The Hard Way With Joe De Sena

Entrepreneur and athlete Sami Inkinen, along with his wife, rowed 2,750 miles over 45 days without using any of the traditional “athlete foods” conventional knowledge says are essential: sugars and carbs. They didn’t starve, far from it. They came out of it healthier than can be expected from such an endeavor. Why? As fit as Inkinen is, he developed prediabetes by following the standard diet and surmised that sugar was the culprit. If someone like Inkinen is vulnerable, we should all be aware. Inkinen recounts his amazing journey from California to Hawaii.Lessons: 1. The key to success is anything is a growth mindset: Don’t go through an experience, grow through it. 2. Sometimes you have to face a challenge as if you were eating an elephant, one piece at a time, slowly, as best you can. 3. The only way to escape an unpleasant experience is to embrace it fully, not fight it.

As Outside Magazine Editor, Mike Roberts has access to the stories of the top outdoor athletes in the world and to their wisdom as well. He's seen Kelly Slater, "the Michael Jordan of surfing," heal his life through the zen of the water, and age gracefully through his sport. He has also seen top climbers act boldly, but with a skill honed through the culmination of years of dedicated practice. Through these stories we can garner how to be a better human, how to risk without risking it all, how to truly be alive and not just live. Lessons: 1. In tough times you can either be afraid or think "what an interesting time to be in" and seek creative solutions. 2. Use the lessons that you find in pursuit of your passion in the other areas of your life to help make you a whole person. 3. Excellence in sport doesn't necessarily have to waver once you reach middle age: for one thing, you often gain the wisdom to keep going, to learn to suffer a bit better.

Spartan pro Isaiah Vidal, through the rough circumstances of his life, took the road less traveled to success: He saw the troubled path of his father and didn’t take it. Sons often repeat the mistakes of their fathers, how did Vidal manage to turn things around? In a nutshell, it was a combination of will, determination, and an orientation towards positivity as well as turning towards other strong role models in his life like his mom and grandfather for inspiration. Their influences, as Vidal will describe, laid the foundation for his transformation.Lessons: 1. When proceeding with your life, think of the legacy you want to leave, the example for your children to follow. 2. Take measures to guard against negativity in your life. 3. If you want to get back on your feet, first you have to get off of your ass.

No one should ever wish tragedy into their own or other’s lives, but it has the potential to lead to some incredibly beneficial life changes. Chris Kresser transformed a decade long struggle with a rare chronic disease into something that benefits society. He was able to restore himself to health and is now doing the same for others. His main piece of advice, “eat real food,” is deceptively simple until you look at the food trends in American culture and realize that the majority of the people the majority of the time are doing no such thing. It may be the single most important thing you can do for your well being. Kresser explains why.Lessons: 1. To stay focused, create a pointed mission in life; do everything that delivers you towards that mission, eliminate those things that don’t. 2. In order to accomplish your goals, you have to be a whole person: if you don’t optimize your physical and mental well being, then you’re not much help to others. 3. Eat real food. Maximize nutrient dense whole foods and minimize those that come from a box, bag or can or use sugar, white flour or seed oils.

Jay Jackson is the subject of Joe’s ultimate wrestling story, but you’ll have to wait to the very end of the episode to hear it. Jackson,assistant principal and wrestler, recognizes a need to nudge students into uncomfortable situations that will develop their grit, but that are often absent in an increasingly bubble wrapped society. He got his grit from his parents. His father, as a wrestling coach, would push his physical boundaries and his mom had clever strategies to develop his social skills. Jackson shares some valuable advice about how to advance towards your goals with a smile on your face.Lessons: 1. To raise your children to be resilient, practice pushing them out of their comfort zone gradually through time, but not without building a solid foundation of security and love when they’re young. 2. Since a majority of your life is spent getting to a destination it is vital to find a way to enjoy the process. 3. If you can persist in every area of your life, physically, mentally, morally, you’ll succeed.

In world renowned ultra runner Dean Karnazes, Joe tracked down a real Spartan by both disposition and bloodline. Does he eat gruel for breakfast, take cold showers, and run wearing a hundred pounds of armor? Maybe. He’s run marathons in every state and is now setting out to do the same in every country. Certainly that falls within the same spirit. So you might be taken aback to hear that Karnazes tells us that we should set out not only to fail, but to fail big. His advice is backed up by a life changing experience that he will describe in this episode.Lessons: 1. To achieve great things take small steps and ask yourself at every step if you’re conducting yourself with discipline. 2. Never stop exploring: don’t be afraid to try new things and eventually you’ll discover your passion/s. 3. Fail boldly: the most useful lessons are learned from the most dramatic failures.

According to writer Andrew Marantz, if you want to have a fulfilling life, take the largely accepted wisdom “live each day as if it were your last” with a large grain of salt. On the road to success, merely satisfying every desire as it appears will get you nowhere. In a philosophical conversation on the Spartan Cruise Joe and Andrew discuss the the crossover between perseverance and success in artists and athletes, the importance of future memory, the strong drive towards innovation and a variety of other topics. They also attempt to answer whether human achievement is driven by chemical releases in the brain or something more complex.Lessons: 1. “Live each day as if it were your last” may be a misleading aphorism: There are clearly many things you must do to achieve long term fulfillment that don’t involve instant gratification. 2. The thing that often gives you the most satisfaction, your life’s passion, is paradoxically the thing you frequently don’t enjoy doing at all, but after all is said and done, love regardless. 3. On one extreme are virtuosos, those who strive for mastery, on the other are innovators, those who create change. We need both equally, and often we ARE both.

Growing up as the child of holocaust survivors, Broadway director Jerry Zaks, often found himself overprotected with his family wanting him to enter a “real” profession. At the moment he found his true passion and was happiest his family felt sorriest for him and that he had thrown his life away. But he had inherited from them a ferocious will to live that enabled him to take nothing for granted and propelled him in a vocation in which the odds are stacked up against you. Though not apparent on the surface, performers and directors are Spartans and in this episode Zaks will describe why.Lessons 1. Seek out the roles in which you best fit and then make fulfilling them a matter of life or death. 2. Getting the part, whether it be the leading actor or position in a dream job, involves translating your talent into behavior that’s unforgettable. 3. Protect the possibility of a happy ending for as long as possible.

Xand Van Tulleken, a doctor who practices in hostile regions, had a taste of the easy life growing up, but it did not sate his appetite for adventure. He has worked in such places as Sudan, Uganda and Peru and the excitement of the challenge has made it difficult to go back to a conventional existence. He and his brother have even started a TV show in which they immerse themselves in traditional indigenous medicine with no other recourse. The takeaway? Western medicine has a lot to learn.Lessons:1. When things go badly wrong it's because of indecisiveness and uncertainty, therefore, be prepared.2. People can live quite well without western medicine. It has little to offer to the indigenous way of life, for example.3. Some of life's happiest moments are in the midst of doing difficult things.

To say the least, Lewis Howes had a focused vision. He wanted to make the Olympics and figured that the best way in was by joining the national handball team. There was a slight problem, he never played the game. He brought his athleticism and Arena Football experience to New York City, practiced intensely and now finds himself tantalizingly close to his daunting goal after an incredibly brief quest. He has some sage advice for the longer road to greatness as well.Lessons:1. Live in the moment, in the flow and take tiny steps.2. The health and performance benefits of quitting, or limiting, simple carbs and sugar are a game changer.3. If you lack natural talent, you must seek out alternative means to gain an edge.