Ben, tell me what is the biggest mistake athletes make when it comes to sports performance? The biggest mistake probably, I would say is for, for guys that race dirt bikes is probably training too much off the bike, like training too hard, they’re not supporting that enough with adequate nutrition intake and recovery.

And then they end up fatigued and tired whenever they’re trying to ride the dirt bike. So they’re not actually getting, getting or getting like a good quality effort on the dirt bike and actually getting the gains that, that they need to be getting when they’re riding because they’re, they’re more often than not excessively fatigued cause they’re trying to do too much off the bike.

Are you there, man, under right now, but, oh. I think we locked up. Yep, we locked up. We’re good now. Um, that’s never happened before, so I don’t think it’s gonna happen again because I have a, a full connection and this is the, I shoot in this room all the time. You, your connection’s good, right? Ah, yeah. Should be.

It’s got full signal there and I’ve got, yeah, I think it, I think that was just a one off, you know, kind of like, once again, not to pick on Chase, but you know, you crash and make one mistake, you know, you never make it again. Okay. Yeah. Right. Um, so we’ll start again. Sorry about that, but thank God, what a gift that had happened when it did, because if that happened midway through, I don’t know.

All right. Did you get any of that at all or not? Uh, you started getting to the good juicy stuff. You’re like, the key to winning a Supercross championship is, and then you are gone.

Ben, you’ve gotta tell me what is the biggest mistake that people make when it comes to understanding their body and sports performance in general? So for guys that race dirt bikes, the biggest mistake I’d see is they try and do too much work off the bike and they don’t support that with adequate nutrition, recovery, et cetera.

And then they’ll end up being fatigued when they’re actually trying to go out and ride on their bike. So obviously the goal of our training is to get better at riding a dirt bike, right? So people can fall into that trap of sort of working so, so hard off the bike that when they do get time to go out and ride and do their motos, they’re actually tired and they’re not gonna get the best quality effort on the dirt.

Got. It’s so true. And guys, we’re with Ben Greenwood. Ben, what, what title? I forgot to ask you this before we started. What title do you like to go by? Because there’s a part of me that wants to call you like a sports performance coach, but then you, you go into such detail with everything you do. I almost feel like you have this like physiologist side, plus you live in another country, so I don’t know what the labels are there.

Who are you, Ben? Well, yeah, that’s what I’m offroad performance coach. So that’s my handle on Instagram. But yeah, essentially that’s, that’s my job is that performance coach for, for guys that race offroad, which, like you said, it, I guess the, that definition of performance, it, it includes everything, Mike.

It’s, it’s not just our strength and cardio training off the bike. It’s our, where our Headspace is at the, the mental side of it. As you well know, nutrition, all of those things come into how we perform on race day. So, And where exactly are you from? So I’m in a little town called Yakand. Danda in Northeast Victoria.

Yakand, danda. You got it. Perfect. 27 people or a hundred or are we talking more? We’re hovering at around 2,500 people in Yakand. Oh nice. Yeah. So do you end up dating the same girl more than once or should we just stick to talking about sports performance? Well, look, luckily I was married when I moved to Yakand, so I haven’t had to find that out.

Oh, I love it. Well hey, at least you know to stay together cuz if you get divorced she’s probably just gonna end up back together anyways. All right, so getting back to it, a digress. So one of the things that you mentioned was, and and I totally, I love that we fired right out of the gate with this because I think it is something that I see in Moto more than any sport that I do mental coaching in, which is.

That over-training. What exactly, other than of course, you know, we have our ability to kind like, as an athlete, recognize where we’re at and what we’re feeling, but oftentimes those feelings, um, don’t necessarily influence our next decision. We might feel tired, we might feel exhausted, but then there’s that narrative in our mind that says, well, how bad do you want it?

If you want it bad enough, you train. What metrics are, are there any metrics, are there any tools that you use to provide the evidence to an athlete who maybe wants to train more and is going down the road of over training, but you have some evidence or some sort of tool that you can offer them to let ’em say, Hey, this is the proof that you’re doing too much.

Is there anything that exists for this? Um, yeah, from like a, I guess feedback from the body, like the easiest one that you can monitor is just your resting heart rate. So generally speaking, if you, if you’re starting to overdo things and. Being excessively stressed, wherever that stress might be coming from, you will tend to see that your resting heart rate might increase.

So that’s your resting overnight heart rate. When you sleep, say ideally you’re sleeping for eight hours, if you wear something like a gum and watch, or a, a whoop strap is pretty popular these days. It will tell you what your resting heart rate was overnight. Um, the other way you can do it is as soon as you wake, you can take your, your heart rate off your wrist, um, and get, just get a general reading of, of what your average resting heart rate is.

And if you see that sort of start to go up more than 5%, then sorry, more than 10%, which is around about five beats for some, for the average person, that can be an indication that you’re starting to get a little bit fatigue. Um, other than that, like it’s, it’s really just monitoring your output in your, in your training sessions.

So you are like, If you’re training hard, you’re certainly gonna feel tired. Like it’s, if you get to the end of your training week and you, and you’ve done some hard sessions, like you’re going to feel tired. Um, but generally speaking, if, if the recovery is there to support the training, then we should see that we’re adapting and we can start to increase our output sort of month after month.

If we see that the output is sort of plateauing and not, uh, or even like we’re getting fatigued and we can’t complete the sessions at the same intensity or quality that we could, then again, that that can be an indication that we’re getting excessively fatigued. So what do you think is the reason why, I mean, cuz you know, an athlete is working with you, wanting to optim, you know, it’s all about optimization, right?

It’s optimizing the mind, the body, uh, the nutrition. They’re into optimization. They wanna win, they want these results, these endpoints, however, you know, there’s this desire for many to think, or at least a narrative and belief that more is better. What do you think is the reason why so many athletes that probably deep down, know better, but just still can’t fight that urge off to maybe train more than they should?

What do you think is the, the, the compelling factor that moves them in that direction to maybe overtrain a bit?

I guess you, just generally speaking, you, you, you’re going to. I think athletes, especially guys that race dirt bikes, they’re com, they have a competitive nature. So you are all, you can fall into that trap of always thinking that you need to do more to, to improve. So that’s what I try and I guess help guide my clients through is, is show them that they can still improve, but on a lower amount of training volume.

Um, and I guess I’m lucky enough that I’ve, I’ve got a few clients who are competing at the highest level of off-road racing, so I know how much training they’re doing and, and where their sort of level of strength they’re cardio performance is at. So I’ve, I can sort for my other clients that are sort of coming up and, and that’s kind of where they want to get to.

I, I’ve got a bit of a benchmark so I can sort of base their results off where they need to get to. Um, and that’s a really cool thing like, And something I’ve learned is it’s the, the physical output. The physical performance is certainly a defining factor of, of how you will perform on race day. But it’s not the only, like just getting fit and strong is it’s not the magic pill.

Like I’ve got a lot of clients who are as fit and as strong and put out the same numbers in their training as my clients who are winning gccs, but they’re nowhere near as fast as them, like nowhere near. So they’re not limited by their physical capacity, they’re limited by their skill on the dirt bike.

So there’s no point me piling more training volume onto them what they’re, they’re gonna get the best, the most progress from getting on their dirt bike more and actually becoming a better dirt bike rider. Now, do you go into that side at all or do you have someone you team up with to fill in that gap, that piece of the fundamentals and the technique?

So I do, yeah, I do a little bit with my, like, clients that live nearby that can, can, um, like travel to where I live. I definitely do on bike coaching. Um, others obviously don’t have, they, they can’t travel to me, so that’s something they might outsource. Um, it’s different and everyone’s in a different place without every, like, logistically some people can only get on their dirt bike once a week.

So it’s, it’s more challenging for them, um, to be able to improve the skill of riding. And like, as everyone knows you, the more frequently you can do something, the the quicker you’re gonna improve at it. I think that’s the biggest difference I see between like my pro-level clients. If I was to like, look, if we were to look at their training programs, that’s the biggest difference we would see is they do way more volume on their dirt bike.

Like they might be, they might be riding their dirt bike four or five days a week, some weeks. Um, their off bike training doesn’t look that much different to one of my sort of, uh, average or like amateur level clients. Um, but the amateur level client probably has to work five days a week and they only get to ride the dirt bike on Saturdays.

So that’s the biggest difference. Um, they, and that, like I say, that’s a challenge. If you, if you’re an amateur rider and you’re working five days a week, it’s, it’s challenging to be able to get that extra bike time. But that’s what I always tell my, my clients is that the bike is always riding our dirt bikes the most important thing.

So, Um, if we get the chance, um, even if that means removing one of the conditioning sessions from the week and we replace that with more bike time, then that’s more than likely gonna be more beneficial for most people. Now if, let’s say you’ve got one of these pro-athletes that are on the bike, like, like you said, four to five times a week, um, how do you, is it better to do the workout beforehand or does it matter what body part you’re doing or whether it’s cardio or strength?

Like how do you manage before or after when it comes to just seamlessly adding it to their program? So it’s different for everyone? Um, definitely like there, there is no one size fits all approach, so all of my, uh, programs are personalized to the individual. So, Generally speaking, like a, a general framework that works for, like most of my pro clients who are riding like multiple days a week is, um, they will, the mos will come first, so they’ll, that’s the most important work of the day is the mos.

So they’ll complete them first and then the gym work would be after. Um, and generally speaking, I like to run it in like a, I call it a hard day. So it’s a higher intensity day and an easy day. So across your training week, not every day is gonna like all to the wall as hard as you can in every session.

Um, some of the, the days, days are harder and on that day their mottos might be more sprint based and higher intensity. And then when they have an easier day, so they might have an easier session in the gym, which might include some zone. Cardio work. So it’s low intensity. They, the work they do on the bike that day might be more technique based, so that’s like a, an an easy day in inverted commerce.

So it’s, we’re sort of spreading that load out. So some days are obviously there’s gonna be a lot more workload and a lot higher intensity, which will mean that some of the other days are a little bit lighter so they’re easier to recover from. Now when you’re going lighter, I mean, is that fitting the definition of a recovery day or is it just a lighter day and maybe We we’re training at 80%.

So yeah, I don’t pro, I’m not a fan of active recovery. I, I don’t like that term, to be honest. I don’t use that term with my clients. I, I, I tell, the way I like to frame it is we’re either training hard, we’re training easy, or we’re we’re resting. And when we’re resting, We’re doing nothing, like a rest day to me is a rest day.

You might do some stretching or some foam rolling, like a very short amount. But generally speaking, like it’s, it’s a full rest day. So, uh, an example of a hard day might be a lower body strength session where you, you doing some squats, some heavier sort of lifting and potentially have some interval work in there.

So it’s higher intensity. So that would be an example of a, a hard day. And then a, an easier day might be some upper body strength, um, some mobility work, and then some low intensity cardio. Mm-hmm. So what’s your balance between, let’s say, you know, the strength versus cardio? Like, I mean, once again, it’s probably depends on the athlete.

How do you find the balance between that? Because obviously there’s some guys that, you know, the strength is maybe what they need because maybe they’re little thinner, smaller frame, so maybe they need strength. I mean, do you, do you use metrics like BMI or, I mean, how do you know whether, or is it just like a physical looking at a guy or is it just feedback like, Hey, I just felt like I couldn’t manhandle the bike?

How do you know whether someone needs more strength or more cardio? Yeah, that’s a great question. So definitely I take the client’s feedback. So that’s definitely a big factor. Like where do they feel like they’re fatiguing when they’re riding? If they are. Um, that’s obviously an area. If some, like as an example, some people might say their upper body’s fatiguing at the end of the race.

They can’t absorb the force coming into breaking bumps as an example. So that would be a pretty straight up sort of red flag that we might need to target the upper body strength a little bit more. Um, but other than that, a again, I’m lucky enough to have some clients at a really high level that that race, so I know how strong they are and what numbers they can put out on, say something like a concept to rower, I’m a big fan of, of using that for our conditioning training.

Cause the rower you will go and get on in your gym over in America providing it’s a concept two is the same as the concept two rower I’ve got here in my gym. So it’s, it’s measured and it’s, it’s accurate. Um, so it gives us that feedback very quickly of whether we’re improving, whether we’re getting worse and, and where we’re at.

So basically I can watch my client train, uh, watch their, their movement, how they move their movement efficiency in the gym and see the numbers they’re putting out basically in their strength work and their, their, their cardio work on the rower and. Looking at that, I can tell pretty quickly. Okay.

They’re lacking in their cardio or they’re lacking in their strength and where we need to sort of balance that out to, to level everything up. And then with like the rower, cuz I actually have, I went to a, uh, fundraiser and I got a really great bid, I guess, or win on a, uh, water rower, which I absolutely love.

Are you more of a proponent, like when you’re rowing? Uh, cuz you’re more, you’re certainly in better shape than I am, but yeah. I’m decent. I’m more like, you know, uh, no, I, I have some work to do, but I love getting on the rower because my heart rate is like up in no time at all. But what I always wonder is, Are we looking for in your opinion, or are we, it depends.

Are we looking for more of like an explosive kind of pull? Because I noticed in some of your videos, like there was one I watched where it was kind of like a, you know, there was like a cadence in a rhythm and kind of a little bit of, I don’t know if I’d call it like a snap, that might be too aggressive of a term, but there was like a nice little boom, you know, it wasn’t just like a slow rhythmic dancing move.

It was like a boom boom. Um, how are you recommending people use Aurora? I mean, are you looking for a duh and just, you know, maybe a hundred percent pull at the beginning and then finish? Or are you looking for a constant degree of effort throughout that entire poll? It totally depends on the goal of the session and what we’re actually trying to achieve.

And that’s what’s so good about the rower.

Second effort, which is an explosive power effort. So in that case, like you are trying to rip that handle outta the row as hard as you can, and you might only get three or four pulls on the handle in 10 seconds. And we’re trying to generate as many watts as we possibly can, like the highest amount of watts in 10 seconds.

Uh, the complete opposite end, end of the spectrum is doing like a lower intensity zone two effort. So we’d be trying to keep our heart rate down at like 1 30, 1 35 to improve that aerobic capacity. So it’s a much more gentle, slower, longer effort. So it really depends on what, what you’re trying to achieve.

If you’re doing a a lower intensity zone two effort, it’s going to be much more relaxed and a lower stroke rate as opposed to if you’re doing some high intensity interval work. Like a 32nd sprint, it’s gonna be much more explosive, higher stroke rate, and you’re gonna be working a lot harder to pull and, and get as many meters as you possibly can in 30 seconds.

All right, I’m gonna send you a video of me tomorrow on my rower. So you gimme an honest eval on that or what? Hell yeah, for sure. The, the biggest thing I would say for people on the rower, like a, a tip that, that will certainly help is the, the further the handle moves, the more meters you’ll row. Say you’re doing a 62nd effort.

So when you get to the top of the movement, like if I was to go on the side view here, you want to try and lean back a little bit and pull the handle up right up onto your chest. If your sort is still crunched up and you’re only pulling the handle halfway in, then the rope, the chain’s not moving as far.

So the further, the further you can make that that handle move. The more meters you’ll cover in a short amount of time. That’s why people who are taller will put out more meters and more power on a row. Cause they’ve, they’ve got longer levers. So they, they just by nature, move the handle further as opposed to a short person like me.

Um, so that’s a little tip you can look for on the row is trying to, like, when you go in, you want to reach for the handle, and when you come up, you wanna pull the handle, like right up to the top of your chest. Oh, wow. I’m glad I asked that because I, that’s not what I’ve been doing. And now how do you also, because you know, the thing that we haven’t talked about yet, you also get your legs there.

So what are we supposed to be doing with our legs specifically on it? Because, you know, in, in, in our sport, and even in my life when I use the rower, I feel like it’s one of the best workouts there is because you’re getting that leg workout, you’re getting the upper body, you’re getting like your heart rate up so fast, almost like jumping rope, right.

Or, uh, doing jumping jacks, like your heart rate is just instantly up. Um, how are we supposed to coordinate things with the legs? So when you are at the bottom and you’re reaching for the handle, you’re gonna start by extending the legs. So you’re pushing outta the bottom by extending the legs, I guess the middle part, you’re starting to extend your hips a little bit and use your, your lower back.

And then to finish the movement, you are pulling the handle in with your arms. And then on the way back in, it’s the complete opposite. The arms go out first you start to hinge, and then the legs will compress at the bottom. Mm-hmm. So, Let me ask you this. Racing wise, we’ll kind of make it lighten the, uh, intensity of the conversation a little bit.

Are you actually competing yourself in any of these events? I mean, are you doing triathlons? Are you running, I mean, cuz I watch your videos and I’m like, I wanna see what Ben can do. I wanna throw him, you know, throw him in a marathon or throw him on a bike. Uh, are there different ways that you test and challenge yourself?

Because obviously it’s, it’s a great, you know, way to celebrate, you know, for lack of a better term. It’s a great way to celebrate all the hard work you’ve done is to be like, Hey, we took all this work here and applied it here and this is the result. For sure. Yeah. I haven’t done much racing recently myself.

I, I, the plan is to do some this year, definitely. I’ve got a couple on the, on the list that I wanna do. Um, it’s. Yeah, a time thing for me is obviously running the business and my kids are at the age now, Darcy, and my oldest boy, he’s 10, so he’s, he wants a 65 and he wants to start racing, so, um, so that’s the next thing on a list and trying to sort of devote a bit more energy to his riding.

Um, but he’s really into motocross, so, which I, and I used to race a, a fair bit of motocross as a junior as well. So, um, I’m keen to do some, some motocross races this year with him. Just some sort of local level stuff. And there’s a couple of longer races that I’ll definitely go in for sure. Um, but I do have like a marathon that’s like a bit of a bucket list goal for me.

I would definitely love to do a marathon and purely for the reason, just for the mental challenge, cause I really don’t enjoy running. It’s that, I think that’s actually what draws me to it though, because it is a, it’s an absolute mental battle for me to, to run. So, um, yeah, I definitely got a bucket list there of doing a, a marathon at some stage for sure.

Yeah, and it’s interesting, my buddy who lives, I, I live on one side of the highway and my buddy’s house is almost equal distant on the other side of the highway, like almost in line with, with where my house is. His wife runs marathons. And what’s very interesting to me is, and I could be wrong on this, but I wanna say like maybe six months before an event, she’s already starting to take actions in alignment with it.

I could be wrong, maybe it’s four, but it’s, it’s many months. And so it’s just so interesting because you think about it and, you know, once I found that out, I said, wow, I have a much different. Level of respect for marathons, because this is a commitment, you know, with motocross it’s like, Hey, let’s train as much as we can.

I mean, obviously we train for years and, and you know, it stacks up. But essentially it’s like weekend to weekend. It’s race weekend to race weekend, doing the best we can to adjust and adapt and refine and learn and grow in between each event. But this is somewhat training for months for one event. So, you know, I think what’s interesting too is not, like you said, not just the mental game, but even just the preparation game and the commitment game, it’s huge for sure.

Yeah. You’ve definitely gotta put in some, some miles to be able to complete, to complete a marathon. And it’s that consistency thing. Like it’s, I guess with running like when, when you’re running your, that is the, the sporting skill. So for us on a dirt bike, like it’s going riding is, is practicing the skill.

Like the off bike training is sort of supplementary to it. Whereas when it comes to running a marathon, that is the sporting skill. So it’s easy to get out. That’s what’s good about running. It’s easy to get out, you’ve just gotta throw your shoes on and, and go for it. Um, yeah, yeah. But yeah, you certainly gotta get some Ks up.

Well, the best part too is usually I go to the physical gym, but then I have like a little walking thing that I do, and I do it more so for the mental side of it, more so than a workout. I feel like some of the best ideas I have for business, my clients, you know, as a mental performance coach, sometimes I need to listen to what one of my athletes is struggling with or looking to overcome or looking to achieve.

You know, it’s not always just a struggle. A lot of times it’s trying to get 1%, you know, it’s, it’s taking something they do great. You know, everyone always thinks it’s just finding what’s broken and trying to fix it. But it’s like, no, a lot of my athletes are not broken. They’re optimized, they’re awesome, but we’re trying to find where is the 1%.

And it’s amazing that when I go on these walks, That if I go without technology and I get into that repetitive movement and that repetitive, you know, cadence of just step in front of the other step, step nature, you start to get almost into like this flow state. And it’s amazing how many great ideas I have that come to me during that point.

And of course, the only distraction is, and this has happened twice last summer, is as I’m about ready to come to this amazing conclusion to offer one of my athletes something, Guess who comes zipping by me while I’m walking my buddy’s wife. And she gives me like a little wave and you know, I know what it means cuz she’s training so she’s not gonna stop and say hi.

But, um, have you ever noticed that, you know, I know it’s completely off topic, but I think it’s a fascinating thing that I’ve bumped into and I just wonder, um, my theory is that when you perform a repetitive movement for an extended period of time, it definitely has almost like a degree of, like a hypnotic effect, um, if you allow it to happen.

Have you yourself ever experienced anything like that? A hundred percent, man. Yeah. I, I, totally, I feel that for sure. And I, I would agree with that. I think like if you were really able to sort of boil it down, especially in off-road where you’re racing for three hours, like. It is your ability to be able to come fully into the moment and that like, essentially what you’re kind of talking about there, although you’re having ideas coming to you, like you’re just fully 100% present in, in that moment, in the one foot in front of the earth, one foot in front of the other, there’s like, all destruction has been removed.

Right? So that’s, I feel like that’s when we perform, like for you in that instance, it’s that creativity because all the, like the, the stress for one of a better term is removed and that’s when we can be out and most creative, right? Is when we’re free from stress. When stress is high, we’re gonna struggle to be creative as you know, like just to have an idea for something, but to take that idea to ride in our dirt bike, it’s the same situation.

Cause we are, it’s like a form of art riding in our dirt bike where we have to be creative to. Link the track together to remember where the lines are to pass someone, to dissect the track. So if there’s excessive stress there in the system, it’s gonna be very hard to be fully present in that, that skill.

So I think that the ability to be able to do that, and some, some people just naturally by nature are really good at that. I feel like, um, without even sort of knowing it, they just allow themselves to come into that, into the moment when they’re racing. Um, but I think if, if you can be aware of that and you, and you, and you know that that’s what’s taking place, then we can train that, right?

Like that’s, that’s something able, being able to be fully present in the moment and, and remove all the distraction is a skill that. That’s why we love why we’re drawn to riding our dirt bike because it kind of takes us to that place. But if, if we understand that that’s what’s going on, like well, maybe we can find some ways to actually train that in other parts of our life.

I love that you say that because it’s funny how people I feel will say that, oh, I just enjoy riding my dirt bike. It’s like, well, have you ever gone a step deeper, just one step and said, why? Why do you enjoy it? And it’s just interesting because I haven’t heard many people delve deeper, but there is this freedom of the mind, there is this flow state.

It’s almost in an odd way as gnarly as, you know, racing is, or even if you’re on the street right. Um, it’s still, even though there’s a sense of danger, um, there’s also a sense of peace. And so it’s very interesting that. At one point you’re fearful that your leg might get broken in any moment, but then at another moment you might, that same weekend, same night, or who knows, within a week you might enter into that flow state where that’s not even an option.

You are just connected, you’re flowing, you’re feeling everything, you’re feeling the front end, you’re feeling the bike and it’s just so interesting. What do you think is the, what do you usually recommend to your athletes to get into the moment? Is there a, a way that you frame things? I mean, I, you know, I have some of my ideas, but I’d love to hear some of yours cuz it, it really is important and you know, I even think that some people don’t even know what being in the moment is.

So I’d also be curious to hear your definition. Yeah, well, I guess. Straight off the top is practicing mindfulness or or breath work. But in all honesty, that’s probably a bit uncomfortable going straight to that for some people, like, some people like, whoa, that’s like a bit woo. But, um, that essentially that’s what mindfulness is.

It’s, it’s, it’s the skill of coming into the moment fully. And it’s not necessarily that we’re trying to remove all the thought, it’s just that when the thoughts come up, we can identify them but not, I guess, hold onto them. We can sort of let them pass and we can choose to stay in the moment, not go down that rabbit hole of chasing that thought into the future or into the past, wherever it’s trying to take us.

So, um, I guess that’s the principle of mindfulness, but we can apply that into any activity we’re doing, I think. And what I’d like to get my clients to work on is just like, I’m always. A big fan of working on where our breathing’s at. Like what, where is our breath when we’re, when you’re going for your walk, where is our breath?

When we’re doing some reps in the gym, when we’re on the rowing machine, because the breath is always in this moment. The breath is right here, right now. The breath cannot be in the future. The breath cannot in the past. The, if, if the breath is in the past, it’s game over. It’s lights out for us. So, um, that’s the simplest tool is if we can be aware of where our breath is at, then that’s going to keep us as close to the present moment as possible.

So when we’re riding, if we’re fi, if we find we’re distracted or we’re thinking too far into the future about what could go wrong or what place am I gonna come, what’s my, what’s my dad gonna think or what’s my sponsor gonna think? We can come back. To our breathing. And I find that breathing allows us to come back to feeling like, what’s, where are we at in the moment when we’re riding our dirt bike?

That feeling we want to be in tune with is the feeling of our tires on the dirt. How much grip have I got between my tires and the dirt? Because that feeling, the more confident and more in tune we are with that feeling, the faster we can ride. Whenever we’re afraid that we haven’t got grip or we’re not in tune with that feeling of grip, we slow down.

Oh, it’s so true. And you see it, and you know, a lot of times you’ll hear the word, I mean, we hear it in our sport more than any sport, but you know, the comfort word comes up. Right? I just didn’t feel comfortable. Yes. Or I rode tight. You know, a lot of times someone says they ride tight. Well to me. All right, well if you rode tight, Um, it’s amazing to me, it, it, it’s almost borderline.

I’ll be aggressive in saying this, it’s almost borderline embarrassing to me if I hear a professional athlete, because I take that term very seriously and with the people I work with, like when I work with a professional athlete, like I take it seriously and it’s serious. It’s like, this is your job. You know, it’s like a surgeon doesn’t just go in and be like, ah, no, I kind of get the jitters once I open the prefrontal cortex and start taking on benign tumors.

It’s like, whoa. You know, like maybe we should think about like, okay, but why? What’s feeding it? What’s fueling it? What’s triggering it? And it’s so interesting that, you know, and I don’t know if this has been your experience or maybe I’m, it’s been just exclusive to myself, but I feel like a lot of times, uh, in our sport, it’s just, it’s a, it’s almost like it’s a complaint and it’s a problem and it’s identifying the problem.

But then it’s like, hello, like, are we gonna continue the conversation and the conversation’s over? It’s like, well, you know, I don’t feel comfortable. I rode tight and I didn’t ride it like myself. Okay, that’s fine. I’m not saying that’s a problem, but what I don’t understand is why is the conversation over, like why is the conversation stop?

Like, should we not, should we not take it a little deeper and be like, why? And be curious, be creative about, you know, where we explore, maybe ask someone’s opinion, you know, but it’s, it seems to me that that’s where people get stuck is they, they stop at the end of the problem, but they don’t continue to solution.

Agree, disagree. What are your thoughts? I would agree a hundred percent. And that’s, that would be my first question. Like you said, like if, if you’re feeling like you are real tight or, or whatever the case may be, like why did that happen? And generally speaking, I, if we join the dots backwards, it’s.

There’s something in the process that is causing that tension. So that, that process is everything. Like it is our, it’s our training off the bike, it’s our nutrition, it’s how we manage our day-to-day stress for one of a better term. And the, the bike set up, like obviously when we get to that race bike set up is a massive one.

So if sort of anything is off in that process, then that can cause us to, to feel tension. So it’s like you said, it’s being able to identify what, what’s actually causing that tension. And that, again, that’s something I noticed between my, like all of my most successful clients, is that they are relentless at refining that process and they, they are not afraid to call themselves out when something is not working.

They’ll be the first ones to call themselves out when something is not working and, and work on fixing it. It’s so true. And you start to realize that taking ownership and taking responsibility keeps the power within you. Right? But then for the athletes that blame, let’s say, their equipment, what they don’t realize is the risk in doing so.

Because if you blame, for example, your suspension, which is a very common occurrence in our sport, is yeah, you blame the suspension. So you’ve taken, uh, you know, that, that feeling of shame, guilt, humiliation, embarrassment, that obviously does not feel good, and it’s on the lower. There’s a scale of emotions.

It’s on the bottom right. Shame, guilt is very, very low. It’s not a feeling we any of us enjoy, myself included. So we wanna get rid of that feeling as quickly as possible. Being conscious of it. And so that’s when we start to place our blame on the equipment. But what happens is, and I’ve seen this happen with athletes, myself and Ashley just was speaking to a, a mechanic recently for one of the top teams and we were discussing this, is that if you place the blame on the buck and then you say let’s, for say, for example, suspension’s too stiff.

Okay. I softened it. So at this point you’ve, at this point you have, there is no out, there is no additional out. I have you said this is the problem. I fixed it. Now go out. And what’s interesting is you’ll hear some of those guys come back and be like, you know, And then you, they wanna go back to the bike again.

It’s like, no man, I’m gonna grab a mirror. I’m gonna put it in front of your face and you’re gonna stare at it until you have a conversation with yourself where you take ownership because you take the power and you just give it away. You’re giving it to the bike, you’re taking that power and just not keeping it within.

And I, I just think it’s fascinating how we, especially as like men and um, women as well, I probably shouldn’t, you know, stratify, stratify like the genders there. But, um, it seems like we all wanna get away from those emotions so quick, but we don’t realize that it is short term that serves us, cuz we feel that that weight off of us.

But in the long term, we give our power away and we don’t actually end up fixing what the problem is. And then we find the same problem coming up time and time. So it’s interesting. Yeah, it’s man, and like even to come back to that, like what we were just discussing, I think like if you are, cause the rider has to take ownership for the suspension.

Like that’s the whole point of testing is when you get to the race, you’ve got a setting that you’re confident is gonna work. That’s the rider’s call. But the rider has to be like, okay, this is the setting that I feel most comfortable with for the conditions that we’re gonna race in. So the rider has to take ownership for that.

Once the race starts and you’re out on the track, you’re not f you’re not changing any clickers. So like to me, if you are riding around and you are thinking My bike sucks, my bike sucks, that’s simply to come back to what we just spoke about. It’s just a lack of. You are not fully present in the moment when you’re thinking, my suspension’s not right.

My, my bike’s too soft, too stiff, too this, that or the other. So forget that and just focus on being present and, and you just gotta adapt. Again, something, a common trait with all my most successful clients. Even if the bike’s off, they still find a way to, to win or, or to get it done. I love the simplicity, but the power of those words you just said, they find a way, like you find a way and it’s, it’s interesting how most people get caught up in the how.

You know, it’s like, Hey, God, I’d really love to lose 30 pounds. Okay, not the hardest thing to do. Like, so it’s simple, but it’s not easy, right? So the process of it is not all that complicated. We tend to complicate ourselves, but it’s just so interesting that you just find a way and that’s that unrelentless unrelenting pursuit of excellence when you just are like, I’ll figure it out.

You know? Like if all of a sudden in free practice I’m not feeling good on the bike, I’m gonna figure it out. If I feel like my mental game is off, I’m gonna figure it out. Like that’s the thing with athletes is they are almost. I think they almost look at it as like a challenge. And it’s, the challenge of them trying to win an event is equally as enjoyable, and I think they probably fire off the same neurons and get the same dopamine hit as it is the challenge of figuring out how to improve their process.

Because if you really think about it, what’s the difference whether I’m trying to win an event or, or if I’m playing basketball or soccer. We’ve got coaches and we’ve got all kinds of different people that have listened to this podcast and you know, it, it’s, it’s just as, it’s the same thing. It’s overcoming and it’s facing adversity, finding a way and pushing through it even when your body might tell you to do otherwise.

Right. A hundred percent for sure. Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s a bit of a cliche saying, but it, it is like learning to fall in love with the process. Cause like, like you said, that’s, it’s all just a process, so. The more we can, the more we can be in love with that process in the moment, then that just removes that, that too far of a future thought like that forward thinking and, and placing that expectation on the end result.

Yeah, and it’s interesting. You know, it’s funny, I’ve never had this thought until now, so this is a unique thought I’m sharing with you as I’m listening to you. I just had this visual of owning a business where I produce widgets and no, no, let’s say there’s 17 pieces to the widget. So I have a, a shop, I have a facility where, you know, you go through the different step one, step two step through the 17 steps to create my widget.

And if you think about it, in order to create that widget and replicate it, I need to refine and improve each one of those steps within the process. However, What kind of business would I have if it was like, Hey guys, hold up. Stop the press. Stop the press. We are not going one through 17 today. Let’s go start at step three, then one, then eight, and let’s skip nine.

And let’s see how that, like, that’s what a lot of us are doing if we don’t respect the process. Because to your point, it is cliche, however, it’s also everything because you know, yeah, you can sit here and spend an hour and a half thinking about what you want, right? But you just burned an hour and a half just desiring something.

And to me, what’s interesting is, and I’m, this is a word that I think is very, very interesting and very spoken about, is desire. Because desire. If the desire is too far away, I think that creates, uh, an emotion of separation and anxiety and longing and wishing. And if it’s really far away, you might even dance with the word.

That’s, I don’t think optimal, which is hope. I hope this works out. I hope I can win. I hope, hope, hope. It’s like, whoa, that’s, that’s a red flag that would Yeah, exactly. When’s the last time you saw someone win a championship or get on the hope podium and they’re like, oh man, I hope this would happen. Never.

Right. It’s like, I knew this was gonna happen. I had done everything like they have conviction. And that’s another word that I, I really am fascinated with. I’ve been on this word kick lately with like, acceptance, conviction, clarity, specificity, you know, and lack of judgment. That’s three words. But you know, and you start to realize that words do have power, and you’ve gotta recognize what words are you allowing to be part of your narrative, and what words are you guiding?

Are you being guided by? And that’s why a lot of times, you know, with my athletes, we focus on our values and our personal philosophy. Like my personal philosophy for like the last three years has been, be kind, be curious, be creative. And the way that I use that is if I’m struggling, I just basically just say my personal philosophy to myself and I think about how to take action on it cuz the words have have power, but they have much more power when they’re put into motion.

And so I’m like, hmm, is there a way that I can be curious right now? All right, sure. Let’s play it through. Um, why am I feeling this way? What can I do? Can I shift my perspective? Am I making this too big of a deal? Am I catastrophizing, am I filtering out the, the good side of this? You know, curiosity, be kindness, uh, or be kind, maybe a little bit more kindness to myself.

Maybe not beating myself up for something, um, and then being creative. You know, what would be something different I could do? I don’t know. Start imagining, you know, we have this, this thing that, it’s so funny here we are in this world where there’s all these different genius. I, I don’t know what the plural is.

Genie g, geniuses and species. We’ll call it species because the word before it, I don’t think Casper plural, but all these different species. And the one thing that separates us more than anything is the fact that we have an imagination. Other animals don’t have this. They don’t have that ability, but yet we don’t tend to tap into it.

We don’t use for imagination. Now, when you’re a kiddo, Yes, you’re an Indian. Hey man, you know you wanna be an Indian, I’ll be a cowboy dude. It is on within a blink. You or him? I am him. We’re make, we’re talking like them. We’re acting like them. We’re dressing like them. We are them. But the imagination is shamed.

Once you get outside of that 12, 13, 14 year old age where it’s like, Hey, you need to grow up. Or hey, it’s not, you know, we don’t play cowboys and Indians when you’re 14. Not that anyone plays that nowadays. They probably play like online in entrepreneur and social media influencer. That’s probably the modern day version.

But, you know, it’s like, you know, it, it’s crazy that we don’t, I, I feel that we don’t use our imagination enough cuz it’s such a powerful tool. I mean, that’s how the light bulb was invented. Edison didn’t just, you know, stumble upon it, you know, he was creative. He was imaginative. So interesting stuff. So let me ask you this.

You work with top athletes, I know that you had mentioned them being in the present moment was definitely something that you noticed as a common characteristic amongst them. What would be some other things that maybe come top of mind when you think about what differentiates the best from the decent?

Yeah. It would just be mostly those things we talked about. Like one is they’re relentless with their training, uh, relentless and consistent. So they’re, they and they, they always find a way like tho those type of successful athletes, they’re not sort of ringing me up or sending me messages with excuses why they didn’t get the train session done.

They’re finding a way to get it done consistently all of the time. And they’re, again, the process, like we talk about that we, we spoke about they know what their process is and that. That’s something that’s gonna come from experience. They’ve been do, been doing it for years, by decades, literally now. So they’ve refined their process down and they know to the finest detail what their process is.

That being said, they’re always looking for that extra 1%. They’re always looking for the, how can they get just a little bit more outta that process. So they’re not looking to reinvent the wheel by any means. They’re just looking for small refinements that can give them a slight edge and they’ll try it.

And if it works, they’ll change it. If it doesn’t, they’ll leave it. So they’re always like refining, refining, refining. Yeah. And I, I love how you say that because the visual that I had as I was listening to you just now is how the difference between, you know, the great and the decent. Is exactly what you said, but if you were to visualize what it looks like, I mean, I know it’s a podcast, but we do have a YouTube channel, so check us out.

But uh, just to kinda describe what I’m doing right now, it’s like I’m putting my two fingers apart and I’m trying to create as little of a distance between the two fingers as I can. It’s like this means something. And what’s funny is if you told me that I could get, let’s say I’m making, I don’t know, 20 bucks an hour, and you told me you’d gimme a raise to $20 and 5 cents, um, it’d be an insult.

It’s like, what are you talking about? You know, this is ridiculous. Like, what am I supposed to do with that extra 5 cents? Well, all right, you didn’t let me finish. I’m giving you a 5 cent raise today, and then another one tomorrow, and another one tomorrow. But the catch is you’re gonna be 1% better. All right.

Well now all of a sudden you do the math and it’s like, all right, let’s extrapolate that out over two months, six months, a year. It’s like, now we’re talking real numbers, you know? And I think. I read it in James. Clear. Have you read James Clear atomic habits yet? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I figured you did. I know you’re, you and I are excited by the same things and uh, I believe 1% better every day is, I can’t believe it.

I, I think I have this perfect 37.78% better at the end of a year. Yeah. And so it’s so interesting because if you look and you’re narrow minded and you’re very, um, in the now, which definitely a different thing than the being in the present moment. But if you’re looking just today and you’re saying, 1%, Ben, I don’t care about 1%.

Like I wanna win, bro. Like, I got 19th last weekend and you’re telling me you want me to get better than 1%. Like yyy yak, don’t come back, man. Like, I’m not coming back here. This is ridiculous. But it’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sign up for a year and do the math. Send ’em out. Do do you, and then, or if you just rephrase it and said, Hey, if, would you be willing to work out with me and train with me for a year?

Yeah, I would if I got the result I want. Well, if you do 1%, it’s 37.7. I mean, how could that not move the needle? I mean, obviously that’s the ideal, but it’s just, it’s insane how when we look at things, our perspective and the way that we choose to look at things is oftentimes so distorted. Right?

Definitely. For sure. Yeah. And I guess for the, I guess more amateur level clients who are coming up, it, it’s a lot easier to get them a huge game. Like it’s, there’s, there’s some low hanging fruit there, some big rocks that they’re gonna be able to hit that’s like, boom, 20%. But the, the further you get up the ranks and the closer you get to the top, you as, as you well know, those gains become less and less and less so.

Again, like to look at, like if I was to look at each of those clients, like I said, my, my pro clients, they can tell me, like, I could ask them any, any part of what the process is on race day. And they just bang fire up straight back to me. This is what I eat for breakfast. This is what I have an hour before the race.

This is what my warmup is, blah, blah, blah. And when I have a, a new client come on, who’s like, that’s where they want to get to. And I’ll ask ’em those questions and they just look at me blankly. They don’t know, like they, they have no, there’s, they’re like, oh, just have whatever for breakfast. Uh, like there’s no process.

There’s no defined process. So it’s, they’re going to get massive gains just by taking some of those, that low hanging fruit, some of those big rocks. Mm-hmm. But the gains will definitely get smaller as, as they progress. Yeah. And you know, I love that you point that out because there’s, there’s even a different way that I kind of look at this as well, very similar.

But to add to that, um, what I think is interesting is that the brain processes a lot of energy when you’re thinking about things. And so that’s why we have habits, right? Like you don’t get into a car and drive to the gym and think about shifting, think about your breaking. Well, if you’re a racer, maybe you think about apexing a couple turns, but other than that you’re not really thinking, you know, you’re more or less, um, in this, like just you’re going with a flow.

And the reason why habits exist is they’ve proven that your brain burns 20% of your calories and you know, 20% of your glucose rather. So, and I know it relates to calories, but to be perfectly accurate, uh, I believe the number’s 20% of the glucose. And so it’s interesting because. Wow. You start to realize, like our brain is really burning up some of our resources.

So resources back in the all days, were very limited. And so the way that you manage that is through habits and through the subconscious mind and the automation. And, um, so it’s really interesting that on a race day, if you have a process, you essentially are an energy conservationalist, your glucose, mental carbon footprint is, I’m gonna be lower.

I mean, you’re, you’re, you’re doing things where you free up your mind to either not be thinking, not burning calorie, not burning glucose, and just maybe allow your mind to focus on the things that might be a little bit more relevant and important. Like, Hey, what did Deagan just do? Um, you know, Jason Anderson is having a breakout ride tonight.

Well, why, you know, as opposed to like, I, no. Should I eat peanut butter and jelly today, or should I have peanut butter and banana? It’s like, dude, are you serious? And you know what sad part is? I, I won’t call anyone out, but I’ve seen the athletes, and you can, you know what’s funny? I think that if you brought someone that knew nothing about our sport, motocross, Supercross, you brought them in and you said, Hey, listen, I’m not gonna tell you who’s the best and who’s not, but what I’m gonna do is we’re gonna introduce you to 10 athletes.

You’re gonna hang out with each one for 10 minutes, 10 athletes, 10 minutes. At the end of that timeframe, I want you to tell me who do you think is the best, and who do you think is getting the worst results? What do you think the result of that experiment?

It would be very interesting. That’s for sure. I’d be tipping that they probably wouldn’t guess who was the fastest writer, that’s for sure. Really interesting. So yeah, you, you might, so, all right. Interesting. So we might disagree slightly on this. I think that they would listen to the words and the narratives of, and maybe this is me, maybe I’m speaking more for myself, but they might recognize that the guy who’s the 10th place guy doesn’t seem to be focused on, you know, what he can do.

He’s maybe a little distracted. He might be on his phone. He might just kind of look a little even uncomfortable, a little almost stressed, but. Now all of a sudden, let’s say that you, let’s say they’re hanging out with that guy who they don’t know is the 10th place guy. Now all of a sudden they go without knowing it themselves.

They are now with the number one guy. And they go over there and they’re like, oh, this is interesting. So this guy is talking to three different guys that look important because they’ve got these fancy jackets on with all the same logos and they all seem to match, and they all seem to be intensely watching a video that’s side by side of a ghosted image.

And then another one is got some sort of chart with some sort of spikes and things, and I don’t even know what’s on it. And they seem to be paying attention to that as well. It’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That guy is searching, that guy is curious. He’s looking for that 1%. You don’t think that they would notice that and that that would be like the telltale sign?

Because it’s funny, like I don’t see a lot of these privateer guys paying as much attention and doing what the pro guys do. It’s like if you wanna be a, if you wanna be a writer, do what writers do they Right. If you wanna do a speaker, do what? Speakers do speak. You wanna be a professional athlete, find out what the professional athlete guys are doing and do that, right.

Or am I wrong on this? No, like I would agree with that. I was kind of thinking more cuz we were talking about food that like that they’d be more looking at what they were actually eating. But you are a hundred percent right. If they were looking at the, what they’re actually doing in that, on that side of thing and definitely their language they’d be using for sure that that would definitely be a lot of difference.

A lot of different habits. And like I say, that’s. That’s definitely, that, that thread that I see is common with all my, my successful athletes is that they are a student of the sport. Like they’re looking for that they know how, they know what three clicks a rebound is gonna do to the bike. They know what their SAG needs to be in these certain conditions.

They, they know all of that down to the finest. They’re not just getting on and, and, and guessing. So again, that’s something you see with a, a writer that’s not as experienced. They don’t have that knowledge or, or at least they don’t e they’re not even looking for that feedback in those areas. They’re just sort of going with the punches a.

Yeah, exactly. And I wonder why that is, because you’re so right. You know, you could look at someone who’s not performing at the level that they wish they are and they seem to just be overlooking some of these small little things. And I wonder in their mind, what are they thinking that they should be doing?

Or are they not even thinking about what they should be doing, but are they more focused about what’s going on around them, what people might be saying about them, comparing themselves to others, making some of the classic mistakes that, you know, athletes that come to me that wanna optimize their mindset are talking about and speaking with, are speaking about and having problems with.

And you start to realize it’s like, wait, what are you doing with your time? Because you go from qualifying one to qualifying two, I don’t know, whatever the math is, I, I, I don’t remember the math. I should know this cuz I should know this, but let’s say it’s an hour just to make it easy, right? It’s like, well you’ve got an hour.

To figure out how to become a better athlete. And you know, I wonder if you were to monitor athletes, could there be a relationship between the time spent within that hour and then the perform or the degree of improvement in performance in outcome and results on average, um, between Q1 and q2? Because a lot of ’em are distracted and they’re not putting in the time and effort.

And it just, to me, it’s just fascinating. You know, it’s cuz how you do anything is how you do everything. You know? And it’s like, well, what’s your relationship like? You know, like, I, maybe I over, well, not maybe, let’s say yes, I overanalyze. Well, I’d be like, well how is your relationship? You know, like if your, if your wife is upset, you know, are you gonna go 1% beyond instead of driving the easy route on the highway to get home and get home 10 minutes faster?

Are you gonna take. 15 minute, longer route, but to get her that one flower or that one cannoli or whatever it is that she likes, you know, are you gonna go that 1%? And you start to realize that those are the guys, you know, you see these guys that are, are, you know, elite athletes and women, um, and those are, that identify as aliens or what have you.

But, you know, everyone we’re being, it was an inclusive podcast is everyone, um, that seems to excel. They’re just like the type of person where it’s like, Hey, you wanna come over and just play? Just

you there, man.

Hello?

Can you hear me? We’ve locked up.

Oh.

Fuck Buck. We might be good. So did it save it? So yeah, it’s, I, I’m, I think so because it still says it’s recording, so I don’t think it still says, still says an hour, four minutes on my counter. Yeah, I have that too. All right. So I think that we’re good. Yeah. So we might have to edit that out. So I’ll do a quick, um, God, what the hell was the last thing we said?

Um, talking about why, why some people do and don’t do and Yeah. So what we’ll do is we’ll say, um, Yeah, we’ll go to like a wrap up. Um, is there a topic we, because like this I can edit out. So is there a, um, topic we haven’t covered that you’re passionate about that we could maybe move towards that and then use that to kind of move towards, uh, wrapping things up?

Um, I mean, I think what we’re covering is pretty badass. That that’s why I was excited to talk to you. Absolutely. Cause I know that we could jam up, I could, I could throw this stuff at, you know, I can’t just talk about this stuff with someone. Cause most of the time it’s like present, like Christmas presents nutty.

We’re not, we’re not talking about Christmas presents, man. The present moment. Yeah. It’s the moment where you’re under the tree. Sam’s already left, just so you know. Sam’s gone. He’s literally 2000 kilometers away. Um,

I don’t, I think we’ve kind of covered all of it, man. Um, I, I think it’s been good. I was, I was going to just add to what you were saying is that I think that that is, a lot of that, like what you were just talking about comes from that self comparison. That’s what I see a lot. I feel like. Why do you think it is, why do you think we compare ourselves to others?

Curious. I agree with you by the way. Oh, that’s a, that’s a pretty deep question. That one. I dunno if I’ve, I dunno if I’ve found the answer to that one yet, but I think that is a, a big part of why some people just don’t do the things they should be doing, and particularly in our, not necessarily that they don’t do them, but they potentially don’t feel like they need to.

Because in our sport, as you know, you can be a legit dude on a dirt bike and not do a lot of the stuff that we’ve been talking about. You can be because it’s so skill specific. Riding a dirt bike is so skill specific that you can be super fast on a dirt bike, have no idea what you are eating in terms of calories and energy and just be eating Twinkies and what, and Fruit loops and whatever else.

And a lot of the time people will look at that. They’ll say like, oh, but what about Barry over here? He doesn’t train. He eats like shit and he’s fast as hell. So why that? Do you know what I mean? So why the hell should I do that stuff? Um, but that, that’s what I kind of tell everyone is you don’t want to be comparing yourself to Barry.

You just want to be comparing yourself to you. And if you are not as fast as someone else, then you gotta figure out why aren’t you as fast as someone else? Like how are you gonna get faster? So doesn’t matter what someone else is doing. You’ve got to work on your own process and figure out what your lowest hanging fruit is to improve it.

It’s so true. And it’s interesting because if I see someone doing something, like, let’s say for example, there’s a new gym in my area that’s really, it’s a great facility. It’s very enjoyable. If I see a guy who’s got the body that I’m maybe aiming for, or he’s got a level of intensity that I think is a level above me, um, I think the average man or even human, um, would tend to look at them more as competition and then pull away and, you know, not talk to them.

To me, I’m on the guy, I’m just like, Hey, man, or, or I’ve been done some women too. I’m like, you’re like really focused. Like I, I pay attention to people. I’m a mental performance coach. Like you’re super focused. Do you mind me asking like, what inspires that? And you know what’s funny? It’s literally like a hundred percent, it’s not even 90, a hundred percent of the time that my gut instinct is to have a conversation with a, a, a complete stranger where I can just in my gut feel that there’s something about them that’s different.

And this just happened recently. Matter of fact, I can’t believe, I just, I just remember this, there was a guy at the gym I was finishing up and I was doing like scissor kicks. I like to finish my workouts with like some ab stuff, even though the key to abs just not to eat, but hey, whatever. Uh, I do my ab work and um, and I look over and there’s this dude and it’s like him and the other 120 of us don’t exist.

And I was like, he doesn’t know I exist. And that is so cool. He doesn’t know that anyone’s looking at, cuz he’s throwing one of those medicine balls like, And it’s like smack against the wall. I mean, like, this is a busy gym in a fufu town that I live in, and everyone’s got their cute little outfits on.

And then there’s this dude throwing this medicine ball whack right up against the wall. And what was really interesting to me is he had no idea that any of us were around. And I went up to him and I said, Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question? I’m like, you’re really, like, in the moment you’re super focused.

What do you do? I, I literally, I didn’t even ask this, is, I remember exactly what I asked him. I said, what sport do you compete in and how high of a level to you compete? And he just is like, kind of gimme a weird look. And he is like, cool man. Cool. And he goes, I do, um, what is it called? Uh oh, it’s, it’s when you throw the Frisbees into the gate and the net, um, What does that call Ultimate Frisbee?

Ultimate Frisbee, yeah. So he is like, actually I’m a pro, uh, ultimate Frisbee player and uh, that’s what I do. And I’m like, let’s talk. I ended up sitting there talking to him for 45 minutes. Matter of fact, he probably is gonna listen to this podcast cause he follows the, so there might be some technical difficulties.

We’re not sure what’s been out the last like five minutes have been a little interesting for us. So if there are technical, uh, difficulties or it seemed like it was a little jumpy in the audio, in the video, we apologize. However, I will take responsibility or you know what, actually not true. I’m gonna blame it on the suspension of a motorcycle that I actually have downstairs.

Um, I’m the suspension. I’m just trying to fit in. Yeah, I’m just trying to do what everyone else does in motorcycle. I’m just gonna blame the vehicle. Uh, anyways, Ben, really, I, I, you know, I know we haven’t talked in a while, but I really enjoy our conversations. They’re always like really deep, genuine, heartfelt, right from the the core.

Um, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that are going to wanna connect with you. How do people reach you? How do they find you other than traveling into middle of nowhere? Thanks, man. It has been great. It’s been good to catch up again. Um, Instagram, they could follow me on at off-Road Performance Coach is my Instagram handle, and if they wanted to check out my website, it’s race ready off-road coaching.com.

Love it. All right, brother. Love our chats. Love your energy, love your vibe. Keep being you, man. Every time I see your videos, I don’t know why I just get like a little dopamine hits. So thanks for the dopamine hits and little oxytocin here and there. I appreciate it. And, uh, we’ll look forward to talking to you soon.

Thanks, man. Appreciate you too.