Hey Reader,
A lesson that I keep re-learning:
It doesn't have to be hard.
I resisted buying an e-bike for years. As an ex-racer, there was a large part of me that believed the suffering was the point.
In 2017, I raced 42 different times. Our team won the state championship, and I finished second in the individual standings. I was training 15-20 hours a week, and when I wasn't on my bike, I was eating, sleeping, or doing active recovery.
I had honed my body into an absolute weapon.
But 2017 was also the year I began my journey into personal development, healing past wounds, and seeking the peace that my external success had failed to deliver.
As I got underneath the hood of my achiever identity, I started to realize that the deep competitive drive was not coming from a good place.
Endurance sports were only the physical manifestation of a much darker reality: I was driven from a place of deep lack. Beyond athletics, I began to see that in every area of my life, I was trying to prove I was worthy.
The proving energy was hardwired into my identity. I would pride myself on the fact that I wasn't the most naturally gifted athlete, but I would suffer harder than anyone on the course.
I used to have a quote pinned to my wall:
"Make friends with pain, and you'll never be alone." - Ken Choubler, founder of the Leadville 100 Trail Run
For over a decade, I had been pushing my body to the extreme in hundreds of grueling events. Ironmans, trail runs, even multi-day stage races, all with the goal of putting myself as deep into the pain cave as possible.
On one particularly brutal day, racing a full Ironman in St. George, Utah, the temps pushed to well over a hundred degrees. After 6 hours, when I finally started the marathon, the heat reverberating off the red rock box canyons was unbearable. I don't remember much from the run, except for waking up in the first aid tent with an IV in my arm. I found out later that fellow racers reported that I had passed out on the course, simply laying down on the scorching blacktop. I had 2nd degree burns on my back and shoulders.
But when I regained consciousness, I tried to rip the IV from my arm and rejoin the race. The medics had to block me from leaving and explain that my day was done.
My drive was not just unhealthy. It was insatiable. No matter how many races I won or how much business success I achieved, I never felt like I was enough. The goalposts would always move.
Eventually, through thousands of hours of coaching, meditation, psychedelic -assisted therapy, retreats, and countless self-help books, I started to actually uncover the peace I was seeking. The deeply embedded sense of lack started to fade, and with it so did the competitive drive.
I quit racing altogether in 2019. I could no longer tap the pain-driven fuel to grind myself into dust just to prove I was faster than a bunch of other middle-aged men wearing spandex.
The fire was gone, but in its place, something new began to spring forth: joy. I started riding my bike again, but I would leave the cycling computer at home. I stopped measuring performance metrics altogether. I stopped counting training hours. I would just ride when I felt like it, at whatever pace felt right. Instead of turning myself inside out trying to beat my personal best up every climb, I started to look around and enjoy the view.
But after a couple of years, the engine that I had honed began to slow as well. I would no longer look as forward to my rides. My home trail begins with a steep, switchbacked 2,000 ft climb, the kind that's hard and relentless no matter what shape you are in. But as my peak fitness faded, so did my enthusiasm to tackle the challenge.
I found myself riding less and less. Five or six days a week eventually became one.
Then last summer, my dear friends and fitness legends Kelly and Juliet Starrett came to visit. They rented e-bikes. I was silently horrified. But my judgment quickly gave way to envy as we made our way up the mountain. They were laughing and conversing while I was huffing and puffing my way to the top.
When we finally reached the peak, it was my turn to be judged. Kelly laughed at me and said something I'll not soon forget.
"Why are you making it so hard on yourself, bro?"
As I sat dishelved and exhausted, I knew he was right. I was clinging to the old identity, one that I'd let go of years before. I went out and bought an e-bike the next week.
The maiden voyage was absolutely magical. I couldn't believe what I was missing. Think of an e-bike like an oversized tennis racket or parabolic skis; it's still you, just with a tailwind. I found myself riding twice as far, and grinning the entire time. I would return home tired, but not ruined. The switch reignited my love of riding.
I now often say that e-bikes give you 70% of the fitness but 200% of the fun.
Our societal love affair with hard work permeates our culture. We lionize hustle culture. We glorify the grind.
Don't get me wrong, hard work has its place. There are seasons of life when maximum effort is the right prescription.
But as I get older, and perhaps a tad bit wiser, I find that I prefer the feeling of the wind at my back. I've relieved myself of the burden of pushing the rock uphill all the time. And the crazy thing is that the difference isn't necessarily in effort, but in attitude.
I write to you this week from my mountain home in Winter Park, on day five of a ten-day writing retreat. I've been waking up without an alarm, meditating on the patio, riding my e-bike on epic objectives for 2-3 hours, and writing for almost 8 hours a day. While that might sound like I'm working hard, the flavor feels more like flow than work. The contrast from a decade ago is stark.
I keep coming back to what Kelly said on that mountaintop, laughing at me while I recovered. He was talking about the bike. But he wasn't really talking about the bike.
So I'll pass it to you the same way he passed it to me:
"Why are you making it so hard on yourself, bro?"
It doesn't have to be hard,
Mb
P.S. This week on Inner Circle, Kevin and I dive into one of life's simplest and hardest questions: What do you actually want? This is one of my favorites so far. Check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode:
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