According to Jesus, the second greatest commandment in the Bible is this:
Love your neighbor as yourself.

I’ve been going to church all my life, and I’ve never heard a preacher talk about this like what I’m about to say.

I don’t know if I really want other people to love me like they love themselves.

When Tom Foreman was young, he was a competitive runner in all the races he entered. And he barely trained for these races.

But he stopped running for years. Then his daughter asked him to help her train for a marathon. He went on from that to run four half-marathons, three full marathons, and a 50 mile ultramarathon in the space of a year. He documented his experience with a book titled, My Year of Running Dangerously. 

Since that year, he has gone on to run marathons and ultramarathons, including the Boston Marathon. And he has the mindset to keep going as far as he can in his running journey.

How can anyone be afraid of winning . . . be afraid of success?

If you Google “fear of success” you’ll get about 430 million results. There are a lot of us out in the world who struggle with the idea of winning and being successful.

And there are a lot of different reasons people develop a fear of success. Mine came from growing up in church.

Get a good education and find a career that will give you success and security! This is the advice we get for how to make our way in the world. Some of us, however,  aren't satisfied with with the status-quo. Sarah Williams decided that she wanted something different for herself. She decided to launch out and create a life full of adventure and challenge.

Sarah is on a mission to increase attention and the number of female role models taking part in adventure and physical challenges. She shares stories of amazing women on the Tough Girl Podcast. And she goes after her own tough challenges in running, cycling, and hiking. 

It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled.

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain. The irony is that there are no references showing Mark Twain saying these words. And yet the uninformed continue to credit him with this proverb.

How do you know whether the truth you believe to be true is actually the truth? Most people work hard to defend what they think is true and never question whether new ideas might be valid. There is security in "knowing" you are right.

My friend, Dallas Amsden, returns for another conversation. He was my second guest on the podcast, back when my audience was in the single digits.

Dallas is a coach for professionals who want to become outstanding communicators. We talk about how breaking down tasks into a series of sprints can bring about ultramarathon results in running and business. 

Today is July 4, Independence Day in the US.

Today you’ll see posts and memes about freedom and independence. And it’s good to celebrate. Freedom is better than living under socialism or communism.

Fire up the grill, crack open a beer, watch the fireworks.

And take a minute to think about what freedom means to you.

For me, it was the freedom to look at my life and decide I wanted something different, something more.

Chase Hammond is a man with vision. As an ultramarathon runner he saw an opportunity to create a race series at the trail he runs in central Kansas. The Hell Creek race series is both challenging and beautiful. And for those who think Kansas is flat, the elevation profile for the 100 mile is over 10,000 feet of gain. 

Chase also saw an opportunity to use his training in nutrition to start a supplement company to serve athletes in endurance sports. In this episode we talk about all this and more: running, race directing, and nutrition.

The worst movie my wife and I ever saw was Seven Six-Gunners.

Ten minutes in, we commented on how bad it was. We watched the entire 90 minutes.

Why?

Sunk costs

Sunk costs is the feeling that you need to keep going because you’ve already invested time and/or money and made a decision.

I always thought the Spartan obstacle course races were pretty much like other OCR events. But Cliff Moitt came on the show to talk to me about the Spartan Death Race. The shorter Spartan races don't rise to the level of difficulty you face in the Death Race. 

The Spartan Death Race is designed with mental challenges as well as physical. There are odd items, difficult to obtain, that you have to bring to the race. And before you can begin the race, you have to solve a puzzle. If you can't solve it, you can't even get to the starting line. The starting time is not set, so you have to be ready to go when the announcement is made. 

Cliff offers great insights into the mindset required to train for and compete in this amazing challenge.