Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today, we are joined by the Director of Sport Initiatives at Spartan Race, Joe DiStefano, aka “Joe DI.” If you haven’t heard of Spartan, they’re a company that has started a movement all across the world, hosting events, training seminars, and all-out, extreme obstacle races that push people to their absolute limits. Spartan is a sport, community, a philosophy, a training and nutrition program – with daily advice, a podcast, a series of books, an activity for kids, workout gear, a media channel, an NBC Sports series, a digital magazine, and a timed obstacle race.

I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes, my biggest challenges are overcoming not physical limitations, but mental ones. Often times, when the going gets really tough, I give up on myself, bargain, compromise, or convince myself that I can do it.

That’s why, in this episode, we talk with one of Spartan’s best and brightest trainers on the topic of mental tenacity. As someone who has helped create some of the world’s toughest sporting events, and an acclaimed personal trainer, our guest today has a lot to say on the subject, and I’m sure you’ll take away not only a huge dose of inspiration, but also some actionable principles you can use to sharpen your focus and increase your mental tenacity in all of life’s challenges.

As always, please share your thoughts with me on Twitter @gosuperhuman, and if you haven’t already, please remember to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher.

This episode is brought to you by SuperLearner Academy – home of my exclusive masterclasses. Check out a free trial using the link above today!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Joe Di's background and how he came to be where he is today
• How one of Joe Di's college professors became a mentor and inspiration for him
• What is Spartan, what do they do, and why do they exist?
• What's the difference between Spartan, P90X, CrossFit, and Insanity?
• The “40% Rule” used by the Navy SEALs
• What does it take mentally to complete an endurance race, and how can you develop that skill?
• How do you motivate yourself in the darkest moments of suffering and anguish?
• How Spartan Race is a beautiful metaphor for life and it's struggles
• Knowing how much is too much, and preventing injury or overtraining
• Is it OK to train too hard sometimes and fail?
• What are some of the most inspiring stories that Joe Di has seen at Spartan?
• What are some practical tools and suggestions for increasing your endurance?

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Spartan
• Joe Distefano's TEDx Talk
• Joe Di on Facebook
• DiHardLife.com

Favorite Quotes from Joe Di Distefano:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman podcast, where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I just want to take a moment to thank this episode's sponsor. If you guys love learning about business, as much as you love learning about health and memory and the topics that we discuss on this show. And do you want to know how much money the world's top CEOs are making? Get some inspiration, get excited and learn some of their wisdom.

Then I strongly recommend you go check out the top entrepreneurs podcast by Nathan Latka. Just search it on iTunes. It is the show with the bright orange logo, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as you've been enjoying this show. All right, let's get into the episode. What's up super friends and welcome to this week show.

Before we get started, I want to read you a fantastic review from fangod in the USA who says, I've just started listening to this podcast and I absolutely love it. The guests Jonathan interviews are fantastic. The conversation keeps me listening to every word and I find it incredibly inspirational.

Fangod goes on to talk about how he or she is being in a little bit of a rut for the last three years and that our podcast has actually helped pull him or her out of it. He, or she goes on to say, wow, that's tough. He or she him or her goes on to say that the quality is great and they don't find any mention of the sponsorships to be overly annoying or obtrusive.

Well, I'm really, really glad to hear that. And thank you so much for the review. It really, really brightens my day. Makes it all worthwhile. On to today's episode, today we are joined by the director of sport initiatives at Spartan Race. Now, if you haven't heard of Spartan, you very, very soon will. They are a company that started a movement all over the world, hosting events and training seminars and doing all out extreme obstacle races

that are designed to push people to their absolute limits. I'm talking about nine hour endurance races, carrying weights, carrying partners through fire, blood mud, water, you name it. Spartan is not only a sport, but also a community and a philosophy. There are trading a nutrition program and they're offering daily advice, a podcast, books, activities for kids, workout gear, you name it. More recently, and the reason I say you're going to be hearing a lot of them. They've actually been put on NBC and they're going to be having their own TV show by the same folks who produced American Ninja Warrior. So very big stuff. Very exciting. 

Now, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes my biggest challenges when it comes to athletics and also mental challenges are around when it gets tough. When I give up on myself, I bargain, I compromise, or I convince myself that I can't do it or don't need to do it. So that's why in this episode, we wanted to talk with one of Spartan's best and brightest trainers on that topic, on the topic of mental tenacity or grit or pushing through it.

Now, as someone who's helped create some of the world's toughest sporting events and an acclaimed personal trainer, our guest today has quite a bit to say on the subject and I am sure, that you'll take away, not only a huge dose of inspiration, but also some actionable principles and tools that you can use to sharpen your focus and increase your mental tenacity in all of life's many challenges.

Now, if you like that and you want to develop another powerful and life-changing mental skill, then I'm obliged to tell you about this episode's sponsor, which is. Me. It is my online course. And the reason I do this podcast and the way that I got into all this subject of human performance, which is the Become a SuperLearner course, it teaches you about speed reading.

It helps you triple your memory capacity, triple your reading speed and get you to the level of the Elon Musks and the Tim Ferriss'. The types of people who can sit down with a book and learn everything they need to know about a subject in hours. Hours, not weeks, not months, not years. So we do offer a free trial of that course, and I do recommend you guys check it out.

And of course there's a 30 day money back guarantee. So to take advantage of either the trial or the money back guarantee or whatever you want to do with it, just visit jle.vi/learn. And you will get a lovely discount for listeners of the show. And now, without any further ado, let me present to you, Mr. Joe DiStefano, also commonly known as Joe “DI”, Mr. Joe DI welcome to the show. My friend, how you doing today? 

Joe Di Distefano: Life is good, Jonathan. Just hanging out in Colorado Springs for a few days. Oh, that's awesome. What are you doing there? We've got a race this weekend here at Fort Carson, and we have some really special guests at that race that if anyone's doing the race, they'll be excited to see.

I'm not sure if this will air before or after. So I guess I could probably talk about it a little bit, but it's a very, very exciting time at Spartan race. So Colorado is going to be a really monumental event this weekend. 

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. So before we get into that, Joe, tell us just a little bit about yourself. I tried to cover it in the bio in the beginning of the episode, but tell us about yourself and tell us how it is that you came to do what you're doing today, flying all over the country, all over the world and doing these races.

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah. You know, it's an interesting story, I guess I think that my biggest tactic to kind of get to the position I'm in today has just been, kind of, never allowing myself to get comfortable in any particular situation and always trying to raise the bar. So it was kind of interesting. I just spoke at my college recently on this very topic and the couple of presenters before me were really, I ended up throwing out what I had planned and just completely winging it because, all the presenters before me were like, 

I knew when I was nine years old, I wanted to be a pharmacist and, you know, like all these kind of really cool, great motivating kind of stories. But for me, it was like, my sport didn't even exist six years ago. You know, I definitely, when I was 10 years old, wasn't like, man, I want to be an obstacle racing guru and travel around the world, teaching people how to climb walls and ropes, you know?

So it's been just this kind of story where, you know, I went to school for exercise science got really obsessed with the body and performance and kind of hacking health and, uh, my own story I won't get too into it, but I've had some kind of catastrophic injuries myself have fractured my skull and gone through rehab for that.

And Spartan, when I was kind of navigating my career, I started getting involved with these events and pretty soon got close to Joe De Sena who founded the event company. And it just really resonated with me having been through, you know, both this chapter of my life, of being obsessed with human performance and this chapter of my life, where

I didn't know if I was going to have be a 30 year old vegetable. So, um, coming back from looking at Spartan and then kind of putting people into positions where they have to battle back, whether, you know, they got to kind of fight the odds, they got to kind of get out of their own head and kind of just do something amazing.

It really resonated with me from kind of both sides of my own story. So that's it, man. I just kind of followed my heart and yeah, I guess that's kind of a summary for you. 

Jonathan Levi: Was your injury sporting related? I mean, have you always been an athlete?

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah, I've always been athletic and I played baseball. That was my primary sport growing up.

Yeah, I played a little bit of all the other sports when I was after high school and getting into college. I didn't play any college sports primarily because of my head injury, but I was really into running in college and I really got close with a professor of mine at college that really motivated me.

And I didn't believe that, you know, a human body could do much more than a marathon when I got to college. And he was this guy who at the time was in his late thirties. He was a college professor. He was running a hundred mile events on the weekends and, it would just blew my mind. And pretty soon I was like, of course I could do a marathon, man, this dude, you know, he's older than I am.

He's running a hundred miles. You know, if I can't do a marathon, I'm pretty pathetic. So it really shifted my frame of reference, kind of using him as both the guy who educated me and also motivated me to kind of get involved into endurance sports. So endurance sort of took over my college years and to be honest, I completely over-trained myself.

I did my first 70.3 half iron man. And within 36 hours had gotten rid of my bike and swore I'd never get back on it. And honestly, I took two years off completely and just got really into more, getting back to kind of weightlifting and things like that. And what was interesting is that was from '07 to '09 and 2010 Spartan started.

So I had been recovering from this two year hiatus from endurance and kind of gotten strong again. And then all of a sudden there was an event that I needed to be strong and run. So it really, it was just a magical, like, it was just, you know, I call it the flow. Like sometimes life just throws these things your way and you just got to jump on it, just go with it.

So that's my story. Fantastic. 

Jonathan Levi: So that brings us really nicely into Spartan and Joe De Sena. I tried to figure out from the website, what you guys do, but to be completely honest, I had a really hard time summarizing it because it seems like you guys do so much from the online stuff to the events, the trainings, the movement, the nutrition, the everything.

So help me understand really what the business is and where your actual focus is.

Joe Di Distefano: Absolutely Jonathan, you know, and, and that's a hilarious point you bring up and it's true because we want to be everything. We want to be this lifestyle brand. Right. We feel like the Spartan, like, just look at our logo.

It's amazing. Yeah. You know, when Spartan started as an event company that's still the primary business, Joe De Sena experience and iron man trap on a hundred mile runs and, and all the other events that he did from eco challenges. And he did so many different types of events. He wanted to create a situation, an event company that put people into situations that could help them kind of watch themselves do something magical and empower themselves.

And what we found really quickly is that our brand just resonates with people. And that's why we have so many different offshoots of this company, because we want to be there for people no matter how they want to leverage our spirit, our values and what our brand kind of means to them. You know, it's funny, the first event that I ever taught for Spartan was in 2011. 

Andeveryone in the audience had a Spartan t-shirt on. And at the time merch wasn't a huge thing for us. We didn't sell it online. We had only put on five events ever. And somehow these people had got ahold of t-shirts. And what was crazy is out of the however many people were there only seven or eight of them had actually ever done the race.

And so right away, I was like, man, these people are going to kind of go to the end of the world to get a t-shirt. With our brand and they haven't even participated in the actual event. So what does that mean? It means people just, they want to rep this logo because it means something to them. Even more than this event company, it kind of transcends running through the woods.

It's just a symbol of a stronger, more tenacious spirit. And it's something people really kind of lean on to get them through hard times, whether it's family, friends, or whether it's their jobs or whether it's, building the courage to start a company. And so over the years, we've kind of wanted to allow people to do that and kind of facilitate in any way we can means of them doing that with our help.

And so our brand, our company, our business will always be the race. That'll always be our primary business. The offshoots are less. Business ventures and more just giving people what they want and helping support their missions, because that's the ultimate goal of Spartan to just to be this lifestyle brand that facilitates growth personally, professionally, and in any realm that people need it.

Jonathan Levi: That's awesome. So I'm curious, you know, I'm a big CrossFitter and so it's another kind of brand of, well, I guess, lifestyle brand, if you will, the facilitating these kinds of extreme workouts, how is Spartan different from say CrossFit or P90X or Insanity or, I mean, what are kind of the unique values that make Spartan such an important and such a strong brand?

Joe Di Distefano: In terms of the differences between our fitness offerings, like our SGX program and our obstacle specialist program and all the events we teach and all the content we create. There's a very large line between CrossFit. P90X and Insanity and the things that we do. So if you kind of consider us as a humanistic brand that, you know, we think we believe, you know, if somebody, a million years ago was living off the land, hunting their food, rubbing sticks together, and building shelters, that guy, that gal she's going to crush a Spartan race.

If we could kind of just transport her him right into 2016 and drop them into our race in Colorado, they'd probably win. Because they've got all the things that we want to create. If you think about CrossFit and I hope this isn't taken the wrong way. I mean, I'm wearing a CrossFit t-shirt right now, me too, actually CrossFit, P90X, and Insanity let's kind of start there.

Those companies are really into kind of hacking fitness. Like, let's see how fast I can get fit, or let's see how little time I can spend exercising and still get tremendous benefits. And that makes so much sense in our world today. Right? We all want an easy button. We all want a quick fix. And so those brands have really kind of leveraged that in tremendous ways and really empowered people and showed them that, Hey, you know, if you've got nine minutes, you can do a lot of good in those nine minutes.

One of the things with Spartan, that's probably the biggest differentiator is we are training for a specific event. So these mental and physical adaptations we're seeking in these training programs that we create, they're going to be put to the test, right? So our training programs, it can't just be like a house sweaty and sore.

Can I get in this amount of time, but how can I prepare my body? So that it's number one I always tell trainers, you know, your number one job is do no harm. Don't get hurt and training. You're going to need those shoulders to cross and traverse monkey bars, ropes, and walls. You know, we can't do six weeks of overhead lifting, leading up to a Spartan race because your shoulders are going to be put into really obscure positions that are high risk.

So. Injuries happen primarily because people bring, you know, sweaty and sore type training into an event that's, you know, designed to be a really intense challenge. So in other words, if your workout is your competition, then when the real competition comes, you might be a little bit fatigued or not actually at the optimal place that you could be for that.

So if you look at our training, it's very methodical, it leads up to an event. But the other thing is from a humanistic standpoint, We like the quick workouts, we like the M wraps and the Metcons, but ultimately we still want people getting outside for hours at a time. So we want people and during, because you can learn a lot about yourself and your tenacity in a really short, high intensity training session, but you know what, when you're out in the woods for nine hours, that's a whole another chapter of tenacity and learning about who you are as a person. 

You know, I can do an insanity workout in front of my TV before work. And I love that people are doing that and using that to get fit, don't get me wrong. That's why I'm here.

I want people to get healthy and fit, but when you think about, there's just a different spectrum of lessons to be learned. Right. You know, hanging with Joe for nine hours in the woods will teach you a different lesson than a suffer fest. If that makes sense. 

Jonathan Levi: So I want to get into that actually because I think that's, that's the main thing I'm really hoping to take away here is talking about,

this mental tenacity, especially, you know, we don't have a lot of endurance athletes on the show. And so I want to kind of get into this and, you know, I've heard about this 40% rule and this idea that, you know, even when you feel you're at the absolute limit, you're only actually 40% as the Navy SEALs talk about.

Is that true? First and foremost? I mean, is that actually how it plays out? 

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah. You know, I'm not going to be the guy to say the Navy SEALs are lying, so it's absolutely true. It is absolutely true. People our, the kind of the way that we live right in the apps that we have, you know, we've used GPS so much, most people haven't taken a wrong turn and a year or two years or three years, you know?

So we are capable of so much more than we realized. And every day that goes by that we don't test ourselves and that we don't learn something about our capacities. Those capacities diminished. So we ended up so far from our potential that that 40% thing is probably dead on accurate, right? Yeah. It's probably even worse in some circles of the general population.

Jonathan Levi: So how do we access that? I mean, as I can tell a Spartan races from what it sounds like, are these essentially designed to push people beyond that 40% is what it really sounds like. So tell us about this mental tenacity and tell us a little bit about what it actually takes mentally. I mean, forget the physical, like mentally, what does it take to complete one of these races and how does someone get there?

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah. So mentally, you know, it's just about putting one foot in front of the other and living in the moment, right. Doing what it takes. So once you cross that start line, there's no turning back. And so you just need to be in a situation where you're prepared to put one foot in front of the other until the end.

So a lot of that, and a lot of that ability, a lot of the ability to be tenacious and the ability to not give up. When, you know, you get hit with a firehose crawling under barbed wire for 200 yards. Is going into the event with the right expectations. So a lot of people are like, Oh, I'll never run a Spartan race.

You know, I can't even run a 5k. Well, Not many people are quote unquote, running a Spartan race. Most of them are, you know, some of them are altitude like the one this weekend and you're climbing a black diamond ski mountains. I don't know many people that can run, you know, whether it's a 5k or a 10 K race, not many people are going to quote unquote, run that entire session.

So you're going to go March through the woods for as long as it takes, you're going to suffer. You're going to get through it. But you know what, when you cross the finish line, you're going to learn a lot about yourself and what you're capable of. So I think going in with the right expectations. They're going to, it's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

You're going to wish you didn't do it. You're going to want to turn back. You're going to wish the bucket was lighter. But, you know what, when you cross the finish line, you're going to feel something that you've never felt before. And you're going to be able to leverage that strength, whether you choose to do another race or whether you take it back Monday morning, to sit at your desk and think about what you're doing. 

Either way, it's about going in with the right mindset, which again, through training and hanging out with the right people, joining the right Facebook groups, if you have to, that's where it starts. 

Jonathan Levi: Wow. So that's helpful because I have to say, I really struggle with in my own fitness and workout regimen. I mean, I know that I can probably push myself much, much further, but then you get into that moment, you know, you set out with the best of intentions, but you get out into that moment,

things get really hard. Your outlook turns to shit. And suddenly you start saying like, well, is it really important for me to be first? Is it really important for me to finish in under an hour? Do I really care? Can I really do this? And it's almost exactly like when you wake up every night, you tell yourself I'm not going to hit the snooze button tomorrow and then morning comes and you're like, nah, it's cool.

Like, I can just sleep till seven. I really don't need breakfast this morning. Right. So I'm wondering like, you set out with these good intentions, but in the moment when things really get tough, what is it that you're telling yourself and how is it that you're pushing yourself forward? 

Joe Di Distefano: Absolutely, Jonathan.

So, you know, it starts with experience and we teach this to our SGX coaches at our certification, you know, you have to build to a Spartan race, right? So in other words, if somebody fresh off the couch, which so many of our coaches clients are the first couple of weeks of their training session, they're not mentally or physically prepared,

to push their limits to the max. What they need in the first couple of weeks to get their confidence under them and to build some trust in their coach is they need to succeed in everything that they do. Right. So we want to give them challenges that are completely achievable so that they build that confidence.

And the trust in the person that's pushing them. Once they get past week three or four, and let's say we're still seven or eight weeks out from the race. Now we're going to kind of build them into situations where they got to fight for it a little more. And yeah, in the few weeks before the race, we're going to start really putting them to the test.

So I think that starting where you're at and understanding that it's not that half the population that happened to be fit. Get out of bed in the morning and just say, you know, I'm going to set a personal best every single day, or, you know, I'm going to do this. People have all the same thoughts, but those that continue have experienced more often than not success.

And so starting where people are at and ensuring they experience success and get that feeling. Is going to help them push through when they are put to the real test when they do fall off the monkey bars and have to do 30 burpees for the third time and this hour. So I hope that makes sense. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.

I mean, it has to do with kind of, I think I've heard Tim Ferriss talk about it. This idea of early wins reinforcing with early wins sets up the kind of chemical situation in your brain that encourages you, that puts you on that gives you that oxytocin, that serotonin makes you feel good, makes you feel right, so that you can push on forward.

Joe Di Distefano: Absolutely. That's dead on accurate. 

Jonathan Levi: So what happens in your mind when you fall off those monkey bars? And you're like, God damn it. Another 30 burpees what's going on in your head? Like, how are you boosting yourself up after, you know, something so tragic like that? Cause I've been there. I've been there.

Like I've been at that point where it's like a hundred double unders, you know, anytime you get stuck, start over and you start over for the third time and you're like, Man. You're getting real angry. 

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah. Yeah, you are. But you know what? Spartan race. I hope people kind of see Spartan race. It's a metaphor.

You know, sometimes I get in morning traffic and I got to sit there and I gotta deal with it. Sometimes you spill your coffee or you step in gum or you're getting a fight with your boss, loved one, whoever. And so there's always a process when there's an quote-unquote obstacle, when there's an obstacle in our life,

there's no free lunch, there's no easy button, right? We got to do what it takes to get past it. We can't just pretend it didn't happen. And so the burpee to me, that's dealing with our problem. We fell off the monkey bars because we didn't train our grip enough, or we didn't do this or that. And now we're paying the price.

So maybe I, you know, I'm going to practice more next time. And so I think suffering, like I think Lance Armstrong just, he just ran our race in Texas a couple of weeks ago. And he posted that he did 180 burpees. So it's the sort of situation where, fitness guy on the planet, you know, and well, we won't get, we won't get into the whole Lance Armstrong thing, but one of the fittest guys in the history of endurance sports fell off the monkey bars and did this to that.

And 180 burpees, it was a no pun intended, 180 degrees switch from cycling. So he's got to now go back work with a coach, do whatever he needs to do. Get his grip a little bit stronger. Start working on those mountains, whatever he needs to do. And so it's a learning lesson and you know what, the only thing wrong with falling off the monkey bars is if we don't do something about it to prevent it next time.

Right. So if we did 180 burpees this race, Hey, I'm going to try to do 90 next race. And then I'm going to try to go 30. So I would say that we just need to get out of our own head, do what it takes to get past the obstacle and, and think about and reflect on it, to see how that made us stronger. 

Jonathan Levi: You know, I got to admit, I sometimes am guilty of rolling my eyes when people apply the sports metaphors to life, like you got to cross the finish line, you got to do this. 

Especially in business, I think it's become so cliche, but as you speak, I really see so many metaphors and so many lessons that we talk about on the podcast all the time. I mean, being present in the moment, accepting the situation for what it is so you can conquer it, you know, coming prepared, and then learning from failure.

These are all things that I've talked about on the show and in lectures that I've done publicly. And I think it's really, really interesting, to see those parallels in a way that is really not cliche. 

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah, man. It's very stoic of us. Yeah. 

Jonathan Levi: So say you are able to increase your mental strength up to that point where you can endure just absolute hell.

You can push yourself past the limits. You're out there nine hours, you've done 180 burpees. How do you then know, when you're approaching the level of danger. How do you stay safe and make sure that you're not actually going too hard, that you're not going to pass out, that you're not going to injure yourself or do permanent damage to your body.

Joe Di Distefano: Okay. So there's kind of two fold. So like you said, it's, um, experience is the best teacher. You know, some people, if you start too soon, you know, you decided to run the world championship as your first race. You're gonna suspect that you're going to get hurt pretty quickly. And chances are, you know, that could be a potentially dangerous situation.

So I think ultimately if you starting to feel pain, are you starting to do this or that you're shivering for the last two hours, whatever it might be. You know what, at a point you have to use your common sense. Experience is the best driver of common sense though. I still got to reflect and kind of lean on just proper progression, start with a sprint, you know, not much can go wrong during a sprint.

Right. And if you've graduated from the sprint, you go to the super and you know, a little bit more can go wrong. But if you've gotten through the sprint, you're going to have a good frame of reference of what it takes to get through the super, and then you kind of step up to the beast, you know, so I think proper training and progression registering for the proper event.

And then, however, if you think about, just again, this kind of humanistic evolutionary approach. Occasionally I, and I hope this doesn't get misconstrued I'm into pushing that limit. So putting yourself into a situation that might be, once you've earned it, you've experienced all these different things and you've grown, I think, putting yourself into a situation where you can kind of dance with the devil simply to shift your frame of reference.

So there's a few examples. It was like actually last year at Taya was probably a good example. You know, I ended up with hypothermia by mile 11. And that was four miles to go. And like, I shivered for four miles. I did the first 10 miles. And what was it? Two hours in something and the last four miles in another two hours it's downhill.

So it was, you know, so it was almost like a, just to complete suffer fest, but I just wanted to get through this event and, you know, I knew that I wasn't going to die, but I was definitely not well. And there are situations where I'm not going to try to push myself and PR and this event, but I am going to do what it takes to suffer through it and finish because I want that feather my cap.

So I think that it's again, I got to keep leaning on experience and common sense, right. But I think it is important that people do occasionally get out of their comfort zone and do something that is a little bit silly. I did 400 pushups recently with somebody and it was dumb. Like that was just ridiculous to try to do that as fast as we possibly could in strict form, my chest was misshapen, but you know what?

It shifted my frame of reference. And honestly, I think it made me stronger, but here's the big takeaway. I was able to do 400 pushups for time in proper form because I brought healthy shoulders to that event. And undoubtedly, I did some damage to my chest and my rotator cuffs to my shoulders, but because my rotator cups were in good condition from proper training, I didn't get an actual injury.

So this is a kind of theory that I have. That I teach to our coaches and I, it might be tricky on a podcast, but consider this, there are 60 to 80% of the population right now. Professional athletes to average Joe's walking around an impeded in no pain that had disc bulges sometimes at multiple levels that have torn rotator cops and they're still performing.

So their rotator cuff is, it is hurt, but they don't know about it. There was a quote from one of the MLB guys that was like, if you want an excuse to operate on a throw her shoulder, give them an MRI. They're all torn up, but some of them aren't in pain. So if you think about that, we're walking around with injuries.

If we push ourselves to the limit, we're more likely to get hurt. But if we've got a solid training program, that's kind of minimizing the effect of those injuries. We're more likely to be able to push ourselves to live without injury. If that makes sense. So it's all about the training plan. Totally. 

Jonathan Levi: And, you know, as you were speaking, I was just thinking there are actually a lot of situations where our paleolithic ancestors came upon challenges that simply were impossible and they probably tried anyway, you know, you take down a Wildebeest, you and one other guy, try and carry it,

it's not going to happen. Right. It's not possible, but there are certainly a lot of situations in which we pushed our bodies past the limits. I mean, that's why we have progressive overload. That's why our bodies are adaptogenic. So I think that is really interesting. This idea of actually occasionally facing challenges that you really can't do.

Joe Di Distefano: Absolutely. And you know what that is still in us. Our ancestors did that, Jonathan, but you know what. I talked about this in my Ted Talk. I was walking down the street with my three-year-old niece and she tried to jump a 15 foot long puddle. Right. She landed six inches into that, but you know what? She saw no negative outcome from trying the impossible. We're born

with this instinct, but you know what now we're like, Oh, you know that guy going to think I'm a loser if I try to jump over this puddle or getting splashed by myself, or, you know, my office is going to judge me if I bring a salad to work or if I take the stairs or if I keep a sandbag at my desk. So it's like our preoccupations of stress us out and sort of hampered our instincts.

And, uh, there's no good that can come from that. Yeah, 

Jonathan Levi: I got to admit, as we're speaking, I'm looking at photos of Spartan race and it just looks like people escaping the Gates of Hell. I mean, these people look like they're just, they're just having it, man. Just crazy. Joe, tell me one of the most inspiring stories that you've seen of mind over matter during your time at Spartan.

Joe Di Distefano: Man, like Jonathan and we're privileged at Spartan and just, we have stories like this every weekend. It's just amazing. 

You know, just cancer survivors coming out, formerly obese folks. We've got, you know, our wounded warriors that come out. They're probably the most inspiring we've got team extreme and a few other groups that are former military guys that, you know, they're missing limbs there.

Paraplegics and they're suffering through the race, just like everybody else. You know, they're climbing the ropes with one arm and no legs and it's, you know, as soon as you see something like that, it's how can you complain about walking through a challenging event, right, right. With both feet underneath you.

So we get our frame of reference. Even at Spartan, we get knocked every single weekend and we meet people that just inspire the heck out of us and push us to keep going. So there are a hundred stories right now, but there are just so many people that do this. Let me just say one thing is that one of the things that I really love doing at Spartan is something we call the sweet peat.

Which, you know, let's say it's getting dark and you know, it's getting late and we know that we've still got people out there. We'll bring out, we'll go out with a team of a handful of people and we'll quote unquote sweep the course. And what we'll do is we're not going to sweep the course. We're not going to tell people you got to turn around.

It's too late. It's too dark. We'll bring headlamps out and we will get through the course. We will suffer with that last racer till that last person. Crosses the finish line. And that is where you really learn what it takes and how to inspire others and how to watch somebody do something they never thought was possible.

So anybody out there that does a Spartan race, if you're kicking around at the end of the day, grab a blue shirt, someone that works for the event with a radio on their chest and, and asked to join the sweet peat. And, and that's just an experience that I wish everyone could experience at some point, because it's oftentimes a very inspiring couple hours.

Jonathan Levi: Incredible. Joe, get into some practical tools that people can apply to kind of trying to gain some of this wisdom and some of this incredible power that you see on a weekly basis. Are there any practical tools or tips that you can offer for our audience if they want to train our grit and tenacity so that they can start to prepare themselves to overcome such a challenge in their own lives.

Joe Di Distefano: Absolutely. And we kind of touched a little bit on this, but I think aim small, miss small. You know, if you think about insanity as an example, like somebody and I've pushed that program to so many of my buddies that, you know, they reached out to me and I know they need something quick and fast, but if you think about it, if somebody is not currently physically active or they're letting their career kind of get in the way of their training or their nutrition, and they're kind of just making different decisions in their life and they want to do something and make a major change now, jumping out of, you know, out of the gate and going one to a hundred, it's just not sustainable.

You know, that's how you do great for 10 days and then miss three, or you do great for 10 days and then miss 30. So again, aim small, miss small. If you're deconditioned or you're not eating properly, don't start by adding, you know, a $10 green juice in the morning and then still having pizza at dinner.

Don't add, remove. So remove the problem before you add a solution. So if the problem is drinking or the problem is eating out, or the problem is lack of exercise, remove those problems. Start walking more, quit smoking, do things that are going to improve your current situation without trying to add a hundred percent, 180 degrees shift in your lifestyle.

If that makes sense. And the other thing too. So we have a program that we used to run called the Spartan 30, and that's exactly what it was about. So let's not tell people to go from the couch to five days, a week of high intensity exercise for the rest of their life. Let's say, Hey, you know, what do 30 squats.

Every morning before breakfast this month. Forget if you do nothing else throughout the day. That's fine. You did your 30 squats aim small miss small, do not miss a day. There's a new pushup thing. 22 pushups a day. Do your 22 pushups. Forget everything else. Build a foundation walk 10,000 steps. Take the stairs.

Quit smoking, quit drinking. See what you can do. That's really low barrier. Learn from it. Achieve it. Succeed. Like we talked about and build from there, but don't try to go one to a hundred because it's just not sustainable. 

Jonathan Levi: Love it. And that's super practical and super applicable. Joe. I think that covers, I wanted to ask you, you know, what one piece of homework would you assign to our audience, but I think that covers it nicely.

Find this one thing that you can conquer, even if it's a small thing. And then go out and do it this week. Would you say that's the homework assignment for the episode?

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah, man, that's definitely only the homework assignment. Remove the word, try from your vocabulary. Don't try anything, either do it, or don't. You know, everything in moderation.

I've had the biggest problem with that over the years. And I guess in some instances of our life it's okay. But generally speaking, go bigger, go home. Don't try to do everything, sort of. Don't try 50 things and see how well you do. If you're going to do something, do it at a hundred percent. If you're going to live life live at a hundred percent, if you're not going to do something, don't do it.

So I think that if there's another take-home for folks it's removed, try if someone asks you to do something and you're tempted to say, I'll try just say yes or no. Awesome. 

Jonathan Levi: I love it. Joe, if people want to learn more about you learn more about Spartan race, where would you like us to send it?

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah. So first place to stop is spartan.com.

We've got just a plethora of information there. If you want to follow me, it's facebook/coachjoedi, and on there, you can find links to my website and my Instagrams and all that stuff too. But my Facebook is kind of my home base. 

Jonathan Levi: Awesome, Joe DI. I really appreciate it. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you and chatting with you. And I do hope we keep in touch. 

Joe Di Distefano: Yeah, Jonathan, thanks so much for having me, man. A pleasure. Take care. 

Jonathan Levi: Take care.

All right Superfriends, that's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

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Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.