Grow the Good

Focus on what you can do, not what you can't. Look there, go there. Where focus goes, energy flows. Perhaps you've heard one or all of those phrases. Our thoughts and emotions generate our perspective and life experience. What we believe about ourselves, our day, the people around us, and the way the world works has an impact on the actions we take, how we show up in relationships, and how we move through life.

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Payson McElveen is not your traditional professional mountain biker. After cycling at Fort Lewis College and becoming a two-time Marathon National Champion, Payson decided to focus more on longer events, instead of the traditional World Cup racing and pursuit of the Olympics. In 2017, he won his first national title at the 2017 Marathon Championships, and then won again in 2018. He continued his success in 2019, taking third place at the US National Cycling Trials, second at the Whiskey Off-Road race in Arizona and first at the Land Run 100 in Oklahoma.

He’s the son of a mountain bike racer, first started riding a bike at age four and began racing by 14. He’s been a member of USA Cycling’s National Team since he was 17. 

Payson is also known for his podcast “The Adventure Stache”, films, and physical challenges such as FKT’s and his “Trail Town” YouTube series. 

In this week’s episode, Payson and Sonya talk mountain biking, fulfilling potential, patience and perseverance and balance.

• How he got started in MTB
• What it means to fulfill your potential 
• Why endurance events
• How to have more patience and perseverance 
• Getting into gravel
• How do you choose what sponsors to work with
• Experience with his podcast
• How to balance training and commitments

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Wow, I can't believe I've had the privilege of doing this podcast for 5 years! Today is the 300th episode! Initially, I was going to do a mash-up of my favorite episodes. That is still coming.

Instead, I decided to record an episode on what having a podcast has taught me (not lessons about what guests have taught me).

• Consistency
• There is No End Point
• Metrics Don't Matter As Much
• Continuing Education
• How to Listen
• Reaching Out, Rejection and Impostor Syndrome

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Britt Frank - therapist, teacher, speaker, and trauma specialist - focuses her work on helping others who feel stuck. Her life’s work developed out of a history of drug addiction, love addiction, borderline personality disorder, depression, an eating disorder and anxiety. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but her approach to her work comes from a deep understanding of what it feels like to be stuck. 

Britt tried numerous things to get better, and got worse, but once she was on the path to recovery, she found purpose - to dismantle the mental health and motivation myths that keep us stuck, sick, and stressed. 

Her recently released book - The Science of Stuck - is a research-based tool kit for moving past what’s holding you back in life, love, and in work. 

Britt’s goal is to educate, empower, and equip people to transform their most persistent and long-standing patterns of thinking and doing.

In this conversation, Britt and Sonya talk about how to get unstuck, celebrate successes, use past experiences to help us now and more.

Key Takeaways

• How to get out of being stuck
• How to celebrate successes
• Using “and thinking” instead of “but thinking”
• Nine benefits to staying stuck
• What role does shame play in keeping us stuck
• Cost-benefit analysis of behaviors
• How can we digest past traumas to help us now
• Myths about adult friendships
• Shadow Intelligence SQ
• Favorite five-minute challenges

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Sometimes life can feel hard and overwhelming. Big life changes often cause discomfort and stress, but out of it comes growth. Growth is something most of us want, but it's normally not something that feels good all the time. With growth can come a period of struggling, and sometimes that feeling of struggling can feel like it'll last forever.

Personally, I am struggling right now. Having a newborn baby (second child) along with my son who just turned two, all while trying to meet the demands of being a Professional Athlete, run my business, have my weekly podcast while maintaining a high standard, sending out articles I write in my weekly newsletter, and have very limited childcare help has been far more stressful and overwhelming than I anticipated. In my line of work, I don't get to take a maternity leave. Some of my work is work that needs to be done consistently that I have made a commitment to do. For the podcast, I recorded three months of guests in advance before having my daughter and left a bit of space for solo articles/episodes like this one. When you're a creator, you don't get to just step away without penalties. Adding in sleep deprivation, hormonal changes, and trying to rehab and recover from birth adds to the layer of difficulty because it is harder to cope from a shakier foundation.

Key Takeaways

• What to Do if You're Struggling with Overwhelm
• What to Do if You're Struggling with Confidence
• What to Do if You're Struggling with Motivation

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

This week’s podcast features a discussion with Stanford Female Athlete Science And Translational Research (FASTR) Program Director Dr. Emily Kraus and Lead Researcher Dr. Megan Roche. The FASTR program seeks to help close the gender gap in sports science research with an emphasis on early identification and interventions to prevent injury and identify ways to optimize performance in female athletes. The program hopes to “inspire female athletes to learn more about their bodies and embrace what makes them strong and unique. Through proper education surrounding fueling, recovery, mental health, and more [they] encourage the development [of] lifelong athletes.”

Dr. Kraus is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford Children’s Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Center. She specializes in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation sports medicine. She is involved in several research projects, including The Healthy Runner Project, a multicenter prospective interventional study focused on bone stress injury prevention in collegiate middle and long distance runners.

Dr. Kraus also spends time performing gait analysis at the Stanford Run Safe Injury Prevention Program and serves as a medical advisor for the Adaptive Sports Injury Prevention Program at the Palo Alto VA. 

She has completed seven marathons including the Boston Marathon twice and one 50k ultramarathon.

Dr. Roche has a medical degree from Stanford University but is now a Ph.D. candidate in Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford focusing on bone health in athletes and the genetic predictors of sports injury. Dr. Roche is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Stanford Center on Longevity and is helping launch Stanford’s Lifestyle Medicine Initiative. 

Dr. Roche is a five-time national trail running champion, a North American Mountain Running Champion, and a six-time member of Team USA. She is a co-author of the book “The Happy Runner” and a co-founder of Some Work All Play, a coaching group centered around finding long-term fulfillment in the process of running.

In this episode, you'll learn about low energy availability, bone health, proper fueling and more!

• How Drs. Emily Kraus and Megan Roche started working together
• The push to study female athletes
• What is low energy availability 
• How this also applies to men
• How sex hormones affect bone health
• What does proper fueling look like 
• How mental health impacts low energy availability 
• Early symptoms of low energy availability
• Bone health and longevity as an athlete
• Genetic predictors of sports injury

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Fiona Oakes is an elite marathon runner, who has completed over 100 marathons and finished in the top 20 in two of the world’s Major Marathon series, winning the Main Start and placing in the top 20 in the Great North Run. She holds four Guinness recognized World Records in endurance events including being the fastest woman to run a Marathon on every Continent. But Fiona doesn’t consider herself a great runner. All of her runs and accolades are in service of a greater purpose - care and love for animals. 

Fiona is a vegan. Helping others understand the reasons behind her lifestyle drives her to participate in runs around the world. 

Fiona became the first vegan woman to complete the Marathon de Sables - a race she has completed twice more since - and in 2013 won the North Pole Marathon and its 'sister' race the Antarctic Ice Marathon. 

She also runs to bring awareness to her animal sanctuary - Towerhill Stables Animal Sanctuary - which she founded in 1996. 

Fiona is the subject of a documentary called Running for Good and is the author of a book of the same name. 

In this podcast, Sonya and Fiona talk about her pursuit to promote veganism, her career as a runner, and her love of animals. 

Key Takeaways:

• Who is Fiona Oakes
• Running for a reason 
• Love of animals
• Veganism
• What is talent
• Falling into different global races
• How to keep going
• Animal sanctuary

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Bob Doyle is a law of attraction expert and coach. The law of attraction is a belief that positive or negative thoughts bring positive or negative experiences into a person's life. He focuses heavily on helping people decide who they want to be and how they want to express themselves. Bob has been teaching these principles through programs, live events, podcasts, coaching, writing and more since 1998. He’s best known for his contribution to the film and book “The Secret.”

He has recently shifted from the metaphysical aspects of the law of attraction to a more biological look at what controls our experiences and our brain.  Bob is passionate about the neuroplasticity side of transformation. Digging into identifying where you might be living life on autopilot, how to take action and change your personal story, and the importance of consistency are key elements of this conversation. We also talked about how to make your vision a reality, something that is often missed in the Law of Attraction. It's about action and allowing the discomfort that comes with it.

Bob believes that wiring determines the quality of your experience, the actions you’ll take and the results you get, and ultimately what you do with those results.

• The courage to explore creativity
• Where the law of attraction goes wrong
• Transformation personality types seeker, wizard, skeptic, people pleaser 
• How to define and scale your vision 
• Why people stay stuck

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

In 2017, Hillary Allen experienced a life threatening accident that had the potential to completely derail her career as an endurance athlete. She fell 150 feet off a ridge-line during a race in Norway. With 14 broken bones, she was told she’d never run again, and most definitely not compete at an elite level. She overcame the odds and made a full recovery to return to elite level racing. 

Hillary, nicknamed “Hillygoat” because of her love and skill for running fast on steep, technical mountain terrain, has raced all over the world. 

In 2021, Hillary published a book about her accident and long road to recovery called Out and Back. 

Hillary received her masters degree in neuroscience, physiology and structural biology, and is also a running coach. 

In this podcast, Sonya and Hillary talked about her career as a runner, her injury, overcoming the odds to return better than before and the importance of self-belief to get there.

Key Takeaways:

• Where spirit of adventure came from
• How she became a runner
• Exploring curiosity 
• What is sky running
• Falling off a 150’ cliff and almost dying
• Depression from injury
• Getting back to sky running post injury
• Where does self-belief come from
• How to train for ultra endurance gravel cycling and running

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Small wins are possibly one of the most important aspects of progress, motivation, and confidence in our lives that are overlooked. The reality is that they are the building blocks, the steps, the brush strokes to building a masterpiece. No one suddenly has a big, flashy achievement. They are the many steps to get there that build resilience and character, not the achievement itself. The irony is that a lot of people feel silly when they acknowledge something small or simple. We tend to rank small or simple tasks as not impactful or not important. The reality is that small wins matter a lot more than you'd think.

Key Takeaways

• How Small Wins Matter: Identity and Competence
• Small Wins Boost Confidence
• Small Wins are Essential For Momentum

--------------
The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co.