I’ve got something exciting to share with you today – I was recently a guest on Joe De Sena’s podcast!
If you’re not familiar with Joe, he’s the CEO of Spartan Race who has appeared multiple times on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He’s also a very fascinating guy who’s completed some of the world’s toughest endurance events and built Spartan into a global phenomenon with over 10 MILLION participants.
Our conversation went on different tangents – from brain science and meditation to the hidden benefits of journaling and movement throughout the day… Here are a few topics discussed:
The Brain Science of Hard Things:
Joe shared an insight about why he does hard things and what’s going on in our brains when we do so:
“The human brain will leave a trace if a neurosurgeon was to cut your brain or my brain open. They’ll see a trace if we didn’t finish hard things – it leaves a gap. If we do finish hard things, it leaves a line. When I learned that, it really helped me get through other hard challenges – because I don’t want to leave a GAP in my brain!”
The Hidden Power of Journaling:
Joe and I got talking about what I’ve learned over the years from all my podcast conversations, and I mentioned how journaling keeps coming up with so many elite athletes:
“Journaling is one of the things that comes up most often with my podcast guests – writing down what they were doing, what went right, what went wrong, where their body is feeling off. Getting more in tune between your body and your mind and starting to recognize patterns over time.”
In the Personal Best community, I’ve found that tracking just four key areas creates remarkable awareness:
“Every Sunday I ask our members what they learned this week, and it’s often focused around four topics: how was your running week, what was your sleep like, what was your nutrition like, and what was your stress level. If you track these consistently, you start recognizing patterns that cannot be underestimated.”
Here’s an example from my own personal life…
In my weekly journaling, I noticed I kept writing “I’ve been on my phone too much around my kids.” The first time, I didn’t think much of it. The second week, I noticed it again. By the third week, seeing the same note made me stop and think, “Wow, this is becoming a pattern I need to address.”
That awareness led me to create a simple rule – when I come home, the phone goes away for the first two hours. Without that journaling habit, I might never have connected the dots and taken action.
Sometimes you need to see something written down multiple times before you recognize it’s an issue worth solving.
We covered so much more in our conversation – from meditation practices to the importance of finding joy in movement. Watch our full conversation here!
I’d love to hear what else you would like me to talk about in these emails. Reply and let me know, I read each one!
Cheers,
Floris Gierman
P.S. In our Personal Best Program, we’ve helped over 1,200 runners implement these exact principles to become stronger, healthier, and happier athletes. If you’d like personalized guidance on your running journey with a community of like-minded runners, check out PBprogram.com.
