Getting After It

104 — Fueling for Success: The Strategy Behind Sustainable Growth

• Brett Rossell • Season 4 • Episode 104

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Success isn’t just about effort—it’s about strategy. In this episode, I break down the fundamental principle that applies to running, business, relationships, and every major pursuit in life: how you fuel yourself determines how far you go.

Whether you’re training for a marathon, chasing career growth, or simply trying to be 1% better every day, the quality of what you put in—mentally, physically, and emotionally—will dictate the quality of what comes out.

I’ll share lessons from my own journey, from making massive mistakes in fueling my body for endurance training to understanding how knowledge, discipline, and adaptation act as fuel in every area of life. We’ll explore why blindly pushing forward leads to burnout, how to recognize when you’ve hit a wall, and what it takes to pivot and keep momentum going.

Key Takeaways:

Know Your Destination – If you don’t have a clear vision, you’re just running in circles. Define your goals, so you’re not wasting effort in the wrong direction.
Choose the Right Fuel – Whether it’s training, knowledge, mentorship, or discipline, make sure what you’re consuming aligns with your goals.
Plan for the Wall – Hardships, setbacks, and burnout are inevitable. Prepare for them so they don’t derail your progress.
Adapt as You Grow – Success isn’t about rigid consistency—it’s about strategic adaptation. When something stops working, be willing to evolve.

Your journey to success is an endurance race, not a sprint. Fuel intentionally, train wisely, and be relentless in your pursuit.

If this episode resonates, share it with someone who needs to hear it! Hit me up on social media or my website—I’d love to hear how you’re getting after it.

Keep getting after it! 

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I hope today’s episode sparked something within you to pursue your dreams and unlock your true potential. If you found value in it, consider sharing it with someone who might need that same push.

This podcast is built for you—the dreamers and the doers. My goal is to provide a space where you can find inspiration, learn from others, and feel empowered to chase what matters most to you.

Your dreams are within your grasp. All you need is the commitment to Get After It.

Brett:

How's it going, friends? Thanks for stopping by. You guys are looking great, as always. Happy to have you here. Today we are talking about something that is fundamental, not just in running but in life itself, and that's fueling for success. Let's get into it. Stun like my daddy, I be stun like my daddy. I be stuntin' like my daddy. I was listening to that song when I was on the treadmill today. Really great Lil Wayne back in the early 2000s when he started coming out. Ooh, that's some good stuff. Go listen to Stuntin' Like my Daddy by Lil Wayne and shout out to Todd, because he is my daddy and he's the man. Thanks for stopping in. I'm excited to talk to you today. This is go.

Brett:

It goes alongside the podcast I last just put up about understanding what your passion is, trying to find a vision for yourself. So if you haven't listened to that one, I would suggest pushing pause on this and going back and listening to that first, because understanding what your passion is, I think, is going to give you direction with whatever you want in life, whether that's financial success, anything really, your vision will determine what direction you want to go to, and this podcast we're going to be talking about fueling for success and how that really influences every decision that we make. And it's going to be really hard to do that unless you have a clear vision of where you want to go, and it'll probably make sense as we get into it here. But whether you're training for a marathon, or whether you're working towards a promotion at work, or if you're simply just trying to be better than you were yesterday like I always talk about how you fuel yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I would add that is going to determine how far you will go and, more importantly, how well you get there and how fast you get there and how you're feeling. But it's interesting because I always say running is a perfect metaphor for life. There's a lot that we can learn from it.

Brett:

But this one's a little bit more specific and when I began my journey on running, in running, I didn't necessarily know what I was doing at all Nutrition wise up to that point I was focused on bodybuilding and strength training and everything like that and the fueling requirements for both sports require two different things, very different things. In bodybuilding it's highly protein focused and carbs are supposed to be timed around. Your workouts Not necessarily focus on carbs, because in bodybuilding you want to keep your body composition, you know, relatively tight, right, and so when you eat more carbs, it's going to put more water into your cells, it's going to make you carry more water weight and so bodybuilding you have to balance the protein and carbs and ultimately your fats, because that's also crucial for your hormones and everything in between. For running it's very different because muscle glycogen which a few podcast episodes ago ago I called it muscle glucose it's not muscle glucose, it's muscle glycogen. Muscle glycogen is fueled by carbohydrates and the more carbohydrates that you have in your body, the more that your muscle glycogen stores will be full and you'll be able to go further and run, have faster sprints and speeds, kind of everything in between, or sprints and speeds, kind of everything in between. But carbs in running will directly correlate your performance versus how much you've eaten and gotten to that point.

Brett:

It sounds like very simple math, but when I was first on my journey in running, I thought I knew everything. I was like okay, I'm feeling good on my current diet, I don't need to really adjust anything. And because I was a little prideful, I was like I know more than what my coach is telling me to do and my coach was like, okay, yeah, you're going to need to eat on your longer runs, 60 to 90 grams of carbs per hour. And in my head I'm like, well, I don't want to gain weight, so I'm going to try and just not do that. And so I wouldn't do it and my runs would suffer because of that. It was silly, but really that's really what it came down to was what you put into your body dictates how well you're able to perform, and it's something I always think about.

Brett:

Um is that your inputs determine your outputs, and this is a very literal sense of the food that you input into your body will determine how your body performs, which is the output. So very literal in this sense inputs versus outputs. But in life that's kind of true as well. Whatever you're willing to put into, whatever the thing is that is in front of you whether it's raising your kids, it could be your job, it could be a podcast or a hobby that you have your inputs dictate the quality of what comes out, and we're going to be tying a lot of different kind of pieces of the puzzle together in that regard.

Brett:

But one thing I really want to talk about is that the thing about success, and I mean real, long-lasting success is that it isn't just about effort, it's all about strategy, and Jocko Willink he's the first person that introduced me to this. He would talk about how there's a difference between being tactical and being strategic, and being tactical is more of like the day to day things that you deal with right, like in my job, in sales. My tactics are I'm going to reach out to you on LinkedIn, I'm going to hit you with a sales email, I'm going to give you a call, like. Those are different tactics that I use, but the strategy of my job is to ultimately build pipeline, close deals and help bring the revenue number that it needs to be for our team Hit the goal that we have.

Brett:

So the strategy is there and the tactics dictate the strategy and how you perform, and so, with whatever it is in life, your tactics could be a system that you build that ultimately leads to a strategy of hey, I want to be this fit person. That's your strategy. You got to get there. How are you going to do it with the tactics, with eating healthy, with going to the gym, with working out, with tracking your progress and being accountable to everything that you do, and so you have to understand what your strategy is, because that's why I really made an emphasis at the beginning to focus on your vision. Understand what your passion is, because it all ties into each other, because effort without direction it feels like running full speed without knowing where the finish line is.

Brett:

And that's exactly, I think, where so many people get stuck. Stuck is they are excited about something, they go all in, they, they push hard and ultimately they don't know where to go. And it might, you know, as I crack out, crack open a Coke, zero um. It might work for a while, but I eventually that leads to burnout. If you don't have a clear vision of where you want to get to what you want to become, and If you don't have a clear vision of where you want to get to what you want to become and who you want to be, it's going to be a lot harder to keep that motivation up when things start going astray. And we'll we'll get into that a little bit.

Brett:

But I want to break down the fueling metaphor even further here. So if you've ever trained for a race I'm sure many of you have, if you're listening to this podcast you know that fueling isn't an afterthought, it's part of the plan. It is part of the plan. You don't take a five mile jog and a 26.2 mile marathon with the same strategy. That would just be foolish and you would probably struggle quite a bit. And so the same applies to everything in life. Whatever your five mile run is, it doesn't require the same preparation and the same plan as a 26.2 mile run.

Brett:

That's why I always say like running is the perfect metaphor for life, because there's a lot of connections that we can make and different goals require different strategies, and one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming that the same approach will work for every stage in their journey. I think that's another place that people get stuck at is they have something. That's another place that people get stuck at is they have something that's working for them and then, when it starts to not work so well, then they think that they're the problem, they think that they're broken, when in reality, they've just gotten to a point to where they need to adapt. They need to act like a little caterpillar turning into a butterfly. They got to go through some metamorphosis and change some things that they're doing to make their lives better and ultimately help them on their journey to get to where they want to go. So you see this in fitness business relationships.

Brett:

People think consistency alone will get them there. But consistency without adaptation I said this before it's only stagnation. Like if you're just being consistent and you're doing the wrong things, congratulations. You're being consistent by doing the wrong things and that's not going to get you anywhere. You have to consistently adapt. Part of consistency is adaptation and part of your strategy should emphasize some piece of adaptation, and we'll get into this a little bit later. But you also need to have part of your strategy. Hey, when things don't go my way, when they go wrong, how am I going to react? What am I going to be doing differently to hopefully influence the circumstance? I'm in to be a little bit better.

Brett:

There's this quote from Lewis Carroll who says if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. It goes along with the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. If you don't know what your destination is, who cares? You'll get there because you don't have one. That's why a lot of people feel stuck. They're moving, but they're not moving with direction. And so understand what your vision is. If you need to spend a few weeks trying to brainstorm what that might be, what your vision is, what your passions are.

Brett:

Learn about yourself Because, I will tell you this, I started seeing success in my life, and success is different for everyone. That's one thing you need to learn is identify what success means to you. But when I started learning about myself, when I started understanding what made me happy, what made me fulfilled and what I enjoy the things I'm good at things I'm not great at pretty much understanding everything about me, my weaknesses and strengths, everything Once I started knowing who I was, then I was able to work on the skills that I wanted to hone in more, for example, speaking. I feel like I've gotten a lot better than my older episodes. Speaking to people, running in general, my relationship with my wife the only reason those things are successful is because I deem them to be and I work hard on them. I work hard every single day on my relationship with my wife because I love her and she makes me happy, and when we have a strong relationship, life just seems to be a lot better.

Brett:

I work hard in running because one I run for those who can't. So anyone who's been affected by cancer like that's what's driven me in many of my races, so that's a big one too. It's a good time for me to think, to mentally decompress, and I always tell Allie it's like if you were to get a towel and wring it out with a bunch of water in it. That's like me after a run, like I just stress-free. All the water is the stress that comes out of me and then three, it keeps me healthy.

Brett:

And then, with the podcast and speaking, I understood early on that I needed to be better at comprehending what I'm learning so I could better tell you all about it and get ready to getting rid of some of my filler words, trying to work on my little stutter that I have that I've been doing pretty good at, and getting rid of some of my filler words, trying to work on my little stutter that I have, that I've been doing pretty good at, and all these things it's like, okay, I understand what I want, what I like to do, what my strengths are. I'm going to double down on my strengths. I'm going to work on my weaknesses. I'm going to spend more time doing things that I like and spend more time trying to understand myself in journaling and doing the podcast and studying books and reading other people's perspectives, trying to learn from them, but it's all fuel that has helped me on my own journey, and success and fuel in all those different areas might look different. So, for example, speaking we can take this example.

Brett:

If I want to get better at speaking, what does the fuel look like for that? Well, maybe it's I take a course For me. I've watched some YouTube videos because YouTube has all the information I could ever want in a course. So I've watched some YouTube videos about how people enunciate words, how they slow their cadence and pause for dramatic effect. Thank you, all these little things, right, all these little psychological things that people enjoy. So I've tried learning them. And then books I've read a few books on sales and how to be more confident when you speak, and all these different things that ultimately, I believe, have shaped me to be a better speaker. But really the biggest thing of all is I've had to put myself in circumstances where I could talk to other people, whether in a podcast, in long form conversations or just like on a sales call. That's one thing I love about sales is I literally have to talk to random people that I don't know, and it makes me a little stronger. So I want to.

Brett:

I want to keep going down this path of what is the right fuel for you. And because in running that means carbs, hydration, electrolytes In life, though, what does that look like? Okay, well, fuel for you could be knowledge, like I was talking about. That could be books, courses. I would suggest this third one, mentors, because mentors don't only just have the fuel to help you towards your success. They will tell you things that you should avoid to do so that you can learn from them in many ways. And mentors turn weeks into days and years into months, like they can help you get so much further along on your own journey and your own path of discipline. So I would highly seek out mentors. Help you get so much further along on your own journey and your own path of discipline. So I would highly seek out mentors. Another thing of fuel could be discipline, like building certain habits, setting certain systems, like if you want to wake up and go to the gym in the morning, put your clothes out like little things like that, like that's just going to fuel your goal a little bit easier.

Brett:

And mental stamina, I would say, is probably another key piece of the fuel that you need for success Because, like I said, there's going to be times when hardships come up, when difficulties arise, and you feel like you've had it. You feel like you're at rock bottom Not the case. You feel like you're at rock bottom Not the case. Those are the moments where you have the decision to either get stronger, to look the situation in the face, be brave and walk towards it, or to give up. Giving up is always an option, but giving up doesn't allow you to get after life as well as you could Obviously know your limitations and sometimes it's okay to give up on goals or tasks if it's taking too much time and it's deteriorating your quality of life.

Brett:

But honesty is required and anytime you make a goal, anytime you reflect on the goal, you must be honest with yourself. You cannot lie to yourself. That's going to create a bad relationship with you and if you have a bad relationship with yourself, it's going to be a lot harder to reach those goals. Which is why I suggested learning about yourself what drives you, what gets you excited, what your strengths and weaknesses are and how you can improve. Um, you have to put the right fuel in your body because, like I said, the inputs dictate the outputs, and so if you are just spending time on the internet, not necessarily absorbing information that you need that might help you in your career, then that's the fuel you're putting in your body to further your career.

Brett:

Advancement is the mindless hours that you're spending either watching a show or just messing around. But if you want to get further out in your career, then be honest with yourself and be like okay, where am I missing something? What piece of knowledge do I need to understand better so I can do my job better? What piece of knowledge do I need to understand so, so I can do my job better? What piece of knowledge do I need to understand so I can start a business, whatever it is? The key is that you always have to be refining what goes into your systems, your body, whatever it is. You always have to be looking for something better, because there's going to be a point to where that stagnation will kick in and you'll realize that you have to adapt.

Brett:

There's this great quote from Abraham Lincoln who says give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax. And I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Basically, the right preparation and fueling. It's not extra work, it's smart and it's part of the strategy. So his job was to chop down a tree. He could have just gone up with the axe and hacked right at it, but who knows, that might have taken eight hours. He only had six, so he sharpened his axe for four and he chopped it down in two. That easy right Makes it easier. So what are you feeding your mind daily? Ask yourself that question Does it align with your goals? Great If it does. If it doesn't, also great. You know where to improve, and I want to talk about hitting a wall, because just about every single race there comes a point to where you feel like you're about to hit a roll, hit a wall, unless you really really feel right.

Brett:

I remember my first marathon. It was like night, oh, it was horrible. I didn't hire my coach at this point and I uh, I just went into this race. I think I had a couple bananas before. It was in june of 2023, I believe and I was feeling pretty good, like up until mile 10, 11, like I was feeling strong, and then mile 13 came around. I was like, okay, I should probably take a goo. So I think I had one goo, and if you don't know what a goo is, it's like a little carbohydrate gel. Usually they taste pretty bad, but BPNs are good BPN. Why don't you sponsor me? And I'm running it?

Brett:

In this race I get to mile 18 and I'm not even kidding you. For some reason they had like a. It was like an inflatable castle wall, like think about a medieval wall with like a gate. It was pretty much that thing with the gate was missing and you could pretty much run through this inflatable medieval castle wall thing and it was like push through the wall. That was like the slogan that was all leading up to that. And in my head I'm like, screw you guys, I literally just hit this wall. And in my head I'm like, screw you guys, I literally just hit this wall. And up to that point I was running the whole time and unfortunately I had to walk, run the rest of the race and I finished that marathon in three hours and 49 minutes. But there was a legit wall that I hit and it happens in life too.

Brett:

It's either burnout, a lack of progress, frustration. Those are all metaphorical walls that you might run into as you pursue your goals and your passions. The wrong response is to quit or to assume that you're just not cut out for it. Do not ever think about that. Instead, just adjust the plan and feel differently. Figure out where you can improve. Adjust the plan and feel differently. Figure out where you can improve when you feel like giving up. Don't Instead just ask yourself what do I need to change? And open that honest conversation. See what you tell yourself. You are your biggest critic. I'm sure you know exactly what it is that you need to adapt or work on.

Brett:

David Goggins when he talks about his story in the very beginning so like when he was 300 pounds and he says that he was so dumb, like he didn't know anything. He wasn't good at school, he didn't know how to really do math, he wasn't great at reading. He always talks about how he knew exactly what he needed to do to improve his situation, to make his life a little bit better. He just didn't want to do it. He had the idea that he just needed to read and he knew that he had to watch what he ate and work out if he wanted to lose weight. But he didn't want to do it. And he talks about that how it's just like a crappy feeling, like you know in the back of your head what you have to do, but it's hard and so you avoid it, which leads to the same situation, which puts you in this vicious cycle where you're consistently battling your mind and you're always, you know, blaming yourself and your self-talk plummets.

Brett:

Like all of these things can be avoided if you just decide to do the thing and I know it's easier said than done. I understand that because I deal with that myself. Like there are days when I don't want to put on my running shoes and I know that when I get out there on the run I'll feel so much better afterwards, but I still don't want to do it. I know what I need to do, but I don't want to do it. Or when I am sitting in front of a podcast outline and I'm writing out my thoughts and I'm trying to make it as easily digestible as possible, and I just know I have to go through and refine and rewrite and all these things that take me a long time to do, and I just don't want to do it. But I know that the content will get better if I do, and so I think there's probably something in your life where you know exactly what you have to do to get one step closer to your goal, and you might have to just be a little bit honest with yourself and have that conversation to be like hey, yeah, maybe I have been avoiding X. How can I, how can I get better? How can I just take one little step closer to my goal? What does that look like? I would ask yourself these kind of questions and I want to focus a little bit more on adapting as you grow, because that is crucial. That is critical for long-term progress and long-term success, lasting success. In this podcast, we're talking all about feeling for success. That's the point, because what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow.

Brett:

And elite athletes they constantly adjust their training, their nutrition and their recovery. I'm talking elite like Tom Brady, like Sally McRae, like some of these amazing athletes out there, nick Bear even. But if you look at Tom Brady, he has seasons where he's working super hard, he's lifting weights, other seasons where he's focused on mobility, trying to get better, because you can't lift weights if you're not mobile, and he's always adjusting his routine. Sally McRae same thing. She will have months where she's putting in 100 plus mile weeks. Actually, I don't know how many miles she runs in a week. She sometimes has training runs that are 100 miles. That's a training run, that's not a race. She's just out there running 100 miles by herself. Sally's a freaking beast, but anyways, she's constantly adjusting her routine.

Brett:

And then again, I don't think I'm elite, but I do the same thing. When I'm in marathon season, I'm focusing on speed work, I'm focusing on trying to get my time faster. And then, when I'm in ultra season, I'm focusing on speed work, I'm focusing on trying to get my time faster, and then, when I'm in ultra season, I focus on distance, I focus on time on feet, I focus on eating a lot more, because training for like running in the mountains is much different than training to run on the road. You don't have as much elevation gain, it's not as technical and you have to be a little bit more focused and in tune. So in life your goals will shift and your needs will change. You might have a kid, you might get married. Being rigid is a recipe for failure, but being adaptable is the formula for success. One thing I like.

Brett:

One quote I love from Mr Stephen Hawking is he says intelligence is the ability to adapt, to change. Think about that Change sucks All right, I'll be the first to say it Like if you move to a new town, if you get a new job, if you I don't know what other changes are out there right now but change sucks Because you're so used to doing one thing for such a long time and then you got to change it up because whatever you're doing now isn't working or you're not happy or whatever the situation is. But the thing that is very ironic is change brings growth and we all resist change. Many of us do not all. Most of us resist change because we're comfortable myself included in that. But change often brings the biggest opportunities to learn about yourself, to grow and to get out of your comfort zone. Growth is not comfortable. Now there's change, but when you adapt and you accept whatever's going on and you change with it, then you will grow and you'll become better and you'll become more able to handle whatever other things curveballs or surprises life decides to throw your way. So here's one thing I want you to think about Are you adapting your approach based on what's working and what's not? And don't be afraid to throw away a broken plan Like just adjust it, refine it and improve it. If something's not working, be the first person to be like, hey, we got to change this up, something's not right, we got to fix this. Be that person.

Brett:

I want to just break it down to four key points for you to remember from this episode. If you remember anything, it's these four points. Okay, a little four First know your destination. Go listen to the last podcast if you need to learn a little bit more about that but understand where you want to go. Two choose the right fuel, whether that's training, knowledge or discipline. Figure it out, add more to your life, or discipline. Figure it out, add more to your life. Three recognizing and adjusting. When you hit the wall, don't get discouraged, don't give up, push through and adapt. And the last one goes into that Adapting your strategy as needed. If you do those four things, you know your destination, you choose the right fuel, you adjust when you hit a wall and you adapt your strategy as needed as you grow. If you do those four things, you will be successful in anything that you do.

Brett:

I can guarantee that I've talked on this podcast many times about these are lessons that I've learned that I wish I could pass on to others, because I've tested them and I know that they work, and so I'm the getting after a guinea pig. You can take my word for it. If it doesn't work for you, then tell me. But I can guarantee you, if you apply those four things and you consistently adapt and you commit to the challenge, you'll get better and nothing's going to get in your way. So, with those four things, I have four different suggestions for you to do as a little homework assignment for this podcast. But first is, define what your goal is. That'll give you direction. That'll show it like, give you a visual of where you want to go to audit what your, your fuel sources are. So what's helping your progress and what's holding you back? Figure it out, remove what's not and focus on what is. Three plan for the wall, because if you know it's coming up and you have a plan when it comes, you won't be as surprised. And then four adapt as needed. But the key thing I want you to do here is just regularly evaluate and adjust your approach, because it's okay to do that. I think it shows strength if you're able to recognize that you need to change and recognize that adaptation will actually make you stronger in the end instead of holding you back. Thank you, took a sip of a little Coke Zero there. So that's it for today's episode.

Brett:

My friends, whatever your goals are whether it be fitness, business relationships treat them like endurance races. Fuel intentionally, train wisely and be relentless in your pursuit, because that's the only way you can improve. If you got any value out of this, I would love it if you shared it with someone who's just looking to grow a little bit, who's trying to get out there and get after themselves. I always love hearing stories, so hit me up. Send me how you're getting after it, either through a DM or you can go to my website. Send me an email. I'm cool like that now, guys, but as always, I appreciate everyone for listening. I hope that this helped you and I hope on your journey towards success, you don't get discouraged If anything. I just want you to keep going and, when things come up, recognize it's just an opportunity to grow. Don't look at it as a roadblock or anything like that. Just use it as fuel and just improve day by day and you'll get there. You'll get to your goal. Thanks for tuning in everyone. Until next episode, keep getting after it.