https://www.listennotes.com/e/eaaf3674bdcf471f8e8e594d39c0db75

Hey, James here. Got some news for you. My book is now available for pre-order. That's right, in the show notes, you can go and pre-order it today. And if you do, I'm going to give you some incredible free bonuses. Head over to thehabibook.com that's thehabibook.com to pre-order yours today. Welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast. I'm James Lachlan, former seven-time world champion and now coach to entrepreneurs, CEOs, professional athletes all over the world. This show is for people who refuse to settle, people who are driven, people who want to grow, who know that there's so much more to learn and want to learn from the world's best. Each week, I bring you insights from a special guest who's at the top of their game, whether they're in Formula One, whether they're a billionaire, whether they've started a company from scratch and ticket to the top. I bring them to you so that you can rewire your mindset, take action and lead a life of purpose. Let's get started. Today, you're going to get to hear from Sam Harvey, a professional ultra marathon runner who set the world record for 677 kilometers in 101 hours. You're going to want to listen in and understand how someone like this operates at that level. I promise you, there will be some gold nuggets. Sam Harvey, a huge welcome to the Lead on Purpose podcast.

Thank you, brother. It's good to be here.

So glad to see you. Like, we're both in the 03 here in Christchurch, we literally live across the hill from each other. And about a month ago, I had three people within a day, three independent people say, James, you've got to meet Sam Harvey. I'm like, okay, there's something to this. When one person says it, I'm like, yeah, we'll see. But three people one day, one of them in Dunedin, one of them in Christchurch, and one in North Island, it's like, yeah, okay, I need to look at this guy. So I was really glad that when we got a chance to chat that you were up to coming in and sharing your story. And, I mean, you're at the beginning of your story, but what you've achieved at the beginning is mind blowing. And I look at ultramarathon runners and they fascinate me, they scare me, they inspire me. And I think that there's something quite unique about how they handle this thing, the top two inches. And so I just thought it'd be great to jump into how you operate. what got you into it? And I guess for those who don't know what an ultramarathon is, what's the definition of an ultramarathon?

I guess an ultramarathon is anything longer than a marathon. So anything longer than 42.2, but I mean we traditionally start at 50 kilometers and then work upwards.

Amazing. And there's often this idea that ultramarathon is one thing, but what you're sharing with me actually is that there's different types of ultramarathon.

Correct.

So we've got the backyard ultramarathon. So just give us a brief overview of what backyard ultramarathon means.

Backyard ultramarathon is a 6.7 kilometer loop and you run one loop on the hour every hour. You've got 60 minutes to complete it. If you finish the loop in less than 60 minutes, you get that time to eat, drink, sleep, do whatever you need to do. However, you need to be in the corral to start the next hour. If you're not in the corral, you get kicked out and you basically continue like that hour after hour. If you take longer than an hour, you get kicked off the course. If you can't start the next loop, you get kicked off the course and you just keep on going until, well, so long as there's at least two people left in the race, you keep going indefinitely. So there's no set period of time or distance that it's gonna take. It might take a day, it might take four and a half days.

Yeah. Unreal. Now, the question I want to start with is why? Why do you put your body and your mind through such strenuous, arduous activity?

I don't know. I guess I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment.

Have you always been like this? Like as a young kid, were you into sport, an activity that really challenged you?

Less so, I'm just very stubborn. And I found a sport for stubborn people. Yeah.

I love it. How did you stumble across this?

I guess probably like in late high school years, early university, I had delusions of grandeur and wanted to be a professional athlete and never really knew my pathway. But it was always kind of there in the background. And yeah, did university, did lots of professional jobs in the agricultural sector and elsewhere. And yeah, always dabbling in sport, endurance sport, the likes of triathlon and mountain biking and running and then boxing and rugby and anything else that I could get my hands on really. Running didn't really come along until like maybe 2017. Prior to that, it had just been like something that you do to keep fit. I mean, most people run to keep fit for their other things. And then, yeah, 2017 started racing 5K. And that became Ultramarathon 2018. And it was a very slow progression. It was like 2018, first 50K, won that. That felt really good. 2019, first 100K, that almost killed me. That didn't feel so good. 2020 did my first 100 mile. That also wasn't great. And then 2021, I did my first backyard Ultra and did 37 hours, 250 odd Ks and came second to one of the most established Ultra marathon Runners in the New Zealand scene. So I. I went from kind of nobody knew who I was to I had staked my claim. And then it wasn't until the following year, 2022, where I was like, being a jack of all trades and a master of none, done lots of sports all at the same time, thinking that that was going to be my niche, was doing all the sports. But I want to be world class. I want to be the best in the world at one thing. And so I kicked everything else to the curb. and just focused on ultramarathon and then went shopping and just found what I could kind of reverse engineered my pathway. And I figured, right, I want to be world champion or go to the world championships. How do I do that? So I found all the different disciplines of ultramarathon running, found their world championships, put them on the calendar, and then reverse engineered the, the qualification pathway to get there. What races would I need to do or could I do within the calendar to get myself to that point?

I love it.

And then started ticking them off.

Really logical approach, like you knew what you wanted. And I think the big determining factor here that everyone listening and watching should, I think, highlight is that you realized that by diluting your focus, you were diluting your results. And so you went from many activities, many sports to one thing and going deep with that. So I think that's a real, like for me, a big takeaway is like, don't try and be the legend of everything. Get clear on the one thing that you're pretty good at and you really enjoy and then go deep.

Yeah, find the thing that lights a fire under you and then just chase that.

I love it. And I love the whole idea of, you know, what gets scheduled gets done. Like, if you're gonna commit, put it on the calendar. There's gotta be a date and then work back. and reverse engineer that. Now, I want to share this with the listeners, something. So this blows my mind. You're the New Zealand Backyard Ultra record holder for 677 kilometers. It's a big run.

It was a big run. Yeah, that was a big run.

How many hours?

101 hours.

Okay, 101 hours. Now, I need a lot of sleep across 101 hours just to do basic function. how many hours of sleep did you have across 101?

Very little. Yeah, very little. I mean, with the Backyard Ultra, you're continuously going out on the hour, every hour. So regardless of if you even manage to get to sleep, then you're only gonna be asleep for a number of minutes before somebody wakes you up to send you off on the next loop. But at that point in time, I hadn't really finessed my approach. It was just attack in whatever way, shape or form I can and survive. And at that point in time, yeah, I was getting one to five minute, maybe maximum micro naps, and that was good. Like, it's better than zero, but it wasn't great. Now I'm a little bit faster in my running, and as a result, I get longer sleeps. But at that point in time, yeah, it was. A number of minutes worth of sleep over 101 hours, which wasn't great. I was very sleepy and I was a little bit hopeless, a little bit sad.

I bet, like emotionally it must be really challenging when you're in the depths of sleep deprivation.

Yeah, yeah, sleep deprivation does some wild things to people.

I bet. So another record that I think is fascinating, World Record Backyard Ultra 2023. where did that unfold?

Yeah, so that was that race, it's a New Zealand record, and it was the backyard record. I matched the record with that 101 loops, and that was held at Dead Cow Gully in a place called Nanango in Australia. It's like two hours northwest into kind of the middle of nowhere of Australia from Brisbane. and yeah, it's just on a middle of nowhere cattle farm and you run around in circles on that farm for days at a time. So I matched the world record and assisted the new world record at the time on that venue last year and then I won it this year and it only went for 69 hours this year because we didn't quite have the international lineup that we had. Wow. like last year, but yeah.

Seriously amazing. And what I love about this is that you're now professional. So this is what you do. You run, you coach and train and consult other runners around the world. And you obviously have, you know, a pipeline of sponsors that see your mission and believe in your mission and want to get behind it. So it allows you to do this full time. What's the difference between now doing it professionally versus trying to do this while having a job and all the other things that go with it?

I mean, again, just doing less things. So I'm spread less thin so I can focus on what's important. And now I don't do much outside of running and coaching runners, which means it's getting all of my bandwidth and therefore the quality of what I'm putting out is much higher. It's much easier to do what I'm doing. I mean, at the end of the day, like to become a good runner, you've got to run a heck of a lot. Like in my, at my level, you need to be running 160 to 200 kilometers a week on average. And if you are holding down a proper job and doing other things, yeah, that all makes it a lot harder. It definitely, it definitely reduces the ability to recover because, yeah, you're, you're putting nine hours a day into a, into a real job, so. I've done that. It can be done, but I would prefer not to sell my time to somebody else when it could be focused on my dreams and my goals.

I 100% agree with you. The people I see performing at the absolute best in whatever field, that's their thing. That's their main ingredient. They stick to it and they're not looking for all the extras. They stick to their main course and I can see that with you. The main thing is the main thing.

Exactly.

I love it. So let's go to 2023 New Zealand Backyard Ultra, breaking this record. Lap one, talk me through how you're feeling at the start, like your energy.

Your mindset, maybe a little bit cocky. I've traditionally always had a reputation of opening with a hot lap. to just weapon round, like, weapon round real fast, to the point where people are like, this guy's an idiot. And yeah, I'm an idiot, but you.

Had fun doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, bust down the door, I'm here.

Is there a sense of like competitiveness, like all blacks will have the haka and that's like, oi, we're here to race, like, look out, we mean business. It's a little bit of like, hey guys, a little shot across the bow. I'm here and I can move.

Yeah, sometimes.

I love that.

Yeah, I, that was also me with a point to prove. Now that I'm up there within the top in the world, I feel like I've got a little bit less to prove. Like my performance, my performance rains through and all I've got to do is show up and do my job so I don't have to showboat so much, but I do like to bring a bit of, professional wrestling showmanship to ultra marathon because it just makes it a.

Little bit more entertaining. Of course. Everyone would be following along and loving it. Yeah. This makes for a good Netflix. That's what I'm thinking. Exactly. So first lap, fresh, feeling good, bit cocky. Okay, let's say go to 10 hours in.

So we're 10th hour, 10th lap. How are we starting to feel? So, like, 10 hours through to 24 hours, even, like, up to 48 hours and. And the really deep ones, the ones that go for four or five days. I see that first 10, 24, 48 hour period as the death of your mortal self. Like you turn up as a human and you shed that mortality in the first 24 to 48 hours.

What do you mean by that?

I mean, you shed your excuses. you shed your boredom, you shed your pain, and eventually you just accept that. Like that is just a fundamental aspect of what you are doing. And so during that period of time, you're just kind of like encountering problems and excuses. And I find typically that's the hardest part of the job, especially when you've got the bulk of the work still ahead of you. because you're like, oh, I gotta do this again. I've got 75 hours to go. This is crap. But eventually you kind of just come to terms with it all and you remove, yeah, you remove the normal human from the equation and then you achieve, I don't know, it's almost like a running God mentality. You transcend your mortal self and And that's when the real race starts after that.

And there's probably no degree of overthinking, I imagine, at that point. It's very much being and just getting out there and doing it. You probably don't get a lot of thought to overthink.

If you overthink, then you're out.

Right, you're dead. You're gone. Yeah.

If you're thinking more than you're doing, then you're not long for this world. And we see those people leave the race. that's when you're able to just lock in and be present and do your jobs and not think about it too much. That's when you achieve success in the backyard ultra, at least.

So if you're easily distracted, which I think many of us are, like we're addicted to these bloody phones of ours, some people will be watching or listening on their phone right now, but these devices can distract us and we see that in performance. People can't sustain focus. I imagine you work on your focus, train your focus to be able to do these 101 hour races. How do you manage your focus when you're starting to hit a little bit of sleep deprivation?

My performance has kind of continuously improved. I'm less so dealing with sleep deprivation at all as a factor. It was at that 101 loop race primarily because I came with an approach of, I ran a little bit slow to conserve my legs, so I didn't beat them up too much, but at the same time I wasn't getting enough sleep. Now I'm running much faster and sacrificing maybe the integrity of my legs, getting more sleep. Sleep's not an issue for me anymore. And I know that a five or a 10 or a 15 minute sleep, I'm good.

So this is almost every hour getting five to 15 minutes of sleep? Not almost every hour.

If I'm sleepy, then I sleep. If I'm not sleepy and I can't sleep, I'll at least try and have a lie down and close my eyes and allow the body to maybe go through some sleep functions. Like pseudo sleep almost. Yeah, I mean, rest is rest. Yeah. So, yeah, I'll let it do that, but no, I'm like the last couple of very long races I've gone for, gone through and won, I've, yeah, by day two or day three I've felt, oh, I'm good. Like I could do this for the next two weeks. I don't get that opportunity because the race finishes first, but yeah, once you're locked in and everything's going well and your systems are fine, then, Yeah, rinse and repeat.

Unreal. There's like a sense of flow, you hit that kind of flow state, I guess.

Yep.

Have you came across NSDR, the non-sleep deep rest?

No.

That's something I've been studying recently. So like the special forces, I've started using it. Some people will call it yoga nidra, but essentially it's the body is sleeping, but the mind is active. and so 10 minutes of this NSDR is the equivalent of a two hour deep sleep. And so I often, in the middle of a crazy day, we'll do a 10 minute NSDR and feel like a different human afterwards. I could use some of that.

Yeah, I'll share it with you afterwards. Nice.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. 'Cause if you have those 10 to 15 minute blocks, you could do an NSDR every 10 hours or something like.

That would give you the equivalent of two full hours of sleep.

Hell yeah, don't tell my competition about this. We'll edit this bit out. Yeah, well I think the elite forces are always looking for like Sometimes they're in the field for 200 hours waiting for their point to attack the enemy. And so they've got to find ways to have their nervous system reset.

Of course.

And they find it to be really successful. So yeah, I'll flick it to you after.

Nice. I appreciate it.

Yeah, no worries. So you're at 100 hours and you've no idea that you're going to be finishing at 101. How are you feeling? What are you thinking about? What's the body doing at that point?

The body was not good at that point. I lost seven kilos, and at the point in time, I only sat at 69 kilos. So I lost more than 10 of my body weight during the course of that race. And that was just insufficient nutrition and hydration strategy, which I have now fixed. But, yeah, physically, not so good. Very tired. I'd. I'd either. torn or very severely pulled my hamstring at that point. I think torn because if I stretched it, I could feel it going pop, pop, pop, pop. Well, which is, yeah, that's what happens when you stretch something that's actually torn. Geez. So, yeah, I wasn't super healthy. I had collapsed around like 91 or 92 hours because I went into the race with a chest infection over the course of four and a bit days running in cold, dry, hot conditions that progressed into pneumonia and like, yeah, I had quite a good bit of fluid on my lungs.

Geez.

And yeah, they wanted me to stop at that point when I kind of collapsed. And I said, no way. Like, I came here for a world record and I am that close to it. Let me continue and Yeah, despite them arguing to stop me, I carried on.

Why did you do that?

That was a world record.

It means a lot.

Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah.

I came there with a plan. I was gonna execute the plan. Once I got to matching the world record, they were pretty adamant that I stopped. So I stopped on the world record. and then that allowed my competitor Phil to do one more loop and get the world record for himself. But yeah, should have could have, wouldn't, didn't. I was still running 48-49 minute loops and I tell people that unless you're running 56 or 57 minute loops and slowing, you've got nothing to worry about.

So you still had gas in the tank?

Oh, hell yeah. So they should have kept me out there. But regret is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Like, it's good fuel. And now that I've dropped a couple of very close opportunities, I'm just so much more hungry. And I've had another year, or by the time it rolls around, I will have had two years of hunger. to prep me to come in and tear it all apart.

I can't wait. I love it. You know what I love about it? So Noah Lyles, obviously 100 meter gold medal winner. He's very confident in himself to the point where a lot of people say he's overly cocky. But what you just said, you're like the Kiwi version of Noah Lyles. Like, I know I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna rip it up. But you don't set with this kind of like, you know, everyone else is kind of crap. And you say it with conviction, like, I know who I am, I can do it, and I'm going to drop it.

Exactly. Yeah. I get a lot of criticism for my approach not being necessarily very Kiwi. Kiwis are too humble, in my opinion.

I would agree.

Yeah. Be hungry and do the work, and don't be afraid to make statements. if you're making statements of what you're gonna do and then you're like continuously not even coming close, then like, I don't know, maybe stum.

Yeah. But if you're backing it up, fair enough.

Exactly. Like say what you're gonna do.

Have.

The intention, and then go after it and execute.

I love it. Yeah. I'm with you. Like Muhammad Ali was probably one of the first people I seen do that. Obviously I'd never met Muhammad Ali, but watched him a lot. And he would say in round five, I'm gonna come out and he's going down. And weirdly in round five it's KO. And he would predict what was gonna happen, but almost forced him to live into his prediction because he'd publicly said, I'm gonna do it. So you're saying it here right now, I'm gonna do it. And so that puts so much more emotional onus on you to go, I'm gonna follow through.

Absolutely. I mean, if your word means anything, and I like to think that my word means something, if I make that statement, I I have to follow through. And I encourage the athletes that I coach, I'm like, make the statement and then follow through. Tell everybody what you're going to do, because then you are obligated to do it, or you're going to look stupid in front of your friends.

Yeah, 100%. And it does, it puts, I think, that accountability, they've done research on it as well. When you're publicly accountable, the chances of you actually succeeding are greatly increased.

Absolutely.

I love it. Well, I look forward to celebrating that one. Hell yeah, me too. That's an epic one. Kosi OskO. You've just got back and can we just take a moment to acknowledge the difference between, say, Kosi OskO and some of the backyard stuff in terms of how you define them?

For sure. So backyard ultra is last man standing and you're not necessarily running too fast. You're just running for a very long, undefined period of time and distance with Kosi OskO or ultra trail. Kosi OskO by UTMB. It is part of the UTMB series, ultra trail de Mont Blanc. which is the world championship of trail running. And in those races, you're running from point to point, point A to point B as fast as you can. And it's anywhere from, I think the shortest distance they have is something in the 20 or 30 kilometer range, but I'm running in the 100 mile range, 160 plus kilometers. And yeah, Cozy Osco on Friday last week was 163 kilometers with, I think, 5,000 something, 100 meters of vertical gain.

My God. And what's important here, I think, to note is that people might have pigeonholed you and say, look, he's a legend in that backyard stuff, but, hey, he doesn't do this stuff, this, you know, cosi osco, for example. But you went there with a mission. You were confident that you could achieve it, and outcome was that you won it. How did that feel?

Yeah, pretty, pretty nice. It was, it was. A bit rough towards the end because we had a two hour stoppage because of a lightning storm. And there was like 5,000 meters worth of metal grating walkway along the tops of the mountains. So all giant lightning conductors. So they pulled everybody off course for two hours. We just settled and then set us off.

Now, can I ask you for a second? Does that mean that lots of people who were behind you are now right beside you?

Yeah. Yes, but they also, they accounted for time as far as I'm aware. So they adjusted for where you were on course at that point in time. So yeah, there were quite a number of people that eventually caught up to me, but they let us out the gate and I dropped them again anyway, so I wasn't too stressed. But yeah, so they stopped the race. I would have been finished in the light and before too much rain, but because of that stoppage, had an extra two hours worth of rain, and I also finished in the dark, which made it a little bit hard towards the end. And I was quite energetically depleted by the end of the whole ordeal. But yeah, winning. Who doesn't like winning? Winning's good. Really good way to finish the year. And like, it's been a very, very successful year because I think I've run 10 ultramarathons this year, five of them wins, two second places, one fifth, a couple of participation awards.

Unreal.

Very, very happy.

Yeah, yeah, what a year. I love it. And so if we think about the mindset, I wanna go into the mindset side of it. So most people struggle when they don't get sleep. Most people struggle when their bodies are being pushed a little bit further than they like. You're getting into the depths of deprivation and pushing your body what, what happens upstairs? What are you saying to yourself? What's some of the, the self talk that creeps in that maybe isn't helpful?

I try not to let the negative self talk take root. Like, try and nip it in the bud if it does occur. It's definitely, it's definitely hit me in the past. And I guess if we, if we go back down my journey a little bit, the negative self talk, it's like, you're no good at this. Like, you're never gonna make a job out of this. Like, there's no value in what you're doing. That was a big one for me. It's like, as I was in the early years or recent years before going pro, I convinced myself that there was no value in being a professional athlete. And to a degree, there's not, like, professional athletes are. icons, they run, they don't produce a heck of a lot towards the world, but that's not a very good way of looking at it, especially when you're in the moment doing the thing. It's very self-destructive. But yeah, I just try and control my thought. have a lot of positive thought, gear myself on, talk myself up, and yeah, I have this concept, probably stole it from another runner, to be honest. Let your tongue be your rudder. So what I tell my athletes is let your tongue be your rudder. And breaking that down, it's whatever you think and whatever you speak becomes your reality. So choose the reality for yourself. Only think kind things towards yourself. Only think positive things towards the people around you in the race. And only let positivity come out of your mouth. And then that will be your reality. If you're saying, I hate this race, hate running, hate ultramarathon, hate the people that I'm running with, then yeah, you're gonna have a crap day.

It's not very helpful, right? Or useful even.

Exactly. So just be an adult. You bought the ticket, you're here of your own volition. So do the thing. I love it and be happy about it.

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers around the habits of high performers about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Caroline@jjloughlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes. Good advice. Sam, I'd love to know a little bit about the psychology piece. Have you ever had any input from mental skills coach, sports psych, or any passive kind of learning through reading or...

Not any active input, or if I have, I apologize to whoever has actively input. I'd say more so 2016, which is when I equipped my kind of traditional career pathway in New Zealand, moved to America to coach and play rugby, and kind of decided to back myself in life and demand something more than the status quo. Moved to the States, was doing my thing. And then around 2016-2017 overseas, started listening to a lot of motivational speech, like Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, all of the above. And that kind of became my new soundtrack to life. Rather than listening to a lot of music, I was listening to a lot of motivational speech and kind of self-improvement. type thing. And yeah, for a good couple of years, it just hammered that and I probably hammered that into my brain to the point where I had a lot of different mental tools in the toolkit for different situations on seeking my highest self and then also just ending up in tough situations and knowing how to mentally get through them.

Yeah, great. It's great that you're surrounding yourself with the greats. And I always think that success leaves clues. And of course, you know, we look at Tony Robbins, a master neurolinguistic program practitioner. He understands all the modalities about how the mind works, how we motivate ourselves and others. Gary Vee on a totally different track, you know, he's a prime example of someone who came from a beginning, as an immigrant to the United States from Russia, where it might not have ended well. And he could have became a victim, but he's the opposite and he strives for more and winning matters to him as well. And so you're surrounding yourself with people that are really informing you with how to play at the top level. So some of these skills that maybe you picked up from some of these guys, what's a skill that you think would be helpful for the listener who's full of self-doubt? who is stuck in a career that's okay, but they don't love it. What is a tool that might help them?

Oh, that's a hard one. Yeah, that is actually a very hard question for me to answer right now.

What about with your own career? Going from I agree and transitioning into full-time sport, what did you need to do to back yourself and go, yeah, I can put my running shoes on and make enough to put food on the table and pay my bills. What did it take for you to transition? Because that would have been scary as hell.

Yeah. So I guess I was very practical in my approach, like rather than cutting all ties, quitting my job and then saying, right, I'm a runner. Like I was dabbling in the background for a very long time. I was working. very hard to establish myself in the sporting world so that eventually I could pull the pin. It wasn't an overnight thing. It was more than a decade's worth of hard work within the sporting sector to finally be at that world-class level. And then, yeah, also working on becoming a coach in the background to the point where eventually I could quit my job and pursue my dreams.

Such a great example of actually having a side hustle, whatever we want to call it, but something we're passionate about and not quitting everything and say, well, if I quit, then I'm forced to have to make this thing an overnight success. But going, hey, I'll build it slowly, sustainably, I'll learn, I'll refine, and at the point that I can switch over, I know that it's going to be sustainable.

Exactly.

Too few people do that. A lot of people do make this big leap. In fact, I remember when I was a drumming teacher, that's when I first came to New Zealand, and I wanted to transition into high performance coaching, working with high performers in sport, business, politics. And I had a coach who was helping me transition to becoming a coach. And he had this big program he was trying to sell me. And he said, look, James, you need to burn the boats. I was like, what do you mean burn the boats? I don't sail. Well, look, there was this one general and he took his fleet and they landed on this island. And when all of his troops got off, he turned around and burned the boats. I was like, why would he do such an idiotic thing? Well, because he told his troops, you can't return. Like, you're either going to die or win. And there's no getting back on the boats to escape. And so they won the war. I say, well, why are you telling me that? Oh, well, James, you know, $35,000 a month, you give that to me and go all in and quit your job tomorrow, you're gonna be, you know, making it big time. I said, Can I sleep on it? No, you know, people, you know, people that do well, they make decisions and do it quickly and do it now. I don't buy this. It was too pushy for me. So I think I'll sleep on it. So when I slept on it, I researched the Burning the Boat story. And in fact, it was proven to be a myth. and it was made up. So he was using this to try and get me to, you know, burn my boats, whereas I did what you did and just slowly built up the job or the hustle on the side. And I think for anyone listening that wants to transition a career, like taking Sam Harvey's approach is the way to do it. Slowly, sustainably, smart.

Pragmatic.

Totally. That's the Kiwi in you, right?

I guess so.

Number eight wire, yeah. I love it. So you've obviously got, to me, you've got a certain mindset that not everybody has, and that is to push through pain. Of course, you must feel physical pain. So I get a sore knee and it's agony and I stop running because I'm like, that's probably the smart thing to do for me. However, you get a sore knee or a hamstring and you're able to push through. How do you do that? What, what? Are the mental tools required to go, no, it's physically painful. I feel it, but keep going.

I think engaging myself with what people traditionally call pain for as long as I have, as often as I have, I've come to terms with it a little bit differently. I identify what you'd call pain more so as discomfort. like true pain is unbearable. True pain is something that makes you stop what you're doing. Pain is losing a loved one. It's grief.

It's.

It's really horrendous stuff. Physical pain, that's discomfort. And discomfort isn't going to kill you and you can carry on.

And in terms of that, like, real pain outside of this physical thing, has there been a time in your life where you've experienced that real pain?

Absolutely. I think we all have.

Yeah. And what was that, like, what were those darker moments, like, in terms of navigating the real pain?

Yeah. So, like, as a younger lad, like, through school and. yeah, young adult life head. I don't know. Let's call it bullying from. From various sources. And I don't know, that makes. That makes life not so enjoyable. And, yeah, I. And, like, I've had a great life, but, like, there are certain people who have. along the way made it not so great. And that was painful. And, and, yeah, like, the mental health aspect of my life has, has been harder as a youngster before I became my own champion. And, yeah, I guess that's why I am as good as I am now. 'cause I took all of that and weaponized it to make myself strong.

Yeah, I can see that. And it's interesting, like I came here at 18, 19 to work at a school teaching drums. And within a few years, you know, there was a suicide at the school. I was like, whoa, like I went through primary and high school in Ireland, no suicide. And then like another couple of years later, another suicide at the same school. And I'm like, what on earth? And in the time that I was there, there was multiple suicides. I was like, this just doesn't seem right. So I started asking questions of what's going on in New Zealand. We've got really high, really high suicide rates in teenage, particularly boys. Boys are six times more likely, right? And if it's not suicide and it's depression, it's deep anxiety. So from your experience, what do you think drives that? you were a teenager, you went through New Zealand schooling. Do you think bullying is one of the key factors?

Bullying, it's, I guess, inability to reach out for help, inability to communicate emotionally, feeling isolated. I mean, you can get pretty isolated in New Zealand. It's not a tiny country, but like, population wise, like, yeah, you are, you are a bit isolated. And if you've got nobody to talk to, nobody to reach out to, and you feel isolated, then, yeah, things can be hard. Yeah, there's, there's multiple factors, and I think we are at least attempting to address that better. There's a heck of a long way to go, but, yeah, at least We've identified that it is a problem and we are trying to remedy it with the likes of I Am Hope, Gumboot Friday, other industry good organizations. So yeah, we're a long way, but we're better. We're in a better position than we were a while ago.

I agree. 100%. I see sitting in front of me a man who is confident in his own skin, who is full of self belief, who has a clear pathway that he's moving towards. But during these like tougher teenage years, what was your own self image, your own self perception? Who did you see yourself as?

Interesting question. Yeah, I don't know. There was, there was a lot of negative self talk. Yeah, you, you touched on the negative self talk and racing before. It's, that doesn't really exist for me anymore, but yeah, there was a lot of negative self-talk because, yeah, I didn't think I was good enough because I'd been told that I was by.

My.

Peers from primary school through high school through, I don't know, later life. And you get told something often enough, you start to believe it. So, yeah, I believed that I was. insufficient, not good enough. And again, that's something that I've weaponized. I think a lot of elite athletes that have come from that background are very similar to me in that they've been picked on, they've been made fun of, they've been whatever they've felt inferior. And they're like, well, How about I just kick ass and they just show up and do the training or get the reps in of whatever they're doing and they become a master in their field. And eventually they're like, well, you can't hurt me anymore because I'm the best. But for myself, along with a number of elite athletes that I've found, the high performers that don't feel good enough and then they reach for high performance and success, there's still that like underlying tone of I'm not good enough. And so you've got to keep on showing up and keep on performing because if like, yeah, if you aren't consistently achieving it at the highest level, then you're not good enough despite having like done all these wild and crazy things that 95% of the population will never achieve, which is ironic.

Very. And do you ever feel those feelings of I'm not enough anymore? Like currently?

Less so. The term's high performance purgatory, you're trapped. Like there will never be a good enough I've gotten to the point where I've won some very big races and I've achieved some crazy things in life. So I do like to sit back, take a second and practice a bit of gratitude for what I have achieved because it's massive. But yeah, occasionally that thing will sneak up on you, just like bad mental health that'll sneak up on you if you're not being careful. Like, yeah, nothing's a constant in this life. But you're aware of it, it seems.

Like there's awareness of your thinking, awareness of your emotions.

Absolutely. Like, if something sneaks up on me, I'm like, oh, why am I feeling this right now? And it could be very simple and granular. Like, it's like, have I had enough sleep? Have I eaten? Have I had this? Have I had that?

Oh, wait, I had six coffees this morning.

That's why I'm anxious. That's why my heart's going brrr. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take a step back, think about it, think about why it's happening, break it down, and then you're like, oh, we don't have a problem. And yeah, I'll be happy in an hour or two.

I love that mind management. It's interesting. I find with ultra runners that people often, when they're talking about them, they're like, well, look, these people, they're running from something. What are they running from? What is it? What's the darkness?

To a degree, that is correct. Yeah.

And also on the flip side, they're running towards something. So if you were to say, like, if you had to pinpoint something that you were running from, what would that be?

What am I running from? I'm running from not getting all out of this life that I possibly could. And I am running towards the highest possible experience that this life could be.

Incredible. The idea of self-actualization, reaching your potential, and then when you're reaching that, what's next? What's 1% more? What's better than yesterday?

I want to transcend all that I am now.

And.

I want to get to this level. And once I'm at that level, I want to find out what's next. Like, there's always more to give. And I just, I want to find out what's at the top.

I can see that like that in your eyes. Like, if people listening, you can't see his eyes right now, but there's passion, there's excitement, and there's like hope. You've got hope that there is more, more in you. more to give. And I guess that takes a lot of discipline, you know, to do what you're doing. This is not, I'll wake up on a Monday and see how it goes. There's a lot of discipline that comes with what you do. What's a week in the life look like for you?

Now that I don't have a real job, I can be quite lazy and just roll out of bed whenever I wake up, which is nice. It's pretty simple. and that's exactly how I want it. The more simple it is, the higher I can perform in the things that I'm doing. But yeah, lots of drinking coffee, lots of walking the dog by the beach, taking advantage of the beautiful piece of the world that we live in. And then for the most part, it's literally just going for two runs a day. and then interacting with my runners around the world and answering their running questions. And not too much more complex than that, which is exactly how I like it.

Yeah, you're shedding all of the other noise, the chaos that most people get caught up in, so that when you need to perform, you've got the gas in the tank. These other people that you coach, what does that look like? So if somebody wants to work with you, and I've actually noticed a few people they're clearly clients of yours that have got amazing results that tag you and they talk about what you've helped them with. And they really look up to you not only with what you do to help them, but how you lead the way and actually walk the walk. So how does it work if someone wants to work with you?

Yeah, so I guess I've, I don't really like social media, but it is a fundamental part of the world we live in today. And so I've built a pretty strong social media following, and then I kind of leverage that as the as the, as the marketing thing. And, and, yeah, people pretty much just inquire through that, message me or, or through my website and, and book in for coaching. And then I, I sit down with them for, for an hour or so face to face and just, yeah, ask them who they are, what they want to do, build a profile around them. And then, because my coaching is very hands on and also very modular. I mold my coaching approach around that person and that allows me to get the best results out of them. I love it. It's not this vanilla like ABC thing.

It's like actually, what do you want? Okay, how are we going to get there? What are your constraints? What are your ambitions? And then you work at a program that's bespoke to their needs. Absolutely. I love that. Now, you might do this in a different way with your clients, but this is something I wanted to ask you. It's a three question question.

Okay.

And any athletes that I've ever worked with from a mental skills point of view, I always ask them these three questions. They often come to me with a James. I want to be an all black James. I want to be the world's best golfer, whatever it might be. And I'll go, okay, well, I can't help you swing better. Can't help you run faster. I certainly can help you put more muscle on. I struggle myself, but I cannot help you from a. An emotional standpoint by answering these three questions. So, first question. What do you really want out of your running?

What do I really want out of my running?

What would like absolute success look like?

To be recognized as the most diverse ultramarathon runner on the planet.

Amazing. Now, I love how succinct and accurate and distilled that is. So second question, how badly do you want it?

As bad as I want to breathe.

So that's life and death. I'm willing to commit my life to this.

Yeah, my old coach Barry McGee, he came third in the Olympic marathon in 1960.

Wow.

He's 90 years old now. And he said, this isn't a matter of life and death. It's more important than that.

That's really powerful. And when a 90-year-old is telling you that, it's like, okay, I better sit up and listen. I love that. Last question as part of that three question approach. How much are you willing to suffer to get there?

I think I'm willing to suffer more than anyone except I've finessed my approach to this to the level that I don't need to suffer anymore. And I find it a little bit sad that some of my biggest suffering I might have already endured in the sport because I've gotten so good at this point that it's actually not that hard anymore.

Amazing. So there's a degree of suffering that you've went through, but actually you've worked out, not a formula, but you've worked out a way for you to suffer less. And in terms of a goal over this next 24 months, what is it? What is it you're heading towards that I'll be able to sit and shake your hand after you've done it?

Yeah, I mean 24 months is a very long time. I've nutted out the next 12 months and that's going to be very busy. So Tarawera, which is the UTMB series 100 mile race for New Zealand in February, go out there with the intention of winning that. A couple of months later I have the inaugural Ultra Trail Australia 100 mile race and that is a world major. it'll be my first world major, so anything could happen. I'll go there with good intentions, but the best of Asia, Oceania, Europe and America will all be there, so that'll be an interesting one to throw my hat in the ring. And then dead cow gully, which will be world record attempt. I don't even think we'll just break the world record. I think we'll almost break the sport because we'll go so far in that event. Like the current world record is 110 odd loops and I'm thinking 130, maybe 150.

It's a massive percentage increase.

Yeah, it's going to be huge and it'll be to the point where like after that people won't even go into these races with the intention of breaking the world record anymore. They're like, ah, that's too far out of reach, like it will take. a very intentional group of people to turn up at the right event with the intention of breaking that world record for it to happen after that point in time. So, yeah, that'll be fun. And then I've got UTMB, which is the world championship of trail racing in France. I've got Big's Backyard, which is the world championship of the backyard ultra. and that's in the States in October. And then I'll probably throw in a little drizzling of other ultramarathons on top of that. And come 2026, who knows? At the very least, I'll probably be racing the Barkley Marathons, which is arguably the hardest race on Earth. You get a golden ticket to the Barkley after winning bigs. I intend to win bigs in October, so therefore I expect I'll be racing at the Barkley at the start of 2026. And from there, honestly, who knows, man?

I love it. I mean, there's absolute Clarity. It's interesting. I met a guy recently. He's a billionaire who made it in his own way and has an amazing high performance sport, like a car company now. And I was asking him about planning, and he went, One year at a time. I was like, what? I was like, you,'ve built a billion dollar company. He went, one year at a time. He's like, I don't believe in 10 year plans. And he said, be clear on what the next year looks like and get after it. Sounds like you're doing that. I think of you, and I mean this in the most positive sense, I think of you in a similar context to Noah Lyles, to Usain Bolt, to Muhammad Ali, to people like that, they're just so clear on what they're going to do and they're going to follow through on it. and I can see that in your conviction. You know what you're after. And I just don't think that's a normal trait. That's quite a 0.01% kind of trait. But you do it in a way, you know, David Goggin's is probably another one that comes to mind when I think of you, but you do it in your own unique way. And there's a real kind nature to your being. Some of these guys can be quite hard to be around. But you've got this nice, Yeah, Sumner Surf Vibe that goes with what you do. Nice.

I'll take that.

No, it's really cool. And just, you know, family for a minute, you know, mom, dad, siblings, who, what's been their influence in this journey, positive or negative?

Very positive. I've got a good family. I've been very lucky. Yeah, good mom and dad who have pushed me to to achieve, and I have. I am very defiant. And so as a youngster, maybe them pushing me to achieve, I fought back. But then eventually I pulled my head out of my ass and started working and started hammering and yeah, it's all there. They're pushing me in the right direction, it's really paid off.

It's amazing. And your wife, I mean, I think she's a saint. I haven't met the lovely lady, but I imagine to be the wife of a world-class ultramarathon runner, there's some things that she probably has to compromise on. So tell me a bit more about how you guys met and what her role is in supporting what you do and vice versa.

For sure. So I met her in the States in 2019 when I was playing and coaching rugby over there. and it was supposed to be kind of my last hurrah before I moved back to New Zealand and that's all she wrote. But yeah, then I met her and yeah, I've been back to America a lot since then, but then COVID happened. I was supposed to move here, I was supposed to move to the States, and then COVID visas weren't moving. She moved to New Zealand and yeah. What's it? Is it four years later? No, three years later. She's still here.

Incredible.

My bad. But, yeah, we're comfy and, yeah, she's not an ultramarathon runner at all, but she supports me all the way, which is great. Like, start of 2022, when I decided I was going to go all in on the running, I said, right. I'm going to have a try at doing this thing proper. And she said, yep, I back you. Do it. I'm with you all the way. And, yeah, that allowed me to go full send. There was a, yeah, I wasn't established at that point. So 2022, there was trial and error. There was some success. There was more failure than I'm used to currently, but that set the foundation to, to what? what I've got now.

Incredible. Yeah, I think it's important that we have collaboration, partnership, support, and on that note, if I was a company and I had a marketing budget and I wanted to get in front of an audience and someone said to me, oh, there's this young guy, David Goggins or Ned Brockman, and they told me before they became a big deal that they're going to be a big deal. I'd be like, okay, let's get in, but it's too late. You want to get in with some of those big names now? It's like, good luck. It's going to cost you another couple of zeros on there. I think now is a really great time for companies who think that you're following your audience aligns with their products and services. So are you in a position to have conversations with potential new sponsors moving into 2025?

Yeah, 100%. I think it's very timely, very timely right now, given the fact that I've established myself as amongst the best in the world. and this was only the start of my career. So much that I'm about to do. It's like, get on my train. Let's go.

Yeah, I agree. And particularly, I know this is a global audience, but particularly for the New Zealand Inc. Companies, you know, like you're representing New Zealand, the Fern, there's lots of great companies based here, so it'd be great to see some of them get on board. But equally, anybody listening globally that would like to be a part of your journey, I'm going to put your details in the show notes, all your socials so they can just get in touch direct. Appreciate it. For the people that just want to follow as well, if they're not going to be sponsors, but they just love your journey and they're inspired, I'm going to encourage them to go and follow and be amongst it. Awesome. Now, I want to be mindful of your time. And I'd actually, I'd like to do, before I ask you the last question, I'd like to invite you back on.

The show after you do what you said you're going to do.

I think that's good.

Part one, part two, the follow up. Yeah, hell yeah.

Accountability.

Hell yeah.

Love it. 12 months, the date is on the calendar. We'll get it locked and loaded.

Solid. Very good plan.

I love it. So, one last question. I'd like you to pretend for a moment that we're going to fast forward many years into the future. You're highly aware that it's your last day here on Earth.

And- Hivvy, brother. Hivvy.

We're going there.

What a way to finish.

And someone that you love dearly, maybe a young person, comes into a room and says, Hey Sam, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

Damn, man. Back yourself. Back yourself all the way. And if anybody doubts you, see that as a challenge.

I love it. Such great advice. And what I like about that is that you're actually demonstrating that outwardly. You're not telling someone to do something you're not willing to do yourself.

Absolutely.

It's really powerful. Sam Harvey, thank you so much for joining me today on Lead on Purpose.

Cheers, brother. It's been a pleasure.

Been amazing. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to Lead on Purpose. If you find this episode valuable, please share it with one person that you think might benefit from it. And if you're serious about leveling up, please make sure you're subscribed to the show and continue to lead your life on purpose.