Building Mental Toughness with Joe De Sena & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Quick Brain. Your question for today is this: How do you develop resilience? Is resilience a muscle? Can it grow stronger, especially in these turbulent times with everything that's going on? How can you develop resilience? How can you have more grit in your life so you could go after your goals, you could learn better, so you could achieve more? It requires your your ability, your mental. fortitude. And I have a very special guest on the line joining us live here from Vermont, uh, Joe De Sena. He's actually the founder of the Spartan Race and he's author of this book, Spartan Up. And I was just telling, uh, I was just on his podcast, which you guys gotta check out. If you're watching this on video, I've been carrying around this kettlebell with me all week just in anticipation for this conversation. And you'll see why that's, uh, Um, relevant in a moment. But, uh, Joe, thanks for joining me on the show.

Thanks for having me. I feel so out of my league here.

Dude, I really enjoyed being on your, your podcast. You and I have, uh, have, have met. We were geeking out over performance and, uh, and you're the founder of Spartan Race. And so why don't we give a little context? I don't usually do this with guests, But your story is so powerful, like your origin story. Why don't you give a little context and then we'll move the conversation into resilience and how you're building resilience in children and adults?

Sure, I'll go quick. I grew up in a neighborhood in Queens, New York that was organized crime capital of the world. If you saw Goodfellas, we grew up within 100 feet Of the epicenter of that movie. And the reason that's relevant is, as children— and Jim, you'd know this better than me— but we don't know any better. And so we saw guys with rolls of $100 bills and Cadillacs and respect and nice suits, and people were scared of them. And we were attracted to that. And we want, you know, there's whispering going around, right? So we wanted to be that. But the narrative was that to be that, you had to be tough. You had to go, you had to do some jail time, you had to do some, some tough things. And so, um, so that was one side of, of my brain. The other side was my mom realizes very quickly that this is not good for her kids, and she goes into a health food store, probably the only health food store on the entire East Coast in the early '70s. Literally, there was no Whole Foods, there was no Yoga Journal. And she meets a yogi, a famous yogi, and that yogi, uh, somehow convinces her that her life is completely upside down and she needs to forget about raviolis and wise guys and cannolis and switch over to becoming vegan, meditating, um, studying yoga. She does multiple trips to India on the basis of that meeting. She introduces my sister and I to a 3,100-mile running race around a 1-mile loop that is meant to build mental fortitude and just show physical insanity. And, um, the common thread there between both sides was, um, mentally and physically toughness, right? You had to be tough. And so I just kept playing this even subconsciously in my head. Was I tough enough? Am I tough enough? I was taking cold showers well before Wim Hof. I was carrying around rocks, literally around the neighborhood. I, um, I wanted to be that. My neighbor headed a banana organized crime family, takes me under his wing one day, sees the divorce going on, preteens, and says, Joe, I want you to clean my pool. I'll pay you $35, which is a lot of money back then. I get over there 8 AM on a Saturday, says First lesson, on time is late. If you're going to be here at 8, you get here at 7:45. Second lesson, if you're cleaning the pool, you also clean the lawn furniture, the shed, everything else. Even though I'm not paying for— paying you for that, you have to go above and beyond. And the third lesson is, you never ask for money. If you provide value, you get paid. And, um, they stuck with me the rest of my life. So, so Spartan, you know, fast forward, I somehow end up in college. I I sell that swimming pool business, which became a big business, end up on Wall Street. I sell that, meet my wife, move to Vermont, all the while trying to find out, was I tough enough? Am I tough enough? And so I found these crazy races. Thank God I found the races rather than jail time as a way to, you know, as the litmus test. And, um, and I started participating in all these crazy races. They were very transformative. I met amazing people. My brain— maybe, maybe this is not common knowledge— my brain opened up when I did these crazy things. Like, I just was much more creative. I just felt great. I went to a place mentally where I just wanted water, food, and shelter, and that was a very refreshing place to be. And I had so much fun. It was so transformative that I said, you know what? We're now living on this farm, met my wife, we have children, goats, chickens, cows. Let's start putting on races. Spartan Race was born. Pre-pandemic—

What year?

Sorry to ramble. Pre-pandemic, 45 countries, 325 events, 10 million people have been through the program.

That's just astonishing. And what have you, what have you noticed is the common thread of the people that, that you attract for these races?

What do they do? Jim, it's you, it's a mom, it's a monk, it's a Marine. There's no set person.

It's—

I get, I get so many emails on a daily basis, and I know, I know your theory on emails. It is the incoming person's agenda, but, but the emails are actually a reward for me because they read something like this. Hey Joe, just want you to know you changed my life. I'm no longer drinking. Hey Joe, I just want you to know you changed my life. I lost 100 pounds. Hey Joe, I want you to know I'm back with my husband. I'm back with my wife. I gave up drugs. I started a business. All day, every day. If I, if I could count profitability in lives changed, I'd be the richest guy on the planet. And, and, um, it's just, it's, it's, it's unbelievable that, that we stumbled upon, you know, and it's really what my mom was preaching with yoga. I mean, it's just, it's, it's the same thing. If you, if you met my mom and she sucked you into this yoga, um, journey and you became a vegan, you were like transformed, right? Or my dad, my dad was a workaholic maniac. If he sucked you into his vortex, you were doing so much work hanging sheetrock, building a thing in the backyard. He was a maniac that you felt proud of yourself because you got a lot of work done today, even though you were coming over to just say hello. You didn't even know you were going to get handed a screw gun and a hammer.

This makes sense. And so these amazing joy stories that you're getting through email, That you've repaired somebody's relationship or they've, they overcame a big health challenge, they've had this level of success. How do you attribute that to the races? Like, what are they going through with that process that leads to that transformation?

Well, I would imagine, again, you're a lot smarter than me, but just from a Flintstone, let's call me a Flintstone. You're a Jetson, I'm a Flintstone. From my perspective, not a lot changes if you sit on the couch and you eat popcorn and watch Netflix. There's not like— you're not going to all of a sudden have a lightning bolt moment on the couch and your life changes. On the other end of the spectrum, you're at a race, you're scared out of your mind, you've been training for it because you don't want to get hurt. You meet 9,000 people there. You're now in mud and you're like, you've been told your whole life to not get dirty. You're completely covered in mud. You're crawling under barbed wire. You've been told your whole life, stay away from barbed wire, don't get cut, right? And, and you're next to a Green Beret or a mom who's crying. You then get to a rope climb. You go through this whole thing. You can't breathe. You're sweating, you're thirsty, you're hungry, you're saying you're never going to do this again. It sounds terrible, right? You come to the finish line, you're so elated. You're like, oh my God, I got to do that again. I'm much more powerful than I thought I was. I could do more than I thought I could. I'm never going to complain when I lose the remote control in the house anymore. Right? Like, your whole frame of reference is shit. Everything's changed.

So you have a big shift in terms of your mindset, in terms of what you believe is possible, what you're capable of, uh, maybe even what you deserve, because you, you are— you earned it also, right? Going through that, when we're talking about mental strength, mental fortitude, you could— you can't get stronger by reading a book about pull-ups, right? And we know that knowledge by itself is not— is not power. You have to put it into action. And so when you take people through these races, 10 million, I mean, just, just I want people who are listening, 10 million people have gone through this race, you know, or more, you know, probably now. And they're going through a transformation process where they're doing things they never thought they should or could do. And, uh, by going through that process, it's visceral. It's like experiential learning. They're not learning it necessarily. And I love books, but a lot of people just read a book and just let it go like there. Like even my book, they'll just say, oh, those are great. ideas, but if they don't actually do the work, they're not going to get the result.

No, no, that's exactly right. You got to do the work. You got to put the time in. You got to lean in.

So for resilience, mental toughness, these words we're using interchangeably, fortitude. So you're saying that, what is it, like a muscle? It's something that all of us, no matter our age or stage, our background—

I mean, you, you would know better than me, but, but I've done thousands of interviews and this is what I say. Hopefully you don't prove me wrong. But I say, as a child, we're all pretty resilient. We wouldn't have lasted as a species as long as we have on the planet. So it doesn't matter, color, size, shape. We come out as babies, we're pretty resilient creatures. And then we learn helplessness.

Mm-hmm.

Bubble wrapped, we get told what our limits are. Thank God for your book, right? We, we, we get put in a box. Um, we start to get in our own heads of what we're capable of or not capable of. And, and so I call that your frame of reference, the goggles you're wearing through life. When you do hard shit, really hard stuff, it's got to be something that scares the crap out of you. It could, it could be playing a concert, piano in Carnegie Hall. It could be anything. It could be an incredible interview. But, but something that really scares you and pushes you to change all your habits leading up to that hard thing. You transform. And some of that, some of that basic resilience, some of that stuff that's deep down inside somewhere that's been masked over with layers of bubble wrap sneaks its head out. And if you grab hold of it and you keep running with it, which is what I did, you can go pretty far. For me, it was, all right, well, I've done 3 hours. Could I do 30 hours? Could I do 30 days? Right? Like, how? And it's like, wait a minute, I can do anything. If I put my head to it and I stayed disciplined, I can do anything.

And you have infinite examples of countless individuals who have done the same. It's not just reserved to a tiny few. I mentioned when we met, you were carrying a kettlebell, and you were, you know, in there, you told me about a story of a gentleman who weighed 6— he was overweight.

696 pounds. And he came out and did a Spartan Race. We heard about him. I immediately got in touch with him, and I said, listen, I want you to come to the farm. Because it's hard when people are in their own setting, they're doing their— this guy was eating 8 Egg McMuffins every day. 2 2-liter Sprites, or maybe 4 2-liter Sprites of— or bottles of Sprite. And got him on the farm, raw fruits and vegetables, 10-mile walk every morning. Eventually, we got to 20 miles a day, 10 in the morning, 10 at night. Eventually, we got to 20 a day carrying a sandbag. And all the while, I said, as you lose weight, I'll carry weight. So, that's how the kettlebell started. He was losing 2 to 3 pounds a day. He got really mad at me one day. He got mad at me a lot, as you can imagine, because I had him on lockdown and I was forcing him to get out of his comfort zone and do things that were really hard. One day he got mad at me and he said, I need to go to a doctor. I need to get my liver levels checked. I said, what do you got to get your liver levels checked for? He said, well, I'm only eating raw fruits and vegetables, and I don't know if that's healthy. I said, wait a minute, did you get your liver level checked when you were eating 8 Egg McMuffins for breakfast and 2 2-liter Sprites? Because I would think, I would think your liver is a lot cleaner now than it was. I said, your brain, your brain consciously or subconsciously is trying any way it can to get out of what we're doing because it's hard. And so it's telling you you need to go to the doctor, but grab that sandbag and go get your 10 miles done. And that was a typical battle we would have.

What do you do when you, when you, when some of your clients or racers, they have that inner talk that makes them want to give up? You know, how do you distinguish between that voice that is, is squelching your potential and saying, I just can't go on anymore? What would your, what would your, what would your words, what would your words be to them?

Well, it's funny you ask. I mean, I've had, I've had no less than 10,000 of those, literally 10,000 of those conversations myself with individuals that, that want to pop out, quit, whatever it may be. And just recently, last week, because of COVID we've been on lockdown. I've had a bunch of camps on the farm with young kids. Last week I let adults come too. I separated them 2 different— we have 700 acres, so I was able in one building to put the adults One building I put the kids. They all showed up on last Sunday night, not the Sunday that just passed, a week earlier. And the first morning, Monday morning, 5:00 AM, I woke up the adults first. I was on my way to go get the kids. And one of the adults, the most fit of the bunch— they only arrived 10 or 12 hours earlier— most fit of the bunch, tattoos, spoke with military vocabulary. He was tight. He says, I gotta go. What do you mean you have to go? I can't sleep without air conditioner. I said, you can't sleep without air conditioner? I said, you know what this camp is, right? I mean, you've heard about me. Yep, but, but, but without air conditioner, I can't do it. Now I know, because you're asking me about these conversations and I've had so many of them, I know it's not the air conditioner. It's never the thing we're talking about. And so Unlike any other conversation I've ever had in 20 years, I said, no problem, I'll put you in a building with an air conditioner, which I would never do, but I'll do it. Oh, it's too late, I already changed my flights, I got an Uber coming. I said, you got an Uber coming? There's no Uber in this town of Vermont. How do you have an Uber? So in other words, there was nothing he could say that was accurate. So what happens is, and again, you, you could tell me The brain is spitting out anything it can that appears and sounds logical to the person spitting it out, but it's all in an effort to avoid discomfort.

Mm-hmm.

We are motivated to avoid discomfort, and I can't blame the person, but the person that, um, the other 9.99 million that are able to shut that part of the brain off And say, hang on a second. I know what you're saying up there, but I just need you to be quiet because I'm going to put one foot in front of the other and I'm going to keep moving. And, and so for the remaining week— now let me just put this in perspective to the listeners of this and the viewers. For the remaining week of that camp, that guy ultimately quit, by the way. I got him a car service and he left. Um, the children And the remaining adults had to do— get your head around this— in 7 days, they had to do 40 hours of wrestling, whether they had ever wrestled before or not. I had an Olympic coach there teaching them how to wrestle. So that's a lot. That's a lot of time on the mat sweating and working hard, fighting another individual. They had to climb a rope 300 times, a 20-foot rope. That's 6,000 feet of rope climbing. Astronomical number. They had to do 1,400 perfect push-ups, which means they probably did 3,000 push-ups because I didn't accept many of them. 1,400 perfect leg raises, and get ready for this one, 50 miles of hiking with 30,000 feet of elevation climb. Okay? All of that is hard for anybody listening or watching to even get their head around. How could that even be possible? It was possible because me and the team led it and we said one foot in front of the other.

Hmm.

It's like, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. This is going to seem insane that you could even— it's not even possible. How could we possibly do this? We did it. We got it done by Sunday morning the next week, and the kids left with a shirt that outlined what they did. And so, if you can shut that voice down in the brain, like I say to people when they first come, you're going to tell me you want to quit. I've seen it for 20 years, 10,000 conversations. I know what you're going to say. You're done. I'm sure professors deal with it in colleges when kids want to drop out of school. It's the same conversation. At that moment, you have to just trust me and just, just trust what I say and follow what I, what I tell you to do, which is stop talking and put one foot in front of the other.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, those that study history know Shackleton. Shackleton was stuck in the ice for 2 years. He was stuck with a boat in the ice for 2 years. They didn't lose a man, right? I know a guy that did 31 years in prison. He was wrongfully accused. He eventually got let out. 31 years. Many of those years he was in solitary confinement eating toilet paper and toothpaste because they weren't giving him food. So like, you're really complaining because we're climbing a rope right now in the woods?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? No.

That is, that's so visceral for me because it's undeniable. Because when somebody is doing that, I could, you know, working with, with clients, even they say, I can't, I don't want to do this memory exercise. I know I'm tired. They'll, they'll, they'll fight for the limitations. And if you fight for your limitations, they're yours. You get to keep them.

Right.

But the human nervous system will fight and argue for the reasons why you can't do something because it, so you avoid the pain, the discomfort, and the change. Right. They want to— you're wired to keep everything safe and anything that's new could be threatening to you. And by going through, I love your process of squelching that inner voice and just focusing on one small step. Like in my book, I call them S3, small, simple steps, right? One step, one— in Rocky they use one step, one punch, one round at a time, right?

Right.

How do you— inch by inch, it's a cinch. Yard by yard, it's too hard. Because little by little, a little becomes a lot. It becomes all those ropes or all those climbs or all those pushups, but breaking it down into something that's not as intimidating. And also being in a community, having a mentor, having a coach, and being in a community of other people who are going through it with you also as well, you know, must be also, uh, you know, encouraging.

I mean, it floats all boats, right? Having a bunch of people like, Jim, if you were working out in the morning alone, you're going to go to level 1. I'm going to go to level 1 alone in my garage. As soon as we come together, we both go to level 3. We don't have to say anything just because that's just right. We bring a few more people in, we go to level 5. And so just being around 9,000, 10,000 other people at that event, you just get dragged along. You just get sucked right up into it. Yeah.

I love it. So Joe, as we wrap up here, when our listeners are listening, they want to build mental fortitude, they want to build mental toughness, they want to build some resilience because they know those qualities will also serve them in their relationship, in their physical health, in their career achievement. What's one or two things you would recommend they could do right now?

So again, I want you to push back if I have it wrong. But at least for me, over 20 years or more, the only way to build mental toughness is doing something physical. Um, you're not going to do it reading a book. You might learn some techniques reading a book. You might learn some cool tricks listening to a podcast. But you got to actually get in the game, get in the arena, and get dirty. And, um, and that could be, uh, going for a long run. And if you've never run more than 3 miles, Go out and run 9. I can't run 9. I've never run more than 3. Walk 6 if you have to. If God forbid you were in a car accident, you had to go 9 miles, you're telling me you'd rather die? No, you go the 9 miles. So, so just stretch what you think was possible, right? You can't take a hot shower. I mean, can't take a cold shower. Turn the hot water heater off. Take a cold shower, right? That'll straighten it. Do 30 burpees. Carry around a kettlebell. But you got to do something physically hard that scares you, and that will toughen your brain. Um, I don't know of any— by the way, it could be meditating. You could sit. My mother meditated 30 days while fasting, right? You could fast. You want to get mentally tough? You could not eat for a couple of days. You could go 40 days without food. It's hard. I'm not suggesting it, but you could. You could survive 40 days without food. So like And most of us, by the way, have plenty of excess body fat. So, we would be fine without food. But you got to do something hard that where you're biting your nails, you're nervous about it, and it's really aggravating.

Yeah. It's— you and I had this conversation, well, the beauty is in the butterfly. Everyone wants the butterfly, but the struggle happens in the cocoon. The growth happens in the cocoon. Getting yourself to do difficult things, because most people, they truly underestimate what they're capable of doing. And this is a wonderful way to be able to prove yourself wrong, to be able to do these difficult things, because with those, with those challenges, that difficulty, we develop ourselves and go to, go to another level. Joe, um, how can people find out more about you, your races, uh, your—

Oh yeah, check out Spartan Up, the podcast. We have a podcast. Check me out on Instagram. I think it's @realjodesena. Spartan.com. Everything's Spartan. And if you want, this is going to sound crazy, but shoot me an email, joe@spartan.com. Please don't write more than a sentence or two. When somebody writes a 4-page email, I'm probably not reading it.

Yeah, I get that. Challenge everyone right now to do this. Take a screenshot of this episode. Tag Joe, tag myself, post it, and share one thing you're going to do to get out of your comfort zone. Because while the, while the comfort zone is a nice place, nothing grows there.

All right.

While the comfort zone is a nice place, nothing grows there. And so you want to be able to stretch. You don't necessarily want to snap, but you want to be able to stretch yourself. You stretch, you stabilize, you stretch, you stabilize. So take a screenshot, share with your fans, your friends, your family, your followers, one thing you're going to do to get out of your comfort zone today. I will repost some of my favorites and as always gift out a copy of Limitless so we can go beyond our limits. Joe, you're, you're a living example of what, how we could redraw the borders and boundaries of what's possible. So I want to thank you for the great work you do, my friend. I look forward to seeing you in Vermont and I'll say that publicly. I want to, I want to go through and, and, and do that because you know the best way to change your psychology is changing your physiology.

Yeah.

Fastest way of doing that. We've talked about that for so much, that all learning, just like life, is state-dependent. And as your body moves, your brain grooves. And if you can get yourself to do something physically that you never thought was possible, you know, that builds our mental, our mental strength, our mental fitness. So Joe, thanks for coming on the show, buddy. And thank everyone who's listening. Make sure you make your post and you can take our show notes also at jimkwik.com/notes. And I'll have all the links to Joe's book, his podcast, and his contact information there.

You're welcome.

And see you soon. Thanks, buddy.

I'm going to save you a sleeping bag. Hi, Kwik Brain.

It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362.

362.

Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question, and I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.