The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-321 – Steve Chopper live from Cape Cod
(Audio: link)
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4321.mp3]
Link epi4321.mp3
MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks – http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/
Hey people. How are you? I’m tired. I was out in San Diego this week as my ‘Abundance Tour’ continues. Since we last talked I was in Phoenix, came back home and drove down to the Cape to see Steve and then was back on a plane out to San Diego this week. This week I am going to be in Boston, but I have a conference in the city that I’ll need to drive in for a couple days. And I’m speaking a this one so I have to come up with a talk for that and get ready. Then the following week I’m back out in San Diego for another week-long conference that will require me to leave on Saturday.
So…When I came off my epic adventure out in Portland I woke up to find all this travel and I’ll be honest it stressed me out. This time of year is when all of the conferences in my industry happen. It’s not hard work but you’re on all the time and talking to people. Many times I’ll be out late entertaining and up early for the events – it can wear on you if you don’t pace yourself.
I thought about it though and remembered how lucky I am to be able to do all the things that I do and decided to try to rewire my thinking process. I decided to call it “The Abundance Tour – 2015. Like a rock and roll tour. I’m going to get T-shirts made with the venues and dates on them, right? It helps but I’m still exhausted.
I managed to get out and run almost every day last week in Phoenix including my favorite run up Camelback Mountain before the sunrise. One of the days the event had an impromptu 5K which was fun for me! I just treated it as a fun run and chatted up clients because I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ – the guy who tries to hammer everyone else in a fun run.
This week in San Diego I was unable to get out at all. I was unable to do any of my daily practice. And it bothers me. But I’ll be back on the bus soon enough.
Today we will have a recording that I made sitting at the table in my Cape Cod house with Steve Chopper. Steve is cycling from Concord MA to Yorktown on a folding bicycle and he’s calling it the American Revolutions Tour. I met him as he was cycling down to my place from Provincetown and we rode 50 or so miles on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.
In The first section I’m going to talk through something that came up this week which is the situation where people have bad workouts late in their training cycles and it freaks them out.
In the second section I have a piece that tries to summarize my reading and learning about how to access deeper portions of your mind and potentially the universal mastermind.
The thing I discover about myself with these conferences is how much of an introvert I am. Having authentic interacti
ons with other humans all day and all night is exhausting. I’ve been practicing trying to actually listen to people instead of ‘waiting to talk’. Trying to ask questions instead of trying to demonstrate how smart I am.
When you do this, amazingly enough, it’s not as exhausting. When you let go the need to make it some sort of competition or sell something you can connect better and people remember you and you remember them.
On with the show!
Section one – Running Tips
Am I ready for my goal race? https://runrunlive.com/am-i-ready-for-my-goal-marathon
Voices of reason – the conversation
Steve Chopper
The American Revolutions Tour
Hi guys,
I’m cycling from Old North Bridge, Concord, down to Georgetown. These are pretty fitting start and end points chronologically for an adventure taking in the main places from the War of Independence. I’ll be putting together a travelogue (as my one from last year cycling the Danube to Budapest is almost done).
I’m doing it on my 2 speed fold up Brompton cycle (pic attached), which folds up easily into a box which meets general airline checked luggage sizes. I rescheduled the trip by a week as I found out the UCI world road racing championships are taking place in Richmond VA the week of 21st September. I gave them a bit of marketing about the trip and Brompton have kindly given me a guest pass into the Brompton World Championships USA which is part of that closed roads cycling festival. I’ll be meeting up with quite a few 
Bromptoneers along the way, theres a host I know in NYC, and a few hundred will be flying into RIchmond. I’m also catching up with workmates in Delaware and they will be helping me reenact the famous “Washington crossing the Delaware” painting with my bike, will make a good anecdote!
I’ll be carrying my camping kit, but will hopefully mainly stay with Warmshowers.com hosts.
I attach my schedule. Due to the best low cost flight schedule/ prices back to Boston from Richmond, I’ll be coming back to Boston on Saturday 26th and have a day in Boston on the Sunday.
I will be cycling around 60 miles a day so will be quite leisurely and leave time for plenty of site seeing/ beer!!!
If you have any observations on this plan that would help me refine it, or anyone you think it would be good to catch along the way, then feel free to let me know
Hope to see you soon – all then best!!
Section two – The Universal Mastermind
https://runrunlive.com/uncertainty-trust-and-the-universal-mastermind
Outro – Closing comments
MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks – http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/
Like I think I said last time I’m cutting back on my training for September because of my crazy schedule. I basically didn’t run this week. I’ve got to get back on it because I’m putting on weight and feel like crap! With any luck the time off will heal up all my bent and broken bits and I’ll be able to get a quality training cycle in during the fall and winter seasons.
Now that my heart is fixed up I’d really like to load up some speedwork and maybe get some of that pace back that I had a couple years ago. If I look at my own pace tables from the MBQ plan the paces should be quite doable for me. The BQ paces I need now are almost a full minute off what I needed when I first qualified in the fall of 1997.
I’m also terrified when I start thinking about this because what if I can’t do it? What if I just get injured again? What if I just don’t have the time in my life and have to give up part of the way through? I guess I won’t know until I try.
And I’m also concerned that if I commit to a hard training cycle it will suck up all the free oxygen in my life and keep me from being successful in other areas of my life that need attention.
If I kick off a cycle in October that would line up with a race the first couple weeks of January. Maybe I’ll do that. Then I could schedule our 3rd annual Groton Marathon as a last long training run around Christmas.
This is how my brain works.
It would also get me into decent shape for the Thanksgiving races.
…
As I was working through how to survive and thrive over this month of heavy travel I was thinking a lot about how to make the interaction I have with people more valuable. I usually just put on a smile and work the room but that is a very emotionally thin way of engaging people. A veneer of bonhomie does not produce any value.
If you are putting on an act, unless you are a really good actor, people sense that and it is off-putting.
I asked myself the question ‘why do you have that light, insincere avatar approach?’
And the answer I got was that because in these business relationships I don’t really trust the people I’m interacting with. Essentially I’m interacting with my guard up – talking and smiling with one hand on my gun.
Then, I asked the next question which was ‘Why don’t you trust these people? What are you afraid of?’
And the surprising answer that popped up was that I’m afraid of them. I’m afraid looking stupid. I’m afraid of getting hurt.
Think about that. I’m having these smiling, friendly conversations with my industry peers that are full of content but also based in fear. And I thought to myself ‘Gee, that’s not a very abundant way to approach life.”
Then, stay with me, I asked the next question, which was, “What could happen if you weren’t afraid of getting hurt, if you trusted these people?” What would this bring to you?
It’s a work in process but I have been practicing being authentic in these interactions. It many cases it really changes the value and the outcome of the interaction. Instead of trying to think one step ahead and figure out what you think they want to hear or what you should say in this situation – you just let go of it, step outside the conversation and say what is important.
It’s much less stressful and being calm in the moment can be sensed by people and they are attracted to that.
I’ll tell you a story.
I was sitting at a table having breakfast last week. At the table was a CEO who was one of the keynote speakers. I’m chatting with folks. I chat with this guy talking about mutual friends and such, just being chill. He starts to lock in on me. He asks me what I do.
Instead of the usual I’m an executive at XYZ company and run the ABC group type of safe answer I said “I like to read, write and speak, I love endurance sports and new ideas and I’m currently an executive at XYZ company.”
That my friends is not an answer anyone expects and says volumes about who I am as a person and the true value that I bring to the world beyond the company and the industry.
After a few more minutes of chat he says, “Well you’ve got to talk to John Doe who runs my Americas team because we need someone to run the Eastern part of the country so we can grow this business.
Now, let’s be clear. I haven’t heard anything else from this guy since then and I have no idea if I’d be interested working for them. That’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is I wasn’t pitching this guy or trying to impress him or really even paying all that much attention to him but he was attracted to me by my authentic attitude.
He felt my detached attitude of abundance and heard something different and valuable in the way I interacted. This was a demonstration of what the mystics might consider the law of attraction.
But more importantly it was a demonstration of how we can modify our own selves by asking good introspective questions and then reflecting that self-aware attitude out into the world (or perhaps, the universe).
So ponder on this as you’re out and about this week. The way we think influences how we manifest to others. How are you manifesting in your world? What are you programming yourself to attract?
And I’ll see you out there.
http://wapack.freeservers.com/
MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks – http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/