The Hard Way With Joe De Sena

Gilbert has endured great suffering in his life, but his message is of joy! Burundian long-distance runner, author, and motivational speaker is a survivor of the massacres during the Burundian Civil War of the early 1990s. Members of the Hutu tribe invaded Tuhabonye's high school and captured more than 100 Tutsi children and teachers killing most with machetes; the rest were burned alive. Tuhabony...

Have you ever run an ultramarathon? If you want to, you can do it. Travis Macy, his dad, Mark, Mimi Anderson, and Bart Yasso are going to make you want to go for a run today and forget about the distance. Mimi Anderson says, "I had that moment in my heart. You know, where somebody suggests something, and I thought, 'Well, why can't I do that?' It was so out of the ordinary." Bart Yasso, "People as...

Joe Gray says, "What are the elite athletes doing? If you're looking to set elite goals for yourself, I don't care if you're a five hour marathoner and you want to run a 4:30, you're trying to do something that you've never done before. You have performance on mind. One thing you'll always notice is you're not going to see a lot of low carb athletes in endurance sports at the top of the sport." To...

The behavioral and social science tells us community is the great unlock! Gina Bianchini is a groundbreaker in the work of entrepreneurship and community first with Ning and today as founder and CEO of Mighty Networks. Hear how you can use community to unlock your potential, how this is a golden age for sharing ideas,  what she thinks of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and much more!   LINKS: Migh...

Aaron Hinde, Laura Gassner Otting, and Ryan Holiday have advice and experiences that will help you get where you truly want to be. Laura Gassner Otting, author of "Limitless," says, "I had the great fortune of having this business coach who was curious about what I was doing and wanted to help me. And I went to have breakfast with him, and I brought him all this great stuff. I brought him like my...

Yancy: There may come a day when I can't run anymore, but I can still do it right now. So I do it. I run just about everywhere I go.  Joe Gray: But ultimately too, I need to stay in shape because I want to beat my son for a few more years. He's slowly catching up. Today, Yancy and Joseph Gray talk about finding the spark to run, having an activity to do until you physically can't anymore after a l...

Your brain evolved to prevent you from moving, to conserve energy, because there was a time when humans needed  a lot of energy to hunt and to gather food. We don't have to do that now, but the brain is still set up to conserve energy. But if you can overcome that resistance and MOVE you unlock the most powerful medicine in mental health.  This episode explains how exercise can improve focus, memo...

Marla Sweeney, Heather Gollnick, Jimmy Binns are going to let you know how they keep doing what they do as they get older, and with their advice, you'll be able to keep competing and having fun actively until your 80s, 90s, maybe even into your 100s. We had the help of Amelia Boone interviewing Marla, and Kevin Gillotti interviewing Heather. Joe: Because they didn't want a 72 or 73 year old? Jimmy...

Hans Florine says, "That's what climbing is, is doing something that you couldn't previously do, whether it was last week or seconds ago. And so there's immediate reward in climbing for, 'Hey there's a problem in front of you, and it's just a problem.' And that's what life is. And we do something, change our body position, get another tool, and we move forward and we get past it." Today, Yancy and...

Feel a lack of motivation?  Find a problem that needs to be solved. Ryan joins Spartan Race founder and CEO Joe De Sena to talk about it. He enlisted in the Navy after watching the Twin Towers fall on 9/11, and Parrott served eight years as a U.S. Navy SEAL completing three combat tours to Iraq before being assigned to Advanced Training Command as an Instructor.     He saw the need for better burn...

Meb Keflezighi, Jeffrey Zeizel, and Kathrine Switzer each have experiences at the Boston Marathon that would seem unthinkable if they didn't happen. Meb Keflezighi, the first American to win the boston Marathon after the tragic bombing, says, "In a marathon, you don't break early. You know, you try to hold on, but sometimes you have to listen to your instincts and go for it. And I went for it. I w...

Hans Florine talking about when he broke his legs 4 years ago, "I was out of view when I fell and broke my leg. He came around the corner and I was talking on the phone. And he's like, "What the F are you doing talking on the phone?" And I'm like, I'm talking to the Rangers. Why are you talking Rangers? We need a rescue. I've broken both of my legs, and he's just like, you you know, couldn't you,...

Today's kids are smarter and stronger than our culture gives them credit for. Kids need independence to learn the skills they'll need as adults.   After her column "Why I Let My 9 Year Old Ride the Subway Alone" created a media firestorm, Lenore Skenazy founded the book, blog and movement, "Free-Range Kids." Today she is president of Let Grow, the nonprofit making it easy, normal and legal to give...

Earl Granville, Noah Currier, and Jonathan Lopez of Oscar Mike and Operation Enduring Warrior (OEW), author Alex Banayan, and Bai founder Ben Weiss are today's experts for us to overcome all the different obstacles life throws at us.. Ben Weiss: You've got to be willing to take the path. For me, there's no shortcut. At the end of the day, you can't fail by working hard, you know, because your fail...

Brice Johnson, Project Manager and Site Foreman at The Jericho Project, says, "Our form of spirituality is when you're doing so good, the next man is going to come up to you and ask you how you're doing that. No matter if it's cooking, in the gym at work, doing your homework, even folding your bed or doing your laundry. When the next man comes up and asks you, how are you doing that? That's our fo...

Chuck Etchison founded the Jericho project after 20 years of heroin addiction and incarceration. Spartan Up host Johnny Waite was at our trail race, the Golden Gate classic in San Francisco, back in November. There was a group of guys, about 30 of them, all there to volunteer. He said these were interesting guys, these are hard guys, you could tell that they'd spent some time in trouble. But Johnn...

Frank Ferrante, Jeff Gomez, and JR Martinez have all had their own experiences rewriting their stories, and what they say will help you rewrite yours. JR Martinez says, "I think that's what drives me to this day, is I want to be that old man on the rocking chair and I'm on the front porch one day, and not asking "What if? What if? what if?" I want to be the guy that said, "I tried it. I didn't pro...

JJ Birden: "Getting better, waiting for my opportunity. And when you get the opportunity, you don't open the door, YOU RIP THE DOOR OFF THE HINGES, and you make that opportunity stay. You own that baby. And that's what I did."  Yancy: "That's another mic drop!" Today Yancy and Jarod go over 3 legendary mic drop moments from Todd Durkin, JJ Birden, and Matthias Giraud, that have shaped our mindsets...

What does the science say? Anna Lembke MD, Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University and author of "Dopamine Nation," says yes! She explains, in terms we can all understand, why this is the case.  How does your reward system work? How have human interactions been "druggified"? If Buddha said take the middle path, why is it that today we need to take the hard path?...

Dr. Nada, Dr. Alan Desmond, Apo Atsalakis & Alex Wisch all have great advice and tips to have a better metabolism. Apo Atsalakis, founder of PNOE, says, "Undereating is equally bad, actually, as overeating. So, many people do go on, particularly people who are into weight loss, do crash diets and they would eat very low calories and this essentially slows their metabolism down." In this episode, y...

"The good doctors are out there prescribing exercise to people suffering with depression, anxiety, stress. It's an antidepressant, and I know the other thing that it does for me is it makes me feel more confident. Confidence breeds joy as well. It gives me more self-worth. It gives me a better self-image. And that always, that always happens after a workout," says Jarod Cogswell, co-host of the DE...

What's the Perfect Diet? Max Lugavere weighs in with Joe De Sena (founder & CEO of Spartan).. Vegan, Vegetarian, carnivore?  Should you eat breakfast?  AND why does all of it matter so much! Max Lugavere, is a health and science journalist, watched his mother's fast decline and started a journey to understand how to best extend his own health span.  He's the author of Genius Foods, Genius Life and...

Zach Even-Esh, Jimmy Chin, Rick Lamb, and Gabby Reece are going to help us become better parents, giving us advice and their own experiences as guidance to get our kids on the journey to greatness. Retired Command Sergeant Major Rick Lamb says, "Family. That's what you're left with at the end of the day. You know, as the body fails, the brain fails, everything else. Like we were talking about earl...

Bruce Babashan, former senior-level corporate executive turned professional boxing trainer, says, "And if you stay lonely and you don't reach out, at least this is the way it is for me, I become drained. When I bring them in and I spend my time mentoring them, that's how I get my juice, but that's how I stay connected. But when I'm just grinding every day, I disconnect over time, and I tend to mov...

Spartans really are all over the world, and the Spartan employees in Ukraine and Slovakia, along with Spartans around the world, are getting things done. Joe De Sena, founder and CEO of Spartan Race, went to see of himself and called in this report from the Slovakian border with Ukraine.     Joe De Sena's Parenting book "10 Rules for Mental Toughness for Families" https://amzn.to/3JrN6oz   The Tou...