Episode 365: Brad Stulberg - Master Of Change
Brad Stulberg researches, writes, and coaches on health, well-being, and sustainable excellence. He is the bestselling author of The Practice of Groundedness and co-author of Peak Performance. Stulberg regularly contributes to the New York Times, and his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Outside Magazine, Forbes, and other outlets. He also serves as the co-host of The Growth Equation podcast and is on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Graduate School of Public Health. In his coaching practice, he works with executives, entrepreneurs, physicians, and athletes on their mental skills and overall well-being.
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Episode Transcript
All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of the Human Performance Outliers podcast. I am your host, Zach Bitter, and today I have a guest interview for you. Today's guest is Brad Stulberg. Brad Stulberg researches, writes and coaches on health, wellbeing and sustainable excellence. He is the best selling author of The Practice of Groundedness and co author of Peak Performance. Stulberg regularly contributes to The New York Times, and his work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Outside Magazine, Forbes and many other outlets. He also serves as the co-host of the Growth Equation podcast and is on the faculty at the University of Michigan's Graduate School of Public Health. In his coaching practice, he works with executives, entrepreneurs, physicians and athletes on their mental skills and overall well-being. Today, I wanted to talk to Brad specifically about one of his upcoming books called The Master of Change. I had the privilege of being able to check that out early and sit down and chat to him about it. So one of the main themes of that one is how do we deal with change and accept it when it comes? And there's a ton of excellent topics within that that we dive into with Brad for this episode. So hopefully you enjoy my conversation with him.
Brad
Hey Zach, it's great to be here.
Zach
Yeah, it's fun to have you here. I have probably a million topics I could talk to you about, but I think there's some that are probably going to be more in line with today's episode. But you're recently had a book coming out that I had the privilege of reading called Master of Change. And there's just so many good things in there that got me thinking maybe a little more deep into things that I've sort of been thinking about a lot more more so recently, maybe more than before. But I thought it was kind of a good roadmap for people to kind of connect things that maybe they are sort of passively thinking about but haven't really given like a ton of thought to and gone into the finer details for.
Brad
Thanks. It's my. I'm really thrilled to hear that. That's definitely my first and foremost goal as a writer is to give people language for things that they might intuit or they might feel and maybe they already even know it, but they don't yet have the words for it. Because once you have words for something, it becomes concrete. You can wrestle with it, it becomes more tangible. So I'm really honored to hear that. Thank you.
Zach
Yeah. And the thing that stood out to me the most was one thing I obviously knew but have been thinking about more of is just generally speaking, I've moved a lot in my life, so I'm 37 and essentially since I graduated high school, I've moved to, at first just a bunch of different places in Wisconsin when I was teaching and kind of getting that career going. And then once I sort of transitioned from teaching to coaching in professional sports or athletics, I moved to a couple different states in the course of seven years. Then I got married and then you know that has another variable. So then my wife and I moved to Austin, Texas a year and a half ago, and I was just thinking about it. The whole second half of my life. I've pretty much moved every couple of years. I think the longest I've been in one spot is four years, which was Phoenix in that time frame. And the reason I was kind of I've been thinking about in the past because I always kind of thought to myself, just from like the racing side of my life, I always find like there's just getting the, the efficiencies of like a proper training program in place is so interconnected with everything else in your life that you have to be thinking about everything. And when you move from one place to the next, there's all the excitement. They're like, okay, this is a new place. I get to check out new things. The new routes are exciting. They're not boring, they're not complacent. New people, all these exciting, positive things. But then there's also just simple things that you lose all your efficiency and as simple as like, you know, where do I go To the doctor? How quickly can I get to a grocery store now that I don't know where everything exactly is? That just takes what I think about a year to really kind of renormalize to the degree where you're sort of able to go on cruise control through some of those things to the point where now all of a sudden you're a fish and again, you can spend a little more time and energy focusing on the things you're really, really curious about. That's
Brad
right. I think that that happens with moving. That happens with a new job. And what you're describing is the learning curve. And I think that for people that like to be really efficient and have their routines and perhaps individuals that really care deeply about a few pursuits in their life and are used to automating everything else, moving can be really stressful because of that, that you just can't automate everything else. And suddenly things that you used to be able to do in your sleep take time and effort, which then of course takes time and effort away from the things that you actually care about. I think that another more trivial example of this is when you lose your credit card and you have to go update it on every magazine or newspaper. You subscribe to every, you know, automatic pet food account that you have. And they're like little pebbles in your shoe. You know, they don't, like totally upend you, but they're really uncomfortable to step on and change can put all sorts of pebbles in our shoe. And the bigger the change, the more pebbles we tend to have.
Zach
Yeah, yeah, that's a good example. I actually just recently had to replace my credit card and I just remembered, Hey, I got a lot of different things set up to go through that one area. So yeah, definitely something that you, you get efficient with, but then when it's gone, you realize how much actual kind of work goes into just simple things like that.
Brad
Yeah. And I think especially for someone like you, for an elite athlete and even someone that's maybe not a professional athlete, but that competes at a high level and puts a lot of time and effort into it. It's just like the cognitive load of training. Really hard is hard. And then if you're also somebody that is married or in a partnership or has kids or has a job outside of just training, there's just not that many more things that you like that you have the cognitive, mental energy and willpower for. And I think when you move suddenly, you need to tap into those reserves and that's a cause of stress.
Zach
Yeah, that's a good point. And it brings up kind of a topic I wanted to hit on with you, which is just the, the stress in general and how we kind of look at it, because I mean, stress is stress gets all sorts of weird labels, like it can be looked at as really negative a lot of times, I think. But ultimately, you know, when I go through a training cycle or I'm coaching someone and they're going through a training cycle, I'm intentionally adding stress. And the idea is that I hit them with just enough so their body makes a response and then they recover from it and they get better. And then we rinse and repeat often enough that they get to the spot they want to be. But one thing you spoke about was that you need to be mindful of stress outside of whatever the goal target is, because if I'm working with somebody and treating them like a blank slate and only looking at the training stress and the recovery from that timeline, and I'm not taking into account their work stress, their family stress, even positive things that are changing, like positive emotional things that really gets you excited. But as a stressor your body doesn't necessarily absorb all that as like, Oh, this is a good stressor, therefore I'm going to be responding well to it. This is a bad stressor. I mean, it's run negative. It sees it all the same. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about that, like how do you recommend navigating a world where there's all these different types of stress coming at you? Is there like. And you mentioned reserve. Is there a way that you sort of account for that and try to balance that? 1.1s
Brad
Ooh, we could spend hours talking about this. So I think that ultimately what you're describing here is what researchers would call the allostatic process, which basically says that any living system has stability at point X, and then there's something that causes disorder or chaos or change, which takes the system to Y. And then the system in an ideal world grows and gets stronger and moves forward and ends up at Point Z. And training is a great example of that, right? Because you have your cardiovascular system or your musculoskeletal system and it's got a stable point and then you throw a workout at it and suddenly there's an inflammatory process and you might have some catabolic breakdown of your muscle and basically your body goes into disorder. But as you mentioned, if you recover from that and the stress, the dose of that stress in the timing is appropriate, then your body reorders somewhere new in that reorder happens to be stronger, more resilient, more robust. It's the process of gaining fitness. And what's fascinating is that over time, we gain capacity to handle more stress. So as you excel at anything so we can continue with the example of athletics fitness. But this is also just true of life stress. The more fit that you get, the more stress that you're able to tolerate and still respond to however exactly what you said. If you are someone that is really focused on one goal in one area of your life. And the surrounding areas of your life are really calm and predictable. Then you can really push the ratchet in that one area. You can take a lot of stress because that's basically the only stimulus that your body is going to have to absorb. Whereas if you are also just getting married or going through a divorce, you just got a new promotion or you just got laid off. You just had kids, all of these other life stresses. Then the global stress budget can get maxed out a little bit sooner. So I think it's a trap that a lot of athletes run into. We get really good at thinking about training, stress and the stress from our workouts, but we don't necessarily see it in the broader picture of what's going on in our life. And there's a reason that so many pro athletes go to training camps. Yes. Like, you know, the altitude is great and being with teammates is great, but it's also just the ability to kind of be in a monastery setting where life is really simple. You don't have much to worry about and you can focus on the only stress being from your workouts. But when you're out of that setting, then it's important to be mindful of the other stressors in life. And then the last thing that I'll say is, to the extent that athletes have the ability to be planful and how they plan their training and their racing. I think that it's a good idea generally to like to try to really go for it in sport when other areas of your life are stable. I think people run into problems when they try to, you know, qualify for the Olympic trials at the same time that they're having their first child, at the same time that they're defending their PhD dissertation and people tend to burn out when they do that.
Zach
Yeah, this topic is fascinating to me because the sport I do ultramarathon is an all day effort. A lot of times, sometimes more than not so much me, but other people in the sport, multiple days where there's like this low level discomfort that you have to manage mentally for hours and hours and hours beyond the point in which you would normally stop. So it puts you in this weird situation where in training you really cannot replicate that physically because there's this massive overreach that would occur. So there's this big open end of a race day experience that is quite a bit different than what I think most sports will see, where you can replicate event day a lot more closely in practice. So when I look at that through the mental and physical demand side of things, I think we've learned a lot about the right way to physically prepare for that. Like the wrong way is to go out and just run all the time and think, Oh, because I'm running 100 miles, I should run all day, every day. It's like your body can only tolerate so much and then it's going to break down. The mental side is where I get interested in this, because if you properly physically prepare for a 100 mile race, I don't think you're necessarily taxing your mind the way it would necessarily need to be to be optimized for something that long because the training duration just simply isn't long enough. So I've started looking at it differently where there's the physical training, which is going to feed into the mental side of things to some degree. But then I need to also find other ways in life to make sure that mentally, when I'm preparing for a race, I carve that mental strength where when I get ten hours in, I still want it versus feeling like I hit my mental stress like tolerance level. And now I can't close strong. And I started thinking about this because my wife has a career outside of running but is also competitive at running. So mine is a little more different where my career outside of the actual training and racing stuff is very much in the running world. So I can kind of keep these worlds more together, whereas hers are totally separate and they do not interchange with one another. And she had a phase where like a bunch of changes, a ton of extra work, stress just piled up and she managed it quite well. Her racing suffered a bit during that time frame, but then that led off and she hit a phase of racing after that led off where she could not make a mistake mentally in races. It was like she could go into the race, understand what she was supposed to do, let everyone else make whatever mistake they were going to make and not think about it, and then just be like dead center focus for the entirety of their race. And it was almost like mentally she prepared her tolerance. During that rough patch when work was done a little crazier and then when it let off, it was kind of like, okay, now you have this huge tolerance, but you're not going to get hit with it for a few months. So ideally, as her coach, I would have told her don't race at all during that first stage of it and just save all your race energies for the second half of the year. And if we would have known the timeline like that, I think we probably would have done that. I'd be curious what your thoughts are with something like Ultra Marathon and how that all plays out. 1.2s Oh yeah, this is so fascinating. So I think that the first thing that I'll say is there's a reason that a lot of ultra runners tend to peak later in their careers and some of it is pure physiology, like, you just need to really amass significant amounts of mileage to build an appropriate base to run that fast. And, you know, most people don't start training for Ultras at 15. So it just takes time for when someone enters the sport. But I also think so much of it is the wisdom element. And just like you said, you can't really train going to those hard places because your training would inherently be reckless. Like you can only go to those hard places a couple of times a year at most. You want to save it for the race. So I think that for an ultra athlete, I would say that like, yeah, when you're in a race, you want to win that race and you're racing, but every race is also kind of like training for the next race. So the first thing I'd say is just being patient and getting reps and experience under your belt because you reach that point of an ultramarathon and it really becomes more about problem solving and psychological fortitude and strength than anything else. To your second point, I think that's really interesting and maybe there is something to say about if you are an ultra athlete in particular and you're going through like a really stressful season of life, if you can have your mindset say like, Yeah, this sucks, but so does Mile 74 of a hilly ultramarathon. And it's kind of this same capacity to just be with the discomfort and be with the suck and not completely melt down and lose your cool. And that probably does have some transfer, some carryover. I think the other thing that I'll observe. So many different factors in what a scientist would call confounders that make it hard to say this with any level of certainty on causation. But it is an interesting observation that so many ultra runners, especially really good ones, have suffered from really severe depression or substance abuse disorders. And I can't help but wonder if the severe depression or substance abuse disorder is, in some ways, preparation for those times of an ultramarathon when it just really sucks, 1.1s particularly around the substance use. Like, you know, I'm very fortunate that I've never had a substance use disorder, but I've reported and spoken to many people who have been withdrawing from opiates. Just sounds like they talk about an urge to just stop whatever you're doing so that you can then go get high. I mean, ants crawling in every cell of your body in the whole game is not giving in to those ants. And I do think that there's a reason that a lot of people then go into ultrarunning and excel. And there's so many other reasons. Right. But I think that that is one. So I'm not saying that we should go, you know, start using opiates recreationally, get addicted so that we can practice suffering. But I do think that there's mental transfer because it's ultimately the same skill, right? The skill is every cell in your body is telling you to do X and the name of the game is sitting there and being like, I hear you, but I'm going to keep doing y. I hear you, but I'm going to keep doing Y. 1.2s And I mean, I've never raced a 100 mile race, so I don't know. But I can imagine that, as you said, you know, there are things that you can do to prepare so you can get your body in top shape. You can really nail your fueling so you're not getting hungry and you're not that glucose deprived. But running 100 miles is just an unnatural thing. So you can do all that perfectly. And still it's probably
Brad
a point in the race where like those ants start to crawl telling you to stop or to slow down or so on and so forth.
Zach
Yeah, no doubt. You definitely come to a point where you're really asking yourself, Why am I out here and what am I doing this for? And if you don't go in with a mind that has got a clear answer to that, that it can go too quickly before you drop out or, you know, just start to self doubt yourself, then you're going to be in a little bit more trouble, I think, in those later stages. So it's interesting.
Brad
Have you found in your own career that with experience like the expectation is at least now there? Because that's another thing and I write about this a lot in the book and I'm glad that we're getting to talk about this within the microcosm of running. So there's fascinating new research that says that our conscious experience at any given time is basically a mix of reality as it is, plus our expectations for reality. So if we have a rosy expectation or we expect that things are going to be stable and then change occurs, we feel like crap because our reality is out of alignment with our expectations. Whereas if we expect something to be chaotic or unstable or uncomfortable and then it is. We actually experience reality very differently. We feel much better. Researchers have looked at the hormonal level like we have less cortisol. So the most extreme example is you could imagine a soldier in the battlefield and a person shopping in a grocery store and they both get shot in the leg. Same gun, same bullet, same muscle in the leg, same person, everything the same. The soldier is going to have a lot less cortisol and feel a lot less pain when the person in the grocery store. Why? Because there's some expectancy as a soldier on a battlefield that you might get shot, whereas in a grocery store, I mean, sadly, in America it's becoming something that is more normal, but it shouldn't be in alignment with your expectations. So you take that crazy example and you think about racing and it's almost like the first couple of times you go there, you can't know what it's going to be like. And whatever your expectations are, it's probably worse. But once you've gone there, then you can tow the line into a race. And when you get to that period and it happens, you're not as thrown off by it because you have some expectancy that it's going to happen. And I do think that experience is just the name of the game. Like, it's very hard to replicate this, as you were saying.
Zach
Yeah, no, that's a great point. And it definitely surfaces in Ultras. And it's one thing I reflected on a ton after my 2019 race season because I had a couple races where I broke through some spots where previously I think we're hurdles that I didn't necessarily know I could get over. So the way I describe Ultras is you're going to have these points where, like you dip into a low and your mind wants to go to it can't get any worse than this or it's really bad. Right now, I've got X number of miles to go, and if I'm going to feel like this the whole way, it's just unmanageable. And you do not understand in your mind's eye that you can continue doing the thing that got you there and feel much better later. So you get these experiences by doing these races where you actually have that, where you have a low and then 20 minutes later you feel greater than you did all day long. And then you you if you remember those points, you can kind of take those into the next one where you hit a low and you're like, okay, I know this is terrible right now and this is what I want to hear, but if I just keep pushing, it will clear up and I'll get better. So having that experience, I told myself two things, actually. One was, well, how many more levels of that are there out there that I'm unaware of at this point in time? And then also, how many times in the past did I concede early when I could have pushed through a little bit further like I did today? So it sort of opens up some thought processes that maybe weren't there before. On the complete other side of it, I think there's this theme in ultrarunning, too, where there is a bit of a culture of just like get to the finish line at all costs and you get people who are newer to the sport who it's like they call it death before DNF, where it's like, I'm going to get there and they don't even assume DNF ING is an option to them. So they get to these races. They're tough because of that, because they haven't even put that in the bucket of things to choose from. Inevitably, most people end up having a race where they drop out. Sometimes it's like that for obvious reasons. Other times it's just, you know, they were not mentally there that day. You name it, there's a reason for it. So everyone has that first experience. And now going forward with those options on the table because you know it's there. You did it before, whereas before you had kind of just ruled it out. And you see sometimes people have this sort of hurdle to get over their next phase of races because now they're entering these races and facing those hard points where there's this option on the table that wasn't there before. And that option is the one that kind of tries to creep into their mind when things get really bad.
Brad
Mhm. Well, I think here what you're describing is so similar to the evidence based therapeutic models for dealing with intrusive thoughts and feelings, which is I imagine what being late in an ultramarathon is often typified by like intrusive thoughts and feelings. And the more that you fuse with them and latch on to them or try to make them go away, the stronger they get. Whereas if you have intrusive thoughts and feelings and you just say some version of like, Huh, well, this sucks right now, like maybe it's going to be like this forever, but maybe it'll pass. It tends to pass. And I think that you probably can dig yourself a pretty big hole by freaking out when that feeling comes on because it becomes all consuming and then the brain just looks forward and says, as you mention, Oh my God, there's 30 more miles. It's just going to get worse when in fact sometimes it gets better. And I think that that is probably like a Jedi skill in life and in running, which is to be able to have feelings and to have your brain tell you that this is never going to get better, this is going to be all encompassing and to basically be able to be like, nah, maybe, maybe not. Not to say, no, this can't be because then you're pushing back and it gets sticky. But just like not even engaging, just being like, Yeah, this is how I feel right now. Maybe I will feel like this later. Maybe not 1.1s again, like a telltale sign of clinical depression. Is this this brain state that tells you that you are going to be stuck here forever and it will feel like this forever. And that's terrifying. But the more that you engage with that, the stickier it gets. Whereas over time, if you can learn to be like, Huh, my brain's told me that before, but then four hours later I actually felt great. The more that you have faith in the future, that can happen again. And I think that that is such an important skill to realize that like, feelings ebb and flow and particularly emotions which in like neuroscience underlies the feeling. So just stuff that's happening in our body can really ebb and flow in ways that are so complex that we can't even imagine how to control it. And just to be able to sit there and not attach to a feeling and then taking that on the race course is so important. However, again, with experience, the better the excuse me, the better you get, the more you probably realize that, you know, I've given this like nine miles to pass and it's just getting worse. That might be the time to DNF. And I think it depends, right? If you're somebody that this is a bucket list item for or you're a cancer survivor or coming off a divorce or whatever it is, and it is just so central to your identity that you finish this race, then maybe you trudge ahead, you know, if the medical tent clears you. Whereas if you're competing professionally or you're trying to compete professionally, you're trying to win races and put together a career, well then it takes a lot of wisdom and strength to actually say, you know, today's not the day because I don't want to bury myself and put myself in a hole for the next 20 miles if today is simply not the day. And that takes a lot of discernment to be able to make that call.
Zach
Hmm. Yeah, I'm really glad you explained it that way, because I do think what you said at the end is important too, because like, there is going to be the individual component of like, why are you here in the first place? And like, yeah, there are people where getting to that finish line is going to be a massive reason for them to carry on in a positive manner. Post-race where there's going to be a group of people where maybe trudging to the finish line takes their next race opportunity off the table. And that was a race after they needed to maintain their athlete contract or something like that. So yeah,
Brad
It's a different ballgame.
Zach
Yeah, Yeah. And then what you said before that I thought was really interesting too, because I just did a podcast on mental training, and the way you described it was like step by step, what I'm trying to get across with that sort of thing where it's like we're doing all these things every day. We've just normalized a lot of them so that we're doing them more intuitively and we're not necessarily recognizing it. So I'm always trying to get people to back up when it gets to race preparation, timeline or like when we're getting into the phase of training where we're really focusing on race specific stuff. And I'm trying to get their mind really set on what they're going to go through for the day as well as their body. And I tell them to start to try to re-recognize some of those things that you're doing where you're compartmentalizing your tasks for the day where like every day you go into it knowing I have to get like whatever the list of things I'm going to do today is done. And as soon as you have that list or that scaffolding in place, you don't sit there every step of the way thinking about, oh, well, number ten on the list, it's you know, you don't do that. You avoid that on purpose because, you know, to get to ten, you have to do one, two, three, etcetera. So you get one done, you check it off, you get that gratification thing. Okay, that one's off the list. You move on to two and you just keep doing that and then you get to the end of the day, you turn something that maybe would have been mentally difficult to wrap your head around into something that's just routine because of the way that you chunk it. And the more you can do that with a race, the more you can look at it from like, okay, I just need to get to stage one. I need to behave in a manner within stage one so that the remaining stages are sustainable. But I don't need to be thinking about, you know, the last, the last five miles of the 100 mile race when I'm five miles into it because that's just going to burn my mental energy.
Brad
Yeah. And then I think that also during day to day life, when you do deal with all manner of changes that occur, those become practice points to stay cool and calm and to respond in a thoughtful way so your kids melt down on the way to school. Well, are you going to react or are you going to respond? Your dog has diarrhea right before a big Zoom meeting in the same room you were going to take the zoom for, and now your dog might be sick and you got this meeting. How are you doing? Are you going to freak out or are you going to keep your cool and are you going to be really thoughtful and planful? You get stuck in traffic, you know, are you going to melt down or are you going to start ruminating or are you going to get really upset about it or are you going to be able to sit with it? And I think that if you can treat each of those moments as basically strength training for your brain, then when stuff comes up in a race, which inevitably it will, you'll have those reps under your belt to deal with that race. Um, and I think that we all go through this in life, but yeah, that can be a really powerful mindset shift, especially for someone that's really focused on athletic performance. Just to be able to say like, you know, life is training for sport. And then of course sport is training for life. And that's what makes ultra endurance sports so wonderful. It's a metaphor that I use in the book. Like, you know, life is the ultimate ultramarathon. It's long, it's hard. Ideally, you do it with other people. There are parts of it that are going to be great and they're going to be so many beautiful, meaningful highs. And there are parts of it that are going to be really, really low. And you can expect it to go one way, but it's almost certainly going to go another way. And the whole job is just to keep going to stay on the path. And yeah, that's just a beautiful metaphor. I remember distinctly and this is in the book in the section on expectations. 2.3s Midway through the pandemic, I wrote a story for The New York Times, an essay, and I was one of the people. And it's kind of cringeworthy looking back, but it was a good essay. It's still defensible, but I compared the essay to excuse me in the essay I compared to a marathon. And I talked about at least for the most fortunate of us, right? For those of us that hadn't lost our lives or our loved ones. But it's still really hard. And we have to be patient and we have to run the mile that we're in. And again, this was for just a very general audience. So some of these principles from endurance sport were like mind blowing to them. But one astute reader emailed me and said, No, no, no, Like it's not a marathon. It's kind of more like the Barclays Ultra Marathon because we don't really know where we're going and we don't know when the finish line is going to be. And I thought that that was true. And obviously not just for Covid, but that's true for everything in life. 1s So yeah, like there's just this beautiful metaphor between an ultra marathon in and just living.
Zach
Mhm. Yeah, no doubt. And one theme that you kind of centered around in parts of the book too was this idea of being rugged and flexible. Can you just explain to us kind of how that came to be as kind of a central theme of the book
Brad
for sure. So when people think about change in unforeseen events, they tend to fall into these two diametrically opposed camps. So one camp is like be strong and rugged in like don't bend and be really tough and work your way through. And then the other camp is like the Zen Buddhist camp, which is, you know, let go and go with the flow. And
Zach
I don't think that either of those extremes is actually very helpful in the majority of situations. We need to be both of those things. We need to be really strong and robust and on certain things we need to not bend, but on so many other things. We need to be super flexible and we do need to bend and we do need to adapt and we do need to evolve. So I think that the key core, essential quality to navigating change over the course of an ultramarathon or over the course of life is to be both rugged and flexible. So to know your strengths, to know what makes you who you are, to know what makes you the kind of athlete that you are, the hills that you're going to die on, the things that you are not going to budge on. And then once you have those, define them in the broadest terms and apply them super flexibly, constantly adapt. And this is really when you look at change on the grandest scale, there is evolution and you think about species that persist and thrive over the long haul. They tend to have equal parts, ruggedness and equal parts flexibility. So on the one hand, they have these core essential features that make them what they are, and those essential features do not change, because if they did, then the species would be unrecognizable.
Brad
However, on everything else, those species are so highly adaptable. And I think that that's just exactly how we as individuals should think about navigating our own personal evolution. Like we have these core attributes that make us who we are, but we better be able to apply them really flexibly and bend on everything else.
Zach
Hmm. Interesting. Another thing you kind of talked about that I thought was really, really eye opening for a lot of people, probably as they kind of formulate just their their own goals and their own the way they go about them is just this kind of something to lose type of mentality, which I think people here like, okay, you got if you have something to lose, then you're going to work harder for it, right? But then at the same time. Depending on what your reason is within acquiring that something. It can sometimes be problematic in the sense that either the path to it becomes unenjoyable and then if it's something that you actually don't acquire, like what was the point? Or if it's something that is big and grand, you accomplish it, then what happens once you have it and it's either no longer there or that journey to it is no longer there. I want to talk to you a little bit about that, that concept in general, just because one thing that I learned in life through sport essentially was I mean, I grew up running but not overly successful to the degree where I assumed I was going to have a career in it. And then I found out about the ultramarathon. The sport grew and I found out I have a career in this. So along that journey, I recognized that I was close enough at a certain point early on in my career to take a swing at some world records, and I made that a goal. I was like, That'd be cool just to have a world record. And in hindsight, I look at that as like when I first decided to do that, I thought I was going to do it in the next half year, like I'm certainly going to go to the next race, the next race. I'm going to break that world record. And had I done that at that time, I don't think I would have been in a good spot to hold a record like that, because I think at that point in my career, I would have been terrified of losing it. And, you know, it's inevitable that someone's going to break that record. Thankfully for me, it took me almost six years to actually break that record and that journey from deciding to go for that goal and getting there. I actually learned why I was actually doing it. And I kind of refocused on like, you know, what you were running with no real, like grand expectation for you outside of what you got out of it yourself for many, many years before you found yourself in a situation to be chasing any sort of record. So why are you doing this? And then I found out the real reasons why I was doing it along the way. And when I did break the record, I was like, okay, that's cool. Um, someone's going to break it eventually, and then the sport's going to move to another level and I'm going to still be doing things within the sport that I enjoy because that's why I'm here in the first place. And the fact that it kind of played out for me in that timeline versus the other I find to be one of the more valuable life lessons I have because, I mean, there's no shortage of athletes you can look to that cling to these things, these accomplishments, these records. And you can just tell as soon as they no longer have them or as soon as they're no longer the spotlight on them, they're going to be miserable. And that's just a terrible kind of expectation for yourself to set.
Brad
Mhm. Yeah. So there's so much good stuff in here. The dichotomy in the book comes from Eric Frahm who coined this term having versus being.
Zach
Having an orientation says that we need to have the world record. We need to have the perfect partner, we need to have a big house, we need to have PR, whatever it is. It places us in a position of wanting to own something and that makes us inherently fragile because all the things that we have eventually are going to change. The world record is going to break. You know, the house is going to break down. The perfect partner is going to turn out that they're not so perfect because nobody is. The kids are going to move out of the house and we're going to be heartbroken if we completely index on having. Whereas if we can index on what from called being, which asks the questions that you asked, which is why do I want to have this thing? What's underneath it? Like only the most insecure person who I feel for because I've been this person in certain elements of my life. So I say this non-judgmental only out of insecurity do you truly just want to have the trophy. Generally speaking, you fall in love with the pursuit.
Brad
And I think that that is so much more sustainable because no one can take that away from you, right? So having a world record is different from being a runner, right? Having a world record is fragile and it's going to change and it won't be yours forever. Being a runner. I'm friends with Amby Burfoot, who won the Boston Marathon way back in the day. He still shuffles four and a half, five hour marathons at age 80. Like he is a runner that is a part of his being. No one can take that away from him. And even if he succumbed to an injury, let's say that Amby tragically lost his legs, he would still be a runner because he'd still be writing for Runner's World and pontificating on the sport. So I think that if we can define our relationships with these activities for more of a being orientation, we become a lot less fragile to
Zach
change. Yeah, that's really interesting. And it kind of highlights another aspect of this I wanted to talk to you about, and it is that kind of journey to what you're trying to get to and where the meaning is there. And the way I usually describe this with racing is like, you should be able to go to the race that you trained for and have a terrible experience and still look back and say, Hey, that was so much worth it. Yeah, I had one bad day amongst many great ones in that 4 to 6 month period that I trained and prepared for. And if you go to the race and the result of the race in and of itself ruins the entire thing, then you maybe should find a different thing to spend your time and energy on. And I, I find like I was reminded of this the other day because there's a podcast host I think you've been on this podcast actually. Chris Williamson does modern wisdom, and his story is so interesting to me because he recently released a couple of podcasts where he went like so far above and beyond expectations in terms of the aesthetics and the video quality of his podcast, which I'm sure most people are listening to versus watching, it's like he's got the YouTube component of it, but that's just part of it. But in his mind, he was so interested in just creating this thing that had this amazing aesthetic, like the next level for what YouTube is typically going to produce. And there's a comment in one of the sections like why did you spend so much money on that? Why did you do it this way? Why don't you just record it? And then another guy came in and said, I could have done it for a fraction of the price. And it's just like, Yeah, it's like, Chris is doing this because he loves it, not because he's trying to get to this one big thing. I'm sure one of his goals is to be a big successful podcaster, but he learned early on in his life that chasing money, chasing fame, chasing popularity is a fool's errand. If that's all you're chasing. There has to be a thing along the way that makes it motivating for you. And if the art of producing something that's aesthetically well put together, like the video quality of his podcast, more power to him, he's got something along the way that's fulfilling that maybe isn't the isn't something he needs to do, but it's something he wants to do and it excites him. It makes it meaningful. That's right. I mean, my least favorite part of being an author is the acute time when the book comes out because you're just swimming in a sea of bestseller lists and week one, week two sales. And is The New York Times going to say that it's a great book or not and it's really, really hard to sequester yourself from all that.
Brad
And when you're swimming in that kind of sea, it affects you like there's no way it doesn't. Whereas when I'm actually writing the book and putting together the outline and doing the research and reporting like I am so much happier 1.1s in what I've learned over time is that, yeah, like the true joy is found in the process. One of my favorite quotes comes from Robert Persichetti, author of Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and he writes that there are no xenon mountaintops. The only Zen is the Zen that you bring up there. And I think that's so true. However, we're humans. So I will write about this. You know, some people would call me an expert on this topic. And yet when I put out a book, I still check my sales rank. I still want to make the best seller list. I'm still somewhat competitive. And I've just learned that I have to have really rigid constraints around that stuff because otherwise it will consume me. And I think that we tend to think that this is all an inside game. Like I just need a process mindset. I can do this internally, but what I've come to find in myself and people I work with and in the research is that our environment is actually more important than anything. So if you want to be focused on your internal process, then you need to set up an environment that allows you to be focused on your internal process. That doesn't mean scrolling Instagram, comparing your race results to everyone else's and their perfect lives, right? Because it is impossible to just do this alone. Like, you know, we think of our identity as being within our skin and skull, but it's so much our environment as well. So the way that I think about it is like I have empirical first hand experience that I find flow and joy and meaning in the process, not the result. But I also have firsthand empirical experience that I can get caught up in results because I'm a human. So I don't judge myself. I'm just like, This is just how it is, so how can I engineer my environment? How can I engineer my creative process where I'm more squarely situated in the work, not the result of the work?
Zach
Mhm. Yeah. No, that's really interesting. It also sort of highlights I think something I've heard you speak about in the past two, which is this idea of flow and I think this has gotten more popular over the last few years specifically with like getting into like a flow state, which I would kind of consider like a short term definition of like, you know, you're you're just having a good workout and you're in this great headspace or, you know, the popular one is like Steph Curry and basketball and getting a flow state and the guy cannot miss from anywhere on the court. And I think that's an interesting aspect. But then there's also kind of like more of a long term flow where it's maybe not as poignant as when you kind of go in and out of these short term flow states. But it's more like you really get engulfed in the process of what you're doing. And when you actually get to the end of it, you look back and you just think like, Yeah, I was just kind of humming on all cylinders and things were just moving more smoothly through there. Can you just talk to me a little bit about like how you differentiate between maybe, say, a short term flow experience versus kind of setting yourself up to have a long term flow state within what your pursuits are? 1.2s A short term flow experience tends to be less than an hour, and it tends to be like this spiritual experience where time and space collapse and you're just like completely in the zone. Um, in Tibetan Buddhism it is literally described as orgasm, but like not just in a sexual act, but in whatever you're doing because you are just like in it, it's happening. And for Steph Curry on the basketball court for artist at the easel or a sculptor molding rock and stone for a runner, it might be that like, you know, eight by one mile workout where somehow it just happens and it's over and you don't feel a thing, you just do the workout, you're in it. For me, it can be sitting down to write in a day and everything just pours out like seamlessly. And those are rare. And I think that people like over indexing on those. And when you get them, that's great. But the majority of the work doesn't feel like that. The majority of the work takes effortful focus. But even when the work is taking effortful focus, if we can get into a really good groove
Brad
where at the end of the day we feel like I can sleep well tonight because like I put in the work, the results don't matter. Maybe the workout went well, maybe the numbers were crappy, but it's like I put in the work. 1.1s That's how I define long term flow is like the ability to sleep well at night because you're content with the day that you had. And I think that whether it's me writing a book or you training for a big race or a big build, it's ultimately the same process, right? We're not looking for that orgasmic flow the whole time. We're just looking to get into that rhythm where we can fall asleep feeling pretty content with the work that we did, knowing that we're going to show up again
Zach
tomorrow. Mhm. Yeah. No, that's great. And I think that's where I like to describe like any long term goal as scaffolding is, is what you want up front. And this probably feeds a little bit into the flexibility side of what you spoke about in the book which is you want the structure there so you kind of know where to move.
Brad
Yeah, that's the ruggedness. Like the ruggedness is the structure. It's like a program. It's the basic goals, right? And that you're not going to change too much because like, you're training for the race, like, you know, if you change the structure, then you go from training from an ultramarathon to A5K and suddenly it's a different thing. But within that structure, you better be able to adapt and tweak and adjust based on how your body is responding, based on the weather and stress that's in the rest of your life, like we talked about. And that's the flexibility component. And I think like the best athletes, the best plans are rugged and flexible. You kind of have to be to do
Zach
well. Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. It's. It's the ultimate summary of what I think the grand scheme is. 1.3s
Brad
Love it.
Zach
Awesome. Well, I know, Brad, you have this book coming out soon. It's not out yet, right?
Brad
That's right. Well, I don't know when this podcast will drop, but the book comes out September 5th.
Zach
Okay, cool. Yeah. So this will probably come out just before that. But the book is called Master of Change. I was fortunate enough to be able to check it out before and talk to you about it a little bit. Do you have anything else about the book you'd like the listeners to know about? So when it comes out, they can get their hands on it and dive in with some purpose.
Brad
Oh, man. Thank you for asking. Knowing that this came out a little bit before the book, there are all kinds of really neat pre-order bonuses, so don't wait until it comes out. But if you get it today from my website, which is just my name, 1.2s Brad Stolberg. And then we can also put a link in the show notes. You'll get like really, truly, I put a lot of time and effort into them. I'm proud of them. The pre-order bonuses and included in that is a guide to taking these central themes in the book, particularly rugged flexibility and applying it to your athletic pursuits. And then there's also an online masterclass where I talk a lot about applying the concepts in the book to day to day life, including in an athletic context. So if you found the conversation interesting and you think you're going to get the book anyways, I highly recommend you preorder it to get all those bonus materials.
Zach
Yeah, and that sounds like a great value. I'll definitely put a link to that in the show notes so listeners can head over and pre-order, get the Masterclass and be tuned in for the release. Brad Where else can people find you? Are you hanging out on social media at all? There's just the website.
Brad
In addition to my website on social media, I am on Instagram at Brad Stolberg and I'm not as active on Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it, whatever it is I once was. 1.4s
Zach
Awesome. Well, I'll link that stuff in the show notes to. Thanks a bunch for taking some time and sharing some of your insights to this stuff. I think it's really good to think about the mental side of this stuff. Oftentimes, I think we just get really hung up on the importance, at least with sort of the physical aspect of training and adaptations, and those are important, but it is only part of the equation.
Brad
Yeah. And for those people that do dive into the book, I'm obviously proud of the whole thing. But I think particularly for listeners that are really kind of ultra nerds and are doing this in their own life or are coaching people, I think you all are going to love the chapter and the sections on the science of consciousness and expectations and just how important updating our expectations are when things don't go as planned. And then also there's three chapters in the book on identity. And I think this is one of the more important topics for athletes to reckon with, which is when you give your all to a sport, when it is a core value and it is a part of your identity, how do you make sure that you still have other components to your sense of self so that if and when, because it happens to all of us, you get injured or the aging process really starts to have an impact on your performance. You're able to navigate that without it completely being a shock to your entire system. And in that chapter and at least one of those chapters, I tell the story of Niels Vanderpool, who's the record holder at the five K in 10-K and speedskating. And even though these are short events, his training hours were like 40 hours a week. Yet he found a way to ensure that he had other parts to his identity besides just being a speed skater. And he actually paradoxically attributes that to being able to go into the ring in 2022, in the Winter Olympics, and really, for the first time in his life, compete with no fear because he knew that even if he didn't compete well, he'd still have a meaningful life and he'd still have self worth. And most people that follow the sport know the rest. He set the world record. He won both gold medals. It was a performance for the ages. So lots to nerd out on. And yeah, I just love talking about this stuff. So thanks for having me on.
Zach
Absolutely. And that was a great way to end because I know you've spoken in the past about just that whole process of having different rooms you can go into when one door gets closed temporarily because of a bad day or something like that or race. So I think that's a great perspective. Have areas in your life where you can pull yourself into when you need to to maybe escape from something that was unfortunate.
Brad
That's right.
Zach
Awesome. Brad, thanks a bunch again for taking some time and coming on the show. All right. Thank you, Zach. Thank you.