of these. I actually wrote down almost five pages of notes of things for us to talk about. So we can definitely get together and do this again. I think if I go through these pages…
Patrick McGilvray
Of those five pages, do we hit some of the stuff you wanted to talk about? I hope so.
Randy Kreill
My main message I wanted to get out to your listeners was that it really to humanity is to focus on what you want. We don’t do that. What you focus on you get more so most people will tend to be obsessed and focusing on what they don’t want in the world or inadvertently probably contributing to creating more of that.
And one of the good examples I was wanting to mention was before I turned when I turned 49 I decided on my 50th birthday I was going to do a full Ironman Triathlon, but on a do it yourself basis. It was not an Ironman event, but it was fun. Hold distance. And a few months later, I ran the New Year’s Eve Resolution run 5k.
And while I got up to leave from that I was in sandals, my heels hurt so bad. I thought maybe I had plantar fasciitis or a major running injury, I couldn’t walk, I got put it into a boot. And I realized maybe three weeks later, it still hurt. I was barely doing any running. And I had this huge 50th Birthday lifetime goal coming up. And one day, I just realized that I’m focusing on not being injured so much, I need to flip that.
And I focused on, I’m going to be a healthy happy runner, and I’m going to run my Do It Yourself Ironman, I’m not going to be focused on injuries. And almost immediately, everything shifted. And it’s been eight and a half years of injury free running. So it’s just a mental shift that paradigm shift to you know, not thinking, Gosh, I’m not an athlete. Flipping, flipping, flipping the negatives over and staying laser focused on that. Humanity would benefit from getting away from the war on drugs, the war on hunger, the war on terror and focusing on the opposites. What we need is a warming broccoli.
Patrick McGilvray
More, yeah…
Randy Kreill
More people consuming broccoli, I guess.
Patrick McGilvray
Yeah. What you just mentioned is a very subtle devil, you know, focusing on what you don’t want. Because we think we’re doing the right thing. We’re like, I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to quit, I don’t want to drop out of this race, I don’t want to miss the cut off. And you just keep focusing all your effort, all your energy on that thing that you don’t want. Alright, it sounds like you want the opposite of that. But you’re not focusing on that.
And the interesting thing is at the subconscious level, the subconscious mind takes in so much. And just, it does what you tell it to do, you know, and it doesn’t really process the negative in there. When you say I don’t want to fail, all it’s hearing is like, oh, fail, okay, let’s do that, you know, it creates a picture in your mind of you dropping out or failing or tripping or, or whatever it is. And that’s what you get.
And so that’s a very subtle, but very important distinction there. And something that I talk to my clients about a lot because, you know, let’s say somebody who’s, you know, they want to lose weight, they’re like, I don’t want to be overweight, I don’t want to be fat, I don’t want to, and they’re just focusing on, on being overweight and being out of shape and, and being everything they don’t want to be. And they just keep getting more of that and they can’t understand. So very, very subtle, but very important distinction there.
Randy Kreill
Yes. Cool.
Patrick McGilvray
I love that. And I love this conversation today. This is really cool. Thank you very much for coming on here and talking with me. And like I said, we are going to do this again.We’ll take a deep dive into some of those other topics you wrote notes about.
Randy Kreill
Sounds good. Thanks for having me. I love the music that you play at the beginning and at the end. So by chance, if I said anything really cool during the interview, feel free to splice on some music.
Patrick McGilvray
Put in a few little guitar riffs just to go along with what you’re saying. I love it. That’s a good idea. I should start doing that. Awesome, Randy, thank you so much.
Randy Kreill
Hey, you’re welcome. Great talking to you.
Patrick McGilvray
Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.
Last week I talked about how all of your problems are actually created in your head - by your thoughts. Today on the podcast, I explain how your feelings drive all of your actions and those actions …
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My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.
Hey there, and welcome back to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m a master life and success coach for runners and other cool people. And today, I’m going to follow up from last week’s episode. Last week’s episode was all about how your problems are all created in your mind.
It’s a very empowering way to look at the world, it’s the way the world is, it’s kind of like seeing the matrix once you understand how this stuff works. And I’ve received a lot of great feedback on last week’s episode, and people have been sharing their feelings with me about it and their thoughts about it. And it’s creating some really interesting conversations.
And today, I want to kind of follow up with that, with the second part of that episode. So when we talk about how our thinking, how circumstances are neutral, and our thinking is, we get to choose our thinking and our thinking causes our feelings and how we feel about things. And we can see things as a problem or not as a problem.
Today, I’m going to give you kind of the rest of the formula, the next two pieces of the formula for mastering your mindset. So you are going to enjoy this. I mean, seriously like this is if you want to get different results in your life, if you want things to be different in your life. It’s going to start with changing your thinking. And it’s going to start with learning the things that we’re going to be talking about here on this podcast, not just today.
But going forward. I want to help you get whatever it is you want in your life seriously. And you can do it. And I can help. But first I want to talk a little bit about my group coaching program, which is called The Runner’s Edge. And this is where it’s a private membership group where I take this teaching and this coaching to the next level. It’s a monthly membership program, it’s only $26.2 per month. Do you like what I did there with the price? It’d be easy to remember, but I wanted it to be just less than $1 a day.
I wanted it to be a simple, no brainer for you to say I want to be a part of that. Because what you get in the program is you get more of what I’m doing here, you know, we take it to the next level, we take it go a little bit deeper. And then you can also ask questions and get questions answered.
And I can do some, you know, kind of one on one coaching with you in that group as well. So we get the mindset training online coaching some one on one stuff, which is what a lot of online programs don’t do, they don’t offer. You know, from a group perspective, they don’t offer a one on one component. And I wanted to do that for you.
So you’ll get some one on one time with me. It’s a fun, supportive community composed of other runners just like you. You can ask questions, learn from others about how to build mental toughness, how to gain more confidence in your running and in life. And then everything I do in the program is going to be archived on a members only membership site.
And on that site, I also have courses that I create. And I’ve got a really cool course on there right now on goal setting and how to find a better way to do goal setting, okay. And all that is included. Like I said it’s $26.2 per month, $26.20. And you will get the edge that you need to perform your best whether it’s in running or just in life. So get The Runner’s Edge and start becoming the best all around version of yourself.
Okay, so today, we’re going to be talking about how you’re thinking more than anything else determines your results. Now we want to do a quick little recap from last week, in case you’re brand new to the podcast that this is your first time listening. Or if you just want a quick little recap, you know, like when you’re watching Netflix and they’re like, here’s what happened last week on you know, whatever it is and then they show you and you’re like oh yeah, I forgot about that. Well, that’s what I’m going to do here for you. Okay, so here’s what happened last week on The Running Mind podcast.
So you sit, you ration the circumstances in your life, the stuff that’s happening around you, is neutral, it’s always in neutral. It’s your thoughts about your situation that cause you to feel the feelings inside, okay? So you know, if you get a flat tire on your way to work, the flat tire doesn’t cause you to be pissed off. Okay, it’s your thoughts about getting the flat tire that caused the emotions, okay.
And then your thoughts about a particular situation will be different depending on how you experience the world. So whatever your model of the world it is, which is based on your past experiences, your beliefs, your values, your religious views, and on and on, these are all filters that we use to kind of, it’s how we perceive the world around us. And they’re different for everyone.
So we each have our own model of the world. We each experience, quote, unquote, reality differently. Okay, the way you interpret the circumstances in your life, that is your reality, the way that I interpret the circumstances in my life, that is my reality. So we each have a kind of a different reality. We call this the model of the world, your model of the world.
But the empowering part about this is that you get to create your own reality, and everyone else does, too. So what you actually think is like, just the way it is, isn’t the same for me, it’s not the same for everybody else. Just the way it is, is the way it is for you. Okay.
And an example I gave was like, if you are running a marathon, and you get a cramp in your calf at mile 18 and it hurts, and you have to stop and walk. So that’s just a circumstance, that’s just what is happening. You can choose for it to mean nothing, no big deal. I’m going to finish a little bit slower than I thought. Or you can choose it to mean, I’m an utter failure. I can’t, you know, ever be successful at running a marathon. I can’t believe I had to walk. I’m a terrible person. I’m unworthy.
Yeah, the cramp in your leg is not causing those feelings. Okay? This is what you’re thinking about it. All right. So situations are always neutral. There’s just circumstances in your life, your thoughts, you get to choose your thoughts. That’s your thinking, which causes you to feel emotions, and emotions are those one word things like anger, sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, even like joy, happiness, confidence, love. These are all emotions that we feel based on how we think.
Okay, then today, we’re going to fill in the last two pieces of this puzzle, which is actions and results, okay. So your thinking causes your feelings, your feelings, determine your actions, okay? And then your actions, the actions that you take, determine the results that you get. Okay?
So let’s talk a little bit about actions. Actions, our actions are the stuff you do. Actions are the behaviors that you engage in the steps that you take. Actions can also be stuff you don’t do. Now, inaction is a form of behavior, right? Or an action. So every action you take is driven by your feelings.
And you might be thinking, Well, no, I just, you know, I do things because I know I have to or whatever, but think about this for a second. Have you ever gone out? And just like you went for like a 10 mile run? And you’re like, I don’t know, when I did that, I just felt like it. Right? Or if you’re, if you’re Forrest Gump, and it’s like, why have you been running for so long? I don’t know. I just felt like running.
Or maybe you were supposed to go out for a training run and it was like cold and rainy and you’re like, I don’t really feel like it today. So your feelings about the situation are determining what you’re going to do or not do? Okay? Another example is like, people with depression, they often don’t feel like doing anything, you know, and hear me out on this like depression is a diagnosed mental disorder. And I’m not saying it’s something you can just turn on and off with your thinking.
But, you know, depression is caused by things like you know, it’s biological, psychological and social sources of distress cause depression, the definition. You know, the Google definition of depression is a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life. In other words, if you have depression, you don’t feel like doing anything. You have a lot of loss of interest in activities.
And I’m not saying this is all there is to it, but it’s part of it. It’s part of the equation of depression. But think about this for a minute. If you’re feeling lonely, if you’re feeling sad, or depressed or unworthy, how are you going to show up in the world? What actions are you more likely to take? Or what are you not going to do?
You know, how are you going to show up for work? For your partner, for your kids? What behaviors good or bad do you think you’ll partake in? If you’re feeling lonely, sad, depressed and unworthy? My guess is that you’re probably going to take some negative actions, you’re gonna engage in some negative behaviors, you probably make some poor choices, you might even, you know, start doing some escape-ism stuff, you know, checking out and numbing.
But what if you felt differently inside? Like, what if you felt feelings of confidence? What if you felt feelings of contentment, of peace? What if you were grateful and happy? How would these feelings determine your actions? What do you think you would do if you felt that way?
You know, what actions would you be more likely to take? And then think about how you would show up for work if you were feeling that way? How would you show up for your partner or for your kids? How would you show up for your training runs? What do you think you would do or not do?
So it’s so important to understand that, you know, everything that we do, we do because we are feeling a certain way. And a lot of times, you know, there’s things we do, because we don’t want to feel that way anymore. So this is like in painful situations. We can engage in some, you know, I call it like escapist or escapism, numbing behaviors, you know, overeating, drinking too much. lethargy, you know, spending money.
A lot of people, you know, shop, they have that shopping addiction. And I’m not making fun of that, but I saw this meme recently that I thought was pretty funny. And at the top of it, it just said, you know, therapist says, “Now, what do we say when we’re feeling sad?” And then the patient says, “Add to Cart”. The therapist was like, “No”.
But it’s true, it makes us feel good, we get that little hit of dopamine when we purchase something, or when we, you know, have that drink, or take that particular drug or eat the french fries, and the burger and the milkshake. You know, it makes us feel good temporarily. It does help us to not feel the feelings of pain or sadness, or loneliness, or unworthiness or whatever.
And it does work, it works for a minute, it kind of makes the pain go away temporarily, but then when that little buzz wears off, the pain is back. And then it becomes worse, because now we beat ourselves up about engaging in this bad behavior. And then the cycle just continues. So our feelings can really determine that our feelings really determine our actions.
And we have to be careful about the kinds of actions we take when we’re feeling certain ways, okay. And then these behaviors that we engage in can become habits after a while, and they can actually form new neural pathways in our brains. And so they can become easier to do over you know, over time, they become easier and easier to do these things, they become habits, and they become part of our subconscious.
And this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the behavior. Okay. So just to kind of summarize what I’m talking about with actions, your actions are the things we do or don’t do, they are the behaviors we engage in, or don’t engage in, they are good or bad behaviors. And then it’s our actions that actually determine all of our results. Okay.
So results are the things that you get in your life, or the things that you want in your life. These are usually tangible and measurable. So results can be things like, hey, I ran a half marathon and under two hours, that’s a tangible measurable result. I lost 10 pounds. I got a promotion at work. I made $100,000 last year, these are all tangible, measurable results.
Something like there’s a little bit of a gray area, but it’s like I have a great relationship with my partner. So that could be an opinion. But you could quantify that by saying, like, oh, we communicate clearly and openly and regularly, we work through all of our issues. You know, we spend quality time together, we speak each other’s love languages, that could be a measurable way of saying that that is a result that you have, okay, but every result that you get in your life is determined by action you’ve taken or your inaction, okay?
So what you do, or don’t do, determines what you get, or don’t get. And if you want different results in your life, if you want something to change, you have to take different actions, right, the definition of insanity, that’s doing the same things over and over and over expecting different results.
And the crazy thing is like, we all do this, we’ve all done this at some point in our life, right? You know, I just, I’m going to keep training the same way, every season for my marathon, and I’m not getting any faster. And it’s still way, super hard. But I’m not changing my diet, I’m not changing my training plan, I’m not doing anything different. And I keep getting the same results. Why is this happening to me?
It’s like, Hey, you gotta switch some stuff up, right? But what we do, determines what we get. And what we do is driven by how we feel. So if you want to change your actions, you’re going to have to change how you feel. First, you have to change the emotions that you’re feeling. And since your thoughts determine your feelings, you’re gonna have to change your thinking first. So basically, what I’m saying here is if you want different results in your life, you have to change your thinking, Okay?
How you’re thinking more than anything else is going to determine your results, how you think about your situation, or how you think about, you know, whether you can do this thing or not, you know, if you think I remember when I sign up for my Ironman, that was a big deal for me back then. I was scared to death.
I hit the, you know, submit button when I paid for it, which was like $700, by the way. So there was fear. And there was like, a sense of like, am I doing the right thing here? But anyway, I was full of fear, like, can I do this? Can I accomplish this really hard thing? I mean, it’s a crazy event, you know?
And so I had to change my thinking, at some point, I had to sort of become an Ironman, like I had to, you know, get into the thinking of like, Yes, I can do this, in order for me to get those results. Because if I thought the whole time, like, there’s no way I can do this, there’s no way I can do this. There’s no way I can do this.
Guess what? When I show up at the starting line, my habitual thought patterns and feelings around this are all going to be I can’t do this. That’s a terrible way to approach something like that. So instead, I had this thought of like, I’m going to do this, I am going to do this, I can do this. You know, I was still nervous and fearful and things like that. But I pushed through that. I thought and felt in my heart that I could do it. And I did. Okay, so here’s a great question. Ask yourself, what do you want? Seriously, what do you want? See, very powerful question. And unfortunately, we don’t really take it very seriously. But think about it, like maybe you want to run a full marathon someday.
Or maybe you want to start your own business. But you’re thinking like, I could never do a full marathon like, I’m just I’m not capable of that. Or I would love to start my own business, but it just seems so complicated. I just don’t know enough. You know, or maybe what you want is a better relationship with your husband, or you want that promotion at work or you want to start your own business or you want to hike the Appalachian Trail you want to vacation in Italy.
Or you want to spend a month on a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific. Seriously, that’s what I want. I want to spend a month on some remote little island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. That’s what I want. But think about it, like what do you want in your life? Start asking yourself that question seriously, and figure out the answer, figure out what it is that you want. Because it’s a very, very important question.
So I’m going to give you guys a little writing exercise this week. And this is going to help you to see how this all works. I’m gonna give you an example here in a minute, but it’ll help you to see how this works. But it will also help you to start in creating some new realities for yourself and start getting some results that you want. And when you start doing this work on a regular basis, you will start to create better habits, and you’ll start to create those new neural pathways like I was talking about.
So here’s the exercise I want you to do, I want you to think about something that you really, really want, okay? And just write it down. And then write down all the thoughts you have about that thing, just brain dump everything out on the page doesn’t matter, good, bad. Otherwise, just break down everything you’re thinking about. It’s really interesting, when you start doing this, to see what it is, your thoughts are around something like that, you’re going to surprise yourself with what you’re actually thinking.
And then write down how those thoughts make you feel. You know, some might make you feel good, some might make you feel terrible, but just write down the feelings you’re feeling. You know, the emotion words, those one word emotion words. And then think about the actions that you’re taking or not taking because of those feelings. And then are those actions going to get you the result that you want? Are those actions going to get you what you want or not? Okay?
So that is like step one is to write down all that stuff. And then what you want to do is on a separate piece of paper, you know, write down that thing that you want again, but then, you know, write down what you want to think instead, the thoughts that would make you feel differently. You know, a lot of times, it’s going to be kind of the opposite of some of those thoughts that you had that maybe the negative thoughts.
So write down the thoughts you want to think instead. And then write down the emotions that those thoughts cause you to feel. And then write down the actions that one might take, because of those feelings, and then see if that is going to move you closer to that thing that you want. And I think you’re going to find some very interesting results from this. So here’s an example. I want to spend a month on a tiny little tropical island in the middle of the South Pacific. Okay, that’s what I want.
My initial thoughts when I just think about it is, oh, my gosh, that’s gonna be really expensive. I don’t think I can afford it. I don’t know if I can be away from home for that long. I would really want somebody to go with me, but I’m not sure who so I don’t know, do I just go alone? That sounds lame.
And I just don’t know if you guys need to know this or not. I’m going through a divorce right now. It’ll be finalized soon. I’m doing good. I’m doing pretty good through all that. But when I talk about things, like, you know, maybe I should go alone or find somebody to go with me. I’m not cheating on anybody. Just so you know. Okay.
So those thoughts are like, it’s expensive. I don’t know if I could be away from that long. Who should I go? You know, who would want to go with me? Do I just pick a friend? I don’t know. Maybe I go alone? What are those thoughts cause me to feel well, they caused me to feel fear, like financial fear, like, oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can spend that much money. You know, there’s that fear of the unknown of uncertainty.
Then I’m feeling things like loneliness and sadness about it. Because if I go by myself, is that lame? Does that make me feel sad? Maybe? And then what actions would I take? Because of those feelings? Probably nothing, I probably wouldn’t do anything.
And what are you thinking about this right now, as I’m saying this to you? Are you thinking like, do you just go? It’s going to be so much fun. What a fun adventure. I know, that’s what you’re thinking. And I’m kind of thinking that too. And I’m looking at this and going like, I don’t want to feel those feelings. You know, if this is something that’s important to me that I want to do, I need to take some different actions, I need to feel differently, I need to think about it differently.
So the results I would get would be nothing. I wouldn’t go on this trip. I just wouldn’t do it. Now. Piece of paper number two. Let’s say I write the same thing on there. I want to spend a month on a tropical island in the middle of the South Pacific. What thoughts would I want to think instead? Well, first of all, I can probably save money for this. It wouldn’t take that long. You know I can work, get out so that everything is covered from a work perspective, you know, get all that stuff covered. Because I don’t think I’m gonna have access to the internet in this place. I think I just want to be unplugged.
You know, workout, social connections and meetings. And although I can get my schedule figured out, my schedule is flexible on purpose. So I can do things like this. And I bet I could find someone to go with me. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to a tropical island for a month with me? It would be amazing. Are you kidding me? So oh, my God, he’s so amazing. I could even go alone and just make it an opportunity for me to like, really discover myself. I mean, that sounds right there.
When I say it like that. It’s like, Whoa, that sounds so cool and empowering. And how does that make me feel? Oh, my God, now I’m feeling excited and adventurous. And it sounds like fun. I’m feeling joyful, and even grateful. Grateful for my schedule, grateful for these kinds of opportunities. And I’m even feeling a little bit of fear. But it’s okay. It’s like, it’s fear. But I know, it’s like, the fear of like, of the unknown. And that’s okay, like, I can handle that.
All right, then what actions would I take based on those feelings? Well, oh, my gosh, I’m gonna start planning this thing, I’m gonna start a savings fund, I’m gonna grab a map and start figuring out what island I want to go to and figure out how to get there, gotta take all these little planes or whatever, and I’m going to talk to some friends and find somebody to come with me.
And then, you know, the two of us will start talking about it and planning together and all that into anticipation. And all the planning just sounds so fun. Like, that’s the kind of action that I want to take. And then the result would be that I go on this life changing adventure to this little island, you know, and it all starts with thinking about it differently. You know, so that result that I want in my life, that thing that I want, I can get that and I can see how I can get that by changing my thoughts by changing my feelings and changing my actions.
I feel I want to go on this trip now. I’m gonna have to do that. And like keep you guys posted as to what is happening with that, because this would be amazing. So here’s a quick recap. circumstances in our life, the situations where it’s always neutral. Okay, we get to choose our thoughts about how we feel about each situation, okay, choose our thoughts.
And then our thinking determines our feelings and our emotions, our emotion. Our emotions drive our feelings. I’m sorry, our emotions, drive our actions or inaction. And then those actions determine the results that we get. And if you want different results, you got to change your thinking, okay.
So there’s like five little components to this, these little five things, you learn these five things, and you’re gonna learn how to master your mindset, for running and for life. Okay, I hope you’re seeing how this all fits together. This is the secret to the universe.
Seriously, if you understand this, and you start to really grasp these concepts, and understand how this works, you are going to live a more empowered life, you’re going to start getting what you want in your life. And you’re going to start feeling amazing. And you’re going to start doing amazing things and start getting amazing results. Cool.
I would love to hear your thoughts about this, you can always reach out to me directly at hello@innerfiretribe.com. Questions, comments, anything. And then you know, I post these things on the socials. So follow me on Facebook @pmcgilvray and on Instagram @pmcgilvray.
You can always drop comments on my posts there too, or send me a message or whatever. I’d love to hear from you. I love connecting with you guys individually. I love hearing how you’re thinking about this stuff and how it’s changing the way you’re thinking and seeing the world. And I would love to hear about the results that you’re getting. Cool. I hope you all have an amazing day. Much love to each and every one of you and I’ll see you next time
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