200 - Discipline Changes Shape (Lessons from Another 100 Episodes)

Episode 200. I started this show with one microphone, a laptop, and no real idea what I was doing.

This one is harder to record than a race recap. My testosterone is back down to 136, and I feel it. Workouts that used to be warm-ups wipe me out now. On the hard days, my mind whispers things I'd rather not hear. Underneath all of it: I'd been treating my output as my identity.

I walk through five lessons from the last hundred episodes, including what Knives Monroe told me about creating before you're ready, what Mason Wright's story at mile 20 taught me about endurance, and what the Stoics got right about where your power is in a hard season.

This show has only happened because of you. I have learned so much from hosting the podcast and for that, I must say thank you. 

Keep Getting After It my friends. Here's to 100 more. 

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You're not lazy. You're not lost. You just know there's a gap between the life you're living and the one you're capable of — and that gap is getting harder to ignore.

Every week, I pull apart the mental patterns that keep capable people stuck — comfort disguised as patience, avoidance disguised as strategy, mediocrity dressed up as balance. I bring in philosophy, personal stories from the trails and the trenches, and conversations with people who decided to stop waiting.

This isn't a show about hacks. It's about the harder work: getting honest with yourself, building the discipline to act on that honesty, and becoming someone you'd actually respect.

Keep getting after it.

Transcript

Two Kinds Of Discipline

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's a version of discipline that never makes the highlight real. You already know the one that does. Every everyone knows kind of the idea of the person who's disciplined and what their life looks like, right? Because they're the ones that have the 5 a.m. alarm. They have the PR. They have the finish line photo photo or the caption that says earned, you know? Those kinds of things. It's when you're in the training block that you crushed, when every part of you wanted to sleep in and take it easy for a while. That version is real. And I'm not here to tell you that it isn't. I've lived it, I've loved it, and I'll probably chase it again. I will chase it again. Not probably. Just dealing with some things which we'll go through in a little bit. What I've learned though is it's not the whole picture. Because there's another version that shows up when your body stops cooperating. When the plan you built doesn't match the body you're actually living in. As weird as that sounds, it'll make sense in a bit. But when the effort you're putting in stops producing the results that you expect. And the silence where the progress used to be starts working on your head. That version is quieter. Nobody claps for it. There's no caption for it, and it doesn't look like strength from the outside. What is exactly the reason why I think it's so hard? And that's where I am right

Celebrating 200 Episodes Of Growth

SPEAKER_00 1:27

now. That is the this whole purpose of this episode today is to talk about a few things. That and the fact that I'm at 200 episodes, baby. Let's get some fireworks going or something. If you're just watching this on audio, you're listening to it on audio, you might not know what's going on, but it's pretty cool. Anyways, I hope that looks cool. I'm gonna have to go into editing and uh mess around with it for a bit. But guys, 200 episodes. That is wild. That is something we're gonna crack open a tall diet coke for. Listen. Ooh, I wonder that's some ASMR for you guys. But 200 episodes. That's wild to me. I keep saying it, and it doesn't fully land yet. Like when I first recorded episode one, I had a microphone, a laptop, and honestly, not much else. I had no idea what I was doing. I filmed it at my kitchen table in my basement apartment, and I was awkward in a specific way that wasn't really charming or or not as like funny to listen to. I was awkward in the sense that it was hard to hear myself. Like I hated listening to that. My pace was off and my sentences didn't know where they were going. Um I'd finish a thought and then wonder if I'd said something that was worth hearing at all. Sometimes I would finish a thought and then go back to another one. I would bounce around all the time. There was no structure to my episodes. But what I didn't know then was that the show would figure itself out by going. And that's not some metaphor I made up for this for this episode. That is literally what happened. I started with the idea that I was going to do the Getting After podcast. And I eventually made it to where I am now. And I'm I'm not saying like I've made it. I definitely haven't made it. Uh, there's a lot of room for me to grow. But what I am saying is that because I hit record the first time, I learned, I adapted, and I grew. And I took lessons that I needed to take along the way. Like, hey, Brett, maybe it's it's not good to start a sentence and then go back to what you were talking about before. Let's change that for future episodes. Or, hey, Brett, maybe let's not film this at a kitchen table. Let's build something that you're actually proud of sitting behind and have it that way. Or, hey, Brett, why don't we stop using your crappy Zoom camera, your laptop screen camera, and let's actually get something that people can look at if they want to. Or let's do video podcasts. All these things I did not have a plan for in the beginning. It was done just through staying in the process. And that's the thing, is this entire process, it has changed me more than I have expected it to. More probably than it's changed anyone actually listening to this podcast. And I hope that, you know, some of you may have been changed by at least one thing that I've said over these past 200 episodes. Um, we're coming up on four years, which is wild in August. But over the last hundred episodes, I've learned something I didn't anticipate going into these. The first hundred that taught me how to push. The second hundred taught me how to stay. And those aren't the same lessons because pushing, in my opinion, is more about output. Staying is about identity, and staying is harder, at least for me, because I'm wired for the push. I like to do something and then see a result follow. But with this podcast, like, I'll be completely honest with you guys, I probably get, you know, 30 listens a podcast or so. Um, not great numbers. But again, I always take the picture or I think about the picture of like, if I was in a room of 30 people giving them a speech, that's a pretty good crowd. That's like a school classroom, you know? Like, hey, and I've always wanted to be a teacher, so kind of cool. But the thing that I'm I'm saying is I like hard things. I like the effort. I I like the feeling of going when I don't want to go. Um, a lot of this podcast has built on that. But life has a way of testing whether your discipline is real or whether it's just effort with good conditions. Here's what is actually going on with me right now and why I want to record this episode.

Low Testosterone And A Hard Season

SPEAKER_00 5:48

My testosterone is back down to 136. That hasn't happened for three years. That was when Allie and I first got married. My testosterone was around 160 and I felt terrible. And in April of this year, you know, Allie and I we wanted to have a kid, so I went on some fertility medicine in uh August of last year or September, somewhere around those days. And when Allie got pregnant and we she was out of her first trimester, my doctor said, Okay, we're gonna take you off everything, and I want to see what your baseline is at in two months. I was scared, honestly, um, because the last time that happened, it didn't really turn out great. That's when my testosterone dropped to 160 and I didn't feel really good. Um but for some context, if you don't know what that 136 number means, usually a normal range for a man my age sits somewhere between between 600 and 1,000. So I'm way below that. My doctor's exact words were okay, you have less than a fourth of the testosterone we want you to have. And I am not at the low end of normal. I am very below normal with my testosterone, and I can feel it in ways that I wasn't prepared for. And so when I when I got into this uh appointment with my doctor and we were talking about it, my heart kind of sunk because I know what it's it's going to take to get back to where I was. And for some context here, everything is harder. Like, I literally mean everything is harder for me to do. I I don't this is not figurative, this is how I actually feel. Like the physical stuff is the is is the part here that really stands out to me because my workouts now feel like I'm moving through wet cement. Like it takes so much effort, and by the end of it, I'm absolutely drained. What used to be easy for me is now a challenge in its own. Um recovery takes longer. Not marginally marginally longer, but noticeably longer. I will run 10 miles and it's it's gonna take me a minute to bounce back. Like I will I'll finish a training session where six months ago would have been a warm-up for me, and I will feel it for days now. My body doesn't respond the way that it used to right now. I push and it doesn't answer the way that it used to answer. But the physical stuff isn't actually the hardest part. My mind plays games, and I don't mean that loosely. I mean there are specific things my brain whispers to me on the difficult days. Particular sentence that shows up when I'm tired or frustrated or just not where I want to be. And it's things like, hey, you're not who you thought you were. You're slipping. You used to be able to handle this. What happened to you? I'd be lying to you if I if I told you that wasn't it's not hard for me to hear that. Like, it hurts. It really does. Because I remember what it felt like to be strong. I remember going out for runs where my pace was 6 30 and I felt good. I felt strong. And I was I bounced back the next day. I remember waking up and being ready and not just willing, not just disciplined, but genuinely ready to go and hit the gym or go for a run and start my day. And I remember what it felt like to run well, to feel sharp in a conversation, to walk into a room carrying real energy and not just the performance of it. And when that starts to fade, even for a season, even temporarily, it gets to you. Especially if part of your identity, even quietly, if you're not even outwardly expressing it, is built around being the person who doesn't let things get to him. That is a trap I've learned. The other part is just immense fatigue with what I'm going through. I have no energy, and it's incredibly frustrating because I want to do all these things. I want to do these great things, but if you look up some symptoms of what people are going through or like what people go through when they have very low testosterone, the fatigue is the worst part for me. I'm always tired. It feels like I need 12 monsters to get through the day. And no amount of caffeine will compensate for what I'm feeling. And it's frustrating. Even if I sleep you know seven out seven to eight hours a night, I wake up feeling like I slept one. And it affects me throughout the day. It is really hard. But I want to go back to the trap piece because it's a specific kind of trap for people who have spent years being disciplined and output and

When Output Becomes Identity

SPEAKER_00 10:38

having results. Like that is what I'm talking about here. Because somewhere along the way, the production starts to feel like that person, right? You're doing all these things. You you go out and you you really push yourself. You're doing a lot of output. You are disciplined, people recognize it. And then all of a sudden, something happens in your life, and you know, you think or backing up here, you know, you're disciplined, you're going for it, you're pushing yourself, you're getting after it. And then people around you start saying things like, Man, you're crushing it. You're a machine. Or I don't know how you do it. And some part of you starts needing that feedback more than you realize. You don't notice the shift until the output drops and suddenly the identity feels shaky underneath it all. I've had to look at that honestly over the last few months. Last couple months, I've really had to know that my identity is not tied to performance. When I'm not performing at my usual level, the question that surfaces isn't usually, hey, what's wrong with my body? Maybe that'll come up, but sometimes it doesn't. Usually it's, hey, what's wrong with me? That's a dangerous question. What is wrong with me? When you start questioning yourself like that, it can lead to some dark places. And it doesn't just go away because you know intellectually that it's irrational. I know very well that my testosterone is low, that it is 136 below the normal, very, very below the normal. But my mind doesn't want to believe that. My mind wants to find something about myself that it can critique. It wants to find something about me that I maybe can fix, or it's, you know, my routine, something I need to change in my life to get back to where I was when in reality the number itself is there. It's not an excuse, but it is there. Knowing and feeling aren't the same thing. And anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't been in the actual middle of this. So I want to say something directly to you. Your value is not your output. It's not your pace or your weight or your income, your job title, or what your latest results are. It's not your best month and it's not your worst month. Your value is the kind of person you're being in the middle of all of it. When the metrics are soft and the effort still gets made. Even if it's lower than you wanted it to be, even if it's lower than what you used to be. Just checking the microphone, making sure it's on. I always worry about that. But even if it's not where it used to be, and you you remember those things. Like I said, I remember feeling strong. All those things. But in the middle of it, that is where character lives. Not in the season that that you prove how good you are. It's in the seasons that test whether you actually believe that about yourself. That's the test I'm in right now. Test Austrone. Hey, that was really bad. Bad. Um, but I want to talk about also, because I'm not just painting the picture here about, you know, things that what character is made of, or what your character is built on, and how that affects you throughout your life. I also want to talk about five specific lessons that I've learned over the past hundred episodes. And these aren't just podcast lessons, they're things I keep coming back to in my own life. And right now, each one of them means something specific to me.

Identity Is Earned Through Reps

SPEAKER_00 14:05

And I want to share them with you today. The first lesson is identity is earned through repetition, not declared. This is that Alex Hormozy quote that I always talk about. Maybe I'll put a clip up of him right here. Very nice. This idea came up in a full episode a while back, um, and it's really actually never left me. Uh, you don't become a podcaster because you told people you're a podcaster. That doesn't happen. You become one by recording. Badly at first, then less badly, and then eventually with a kind of earn confidence that sounds different from the forced version. It's not the fake it till you make it, kind. This is real you. You've done it enough, you feel confident enough, and now you're on your own pace. You're going, you've got the show running. You become one by publishing the episode that you're embarrassed by. And if you want to hear one that I'm embarrassed by, go to episode nine with Stan Watts. We're auto-tuned the whole time, and he's talking about lessons he learned from his father who passed away from cancer. I'm embarrassed about that one, but we published the ugly draft. But you become one by staying in the chair when the numbers are disappointing, by learning through doing it wrong. How to do it less wrong. That's what you have to do with the next one. That's true for anyone or anything you actually want to become. Discipline, consistency, patience. None of these things you choose on a Tuesday morning because you feel like it, and then you have it. These are things that they're built through action, one rep at a time, long before they feel natural. The trap is waiting to feel like the person before you act like the person. Waiting to feel confident, waiting to feel ready, or waiting for the moment of clarity that you're waiting for. You want that light bulb moment that gives you the permission to start. Most of the time, clarity is what you earn through the actual movement. It doesn't arrive before that. Some get lucky and they do, but in my experience, it is you act your way into identity. You don't think your way there. The this podcast is the clearest proof I've have of that idea. I did not know to what to do when I started this thing. And sorry, I had a sh I had a string on my arm and it was tickling me the whole time. But I did not know what to do when I started this thing. I learned by actually doing it. And in the process, I became someone I wasn't when I sat down to record episode one. Not all at once. Not through a breakthrough. Again, this is episode 200. I've learned by doing it 200 times and trying to get better every single episode. I always, always try and think, okay, what what is one thing I could do better? What is one area from the last episode I can improve upon? These are not drastic changes. It's one lesson at a time, stacked up against four years. That matters to me right now because I'm in a season where my output has on the outside dropped. And my mind is tempted to interpret that as identity loss. Very dangerous. But the person I am isn't determined by this month or the previous or the previous one before that. It is built into 200 episodes of just showing up, just being there. Even if it's not your best episode, even if it's not one that you're particularly proud of, at least you got it done. You sat in the chair, you pressed record, you had a conversation, and now it's uploaded, and you can refine yourself from there. The reps do not disappear when a season gets hard. That is something that's very important to me, and I hope it is important to

Publish The Ugly Draft

SPEAKER_00 18:02

you. Now, the second lesson, going along with this, is publish the ugly draft. Knives Monroe, great guy. I loved my conversation with him. But he said something during that conversation that I've thought about more than I really expected it to. Knives, he's a storyteller, he's a filmmaker, and someone who creates for a living and has thought seriously about what gets in the way of people creating. And the way that he talks about it is more direct in some way that I appreciated. Um because a lot of us, I think, are waiting for perfect conditions. But he makes it clear that there should be no romanticizing the process. Stop treating your first attempt like it needs to be clear. Stop treating your first attempt like it needs to clear some imaginary standard before it's allowed to exist. Because what I've noticed is that most people who aren't creating aren't lazy. They're scared. Because I definitely was scared. You know, they say that they're planning, researching, or getting ready. But underneath all that, they're protecting themselves from being seen before they are polished. And I get it. I've literally been there. Starting this podcast, it felt super weird. You know, sharing your thoughts publicly, it feels weird. And there's always a voice that asks, Who are you to say this? And here's how I answer that now. I'm a guy who's learning and willing to do it publicly. That's enough for me. You don't need to be an expert before you begin in something. You should have a plan, you should have an idea of where you want to go, but you don't need to be an expert and you don't need to be perfect. You need to be honest, and you need to be willing to be bad at something long enough to get better at it. The ugly draft is where most things worth doing actually start. Think about it. If you want to post on social media, your first ones aren't gonna be great. If you want to write, that first draft is probably gonna make anybody laugh if they read it. You want to start making music of all things. Someone's gonna think that it's terrible. But the thing is, is you stay in it. You stay in your equivalent of 200 episodes until you get to the point to where you feel confident enough to keep on going. And you where you ignore what people think or what they critique you on. Sometimes it's good to listen to those, but a lot of the times with haters, they are they're not doing anything with their lives. There's this great quote that goes along the lines of no one doing better than you will ever talk shit about you. I don't know if that's it, but it's something along those lines. But really, like that's true. No one who's doing better than you is gonna be like, oh Brett, that guy's doing a podcast. What a loser. Maybe they do, but I don't think that's true. I think it's people who have insecurities and people who wish that they were somewhere that I'm trying to get to. But the ugly draft is where most things worth doing start. Your first attempt will humble you. And that's not a warning, that is the entire process of getting better. The people who grow are almost always the ones willing to start while it is messy. Because the feedback you get from being in it is worth way more than anything you can plan from the outside. Most people never get there. They keep waiting for the conditions to be right. They need one more thing before they begin. The uncomfortable truth is that one more thing never actually arrives. You just eventually decide it's time, or you don't. That's why that lesson is so important to me. And Knives Monroe, if you're listening to this man, that was freaking awesome. Thank you for sharing that because I've thought about it so much. And I that is a lesson I know that there's there's many people out there who can benefit from. And it's huge.

Endurance Means Adapting To Change

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Now, the third lesson is that you can endure more than you think, but endurance eventually requires adaptation, not just willpower. This is a good one. This is a heavy one. But this came from Mason Wright. Now, Mason's story is one that I think about constantly because he at one point in his life was 285 pounds, and then he got into Spartan races, then ultra marathoning, and eventually he ran across Utah, but most recently he ran a thousand miles around a track. I think it took him 17 days or so. Pretty wild. But in one race, he talked about at mile 20. He tore what um is maybe the most thing, worst thing to tear during a race, and that was your Achilles. And that is one of the most disabling injuries that you can get mid-race. I think just anywhere, actually, not just mid-race. That sucks. I can't imagine it. I haven't had that happen, but I've seen people with Achilles issues, and that just sucks. It's the worst. But he kept going. He was very near the cutoff time. And afterwards, doctors told him that he might not ever run again. But he found a way back anyway. And like I said, this guy just ran a thousand miles around a track. Now, I want to be very careful with what this one though, because the easy takeaway is ignore the pain and push. Keep going. That's not what I'm saying here. Like ignoring pain and pushing isn't toughness. Sometimes that is just ego wearing a hydration vest. You know? That really is what it is. Sometimes stopping is the right call. Sometimes the most disciplined thing that you can do is pull out of the race and protect your long-term ability to compete at all. And I've learned that the hard way. But what I actually took from Mason's story was something more specific. It was refusal. Refusal. Not the reckless kind, but the kind that says, hey, one setback doesn't get to write the rest of the story for me. That's different from pretending that nothing happened. And it's saying, I'm going to find out what adaptation looks like from here, and then I'm going to do that. Not force my way back exactly who I used to be before, but build toward who I can be from here. Endurance in the in the way I've come to understand it isn't just suffering through pain. It's staying committed through change. You can talk about endurance sports. Sometimes that is, yes, just enduring through pain. But what I'm talking here is things that you are doing in your life, whether that's your fitness goals, your professional goals, your family goals or relationships, it is not just suffering through pain. It is staying committed to change because sometimes your effort in each of those areas is going to look very different. And that's normal. That's what we call life, guys. And staying committed when the path looks different than you planned is hard. Being willing to do the boring rebuild instead of demanding that your body return to the old version of you on whatever timeline you have is hard. That's the version I need right now. I need to be the person who builds back to where the Brett running sub three marathons was, or the Brett who ran ultra marathons was. And who knows? Maybe because of what I'm dealing with, I might not be able to run a sub-3 again. But you will you'll be damn sure that I will do what I can to push myself in whatever way that looks like. Like, if I could, I want to wake up tomorrow and feel like myself again, you know, sharp, strong, and ready. But I'm learning that I might have to rebuild toward that rather than just will my way back into it. The question isn't when does the old version return? That is not the question we're trying to answer here. It is, can I keep going while I do the work it takes to get there? And sometimes that's harder than actually doing a sub three. Because it means that you're going to have to commit for a while. You're going to have to stay in the long game and push yourself and stay disciplined and maybe not do as much as you used to do. But that's okay. Tying into this lesson is everybody's journey is different. You know, some people they start off strong, they lose themselves for a few years because life is hard, and then they eventually get back to, you know, running marathons or just going to the gym. Maybe it's that simple. But it takes time to rebuild. And that's okay. That is okay. Your journey is different from mine. Mine is different from yours and anybody else's. And you should treat it that way. You should not compare yourself to other people. And I know it's so easy now with the social media and all the things around us that just kind of force us to see other people doing really well and crushing it online. But the thing is, like I said in the beginning, they're posting highlight reels. They're not posting what it's like in the middle of all of it. And I guarantee you, they also have struggles. But your journey is not theirs. So just keep that in mind whenever you're trying to rebuild to something that you you used to be, or you're trying to start new habits. Maybe you're not rebuilding anything, maybe you're starting now. Keep in mind that comparison is the thief of joy and it will take that away from you so fast. Now, okay, the fourth lesson.

Control What You Can Today

SPEAKER_00 27:54

We're moving through this, and I love it. Control what you can and let go, let the rest go. That is not a slogan, but as an actual practice. Epictetus, if you've listened to this podcast long enough, you know I love the Stoics. Stoicism is very fascinating to me. But Epictetus, who once was a slave, he put it in one sentence almost 2,000 years ago that some things are not up to us, and some things are. That's the whole framework. Deceptively simple. Actually, it's annoyingly simple sometimes. But here's why it actually matters. Because most of the suffering that comes with a hard season isn't just the difficulty level. It is the energy you spend fighting the parts that you can't control. What does that mean, Brett? Well, you can't control how fast your body heals. You can't control how other people respond to your work, how the algorithm treats you, or how long a hard season lasts. If you spend your mental energy managing those variables, the ones that you can't control, you exhaust yourself without moving forward. But you can you do control the next step. Whatever your effort is today, you control that. Your attitude in the conversation happening right now in your head, you can control that. You can also control whether you eat well tonight, whether you ask for help when you need it, or show up for the people who are counting on you. When my testosterone dropped, my energy followed it. And the pull was to obsess over what I what I couldn't fix right now. Why is this happening? How long will it last? When do I get to feel like myself again? Those are fair questions. Those are real. But if I live in them, I will go nowhere. The better question is, what can I actually do today? And I've had to start asking myself that. Because like I said, there are days where my energy feels like I need 12 monsters. Monster, if you want to sponsor me, that'd be awesome. Maybe I would actually get my energy levels back up. But also maybe I'd have a heart attack, so yeah, maybe not. Um, but those are all things that I think about all like a lot. And now I ask myself things like, well, can I train in some form? Can I do some kind of activity? Can I eat well? Can I make one phone call that I've been avoiding at work? Or can I record this episode? Can I be present with my wife instead of just distracted by something I can't change? Because Allie, she's been on the side where there have been days, honestly, where I play the poor me card. I'm trying to be be better at that. But that's not fair to Allie. If I am thinking about, oh Brett, your testosterone's low, you have no energy. Why don't you just sit around all day? I don't do that, but sometimes I think about it. And I'm committed to sorry I have the hiccups. I guess that's the the what is that? The side effect of drinking Diet Coke. But that's the thing, is like I have to actively choose whether I want to be a complainer, whether, like my old volleyball coach said or used to say, is poop in your pants and sit there. No, you change it, right? But those are all small questions. But they have actually they have answers that I can act on. And it's the small, consistent actions, not some grand gesture that moves things forward over time. And again, running's a great metaphor for life. I'm gonna bring it up here. You don't run an ultra marathon one day. You don't just wake up and run it. You have to train for it. And that's what I mean by small, consistent actions. Each run that you have leading up to an ultra marathon, those are those small, consistent actions. And they add up over time to the point to where you can run an ultra marathon. It takes time, but so do these things. And this podcast was not built on ambition alone. It was built on sitting down one time and then another time and recording in one more episode. 200 times. There's something almost embarrassing about how simple that is. But simple does not mean easy. It's a thing that Jocko always talks about. Simple, not easy. Make the idea simple, but sometimes that idea to act upon is not easy. The Stoics understood that the hardest thing isn't understanding this principle. It's doing it on the day when doing it costs something. That's it. But you can control things. You can't control everything, but focus on what you can and let your brain save energy by not focusing on outside variables that you can't control at all. If you want to go run outside, you're not gonna be able to control the weather. If you want it to be less hot, I'm sorry. You can't change that. If you want it to stop raining but you still want to run, you're gonna have to run. Those are what the things that I'm talking about. And then also with life. Like if you wake up tired, but you still have to show up for responsibilities that you have, you have to show up. You can't control how tired you are. Maybe you can get better sleep or try and eat better, but overall, you're just gonna have to deal with it. That's what I've learned.

Character When Nobody Applauds

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Now, the fifth lesson is character is built in the seasons that nobody applauds. This one has come up in many different forms across a lot of conversations on this show. With Ali, with my sister-in-law Emily, with guests who have been through loss, injury, infertility, mental health seasons, seasons where everything just felt like too much for too long. Nobody posts the middle. Nobody posts that on social media. You see the finish line photo, you see the comeback story, the lesson after it had time to make sense and get cleared up. But you don't see the middle. The middle is where you're doing the right things and still not seeing results. This is a hard thing, especially if you're ambitious, especially if you're a high achiever. The middle sucks. But it's, you know, where you pray and you still feel anxious, or where you train and you still feel slow, where you keep showing up and keep wondering privately if any of it is actually working. And I'll be honest with you, I have had days over the last few months where I've wondered that about the podcast. Not in a way of should I quit, but more like, does this matter to others? That's a different question. And it's one that I think every person who does some kind of creative work or hard work eventually has to sit with. And the answer I keep coming back to is yes. And it's not because the numbers tell me so. I told you how many listeners I get, but it's because of who I've become in the process. Because of the conversations I've had that have changed how I see things, and because of the moments where I was going to let my emotions decide, and then I sat down and recorded instead, and something shifted. I felt good afterwards. Teddy Roosevelt calls it the arena. You guys know I have this on my neck. It says the credit goes to the man in the arena. And he says this. I'll give you a little bit more of a uh, I guess, I'll give you more of a snippet of this quote. I guess I don't know what I'm saying. I'm tired, guys. It's been a long day. Um, and my testosterone's low. Blame it on that. No, I'm kidding. We don't make excuses. But here's what he says the credit belongs to the man in the arena. Inside that quote, he also said, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Not a not the critic in the stands, not the commentator, the person who is actually in it, who strives, falls short, and comes back. I used to read this, this quote about achievement. But now through a different lens, I read it as about courage. The courage to keep trying when it isn't clean, or to stay in the fight when you're not winning, to keep your heart open when life is really heavy. That's the character underneath the achievement. You get the achievement by being that person. And it's the thing that holds when achievement stops coming. And here's what I need to say before I close this one out. I'm not performing at my best right now. That's just true. And I'm done softening it. That's it doesn't get me anywhere just to sugarcoat that. I am not performing at my best. I don't feel sharp that the way I want to feel sharp. I don't have energy that I'm used to having. There are mornings where the version of me that wakes up is not the version I want to be that day. And I don't always get to choose which one shows up. That's a hard thing to admit when you've built a show around doing hard things well. That's a part of me that still thinks I should have this more figured out by episode 200. But here's what I keep landing on. My value is not based on what I'm producing this month, both physically, mentally, with the podcast, anything. My value is not based on that. And I need to say that again, maybe more for myself than for you. That doesn't mean results don't matter because they do. Effort matters, consistency matters, what you produce has real weight in the world. But it's not your foundation. Because if your foundation is performance, what happens when performance drops? That's a question that you're gonna have to sit with. Who are you in those moments? What happens when you get sick or when seasons change, or when you're doing everything right and still moving slower than you want? If your value is tied to output, those seasons will take things from you that no recovery plan can get back. But if your value is tied instead to character, to the kind of person you're being in the ordinary moments that nobody sees, you can survive a hard season. And you can come out stronger on the other side. Because character, it gives you something solid to stand on when results are not there. It says, hey, I'm still the person who tells the truth. I'm still the person who does the work when it's harder than it should be. I'm still the person who adjusts instead of quits, who asks for help instead of pretending everything is fine. That's not dependent on my testosterone numbers. It is not, it is not dependent on my training paces. It belongs to me regardless of what season what season I am in and what that looks like. So maybe this season is here to strip some things away that need some stripping. Hey, that's kind of hot. Maybe it's some pride. Maybe it's some attachment to the version of myself that I had at my best. Maybe it is some of the identity that I'd quietly built around being the person who has his whole act together. Maybe that stripping is the work. Again, kind of hot. I'm sorry, guys. I'm in a goofy mood. And I'm kind of fired up because I'm I love these lessons. And that's what I'm saying. Like, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do and what I want the next hundred episodes to actually be. I don't want this show to be a highlight reel. I want it to be actually real. And I don't want this to become the kind of podcast where everything works out and the lessons are clean and nobody ever says, I don't know, or I'm struggling with this. That version would be easier to make. It would probably get better engagement, but I would stop being honest. And again, when we're talking about character here, I can't do

Redefining What Getting After It Means

SPEAKER_00 40:07

that. This show has always been most useful to me, and I think most useful to you when it's talking about the real thing, running as a metaphor for everything and not just performance, or faith as something I'm actually working out, not something I've resolved. Marriage as something that we're building and rebuilding, not something that happened to me once and has stayed fixed. Health as a real conversation about what it costs to take care of yourself over time, not a success story with a filter on it. Because getting after it was never supposed to mean be perfect. That's not what this show's about. None of us are perfect. So if I getting after it, if that was to mean be perfect, that's ridiculous. And this is something that I'm learning in real time. That everyone's effort, everyone's getting after it will look different. I made a few episodes about why I have that title. But that's why. Because yours is gonna look different than mine. We just talked about this. It was never meant to mean destroy yourself in the pursuit of some ideal version of yourself. That's not discipline, that's insecurity. And I've had my seasons of that. Getting after it means that you refuse to drift, that you live with intention, that you do the hard thing that's actually in front of you, and not the imaginary hard thing that makes you look good. You do the real one. And the real hard thing changes shape depending on what season that you're in. Sometimes the hard thing is the early alarm. It's the extra mile, it's the weight on the bar. And then sometimes it's sending an email or a text to someone that you've been putting off or having the conversation that you've been avoiding. That's getting after it in a different way. And sometimes, and this is probably the one that took me the longest to accept, and I still struggle with it. Sometimes the hard thing is resting without punishing yourself for it. It's going to the doctor and actually listening to what they say, asking for help and letting the help lend a hand. Saying someone or saying to someone that you trust, I'm not okay right now, but I'm not done. That's the version I'm learning right now. And if you're in a season like this, if you're tired, if your output has dropped, if the old version of yourself feels farther away than you would like, I want to be direct. You're not weak because this is hard. Difficulty is not a measure of your weakness. You're not broken because you're tired. Tired is what happens to people who are actually trying to do something. Hate to break it to you. If you're getting after it in whatever way that you are, you might be a little tired. And that's okay. Expect it. When you expect it, you're not surprised by it. You're not failing because your current capacity doesn't match where you were six months ago. Unless you're actually being lazy, you're not failing. And you may just be in a different chapter. And different chapters, they need different things from you. Don't throw away years of work because one season feels heavy. Don't let the noise in your head convince you that you're no longer who you are because your body or your circumstances are struggling right now. You may need time, you may need help, you may need to adjust the plan. But you're still here. You still have power. Not over everything, but over the next step. That is what I loved about Andy Glaze's book, Smile or You're Doing It Wrong. About a lot in that podcast, how most of the time when he's in like a hundred mile race or a 200-mile race, the only thing he can focus on is the next step. That's it. That's the whole thing. Not the whole plan. Not the full recovery, not the guarantee about how this ends. It's just the next step and then the next one. And when I look back at the last hundred episodes, I don't just see content. It's there, but that's not all I see. What I see is evidence that I have kept on going. Evidence that I was learning things and changing in ways that I couldn't fully see while they were happening. I look back at conversations I had two years ago and I hear myself, and I know that I would not say those same things now. And that's not embarrassing. That's the whole point. You should sound different after 200 episodes. You should sound different than you did after 100 or just episode one. If you don't, maybe you haven't been paying attention. The podcast, it changed me before it changed anything else. And I started it because I wanted to help people do hard things. And I still want that. That is the goal of the show. But I needed these conversations first. I needed the accountability of actually sitting down every week and asking, okay, what am I learning? What's something new? Not what am I achieving? Not how does this look or yep. The question is, what am I learning? That's it. That question has been worth more to me than any metric I could track. Any listener number or any pace I hit or distance in miles. It is what am I learning? Because I do those things because it teaches me about myself. It turns pain into something useful and it turns failure into data. It turns a slow, frustrating season into a place where something real can grow if you're willing to stay in it. For the next hundred episodes, I want to keep asking that question. I want to keep bringing people on who've been through something and can speak about it with specificity. Not polished lessons, not something fake, but real ones. The kind that still have some roughness around them. I want to keep talking about running, faith, marriage, health, work, creativity, and loss. The stuff that actually shapes who you become over time. Because the shape of discipline changes. The shape of what it means to get after it changes. The version that served you last year may not be the version this year that you need. And the willingness to let it change without using that as an excuse to go soft, without confusing adaptation with surrender, that's its own kind of strength. One that I am still learning. Guys, 200 episodes in, and I'm still trying to figure all this out. Still grateful for every conversation I have. Every guest who said, Yeah, I'll come on your show. Every person who shared an episode with someone who needed it. Still so grateful that this thing that we started with a microphone and not much else turned into something that I'm proud of. Something that I want my kids to listen to and know what dad was thinking while he was 28 years old. That's its own kind of strength. And again, it's not because of some number, but because of who I became in the making of it. Discipline changes shape. My advice to you would be let it. Push when it's time to push. Rest when the season asks for it. Adjust when the plan stops fitting.

Gratitude And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_00 47:55

And ask for help when you need it. And on the days when you don't know what to do, when the options feel overwhelming, the progress feels invisible, make it simple. It's take the next step. That's how this show was built. And that's how anything worth building gets built. I'm still in shock that we're at 200 episodes. And the fact that you guys are here listening to me, it means more than you think. Whether it's on audio platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or if it's on YouTube, it means so much to me. And I genuinely appreciate it. I'm not being fake. Like the fact that you guys still believe in me, that you want to listen to something that I have to say or learn from me, that means so much. Because like I said, I've been talking about this whole time. Episode one, I was just some kid with a microphone who wanted to get some things off his chest, who wanted to talk about things that he likes. And now I'm in a place where I've become someone completely different because of who I who I've become through the 200 episodes. And we're not stopping. We're only going to keep going. Because I love this stuff. I love talking to you guys and hearing your comments and and sharing this with other people. Or like when people ask, hey Brett, what do you do? I say, okay, well, how much time do you got? I have a podcast. Here's what I learned from doing it for four years. But it the support means more than you guys ever will know. Um, because like I said, I was just a kid with a dream. And now that dream's become a reality, and it's not where I want it to be. I don't think I'll ever get there. But it's it's it's making its its way, and that's something I'm incredibly proud of. And I'm not saying that to be conceited, I'm just saying, like, the whole purpose of getting after it is to become someone that your younger version of you would look up to. It's becoming someone through these different challenges that you pursue, or becoming someone through hardships where life hands you a crappy set of cards and you gotta deal with it. That's what getting after it's about. And for the next hundred episodes, I'm going to keep asking myself that question: what am I learning? What will be valuable to my audience? What will be value to my friends? And genuinely I appreciate it. So thank you for making this possible. Thank you for helping me get to this point. Because if I didn't get here, I don't know who I would be. It sounds dramatic, but it's true. I don't know who I would be. If I didn't take the time to actually study this whole podcast, whether it's I'm reading from the Stoics or researching someone to ask questions on this podcast for, or reading about Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, all these people who I really admire. It's astounding. And it's all because you guys have stayed with me this whole time. So thank you. And if this helped at all, please um leave a leave a nice little rating on audio platforms, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, anything. It goes a long way. And also, please comment. I love reading your guys' comments. Jace, if you're listening, man, you always comment and I really appreciate it. But it's always fun to hear what you guys think about this. And I'm excited for the future of this show. It's gonna get interesting. I think we're going into a different season, you know, where my wife, when she gives birth, I'm gonna be learning a lot more about adaptation and that lesson where discipline, it the shape of it changes over time. I'm gonna be going through that. You can rest assured, I'm gonna be giving it my all. I'm going all in. I have to. I have to go all in. And sometimes that all in will look completely different. Right now, with my testosterone low, it looks 100% different than it used to look when I was, you know, running ultra marathons like no problem. And that's okay. Because if I keep my character, if I stay with who I believe that I am, and I just keep showing up and take the next step, I'm excited to meet who I become on the other side of that. So I hope that you guys took something from this. Um, this journey's just begun, and it's pretty pretty awesome to say that. So thank you so much for listening to the Getting After podcast, my friends. It means the world. And if you ever want to be a guest, shoot me a DM. I love having people on, I love having conversations. But until next episode, my friends, keep getting after it. Thanks, guys.