Ari Klau is back for round four — and this one goes places we haven't gone before. Fresh off a second-place finish at Chattanooga and building toward what may be the best season of his career, Ari sits down with me to talk about what's actually changed and what hasn't.

We get into the mindfulness practice he picked up at a swim camp earlier this year and how it's quietly become the biggest performance differentiator in his racing. We talk about what it actually feels like to finally podium after years of grinding — and why it didn't feel the way he thought it would. We go deep on the tyranny of the mind, trusting external structure over internal impulse, and the philosophy of doing things you don't want to do as the real definition of self-care.

We also talk about the mustache. It's gone. Apparently, two high-level team managers had written him off as not serious because of it. His dad saw photos from Chattanooga and said he looks formidable now. The results seem to agree.

And then at the end, Ari shares something he's never talked about on here before — losing his sister in 2021, how it launched him into professional triathlon, and what it's like to still be processing that while also being the son who keeps forgetting to call on his dad's birthday. It's the same day as his late sister's birthday. It's a lot to carry.

Ari’s YT: https://www.youtube.com/@archmdz

Ari’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/archmdz/?hl=en

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Dr. Cory Rich has spent 40 years trying to understand one thing — what brings out the very best in the human condition. As a mental performance coach, he's worked with elite triathletes, Native American tribes using equine-assisted healing, addiction recovery programs, and everyone in between. And at the center of all of it is a question he first started asking when his father died in a car accident and he was seven years old.

Cory sits down with me to talk about losing his dad, his aunt, his uncle, and his grandmother all before he was a teenager — and why none of it turned into bitterness. We get into his Pure Intelligence framework and what he calls the fourth and crowning intelligence — spiritual intelligence — and why developing it is more predictive of health, performance, and happiness than any drug or therapy on the market. We also talk about the day a doctor told him he probably wasn't going to survive the next few days, and what that kind of clarity does to a person's sense of what actually matters.

This one goes deep fast and never really comes up for air. We cover identity architecture, why 95% of our decisions are made subconsciously, the difference between post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth, and why the most important question you can ask yourself right now is — if I died tomorrow, would I have any regrets?

Oh, and SQ doesn't just stand for Stupid Questions. Turns out it also stands for Spiritual Quotient. Cory noticed it on the wall behind me and smiled. I think that's about right.

The Transformational Power of Pure Intelligence — available on Amazon
Cory’s Site: https://www.pureintelligence.life 

Cory’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/coryareich/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Night one of three at Tulsa Tough and Team Cadence Cyclery came in short of the win — but not short of heart. Lucas Burgoyne, Luke Fetzer and the crew sit down with me courtside for a raw, unfiltered recap of how the night went down.We talk about Boldy crashing 15 minutes in and getting back up, Cesar carving through the peloton like an assassin, the two-lap moment where it all almost came together — and why a fourth place finish on night one might be exactly the fuel this team needs heading into days two and three.Short, real, and straight from the finish line. This is what crit racing actually feels like.🚴 Follow Team Cadence Cyclery: https://www.instagram.com/teamcadencecyclery/

Eric Zaltas grew up in a 75,000-person apartment complex in the Bronx, winning spelling bees and getting pushed around on the playground. He needed to prove there was a body connected to the brain. So he became a competitive cyclist, raced in 47 states, rode through Harlem and the South Bronx on Saturday mornings to get to Central Park, and eventually turned a passion for sports science into a career that took him from Berkeley to Nestle headquarters in Switzerland — where he helped fund the research that now underpins how most endurance athletes think about carbohydrate intake.

Now he's back in the Bronx, recently remarried, co-founder of a startup called Addra Labs, and still swimming in a 50-meter pool between meetings at a local city college.

Eric sits down with me to talk about the arc of a life built around curiosity — what it was like to be beamed up to Switzerland with a young family, the London Business School professor who told him he should be running a startup instead, the near-death moment that almost killed Addra before it launched, and the strange experience he had writing a memorial for his best friend that he still can't fully explain.

We also get into what it means to age well, what he learned from his first marriage, and why his 85-year-old dad still emails him at 4:30am every Wednesday to critique the science newsletter.

This one is for the curious ones.

Eri’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/ericzaltas/

ADDRA IG: https://www.instagram.com/addra_labs/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Kyle Cokinos holds the Guinness World Record for the most holes of golf played in 24 hours — 810 holes, 98 miles on foot, one club, one summer solstice, and a hundred thousand dollars raised for kids with cancer. But that's just the headline. The story underneath it is a lot more interesting.

Kyle sits down with me to talk about growing up as the oldest of six in a big loud Greek family in Houston, how a scrawny kid who got pushed around became a guy who runs Ironmans and breaks world records, and why it took him until 30 to stop treating his faith like a rulebook and start treating it like a relationship. We get into the body dysmorphia he still battles, the version of himself he's running from, and what it actually felt like the first time he got on his knees at 4am and just said thank you.

We also talk about fatherhood — real fatherhood — the kind where you throw your phone into a couch at 3am and wonder if you're doing enough. Kyle has three daughters under three, a construction business, a bond agency, a YouTube channel, and somehow still finds time to train. He calls it stacking days. I call it impressive.

This one's for the dads, the entrepreneurs, the guys who weren't athletes growing up and decided to become one anyway.
Kyle’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=kyle%20cokinos

Kyle’s YT: https://www.youtube.com/@KidCoki 

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Lucas Burgoyne and Luke Fetzer are back, this time together. Fresh off their win at Athens Twilight — one of the biggest criterium races in America — the dynamic duo behind Team Cadence Cyclery sat down with me still riding the high, freshly arrived in Boulder, and already plotting the next block.

This conversation is everything you'd want from these two. We got into how the Athens win came together, why Lucas was eating gummy bears mid-race and nearly started on 30 PSI tires, and what it actually felt like to debut their 90-foot rig at one of America's biggest crits. Lucas breaks down the story of how the rig almost never happened — and the moment he walked back into a business meeting alone, with nothing to lose, and changed the trajectory of the whole organization.

We also talk about the Patriot Effect, what scares them most about the level they're building toward, how Luke lost $10,000 worth of Lucas's gear in Salt Lake City and is still slowly paying it back in $50 increments, and why they hate each other off camera but are each other's right-hand man on the bike.

Lucas’ IG: https://www.instagram.com/lucas_bourgoyne/

Luke’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/sendy_mcgee/
Cadence Cyclery: https://www.instagram.com/teamcadencecyclery/ 

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Colin Szuch is one of the most quietly compelling athletes I've had on the show. He dropped out of aviation school at 19, moved to Spain to chase a triathlon dream with next to nothing behind him, and has been methodically building toward one goal ever since — winning Kona. He hasn't won a full Ironman yet. But he's getting close.

In this round two conversation, Colin sits down with me to talk about a rough start to the season, what it actually costs to compete at the pro level, and why consistency — not training camps or testing — is the thing he keeps learning the hard way. We get into the financial reality of professional triathlon, how new sponsors and equipment add mental load most people never see, and what it felt like to hear his name screamed three deep in Chile.

We also go somewhere Colin says he's never gone publicly before — his faith. He didn't grow up religious, but he picked up a Bible at 20, started praying, and two weeks later found himself on a plane to Spain. He talks about intuition, following the still small voice, and why he thinks Lionel Sanders is one of the best examples of what happens when you just keep doing what you believe.

This one's got more layers than the aero helmet he tested fastest.

Collin’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/colin_szuch/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Kelly Wetteland is a senior at the University of Arizona, a rising triathlete on the World Cup circuit, and someone trying to figure out how to grow up without losing herself in sport.

In this conversation, we talk about identity, ambition, spirituality, burnout, and the strange transition from being a college athlete into the “real world.” Kelly opens up about breaking both arms in a bike crash, the pressure of high-performance environments, and learning how to chase big goals without letting results define her worth.

We also dive into her upbringing in Los Alamos, New Mexico, life on the Arizona triathlon team, traveling through Europe to race, and why she’s fascinated by long-term thinking, history, and faith. Along the way, we get into parenting, gratitude, saying no, the importance of discomfort, and what it means to become the best version of yourself.

Kelly’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/klwetteland/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Liv Dietzel is a professional triathlete, engineer, and coach who races in places most people can't find on a map — the Himalayas, Patagonia, Norway, Brazil. She's won four extreme triathlons and is chasing every one of the fifteen that exist. But underneath all of that is a story that starts somewhere much quieter — a small Catholic farming town in Wisconsin, a dad who ran all over cross country courses just to cheer her on, and a brain cancer diagnosis in 2014 that changed the trajectory of everything.

Liv sits down with me to talk about losing her father to glioblastoma during COVID, why she started doing Ironmans in the first place, and what it felt like to cross that first finish line with him standing at the end of it. We get into her faith, the grief stages she did and didn't go through, and why suffering alone in silence on a mountain in the middle of nowhere is where she feels closest to God.

We also dig into what makes extreme triathlon so different from the standard Ironman circuit, why she pulled out of Dallas 70.3 because she felt absolutely nothing standing at the start line, and the coaching philosophy she built around the coach she never had growing up.

This one goes deep. Bring a coffee.

Liv’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/olivia.dietzel/
Tussle Endurance Coaching: www.tussleendurance.com

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup

Gabrielle Suver was four months out from her best season ever as a pro triathlete — fit, focused, and ready to race Ironman Cozumel. Then on a routine shakeout ride, a truck hit her and drove away. Twenty plus breaks, open fractures, a month in the hospital, and the very real possibility that she might not walk again.

Four months later she's back on her road bike.

Gabby sits down with me to talk about what she remembers from the crash site, the peace she found while lying against a fence not knowing if she would live or die, and why she never really felt anger toward the driver who left her there. We get into her journey from a sickly, bullied kid in New York to a late-blooming pro athlete, her battle with anorexia in high school, the string of medical setbacks throughout 2024 that she now believes were preparing her for this, and the daily practices — nutrition, journaling, gratitude, therapy, and faith — that are fueling one of the most remarkable recoveries in the sport.

This one is raw, honest, and quietly powerful. Gabby doesn't perform strength — she just has it.

Gabby’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/gabrielle_suver/

Ways to Support the Show👇🏼

Nothing Novel: https://nothingnovel.life 

Socks: https://stupidquestions.show/pages/sq-merch 

Newsletter: ⁠https://stupidquestions.show/pages/newsletter-signup