459: What's Really Possible: The Truth About Limitations and Possibilities

In this episode, we talk about how breakthroughs like the recent sub-two-hour marathon moment shift what we believe is possible—and why those shifts matter for every runner, not just elites.

We explore how past milestones like the four-minute mile and Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour attempt show that limits are often more mental than physical, shaped by what we’ve seen and experienced.

We also dig into why your brain naturally tries to keep goals “safe,” and how that can quietly shrink what you believe you’re capable of.

Then we break down three practical ways to expand your sense of possibility:

• Build your evidence file of small wins and consistency
• Reverse-engineer big “lighthouse” goals into simple daily habits
• Step into your runner identity now, not later

And we close with a reminder: expanding possibility is powerful—but it also comes with comparison traps and pressure if you’re not careful. Progress is still built one small step at a time.

If this resonated, share your biggest takeaway with us via review or DM.

01:45 London Marathon Breakdown

03:16 Four Minute Myth

06:01 Why We Self Limit

08:43 Innovation Mindset

19:01 Breaking Barriers Effect

22:37 Build Your Evidence File

26:16 Proof Beyond Running

27:14 Build Your Evidence File

28:32 Reverse Engineer Big Goals

32:54 Identity Before Achievement

36:55 Kipchoge And Breaking Two

38:51 Possibility Vs Comparison

42:38 Balance Dreams With Reality

46:09 Desire Makes It Possible

49:21 Try Anyway And Learn

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Transcript

0:00

The two hour marathon barrier has officially been broken, and not by just one person, but by two. So in case you haven't heard, two men broke two hours for the full marathon in last weekend's London Marathon. Which is so crazy because not that long ago, people thought that was impossible. There was literally an entire science experiment constructed around this idea of is a human actually able to break two hours in the marathon back in 2019 with Kipchoge? And this really got me thinking, this whole idea of possibility. What we think is impossible. Is it actually impossible or is it just unproven? So today we're talking all about possibility and limitations and all the things that in between. So stay tuned. What's up, runners? Welcome back to the show. We're happy to be back here with you as always, every week. Yeah, it's podcast day. Kevin and I. Typically podcasts record on Monday evenings after dinner. The kiddos are doing their homework and so far our pup is nice and calm on the floor next to us, so we're gonna, we'll see how this goes. We hope that continues.'cause the past few weeks he's been ramped up right around now. Maybe. Maybe he is able to stay calm through the podcast. I think he is. It just hasn't been proven yet. Oh, so today we're talking about the marathon. And we're talking specifically about the London Marathon because in case you haven't heard, there were two men that broke two hours in the full marathon, which is a goal for so many runners to break two hours in that half marathon. And these super humans did it in the full marathon, which is really just mind blowing. Yeah. is one. One Kenyan. One Ethiopian went out. Even third place broke the world record. And that's the craziest part too, right? The guy in third broke the previous world record. He didn't break two, but he broke the previous world record and got third place, which really puts an interesting question mark that I haven't heard of people go into. But it sparked my interest on who got the bonuses, because normally these races. There's a bonus for breaking the world record. Yeah. Did the third guy get it? Did the second guy get it? Or just the first guy, because he now has the world record. do you get a bonus for breaking the original one? I don't know how it works out. I'm sure we could look that up somewhere. Yeah, get that information. But Kevin and I were talking about it and I'm like, this is clearly a great opportunity for us to talk about possibility, because I think a lot of times we set limits on ourselves because. We, it's never been done before either by us or other people. And in this case, this is one of those situations where no one has ever done this before. These are the first humans to ever do this. And we had this same phenomenon happen with the sub four minute mile back when Roger ban, Roger Banister broke that record and that barrier back in the 1940s, thirties, 54, fifties, 54, 19 54. They thought that was actually physically impossible for humans to do that until he did it, and then as soon as he did it. What do you got? Okay. Point of order. Go ahead. They didn't actually think that was physically impossible. Okay. Everybody who goes back and references like, oh, all the major doctors at the time thought that your heart would stop. Yeah. they didn't much like today how, if you scroll social media people open up whatever it is they're talking about with giant inflammatory statements. Sure. This is how headlines were written where, oh, is Baner going to break the four minute mile? Or is he gonna die? that's how they were phrasing it, because then it brought more interest because at the end of the day, it's still track and field and that's just not that interesting. And so they were like the idea of is this random med student from the UK gonna break four? That's an interesting story, but is he gonna break four and die is a much more interesting story. That's true. And so that is a lot of why. The stories at the time were, his heart might stop, the lungs might explode. That's most people, most like people in the running community at the time did not think that was gonna happen. That it's a lot more of a mental barrier. And then, the beat writers at the time were like, ah, no. Heart might explode. No, he's literally. After he did that, he went on to a many decade long, successful medical career. I don't think he ever thought his heart was going to explode because he broke four. No, I don't think so. But thank you for giving us all of that information there. Yeah, I, but I think that's part of. goes into the tie tied in what is possible. Yeah. If everybody actually thought breaking four minutes was going to cause your heart to explode, and banister in his head was like, I can get and run a 4 0 1, but if I run 3 59, I'm going to die. that's just ridiculous though. And anybody that with any sort of medical knowledge knows your heart's not just gonna explode. But that's how some of the articles were being written. So it's a good thing that he didn't lean into that. That's like some of the naysayers out here of oh, that thing can't happen. That thing can't happen. If you lean into what naysayers are saying, then no, it never can happen. If you lean into people saying you're gonna die, then it's never actually going to happen. that's my point. Yeah, and it's a good point. we don't need to necessarily go into the you're going to die thing other than, A lot of times that is what our brain is telling us when we are trying to do hard things, even though other people might not be saying that, and even what you do might have already been done by somebody else, but a lot of times our brain wants to tell us that we're going to die if we do certain things. And that's really what we want to explore in this episode because we want to look at the idea of potential and possibility. And specifically limitations and the limitations that we often place on ourselves, because oftentimes we all have potential. We all have possibility things that are possible for us, but we don't live up to our potential. We live up to what we believe is possible, and so many of us are actually operating inside a much smaller version of what's. Actually available to us because we place our own limitations on ourselves for lots of different reasons. And today I wanna explore some of those reasons why we do that and maybe give you guys some ideas of where you might be placing some limitations on yourself and where you might wanna let those things go. Because a lot of times it's just thoughts and belief patterns that we have that if we decide to let go of those things, we can. Step into a whole new realm of possibility and things that are. Actually available to us. Yeah, that's a excellent, and I love that this is just such a fun topic to explore is the world of possibility is most likely much larger than you are envisioning. Yeah. there's so many people that, like we get on this topic sometimes around the Olympics also. Like these Olympians? they do have some superhuman talent to them, and there's a genetic basis. They had to have that belief in the possibility also, like just because they have this genetic skill does not mean it's actually going to come to fruition. Yeah. If they don't actually pursue it. there's a lot of people that have a lot of skills and then don't end up. Developing into any sort, anything close to that, whether it's athletic potential or potential in business or in life or in career, or in just all sorts of different areas of life. And so I think it's important for us to start off by looking into why we limit ourselves, because that would be the first question of what do you mean my thoughts are eliminating? Why would I ever do that? Why would I limit myself? That doesn't make sense? And. It's important for us to understand how our nervous system is wired, what your brain is doing. Because your brain is always trying to keep you safe. That's really one of the big things that it comes down to. And so in order to keep you safe, your brain is always looking for evidence. This is just one of those human needs. We need evidence in order to believe that things are possible because we don't usually just believe things randomly. We believe things based on evidence, and our brain gets that evidence from the things in the past, basically. Like it's hard for us necessarily, and that's why. Inventors and forward thinkers are. Very rare, and we know about them a lot because they're out of outside of the norm. They decide that they're going to think about what is possible or what has not yet been developed. They're gonna believe in something that has not yet been created because most of us based our lives on the things from the past, it's based on what we've experienced in our own life. It's what we've seen other people do, and it's the things that have already happened. And then trying to move things forward like incrementally, which is why like big innovations usually seem weird when they first come about people who have invented any sort of new thing. They're taking the world and being like, all right, I see what you're doing. But instead of coming at it that way or coming at it that way, but trying to make it just a little bit more efficient, let's try and come at it in a completely different direction. Like think of cars like the engine inside of your car. People are like, I dunno, it's a gas powered car. This is what we're gonna do. And it keeps getting incrementally more efficient. And other people are like, why don't we just make an electric car? that was a completely different way of thinking about it, of do we need gas in the first place? Yeah. But that's a weird thought. if you're like, just make a more efficient gas engine. Yeah. there's a famous quote from Henry Ford and he was talking about how he came up with the engine of a car and. One of the things that he says, if I asked people what they wanted, they would've just said, faster horses. Yes. Like a lot of times we ha because that is the model that they knew. They didn't even know that this was any sort of possibility. They would've just tried to figure out how to make the horses faster. Yes. And Henry Ford decided to think completely outside of the box and come up with. Something that no one had ever thought of, or at least maybe if someone had thought of it, they hadn't been able to actually create it and he was able, one of the reasons that Henry Ford was so successful was his willingness to fail. He just failed over and over again, and he had so many people and engineers home that what he wanted was not possible. And he said, okay, keep showing me that it's not possible. Like he paid people year after year to fail. Yep. and not produce the thing that he wanted until he succeeded. Yeah. Like it's okay if day after day you keep getting me incorrect results. Yeah. Because now we're finding one more reason that it didn't work. that goes back more way. It didn't work. Not reason, but one more. And Edison and the light bulb was like, I didn't figure out how to make the light bulb. I figure out 98 ways to not make the light bulb. Like it took a long time. Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, that first try, this is what happens. Like you're trying something that's never been done. It's likely that you're not gonna succeed on the first time, right? And so when your brain is always looking for past events or past results to predict your future, which is what exactly it's doing, it's also running it through this filter of is this safe? Is this real? Is this possible? And Obviously we're going to encounter a problem there because if you've never done something before, then your brain has no evidence that you can, and especially this essentially compounds if no one has ever done this before. Like in breaking two hours in the marathon. Yes. no one had ever done this before. So not only had. These two guys never done this before. I don't wanna like totally mess up their names. do you know how to pronounce their names? Is it swe, is it, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. S-A-W-E-I-I. I would go with Sowe. Yeah, SOWE it's Kenyon, so that seems like it's gonna be about right. But So he had never done it before and no one else had ever done it before either. And so his first name's Sebastian. That seems safer. That's easier. Sebastian. So then the. But coming back to you, right? A lot of times the things that you might wanna do, especially in your running, Someone has done that before and I think that can be a very helpful thing, but you haven't, so your brain wants to default to doubt and hesitation and staying the same because that's scary. You've never done that. There's no evidence that you're, that's possible for you. And that is actually where we can use other people as inspiration. we have to be careful and we're gonna talk later on about kind of the. The light side and the dark side of this.'cause we can use other people for inspiration, but we have to be careful that we don't fall into comparisons. But this is where we tend to create these invisible limits because when you are coming up against something that you have never done before. And your brain has no evidence that you are actually able to do this thing. We start to put these, the invisible ceiling on us, and our brain just does this most of the time. It's subconsciously because again, it's just trying to protect you and keep you safe because number one, we don't like being disappointed as humans. We don't like that feeling of embarrassment or disappointment or shame or whatever. Emotions might go along with, or might be tied up in not achieving a goal or a certain goal, but also because. It might be physically painful. And that's one of the big ones also. Yeah. It's physically and emotionally painful. It's going to be physically painful and you still might fall short. Yeah. So then you're in physical pain and the disappointment that follows it. So it seems a whole heck of a lot safer to not attempt. And your brain's you're right. Yeah. That is safer to not attempt the thing. And that's why so many people actually don't go after their goals, is they find it safer or they see that it's safer just to not do it right until you're. So many years removed from it, and then you look back, you're like, I had a window where I could have chased my goal. Yeah, I could have chased a goal back then and then. People fall into a disappointment of, I didn't chase that physical goal, that physical dream when I was in my twenties. Now in my forties or fifties, I can't chase it now. It's you're still putting a ceiling on top of yourself. Yeah. like maybe the goal is a different goal, but you've just decided since you didn't chase a goal back then, now goals are done being chased. No, that's not a good, that's just putting another ceiling on yourself. You're gonna look forward, look back another decade and been like, oh, I could have chased a goal then. and so some of the invisible ceilings that we are placing on us, maybe now if you're a runner in your forties or fifties or sixties or beyond, maybe you have this idea of, I'm just not fast anymore, or after 40, this is just how it is. Or I've never been strong, or I can't run that distance, or I've never been athletic. I have heard these things from so many of our clients throughout the years. And there's so many. This is just a normal thing, and I want you guys to know that if you find yourself in this position. There's nothing wrong with you. Your brain is just doing what it's supposed to do. Your brain is doing exactly what it is programmed to do because you're using your past to predict your future. But if you use your past to predict your future and you don't like the results that your past has given you, then. Chances are you're probably not going to like the results in your future if you're still using those things to guide you. And so we don't want to make that mistake of using our past experience to determine our future potential. And there's so many of us that make that mistake from in, in all areas of our life, right? Not just running. An athletic performance in all different areas of our life. We think, oh, I made this mistake then when I, the last time I tried this. So I just, probably better if I don't even do it right because it always seems safer to not attempt and not give yourself the possibility of failure. Your brain at first is going to be totally fine with. Just ignoring the possibility. It's safer to not attempt, especially if the only evidence you have of attempting didn't go well. That's where it's, and it, like you said before, it's dangerous to do a comparison to somebody else, but knowing that it can be done offers your brain at least the possibility. Yeah. That there is, someone has done it, someone has found a way this thing can be done. Now we just need to figure out a way for you to be able to do it and as we or do something similar, maybe not the same thing like I know. For a fact, I am not going to break two hours in the marathon. Is it is not gonna happen. And I'm totally okay with that. that is a very realistic barrier. But when you, when we see these people doing those types of things, it can inspire us to do other things in our life that we thought was, were impossible. Yes. it's an inspiration and maybe it's so far removed and that's the thing is, yeah. I find the breaking two hours so inspirational and I have no comparison pulling me back. I'm not like, man, if I had just tried back in my late twenties, I think I could, no. Nope. I could not have. Yeah. That is not what's gonna happen. Yeah.'cause I was, I looked up the names. I'm pretty sure the guy who got second at one point was the youngest. Person to ever break four in the mile. Okay. Like he broke four at 16 years. and a little bit. And then that got broken again. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure like I'm looking at his name, I'm like, I recognize that name. I think that he was at one point, like one of the fastest juniors to have ever broken four minutes in the mile. So he's kinda used to doing crazy. Sub things. Yeah. Which is cool. So he, in his evidence file, he has evidence that he has been able to do things that no one has done before. So that's gonna be really good for him moving forward in his life if he wants to continue doing things like that as well. I think he's an interesting case.'cause I heard an interview with him beforehand and it goes exactly to the. Put a ceiling on yourself. Someone asked him, Hey, what do you think about your na? They said his name, which I'm gonna mispronounce'cause it's like Yosef and I'm not even gonna attempt the Ethiopian last name. What do you think about your name? 1 59? And he just shook his head. He goes, I don't think in a debut marathon, that's a possibility. And then he went out and did it. Yeah. So sometimes, oh, this was his debut marathon. This was his debut marathon from number, the second place guy. Yeah. And the guy asked, wow, what do you think about 1 59? And he responded, which sounds an awful lot like putting a ceiling on yourself for a debut marathon. I just don't think it's possible. But in his history, he's also gone sub four, and he's looking at the other people around him. He's I think that I can run with these people. And so I don't think that he necessarily put a hard ceiling on himself. Yeah. Of he thought it was unlikely, but I don't think that he thought it was impossible. It was I'm gonna go with the people and we'll see what happens with this. Because that was the follow up question. He goes, if the race goes out at sub two hour pace, what do you do? And he just grinned and was like, I go with him. Yeah, which is great because he had enough confidence in himself from the other things. And I think that this is one of the things that it's important for us to understand when it comes to our brains and neurosciences. And this is the importance of breaking barriers, right? Like when we go back to this. Breaking two hours when something quote unquote impossible gets done, actually happens. Everything changes. So we saw this with the Four minute Maya. We saw this now with the two hour marathon. We see this with different things happening in women's running or in women's lifting, or runner's pring in their forties, in their fifties. And the moment that something becomes possible for one person, it now becomes available to everyone. it's gonna be really interesting to see. What happens the rest of this year in the following couple of years, obviously with the development of super shoes and all the different reasons that marathon times are going down very significantly, recently, in recent years. But we saw this when after Roger Ban, Roger Banister broke the four minute mile. You really wanna call him register? Register, may, what if I just start calling him that Doctor Dr. Register, it's Roger Banister. So it's Register uhhuh, anywho. After he broke four minutes, there was a bunch of people that very quickly after that also broke four minutes. So there was another guy who broke it a few months later. Yeah. And then there was another guy the next year. Okay. I shouldn't say a bunch of people, but it was then it opened up the possibility. Yeah. And it's not like it opened floodgates and suddenly because you hear people. You don't necessarily hear people, but you'll see stuff online. Yeah. In like inspirational reels and stuff like this. it's still a really big deal if you can break four minutes in the mile. It's huge. Yeah. We're looking at, in the history of measured races. Yeah. There's, I think like probably around 3000 people that have done this.'cause there's a website trying to track it. But when it happened, some people for inspiration, they're like, oh, it opened the floodgates and suddenly hundreds of people did it and hundreds did not immediately do it. Within the next decade, another 50 people did it, but that's still a huge amount to go from zero to 50 to a huge number. A decade later, a high school kid did it, and then you have to get a little bit farther before the high school record starts getting lower and lower, but. The numbers. To go from zero to one is such a massive difference than to go from one to two, allowing that possibility, then it becomes available. It's not an automatic, it's still a super difficult thing, but it's possible. and that's where, that's really what we want to look at with this episode is how to start taking those. Things of possibility and making them more available to yourself because you don't need to set world records to believe in yourself. You need to find evidence, and there's lots of evidence out there of other people doing probably similar things to what you wanna do. I'm guessing I don't, I have no idea what some of you are sitting there thinking about right now, but. Chances are if you have a goal, there's probably someone out there that has achieved that thing or something similar to that thing. would you say that's an accurate statement? are we looking in the world of running or, we can just in general. I think in general, but I think, but yeah, since we're this a running podcast, I think that. Pretty much for running it's gonna be, even if you niche it down to running, I think there's something like 30 million runners just in the us. Somebody's got that a similar goal. Somebody has, maybe it's not exact, but it's gonna be real similars. A lot of people, not similar of people, not a, but has probably already achieved that thing too. Yes. So I think that we can use other runners as examples of what's possible. And then what we need to do is we need to start building our own evidence file. So this is one of the things that I talk about with my clients all the time. We each have our own evidence file of whatever it might be that you want to achieve in your life or really of who you are. So there's lots of different ways and angles that I like to look at. Your evidence file, it's things that you've done. it's the person that you are, it's your thoughts, it's your beliefs, it's your feelings, it's all these different things. And so it's taking those thoughts and those feelings, and it's finding like the actions and the evidence of possibility there. So for example, if you want to believe that you are a consistent runner, you're gonna find all the times in your life that you are consistent. And it doesn't have to be just with running. Because a lot of times we try to separate running from the rest of our lives and they're like, we're like, oh, I'm. I'm not consistent with running, but if you, or I'm just, I'm not a consistent person. I'm just not consistent, and we generalize it and it's okay, do you brush your teeth every day? Do you tie your shoes every day? yes, you are consistent and you have shown consistency with other things in your life. Do you go to work? Did you go to school? do you have any sort of degree? there are so many pieces of evidence that you could probably come up with of how you have been consistent in your life. I, I think that it's important as you, you build this evidence file that you really lean into the positive evidence. Yes. that's the point of the evidence file. The evidence file is not to be used against you in a court of law of your brain. I know, but how many people Yeah, when they're not, when they're like spiraling. We'll start to build the wrong evidence file. Yes. and that's what your brain naturally does, right? So your brain is naturally trying to find evidence for why the thing is not possible or why you should not do the thing. That is the way your brain is naturally wired. And so your evidence file that I am talking about here is essentially the counter argument to what your brain is naturally going to do. Yeah. But your brain still likes to try and highlight, Hey, but you remember that run that you did quit. Yeah, you remember that run that you did have to stop early on, right? Like you and it will try and find these. they do exist. You probably have a mountain of evidence. To the contrary, you just, the evidence file is all positives. The evidence file is all of the things that support the goal that you're aiming towards, and you can look at it and be like, yes, this is phenomenal. Feel free to write it down. Have the actual solid evidence. Oh, no. Yeah, absolutely. I think that one of the things that I like to tell people to do is have, a note in your phone's notes app, because everybody has a phone on them basically at all times nowadays, right? Like your phone is going, there's some consistency. Your phone is going to be with you. And so yes, you could keep it in a notebook or keep it on your bedside table. I think that's a great idea. And then you can write down. Make that part of your nighttime ritual, writing down all of the wins and things that you wanna add into your evidence file every night. Great idea. Also, keep one on your phone. put in that evidence of the runs that you didn't quit, or the consistency streaks, or the strength gains, or just that you showed up and did your strength training today. Those moments that you showed up when it was hard in times that you did things that you didn't think you could, and they don't have to be running related. I actually think it's a great idea for you to come up with. Exer, examples and evidence outside of running too, because it shows that's the kind of person I am. And if I'm the kind of that kind of person over here, then I'm, I can apply that much more easily to my running. Yes. I think that essentially putting a list together of times you did something you didn't think you could. Sounds like a wonderful list. Oh yeah. To compile. being a parent, you know who felt ready for that? even though you know you wanted kids, I've known for a very long time that I wanted kids, and then when I actually had a baby in my arms, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm a mom. This is amazing. And also, I was not prepared at all, but I kept figuring it out. When we left the hospital too early before they gave us the book, the, the how to book, I think we left too early. Yeah. Because I wanted to get home. I did not, and I was driving at five miles an hour down the road and she knew it was coming, wanted to get home. She like, Nope, we're gonna have to leave now. No, but there's, there's so many things in our life that we have been able to do without any prior evidence. Like we got married, I had no prior evidence that I could have a successful marriage. And I didn't really have that example growing up either. So I, I didn't have that modeled for me either. But I. It was important to me and I knew I was gonna figure it out, and I think that's really a good thing for us to bring into our running or really any area of our life. If you're someone, maybe it's strength training, maybe you have been avoiding the gym because you're not really sure and you are intimidated and you used to be a part of the cross country team and you are. Intimidated by all the big buff hockey players in the gym when you used to list. It seems to get very specific all of a sudden, there's lots of things that can happen, but I think that it's important for us to continue to build that evidence file of the positive experiences that we have around a certain thing and also other things in our life that we can tie into it. Yeah, that's why I like the. Bringing in any time that you did something that was difficult. Yeah. That you did something that you weren't sure that you could. Something that you sustained when you wanted to quit but you didn't. Yes. Like it happens in all areas. Put'em all down, put'em all on the, yeah. I didn't quit list. Yeah. Remember that, hang that you had to do for the presidential fitness test in like fifth grade. Everybody wants to quit that. And you didn't do it. You didn't quit. I feel you hung there. Feel you didn't do pull-ups. Yeah.'cause you were a boy. Oh girls. We had to do the hang, like just the hang there for 30 seconds or a minute or whatever it was with our chin above the bar and your chin was not allowed to touch the bar. Yeah. Fifth grade, that was back when I could just knock out, pull-ups. I don't know what grade it was, but I wanna say it was elementary school. Yeah. Somewhere in that elementary, middle school. Yeah, that was that whole time window. I could actually do pull-ups. Okay, so step number one for you all to start doing is start creating your evidence file. Okay. That's one of the ways that we take possibility and we start to make possibility more tangible and bring it into reality the second way. That, we're gonna offer and talk about today is how to achieve those big things. Because oftentimes when we look at really big goals, they can feel impossible when you look at them all at once from where you currently are. And so what we need to do is. It's a process called reverse engineering, and this is one of the processes that we teach our clients as well. We take a big goal, we always tell people dream big, set a really big goal. I like to call them lighthouse goals because that is giving us a direction. So lighthouses, they just stand there and they shine their light. And they tell you which way to go, and you don't know if you're gonna go in a straight line. You don't know if your line's gonna be curvy. You don't know if there's gonna be a current that day or other boats that are getting in your way, but you just know it's my job to get from where I am right now to that lighthouse, but you're not really sure what is in between you and that goal. And so what the, what reverse engineering does is it takes that big goal. And it breaks it down into smaller steps. So for example, since we're talking about a marathon, if you want to run a marathon, or if you wanna set a PR in a marathon, you can break that down. So like maybe right now you are able to run three miles and you're like, yo, wow. I would. Really love to run a marathon one day, and that just seems impossible. Okay, let's break it down. So from that marathon, we're gonna break it down into long runs. Then we're gonna break it down into weekly consistency. Then we're gonna break it down into those daily habits, because those are the steps in reverse order, right? Like we have to look at where you are right now and start saying, okay. In order for me to be able to build up to that marathon, what are the daily habits that a marathoner would do? Like he a marathoner would be eating enough food, getting enough sleep, going out for runs, doing some strength and mobility. Then you build that into weekly consistency and actually following a training plan. Then you get into a training plan that's going to actually progressively overload the body and ramp you up in a safe and controlled manner, and that's going to make it possible. For you to run a marathon so you don't actually achieve big things by doing big things. You achieve big things by breaking it down into the component parts and then doing those small things. Those very digestible, easy, like your mind. Oh, yep. I can totally wrap my mind around this. Like we do those small things repeatedly and then again, we're building up that evidence file.'cause every time that you go out for a run, every time that you eat. the carbs and the protein that your body needs every time that you get eight hours of sleep, like all of these things are building up your evidence file for why it's going to be possible for you to run that marathon. Yeah. And it's gonna take a while. And that's part of, I think why, why some people like to. Sort of let the goals float away. Yeah, because the daily habits, that leads to the weekly consistency. That then starts to increase your mileage and the strength training, and then you can get a long run and then you build the long run and eventually you can actually cover 26 miles. That's not a quick process. Yeah. And that's why the big goal feels overwhelming because the timeline is pretty long. And the brain is that's a long time window. I'm not sure that this is something that we should even embark because I'm not sure that the end result is guaranteed. Yeah. And it's way down the road, so we should just stay where we're at. But that's, it's just a matter of doing one step at a time that's gonna keep getting you closer and closer. To the actual end result. Yeah. Your brain doesn't necessarily like the long timeline. No, it does not. And it doesn't, it definitely doesn't like it when results are not guaranteed. Like we as humans, especially nowadays, I think it, it's got, this has gotten even worse where we want guarantees with, if I put in the work, then I'm gonna see the results, right? I want it now. And it's this very, Immediate gratification type of mentality that we all have with phones available in our hands. if I do this thing, I get immediate rewards, I get that dopamine hit right away. And that's just not how running improvement works. No. It's part of why running's kind of awesome. I was just about to say, that's one of the things that makes it great because it's, it doesn't abide by those principles and we actually, you do have to earn it and you do have to work for it, which is great. And then the third piece, the third layer that I wanna talk about here. Layer one is that evidence file layer two is, reverse engineering your goals. And the third layer that I really want to address that a lot of people don't think about is this layer of identity. It's becoming the person first. So there's so many people that believe I'll be a certain kind of person once I do the thing. I will be a marathoner once I run a marathon, but. I love to flip this on, on, on its head because you have to actually be a marathoner first before you actually run the marathon, because by you becoming and stepping into the identity of. Someone that's run a marathon, that's what's actually going to make it possible for you, because it's not just, I am a marathon runner, it's, I'm a runner who trains consistently. Maybe that's the first ident identity layer that you need to take on, because if you're not consistent right now, it's gonna be very difficult for you to run a marathon. So maybe layer number one is I am a consistent runner. Maybe the first layer is I'm a runner. There's a lot of people out there that don't even want to admit that they're a runner. They have a lot of imposter syndrome surrounding the identity of runner. So maybe that's layer one. or maybe that's part of what you're trying to prove by running the marathon. You gotta accept that first. Like you have to be the person first, and then once you are the person. Then that's going to allow it to be easier for you to do the thing because then it's just a natural extension of who you already are. Yeah. I think that the becoming the first person first and achieving just by doing the steps Yeah. Goes to one of my favorite marathon stories. We gotta go back ways on this one. Back when Frank Shorter won the Olympic marathon, he was. Running with his training partner, like the next week, I think is how the story goes. Pretty sure it was Don Cardon and they're running along and Don looks at him and goes, for all the days and weeks and years that we've trained together, I always envision the Olympic marathoner as this like other person, this super human from some other place. And Frank turns and he goes, and it turns out it was just me. And it's I in Frank's head, there was that possibility always existed. Yeah. In the, in Don's head, it was like, no. The Olympic marathon winner is this other being. Yeah. But to Frank, it was a possibility. You just put in the work and then the possibility does exist. And he ended up with a gold medal. Yeah. And Cardon was a fantastic runner, but I think there was a slight difference in, in where that identity lied. In one of them put a ceiling of that's something for others and one said no. That's something that we could do as long as we put in the work day after day. Yeah. And that is an example of Frank then. Becoming that gold medalist before he actually won the gold medal. A hundred percent. Because in order to win that gold medal, he had to train every day. He had to push hard on his workouts, he had to get enough sleep, he had to run easy on most of his easy runs. He had to make sure he was getting the right nutrition. and he had some, wasn't he the one that had really funny nutrition things as well? it was the seventies. Everybody had funny nutrition things and running easy every day was. Yeah, cereal and Oh, he was definitely a flat cook. Wasn't he a serial guy? Probably. Okay. I feel we're in the seventies. There's a fuel of the 1970s, a whole different ballgame box of cereal. I, for some reason, maybe it's not him, but anyway, the whole point here is you become the person first. Like you decide this is who I want to be, and then you say, okay, what? Are the daily actions of that person. If I am already this person, I am already the person who strength trains consistently. I'm already the person who has run a marathon. I'm already this person. What would my day look like? And then you start doing those things and then the goal will naturally follow because you've decided to step into that identity. Yeah. No, that's perfect. Alright. huh. the next idea here is if you have, if you don't have the evidence that you are, you can do the thing, but other people can, that it's been done before. Because you mentioned at the beginning, at the outset, breaking two hours in the marathon. This has never been done before. It has, it just hasn't ever technically, officially been done in a race. Oh, that's true. Yeah. We ha we need to talk about Kipchoge. But Ellie Kipchoge broke two hours in the marathon. He did. He in 2019, he like that was. Almost seven years ago. It was like six and a half years ago. And that was his second huge attempt at it. Yeah, because there was the Nike Breaking two project. Yeah. That he missed it by 20 seconds. And then. Nike was like, all right, we're done playing this game. And then some like British massive company took over. Yeah, it's I-N-E-O-S or it's Iios. I don't know if you say it or you spell it, but it's it's a huge British conglomerate. They funded it and he went off and did it, but he did it with a group of 41 pacers and a clock in front of him and shoes that were illegal at the time. All the things. And because it was so contrived, it was essentially just a giant science experiment. Yeah. He broke two, but it doesn't count as a world record. But what it did still count as was evidence that you could break two. and that's ultimately what they were trying to create. And because they knew it wasn't going to actually count for a world record. Yeah. And I think they were just creating possibility Kipchoge's get such this like Buddha the way about himself. Yeah. The way that he speaks, that he knew that eventually what he did was just going to be a stepping stone to allow other people Yeah. Like I'm sure he is as happy as anybody else. Oh yeah. That this guy for sure didn't even just break two, he went faster than kid Chobi did in his like Yeah. Contrived environment. He just did it in a race. Yeah. Because kipchoge's big thing is no human is limited. And this guy just continues to help show that. And I think that he is, he was one of the stepping stones to that. Yeah. And I think that is really the light side of possibility. Like when we look at other people, I think that there, when we look at others to try to find evidence of things being possible for us, I do think that there is a light side and a dark side because oftentimes. Possibility can lead into comparison. And so we have to be very careful because on the light side possibility, when you look at someone else and wow, if they could do it, I can do it too. That's an expansion. It creates hope. It opens doors, it fuels growth. This is a very good thing. However, if we look at other people, our brain. That good old brain of ours always, again, is wanting to find the negative, is always wanting to try to find evidence against the thing. And so we might be able to dip our toes into possibility and just then know that your brain is probably gonna go to. Oh yeah, but, and like then we're gonna go to comparison or pressure or unrealistic timelines or discouragement of why aren't I there yet? Or if they can already do this, I should have already been able to do this as well. And I will raise my hand. I've been. Guilty of, I shouldn't say guilty, but my brain has done this to me too plenty of times of what the heck? Like, how are they already able to do this? I've been doing this for longer than them and I haven't achieved it yet. Yeah. I think everybody's brain loves to go this direction. Yeah. And social media makes comparisons so easy. Yeah. I was talking about, oh, for sure. I was talking with one of, the. Kids on our track team today about how easy comparison is. Like you can open up your phone and you don't have to be able to compare yourself to like the other kids in the school. Like we have regions this upcoming weekend. You're not just comparing yourself to everybody in the regions with a couple of clicks on the, on your phone. Yeah. You can compare yourself to how fast every other high school freshman girl is. I'm like, that's what you can compare. It's not just like how good I am I in this race. It's a few button presses and you're comparing yourself to everybody else in the entire, like us on this. Yeah. And then you can expand and you can go to the world and it's such an easy comparison. And that direction takes a lot of hope away, I think, because you don't know what everybody else is. Is you don't know the whole picture of everybody. You can just see where you rank. And I think, for high school kids, that's brutal. yeah, I don't need a ranking. and it's in all sports too, I know. Like it's across the board now, and that can be really discouraging for a lot of people. And so we have to be really careful, not just. With us as runners that are doing this recreationally. But if you have anybody in your life, like Kevin said, your kids or your grandkids that are athletes, it's important I think for us to be aware of these things as well, because it's so easy to fall into the dark side of the comparison trap. Yeah. Like I knew when I was in high school, I knew how I compared to the other guys in the league that we ran in. And that was kids who were like a year older. My year and a year younger was roughly who I was racing against. Yeah. And I knew that I wasn't good enough to get to states. And there were people that were at the state meet that were faster than me. But that's what I knew, even stepping back, like when I went back and was helping at my high school and then I realized, oh, there's different levels. There's smaller schools, and I was faster than those people. The smaller schools, I could have gone to states if I was in a smaller school. That never even occurred to me at the time. Now. The comparison, the ease of online comparison is so easy that it can get remarkably disheartening. Yeah. Which, it's a, that's a whole tangent, but I think that's part of what's taking away some of the amount of people who want to participate in high school sports is the ease of ranking against everybody. Yeah. That's pretty wild. So thank goodness that we don't necessarily have that. I guess we could have that as real life runners, but not totally. And that's a good thing. But I do think that. It's important for us to take this idea and balance the possibility with reality because we want you all to be dreaming big and breaking barriers and figuring out what's possible, and by figuring out what's possible, believing in what's possible for you. So maybe you start by finding evidence of other people doing the thing. This is one of the reasons why. in my workshops, like I, I run weekly workshops, webinars, where I teach people about the running foundation that we need. And one of the big things that I love doing in those presentations and in, in the classes that I teach, is showing real examples of people who have done. Things that will hopefully inspire the people that are on that workshop with me, because I like to tell'em about the client of ours that ran her first marathon or her first half marathon when she was 60 and her first full marathon at 61 and her first, or in her first ultra marathon at 62. And I like the other client that, of ours that ran her first half marathon when she was 71 years old. And I have so many good examples and so many amazing clients just in our. Little coaching practice. we have a small corner of the world of our coaching practice compared to all the millions and millions of runners out there. And so I know that if we already see these amazing results from our clients, there's so much amazingness out there and there's so much that is possible for you if you respect your timeline, if you honor your body. And if you build progressively, because I want you to believe bigger and expand your thinking, and always start reach for things that you didn't think were possible or that maybe you still don't, and maybe you have a goal and you're like, I really don't see how that's possible, but I'm willing to try, I'm willing to start to work towards it because. That is really where life starts to expand. I think that's really where we as humans start to expand is when we just start to take some steps forward towards the thing, towards that lighthouse off in the distance, while still understanding that we have to respect our timeline and our body and the process and the time that it takes to, yeah, and it's get to that place. It's possible that you start down that path and you decide that I can't. Respect. I can't honor my body. I can't get the recovery needed and put in the work needed to go for this goal. This is not necessarily my goal. Yeah. Like when you watched me run a half marathon, it opened up the possibility that you could run a half marathon. Yeah. Not from my doing it.'cause you would watch me run a marathon. But hanging out at the, by the finish line, you watched all sorts of runners. Yeah. Cross the finish line, you're like, this is something that I could do. And then you figured out what that was going to take for you to do it, and you put in the work and you were able to do the thing two years later, but you Yes. Yeah. Didn't, not the next week. You didn't sign up for the half marathon the next week? No. Or two months later. It took me two years because I had a three month old at the time. Exactly. Yeah. And so you knew what the timeline was, but you also have never run a marathon. Yeah. Because you know the time investment in that one, you know the recovery investment of that one. Yeah. And that's I could, but it's gonna take away from some of these other things. And so you have to decide, is the goal worth the push? And giant goals are awesome. Yeah. As long as you're able to actually honor the timeline needed and honor what your body needs in order to accomplish that goal. Yeah. And so I wanna leave you with one last thought and then I'm gonna give you guys some reflection questions to maybe anchor this in and figure out, where you might, Be limiting yourself and what you wanna do about it. But I truly believe that God does not put things on our heart. You guys, you can call it God, you can call it the universe. You can call it whatever you wanna do. I'm gonna call it God. I truly believe that God does not give us desires that are not possible for us. So just the fact. That you have a desire means that thing is possible for you. It automatically makes it possible if you have a desire for it, because I believe in a loving all knowing God, and I don't think that. that God would give me a desire of something that is genuinely not possible for me. like breaking two hours in the marathon. I genuinely do not have any desire to do that because I also genuinely know that is not possible for me. So I'm not sitting here Pining and disappointed and being like, oh, no, it's just not, that's not gonna happen. And I'm totally okay with that, right? we're not gonna have a desire for things. And when I've, told people that I have this belief before, they're like, yeah, but I want a million dollars and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. But yes. And if you genuinely have a desire to have a million dollars, there is a way for you to achieve that thing. Like you can earn a million dollars, certainly, so there, because there are plenty of people who have the evidence of that. Plenty of people, right? So especially nowadays, we're finding more millionaires like than ever. So anywho. But that's one of the things that I truly do believe. If you have a desire that automatically makes that thing possible for you, so take that idea. maybe it's that one or maybe it's another goal or idea that you have and. Or maybe it's something that you've already decided is not possible for you. what's a limiting, limiting belief that you might have? what's an invisible ceiling that maybe you've placed on yourself and you don't even realize it, right? so choose a goal that you think is maybe out of reach for you, and then I want you to start to build your evidence file. So write down that goal or write down that thing that you've already. Put out of reach. And then I want you to think, start writing down some evidence that three things that you've done that prove growth or evidence that other people have achieved that thing. Like just start building your evidence file because that's going to just start to train your brain to see something else than all the negative evidence that it wants to naturally. Collect for you. Yeah. This is why I enjoy the guy in his like fifties that's kicked my butt at the last 200 mile races. Same guy. Same guy. Both years. Yeah. And he shot past me and I was like, dang it, you passed me again this year. Yeah. Way to go. I think it was actually the full thing. And as he trotted away from me, I could see he was kinda laughing. And they're like, yeah, because that's evidence that I've got years still. Yeah. So we truly believe that what is possible for you. Is probably bigger than what you're currently. Allowing in your life. And also you're not going to get there if you are trying to wait for proof. And you're definitely not gonna get there if you never try. So you build proof. You build evidence by showing up and by taking little steps, one step at a time, because you don't discover what's possible by thinking about it. you do have to think about it. You have to choose it. But I think that the big thing here is choosing. To believe that thing is possible for you, you become the person who's willing to find out. Yes. And that's really the key. Yeah. Once you become that person willing to find out, then you put in the work and then you actually see what's possible Because what's the worst thing that could happen? This is the other thing, like what's the worst thing that could happen if you have a goal that you are currently not achieving and you st. Start thinking to yourself right now, I don't want to start going after that thing and then realize that it's not possible, so you just don't try. Then what? The worst thing that can happen is that you are right where you started, but what happen? What would happen? You're current not achieving happen, right? You're currently, you're right where you are, but if you did. Start to take the steps to it, then you might say, but then I would have put in all this time and ener energy and effort and I still wouldn't have achieved the thing. I think this is like a big thing with you in the a hundred miles, right? But you're still so far along, like you're still so much further than where you were or where you currently are right now, and you're a different person in that process. You're a completely different person and I think as long as you're enjoying the process, and that goes back to that. Is, it's why I mentioned you haven't run a marathon, I don't think that you would enjoy the process. Yeah. I don't think. it's the cliche, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. you're like, yeah, I don't know. Not right now. I don't really want cool finisher's metal. But you don't really want to do the things that go into that. No. I enjoy the process of putting me in position to, to run faster for a hundred miles. I enjoy. I wish that I had flipped my head in the last race. I still look back on that one and physically I was fine. I wish that I was able to flip my head and make that just a more enjoyable experience from 50 miles forward. Yeah. but I just, I went dark and it wasn't ideal and, but that, that still something that I learned and it's still an evidence file that even when my brain is going against me, I still trucked through another 50 miles. Like it's all evidence. All more growth there. Everything that you do is just more evidence. You just need to put it in the right place. Yeah. You just have to file it appropriately. Exactly. Exactly. All right. So if you like this episode, we would be so appreciative if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcast or on Spotify. Let us know what your big takeaway from this episode is. DM us on social media over at Real life runners, and just let us know, give us some feedback on where. You know what this episode triggered in you? What thoughts did it trigger? Is there something that you feel like you've been holding yourself back from that now you're willing to maybe take a couple steps towards you. You don't have to do huge jumps and leaps and bounds. Like maybe just be willing to take a, the first couple of steps and see how you feel and create a little evidence and then take another couple of steps. And if you take a couple steps and a couple steps and a couple steps, you're gonna be surprised at where you're gonna end up. I think. I think that's how you do a marathon. Yeah, I think that's it. Alright. Thanks for joining us. As always, this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 459. Now, get out there and run your life.