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  • I first met SEAL at a 100 mile run in San Diego and I was running this race as part

  • of a six person relay team with friends and he was running the entire race by himself.

  • And the run was unsupported so you have to bring your own supplies. So we had, you know,

  • we overdid it a little bit. We had a tent and we had masseuses and food. I mean we were

  • ready for like in case we had to stay there a week. And he had a folding chair, a bottle

  • of water and a bag of crackers. And I just thought to myself like who is this guy. I’ve

  • never seen anything like it. And during the race I kept an eye on him and around mile

  • 70 he weighed probably 260 pounds which is quite large for an ultra runner. He had broken

  • all the small bones in both of his feet and had kidney damage and he finished the race.

  • So when it was done I Googled him. He had a fascinating life story and I decided literally

  • to cold call him. And I flew out and met with him and after sitting with him for a couple

  • of minutes I realized that I could learn so much from a guy like this that what makes

  • him tick and various buckets in my life would be so much better if a little bit of what

  • he had rubbed off on me. I asked him to come live with my family and I for a month. So

  • at the time that I invited SEAL to come live with us I had an 18-month-old son. I was married,

  • still am. Two more kids since. And I had sold a couple of businesses. I was in a great place

  • professionally in my life but I was also in a routine. And routines are great but they

  • can also be a rut. And I found that I just wasn’t getting better. I was doing the same

  • thing every day like so many of us. Wake up, go to work, come home, you know, have dinner,

  • repeat. And I just wanted to get off autopilot. And I thought that he would be a great way

  • to get in good shape but also to just mix up my routine and get better.

  • The first day that SEAL came to live with me he asked me to dohe said how many

  • pullups can you do? And I’m not great at pullups. I did about eight. Just getting over

  • the bar eight. And he said all right. Take 30 seconds and do it again. So 30 seconds

  • later I got up on the bar and I did six, struggling. And he said all right, one more time. We waited

  • 30 seconds and I barely got three or four and I was done. I mean couldn’t move my

  • arms done. And he said all right. Were not leaving here until you do 100 more. And

  • I thought there’s nowell were going to be here for quite a long time because there’s

  • no way that I could do 100. But I ended up doing it one at a time and he showed me, proved

  • to me right there that there was so much more, were all capable of so much more than we

  • think we are. And it was just a great lesson. It was actually the first thing that we did.

  • It was just a great lesson that we have so much more in our reserve tank than we think

  • we do. One of the things that SEAL said to me and it’s in the book and one thing that

  • people have said that really resonated with them. He would say that when your mind is

  • telling you youre done, youre really only 40 percent done. And he had a motto if

  • it doesn’t suck we don’t do it. And that was his way of every day forcing us to get

  • uncomfortable to figure out what our baseline was and what our comfort level was and just

  • turning it upside down. The 40 percent rule maybe it’s give or take a little but look

  • at a marathon. Most people hit the wall in a marathon at mile anywhere from 16 t0 20.

  • And, you know, 99 percent of the people in this country that run marathons finish and

  • they all, predominantly all of them go through this hit the wall. So where does that extra

  • 50 or 60 percent or whatever the number is come from? I mean it’s their brain saying

  • I’m done, I don’t want to continue but their will saying you know what? Let me get

  • to the finish line. So we all have that will. It’s just a matter of how do we apply it

  • to not just with the once a year marathon but to our daily lives to make it apply to

  • a variety of things.

I first met SEAL at a 100 mile run in San Diego and I was running this race as part

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