EP79 Kari and Paul - You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe

This is episode 78 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.

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. We're into April and we're into week after week of COVID 19 isolation. We know you are. We are. Everybody is. Everybody's trying to do their part at the moment to stay at home, stop the spread of the disease. And we've got a great episode for you today to help you pass the time while you're at home with loved ones staying well.

Welcome everybody. Today we were going to talk about something that I've called you can't shoot a cannon from a canoe. And this came up from years ago because of the nutrition exercise symposium that was happening at University of Western Ontario. Dr. Peter Lemon puts this on annually as a fundraiser. And it's one of these hidden gems that is fantastic for people to learn from. And I was going to present there and this was supposed to be last weekend. Now clearly it's all been canceled because any event that gathers people is not happening. But for the topic of that event, I dug deep into the archives to find a topic. Deep, deep. Like, and, and I'm talking From back in 2003, 2004, I did a presentation for Chasm. Chasm is C A S M and it is the Canadian association of Sport Medicine, I believe. So it's, it's like an extra designation for physicians to be sport medicine doctors. So not just a gp, but they've done extra work and, and education to be a sports medicine doctor. So there's this conference and I was one of the presenters at the time and I presented this topic, you can't shoot a cannon from a canoe. And it was all about how if you didn't have really solid core and trunk strength, you wouldn't be able to do big powerful movements or have big guns. So that's the analogy. You can't shoot a cannon. Big guns from a canoe, weak trunk. And so I dug back, I got. Haha, you like it?

So creative, honey.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, so that was way back then. Dug that title back up. But I was putting a completely different topic to it. And this time I was going to. For this talk last weekend, I was going to reflect on how after over 20 years, 25 years, I guess now, of working with clients and athletes that now that you can't shoot a cannon from A canoe is completely about. You can't have the kind of powerful, purposeful interactions or results or outcomes that you want in life without the right kind of mental resilience, mindset, vitality, thought management, emotion management. And so that's where I was that.

A strong mental core.

Bingo. Bingo. Because ultimately, unless that's there, you can't do the big things. You can't shoot the big guns. You can't have the massive outcomes and reach the big goals. And that's really on in our space right now with the Olympics being postponed, which is, I think, the first time that's ever happened. There have been canceled Olympics, there have been boycott Olympics, but there's never been an Olympics that have been postponed. And, you know, we could go so many different directions with this, but there's all these athletes, I think, of even recent ones that we've interviewed, who now either have this extra shot at quality qualifying or preparing to have a better result because they've either been suffering with a back injury or other surgery recoveries or concussion or all these things. So that can give them the advantage of having greater preparation. But then there's these other people who had everything riding on. They've already qualified, they're ready to go, the momentum's been building, and then everything gets. The rug gets pulled out and all the steam is gone. And that's, you know, for some people who are just trying to pay their bills right now and they've been laid off, hearing something like that is just like, well, I'm just trying to survive. Everybody's had the rug pulled out from under them in some form or another. And what it's exposing, and this is, this is the. The canoe right now, what it's exposing are the frailties or the weaknesses in our overall habits or our mindsets or our society. It's exposing where we've, you know, maybe where we've not taken care of our lesser fortunate or our elderly, or where we've not taking care of our own mindset. Because as soon as things aren't the way we like them to be, the structure that we like them to be, then we fall apart, or we're miserable or we're falling into a depression. So it's really exposing the canoe, if you will, instead of the strong, resilient, versatile ship.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people would be feeling in these last few weeks a loss of control. And you talk about this concept of having that strong mental core to deal with the big things, but really it's to deal with all the adversity. That's where you need that resilience and a robust system to be able to respond to whatever life throws at you or your training throws at you or a competition throws at you, so that you can take it in stride and stay in a peak state, have clarity of thought and focus and think your way out of it or through it or just manage it in a way that's positive and healthy and not going to start a mental spiral. And as you lead to. A lot of people right now are being. From an emotional standpoint, are being heavily influenced by mine or hearing in the news and can be struggling with it. Um, I know I personally was struggling with it just last weekend on the financial side because of. We've made various moves in our business as we've been telling our listeners, about selling the gym and looking at new projects and getting ourselves in a position to be doing things. And this turmoil, basically, you know, you flushed it out of me at a talk late the other night of just. I was getting into a negative thought cycle about it, about the delays that this is causing. I wasn't panicked that we're going to lose everything and it's doom and gloom that way. It was the frustration that was building me and not being aware of it, but this insidious underlying frustration about all the. Okay. Seeing these different things, not voicing my concern with them about build and feeling this loss of traction and loss of ability to strike as fast as we want to and feeling these delays that are outside of my control and that bubbled up into our relationship of little outbursts or, you know, me snapping at you about something completely unrelated and. Or, you know, my. My canoe's unstable. I'm rocking in the water at that point because I haven't actually had that awareness of what was there under the surface.

Yeah, well, there's. There's a. That it's. There's a few things there. First of all, we. We hadn't shared with our listeners, so thank you for sharing that. We, we sold the gym building. We still have the business, but we actually sold. Physically sold the building. And so the timing for all of this has been so insane. Plus, we've sold our house and we bought a new house and we're in the middle of moving. So there's all kinds of flux and chaos for us as it is. But. But what you're referring to, like your specific example last week, is, is this kind of, I'm sure, breakdown that's happening in almost every home in some form or another, because the normal things and the normal confidence and the normal sense of control that people would have is. Is removed. And now what. Where the solace comes in, where the massive amount of power comes in, is understanding what you do have control of. And this is an exercise I did with a group of athletes over zoom, because we couldn't be together, I couldn't coach them in person. So over zoom, we had these athletes together and I made three circles, three buckets. And it was these buckets of no control, some control and complete control. And if they could see where. If they could categorize what was going on or at a time that they were really emotional or really upset or really frustrated, which bucket would the thing that they were upset about fall into? If it's Covid. Well, guess what? It's basically some of it's under no control. So all the. Some of the rules that are being implemented, but there's a lot that's under some control in how we take care of our hygiene, how we keep our best health, how we interact with others, how we, you know, the activities like the hygiene, the wash, the hands, the who we talk to. But then there's the complete control. What we think about it is completely under our control. And despite what we get fed by media. And there's so many stories that a lot of them are going to be tragic or negative, but there's so many positive stories out there, too. And at the same time, there's a whole bunch of good that's going to come from this. There's going to be a different. There's going to be a different medical system out there because of this. There's going to be different resources out there in our medical system because of this. There's going to be a different system of how to do things because of this. And it's also creating this greater connection with each other that we just didn't. It's a different way, a thing we didn't have before. Purposeful reaching out to our family to make sure they're okay and continuing to check on everybody when we might have just let it go before. So those three buckets, that can be a tool for you to use right now if you're struggling with anything. Does it fall into the bucket of no control? Because if it falls into the bucket of no control, then that's something that you have to let go of. If you keep. It's going to be a continual source of suffering. If you keep staying attached to something that you have no control over. If you have no control over it then your focus needs to go into something that you have some or complete control over. And that's where you're going to find less suffering, more satisfaction, greater fulfillment, greater connection to other people, and greater resilience and robustness throughout something that is so different and unexpected than we've ever experienced before. And there's.

So how do you recommend someone deals with that they've been laid off, that's beyond their control. The company they work for is forced to cut expenses during this time. You know, sales have stopped or production has stopped. How does that person shift that focus away from that thing that is beyond the control, but so instrumental, so integral into what they do on a daily basis and who they are?

Yeah, well, I'll tell you just that. First of all, that feeling. And I think of a person, I mean, there's. There's other people more personal, but I'm going to tell about somebody who's a little more remote. So I'm not disclosing any, you know, personal situations or stories, but there's a person that we dealt with at Urban Barn. I'm going to say the brand name and everything, because we needed to order a bed set for our new house. And we did so right as all of this was kind of starting. And it's come time where we've taken possession of the house, we have to get our stuff in there, and we're getting in this process where we have to get out of our other house. So it's pretty chaotic. And in ordering this bed set, she said it's going to take X amount of time. And the advantage through dealing with a store is because she's our point person, we can call her, we can talk to her, she can check on the order, make sure everything's together, see where it's at. Also, if anything goes wrong, she's our pointe person. We have white glove service because so much was going to be happening that someone else was going to be setting up the bed. Well, upon reaching out to her, she'd been laid off. So had everybody in the stores. The stores were closed down. They're only operating their online service. She can't answer any questions. And they basically, they cut them off so fast that they couldn't even reach out to the customers that they had. And she has absolutely no information. The best thing I could do is call customer service. So there's this double layer there. Not only is she going through her personal income loss and the loss of her job and all of the shift and having her employment being just, you know, left in limbo and severed. But also she wasn't given the opportunity to connect with the people that she had made relationships with as her customers. So not only there's this extra layer of not only does she have her own personal loss, but then she can't even hold her own integrity of what she enjoys doing, which is serving her customers. And that's where there's this double loss. So we've got this layer upon layer of feeling bad. So you look at the people who are laid off and it's not just the fact that they don't have an income and maybe they're going to have to really get resourceful when it comes to serving or taking care of their families. It's also that they may not be able to serve the people they ordinarily serve. And there's an extra part of feeling like crap in that scenario. So in terms of recommending what to do, it's, you know, I mean, on our end of things, she knows that not only are we not getting that setup service because that's been cut off, not only do we not know when or how our delivery is happening, not only do we have to figure it out ourselves because she can't do it for us. And that's what she was there for. She understands that that's the situation that we're in and her hands are tied. So there's this helpless feeling and this, I don't know what else she's feeling, but you know that there's this helpless feeling because we have it on our end as well. And so you have that emotion. But when you bucket those things into the no control, some control, complete control, what does she have complete control over? She's got no control over whether she's going to get hired back. But what does she have some control over? Well, she has some control over maybe how she shifts her finances around. Maybe instead of, I know from talking to her, you remember she was planning on going on a retreat, she was planning on going on a yoga retreat. And so upon talking to her, it's this kind of thing that you go, okay, well I'm going. If this was her, she would have some control over her finances in choosing not to spend, or not being able to, or planning delayed, taking that money that she would have spent on one thing and repurposing it for either savings or just making sure that she was okay from a day to day basis. And that would be a some control scenario. But the complete control scenario, if there's emotions coming up like loss or Helplessness or frustration or panic. Even this panic sense that a lot of people are experiencing. When you look at the thought that precedes that, there's typically a thought that comes in that looks like, what am I going to do? That would be the tamest version. The most panicked version would go from, what am I going to do? To what if I run out of money? What if I run out of food? What if I get Covid. What if I get sick? What if my loved one gets sick? What if they die? What if I die? That's how it escalates into complete panic. The what ifs, Those are the thoughts that escalate into the eventual. From that thought, the emotions of helplessness, of worry, and then escalating into utter fear and panic. And all of it stems from the concept of not being able to survive. The concept that we are going to die. And I'm here to invite everybody to the fact that we are going to die. And it's not likely going to be right now. And there is a chance that. That one of our loved ones or even ourselves can get this virus, but there's still a very, very small chance that we're going to die. And, you know, any of us could have been hit by a car tomorrow, although there is a lot less traffic. So when we put it in perspective, we can start to manage it. And those will be. Some of the things is literally clean house on the thoughts. Bucket them into. Am I thinking a thought about something I can't do anything about? And if I am, well, of course I'm going to feel completely out of control and helpless and frustrated and all of those things. And that's what happened with you last weekend. Because there was one point that you looked at me and you were emotionally revved up, like you were angry. And I was like, holy cow. If I didn't know any better, I'd be. I'd be like, this is. This is fight time. Like, we're gonna get in a huge argument because of the look on your face. I was like, holy cow. Like, you're. You're almost. You're not enraged, but you're certainly in that main. That main. That trench of anger. And. And you turn to me and you're like, fact. And you, like, almost spit the word out. Fact. And you started spitting out, like, money facts about how the market was and, you know, the losses were and these types of things, and you start spitting these things out. And here's the dangerous part for all of us is that we sometimes don't make a very good distinction between what actually is fact and what we've made up. And it sounds trite to say to someone that they've made something up, especially when they're very convinced of something. But most of what we talk about is our perception of something or our meaning or our story around something. And there's a far less amount of information that's actually factual. So we're typically taking what we are perceiving and putting what we think out of it and the story we make of it and how it's going to impact us. And we're making stuff up, it's not actually real. And to find, to really distinguish and draw that line, is that actually fact? And there were some things when you were really revved up that you're like turning a few things into fact when actually they weren't fact. And there were some things that were facts but you had no control over it. And once we made those lines, like, we just talked it out and go, okay, what, what is. We bucket it. You know, this is no control. This is fact. This is. Okay, so there's no point in thinking about these things because you can't do anything about them. And this one's a fact, but this one's not. This is where we've imagined the worst case scenario. And of course, course we're in this horrible state because we've imagined the worst case scenario. And if we're busy imagining the first worst case scenario, we're going to feel like crap. And if we feel like crap, we're not going to be able to be who we need to be for each other. We're not going to be able to do the things we need to do to take care of our families really.

Well or to get into action and make the change. Take advantage of opportunities that might be there that you're just unable to see because you're focused on the negative.

Exactly, exactly. And as soon as we can distinguish, okay, well, that's not something I can control. And that's not even fact. That's a big worry I had that I was projecting that this could happen and this could happen and this could happen. And when we say, oh, this could happen, this could happen, then we'd like to say, oh, well, that's a fact, those things could happen. We're just imagining it. It's not real. And once we realize that and we get into, okay, let's imagine something that could happen today, right now that could be amazing. And then we play cards with our kids or we do some schoolwork with our kids, or we go for a walk with each other and we hold hands, or we celebrate the quietness instead of panic over the quietness, then we can be in a much better state to do much more productive things. I have a friend who reached out to me today who's like busy taking action, collecting from her friends a few canned items for the people who just don't have enough non perishable goods to make sure that the people who are in need have what they need. And so she's busy taking action, doing something she has complete control over. And I feel good about helping her. And because we're in a good state where we can go, what can we do? What are we going to contribute? Who can we help? Who do we need to be for our family right now? What can we get creative with and have fun with? Because I don't think that we should stifle the joy. We still need to find the good and grow the joy in our homes, especially for those of us who have kids, so we can show them what it's like in a hard time. Because most of our children, especially anyone who is in their 20s and below and maybe even 30s and below, have not experienced very many tough things in life. Now, some people have, but we've lived. Most of the people who are in that age demographic, a lot of us have lived through decades of really prosperous times, of having everything we possibly need, especially if we live in North America. So we haven't ever really had to struggle. So we don't know how to deal with struggle. But if we can show our children how we can be in the face of adversity, how we can be with each other, how we can connect, how we can serve other people, It's a huge thing. A huge thing.

Yeah, it's the taking a look at, you know, how is this opportunity just. Just a chance to look at things completely differently. Like you're saying everyone should come out of this with their house in incredible order. No, but seriously, there's, there's just. This is, if you want it, this is a chance to get your house in order if you want it. This is a chance to completely purge and get things ready to donate to those who need them. And it's a chance to get on top of all these little things that regular everyday life trumps and you put on the back burner. Well, now you've got some extra time. And you can't see that opportunity if you're swimming in that pool negativity and you can't See that opportunity to have extra time with your kids or to really get into learning about what your kids want to learn about how often. I mean, we send our kids to school every single day and get their report on what happened. But now, you know, we're going to have to engage with our kids and what the schools are sending out electronically and be involved in it and get back involved with it with our kids and see how they learn and see what lights them up and see what they don't like. And it's just a chance that you don't normally get and you won't see it if you're blinded over the next few weeks with stress and worry about things like you're saying that you can't control.

This is. It's exactly what you're saying when you say get your house in order. You know, same thing as find the holes in your boat. Are you in a flimsy canoe with cracks in it right now or are you in a home? Are you in a place that feels like a well oiled machine, that's really well structured and neat and tidy and you know, there's not rooms and drawers just stuffed with clutter. And that analogy is exactly what goes on in our relationships, our mind and our thoughts, our workplaces. If we see that room or that boat and that room's got drawers of clutter and messiness everywhere and you know, the apple core that got left on the counter and rotting and all of that, that is the same whether it's our home clutter or our mind clutter or our relationship clutter or our work clutter. This whole Covid is shining a light into those dark areas and it gives us this incredible opportunity to clean the shit up, clean it up in our minds, clean it up in our relationships, clean it up in our homes and go, okay, what's not serving me? This is exactly what we're doing right now with our home. We are deciding on every single piece each. Is it going to go into this new home? Because there's not room we have to downsize by. We can only take a third of our stuff. A third. So if we have to get rid of 2/3, if every person that's listening to this has to get rid of 2/3 of your stuff, what does that look like? Then you get really picky on what goes forward. That ratty towel that you saved for whatever. Well, it doesn't go like there's so many things that were just. All those hangers that I thought were awesome. Yeah, no, they're not. Going, they don't make the cut. There's so many things that don't make the cut because it's the same exact thing with our thoughts, the same things with our relationships. This kind of action or this kind of thing or this kind of clutter or this kind of thought. If it doesn't serve you, creating your best self, your best life, your more most fulfilled, your most contributing self, then let it go. It'll create some space for the good stuff. Clean that drawer. So good. Feels so good to purge. Holy cow.

And you just prompt me that. It's just a reminder that. Watch what you're consuming right now. You know, if you. Yeah. Mentally and into your mouth. You want to. You want to be in a great state right now. And you have. We all have some tough things to deal with right now. So if we are listening to negativity in the news or wherever you're hearing it, or there's a friend who is continually negative and doom and gloom, spend less time talking to that friend. Talk to the friend who is upbeat and like you, wants to make the best of the situation. Surround yourself virtually with those people that bring positivity and the right thoughts that you want to nurture and grow at this time. And at the same time, watch what you're putting in your body. We're at home and people are getting snack food and parking on the couch and binging Netflix and just passing time. That's not going to get you in the best mind state. That's going to be contributing to the problem as well. So have an awareness of what you're consuming.

Bloody hell. You know, we didn't share this with our listeners, I don't think, but we did 30 days of no sugar and it was for March. So half of March was during COVID When you know, you want to. It shines the light, just like I was saying, it shines the light on what are. What areas do we have the weaknesses. And for me, I would like to buffer with something that really tastes good in my mouth. And for me that sweets. And so I felt in the first half of March, before COVID was as present for us. It wasn't as hard for me in the no sugar part, even though it was the beginning. Usually the beginning of no sugar is the hardest part. But I had this mental fortitude of, well, we've done no sugar before and now we do. I do anyway, at least two months out of the year of no sugar. And this was one of them. So I felt like I was before I've Got it. It's all good. This is great. But then once the middle of the month came in and I was feeling the want for it to be done because I was feeling that want for something sweet in my mouth to take away the worry or the. I wanted the distraction, that little buffer, you know, so. And then because we didn't have sugar, I had more chips than I probably had in the last year because I was like, oh, well, I can have chips. And I'm not. I'm not a chip eater. So I thought I was looking for a replacement. Now I've, you know, tried to mitigate that a fair bit and replace that with nuts. Now, you did that about like I normally do.

It's not like you.

Yeah, I mean, but that for me. I know. Yeah.

Thank you.

Just to clarify, giving it, like, reality, like, that's. Those are the facts. It wasn't that much, but to me it was a ton because I don't eat chips. So even if we had chips three times in the month, every time after I had a stomachache because I wasn't used to eating chips and I was like, what am I doing? Because it made me the. Give the reality check of, oh, this isn't what I normally do. Why am I doing it? It's because I'm craving something and it's because I've got this extra little bit of anxiety. Not a little bit. Like, there's a fair bit of anxiety around the moving and. And what's happening next. And there's so many moving parts.

Yeah. Your trip to Custard cancelled and canceled. You've got all kinds of things to deal with.

Yeah. Yeah.

Like everyone.

So, yeah, On a personal note, my. Exactly. Exactly. Like my. My daughter, I've been promising her for 10 years that on her 20th birthday I would take her, just her and I, on something special. And it's been a long time coming and it feels like crap that it's not happening because we're so looking forward to it. And I so wanted this really special thing for her and for her and I. And it'll get. It'll happen. It's just not happening now. And it's, you know, refocusing. Even though. And being able to feel the pain and what's going on and understand why it's. There is a good thing, too. It's okay. We don't have to think positive all the time and always control everything all the time. We can experience the things that suck and then take a look at how we can best serve our next steps. So, yeah, on that note, do you have anything else to add before I question you?

Perfect. Time to wrap it up and have everyone take a look at their canoe and see if they can turn it into a massive floating barge or an aircraft carrier of purest ability on the water.

An aircraft carrier, awesome. Of course, it had to be with something that was aircraft as well. Nautical. Nautical and aircraft. Yeah. Clean your homes, figuratively and literally. You need to pick a number, hun, for our question of the episode.

Obviously. 19.

It's the number COVID 19. Oh, my gosh. 1 9. Let me find 1 9. The question is it has to do with a virus.

That'd be a bit creepy.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, here we go. Oh, this is. This is horrible.

Oh, what have I done?

This is a deep go. Here we go. You have the chance to meet someone with whom you can have the most satisfying love imaginable. The stuff of dreams. Sadly, you know that in six months the person will die. Knowing the pain that would follow. Would you still want to meet the person and fall in love? What if you knew your lover would not die, but instead would betray you? Okay, there's two questions. It is heavy. It is heavy stuff.

So first, just for context, would you still. Last night we watched Arrival.

No spoil in two parts because we can't watch a movie all night.

Not gonna spoil the movie. You've seen Arrival. You know what I'm talking about right now. If you haven't seen Arrival, watch it. It's awesome. Yeah.

We asked this question in a different way. Yeah.

Now we just spoiled the movie. We're terrible. All right, okay, okay.

No, we didn't spoil it. It's okay. There's so much there.

Yes. To have that in, you know, just incredible, amazing experience. Because I've got it and I know how amazing it is and I wouldn't trade anything for it and. Yeah, you would. I'd want it to know what it felt like. To know what it really means to be truly be with the perfect person and completely in love. But the second part, to know that you'd be betrayed. Then. I don't know if I could do it, because that's it just. It so contradicts what part A there would be about that. It would. I would create a story around it saying that, you know, true love is impossible, then. And just spend the rest of my life being. Validating that. If you had found that perfect love and relationship and everything and that person betrayed you, then. Then everyone. I would. I would then just. I don't know, if I'd ever recover from believing that everyone would have the potential to betray me would be that fundamentally rocking to the core.

So, to summarize, I believe so to summarize, you have this stuff of dreams, love of your life. You would absolutely go through the pain of losing it in six months just to have been able to experience the most amazing thing in the world. And you. It would. It would basically contradict your definition of what the most amazing love is if it was the second part, which is they betrayed you.

There it is.

Yeah, there it is. So if I betray you, then your vision of the world and every interaction, you have forever jaded, sullied, and bitter. I'm not taking responsibility for that because betraying you is your definition, not necessarily mine. Oh, honey, I won't betray you.

It's all good.

On that note, we love each other. We love you. Stay safe out there. Stay well.

Stay positive.

I hope. Stay positive. Yeah. This. This episode, I guess, is that little bit of find the joy but tough love at the same time. Like, clean up your shit and. Yeah. Trying to be real with you based on how we're trying to be real with ourselves. So best of luck, everyone, and we're here, here for you. And we hope that you are navigating these wavy waters right now with a strong boat.

Take care, everyone. We'll talk to you soon.