Whether you’re a runner, someone tackling a big goal, or just trying to figure out what it means to keep going, I think you’ll find something here to encourage you. Let’s get started.

Welcome back to Spirit of EQ! I’m your host, Eric Pennington, and I’m excited to invite you into a powerful episode that goes deep into the emotional journey behind running a marathon—and the life lessons we can pull from it.

I’m joined once again by my good friend and guest, J.A. Dava, who many of you might remember from his incredible insights on sales during his last visit. Today, though, we’re shifting from business to the marathon course, and trust me, the parallels to life are striking.

J.A. is a multi-marathon runner, and in our conversation, he opens up about his life-altering heart attack, what it really feels like to hit “the wall” at mile 22, and how the support of others—sometimes even complete strangers—makes all the difference.

We talk honestly about the tough moments, the battles with ego, those humbling setbacks, and what it means to rely on community.

I share my own observations—like watching my son-in-law run his first marathon and reflecting on how life sometimes feels exactly like those endurance miles: full of hope early on, then testing you when you least expect it. We cover the importance of rest, the power of discipline over motivation, and why your “why” matters for whatever marathon you’re running—on the road, or just in everyday life.

Moments

00:00 "Life-Saving Health Wake-Up Call"

06:54 "Marathon Missteps: Food & Hydration"

13:24 "Reflections on Marathons and Life"

17:23 "Mile 13: Keep Going"

21:09 Running Without Proper Training

31:21 Marathon Reflections and Achievement

32:20 "Persistence and Emotional Triumph"

42:14 Empathy Struggles and Growth

48:00 Success Requires Support & Preparation

49:23 "What Do I Really Want?"

57:28 "Prioritization Over Training Costs Result"

01:00:42 "Walking Away and Reflecting"

01:07:12 "Overcoming the Fear of Starting"

01:14:48 What's It Take to Be You?

01:18:20 "Evaluate Your Inner Circle"

Here are 3 takeaways you can apply to your journey—whether you’re chasing fitness goals or professional ones:

🔹 Progress Is Built Step by Step J.A. Dava reminds us that success, whether in running or life, isn't about focusing only on the 26th mile or the “finish line.” Break big goals into smaller actions and celebrate the mile 3s and 5s along the way.

🔹 Know Your WHY The “why” behind your journey matters more than the title, achievement, or even the bling. J.A. Dava ran his marathons not just for medals, but as a commitment to health and in service to causes he cares about.

🔹 Community Carries Us Forward Whether it’s an EMT helping you off the course or the supporters who rally when things don’t go to plan, we never truly “run alone.” The people around us—not just our grit—help us cross the finish line, in races and in life.

Coach J.A. Dava is a leadership coach, speaker, and co-founder of Latreia Coaching & Consulting, where he helps leaders, sales professionals, and business owners grow not only in performance, but in spiritual, relational, physical, mental, and philanthropic well-being.

With more than two decades in the mortgage and real estate industries, J.A. built his reputation by developing people, strengthening relationships, and helping professionals thrive in changing markets. Today, he challenges individuals and organizations to move beyond transactional success and pursue wholistic growth that produces lasting impact.

His life has been shaped by resilience, faith, and hard-earned lessons through adversity. By the grace of God, those experiences now fuel his passion for serving others, encouraging men and women to lead with courage, live with purpose, and stay grounded in what matters most.

In each episode, Jeff and Eric will talk about what emotional intelligence, or understanding your emotions, can do for you in your daily and work life. For more information, contact Eric or Jeff at [email protected] or visit their website, Spirit of EQ.

You can follow The Spirit of EQ Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Android, or on your favorite podcast player.

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Spirit of EQ

Mentioned in this episode:

SEQ Development Report

The SEQ Development Report is an innovative tool that combines emotional intelligence with one's spiritual life, distinct from religious contexts. The report helps individuals understand their connections with themselves, others, and their surroundings. It aims to identify areas in their lives that may need improvement and highlight their strengths, ultimately facilitating better navigation through life. To obtain the report, individuals need to contact Spirit of EQ via email at [email protected] and complete an online assessment that takes about 15 to 20 minutes. After the assessment, a debrief session is required to review the comprehensive information provided in the report. Spirit of EQ also offers further coaching to support individuals in their personal development journey.

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This podcast was created to be a tool to primarily help you to discover and grow your EQ. Science and our own lived experiences confirm that the better we are at managing our emotions, the better we're going to be at making decisions. Which leads to a better life. And that's something we all want. We're glad that you've taken the time today to listen. We hope that something you hear will lead to a breakthrough. We'd really appreciate a review on your podcast platform. Please leave some comments about what you heard today, as well as follow and subscribe to the podcast. That way, you won't miss a single episode as we continue this journey.

J.A. Dava, welcome to the show.

Oh, my goodness. Well, glad to be back, Eric.

Well, as our audience may remember, we had you on. It was probably about a year ago, and that focus of that conversation was sales, sales and more sales. So, yes, audience, J.A. is a renaissance man, because today, why I have him on the show, we have him on the show is we want to talk about marathons. Jeff, I know that some might be wondering, okay, are you guys changing the format? Where's the eq? Right. Well, we'll probably figure out how to work that in some way somehow during this podcast. Well, let me give you the backstory, everyone. So Ja is a multi marathon runner, and if I remember right, ja, it's been. You've done 12 marathons.

You're attempted 12 marathons. How's that?

So humble. So he. He's done this for many years, and I've known JA for probably 30 years, so I've kind of been around in the audience for him as he's done these. Not. Not in, you know, in the presence of when you did it. But it, it really got me thinking about the parallels of running a marathon and life. And probably, Jeff, if we wanted to insert some of the EQ stuff, we could say consequential thinking, weighing the cost and benefits of the choices you make. But we talked Ja a bit some months ago about, no, maybe this could be a good episode because I think you could really bring to light what goes into it.

What, what, what are you thinking at mile 22 type stuff, and then weave in how there is, I think, a really strong comparison to it, because in many ways, I kind of look at marathons like life. They're these extended races that we're in. Right. If we're fortunate. Right. We get to live 75, 80, 85 years old or whatever, but along the way, all the twists and turns. Right. So, Ja, I want to start off with talking a little bit about your history with running marathons.

What was one of the things that made you want to do it? Because it's. It's pretty daunting to run a marathon.

Yeah. I'm not sure I ever really ever wanted to run a marathon. In fact, you know, I'm, as a gymnast, I did track and field, sprints, hurdles. But to run a mile, two miles was something that I never enjoyed.

Was it boring?

Well, besides the fact that it was hard for me to.

That's right. Right.

You know, so it was just too long.

Too long. Yeah.

And. And so really, running a marathon was never something that I thought I'd ever do. And somewhere in. In the process of life moving forward, I never thought I would ever have to ever be a runner until. I think it's April 1, 2008. Okay, I had a heart attack. I was 43 years old, and I remember being told that I had a 99.5% block left artery, which is what you call your widowmaker. And then.

And the doctor told me that the chances of you ever doing the kind of things that you do, you got to get rid of the weightlifting thing. You know what guys do? You know, we think we got to lift weights. And so he said, we're done with that, and I need you to start concentrating on cardiovascular work, because right now, you're lucky to be alive. And so they thought they were going to do a little bit of bypass surgery while they were trying. They didn't think they could get the angioplasty, the stent in there. And anyways, to make a long story short, they put me out because I was getting ready for the bypass. And I woke up, and I had no stitches. I had no opening in my chest.

And they said that one of the doctors was able to get the angioplasty in and apply the stent, which saved my life, honestly. And I remember him saying, you're gonna feel like a brand new race car. Remember him saying that? And I thought, okay, well, race cars are nice. It's a brand new one. It's even better. And so within two or three days, I couldn't believe that I was breathing as well as I was, and I felt great. I mean, you know, concern about the plug that I had. So I had to heal from that.

But shortly after that, he told me, walking and jogging are going to be your normal exercise from now on. So I started walking and jogging. And you're right, Eric, both are boring, especially if you have to put that into an exercise. So I started running, and then I decided that I wasn't interested in doing it. So I thought, what would keep my respect and interest into something like that? Let's just go straight to a marathon. Let's train like a marathoner.

And you don't ever have issues with overachievement, do you?

I guess not.

You know?

Yeah. People are saying, why not a 5k? Why not a 10k?

Right?

You just thought. It just seemed. I don't know, it wasn't going to keep my attention very much. Right. And I had to do something that was respectful. And maybe it was the athlete in me, maybe it was the ego in me. And I thought, you know, let's do the impossible. And a friend of mine had gotten leukemia, so I started researching out leukemia and found a group called Leukemia Lymphoma Society.

And it was at that time that they had coaches and I could fundraise and someone could tell me how to run for free, which is I liked, you know. So I started training with them and did my first marathon a year after surgery. And I've done 11 since. Complete ones. Erik.

And we're gonna talk about the 12th, which I think is the attempt.

The 12th is the attempt.

And actually, for you, Jeff, for our audience, that one is the one that really kind of moved me to kind of press Jay about coming on the show, because there were some really fascinating things that we discussed that I wanted to share here. So in that first marathon, you know, I've always heard that there's a certain mile marker where you hit a wall. And is. Is that. Is that a true thing, or is that just something I heard and it's kind of an urban legend?

No, it's a real deal. And I trained well on that first marathon. But how well do you train when you've never run a marathon?

Right.

But I trusted my coaches and everything else, and they told me that there are certain things I need to be doing, like drinking and eating while running. And I had convinced myself that it's not even something I do regularly. I don't drink a lot of water. I don't eat a lot of food, you know, especially when I'm exercising or anything like that. So I thought, right. And I somehow you're going to find everything on the Internet that someone said, oh, you can run a marathon without eating and drinking, of course, during my four hours. Now, if I were a professional and finishing it within two hours, that might be the case. But when you're out there four hours, which my goal was four and a half hours, that I thought I could do that.

And so I decided to train that way without eating and drinking. And then at the marathon at mile 22, I hit the reality of what a wall is. And that is when every bit of you hurts. There's nothing fun about it. There's nothing good about it. It just. Everything hurts. Past injuries come back.

I mean, it's. Your body is giving up, and it's deciding which part it's going to take care of, and you just collapse. And so I did. I collapsed. Mile 22 is when I started to feel it by mile 25, which is in Columbus, right about where short of The Buckeye chocolates were going to be. I collapsed. And I remember an EMT guy coming up to me and saying, is this your first marathon? And I said, yeah. And he goes, get up now.

Because you're never going to be able to get up and finish this thing. You're. You're. You're literally feet away from Buckeye chocolates, which will help you. And then you're a mile from your. The finish line, the finish line. So get up now. And he.

I remember him picking me up and dragging me kind of, in a way, and I started walking and got to the Buckeye Chocolates, which was great, and finished the race, but that was the wall. I hit it about 22, died at about 25.

Yeah.

Was able to finish it.

What do you think it would have been like if that EMT hadn't have shown you that level of, I don't know, compassion, empathy or whatever.

Emotion? Yeah. Eq. That thing that fits right in there, doesn't it? Yeah. No, I wouldn't have finished it. I would have been done. Because I did. I mean, when I sat down, I sat down. And I now know what that felt like, because once I crossed the finish line, I remember sitting down.

I remember getting done and not walking it off because I had nothing left, right? And so I sat down and then I tried to get up to try and walk to get to my car to go home, Right? And I couldn't do it unless I had, like, a cane or something like that. And it was just really pathetic. But so.

But I put that in there because of the idea that obviously, in the United States, anyway, at least my perspective is that we have such a. Like, I can do this. Right. And we forget about the power of community, whether it's community in large. Right. Or community in a single. We don't get there by ourselves. And in the end, the story is much more inspiring when we are in this with others.

Right. That's for sure. Did you expect that you were going to hit a wall? Did anyone tell you that beforehand?

I mean, people told me about the existence of the wall, and people told me that, you know, are you trained? And. And I. I honestly believed. I believed in my coaches, which I know they did a great job.

Right?

It was. It was the decision not to eat and drink throughout the race that. That did me in. But, you know, I didn't think I would hit it because I was training as such, and I followed everything. I was meticulous about it because I had no idea how to run it. And, you never trained for 26 miles. The longest you'll ever train is 20 to 22 miles.

Why is that?

I don't know. Create another heart attack? I don't know. But I mean, it's, it really is.

But I asked that question, Jay, with, with some bias, I guess, because my son in law just ran his first marathon and he said to me the same thing. He never did a run past like 18, 20 miles.

Correct.

And he, he went through a training program.

Correct. And supposedly what it is, and I know this now, is that your body takes such a damage when you're running beyond that half marathon mark and all the way into the deeper, further miles that your body takes a beating. And so part, some of the most important parts of a marathon training is rest. And it's when you rest that it's fixing itself. Right. So the body's phenomenal and. But so running the 20, you're no longer really trying to work on cardiovascular as much as you are repairing yourself. And so once you can run 20, you'll be able to run 26.

And that's really the layman's term of being able to say that it's no longer about air. And whether or not your body can handle that kind of cardio work.

Is it almost like you've crossed a threshold so from that point on your body is prepared to continue on for another? Yeah.

I've read about the people that do Mount Everest. Yes.

They go up to the base camps.

But they wait, they just, they learn.

How to get that far.

Yeah. And it's their body with the oxygen.

And everything, when they finally make that final push. And that sounds like that has some very strong similarities.

Yeah. And you know, and it's a really good point because it's a breathing thing. Right. It's an air thing. And that's kind of what it was when I collapsed. It wasn't about shortness of breath. It wasn't because I couldn't breathe anymore. I had nothing left.

My body gave up. I mean, I was sore. Like I said, I was sore everywhere. I have a knee injury from 1984 that hasn't bothered me all my life since 1984. And I felt it on that day. I felt it fierce, like it was something that had come back. And I think it was just the body deciding to give up on certain areas to take care of certain areas of. That's what I've heard about the people.

With Everest, that their body just starts eating itself, basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Boy, what a powerful, powerful thought. So I Want to touch a bit about your marathon experience with the Marine Corps marathon in Washington, D.C. but first I want to share with you a little bit about some observations that I had that really piggybacked on some of the conversations we've had in other environments. J about marathons in life. So I mentioned that my son in law just completed his first marathon and he had went through the training process as well, and he had issues with his IT band. And he. When we went to see him run this marathon, he had said, yeah, I haven't been training for like the last month or so because of the injury to the IT band. And he.

He was going to do it anyway. I mean, he wasn't like injured to the point where I, hey, I gotta drop out. But I was determined, like when we were. Because our process as the spectator supporting cast for him family was, you know, we were gonna go to like mile 5, mile 13, and then at the finish line. So when we were at mile five and we had the tracker thing, right? You know, where you can follow where the specific runner is at. Okay. So you can kind of see. So we walked to this spot and of course, there's a sea of runners.

Right, right. And for our audience, keep in mind that I said mile five, there's just a sea of them. And J, I'm watching, it's like, there they go, there they go. And then there's some of these running groups where someone's holding a. I don't know if it's a pacer thing.

It's a pacer thing.

Okay. And there was even, believe it or not, two guys that were like, they looked like the men in black. You remember the black suits and the white. Yeah, it was so funny, but it was this exuberance, right. And then I thought, this is kind of like life in the beginning. When you're starting out, you're super excited. There's nothing you can't do. There's nothing that's not accomplishable.

Right. And you've got all this energy. And it was on their faces, too, Jay. And I would have loved to had you there. They're exercising their optimism. That must be it.

Yes.

Hope and possibility.

That's a great way to move. Right?

But there's that part of me wishes you could have been there, because I would have turned to you and I said, hey, do you see the looks on their faces and the way that their strides, you could tell the energy was there. And then after most of those people had gotten by, my daughter says, hey, we got to Go. Because we got to meet him@mile13, and this was a pretty large city that we were in. So I just. As we were going back to the car, I was thinking, I wonder what the excitement, the enthusiasm, the optimism will be at mile 13. I was thinking about, you know, we go through life early on thinking we can do it. Nothing's impossible. But then life comes in with surprises for you.

You just mentioned it, right? Hi, my name is. Heart attack. Here you go. I have an autoimmune disease. Yes. Here you go, Eric, this one's for you. And sometimes it's. I know.

For me, it was rather dejecting. Like, wait a minute, you mean the rest of my life? I gotta change this and change that? And then we get to mile 13, and I'm gonna stop there because I do want to inject the Marine Corps thing at mile 13. Jeff, not that many runners. There were. I would say, maybe a better way of saying it. There were no. These big, like, groups.

They were more spread out. More spread out.

And there were elite runners in this marathon. You could tell that, too, right? Because, like, just some of the speed that. I mean, I'm like, this guy's probably going to be one of the top finishers type thing, right? And I'm going, what happens when mile 13 comes in life? Do we slow down? Do we maybe not find our options to be as numerous as they were at mile five? Right? And who do we have around us that will support us? Who will be our EMT or T's? Who comes to you at mile 13 and says, you got to keep going. You got to keep going. You're going to be able to finish this, but you got to keep going. Just another step. You can slow your pace, but. Or how many decided.

I don't want to do this last thing, guys. I. I was sitting there, standing there, and I'm going. I started thinking about my brother, and I think, Jeff, for our audience. I've mentioned my brother before, Jay. You know who he was? He was a heroin addict and died that way. And I started thinking about him.

Did he exit the race?

And I started thinking, well, no, you can't exit the race because it's life. Or maybe do we find other things to help relieve us from the reality that life Has a mile 13 now? For him, it was drugs. I mean, that was his choice. But he was still in the race, but not going to finish because he decided it was too much. And I don't have the answers for all of that, but it got me thinking. Who's around us, who's our community, who's our one, who's our three, four, five? And what happens when we don't. I think if we don't, all those demons, all those stories we have in our head start to become real. And when they become real, really hard to escape that.

So I'm setting all that up to say. When we were talking about the Marine Corps marathon you were telling me about, it was more than a wall. You had an injury. And can you tell our audience what mile was that at? What happened? Describe that situation.

Yeah, you know, so like life, I think you need to continue to practice, right? You need to continue to train. You need to be in shape for life itself. And after 11 marathons, I was getting to the point where, well, first of all, I want to say that I've never enjoyed a single marathon ever. Why I continue to do it. It's a life thing for me because it does keep me very much enthused and to stay in great shape. Right where what caused my heart attack was. I let my health go. And so, so in so many different ways.

That is, that is why I do marathons. People say, why not do 5Ks and 10Ks? It's a mental thing. It's like I don't respect it enough, so I probably wouldn't do it consistently. Marathons, you better be consistent. And in this particular case, this was really interesting because when I started training for it, I said to myself, I'm pretty busy right now. This might not be the right time to train for a marathon. And I thought, no, we're going to do it anyways. But I let certain things go during training.

Like I did my long mileage, which is on the weekends, but I didn't do one ounce of speed runs, any kind of fart licks or any, all the things that builds up your muscle side of you in runs. I never did any of that. So I would just get on a treadmill and do my, my midweek runs. And then on the weekends I'd go out and run. And I thought that was good enough somewhere in the process. In my 20 mile practice run, I did something halfway through that, which I've never felt before, which is something in my Achilles area, heel, Achilles calves, all that whole area started to hurt. And I continued to push on and was able to finish the 20. But shortly after doing the 20 mile training, getting home, I absolutely could not move that area because it was hurting.

And so I thought, okay, this is not good. So let's, let's read up on it and I read up on it and I thought, okay, let's go ahead and ice it, let's stay off of it. You've done the hard work already. You can just get on the bike. That's what all the things were telling me online. So I thought, we can still do this race, but I just won't be running anymore until the day of the race. So I would just be on a bike and all that. And I did that.

And I felt good. In fact, it felt great. It, you know, getting to the starting lineup, I was, I felt wonderful. I mean, I hadn't run yet, but I felt great. And that was about three weeks that I did that injury, three weeks before the actual race itself. So I got to the line feeling pretty good, feeling like I haven't let my cardio go. So I felt great. So we started it and started running.

And again I'm in Washington D.C. running through monuments and all the great areas. The Marines were phenomenal. They're the ones. We were in a part where time of our lives right now, where there was a government shutdown and so the normal police and everybody else were not the ones policing the so called marathon. It was all the Marines and they volunteered. So instead of canceling the event, they went out in force and were out there and they were just phenomenal. They were great.

And so ran, ran, ran, ran, ran. Felt pretty good the whole way through. Somebody told me to do the walk run scenario. Two minutes of running, one minute walking consistent throughout. Good for Achilles problems. You know that I wouldn't stress that. So I thought, let's do that because it's all about finishing. We had done fundraising for it.

Yeah, I was going to ask. I thought there was a fundraising element to it.

Yeah, we were doing it for our veterans. How fitting for the Marine Corps Marathon.

Yeah.

And raising the funds to raise service dogs. The money for service dogs to be awarded to veterans in need. And it takes 25,000 to 75,000 to award these dogs and these veterans who have to stay in line for it because there's a massive need for them by the time they get to that level where they can get the dog, usually can't afford it.

And so it's an economics issue.

So it's an economics thing. And I was working with John Owen Mann foundation to get that going. And so it's a lifetime commitment on my side. Any runs I'll do, I will raise funds for it. So a couple thousand, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, all adds up one by one, by one.

Yeah.

And so that, that was the goal. And so, you know, when, when we got up there, I knew I was running it for that reason. And if I can do, you know, I'm never going to win a marathon. Just not going, it's not in the books. I'm a four hour plus marathoner. And so, so when we got up there, the two one walk run scenario was great. And, and guess what? For the first 12 miles, it was phenomenal. I mean, I felt great.

At mile 12 is when I felt the tightening, right, the tightening of like my calves. And, and so then it started to tighten up on the Achilles. The same, same leg, left leg. And so at about 12 and a half miles, just shy of the half marathon mark, I decided to go off to the side and stretch it out just like normal. I would do that anyway. Started to stretch it out. And it was during that stretching that while I had my, you know, stretching my Achilles area that I felt like somebody had put a cowboy boot on and kicked me right at the Achilles. I mean, that's what it felt like.

I mean, it just felt like something hit me. Like it even had me looking to see what just hit me. It was just that kind of pain. It wasn't a slicing pain, which is what a lot of people describe it as. Mine was a very dull but hard hit. And I thought, oh gosh, that cannot be good. So the normal athlete ego side of me said, get up, walk it off. So I said, okay, let's walk it off.

Shake it off. And so I did that. Got past the halfway marathon mark, the half marathon mark, 13.1.

Yep.

And it was shortly after that that I knew I couldn't go any further, so I needed to really get down, massage it, you know, it wasn't just a matter of shaking it off. And so did that. Got up again, made it about 30ft. Now I'm pretty close to the 14 mile mark at this point. And I just collapsed in the sea of people that you're talking about because, you know, and, and so again, this time, not an EMT guy, but more of a police guy comes over to help me up, to get me out of the way of everybody that's walking around me and said, are you doing okay? And I said, I don't think so. I think I'm. There's something wrong. He goes, tell me about it.

And he goes, I think you ruptured. You probably split your Achilles. You probably tore your. Tore it completely off. And I went, that's not good. He goes, no, you Won't be finishing this race. And so he had me to the side. He called up the EMT guys over and they did their searches.

So they had great news for me, which was they said, you have push ability, which if you severed your whole Achilles, you can't do it. You couldn't do that, right? And so they said, so something's the good thing is it's there. But the thing is, is that you barely have a push, you know, so you're not gonna. We're gonna cart you in and you're not gonna finish this race. Number 1 you2, time wise, you won't finish this race if you have to deal with this. So we need you to just go to the tents. And there they further evaluated it and said, I think you've got torn tendons in your Achilles. I didn't know what that meant then.

I didn't realize there are actually three tendons in your Achilles area. There's the Achilles, and I forget what the third one is called, but the second one is called the tibial posterior, which is a supporting tendon. Anyways, they evaluated and said, yeah, we don't have a boot here, but we're going to give you crutches. You can't be on that or you might tear it. So I got on that, got home, and when I got home, my doctor confirmed that I didn't tear it all the way through. That's great because in fact, your Achilles, you were probably compensating for that. But if I can just push in this little area, he said, I think I might know what's really causing your pain. And I said, okay.

And he pushed just inside of my ankle. And I think if I could scream like a banshee girl, I would have for sure.

He too took off like a rocket.

Oh my gosh, it was so painful. And he goes, yeah, it's your tibial posterior that is probably really damaged. He goes, I don't think it's torn. In fact, he said, it isn't torn fully, but this is where it is. So he put me in a boot and he didn't want me in that boot very long, Eric. He wanted me off of it, but he said, you running is going to be done for a while. It's before January now, and he wants to see me again in January and then. And I feel pretty good right now, but you know, he wanted me stay off of it until January.

So obviously there's an emotional comp. I can get my words straight in my brain component here in as much as that you did this for a fundraiser. I know this. Even though Jeff and our audience don't. I know that part of your fundraising was sort of connected to you finishing the marathon.

Correct.

What were you thinking when you realized it's not going to happen today?

Well, I'd love, I'd love to say first and foremost that it was about the fundraising that kept me going.

Yep.

I think that's part of it. But honestly, my own ego got in my own way because I was. I really was trying to still figure out if I could even finish it in crutches. Right.

Interesting.

And. And part of the reason why is because, first of all, when you tell people, because I'm out, I'm out there, you know, I was. Because of the fundraising. I was on social media. I was, I was, I was reporting during my training runs.

Oh, I remember seeing the post.

Yeah. So in each training run, because that's, that's when, you know, really, it's a great time to let people know, hey, I'm committed to this thing. Join me, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

And so. And really, I've never not finished a race ever. Right.

So this is the first.

This is the first.

Wow.

And as much as I don't enjoy marathons, like I said, I don't think there's anything fun about a marathon. I think there's an accomplishment made when you do end up there. And talk about emotions, I cry every time I finish a marathon. That's how, to me, it's an impossibility. And I just get all teary eyed about it because crossing that finish line, knowing full out that less than 1% of all peoples will ever do that, is pretty phenomenal for me, considering. And so now I'm thinking to myself, I can't go back and tell people that I didn't finish a race that I worked hard for and that they partnered with me for. And, and for that matter, I want my bling. I mean, you know, and if you ever, if you, if you knew me full, full go, and you would watch my podcasts and my videos at home in my office are a bunch of medals.

Right.

And those metals, when people say to me, because, man, you know, those are some great metals and stuff like that, the bling to me. And so it might be contrary to what most people think, it's not such an ego thing as much as it is a reminder that I can continue on and on and on and on and on. I can still go, go, go, go, go. But in essence, that becomes an ego thing. Right? Because emotionally, there's no quitting in me. So emotionally, I want the tears at the end of the whole thing. Emotionally, I want to be able to go back and tell everybody, you guys are my heroes because you joined me in this run and we finished it together. I mean, there's so much play there that when it started to tighten up and the thought of not crossing that finish line after 11 of them, especially during the 50th Marine Corps Marathon, and that the Marines were out there on their own.

Right. And I don't know, it just, it was, it was a painful reality that I had to. But then something clicked, and that is, do you want to do this forever or do you want to do this ending right now and tear off your full Achilles? If that's really what's happening.

Interesting.

You know, wow.

So what do you think you're going to do with your ego now going forward?

Wow, that's a loaded question. I have no idea what to do with the ego. I think if you could do something.

Really, my ego is now going to.

Oh, man.

Have a secondary ego to take care.

Of the first ego. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah.

One thing for sure, Eric, that I, I, I will say, as far as the ego is concerned, is that walking off that race, walking off that race, one that really meant a lot to me because not only was it the Marine Corps marathon, which was my second one. Right, right. That was my second Marine Corps Marathon, but that it was for fundraising and then it was so public. Right. That I was running that, that I'm so glad in so many different ways that I did walk away. Because it proved to me that the result of walking away, the things that I worried about, how people would feel, all those kind of things, it just didn't exist. In fact, so much so that the people that actually, that I honestly worried about or got concerned about, ego wise, were the first ones to say to me, I can't even believe you did that. And I can't believe you ran on that thing for 13 miles.

I mean, it was the right words. Not once ever did anyone come up to me to even question my sincerity. Not one of them said something like, you didn't finish, so do I get my money back? You know, I mean, little things that you kind of let creep into your own mind when you're thinking about all these things. And then, and for that matter, I, I haven't gotten that kind of support. I didn't get that kind of support when I finished the marathon. I got more support walking away from that marathon and the encouragement that I received from that to the point where, I don't know, it has spurred me on to continue on.

Yeah. And though I asked that very loaded question to you, I think you kind of illustrated just in what you just said about what you want to do going forward. Right. And you didn't say it directly, Jay, but it sounds like to me that you understand that there's. There's a vast amount of. There's multifaceted things related to the things that we do that aren't just about. It's not singular. You know, it is about, well, what happens when I can't do it, when it's like, this one's not going to go.

Right. And we could equate that to failure in business endeavors or something. We've tried that didn't work out, whatever the case may be. I know for me, early on, post corporate life, the idea of failure was. I mean, I had a major fear of it. And then when I knew it was coming, I was bracing myself as if I'm about ready to be shot out of a cannon to hit. And as I look back, I go experiencing that, and the few times that I did experience it really helped me to understand. It's like, dude, this is not about how can I have an undefeated season.

Yeah.

Maybe that's because we live in the land of the Buckeyes, where we get spoiled with all of the winning we.

Learned over the weekend.

Yes, we did. We did. Humility. But it's interesting to me because I ask you, would you say that it's kind of injected more humility into how you would approach races going forward?

Yeah, without a doubt in my mind, Eric, and I don't even know how to say this without sounding like it's contrary to what I'm saying, that humility is something that I kind of pride myself on, you know, I mean, I don't. I don't sit here and brag about things that I've done, just like those medals behind me. When people ask me about the metals behind me during my show or, you know, when I'm doing webinars and things like that, and they asked me about those medals, and there's a good way to show off, you know, like that. And I'm just like, no, you have no idea. Let me tell you why I have that on there, right? It's because I want to continue life. Right. And that's what it reminds me of. And so humility is something that comes in so many different ways.

And, Eric, I will Tell you, Jeff and Eric, that fear of failure is exactly what I defeated that day of the marathon. The fear of failure forever. I have feared the same thing that you just said. I don't think I've ever. I try not to let myself down. Right. I certainly don't want to ever let anyone down. And so everyone could be people that are praying for me, people that are cheering me on, people that gave money to the run.

And so failing myself, failing them was even more painful. So there was like this real big fear of failure and walking away from a situation like that, because that's not the first time I should have walked away from a marathon. I remember running the Raleigh marathon and I didn't train for it well. And it was the hilliest marathon I've ever done. Mind you, I'm never going to win a marathon. I've said that before, four hour marathons. I, I don't have anything to prove, you know, and yet I couldn't keep myself from not finishing that race. And I injured myself badly on that race, but finished it, but injured myself and again took a while before I came back on again.

In this particular one, though, this would have really shattered my ability to even run again. It could have threatened whether or not I would run again if I would have fully torn it off. Yeah, but it was the fear of failure, man, that, that, that absolutely was the one that was crippling. And I didn't want to walk away because I would have to face that whole thing that I failed somebody. Right. I failed myself. And so is that a humbling situation? Yeah, I think it is a humbling situation. So deeper, humble.

It's deeper humility, because now there's nothing wrong with. And it's not even failure. There's nothing wrong with walking away if there's a furtherance that is still in mind. Right. So in other words, if we're going to take it even further later down the line, there's. There has to come a point where you say to yourself, this is no longer beneficial to myself, to anybody else. And for later down the line, interesting.

He's kind of quoting Kenny Rogers.

Is that, Is that a song? Really?

Oh, wait. The Gambler. No.

When to hold him? No.

When to fold him.

Well, there you go. That's right. That's right.

Okay.

Music.

Yes, there's reference. See, we did tell you. We did warn. So what's interesting to me too, Jay, I did a solo episode for the podcast and I was talking about our EQ assessment, and you probably remember one of the Competencies in our assessment is empathy. And for our audience, you'll get a deeper dive in that episode, but ultimately at a high level. Ja, that my scores in the empathy were always the lowest of all of my scores in these categories or these competencies. And I used to wonder, like, I can't believe I'd be. That would be my lowest, you know, because in my head, I'm going, I'm a really empathetic person.

And some people said I'm an empath. But the dirty little secret, I'm great at giving Ja and Jeff empathy. Not real good at giving Eric empathy. I typically tell Eric to sit down, but Ja, you call, what can I do? Where are you at? How can I help? And as you know, and Jeff knows, and quite frankly, at this point, our audience knows, my son Grant was in a horrific car accident about a year ago that just. You want to talk about scorched earth, and you were with me, close to me, through that time. So this is not news to you. And I think in many ways, Jay, that experience led to this most recent assessment I did where my empathy scores were, like, the second highest. I mean, if you could see the picture of the tube side by side, you'd see a dip.

Wait a minute, what happened? And I would say that. And it kind of injected in me this idea that, you know what? I don't need to. I don't need to tell Eric to sit down. I don't have anything to prove. I mean, I almost lost my son. I think that takes me to a place where I can, like, cut myself some slack. I want to always hold myself accountable. But I can also, like, guess what? You don't have to every time.

You don't have to go undefeated. That's not part of. That's not a have to. We need to remember that we're just human.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give ourselves the break. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if you had to, you mentioned some things that you learned through the process. Right. And I'm going to kind of pivot to the idea about training. Right. And you did touch on that at the beginning in depth. But I always find it interesting, and I. Ever since I knew you, when you started, I mean, I can get my words out. I've known you for 30 years, so when you started doing the marathons, I was around, so I always was fascinated.

It's like, wow, it's such an example. You've got to prepare. There's things you've got to do in order to be in the best place possible. When you. When it's race day. But I've always found it fascinating is that human beings and I can only speak about what's happening in the United States as a reference point. Point. We don't apply that same energy to our lives, whether it's spiritual, mental, emotional, physical.

Right, all of that. Yeah. So I'm not going to go into the. Jay, why are people not doing. No, no, no, no. I want to go take a different tack. Right. So what would you recommend? And.

And that you could take a lesson from the training part of it and apply it to life. So maybe an example would be disciplining yourself to get up at a certain time in the morning to begin to train. Could that be applied to disciplining yourself to praying, disciplining yourself to reading? Treat your reading as like it's. You're preparing for a marathon of reading.

Yeah.

You see where I'm going?

Yeah.

What would you. What comes to your mind? And Jeff, I want you to chime in too, your thoughts on that marathon.

Marathon training. First of all, if I can do a marathon, anybody can do a marathon, period. I mean, that's just. I can't even begin to say that enough times because I think a lot of people have decided to give up on that. You know, that whole idea of keeping yourself in shape. Does it have to be a marathon?

No.

If you've never done a 5k, do a 5k. Coming from somebody who never did a 5k, if 10k is it, if half marathon is it, or if full marathon, it is either way, no matter what. And I believe that this is exactly the thing that I've really learned about the full marathon is that you got to give yourself a time frame. You can't say, here's my goal for life. It's way too much for you to have to go through that. There's a time frame to train properly for a marathon. For me, it's four months. Four months to a four hour marathon.

That's pretty much. That's a book, by the way, but that I, I subscribe to it.

Right.

So four months to a four hour marathon. And so I see the, the picture. I see the beginning, I see the end. And then in the process, I break it down to what the full picture looks like. And I break it down into what it looks like weekly, monthly, weekly, daily, to the point where I know exactly how many runs I'm going to be doing. I know exactly when, you know, why I'm doing that stage and where I should be at a certain stage. And Then in so many different ways, you want to then consider all the things that you can't plan for injuries. Right.

And so that's where, to me, faith comes into play. The whole idea of praying is, I think, half the marathon and I think half of life, you need to be praying because you can be the best planner, and things can just change that drastically.

Shall we cue Mike Tyson's advice? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that's.

You know, especially if he was the one doing the punching.

Yeah. And I mean, and every step of the way, and there's so many components to not just the training itself, but now you're talking about the rest aspect of that, which most people don't think is part of training. It's the nutrition that's supposed to come with that. It's the being wise about it. In other words, reading about the subject matter and the things that are happening to you, why it's happening to you, you need to research that out so you can work on your body itself and ask him for absolute help. There's not one. There's not one single successful person that's ever done it by themselves, ever. I mean, you know, I've been challenged with that.

Some people have come back to me and said, oh, well, this person has succeeded by themselves. That's not true. That parents to do it with. They have wives, their spouses, everybody that comes into play, you know, successful people, and do it by themselves. And that's the same thing with marathon. And I believe that's the same thing in life. It's the same thing in marriage and everything else that you know. So, yes.

And you have to take it. Everyone can run a marathon. Everyone can be a husband. Everybody could be a wife. Everybody could be a single man. Right. And everyone can do what it is that they want, but you gotta know that there's a way to do it.

So that's an interesting point you make there at the end, because I was listening to a podcast, and this particular guest was a. A psychiatrist, and he was primarily talking about brain health and the ways to help the brain be healthier, all that stuff. But he said something that I thought was pretty. Pretty powerful, and you just kind of touched on it. J Is. He said one of the most important questions someone can ask themselves is what do I really want? And I'm on the plane and I'm listening to this, and I'm going, you know, that is a very profound way of sort of setting your course right what do I really want? If I say I want to be. I want to be a great husband. Okay, Jay then hands me, well, here's the training program to be a great husband.

If I say, jeff, I want to be a great musician, I want to be a better musician, then Jeff says, here you go. Here's the training guide. I think in our culture, we don't do that. We just utter the words, and it's just kind of pulled out in the air because of course I want to be. Of course I want to be. But we don't value the input. I mean, when was the last time someone asked you, Jay? Yeah, I know you finished the marathon. That's great.

But tell me about that training when it was, like, 20 degrees out in February. What was that like? Maybe you have. But I don't think a ton of people really have a lot of interest in that part. Yeah, but I just think that what is it that you really want?

Because if you say that it is the why, Eric. It is the why. And, you know, it's the same thing that again, you know, why do I have those metals behind me? And why do I like the bling? You know, a lot of people say, oh, you love just getting to bling once. Yeah, I love getting the bling. I mean, let's just call it for what it is. I love getting a bling, but I think for the wrong reasons that most people. For not the same reason as they don't. Most people will think, yeah, when I get that bling, it means that I'm that much further ahead than when I could have been buried six foot under in 2008.

There's a different kind of meaning to your blame.

Yes, there is a whole different meaning. And to some people, sometimes I explain it, sometimes I just don't, because I know people's intent was not correct anyways, and it doesn't deserve to be answered. You know, like, to show them off, Right.

Oh, wait a minute.

Yeah.

You were misunderstanding.

Yeah. And I mean, and so. And honestly, in life, right, Eric, and you know me well enough that, you know, that part of, you know, I'm privileged to be a coach. But so much of my coaching has to do with what life has brought on, Right. And I went through a portion of my life where, honestly, Eric, high school. I was Mr. High School. I was everything that a good high schooler should be.

President of everything, letterman of everything, good student, you know, good grades, gave the final speech and commencement. All of that kind of stuff. All that stuff that you think you should be so proud of. Right. I mean, most of us would think that way. And I hardly ever really talk about those times. And part of the reason why I don't is because what was happening in our home at that time, and you know for a fact that I very. I had a father who is a very abusive religious guy.

Right. And so won't go into the details on that, but the reality is that it was so abusive at home that I did every. I couldn't turn to drugs. I was too much of a germaphobe for that kind of stuff. So instead of turning towards the wrong things, I went heavy into the things that I could be great at at school. And so when I accomplished them, the why was not right. So when people ask me all the time, because, man, how come you never really dig into that stuff? And, you know, aren't you.

And you.

You. That should be like your medals in the back, you know, are all those kind of things. Yeah. But the reason why I accomplished all that is because I was running away from something else.

Yeah.

I was 100% running.

How much did you enjoy that time?

Yeah. None. None of it. Right. None of it. And so, you know, and so the why has to be the right why. And so I think when people say, I want to be the best father. Why.

Yeah. And I think that is awesome. And, you know, I think about my corporate career was spent in many ways, like you described. On the face of it, it was like, look, look what you're doing. Look what you've got. All the rest. And I'm sitting there going, you have no idea how bored I am. You have no idea that if I have to sit in another.

But I didn't have very many people. You did. I do remember a couple of times where you kind of gave me the cocked head. Like, really? But even with you, Jay, I was not going to allow you to get that. Because this was about validation. This is the thing that I have to do this. I'm starting to realize long further down the road that it's much better for me to know what I want now. I'm saying that from the inspiration I get from the Lord and his directing my steps, crafting what I'm going to say is what I want.

But the more important part within that same context is what am I saying no to and being okay with it, you might ask me tomorrow, hey, let's do this together. But if it's not what I want, Jay, I owe it to you to say, that's not what I want. That's not a fit for me as it would be with Jeff or producer Brett, whoever it may be. I'm robbing them of finding someone who would be a fit by me pretending that it is.

Right.

And I guess I'm going to come back to the training thing. What would you say is maybe one or two things that can be a block or a hindrance to putting in the work to train for? And again, I want to use that correlation with life as well.

First of all, I'll be. Now, hindsight wise, we're always better at that. Is that laziness can get in your way.

Okay, so let's unwrap that a bit. So is laziness. I mean, I know the term and I know the idea of someone who really is slacking off, if you will. Right. But it could also be laziness is while the Chargers are playing the Eagles tonight. And I know I should probably study, but I really want to watch the game. So I'm going to watch the game and I'm going to just push that down the road or push it to another day. Is that a form of laziness? Is that.

It is very much so. A form of laziness. I can tell myself all day long how busy I am, how busy I am, how busy I am, how busy I am. Because I am very busy, right? I know I'm very busy. But I also know that part of being busy is the other. Well, beings of life have got to kick in. And one of those things is the physical side of you. You can't just sit at your desk forever in a day because you're busy working and not taking care of the rest of it because then you'll get injured at mile 13.

And so because I'm so busy, there were times during the week where I said, yeah, I can blow off that run and I'll just do it tomorrow and tomorrow never comes. And then next thing you know, I'm picking up the workout where it's supposed to be rather than making up for the workout I did not do. Because then I'm just like. So when you look at it, did I do the full 100% training that I should have done? No. In fact, if I really look at it, I probably put in 75% of the work and that laziness. And so, yes, to your point, it wasn't because I was lazy sitting around eating bon bons all day, but lazy because I prioritized against the hard work of running and it cost me at mile 13.

I know that, wow, that's a mic drop. And I'm going to explain why it was a mic drop. It may not be obvious to you or the audience, but, Jeff, you go ahead. There's. We did an episode not too long ago about practicing and things. I use the example of when I.

Was very, very, very serious bowler.

What I was doing wrong was I was practicing the easy parts, which was getting the strike.

And I had a guy I was.

On a team with, he goes, you're doing that wrong. You need the spares, the ones that aren't fun. And I think that's, you know, when playing the bass, which is more fun to do. You're not getting off that easy, Jeff. Okay, go ahead. And our audience may remember in that episode, Jeff has bowled a perfect game in Bolt. Mr. 300.

I carried 210 average for several years and stuff.

See some modest.

But, yeah, this.

This friend taught me.

Okay, when you go to practice, it's easy. Throw, strike, strike, strike.

Oh, you're great. Then you don't get a strike and you miss that easy spare.

That's how you go from a 175.

Bowler to a 210 bowler.

It's that last little bit of the hard stuff is what gets you over.

The hump of what you want.

Yeah, yeah.

The reason I was saying that what you just said was a mic drop is because I think about that in our relationships and our tendency, maybe it's a human thing where we kind of go, yeah, I know that I should probably take my wife out on a date. I know. And you know, next week, I know I should reach out to my daughter and let her know that I'm thinking about her, that I'm praying for, that I love her. But you know what? I got a meeting in the next 10 minutes. I got to get ready for that. And then to your point, that day becomes next week, that becomes next month, and this, our beloved audience, is not to shame anyone. Like, hey, if you haven't done that, you should do this. I'm mentioning it because today is the day we're not a long distance company commercial.

Yeah, yeah. And honestly, you know what so wise about what you're saying is that because, yeah, I am absolutely sharing what some of the bitter realities are that I've had to face since the moment I walked away from that, because I'm. I'm still dealing with the strength of having walked away from something. So when I sit here and I say, yeah, yeah, I got over that. And probably one of the best things I did was to walk away ever. I can say that all day long, but there's still a little voice in me that continues to say, man, you should have finished that. Can you imagine what that story would be like? You know, I mean, so you buy into all sorts of different things, but, you know, it is all those things. It's made me look at what some of the things are that we do, that we do to ourselves and in.

In life. Work, relationships, spirituality. Right. I mean, been there, done that. Where I'll pick up that Bible. I should have been reading that today. I didn't. So I.

I'll get it in tomorrow and I'll just double my chapters tomorrow. And then tomorrow never comes. And next thing you know, I've got to now do the whole book. And that's not going to happen because I don't have the time. And so now I'll just find. I don't know, maybe I'll just listen to a podcast of somebody speaking the word into me and never pick up the word again and second guess the word ever again. And so in life, in work and everything else that we do, it's the same thing and the pattern is the same.

You know, I'm believing more and more, Jay. That's why we need to have a shorter list than we do. We need to really. And I'm speaking to myself here, right. Is like really evaluate what's on our list of things. And I'm talking about the big things, the priority things, because I think it's the same deal where we can take these five core things, if you will, or four core things, and before you know it, four becomes eight. And then if you got eight, you think, well, I can do 10. And then it just gets blurred.

It's just like this mixed up recipe.

I'm just.

You're just basking in that wisdom, aren't you?

Yeah.

So washing over me. Thank you for that. And that check is in the mail. But I think about it. Ja. You remember, I'm sure you've probably listened to him, read his books. Jocko Willinek. Am I pronouncing his name?

Know him personally.

Okay. All right.

Was a client. Was a client.

Well, that. That, that's another.

Yeah.

Yes. I didn't know that. Yeah.

He was in the mortgage industry.

Oh, my gosh.

You probably don't even know that.

I don't know that.

But with a company called Prospect Mortgage.

Okay. All right. Well, I guess I'm learning more and more about you. You got all these secrets. I bet you were on A CIA admission.

Yeah, Jocko probably was for sure.

Right?

Yeah.

But one of the things I saw in an interview with him that was really inspiring and I'm. We might have shared it on the podcast before. He was being interviewed by Andrew Huberman, Huberman Lab podcast. And he was asking him about, well, what do you, what do you do to get motivated to. To do all these things that you're involved in and you're. And, and. And he just looks at Huberman man with this kind of, this blunt. I call it blunt or blank stare.

Like motivation. Yeah, it's not doing the motivation. Discipline. Now, I don't want to get up at 4:30, but I got to. And as much as that sounds heroic and strong and yeah, we can do it. For me, it kind of turned me toward the. This will help me because I don't no longer have to have this conversation in my head about, well, should I or shouldn't I? Well, do I want to or do I want to? I can just go, no, it's no longer a discussion. It's just.

You're going to do it.

Yeah.

And I think sometimes if maybe relationships. You mentioned spirituality, our work. If we could just maybe do a little less of the. Boy, it's awfully sunny out today. But then again, wow. I've always wondered. Just stop with the thinking and the. Just go ahead and just.

I mean, Nike, right? What's their thing? Just do it. Just get up. What else about training, Ja. Would you say is important?

It's not that difficult.

Ooh.

It just isn't. It isn't. And again. And I wanted to be able to answer that.

Well, that sounds like an oxymoron because most people think training. Oh, no, man, I'm gonna. But it's not.

It's not. When people say, listen, I know I got to run a 20 miler. That's the difficult part. That's the hard part. That's when you say, there's no way in heck I would ever run 20 miles. Sometimes I don't want to drive 20 miles to go get something. So why run 20 miles? But here's why I say. When I say it's not that hard.

I have four months to do this in. I start at one mile. And you know, and I do certain things that builds up. The first long run is like three miles. The following Sunday it might be five, but somewhere in between, I'm running little runs here and there. The 5 miler isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be because I built up certain things. And then mile three. You know, if you think about it, I started at my.

Like, my long run was mile three, and now I'm thinking about 20 miler. If that is all I'm looking at. If I'm looking at the 26.2 miles as, oh, man, I gotta run that. I gotta run that. I gotta run that. Oh, I gotta run the 20. I gotta run the 20. No, no, you gotta run the three.

Then you gotta do the little things in between, and then all of a sudden the five won't be as bad. And I'll be very honest with you at this point, because I've run a full 26.2 miles. I can't wait to be a half marathon runner. That's fun to me. That's 13.1 miles at one point in my life. There is no way you would have ever heard me say that.

It sounds to me like, ja, so much of this has to do with the willingness to just put the next foot in front of the other, too. And not literally, but figuratively, to start to begin to do something. And I don't know if it was on our podcast or if it was just in conversation, but one of the things that I'm finding and in our world at Spirit of eq, we have such a diverse group of clients from different industries, backgrounds, the whole deal, which is great. But one of the things I find in common with many of them is, is very talented, very gifted, very knowledgeable, but they. If you'd say what would be one of their biggest blocks is the getting started. And I think some of it is rooted in. They go to what you just described. It's 26.2 miles.

Yeah. Oh, no way. I'm not. Oh, gosh, no. When in reality, to your point, no, it's three miles, and then you're going to do. And then. And then. And the beautiful part about it, when we look at it, whether it's in business or any other endeavor, I think is that if you get into it, and I highly recommend for our audience, please know your why before you do anything, 100% know what is it that you really want.

And then if you start into it and it's not working, it's not what you thought it was going to be. And that's okay, because we've all attempted something and it's like, maybe not. That's okay, but just take the next step. Because if you take the next step, you're moving forward. And I've been using this quote, ja, in so many ARENAS BILL ACKMAN HEDGE FUND MANAGER Progress is like money compounds over time. And that's so inspirational for me. It's so much hope wrapped in that statement. He doesn't say, you know what, make a billion dollars in two months, Don't.

I mean, run a race next week. It's make progress.

Yeah, we're not all jockos, right? And we're not all David Goggins either, right?

He must be from another place.

He's a freak for sure, a good freak. But, you know, I mean, there, there are certain people that can function that way, but they're, you know. But the day to day things in life, right? The day to day things in life, you plan it and I. You have to get down to the point where the why has to be personal. It has to be personal. It can't be because you decided, Jeff, to tell me that you can bowl 300, right? Sounds great to me. But what a high that would be if I could roll 300. But that's not going to be what's going to get me out to the bowling alley every single time to learn.

Like you were talking about the spins and trying to get that one pin that's standing there because you didn't hit that strike finally. And to win the tournament, you need to hit that one pin sitting down there. And so you have to put in all this work, right? And it's funny, Eric, because in the business world, people come to me on a vocational sense of it, and I always start with business planning. I don't care if you already have one. I don't care. But I go back and the very first thing that I ask people is what, what do you, you know, what's your goal? They tell me volume, they tell me units, and I tell them, stop. That should just be an end result of what it is that you actually have. So let me start here first.

Think about your family. Think about your spirituality, your physical, your relational, your mental, your philanthropical side of you. What's it take to live you in life, right? For somebody it might be $50,000. To some people it might be a half a million dollars, right? Because I mean, so, okay, let's start there because it sounds like that's what you want, right? This is what you believe to function accordingly. Whether it's 50,000 or half a million dollars. That's where it starts. Now let's look at what it's going to take to get that volume and those units in place, because I might tell you that you better get 300 units closed. And you, you, your capacity because of what you want with all those other well beings might only lead you to 100 units.

Right? Not, not the units that it's going to take to live on 500 million. Because do you really need to live on 500? 500,000 income? No. You sound like you'd be incredibly happy at 150,000. I would. In fact, that's plenty. I'm like go there. Because you've never achieved that.

And you know what? Your, your point is well taken. And I am a living, breathing example of allowing your example there of volume and units. Yeah, I think that's what you said. Right?

Volume in units. Yeah.

Okay. I put all the focus there. I achieved that in like overflow. And then I was, like I said I was just bored. I mean just. It was empty. I did not care. I did not care at all.

However, to your point, and I don't say this like regret and I'm such a shame. It's a shame. No, it's. This is the learning, right?

Correct.

The learning part of me says, you know, if I had to put the other thing like you described first, I would then catered or created the goals to match up for that want. Correct. My why? Right.

Yes.

So that's a beautiful example.

Because it's not the end result, Eric. Right? It's not the end result. It is the three mile runs, it's the five mile runs. Am I enjoying that? Am I? Because if I hated every bit of that, then the reality is I'll never get to the 26.2 miles. Never. I'll never bowl a 300 because I won't enjoy.

Yeah, yeah. And that's what I think gets missed. Right. Is that, you know, the dopamine hit that we get for these milestones. That's why it's, I believe it's so important to have what you just described. And there is research out there that shows that those that have only focused on that big thing, cue the startup entrepreneurs that want the billion dollar valuation. That's it. That big thing.

They run out of gas early because they weren't celebrating those. Okay, I did mile three.

Yeah. I mean, what is it like, Eric, to get to that whatever amount. You said a billion dollars. Right. When honestly, I mean this sounds biblical, but you know, but my kids are now grown up. They hate me, they don't like me, they don't know me. You know, what good is it? All of those kind of things Physically, I'm about to have a heart attack again. Right.

And you Know, mentally, I could care less about anything because I've worked so hard that I'm not liking life philanthropically. I never shared any of it. Those are all the little moments that are there that really asking the question, what's it take to be you? You know, and it's such an important question because our society has told us to think that way means I'm selfish. No, it doesn't, because it's loaded with things that are inside of that. What's it take to be you? Yeah, you're talking about the spiritual side of you. You're talking about the relational side of you, like your wife, your family, your friends. What's it take to be physically in shape and mentally and philanthropically all of those kind of things. If you look at what does it take? Do I really want to be working towards the billion that's going to kill me to get to it and discard all the other, well, beings, or am I going to concentrate on being able to still focus on the things that really make who I am, which is also affecting the ripple effect of my family first onto the community, onto even furthering.

Yeah. A wise therapist once said that we need to be careful. We need to stop believing every stupid thought that goes through our head.

Oh, gosh.

He went on to say that probably 90% of those should be tossed. He said, but what most people don't do is they don't test. Now, from my background, from a spiritual perspective, hold every thought captive. Right. But we don't. And I'm saying that we underline we. So I'm included. Right.

I mean, check yourself. Right. How many times has it come into your head? And then you started, well, yeah. And then, well, what if. And yeah. Huh. I can see how. How many times have we prepared for the argument that never comes?

Yep.

I'm going to tell her and I'm going to make sure they understand because, you know, and it's just going back and forth. And he, he such a simple way of getting that stuff in line is stop and ask yourself, is what I'm thinking true?

Yeah.

And then follow it up with, is it really true? And then we probably find all for.

All from me quitting that marathon, Eric. Right. Because I mean, inspiration, but it's. But that's all. That's so right though, you know, because, I mean, probably from mile 12 to mile 14, rather than my injury being the dominant one, it was all the things that you're talking about now, it's.

Is it true?

Are people really going to rail me for not finishing the marathon that I started, having done fundraising for it and everything has all those things that come into play. Is it really true? And it just wasn't. It just wasn't.

Well, nja, I mean, we've probably had a million conversations around this, and that is grace. I think that's one of the most important things. Things is to have people around you in your life that are grace givers. Right. I want them to hold me accountable. I don't want them just to. Everything I say, they go, yes. But I want them to be able to say, you know, it's okay, it's okay.

Because if we've got people around us who are kind of like this world system, yeah, I am going to be disappointed you didn't finish. And now, you know what? We were going to come over, but you know, we're going to be traveling, we'll start to shy away. You're in that position. I would highly recommend for our audience just really do a check on who's in that inner circle. Who are the people you count on and I'm not. Please don't misunderstand me telling you what to do. I would just say explore that. How do you feel when you're done being with them?

Yeah.

Oh, that's a great one, Jeff. I can go back to sleep now, but, yeah, you know, do I have.

Energy after this person leaves or am I going, you know, don't let the door hit you in the butt as you're going, you know, how do you.

Feel when you're done?

Yeah, yeah, man, that's good.

Does that make you feel a little bit. Is it a little daunting to think if you did that inventory with people, you know, the people, I mean, because, I mean, I think of it as the circles, right. You've got this inner circle which are all your closest, and another circle kind of next removed and then wider circle.

There are some people that you cannot.

Kick out of your circle family, things like that.

What I have found is these people.

That leave me drained when I am in the situation. I don't have any expectations or don't have any.

Or have an expectation of, okay, this.

Can happen, but it only can happen if I let it happen.

Did you consciously come up with that.

Approach or was it something you just kind of came to?

Yeah, I just.

I started doing that with some people, whether they're at work, you know, the people that you got to be around. But you're conscious of it now?

Yeah, I'm conscious of it now.

Of, okay, how I Decide how I'm going to be when we're done. Don't let them decide how you're going to be. Jeff, you know what you just did there? What you explained marvelously about what we're talking about, about training. That's what it is. That's beautiful.

Yeah, man.

Love it. Jay Dava, we got to get you back. I appreciate you coming on.

Well, I appreciate being asked to come on and to talk about. Yeah. To talk about walking away. Kind of different, huh? Yeah.

Because all is good.

That's usually a protected thing with me.

Well, I don't think you're alone in the universe, my friend. I don't think you are.

Has anyone ever said this, by the way? I can't help.

Go ahead. Yeah.

So I'm. I'm so. In the season that we're in, you're like Santa to me. Has anyone said this to this man?

I've never said it to him.

I'm gonna say it to him. Okay.

That's not the look I'm going for. Just.

Well, I did a red hat on. Your audience probably doesn't know that about Jeff. Well, no, they do, because it's a.

This episode is being recorded in early December 2025, so there is some relevance. And I'm not sure if we'll have the video out there, but.

Well, you didn't have the twinkle in your eye with that, so I'm just.

Telling you, man, I should have brought you a Santa cap or something.

Yeah, something.

Okay. I can see you really love this. The reason I have a beard is I'm lazy.

A different kind of lazy from what.

We were just talking about.

I just.

Okay, I need to shave today. I'm not going to shave.

Okay.

Week later, I got a beer now. It grows fast, though. That's awesome.

You bring a smile on people's faces.

That's awesome. Well, everyone, we thank you for tuning in today, and we look forward to the next time that we're together. Take care.