EP1 - The Big Intro - Why we created the EAP!

This is episode one of the Empowered Athlete Podcast.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast, created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life, and Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player. Okay. Hi, Paul.

Hey, Kari.

How are you doing?

I am excellent. How are you doing?

So it's us, we're the hosts. It's Kari Schneider and Paul Durden, and we are hosting a brand new podcast called the Empowered Athlete Podcast. And we want to introduce it to everybody to tell people why we're doing this, what's there for you, because this is something that, when I brought this up, you seemed almost immediately intrigued.

Well, that's an important point. You brought this up. So this is definitely something that's been brewing and stewing and bubbling over in your mind for quite a while. And you've brought it up to me, gosh, in. In recent history. And I was excited about the idea. I thought this was a great idea, because being an athlete and being an athlete internationally for 17 years, you go through a lot. A lot of different things, and there's a lot of things you just don't know until you find out about them halfway through your career, at the end of your career, when it's over before it starts, and anywhere in between, and the chance to share those bits of knowledge, those stories, those facts, find out about some of the fiction with other athletes that their journey can be better is just an awesome idea. So great job in thinking this up. And I'm in.

Thank you. Yeah. I was somewhat tormented by seeing athletes over and over and over at some of the top levels be. Just really have struggles and then what we've gone through, personally. So I'm going to just let people know about some of the. Some of the things I've seen. I've seen people who couldn't retire from their sport because they. They honestly felt like they would let everybody. They knew that down, their coaches, their parents, their. This is usually at the grassroots level. Like, I see people just have massive breakdowns and they're hating their sport and they're just doing hours and hours of training and practicing, and they hated it, but they kept doing it because they felt like they'd be letting all these other people down that were supporting them and what they were doing and what they thought their dream was, but then they lost that dream and they would just be suffering painfully. And I would see it. I would see that over and over, especially in grassroots athletes who were just at that Cusp of either making like a regional national or it might be swimmers or triathletes or different real high volume sports like that. And then I would also see people go through transitions or so transitions like that, but also be in their sport and be feeling very alone because they might be struggling with something or another and not feel like they could share it with teammates or coaches for fear of compromising maybe their position on the team or for fear of people judging them. Maybe it was depression, maybe it was anxiety, maybe they were dealing with even small injuries that they wouldn't, didn't want to share because they might feel like their position was compromised. And then most importantly in our relationship, that whole, the whole identity of you as this volleyball phenom in Canada and just this role that you've had for almost two decades that, you know, you were the volleyball guy, you were, you know, this golden boy for volleyball and I got to be with you through, you know, these times of your professional career. But then when you retired, it was just like the rug was pulled out from underneath you and life was like a whole different thing for you and for us, you know, and we struggle with that. And I saw you more importantly in this as an athlete, just, you know, not who, not know who you were anymore. So I think that from an identity standpoint, athletes and non athletes, so coaches or parents of athletes, or even fans of athletes don't truly understand what's going on. And athletes feel so alone that this can become a community of how athletes can be supported but also listening to other people's stories and how they struggled and how they triumphed and how they got through it. And it can be just this learning platform for so many people, but also the funny stuff and the inside information about what their life is really like and just I think it can provide so much value as I've always believed that excellence in sport inspires others and causes so much more motivation and activity and all these great things in other people as well, besides just, just inspiring them by watching the play per se. What, what, what's. I know I kind of put you on the hot seat when it comes to your experience in retiring, but you know, do you want to share a little bit about what that was like for you?

Yeah, definitely. It's, it's the transition that I don't think you can ever really be prepared for fully. I was on the, on the side of the spectrum of being the least prepared, having been, as you said, just the volleyball player for so long, almost two decades of my life. Well, really more than two decades, because internationally was 17 years, but there was years of provincial team and regional and club prior to that. So a quarter of a century of doing one thing and one thing only and tying my self worth and identity and who I was to that one thing and my performance in it. It's another story talking about how that affects your performance throughout your career. But when the career ends, it's this feeling of who am I? I'm now the retired person who did all those things, but who am I moving forward? What am I worth? What do I bring to the table and where's my value? And you hear things as an athlete, it's, you know the stories in the business world that, well, athletes are great to hire and team players because they have that concept of working for the group and the shared objective and can communicate, work well under pressure. And all these different assets that you acquire through your sporting career should or will translate well into the business world following athletics. And that's absolutely true. Those are skills that are tangible and do have a lot of value. But having the direction and the wherewithal to understand yourself and what you want and where to apply it, that's the, for me, that was the mystery and that's what really became the hardest thing to deal with, was not knowing where to apply the skills I had and how do they translate into what I want to do and what is that thing I want to do. And so that was a, I think, as you alluded to, incredibly difficult time for us and for years, because that lack of awareness that I had about myself and not finding happiness in anything I was doing, nothing that could possibly compare to what I did as an athlete because I'm constantly comparing and analyzing things. It puts me into a completely negative headspace, a dark space where I'm not communicating, I'm not sharing, and I don't want to share about what's going on because in my mind, people liked me as an athlete because I was confident and knew what I was doing and knew what to do in the right times. And that ability is gone and taken away from me. So what would people want to hear from me now when I don't have this direction or what value, again, do I bring to the table? That internal dialogue of, well, I shouldn't share anything because there's nothing really going on right now. And that has a huge effect on friend, relationship and obviously marriage and relationships with your kids and all those sorts of things. So it's a, it's a big topic that's just A, you know, we're just kind of touching on it there, some of the things you feel and experience. But it's definitely something worth digging really deep into with myself and sharing things I went through, but also with some of the people that we're talking to in the future.

It's funny because the things that you and most high performance athletes find joy from, especially when they're very, very driven, are so specific and so high end that then it's, it's like how do you find that same kind of joy from, from something else? You know, like, you know, some athletes turn to drugs or alcohol to get that same kind of high, that euphoric feeling from winning or that, that you know, the fanfare or that kind of thing or you know, like there's so little that compares to that kind of intensity that's so fine tuned. So then you're in the real world and it's people like your wife are asking you to see the little things in life that bring you joy and you just kind of feel like, well, what is that? And it's not the same. And it doesn't give you that same payoff that you would have had in high performance sport.

Well, yeah, I mean, where are the 10,000 people screaming for me when I finish cutting the lawn? Yeah, come on, what is this?

We can all have that. Yeah. And that's. The people don't understand that when somebody's been at that level, they almost find it hard to relate to other people because nobody's had that kind of experience in life and drawn that kind of zest for life that's been so intense. And then everything else is supposed to be fun or this or that and you may not find it fun or. Some athletes are so looking forward to retiring to start these other things that they've wanted to do. But some people never got into figuring out those other things that they wanted to do. Like for instance, we've started a few interviews and one person was saying about a tip that they're talking about. Find some hobbies and find some things like that. And I remember when we first, first started to get to know each other. I asked you what jobs did you have? And I joked around and called you the paper boy because you'd never had a job. You had one job as probably a kid, as a paperboy and that was it. And my mind was blown because I had done so many menial jobs, from pumping gas to driving a fork truck to picking trees, to planting trees, to waitressing, to hostessing, all these jobs to cleaning toilets. And it starts to make all those nasty things start to make you realize. And they're not, you know, nasty or anything, but they give you experience and start to tell you what you like and what you don't like in life and what you are good at and what you're not good at. And you found your thing and you got really, really good at it. But there were no other things, you know, there was. There wasn't other job experiences or other. Other hobbies or if you had them once you retired, they seemed so in. So, I don't know, average or maybe not valuable to you that you didn't head into them anymore. I don't know, you know, like think of guitar playing or that kind of thing. Nothing brought you any sort of distraction or joy or after losing your identity as an athlete.

And it's really a trademark of the. Just the focus and intensity of what it takes to perform at the high level that you don't when you're in it, training full time with the national team through the summers and rolling right into the pro career in Europe the fall and back in again through the summer. It's this merry ground that you can't get off of. There isn't the time to sit back for a month or two in the summer and try things or really get a serious hobby and spend a lot of time on it. The focus is your game and improvement and training and not letting off the throttle because for me personally, the goals on court hadn't been met yet. So I didn't have time for anything else except to get to the goal. And the goal of qualifying for the Olympics or being ready for the next pro season and going gunning for a European championship or whatever it was at the time. That's what's in the sights. And you're laser focused on that. And if you're not, you're a step behind your competitors. And so you have this tunnel vision which serves you so well in your training and your eating and your sleep and your rest. And I was a genius at controlling my environment and getting what I needed to be ready to perform. But it hurts you on the flip side in terms of getting you ready for life and stepping out of that roller coaster ride and getting off the train and being able to stop for a second, think, okay, now what do I do?

You know, I've seen a lot of athletes practice their craft and work on themselves being a really good athlete. And I've seen very few who've been as disciplined as you are with Your recovery with your napping, with your eating, with your timing of fueling, with your therapy, with any of the treatments. Like all of those things, you just, it's like you said when you say you were a genius at that, that it's not a, it's not an exaggeration. You were, you were a machine at all of those things. And that's part of those were all the little things that made you continuously able to perform at times when it was just, you know, you were being pushed to the nth degree and there was nothing left.

It's your edge, that ability to know yourself and know exactly what you need from all those different areas of your life to perform your best, make the difference in late in the season when everyone's tired and everyone's fighting off injury. It's. It gives you that advantage to really make the difference. And it's true. I was a student of myself somewhat and I mentioned earlier, I'm analytical, I'm thinking about my process and well, how did I feel after eating that? How did I feel after eating that an hour before the game versus an hour and a half before the game? And comparing and this constant loop of trying something and seeing how it worked and then getting your feedback on the physical standpoint and applying the things that you're teaching me and you know, just putting it all together and being scientific about it, that's what makes the difference in the end and the 1% difference, that makes all the difference.

So these are some of what you're pointing to. These are some of the things that in this podcast, when we're interviewing high performance athletes, national team, pro athletes, grassroots athletes that might be active or retired, when we're interviewing these people, these are the fine tuned details that I think that other listeners who aren't athletes, or they might be fans or they might be active, but who want to be top performers in life, in their career, or in their health, that it's those details that I think can help them in real life and just finding out what really happens behind the scenes so that they also understand that athletes aren't these talented creatures that were born with this amazing ability that they quite literally had to go through the blood, sweat and tears to get where they got to in their careers. And there's often the struggles and the triumphs along the way. I think that in terms of introducing ourselves, you know, we introduce our names, but. And people may or may not know your full background, which we will do a podcast interview just to really get into your background. Some people may not know my background, which is that I'm a strength coach and exercise physiologist and athletic therapist. And that's what has given me this kind of insight to athletes in working with them from a training perspective. I've been their strength coach, working on their physical side of things. But that puts me in this unique relationship with athletes in that I don't have. I might be testing them for their physical abilities, but I'm not that person that has a say over whether or not they're going to get cut from the team. So usually the strength coach or the athletic therapist, these people that are on staff day in and day out with, with an athlete, they get a little closer with the athlete in terms of, you know, the athlete might share something about how they're really feeling or that they're really dragging that day that they wouldn't share with a coach or they wouldn't share with even sometimes a sports psychologist if they were dragging day after day after day after day. And, you know, when you see what a person goes through physically over and over and over, it. It always has a. Takes a mental toll. Like there can't. There's never a time where an athlete is pushing themselves to the limit physically, and it doesn't have a mental toll. They are always going to find themselves at the mercy of what their, their bodies are experiencing as well. And, and those are the kind of things that, that I think bring fortitude to, to other athletes listening or also other people listening knowing that, you know, it's really quite remarkable what the human body or the human mind can tolerate. And if we really get into what we're capable of and tap into our best selves, that we can do way, way, way more than we ever thought we could. And that was part of, I think, maybe your limitation when you retired. Like it's been eight years now since you've been retired. And only, and you can correct me if I'm misspeaking here on this, but only now do you really feel maybe like you're tapping into more of what you're capable of? Only maybe in the last year or two, I don't know. But not knowing what you're capable of, even though you achieve so much and we're capable of so much from a sports standpoint, but then just feeling like, what am I capable of in the real world, what does this look like? People think I should step into coaching, but that doesn't fulfill me. Or people think I should be really good at this and I don't want to do that or you know what I mean, like it's now you're having to stretch to find out what you are capable of and kind of grow into that new learning as well.

Yeah, there's definitely a big growth component to it and for me personally also, it's where to apply my focus. What interests me, where is a spark that has been missing and that I feel that if something is fronting me that I wanted to go after, I could do it. But it's this blindness to what I really want to do, this lack of true direction that's been the biggest hamper, the biggest fallen chain tied to my leg holding me back. Yeah, it's been an awakening really, in the last year of coming out of that post retirement bunk and realizing I'm not who I want to be and I'm better than this just as a person and I have value and what do I want to do with it? And so this podcast is definitely going to, for me, be therapeutic. It's going to be helpful to allow me to express myself and share what I'm feeling, which is always great. And just grow and learn and have a project to work on with you and create positivity and energy around that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Well, I'm really, really excited to go through forward with this podcast. We're going to be interviewing all sorts. We really want to get a mix of men and women so we get lots of different perspectives. We want to get all sorts of different sports, especially a good balance between individual sport athletes and team sport athletes. And also just dive into some of those fun questions too, like rapid fire. What are their favorite movies or foods or things like that. What's your favorite movie?

Paul on the spot. Favorite movie? I don't know. I'm gonna have to go with an oldie, but a good one. This just popped in there. Nice age has popped in there. Adam. I think of Ghostbusters and Mr. Puff Marshmallow man, but no, it's not him. It's going to be Back to the Future.

I know you like the Ghostbusters.

I like the Ghostbusters. They're fantastic. But I'm going to go the same decade with Marty McFly back to the future. Stephen King's it.

Oh, wow.

It scared the bejesus out of me.

Holy cow. And what would be a tip you would recommend to other athletes who are, you know, currently. Currently active in their sports?

A tip. Narrow it down for me. Tip on.

Anything. Could be training. Could be. Could be a couple tips.

Well, something sounds a Little cheesy. But honestly, one thing that I learned from famous volleyball player in Canada, Gino Brusso is to and from his coach and my coach, Kamala Miu, is to put absolute importance and focus on what you're doing in the moment. So just being incredibly focused and concentrate on each contact, each repetition, each stroke, each stride, whatever it is for your sport. But your ability to do that and put importance on the contact every single time translates into much higher quality intensity in your training and just faster result.

I'm glad I've learned that now, 11 years into our relationship, because that explains a lot. I'm the multitasker and you're the single focused person. And what about favorite food?

Hmm. If I was. If I had to eat the same thing every single day.

Yeah.

I have to be. I'm gonna go with thin crust pizza.

Oh, you just had that on the weekend.

But I'd be allowed to change the toppings each day. I'm giving myself some flexibility there.

And what about. What about while you were playing? Would it be the same food or would it be something different?

Hard to live without coffee, though, as well. When I was playing, especially in Europe, I just loved the entire coffee culture and scene in Europe, in Italy especially. But Turkey, for the Turkish coffee in France, you know. Yeah. I think coffee is something I miss the most from over there.

What do you miss the most about playing?

I miss the. I've been asked this actually more than once, and I think what I miss the most is the. Outside of the rush of the big, big games, of the. Of the finals and the match, you know, those. Those mega matches, those don't happen all the time. But what I miss in general is being around the guys and the camaraderie and the team and the joking and the interplay and the relationships there. Just the learning.

Swears in other languages.

That too. That too, yeah. Definitely expanding the vocabulary. But I just miss the guys and joking around and playing pranks on each other and all the things that go along when you spend too much time with the same people for a year.

Yeah, forced. Too much forced time with the same people. Right. And when you were playing, what do you think that you were missing about your perception of other people's lives? Like when you're playing, you know how everybody, when they get to a. Right before they're at a pro level, that's all they want. They just want to go pro. They want so badly, that lifestyle. But once they're there, they realize how hard it is and the grind that it Takes to play weekend in and weekend out and sometimes two or three matches a week. When you were in it and you were playing, what were you missing about just what you perceived to be other people's lives.

This one's easy. And it was having somewhere to put my stuff because I, you know, I was living in Europe for 14 years. I was gone so much that I was actually a non resident of Canada. And you know, living. Basically the expression, you know, living from a suitcase, well, it's living from four or five really big suitcases and a moving trunk. But that feeling of everything I have, although, you know, now it's somewhat nice to think of in a minimalist perspective of just having a simple life of I only have these few really key things and I'm not acquiring a bunch of junk. But more, the more the feeling of being able to just put it on a shelf somewhere and not have to worry about packing it up again at the end of the season or moving it and getting it somewhere else.

So you packed.

That lack of feeling, that lack of permanence, that feeling of a gypsy somewhat continually on the road and traveling and no address.

Yeah. You packed and unpacked so many times.

Yep.

Yeah. And what do you think that the audience is really going to want to learn from some of the people that we're interviewing? And of course you and I are going to talk with each other, kind of interview each other about different topics that we feel are relevant to athletes and to people in general who want to be top performers in their health and their life. But what do you think that our audience is going to want to hear from our interviews or the people we talk to?

Well, I think it's going to be different for each athlete listening, each listener, in that, you know, some people want to hear stories about what it's like on the road or what it's what those feelings are for a big match or different things that athletes have gone through. But I think what everyone hopefully will appreciate is that we're going to get through the superficial crap real fast and the canned responses. You know, everyone can imitate a hockey player's post game interview of capitalize on the next game. We got to just take, take full advantage of every opportunity we've got and give it a little all we can and lay it all out there and see what happens. Right. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody. It's useless. We want to get a layer or two below that and find out how are you really feeling? Are you doubting yourself right now? Is there something going on with an injury that's just been, you know, all the things that are the real story, the juice and the meat that's under there that's going on in everyone's lives. So I think regardless of who you are as a listener, that's what you're going to want to hear is, in my mind, the good stuff.

You've given, you know, two decades or more to the volleyball world and given your heart and soul to that sport, but now it's almost like. And you've also commentated for World League and for the Olympics. You've really given a lot to your sport and people in that volleyball world. But, you know, are you rediscovering your purpose or do you know what your purpose is now? Is it, is that part of the journey that you're on, or do you feel like you know what your purpose is now?

Nice question.

You said you wanted to get into the meat.

Well, I know that this, I'm really feeling a lot of excitement about the podcast and going through this process with you. I know that this is definitely part of my purpose, but my overriding destiny. I don't know what word to use, but overriding purpose in life and what's next, I'm still not clear on, but I know that this process will definitely help me get clarity around that.

Yeah, there, I'm okay, because that's one of the toughest things to find, is that real passion. There might be passion there, but do people really figure out their purpose? And, and you know, I think that I've been learning about what my purpose is, but at the same time, doing this podcast and how passionate we both have come to feel about it so quickly and how we both feel compelled to do it. And it has nothing to do with money because if anything, it's a time sink and you know, there's, there's nothing. It's not serving our family or our day to day living or anything like that, but we both feel compelled to do it. And that kind of passion around something that isn't paying back, it speaks to me that says, okay, we have to listen to this, we have to move forward. We feel compelled to do this. So whatever comes from it is going to be fueling our passion and building on whatever purpose is there for you or maybe a stepping stone to step into your real purpose in what you're contributing for life. And that's where I think this can open different doors or different ideas or different way of looking at things for the athletes we interview and other people who are listening. So, yeah, should we end on that note? Do you have any other things you want to add?

No, I agree with what you just said 100%. And let's get to the interviews.

Yeah. Super excited. And we've already done a couple of them, so we're gonna get a few more in the lineup before we start interviewing more and more people. So please share this and subscribe and do all those things you're supposed to do on podcast because we're really, really excited and we really intend to provide great value and get some good stuff out there, good content out there for people. Thank you so much for listening. To get more support in living your best life, find us in our free Facebook community empowered top performers. We're on Instagram, Paul Durden and powerconditioning. Please share this podcast and rate us. A five star review would mean the world to us. That is how we connect with and support more people to excel in sport and life. Take what you learned today and try it. Progress is perfection.